Yum on everything, Tina!

I will live vicariously through you all for the next three weeks. My filling and half of tooth fell out a week ago; got my temporary crown today. Will have to go back tomorrow because it’s not fit correctly, and hitting my lower teeth bad. I can only sip my food right now. Have to wait three weeks for the permanent one.

Sad sack me aside, when I can eat again, I’ll be making my daddy his favorite meatloaf dinner (like my Mema made). Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cream cheese corn. Then I need to make him his second fav — stuffed bell peppers with cheesy hominy, another Mema dish. He had Covid, and is feeling fine now, so we’re going to celebrate! :)

In the last few days I made Chicken Tikka Masala, and also Shabu Shabu with Goma Dare. Very happy with both recipes if anyone wants to try. I have a lot of Goma Dare left so I might make chicken kabobs tomorrow and serve it with that.

(I was the one who recc. Salsa Chicken, which I guess others make w cheese topping but we just use sour cream and salsa mixed in w/ sauteed chicken; could not be easier)

As for a dessert, if you like chocolate, i just made a fave and very very easy foolproof Chocolate pudding Iv'e been making for years. I add Grand Marnier, put it in very small ramekins, and top it with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/double-chocolate-pudding-101532

Other dessert ideas are panna cotta (very simple, it's all in the sauces), and I always love strawberries dipped in sour cream and then brown sugar, (served in three little bowls for DIY.)

Tonight dinner is late since one kid has a turbo class ... getting takeout pizza. My fave is a traditional thin crust brick oven pizza, with carmelized onion... then after it comes out of the oven, it is covered in a mass of fresh baby arugula, and drizzled with just a soupcon of balsamic vinaigrette. YUM

It's soup season here, as I get ready to go out and shovel snow (again). Over the weekend, I made leek, cauliflower and kale soup with a hint of curry. Tonight I made vegetable soup with various vegetables that needed to be used, simmered in a tomato paste and deglazed with a bit of red wine, and added some leftover farro. When that runs out, I plan on making lentil soup.

I've also made salads with various greens, along with toasted walnuts or pecans, a roasted root vegetable or two, some crumbled cheese if I have it, and a lemon/apple cider vinaigrette with a bit of maple syrup. Just a teaspoon of maple syrup does the trick and makes it taste like a winter salad.

I broke my wrist yesterday, so our dinners will be very minimalist the next few weeks. Tonight was angel hair with mushrooms, spinach and shallots, dh chopped the onions and sliced the shrooms before he went out to tutor. I am thinking lots of sheet pan suppers.

Nothing exciting here this week.. or any week lately lol.

• tonight I had a salad with a few crackers
• tomorrow I will make a pot of vegetarian split pea soup as I have a late evening release at work
• Have a turkey sage meatloaf ordered from wegmans (it just needs to be cooked). Surprisingly, I like this quite a bit -- i don't care for many of their prepared or cook-to-serve dishes. I will likely have it with steamed brussels sprouts.
• The remainder of the week will be leftovers of soup or turkey meatloaf

I don't usually do desserts but if I order thai food over the weekend, i will get mango and sticky rice!

Oh, sorry to read that, Localeater! Yes to sheet pan suppers for you!

Today is my sweet DH‘s birthday. For breakfast I made him homemade lemon scones. My birthday was four days ago and I told him I wanted either scallops, lobster tails, or crab legs for my birthday dinner. I ended up getting scallops with a wonderful citrus shallot sauce. So, I am making him (at this very moment, actually) lobster tail, Caesar salad, fresh asparagus, and my wild rice pilaf. Tomorrow night, we’ll probably have Beyond Burgers topped with sautéed sweet onions, mushrooms and Swiss cheese.

DH made dinner tonight, woohoo! A simple salmon with some seasonings, and sheet-pan potatoes and broccoli.

Tomorrow I’m making a ramen chicken soup and salad. Not very exciting around here.

I have been getting "Every Plate" for the past few weeks. Since DS is doing on-line school I need to have lunch for him. I get 3 meals/week from Every Plate and sometimes I use them for lunch and sometimes for dinner. Tonight for dinner we had Spicy Garlic Shrimp and Risotto from Every Plate that was very good. Last night DS requested Buffalo Chicken Dip for the SB so I made chicken noodle soup from the rotisserie carcass that was leftover and we had that for lunch.

Tonight we had chili & cornbread.

Living on the edge here.....

lol

Tonight we had a big salad and spicy tamales made from DH’s venison. The rest of the week it will be just me and I mostly graze. So much excitement I can hardly stand it.

I too, have found many new recipes and enjoy the creativity. Today, I decided to figure out how I could jazz up a can of green beans. I found a number of things to try and tonight’s was a success.

I had 1/2 a onion needing to use, 3/4 can of diced tomatoes opened which I added to a ordinary can of green beans. added some garlic and a 1/2 tsp of better than bouillon and heated to boiling. Simmered about 10 minutes til about 1/2 the liquid was gone and put in mini crockpot on low for 4 hours.

My research showed that cooking green beans with bouillon for long time really adds flavor to them.

They were worth the extra effort.

I am so out of the mood to cook right now. Last night I made orange chicken over jasmine rice. Tonight was grilled shrimp with lemon, a small salad and we split a baked potato. Tomorrow, who knows. I get my first Covid shot at 1 tomorrow so may make some kind of simple soup tomorrow night.

I made a big pot of tomato, bean and kale soup that we are still having for lunches. Today I did beef tips in a slow braise in the oven with Vidalia onions, beef broth, tomato paste, cognac and double cream. After they were browned with the onions I deglazed the pan with cognac and beef broth and added the other ingredients. Two hours in a Dutch oven in a 325 degree oven. It was served over Royal Blend rice (texmati, white, brown, wild and red rices) with a waldorf salad using bosc pears instead of apple. Tomorrow I will use the marinara sauce with minced beef and pork I made earlier over penne. I am thinking a salad of lettuce and pickled beets with that. Wednesday we will get takeout from the club. Idk about Thursday; we will be babysitting in Atlanta for our DD and SIL for a few hours in the afternoon so who knows where supper will come from.

fully2, I cook my fresh green beans with chicken broth added (about half broth/half water). It makes a difference and I can see where bouillon would be similar.

Jinx, I'm so sorry your temp didn't fit right! Hopefully tomorrow they'll get it fixed and you'll be eating again. You should be able to eat fine on your temp other than chewy, hard, etc. I know you'll be glad when you get your permanent crown!

Mountain, IF I LIKE CHOCOLATE???? Are their people who do not like chocolate? LOL Thank you for the pudding recipe, that sounds good. Thanks for mentioning the salsa chicken too. I do remember now because I remember I cook mine different. I bake in oven and then when done I like to sprinkle MJ cheese over it. I know a lady who does hers in the crockpot,.

The meatballs turned out yummy. As usual, I made too many so we'll have leftovers another night. Probably the leftover chicken corn chowder tomorrow night unless someone gets into it for lunch. With just the two of us, I often have leftovers a couple of nights a week.

I'll check back/respond tomorrow. Thanks for playing along!

My son goes back to college on Sunday, so this week will be mostly making all his favorites. Tonight was carryout from a local place - my kids got various sandwiches, dh and I split blackened Ahi tuna bites over seaweed salad with wasabi dipping sauce. Not sure of the specific order but at some point this week, dh will be smoking a pork butt and we’ll have pulled pork sandwiches, skirt steak fajitas, spaghetti alla carbonara, sushi from our favorite local place and Asian pork tenderloin with spicy garlic noodles.

I have a lot of cooking ahead - my son has to quarantine alone for 10 days in his townhouse in NY (we live in a non-contiguous state, ugh). None of his roommates have to quarantine so he will be there alone. He has a few things he can cook himself, but I’m making some things he can freeze and pull put as needed so he’s not eating junk/snacks while he’s stuck indoors. Big batch of meatballs and sauce, meatloaf, chicken parmesan, grilled chicken breasts (he loves chicken Caesar salad with my homemade dressing), homemade mac & cheese, pulled pork. Good thing I don’t have anything else to do this week!

I am still reaping the rewards of my cooking marathon in early January. I woke up every day thinking of somehting th at I could make that would freeze well, probably due in part to the fact that my daughter had covid, so I was constantly trying to feed her! Soups, spaghetti sauce, stew, chili... We had spaghetti tonight, sauce from the freezer, full of mushrooms from our generous neighbour. Last night we had a relatively new to us treat, Italian Sloppy Joes; basically a thick meat sauce, on top of garlic bread, topped with Provolone. Big salad on the side. DH is anamoured, so will make a big batch next time, as it freezes very well.

Nekotish, good for you! I hope your daughter recovered. The Italian sloppy joes sound really good---regular sloppy joes is a comfort food for me from childhood. I don't make it because my kids never liked it. Perhaps I'll make a batch and freeze individual servings for myself.

Tina, I do not like chocolate! There. I said it. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and chocolate has never been on my radar.

OutsidePlaying, good luck with the shot.

Feathers, I will eat chocolate, but it's my last choice of sweets. Too strong. It's a lonely stance.

Jinx, glad your Dad is better!

Neko, Hope your daughter is fully recovered. Those Sloppy Joes sound like "deconstructed" Meatball Subs. Yum.

lemon/apple cider vinaigrette with a bit of maple syrup --- YUM. recipe please?

Raises hand: I don’t eat chocolate, our little group is growing.

Feb 9th is National Pizza Day, so tonight is PIZZA. I made the dough yesterday and it’s in the fridge doing it’s thing until tonight. This time I’m using the recipe from King Arthur flour. I’ve been experimenting with recipes from various sources.

I plan on key lime pie for Valentine’s Day. I use the recipe from Once Upon a Chef. According to my dinner log book, I made it last year on the 14th so I thought let’s make it a tradition!

Also on deck this week: spaghetti squash puttanesca, salmon in a coconut curry sauce, broccoli soup, balsamic short ribs, and something with chicken. I have to firm up my ideas and submit my pick up order today. I like to plan for 2 fish, 1 chicken, 1 beef, 1 vegetarian, and 2 wild cards that depend on what new recipe I want to make.

I eat rather unvaried but my new favorite is swiss chard and I am having a huge bowl of it each night. Cooked with onions, walnuts, garlic, dried cranberries, various spices, and served with a broiled parm topping and a drizzle of oak aged cherry balsamic vinegar.

I'll have a protein and other stuff with it, but the chard is the star.

I wish I didn’t like sweets so much! Some of you prepare much fancier dishes than I do. We are pretty simple, I guess.

@hhireno good idea on your weekly ratio. We neither one like seafood. We usually eat out a couple of times a week (take out now). I love key lime pie!

@localeater so sorry about your wrist!

Some of you prepare much fancier dishes than I do

If it were the two of us, I'm sure I'd cook differently. In some ways I'd be more adventuresome (Venn diagramming 5 diners kills off some recipes). In other ways we'd have more eggs or skip dinner altogether. But I have 5 nearly every night, and I take requests. : ) Also, I don't post about every day meals because its not as interesting, but most nights we generally have a salad, a green veggie, a starch, and a protein (usually grilled).

Bumble that sounds so good.

Hhireno, coconut curry sauce sounds delish Recipe?

Key lime pie is a fave of the girlz in our house; the boys don't care for it. Since everyone's fave part is the homemade graham cracker crust, I make mini tarts, which ups the crust/filling ratio. I use a recipe that includes cream cheese. It's very good: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/key-lime-pies/

It’s the NYT coconut-miso salmon curry. It will be my first time making it. I love salmon grilled, I make it that way almost every week, but when it’s too cold to grill I look for other ideas.

I will bookmark that key lime recipe to try another time.

One of my favorite parts of keeping my dinner log book is looking back on my husband’s comments. Such as -

Better than I thought, I don’t care for most of the ingredients.

Approves of all of this

Would give it a high rating if he knew how the rating system worked

Not bad, said secure in the knowledge I’ll never see it again

My plate looks like a photo from cooking magazine, so much color

😆

LOL HHireno! I like that curry recipe; we will try that. Thx!

ETA - Interesting key lime recipe; i like the yogurt in it. Does it really taste like key lime? https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/key-lime-pie.html

Friday nites are always our homemade pizza and a couple dvd movies. We use Trader Joes‘ pizza dough, which is bagged and on their vegetable and hummus aisle. And their jarred pizza sauce. Adding our own toppings and baking it is such a great way for us both to start our weekend.

HHireno, thank you for that recipe. I'm working my way through a bag of frozen scallops and that's now next of my list to use them. So, how do you keep your dinner log? How long have you been doing this? Do you keep it for reference or posterity? That's fascinating.

Mtn, for the vinaigrette, mix equal parts lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and olive oil (I prefer mine more acidic and less oily), a dab of dijon mustard for emulsifying, a teaspoon or so of maple syrup to taste, salt and pepper, and then whatever combination of spices go with the meal (oregano is my favorite overall). It's how I've been using Meyer lemons in season and leftover maple syrup from the holidays.

Bumblebeez, that sounds really good! I need an alternative to kale and mixed greens.

Roasted vegetable tempeh curry. Quick, easy, delicious. Served with home made no knead partial whole wheat bread (just sub 1/3 whole wheat in the recipes out there).

Some of you prepare much fancier dishes than I do - That was in no way meant as negative. I know we have some self-professed "foodies" here and I enjoy hearing your recipes. @mtnrdredux_gw I was just commenting on the foods you said you had made in the last few days.

OK, now here is a complaint!! Why does every other recipe I see lately have CREAM CHEESE??? Don't get me wrong, cream cheese is yummy (especially cream cheese frosting), but for those trying to eat healthy (at least somewhat), such as myself, it's often an added ingredient I don't need! OK, rant over.

Key lime at our house - I love it, it's one of my favorites but the Mr. is just okay with it. He will tell me to make it because he knows I love it, but it's not one of his favorites. We don't really need a whole pie for the two of us anyway, so I'll keep looking.

For those of you homemade pizza lovers, we did that quite a bit until recently. I used to make pizza on average once a week, but for some reason we got away from it. Maybe we got to used to it, if that makes sense. So sadly, we are not celebrating Pizza day :(.

For National (International?) Pizza Day tonight’s pizza is one of our favorites.

Caramelized Onion, Gorgonzola with rosemary on a thin crust. With some sort of salad.

I wish it was National Margarita Day too.

“Key lime at our house - I love it, it's one of my favorites but the Mr. is just okay with it. He will tell me to make it because he knows I love it, but it's not one of his favorites. We don't really need a whole pie for the two of us anyway, so I'll keep looking.”

Tina, FYI - the individual slices of Edward’s Key Lime Pie are excellent.

I didn't take it as a negative. : )

In re Key Lime, I don't know why that tart recipe has cream cheese in it, TBH I thought it might have something to do with making them smaller. Like to firm them up or something? I think I will def try Hhireno's, since yogurt is a nicer option and that bottle key lime always remind me a little too unfavorably of industrial cleansers. Prob no reason I can't make tarts with that recipe... we will see. One thing about making tarts ... easy to make half of the recipe (except what to do w leftover condensed milk?) or, they also freeze very well.

Great idea about freezing tarts! I just saw a citrus tart on an instagrammer's feed that looked yummy too. But something chocolatey and salted caramel sure sounds good! LOL

@maddielee your pizza sounds yummy! I've actually had those slices of KL pie and they aren't bad! However, for a nice Valentine's dinner, I want to make a dessert. Still looking. Thank you!

I have a new air fryer and loving it. Most days are roasted vegetables coated in a batter of egg whites, chickpea flour, whey protein powder, spices and olive oil. Yum yum yum.

We have Beyond Burgers once a week. IDK when we last had ground beef. So funny, little girl kitty goes bananas, and every week we have to remind her there is no meat in them.

We made the other half of the tenderloin, the tips end, from New Year's for the Superbowl, so we have that meat left over. I will roast some squash and potatoes today. For the Superbowl we had sandwiches with au jus and horseradish on Chicago rolls.

Last night I made gyros with Trader Joe's gyro meat(for the first time). Tasted surprisingly just like our favorite greek restaurant on the east coast. Tonight, roast chicken with baked sweet potatoes and salad. Later this week, I'll make Asian sesame noodles with the shredded chicken leftovers.

@Feathers11 I’ve been keeping the dinner log since 2010. Its very helpful to look back when I’m out of fresh ideas about what to make. I record what we have, how I rate it, if anyone else has a comment, where to find the recipe, and what I might change next time.

It grew out of a calendar I kept when my husband was sick (medications, changes to meds, appointments, etc) and the family tradition of Thanksgiving and Xmas dinner spreadsheets, which we started in 2004. They are very entertaining to re-read. (Example: when an adult nephew showed up at for Thanksgiving at my house with his laundry he said “if all my Aunties would iron one shirt, you’ll be done in no time.” He only charmed his mother, the aunties didn’t fall for it.) Comments are added by anyone so you never know if you’ll be quoted for posterity (like that nephew). Another favorite is a food that was rated 5 stars by a sister but my Mum wrote “tastes like twigs and sticks.”

I still have all the log books (I think there are 3 or 4 of them) but don’t have a plan for them. Maybe I should put it in my will they are to be buried or cremated with me. 😆 After the first book, which was a daily planner style book, I switched to blank journals because my husband was fine and I didn’t need the calendar set-up.

I love that, Hhireno. What great family lore.

Maddielee.....every day is national margarita day!

@nutsaboutplants I've never had roasted veggies (which we love) with a batter of any kind. So, when you put them in the air fryer, do they come out like a fried veggie? Kind of like fried okra or something? I only use a bit of olive oil and seasoning on roasted veggies. I might need to start a thread about an air fryer.

@czarinalex we love baked sweet potatoes! Actually we like sweet potatoes most any way you fix them. I like to bake them in my crock pot.

Darn, I write over my spreadsheets every year.

KSWL, I bought that rice blend you recommended above.