It’s hard to overstate my love for pork chops. I’d maybe have steered towards something leafy and green rather than the broccoli - much as I love broccoli - but still: chops, mash, greenery…yup, can’t fault you.
I made the nikumaki tonight. It was a hit. And I made enough for leftovers.
Today it was Portuguese potato, sausage, and kale soup and leftover fettuccine from a couple nights ago.
Tomorrow, for the little one’s second birthday, it’s Hungarian cauliflower soup, chicken paprikash with nokedli/spaetzle, cucumber salad, and a decidedly non-Hungarian tres leches cake from the local Mexican bakery.
Caldo verde! I had that when we lived in Lisbon.
That’s the one. This is the first time I made it. Had a bunch of kale to do something with from my first delivery from Imperfect Produce (a food subscription service/CSA-type of thing that gives you boxes of reject vegetables, although from the first box, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with any of the veggies.) This particular recipes had garbanzo beans & a can of tomatoes also in it. Pretty nice stuff. Even better with a hit of red pepper flakes. Who knew kale could taste so good?
We REALLY need to start hanging out together 
Spaghetti and meatballs and Italian bread, easy and comforting.
Last night it, inspired by the saltine cracker thread, it was jagerschnitzel, with the pork schnitzel coated in crushed crackers (I used Keebler Club crackers, though, instead of saltines.) My mother-in-law brought me a meat mallet/pounder a couple days ago like this one that worked fantastically. It was the first time I used that type of meat mallet and holy cow is it so much better than the hammer style ones for pounding out schnitzel. I see a lot more schnitzel in chez pulykamell’s future. I’ve been meaning to make katsu curry for quite a while now…
Today, it’s minestrone and spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. It’s an ugly, cold, wet gray day out there and, as the poster above wrote: easy and comforting.
Last night was simple salads. Iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sliced radishes and cucumbers, and some leftover sliced olives. I bought some store-cooked breaded chicken ‘tenderloins’ a couple of weeks ago and put them in the freezer. I pulled of couple of them out and heated them in the toaster oven, sliced them up, and we had them on the salads. I had croutons, Mrs. L.A. didn’t. We both had chunky blue cheese dressing.
I bought one some years ago that’s a heavy rectangular hunk of steel with a handle. Works like a dream. I also use it to weigh down bacon that wants to curl up.
Tonight is Indian food at a new local restaurant.
I am fulfilling a request for quiche tonight, although I’m not enthused.
Last of the bean soup: 1/2 package center cut bacon, chopped and sauted in pressure cooker. Add 2 c white beans, 32oz broth (I used beef cause that’s what I had), a parmesan rind, some chopped onion, and a can of Del Monte spaghetti sauce because I seem to be out of pettite diced tomatoes. Cooked this for 40 minutes and released the steam. Added all the leftovers I found in the fridge: 1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes looking a little wrinkled, the rest of a package of carrots chopped up, some diced ham, and two cups of shredded spinach. Resealed pressure cooker and cooked for five minutes.
Went to the Indian restaurant, it sucked, I wrote a Yelp review. :mad:
Versus my last update to this thread, my Chinese cooking has apparently improve markedly. I’m not sure if it’s delusion as a result of my wife’s C-section since then, or if I’m intuitively getting the sense for Chinese food (I’m a good western food cook, after all!).
Tonight was Chinese neck bone soup, and Chinese leek with Spanish chorizo, and it was received favorably. Let me explain a bit…
Chinese food (that my wife likes, Anhui food) is boring and bland. It’s similar to Nanjing food, where I lived for five years. While Chongqing food is awesome, and Sichuan food is awesome, and Hunan food is awesome — the all share “flavor” as a key component — Nanjing (Jiangsu) and Anhui food are boring.
Thus, I’ve learned that I can make awesome Anhui food by using ginger and/or garlic and/or green onion as an aromatic, and boiling the hell out of everything. The local Meijer store was very accommodating when I asked if they had some spare, leftover pork bone (“neck,” at $3 per pound!), so a quick “detox” blanch and a few hours of braising resulted in an excellent broth (actually, really good). Throw in some daikon (a good potato substitute) but omit the salt, and it was a perfect Chinese dish.
Oh, I mentioned Chinese leek and Spanish chorizo? My wife suggested a dish using pork tenderloin, which was frozen, but I offered some homemade, home cured, Spanish chorizo instead. A bit of julienned carrot, the leek, and the inevitable ginger made an awesome dish. Despite the heavy garlic-paprika flavour, she rather liked it.
Privately and aside, my God, my cured chorizo really is awesome. It makes me want to buy a pig, force him to eat acorns, and try my hand at Iberian Ham.
Some humous and pita rounded out the decidedly mixed meal.
I made my aunts recipe Chicken pot pie. So good! Southern comfort food at it’s best. I like the veggies and meat to be nearly bite size pieces. Mr.Wrekker likes them smaller, so I compromised and shredded the chicken instead of cutting it. And I think I liked it better. My crust turned out great. Sometimes pie crust just pisses me off. But today it was good. We didn’t even have a salad or bread with the meal. Didn’t need it.
Leftovers tomarrow, yay!
The Missus got the salad makings out (except for the radishes), so we had salads again last night.
I have a biometric screening (physical) in ten days, so I can get a $100 gift card from my HCP. Why do I always put on weight before a physical? :mad: Well, I have ten days to lose five pounds.
We quit using pie crust for pot pies and went to frozen puff pastry. One could even just use biscuit dough for the purpose.
Tex-Mex enchiladas tonight, as the chickens are starting to overwhelm us with cacklefruit. I use that recipe plus chorizo.
Also, I might try to recreate a restaurant dish my husband recently enjoyed: a mushroom crepe torte. I’ve never made crepes before, so that should be fun.
We’re doing takeout fried chicken tonight, not sure about sides. Sometime over the weekend I’m going to make a chicken enchilada casserole. We haven’t had it in ages and I’ve got a craving.