This week in the kitchen

Monday/20-Apr-15: Without thinking very carefully, I planned an eggy dinner for tonight following last night's frittata. Maybe not, I thought last night. So a quick replan today. Grilled some merguez that I defrosted in the morning. There was an enormous sweet potato waiting to be used, so I made some smashed sweet pot (with oj and chipotle powder). Made Curried Carrot Salad (FastShulman, p284), without the capers since I seem to be completely without them, none in the fridge and none in the pantry (inventory failure). To use up a cuke and some green bell pepper, I smerged several recipes and ended up with a Cuke Pasta Salad: Boil up some tiny pasta (I used crozettes); peel, seed, and dice some cuke; shred some broccoli stems; finely chop some red onion; toss together with a dressing of crème fraîche, sherry vinegar, S&P. Not bad at all. No dessert needed.

Tuesday/21-Apr-15: Dinner was alfresco again. There was insata caprese, still early for real tomatoes, but it wasn't bad. Then some grilled bavettes that marinated most of the day. Served those with pasta tossed with Cilantro Pesto (PastaMach, p155). This pesto was a bit sharp, I guess from the garlic, but it was edible. That was all.

Wednesday/22-Apr-15: Yogurt on overday. I got up early to get it started, but forgot to push the Go button, so it will be done quite late. Oh well.

Shopping today. A big one. Lots of locally produced stuff on sale, including a fairly pricey bottle of cognac for Ed.

Really didn't feel like cooking tonight, so dinner ended up quite late. We had a half recipe of Merluza Merinera—Poached Hake Fillets with Tomato and Almond Sauce (TLS&P, p23).  (Hake is merlu in French, similar to the Spanish.) This was pretty good. Hake is a blandish fish, but has a  nice texture. Fairly easy to make, especially because ground almonds are readily available. Had planned to serve this with polenta, but found some new potatoes from the Île de Ré at the shop, so used those instead. Then a big salad. No dessert needed.

Thursday/23-Apr-15: In the afternoon, I made Yogurt and Fresh Pear Coffeecake (MC and GreenBook). This recipe is from an old newspaper clipping and makes and a really moreish cake.

Dinner was Tagliatelle with Provençal Red Pistou (web; cookbooker). The recipe says it serves 4-6; I made a half recipe, and it would have served three. Really yummy. Too bad I didn't make fresh pasta. Then a big salad, bigger than every because Leclerc had no 100g sacks of salad this week, so we ate all of 125g. We got a new box of cheeses-of-the-month today, so we started in on those after dinner. Then finished up with some coffeecake. We're full.

Friday/24-Apr-15: This afternoon I made Chicken and Pistachio Pâté (Ballotine de Volaille aux Pistaches) (BEFCC, p127; cookbooker). It's for a "do" tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see how it is then.

Dinner was an assortment from the freezer, beef and pork curry things, plus rice, plus some steamed broccoli. Then more from the cheese box.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/25-Apr-15: Well, the ballotine was a hit. Very good it was. I'd planned to make a salad for dinner, but neither of us were hungry, so we had a carrot each instead.

Haven't had a big session on clearing the recipe backlog lately, but have been going through assorted piles and tossing many recipes. I work on the pile beside my bed (collected in the first few years after we moved here) once or twice and week and am starting to see it dwindling at last. 

Sunday/26-Apr-15: Finished off the pear coffeecake for breakfast.

We had our main meal in the afternoon today, Curried Split Pea Soup (VegPress, p46). Served with Coconut Rice, as suggested, but didn't make that in the pressure cooker. The soup was pretty good, but desperately needed salt, which wasn't included in the ingredients.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG: no; #2 UNUSED: yes; #3 GRAINS: yes (split peas); #4 VEG/FISH: 3
This month: #5 PASTA: no; #6 BREAD: no; #7 FotW: no for March/April

This week in the kitchen

Monday/17-Oct-11: Not sure what to do with the Cook the Books book this time around. I've started it, but set it aside for a bit and haven't had the interest to start again. Young woman made a bad marriage, early and clearly doomed from the start, stuck it out for twenty year or so, finally broke free, and got her own life. Should be inspiring, but isn't. Thinking I'd rather spent my reading time elsewhere perhaps.

Dinner was a half dose Zucchini Sauce for Pasta with Tomato, Parsley, and Chili Pepper (MarCuc, p161). Used what were probably the last of this year's zucchini from the garden and one of the last tomatoes. Pretty good and fast. Some bits of cheese for afters.

Yogurt on overnight.

Tuesday/18-Oct-11: Used the broccoli to made a quiche for dinner. Pie crust (pâte brisée) from the freezer. Oops, found goat cheese was moldy so used a pyramid cheese instead. And créme fraîche. And a bunch of oven-dried tomatoes from the freezer, sliced. Not half bad.

Some raspberry sherbet for desert.

Fridge is much happier after being defrosted.

Wood pellet heater installed today. Now we're trying to figure out how it works.

Wednesday/19-Oct-11: Shopped this afternoon. Cooked beets were on special, three 500g packages for next to nothing. The typical package usually has four beets, although it depends on their sizes. Once the package is opened, they seem get moldy fairly quickly, so we're lucky if we get three of them eaten. But there were not single packages available and they were cheap, so I went ahead and bought the set. I opened the unused packages, put the beets in individual sandwich bags and all those in one ziploc, and popped them in the freezer. No idea how they'll freeze. We'll see.

Dinner was disappointing. I intended to get it served early (we've been eating well after 8pm of late, which isn't healthy), but didn't manage somehow. Last week I found some tofu at a health food store, so tonight I made an old favorite, Tofu Cutlets (FastShulman, p131). Since the new stove has a proper broiler, I thought I'd try that rather than sautéing. But it didn't work very well. I followed Shulman's instructions to broil 5 minutes per side, but the first side was pretty black when I went to turn them over. Did only 3 minutes on the second side, but that was also too long. Nice idea, but ruined cutlets. Next time ... Froze the rest of the tofu.

Accompanied by a half recipe of Florentine Tomatoes (FastShulman, p171) and some rice pilaf. The tomatoes were pretty good, although there was lots of filling. This was especially good mixed with the rice.

Followed by a half recipe of Middle Eastern Beet Salad (FastShulman, p288), which was especially easy using already cooked beets. The spices are rather like ras el hanout, so I might try that next time. Added a pinch of cayenne too. Good.

Thursday/20-Oct-11: Dinner tonight was Greek Shrimp Scampi. Found this in my 2BTried MC cookbook, but, when I went to put it away, I discovered it was also in my Keepers cookbook. And I'd made twice before. Ha! Well, it was good again. Followed by a salad of mâche and the rest of last night's beet salad.

Friday/21-Oct-11: Dinner was Aubergine & Lemon Soup (Jamie, already MC). Very good stuff. It was supposed to make 4 servings (I was hoping to have another meal in the freezer), but there were only 3. For dessert I used some frozen blueberries to make Easy Berry Cobbler, which is indeed easy, and quite good for minimal effort.

We're working on eating meals at an earlier hour, having fallen into the habit of eating well after 8pm for several weeks now. Don't like going to bed with a full stomach.

Saturday/22-Oct-11: This evening we attended the wine festival at St. Sornin. A super occasion and we look forward already to next year. Nothing happened in the kitchen today.

Sunday/23-Oct-11: Had a goodly chunk of the remaining blueberry cobbler for breakfast. :-)

Dinner was Conchiglioni con ricotta e zucchine (soon to be MC, cookbooker), picked up from a blog, originally from Olive magazine, where it's know as Stuffed and Baked Ricotta Shells. (Kind of a dopey name, since the shells are regular pasta; the ricotta is only the filling.) Used some from this summer's frozen, shredded zucchini and tomato sauce. Good stuff! Followed by a big, simple salad.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: yes, #2 SOUP: yes, #3 MIDDAY: no
This month: #4 PASTA: not yet

This week in the kitchen

Monday/11-Apr-11: Whew, really low on energy this afternoon and evening. Had a quick dinner on the plan so I could go to the gardening club, but didn't have the oomph to go. But we did have Spaghetti with Shrimp and Scallops (30MinPasta, p109), only without the scallops since there were just the number of shrimp in the freezer needing to be used. Then a salad. Then the end of the pont l'eveque. Then some chocolate pound cake.

Yogurt on overnight.

Tuesday/12-Apr-11: Today, we had our main meal at midday more or less. Made individual portions from a half recipe of a Broccoli and Bacon Quiche (MC 2BTried). Not crust, so not really a quiche. Good enough, but could have used some sautéed onions in there. Followed by a big salad, leaving us lettuce-less. Topped off with some chocolate pound cake.

After line dance we had some cheddar cheese and onion sandwiches with our fruit.

Wednesday/13-Apr-11: Shopping this morning; the fridge is full again. Stuffed some artichokes as part of dinner. The stuffing wasn't as good as it has been before. Anchovy taste was too strong, but something else too, not sure what. Bought what turned out to be a pair of huge salmon fillets and made Broiled Salmon Steaks (FastShulman, p239), with the fillets instead of steaks (briefly marinated in lime juice, soy sauce, oil, ginger, and garlic). These were not bad, although I didn't get them quite cooked enough on the first pass. Served with some pasta and Shredded Zucchini (MW@Home, p87), which is always good. More chocolate pound cake for dessert; over the halfway mark now.

The jar of plum jar being almost empty, I made up some Apple-Plum Butter (MC).

Thursday/14-Apr-11: Crockpotted a chicken today, for tomorrow night's dinner as it turned out. We pulled the meat from the bones after dinner, before the cheese.

Dinner turned out to be (a half dose of) Spaghetti with Olives, Capers, and Anchovies (30MinPasta, p121), which was quite good for minimal work. Then a big salad. We picked the chicken before we ate half of a Petit Livarot.

Friday/15-Apr-11: Cornmeal Bread (BigGerman, p35) [BasicRapid/Med/Med] on in the morning to go with dinner.

Ah yes, the best laid plans ... We ended up going to dinner at the fish-n-chips van in Montbron with friends. Ate outside and finished the last round of drinks inside when it got dark and cold. The chicken will keep another day, I'm sure, although the bread may suffer a bit.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/16-Apr-11: Got to eat the Chipotle Pulled Chicken (web, soon to be MC) finally. Served over slices of yesterday's Cornmeal Bread. The cabbage slaw go-with was also good.

Sunday/17-Apr-11: Lunch at Lesley and Toby's today to see photos of their India trip. Nothing further happening in our kitchen.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: yes, #2 SOUP: no, #3 MIDDAY: yes
This month: #4 PASTA: not yet