This week in the kitchen

Monday/21-Feb-22: Dinner was White Veal Stew with Mushrooms, Corn, and Sherry (Essential, p553). Unfortunately I forgot to notice how long it wanted to cook, so I ended up plopping it in the pressure cooker and finish it off there. Served over a bit of tagliatelle. Good stuff.

Tuesday/22-Feb-22: Dinner was Mediterranean Vegetable & Fish Stew (web). This was yummy, but made twice the servings that the recipe indicates (only two). There's the amount of fish I'd serve for two, plus the amount of shrimp I'd serve for two. I'll freeze the leftovers for another time.

Wednesday/23-Feb-22: Dinner tonight was Gingery Cauliflower Soup (Q&E, p11). This is a yummy soup I've made a couple of times before. Served with Sandwiches with Mint and Chili Butter (Q&E, p19). These should be proper English sandwiches with white bread missing their crusts. I found some square bread, whole wheat and thinly sliced, and used that with the crusts. Interesting and went will with the soup. Not sure why you need to slice up some lettuce to decorate the plate. 

Thursday/24-Feb-22: We had lunch out with friends from The Netherlands today. Nothing happened in the kitchen.

Friday/25-Feb-22: Dinner was a halfish recipe of Crabby Crab Cakes (web). (Ed asked why we couldn't have Cheerful Crab Cakes.) Using two 145g cans of crab bits, I made four crab cakes. These were good. Served with leftover beans and rice, and (more or less) Cilantro Lime Sweet Corn (web) with a small can of corn. This was a nice way to tart up a can of corn. Good dinner altogether.

Saturday/26-Feb-22: It was Lex's Roast Chicken* (MC; GD), made with the two coquelets that were meant for our xmas dinner. This is really a favorite. Plus some steamed broccoli. 

Sunday/27-Feb-22: Dinner was Baked Stuffed Tomatoes (SimpSups, p49; cookbooker). I used some freezer-burned mimolette for the cheese, along with a spring onion and a bit of the flesh of the tomatoes. As suggested, served with Broccoli Slaw (SimpSups, p208). No packaged broccoli slaw mix here. I shredded the end of a broccoli, the last of the cauliflower, and a couple of carrots; simple dressing of lemon juice and olive oil. Some onion might have been nice. 

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 PHOTO: yes;
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG2: yes; #6 BACKLOG3: no; #7 RECYCLE: 0; #8 NEW: 2

This week in the kitchen

Monday/14-Feb-22: We had our Valentine's Day meal at a local restaurant, the menu du jour, rather than one of the swankier menus offered at many places. Nothing happened in the kitchen.

Tuesday/15-Feb-22: Dinner was Seared Scallops with Lemon Orzo (web; CL/jul07). This was okay. Used a whole wheat sort-of-orzo pasta. The pasta was good; the scallops were ordinary. Some steamed broccoli on the side.

Wednesday/16-Feb-22: We picked up Drive orders at both stores today. 

Dinner was a half dose of Sheet-Pan Chili-Lime Salmon with Potatoes & Peppers (web). Having a cauliflower to use up, I added some florets with the bell pepper strips. This was pretty good, easy, and fast (except for having to change the gas bottle while the oven was heating up).

Thursday/17-Feb-22: Fast dinner tonight, Quick and Easy Thai Peanut Chicken (web). Really easy, fast, and tasty, maybe not authentic, but it's good. Served with Thai Cucumber Salad with Peanuts (web; GD; HB). This is my go-to salad/veg for a SE Asian meal. (Use no sugar. Use one red Dutch/Indonesian chili for a half recipe, chopping it up with the garlic and adding to the sugarless dressing. Not sure if my peanuts are salted or not; fish sauce is plenty salty, so I don't think that's really needed.) 

Friday/18-Feb-22: Unsuccessful dinner tonight, Creamy Avocado Pasta (web), made with zoodles instead of the recommended penne. Baked the zoodles to cook them, as described here. A simple salad after.

Saturday/19-Feb-22: Dinner was One-Pan Chicken Thighs with Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Rice (web; GD; DMA). The recipe asks for one thigh per person; in this house we served two per person. So I made a whole recipe and have leftover rice. Good stuff. 

Sunday/20-Feb-22: Dinner was a half dose of Spanish Stew (How2Eat, p399), an easy chorizo and potato stew. Pretty tasty for the almost no work involved. Nigella suggests serving with lots of fresh bread. I just smashed up the potatoes to absorb the juice. Served with a little pickled cucumber sort of salad with red onion, pretty good.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 2 ; #2 PHOTO: yes;
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG2: yes; #6 BACKLOG3: no; #7 RECYCLE: 0; #8 NEW: 2

This week in the kitchen

Monday/7-Feb-22: Dinner was Balsamic Chicken with Mushrooms (MC), all sauce with two kip filets. Served with trio rice and broccoli sprinkled with lemon juice. Nice, fast dinner.

Tuesday/8-Feb-22: Picked up an order from Intermarché Drive today, so it should have been a fish night. But I was chatting on the phone with a friend and it got too late, so tonight we had tomorrow's planned meal. That was Spicy Chicken Livers (QuickWok, p90). This was ok, nothing special. Served this with Tasty Noodles with Broccoli (QuickWok, p137), made with whole wheat spaghetti. (Found some egg noodles in the cabinet, a bit old; they had a decided don't-eat-me look about them, so I tossed them and used spaghetti instead.) A half recipe made a nice side for two; a whole recipe would be an okay main, especially with a bit of tofu included.

Wednesday/9-Feb-22: Dinner was Fish Kebabs (RezaRice, p60). Not bad, these, but they needed a bit of sauce and he didn't recommend anything except raita, which I didn't make. Served with French Bean and Cashew Nut Thoran (RezaRice, p122). This was so-so. Used reconstituted dried coconut rather than fresh. There was also Lemon and Ginger Rice (RezaRice, p148), using brown basmati rice. This was pretty good as rice dishes go. Altogether, nothing special meal-wise, and a bit of work, taking a lot of time. Not happy with some of Reza's vague instructions.

Thursday/10-Feb-22: Baked a loaf of Easy French bread (Electric, p60; GD). Which really wasn't needed since we went to the boulangerie this afternoon on the way to dentist and brico.

Dinner from the crockpot, Bean and Sausage Soup (BestSC, p26). The beans weren't quite done. I think I remember that, in my crockpot, beans need to cook on High to get properly done; these were done on Low. The instructions say to cut the turkey sausages in half lengthwise. If I did that I'd have some ground sausage meat with casings. Soup was ok. 

Friday/11-Feb-22: Using up the other half of the bakje of chicken livers, we had Foies de Volaille à a Sauge (Chicken Livers with Sage) (Franey, p75). This was better than Hom's spicy livers. The cognac evaporated before I could get a match to it, so it never got properly flambéed. The suggested go-with (for the 60-minute "gourmet" dinner) was Nouilles à l'Alsacienne (Noodles with Crumb and Egg Topping) (Franey, p75). This was good; I've never seen hard-boiled egg added to noodles like this. Lots of butter in these dishes. For some veggie matter, I cut up some carrots, boiled them a  bit, and added parsley and lemon juice. 

Saturday/12-Feb-22: Didn't feel much like cooking this evening, so we had leftover soup for dinner. Even though it's been cooking off and on for two days, the beans are still on the crunchy side. Tastes good, though, especially with a good squirt of jalapeño Tabasco.

Sunday/13-Feb-22: Dinner was Pasta-Kwarkschotel met Bauwe Kaas. Can't find this online. (I thought it might be from Allerhande, but I don't think so now—maybe another grocery store magazine or maybe a proper magazine.) I did a little (mostly English-language) searching for a kwark substitute and came up with Greek yogurt, so I ordered that from the Drive. At dinner I was thinking that fromage blanc might be just the thing, and it seems some French sites think that also. But the Greek yogurt was fine. The instructions have you make layers of the pasta/eggs/peas mixture and the kwark/garlic/pepper mixture. This struck me as useless, so I just mixed all together and topped that with crumbled bleu d'Auvergne (which was in the fridge needing to be used), rather than Danish blue. Forty minutes might to be too long in the oven. Served with broccoli; now I see the recipe suggests cauliflower. 

Another week, no picture. Having some trouble getting back to this.

Long ago Blogspot had some trouble with the dating of posts. At the time, it seemed the simplest thing for me was let the date be that of the first entry for the week, rather than the final entry. I think things have changed, and so I'm going to change to the more sensible dating. I'll correct all the posts from this year to the last entry and continue like that. 

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 2; #2 PHOTO: no;
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG2: no; #6 BACKLOG3: no; #7 RECYCLE: 0; #8 NEW: 2

This week in the kitchen

Monday/31-Jan-22: Made a loaf of Carole Walberg's White Wheat Bread (MC) (WW/Rapid/M/-/-). This is a nice WW bread with good taste and texture. 

Dinner was a half dose of Chicken a la Nueces de la India (Chicken with Creamy Cashew Sauce) (web; EW/oct21). This wasn't bad. I cut the honey way back, but still found the sauce too sweet. And I wonder why not use cashew butter, rather than buzzing the cashews. Served with brown basmati rice and Karhai Broccoli (MJ@Home, p148), which is my standard Indian-ish broccoli dish.

Tuesday/1-Feb-22: In honor of Chinese new year, we had Sliced Pork with Tiger Sauce (Kuo, p33). Garlicky yum. Served with Stir-Fried Shredded Cabbage with Carrots (Kuo, p391) and plain basmati rice. I noticed tonight that what Kuo calls "Chinese cabbage" is bok choy; what I call Chineeskool is her "celery cabbage". Tonight's dish was supposed to be with green cabbage, but was great with Chineeskool. I do need to think about planning more Chinese meals from this excellent book.

Wednesday/2-Feb-22: Picked up an Intermarché Drive order today. I asked for 300-350g salmon, but got 205g, so the salmon for dinner was a bit short.

And dinner was 20-Minute Creamy Tomato Salmon Skillet (web; GD). This was really good and really quick. I served over a small bit of whole wheat spaghetti, not a full main dish serving, but I felt like it needed something to sop up the sauce. Some store-bought peach-mango yogurts for after.

Thursday/3-Feb-22: Picked up an order at the Leclerc Drive today.

Went to make dinner and discovered I'd neglected to buy an important ingredient and it was too late to improvise. So what's needing to be used? There were two squares of pastry, some roquefort needing to be used, an oldish leek, a questionable broccoli, some walnuts in the freezer. We had a sort if broccoli quiche-y thing. Pretty good, if filling.

Friday/4-Feb-22: Dinner was Filled Zucchini Roll (web; GD). This was not bad at all. The instructions in the video are not very good. Mine was too thick, so it didn't roll properly. It should have been cooked in a bigger dish. Still, tasty.

Started an Overnight Boule (GD).

Saturday/5-Feb-22: Baked off the Overnight Boule. Yum.

Discovered in the afternoon that I'd forgotten to get some necessary ingredients for the planned evening meal. Oops. Instead, Ed had the leftover pork and cabbage with some basmati rice. I had some whole-wheat fusilli with pesto from the freezer. Simple, but good. 

Sunday/6-Feb-22: Forgot to take kip filets out of the freezer for tonight's dinner. So tonight we had Monday's dinner. We had Shrimp with Zucchini—Jhinga aur Ghia (MJ1, p90). It's always odd to me to find another winner recipe from such a well-used cookbook. Not sure why I've never made this. It's definitely good. I used frozen, cooked shrimped (thawed, of course), adding them with the spices and stuff after cooking the zuke. This is actually fairly quick to prepare. Cutting up the zucchini is a bit tedious, but doesn't really take all that long. The recipe neglects to mention what to do with the cayenne, tomatoes, and ginger; I just added those with the other ingredients. As suggested, served with Spiced Basmati Rice (MJ1), p148), a quarter recipe, which is good. 

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 PHOTO: no;
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG2: yes; #6 BACKLOG3: no; #7 RECYCLE: 0; #8 NEW: 2