This week in the kitchen

Monday/5-Dec-11: Used up the first of Barbara's butternut squashes making Butternut Soup with Pear, Cider, and Vanilla Bean (Molly, p226), an interesting take on butternut squash soup. The flavors blend surprisingly well. Do get tired of peeling though; next one will be roasted. More of the Courgette and Chick Pea Filo Pie, cold, as a go-with. Filo could have used a perk-up in the oven, but it was otherwise good, especially with some lime pickle mixed in.

Made some Authentic French Bread (Magic, p22, but out of head) for the soup and for breakfast.

Tuesday/6-Dec-11: Very late dinner tonight, after Kaye worked with Michelle on the Club Liseron blog for quite a while. Luckily a quick, light dinner, little Drôme raviolis with pesto, both from the freezer. And a salad, with a formerly frozen cooked beet.

Wednesday/7-Dec-11: Shopped today.

Dinner was Salmon with Sorrel and Asparagus en Papillote (SeriousEats). Served with some boiled potatoes tossed with a bitter butter. Pretty good stuff.

Have been pondering my 2012 kitchen goals. One thing I've been considering is doing a recipe a week, or maybe twice a month, from a cookbook I haven't used much, or at least haven't used recently. This morning, I saw that Sue from Couscous & Consciousness, who was part of Cooking Italy, is taking over as host of something called Cookbook Sundays ... where you cook something from a book you haven't used. Serendipity or what? So it looks like this is going to have to be one of next year's goals.

Eating two vegetarian or fish meals a week has been an easy goal, practically no challenge at all. Considering whether I should extend that to three days, or just let it go for mow.

Probably will repeat the fresh pasta once-a-month goal. I've been doing this, but without the target, I think it would be difficult. (Which makes me think I'd better start thinking about December's pasta soon, since there are several holiday meals coming up. If I have pasta from the freezer, make fresh last month, does that count?)

Have been pretty much a failure at arranging to have our main meal at midday once a week. A bit better with soup, but not much. Not sure what I'll do with these next year.

Thursday/8-Dec-11: Finished off the Courgette and Chick Pea Filo Pie for dinner. Warming in the oven did the trick, crisping up the filo. Thought about a salad, but we both decided it would be too much.

Friday/9-Dec-11: Had planned to lunch out today, so didn't really have anything planned, and not much appetite anyhow. Made a whole dose of Pastina and Pea Soup (125Pasta, p56) and have leftovers for lunch or a starter one of these days. Pretty good for minimal time and effort. Not sure I've ever seen the word pastina used to name "any small pasta" before. A bit of Camembert for afters. (This is my first entry for Cookbook Sundays. Yes, it's Friday, but that will do too.)

Saturday/10-Dec-11: Dinner was Curried Oven Omelets, a recipes from somewhere on the web. An annoying recipe, asking for a can of coconut milk (what size?); telling you to season the sautéed onions "according to taste" with turmeric, chili powder, and salt before the remaining ingredients have been added; etc. The recipe called for 5 eggs to serve 4-6. Oh? I used 4 eggs, but only 3 would have done, since they were "beefed up" with milk and ricotta. Well, I'd forgotten to defrost ricotta (a shame, since the rest of the package is destined for another meal), so used cream cheese instead. An omelet under the broiler is really a frittata, I think. It was very pretty, all puffed up and browned. Then cut up and into the sauce with coconut milk, onions, and spices to taste. It wasn't bad, but nothing I need to do again. The omelet/frittata part was worth remembering. Then we had a big salad of rucola. And to fill us up we had a bit of the Christmas cake given to Ed by one of his choir members. Tasty, but heavy and too too sweet for our tastes.

Sunday/11-Dec-11: No one went to the boulanger yesterday, so this morning I made more Authentic French Bread (Magic, p22) for breakfast and lunch. Simple recipe, good bread.

For the post-carol conert choir party, I made a double dose of Spinach Salad with Pears, Pecans, and Feta (MDSalads, p28). OK, it was arugula and walnuts, but it was still good. Thought it would be a good idea to have something fresh, rather than cooked, but the Choir Mom already had a bowl of lettuce for the table. Oops.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: yes, #2 SOUP: yes, #3 MIDDAY: no
This month: #4 PASTA: no

This week in the kitchen

Monday/26-Sep-11: Easy dinner tonight. The leftover Tuscan veggies over pasta. Then the last pair of crèmes caramels.

Tuesday/27-Sep-11: De-seeded and cooked up another wad of tomatoes today. And slow-roasted some boughten ones, although they didn't seem to get very dry after a long time in the oven. Hmm...

Dinner was Linguine al Cavolfiore, a recipe I haven't made since we discovered Ed's problem with tomatoes. Tonight I used some of the new batch of tomato sauce, and penne instead of linguine. Good stuff. Then a salad. Then the last of a bit of St. Marcellin.

Wednesday/28-Sep-11: Picked another two liters of raspberries at Barbara's today. (No fruit, it's a terrible diet she's on. Too bad it seems to be working.) Made Blueberry-Raspberry Pound Cake (Molly, p20). A nice cake, but a strange color from the blueberries and raspberries. Made a double dose of the "juice" for Raspberry-Champagne Sorbet (Scoop, p132); used the rest of the clairette de Die topped up with a bit of sweet dessert wine. Having used all my sugar for the cake, I used sucre de canne.

Dinner was Grilled Squid with Fennel Sausage, a recipe collected somewhere on the web. For the fennel sausage, I used Guiliano Hazan's sausage (that I keep in the freezer) with fennel seed added. The outdoor grilling part didn't work well, so we had to finish them off under the stove's grill. But very nice they were, if a bit later than intended. Served with a quickie "salsa" made with corn, chopped tomato, shallot, jalapeño (one of two we manage to harvest this year!), olive oil, S&P. And trio rice. A nice dinner, outside, candlelit. No dessert since we'd sampled the cake already.

Thursday/29-Sep-11: Yogurt on overday.

Fresh pasta tonight. While looking for what I'd make tonight, I found my missing cilantro pesto recipe! For tonight, I made Lemon Pepper Pasta (PastaMach, p65). The dough was a bit dry, so I had to add a bit of oil. Also, it didn't like being rolled out to 6, so I ended up at 5, which made a thickish pasta, still good. Also, my fettuccine cutter, which has trouble separating strands rolled at 6, worked fine at 5. A bit of a puzzle, but something to remember. For a sauce I made Lemon Cream Sauce (PastaMach, p161) and added about 200g of frozen, cooked shrimp. Easy and good. Then a salad using the end of our head of lettuce.

Friday/30-Sep-11: Shopped this a.m. Made up some Cilantro Pesto (PastaMach, p155, soon to be MC) and froze it up in small portions. Used the rest of Barbara's raspberries to make a quarter recipe of Peerless Red Raspberry Preserves (FancyPant, p124). Into the fridge with that.

For dinner there was a sorrel omelet. Couldn't find the recipe I used last year, which I remember as adding the raw sorrel to the omelet as it was folded. This time I sautéed a bit of garlic, then added the sorrel for a brief turn. Then cooked the omelet and spooned on the sorrel along with some spoonfuls of pyramid goat cheese. Pretty tasty. Then a big salad. Then a dab of Morbiers. Then some slices of pound cake. Two small ones left to toast for breakfast.

Saturday/1-Oct-11: But we didn't have them for breakfast. Instead we had pains de chocolate from the grocery store. Sometimes they have them in packages of two, which are just right for us.

Dinner was Scallops and Mushrooms, a recipe I got from a food list and will probably save. The recipe said to serve over farro, which of course I didn't have; used brown rice instead. Probably barley (I thought) or lentils (Ed thought) would have been better, the earthy taste matching the 'shrooms. Might try this again.

As a side, I roasted the end of the cauliflower and some thick slices of zucchini, tossed with olive oil, salt, and a sprinkling of some Moroccan spice I made for something or other.

The end of the blueberry-raspberry cake for dessert. Then a dog walk under the crescent moon and milky way.

Sunday/2-Oct-11: Dinner was Lex's Roast Chicken (EAT-L, soon to be MC), a really nice roast chicken. First the pan is lined with thick slices of baguette; then a layer of sautéed onions, celery, and garlic, spiced with thyme, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes; then the spatchcocked chickie; then in the oven for a good long while. Yummy, with crispy skin. All accompanied by some peas and a little salad of grated carrots with a lemon vinaigrette.

Froze up the raspberry sorbet. Yogurt on overnight.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: yes, #2 SOUP: no, #3 MIDDAY: no
This month: #4 PASTA: yes