I have a photo file of 3 dozen+ weeknight 15-20 minute meals. Usually meat-less, but Fall often includes some land/sea protein.

I am always amazed at the number of ingredients, the amount of chopping plus the cooking that goes into those meals. I don't think I could get it all done within 20 - 30 minutes.

Wednesday:

Sort of invented beetroot and chickpea rissoles, halloumi, horseradish cream, salad.

Soy hoisin chicken with chicken stock rice and broccoli. As floral mentioned and a good way of expressing how I cook …… a “sort of invented” dish. Was tasty.

Thursday:

Grilled sardines, sauteed potatoes, fennel and orange salad.

Ooooh.....everything looks sooooooooooooo good!

I made 8 green salads ahead of time. They have diced tomato, chick peas, shelled sunflower seeds, walnuts, colby cheese, croutons.

I finally cooked something that wasn't for Thanksgiving. Just an egg bake with red dandelion greens. My back hurt during it which is from the bad knee, but the knee itself wsn't that bad. :) Yea! Plus, there's something real to eat. :) It's not pretty because red and green equal brown, but it should be tasty. :)

Friday: a meat night! Very trad. Lamb chops, mint jelly, swede, cabbage, butter beans, gravy

Saturday: usually a fish night but nothing good to be had. So invented chicken drumsticks tray bake with a vaguely Chinese vibe. Ginger, five spice, soy and lots of vegetables. Brown rice.

Things are getting better. I'm a lot steadier and no longer feel disconnected, physically. I had a very good day of rest, and the heater was fixed yesterday, and I could finally face a big salad. Plus a deconstructed sandwich.

There was oxtail at the farmers market. One of the most delicious stews imaginable.

Monday: an invented fried rice dish. (Cooked extra rice on Saturday). Started vaguely middle eastern with saffron, raisins and almonds and ended up with egg stirred through à la egg fried rice. Surprisingly tasty.

Tuesday: cauliflower cheese. Not quite vegetarian. Got to have bacon on top.

Thank-you Annie! I hope you're feeling better too! It sure looks like you're making nice dinner! I'm putting all my energy in this unaccustomed holiday, and dinners are whatever is in the fridge. Not that that's unusual. Sandwiches, salads, soups, boughten high quailty stuffed pasta, some more dim sum from the snooty store... But I just remembered to turn off the oven (yea! verily) and today's T’Day list is done.

I learned something. With cold from the fridge ravioli or tortelloni in soup, heat the pasta in an enrobement of soup—no more—then fill the portion with the reast of the soup and heat. That was my breakfast: Chicken ravioli, pepper jack, tomato soup and handfulls of wild arugula. It was good.

Wednesday:

An Ottolenghi chick pea casserole.

From a recipe! (More or less ...)

I finished the prep. Remembered things like cream and sugar, salt and pepper. I headed to get the gravy out of the freezer 5 times and just remembered that it's still there! So I just put it at the top of the list in bold all caps. It can thaw on the counter. Ugh.

I'm that tired. All the veg prep is done other than the radishes, which are optional (but pretty) and the more mushrooms which I may not need. As I was leaving not-my-kitchen, I was thinking I should get gas, and I was too tried and reasoned that I had plenty to get through the weekend, and that angel on the shoulder got louder and louder saying there was an easy gas station just over a little hill and I should get gas, so I did, but I could just stand there watching the (very slow) pump turn its numbers. Couldn't move. Also looked at the McLaren Spider on the other side of the pump. Pretty. But talking about a look-at-me car! It's very theatrical, and makes a Lamborghini look prim and understated. especially with a Jetsons style spoiler.

So, across the street was In-N-Out. That was dinner. I don't usually eat fries, but I got some extra-well done (i.e., crunchy) to stay awake on the way home, especially since twilight is supposed to the most dangerous time of day. It worked. Half a portion got me all the way home, gasoline, burgers and all...

I’m hoping your thanksgiving goes really well for you plllog, you certainly deserve it to from all the work you‘ve put in. Nothing worse than knowing your dog tired but also knowing you should fill up with gas. Just once more in and out of the car.

I too have not been well but just a ’summer’ cold which lasted a week. Unfortunately, the rest to recover quicker from the cold has left me somewhat weak and now I need to increase my walking and gardening to get back my strength. (One thing after another)

Anyway here’s some soup I made for lunch. Has home grown kale and all the good stuff. I guess you could call it minestrone.

Thanks, Neely! There have been so many confounding factors, it does feel really good to get to the end. ;) There's another gathering in two weeks, but I'm letting the caterer have the fun. ;)

Your soup looks great! I hope it helps you get lots better, and stronger. Happy random Thursday. ;)

@annie1992:

Nicole, that salad looks good but I'm not sure I could eat it 8 days in a row. Do you change some ingredients or is it really exactly the same for 8 days?

DH & I work out at the gym for 2-3 hours a day! We run mileage on an indoor track in addition to lifting weights. I'm HUNGRY! We eat between 2800-3500 calories a day. The salads are ALL the same. The dressing varies..... 🥘DH drinks a protein shake every day with his.

Thursday. Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. Just an ordinary day here. Went to the fishmonger.

Chose a sea bass, the one on the top of the pile in the middle. Served with sauté potatoes, beetroot and horseradish cream

Friday: by myself tonight. Just mixed the left over oxtail and the leftover chickpeas. Surprisingly tasty combo with a chunk of bread.

I slept through dinner. My hurty bits are still a little distressed but the sleep was very restorative for the muscles. So, instead, I made a self-indulgent sandwich while watching a holiday cooking competition. Seeded sandwich bread with ketchup and mayonnaise, more for stickiness than moisture barrier, layer of white meat, layer of thin slices of a semi-soft cheese, layer of roasted veggies, layer of dark meat. The stickinesses worked and it held together. Side of succotash. I always say, you know a dish is really good when it's good cold out of the fridge the next day. Wow! I was really surprised that the succotash was that good cold! Before the show was done I heard the inimitable call of Mom's Apple Pie. Never a doubt that that is great cold out of the fridge. The midday surprise was how much the weird pumpkin pie had mellowed. No longer screaming maple, the basic flavor is now pumpkin and it's pretty good.

Saturday: lamb chops again. Crème fraîche and brandy sauce, celeriac and potato mash, Tuscan black kale sautéed with garlic. Raspberries (from the allotment, frozen) and yoghurt for dessert.

So I was actually in a position to snap a picture, but you can't see anything....

I couln't face making a proper ”pie” or casserole, so individual Thanksgiving pot pies. Closest thing to cooking was dicing with a table knife. Layers of gravy, diced turkey, succotash, diced roasted carrots (brought by friends), more gravy, mashed potatoes, a little gravy, stuffing as the ”crumble”. Lovely, hot, mostly nutritious, lots of both simple and complex carbs....

Seafood spaghetti.

We can see your 'pie' fine Pillog by clicking on the picture. Lots of veggies in there. Neely, looks delicious. I'm expecting something similar on Christmas Eve. We'll be in Rome with SIL's family and they usually give us spaghetti vongole on the 24th

😁 That's the stuffing on top. Not much of it. The beige bits are the bread. I was emptying the container. Some people add sausage or (traditionally, when bivalves were considered food for poor people) oysters to stuffing. My mother learned American food from a Southern lady. The stuffing has "holy trinity" (onion, celery, bell peppers) and mushrooms. The vegetables that were their own dishes are hidden, as well as the turkey.

Interesting. Very different from stuffings here. I thought those were just left over veggies. The stuffing I make is much more homogenous and the veggies are much more finely chopped. You can't see the pieces in the finished product. It doesn't contain peppers. Breadcrumbs, onion, celery, herbs. Or sausage meat and herbs. Or breadcrumbs, sage and onions. Some people make chestnut stuffing but they're one of the few foods I'm not a fan of.

I'm not saying that what I made was at all typical, just the beloved flavor of my mother's stuffing. I think there must be hundreds of distinct recipes in North America--certainly at least a dozen in CF. I suppose there were relatively more veggie pieces than standard in my pot pie bowl because it was the bottom of the container. The veggie pieces provide a really nice texture difference as well as pops of flavor. When it's cooked in the bird, it all gets icky sticky from the fat, and the veg bits get even softer, but then they're even better through keeping it from just being goo. I was too tired to figure out how to scale the recipe, so I just made double what I needed, which gives us some nice leftover for the house (it's really that good that one wants to keep eating it!) and a container in the freezer for a future treat. :) My job today is to make bread pudding from the leftover freezer cleaning bread bits, to which I plan to add rice and chow mein. :)

Sunday: chops again. Pork this time, roasted with onion and orange. Roast squash. Cicoria selvetica and Brussel sprouts sauteed with garlic.

I would whole heartedly enjoy chops ’again’ floral.

Infact we had chops the other night and still had some to use. I made this small lamb Balinese curry using the paste from a jar of Ayam Balinese curry paste. Added onions, the lamb and small pieces of potato and cooked for quite awhile till the potatoes were soft and creamy. I like this curry flavour, it is milder than most Indian curries and not coconut milk based. Broccoli as a side and served with a slice of bread rather than rice!!

Not come across Balinese curry. Sounds interesting.

Monday: very simple. Sort of bubble and squeak (potato, celeriac, kale, couple of wrinkly cherry tomatoes). Fried egg.

And a cute clowny face!

Tuesday: another easy meal. Linguine with home made pesto from the freezer.

Chocolate. Squares off chocolate bars with crunchies. One was peppermint. Chuao. There was some actual food first, but it's been a stressful day, and it's the chocolate that counts...

Wednesday: Kabocha squash and sage risotto

Grazing all day. On the run "breakfast" was the last little slice of apple pie. Then, feeling the lack of better or more, I found last year's gift basket components at not-my-kitchen where we were defrosting the freezer. That was some sealed cheese in the fridge called "gouda" but soft in a little tub, and weird little crackers which were thick but tiny. A successful trip to TJ's for good Dutch chocolate coins (we weren't too late! They're often sold out this close to Hanukkah), and we popped open the chocolate covered cherries when we got home, and I snacked on chipotle cocoa salami, before salad an hour later. I need to find something else....

Sorry it took me so long to get back, Nicole. I just asked because I'm so bad at eating the same thing multiple times. I'll make a big batch of oatmeal and have it every day but some days I have blueberries and pecans, some days it's maple syrup, some days it savory with parmesan and an egg. I have some kind of salad nearly every day but it's never the same salad, so I just wondered if you changed things from one day to the next.

Floral, I'd love to have that fishmonger close to me. Your risotto also looks good, but I'd really enjoy Plllog's "chocolate day"!

Here we're still eating. I made an egg "bake" with eggs, cottage cheese, a can of green chilies, some cumin and chili powder. Served it with a salad of mixed leaves, probably the last from the greenhouse. Added some chopped pear, dried cranberry and sunflower seeds as well as a small sliced cucumber and some poppy seed dressing. Because it's supposed to get down to 2F tonight, I'm pretty sure that the lettuce will not survive any longer, unfortunately, but it was sure nice and fresh while it lasted.

Pork steak baked with homemade sauerkraut, butternut squash from the storeroom and mashed potatoes, also from storage.

Today it was maple mustard glazed chicken thighs, white sweet potatoes from last summer's garden and roasted with the chicken because, well, the oven was on and Grandma always told me "never bake an orphan", LOL, and some green salad.

Somewhere in there we had chili from the freezer with the last of the Pane Bianco from Thanksgiving.

There was more, of course, but I didn't take pictures so I don't remember what it was!

Annie

Friday: a meat day comes round again. Gammon steak, cannellini beans with leeks, curly kale, carrots.

Saturday: quick and basic. Grilled pork sausages, sprouts and an invented sweet/sour tomato sauce.