Whatever I feel like! Since I am the cook - I choose. I ask for input or requests once in a while as I did yesterday and DH said chili. Tonight is BBQ burgers but I am soaking beans and defrosting stewing beef for a big batch of chili that I'll make tomorrow. Made another batch of pickled onions to go with the chili. Dh eats them lilke candy.

I bake. Bread, cookies, pie, cake, etc. It’s a terrible hobby to have as you get older and your metabolism takes a dive. I had to buy a treadmill this past winter to offset the damage I was doing to my waistline!

And speaking of rhubarb and pie, can you please share Lindac’s recipe? My rhubarb will probably be ready to start harvesting in a few weeks and I’ve been looking for a tried-and-true recipe!

Breakfast :-) It's my favorite meal so I always have all the various ingredients around and I am just as happy eating breakfast for dinner as anything else. In fact, I often prefer it. Exactly what sort of breakfast meal in what form depends entirely on my mood but some sort of frittata or hash are favorites.

The alternative is a sandwich. There are usually a variety of things I can pull out of the frig to build a sandwich out of - leftovers, cheeses, veggies (fresh/raw or cooked), canned tuna or salmon, bacon, condiments........

I'm making myself hungry :-) I haven't fixed any dinner yet cuz I could not get inspired but I'm thinking a sammy sounds pretty good! And not much effort required. I have l/o meatloaf, cheddar, caramelized onions, tomatoes, some good crusty bread.............

Lovemyycorgi,

I think Linda has posted her inherited recipe several times in CF, but here's the thread (about starch) where I got it, almost at the bottom:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5878705/making-a-cooked-fruit-pie-filling-with-tapioca

It's really good. Even my rhubarb-hating mother liked it.

Rhubarb is my favorite pie, but I don't care for rhubarb cream pie (Lindac's recipe). I prefer a straight rhubarb pie and don't oversweeten it!

If I can’t be bothered thinking too hard about dinner it’s usually some kind of pasta. I love noodles and you can dress them up with just about anything.

There are two kinds of ”Rhubarb Cream Pie”: the kind with milk/half-and-half/cream and the kind with just eggs. Linda's recipe is the latter. Best rhubarb pie I've ever had. :)

As an indulgence, I like something crispy and fried. Don't eat it often so love little crispy, breadcrumbed chicken or fish strips with lots of salt and lemon juice. Add a salad leaf on the side as a nod to healthy LOL

When bored I make soup and sandwich. There is usually a container of homemade soup in the freezer and DH always chooses the grilled cheese sandwich.

I like rhubarb-strawberry pie myself. I don't grow rhubarb but my son has a stubborn patch of it he dislikes so he brings it to me.

Plllog (and Lindac), thank you, I’ll definitely give that recipe a try!

I’ll turn to baking or making soup or stew. Many times I’ll make cookie dough, pie dough or crisp topping for the freezer. Always good to have on hand.

I bake a cake or pie and then share it with friends... because I can't eat the whole thing. Right now I'm wanting to make this Rhubarb Coffeecake but can't find the rhubarb yet:

Rhubarb Coffeecake

PREP: 35 mins

BAKE: 47 to 50 mins

TOTAL: 3 hrs 15 mins

YIELD: one 9” x 13” coffeecake

Ingredients

Rhubarb

• 4 cups (490g) rhubarb, washed and diced into 1/2” pieces
• 6 tablespoons (75g) granulated sugar

Streusel

• 2/3 cup (134g) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (120g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger ?
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (113g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup (60g) nuts, coarsely chopped (pistachios, pecans, almonds)

Cake

• 3 cups (360g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
• 8 tablespoons (113g) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup (170g) rhubarb juice (from above)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest (grated rind)
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• diced rhubarb (from above)

Instructions

• To prepare the rhubarb: In a medium bowl, stir together the diced rhubarb and sugar. Pour the mixture into a strainer and place the strainer over a bowl. Let the rhubarb drain for 45 minutes, tossing occasionally; reserve the rhubarb and liquid separately.

• To make the streusel: In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. With a fork or your fingers, work in the butter until the mixture is crumbly, then stir in the nuts. Set aside.

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9” x 13” pan.

• To make the cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

• Add the butter, stirring or beating gently until the mixture looks sandy.

• Mix in the rhubarb juice, vanilla, and lemon zest, then beat in the egg. Scrape the bowl and mix for 30 seconds; the batter will be thick.

• Stir in the drained rhubarb by hand, mixing until evenly distributed.

• Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and sprinkle the top with the streusel.

• To bake the cake: Bake the cake for 47 to 50 minutes, until a paring knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool it on a rack before serving.

• Storage information: Store the cake, well wrapped, at room temperature for up to four days; freeze for longer storage.

That sounds interesting! Kate, the rhubarb stared coming in this last week, You should be able to ger it soon.

I like making pirozhki or pirogi, and I do not always use traditional recipes. Sometimes I put potatoes in the filling, and sometimes with cabbage, and sometimes I use ground meat with onion.

Kate, I’m adding that to my list of things to try. Big rhubarb fans in our family!

Lars, I haven't made perogi for several years... lots of work. I usually make mine with a drained cottage cheese mixture. I once put apples in some for a party dessert and they were a big hit.

Last night we wended up with bought pizza. Meh crust, but I didn't have to make it knowing it would be meh. Tonight, boring chicken. :)

ETA: change of plans. Less boring chopped salad and ice cream.... (Serially, not together!)

I love rhubarb, so I will want to know how that coffeecake recipe is. lol! My rhubarb is a long way from picking at this point.

If I am bored I will fry up a gallon bag full of crappie or catfish which takes awhile. I'll usually fry up some shrimp and hush puppies as well while I have the oil hot. Then I have lots of left overs that I can toss in the air fryer for a couple minutes for a quick meal.

Kate, I used to date a guy whose Ukrainian mother made blueberry-filled pierogi. She may have made an all-apple version too, but I always chose the blueberry. lol!

So, there are pierogi, the Polish, pasta-like dumpling (or potsticker), boiled then pan fried in butter, and pirog (pirogi, pl.), the Russian stuffed, baked yeast bread or wrapped in pie crust pie. And pirozhki, the Russian filled yeast bun, more like a pasty, commonly deep fried, though sometimes baked. Obviously, there are common word roots, but the dishes are quite different in the eating, once you get past the commonality of stuffed dough. We only ever had pirozhki with chopped or ground meat filling, but cabbage and potato are common substitutes for meat for those who had none.

These look a lot like the pirozhki I grew up on. https://www.sweetandsavorybyshinee.com/russian-piroshki-meat-hand-pies/

Pierogi/Polish version here. So is your pirozhki the equivalent of a pasty in England or a saltena in Bolivia? Now I want to make saltenas. lol!

And don't forget pelmini, which are very similar to the peirogi. My parents had Russian friends when I was growing up (relics of their prewar days in Shanghai) and I loved going for a visit when the Russian dishes were served! I remember some seriously good picnics where piroshki were always a feature.

There are a whole panoply of Russian and Slavic words for different kinds of dumplings and buns, and I get lost. :) Some are regional and some have morphed over time. I never heard of pierogi until I saw a bag in the freezer section of Trader Joe's. I had to check my definitions because the only ones my mother made were pirozhki. I'm sure it was my grandmother's voice I heard when my mother said "pirozshki". (pier-ohzh-KEY ("pier" like the dock, long "o" (almost a "u"), zh like the medial "g" in the American way of saying "garage", shorter duration of the vowel "i" than the full amount we give to the word "key" (or the end of "donkey". It's a long "i" for a short time.) There are Russian dumplings very similar to pierogi with a different name, and so-called "Russian" pierogi with cabbage.

PM, according to Wikipedia a pasty is made with pie crust and baked. Salteñas are a form of empanada, so called (as notes Wikipedia) in reference to their popularity as empanada from the Salteña, the woman from Salta. Like most empanadas, they are baked and have a short dough, but not pie flaky. It's the Salteña filling that's most distinctive. In many ways, empanadas are different from pasties, but are underlyingly the same. It's like the difference between English and American language. The same language but different words and accents.

I would call pasties and empanadas "hand pies", whereas pirozhki are risen, fried buns (though some people do bake them) with filling. And a pirog is a whole loaf of yeast bread. But they're all dough wrapped around filling, as are all kinds of other pastries with different heritages and names. Tacos and burritos could also be on the list, though the dough part is usually cooked first, then recooked with the filling. And tacos are usually fried, though not risen. :)

And then there are Italian raviollis, very similar to the polish pirogri. It seems that many nationalities have foods that are similar. All of which take an inordinate amount of time to prepare.

If you have gorgeous vegetables and superior meats, you can just heat them until properly cooked, and they'll be delicious. Basic starches are great cooked basically. Add a little salt, a drop of oil, a dash of pepper or herbs, a squirt of lemon juice, what more could you want? If you have scarcity and are grateful for every edible scrap, you learn how to treat things like corn with ash to get the most nutrition out of it, and invent ways of combining scrimps and scraps and cooking them together to get something really good. But then, you have these wonderful inventions and time gets to be worth more than food, so you treasure the fiddly, made with love stuff. Or something like that...

In the spring and summer, a highball. In the fall and winter, mulled wine.