This week in the kitchen

Monday/25-Oct-21: Ed had his second carpal tunnel surgery today. They must have used a different kind of anesthetic because he was finger-wiggling directly after the surgery. 

A one-handed meal tonight. We had West Indian Salmon Patties from the freezer, accompanied by a more-or-less quarter recipe of All-Purpose Rice and Beans (BigFlav, p262) and some canned corn. And some of Sara Lee's Crumb Cake for after. We're full. And tired.

Tuesday/26-Oct-21: Tonight's dinner was a loser. Seemed like a good idea, and it's well-reviewed, but neither of us cared much for it. I made a half dose of Pasta with Mushrooms and Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Sauce (web). We ate it all, but not with much enthusiasm.

 

A small salad next. Then we finished the Crumb Cake. 

Wednesday/27-Oct-21: Oscar to the vet today, and me to the hearing aid shop for a new pair. 

Dinner was Pie's Curried Shrimp and Scallops (MC), an old favorite. Still yummy, and easy. Served over trio rice. And we finished the Raw Beet Salad, which was still good. 

Thursday/28-Oct-21: Shopping today.

Dinner was a half recipe of Gratin of Cod with Leek, Olives, and Truffle (optional) (Seaver2, p93). No truffle, I was too lazy to open the jar. After last week's wonderful salmon, I had high expectations for this, but was disappointed. The black olive were too strong for the fish. Result was so-so. Unimaginatively, I served this with a bit of tagliatelle. We had boulangerie-bought tarts for after. 

Friday/29-Oct-21: We picked Chris and Amy up at the Limoges train station this morning and lunched in Limoges at La Table du Couvent. 

In the evening I made a so-so soup and we munched on cheeses and terrines. 

Saturday/30-Oct-21: Dinner was Za'atar Lamb Chops* (web; GD). These are yummy and very easy. Ed grilled them. Served with Moroccan couscous (bio, store-bought) and Moroccan Carrots (1Good, p59). All good stuff. Then we finished off the cheese from yesterday. Then some home-made vanilla ice cream, with a touch of almond extract, which was nice, for after. Then some delicious chocolate from Maison Chaudun in Paris. 

Sunday/31-Oct-21: Lunch out today, then Chris and Amy to the Limoges train station in pouring rain.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 PHOTO: yes; #3 *DMA: yes
This month: #4 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG1: no; #6 BACKLOG2: no; #7 RECYCLE: 11; #8 NEW: 4

This week in the kitchen

Monday/18-Oct-21: Finished the Spinach and Artichoke Macaroni and Cheese casserole for dinner tonight. On the side we had Moroccan Carrots (1Good, p59). We've had this before; it's indeed One Good Dish. A pair of chocolate-covered madeleines each for after.

Amazon Associates informed me (and all their customers) that I should have a disclosure on the site if I include their links. So I've started a project of removing them from the Cookbooks page. I don't think I'll remove them from individual posts; that's just too much useless and error-prone work. 

I'm adding Ratio and Fast, Fresh & Spicy Vegetarian to the books I'm currently reading. It seems I never finished Ratio, and I'm not sure about FF&S. I'm pretty well done with Ratio this time, and will start on FF&S next. I'm going to mark The Book Lover's Cookbook as done too, and move it to the recycle stack. The only recipe I made from this was a bit of a failure, and the book doesn't appeal all that much.

Tuesday/19-Oct-21: Dinner was Runner Beany Herb Linguine (web; GD). Except for slicing up the snijbonen (oh for a Dutch greengrocer who does this for you!), this is easy to do. And very tasty. I thoughtlessly made this with tagliatelle rather than linguine, but it was fine. Onto the DMA list with this one. 

HD mini cups (chocolate) for after.

Wednesday/20-Oct-21: Shopping today. In the veggie section, there was a sign for a "demi-chou," a half cabbage, which would be nice, but there were none to be seen. I miss our Dutch greengrocer where we could get half a cabbage or cauliflower.

A very nice dinner tonight. Dinner was a half dose of Salmon with Onion Confit, Spanish Style (Seaver2, p95; cookbooker). I cooked in individual dishes, probably not necessary, then plated the contents. Served with long-grain brown rice and a little salad loosely based on this recipe, with nothing measured; some peas, the end of my flat cabbage, and the dilly vinaigrette. Good it was. 

Some store-bought riz au lait nature for after.

Thursday/21-Oct-21: Dinner was a half dose for Ground Meat with Peas (MJ1, p44); I made it with ground beef and all the spices. Served it over brown basmati rice with Onion Relish (MJ1, p174). The meat and the relish were especially good together. (I have to make this relish more often. It's easy and really good. Would be good on a ham sandwich, or with scrambled eggs perhaps.) Some HD mini ice cream cups for after.

Friday/22-Oct-21: Off for haircut today. 

Dinner was pork chops, rubbed with some of the pork rub I made a while ago. And some mashed sweet potatoes (with crème fraîche, orange juice, and ground chipotle).  And Simply Sizzled Cucumber (MC). Really simple, pretty good, made a pretty plate with the pork chop and sweet potato. A pair of chocolate-covered madeleines for after.

Saturday/23-Oct-21: Made a loaf of Easy French Bread, (Electric, p62).

Leftovers for dinner. We had Green Eggs and Ham Soup from the freezer, thinned with chicken stock and tarted up with some Tabasco sauce, and tuna salad sandwiches. That's all.

Sunday/24-Oct-21: Dinner was a half recipe of Aiguillettes de Canard Caramélisées* (web; GD), made with escalopes de canard, rather than aiguillettes. (Aiguillettes are needles, thus the long narrow "filet" off the back of the breast.) Served with orzo and a Raw Beet Salad (web; GD), which was very good and easy. For after there was Sarah Lee's Crumb Cake (MC; GD)

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 3; #2 PHOTO: yes; #3 *DMA: yes
This month: #4 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG1: yes; #6 BACKLOG2: yes; #7 RECYCLE: 11; #8 NEW: 4

This week in the kitchen

Monday/11-Oct-21: Dinner was Whole Green Lentils with Cilantro and Mint (Q&E, p82). This is good, but I think I prefer the similar recipe in MJ1. I didn't cook in the pressure cooker; the amount of extra water for cooking normally is too high. Served with plain basmati rice and a half recipe of Green Beans with Mushrooms (Q&E, p86) made with snijbonen. We were full.

Tuesday/12-Oct-21: Beans and Eggs (SFAH, p280). This is so simple as almost not to be a recipe. Put some canned beans in a dish, top with an egg, pop in the oven till the egg is done-ish, serve with feta and harissa. I used a can of black beans that was slightly bigger than your usual 15oz can; that might have been a bit too much. Hearty food for almost no effort. Served with Mama's Garlic Coleslaw (MC; HandyBook). Some store-bought vanilla riz au laits for after.

Wednesday/13-Oct-21: Dinner, a bit late, was Spinach and Artichoke Macaroni and Cheese (web). No low-fat sour cream or cheese, or course. The fresh spinach I bought didn't last, so I used frozen leaf spinach, defrosted, and chopped just a bit. This was quite good, and easy. Some HD mini ice cream cups for after.

Thursday/14-Oct-21: Shopping today. 

Dinner was Tzatziki Fish Tacos (web; GD). Cod on sale today, so I used that. I cooked the fish in the oven, of course. I added a dish of feta along with the tomato, red onion, and cabbage. Good stuff. Bought dessert, two slices of gateau Lorrain, a white cake sort of thing, split and filled with some kind of cream. There was an odor and taste of lemon, and another taste of something like aniseed. Nice.

Friday/15-Oct-21: Out of our anniversary lunch today. Nothing happened in the kitchen

Saturday/16-Oct-21: Dinner was Barbecued Raspberry-Hoisin Chicken* (web; GD). I liked this, but Ed not so much, so it's be removed from the DoMeAgain list. Served with brown rice topped with a dribble of rice vinegar and minced green onions. Went to make a broccoli in oyster sauce side dish, but didn't have as much broccoli as I thought, so sautéed some shiitakes with it. That was pretty good. Some coffee-flavored crème caramels. Bought them by accident, but they were pretty good.

Sunday/17-Oct-21: Simple dinner tonight. Cheese ravioli from a special at Leclerc. These were ok, not as good as I expected. Topped with some of Marcella Hazan's famous tomato sauce. Then a salad of tomatoes, avocado, onions, cashews, green and black olives, cilantro, with a lime vinaigrette. Some chocolate HD mini cups for after. 

Yup, another week gone by without a photo. I really must bring the camera downstairs more often.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 5; #2 PHOTO: no; #3 *DMA: yes
This month: #4 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG1: yes; #6 BACKLOG2: yes; #7 RECYCLE: 11; #8 NEW: 4

This week in the kitchen

Monday/4-Oct-21: Dinner was Cabbage Stir Fry with Shrimp and Dried Chiles (web), served over basmati rice. Good stuff. I seem to be completely out of oyster sauce; I used hoisin instead, then omitted the sugar since hoisin is a bit sweet. Some Haagden-Dasz mini ice cream cups for after.

Tuesday/5-Oct-21: Dinner was a halfish dose of Chicken with Eggplant Gorgonzola Crust (PotPies, p37). It's maybe stretching a bit to call this a pot pie, but it was easy and very tasty. I had two big kip filets, an eggplant weighing about 350g, and a 200g chunk of gorgonzola. Deglazed with port, which instantly evaporated, leaving not much behind in the skillet. Surprisingly a nice sauce developed in the oven. Forgot to make rice or another starch thing, but it really wasn't necessary. Followed by a grated carrot salad. Then a pair of chocolate-covered madeleines each. 

Wednesday/6-Oct-21: Dine was a halfish dose of Whole Wheat Penne with Broccoli, Green Olives, and Pine Nuts (web; CL/aug04). This should have served six, but two of us managed half. Instead of whole wheat penne, I used something labelled ressorts, like little radiators, whole wheat. I had less than needed, but they were plenty. It seemed at bit dry, so we each added a good spoonful of pyramid cheese (kind of like cream cheese of goat's milk) at table, and a good grinding of red pepper flakes. A pair of chocolate-covered madeleines each for after.

Thursday/7-Oct-21: Shopping today.

I waited too late to make what I'd planned for tonight's dinner, so instead I made a half recipe of Garlic Butter Salmon* (web; GD). This was quite good (but that's why it's a DoMeAgain recipe, isn't it?). Served with trio rice. Some apricot tarts from the boulangerie for after.

Friday/8-Oct-21: Dinner was Crispy Chicken Thighs with Peppers, Capers and Olives (web). The chicken was so-so; its skin was not crispy. The stewed bell peppers were good. Served with Patatas Bravas (web). I meant to make this yesterday, but didn't when I change plan. But I'd defrosted the tomatoes so I made it tonight. Pretty good stuff. A pair of chocolate-covered madeleines each for after.

Saturday/9-Oct-21: I used most of the leftover tagliatelle from last Sunday to make Pasta Frittata (web). I used 75g of lardons for a bit of taste. Quite nice, a nice way to use up pasta. Served with a (half?) recipe of Cabbage Slaw with Tangy Mustard Seed Dressing (CL/jun12; web; cookbooker), using part of the flat cabbage I'm trying to use up. This was really nice. I used pickled jalapeños, rather than fresh. 

Some store-bought vanilla riz au laits for after.

Sunday/10-Oct-21: Dinner was a halfish dose of Spicy Cumin Lamb Skewers* (web; GD). This is easy and really tasty. Served with Moroccan couscous (from the bio store) and The Single Vegetable Salad (O&C, p189), with about a quarter of my flat cabbage, made with Oil and Lemon Dressing (O&C, p190). Apparently Greeks tend to make salad from a single veggie. It worked well in this case. A pair of chocolate-covered madeleines each for after.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 PHOTO: yes; #3 *DMA: yes
This month: #4 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG1: yes; #6 BACKLOG2: no; #7 RECYCLE: 11; #8 NEW: 4