This week in the kitchen

Monday/31-Oct-11: We forgot to get bread while we were out yesterday, so I made some Authentic French Bread (Magic, p22, but out of head) on Rapid this morning, so we'd have bread for lunch. Then I made sandwiches of the leftover Mediterranean chicken burgers, with mango chutney and slices of cucumber. Not too bad.

Dinner was a half dose of Pork Chops with Hot Garlic Sauce (MC), grilled on the stove. Tasty. With some polenta and some roasted broccoli with garlic and a few slow-roasted tomatoes.

Tuesday/1-Nov-11: Some replanning involved for today. Most restaurants are closed on Tuesday, so we had our anniversary lunch out on Sunday. I thought I'd make some lamb cutlets with quince jelly glaze for a special dinner, but remembered I've got crockpot lamb vindaloo on for tomorrow, so did a replan. Made an interesting menu I found on the web, but discovered this evening that I made the wrong main course, which explains why the menu was so unbalanced. Will have to repeat the sides with the recommended main course before too long.

So, dinner was Ancho Chile, Shrimp, and Pasta (SimplyRecipes), a very tasty and quick main course. I served it with a couscous pilaf (totally useless because of the pasta, but the leftovers will make a nice salad one of these nights) and North African Spiced Carrots (EatingWell), which were very tasty. Some tiramisu from the freezer for dessert.

Put the lamb for tomorrow's vindaloo on to marinate overnight.

Wednesday/2-Nov-11: Yogurt on overday in the yogurt maker. Lamb Vindaloo (R&WSlowCook, p112, cookbooker) on overday in the crockpot. When we got back from the zoo, I boiled off the extra liquid from the vindaloo while the rice cooked. Pretty good, although nowhere need as hot as vindaloo should be. For dessert there was toasted Belgian waffle topped with defrosted raspberries and some raspberry sherbet.

Thursday/3-Nov-11: Cupboard is getting bare. Shopped early last week and late this week.

Dinner was Spaghetti Carbonara with a Poached Egg (MC), followed by a salad. Simple and tasty.

Friday/4-Nov-11: Shopped this morning.Dinner at our local quiz tonight (where we wiped out the competition), so nothing happened in the kitchen.

Saturday/5-Nov-11: Nice dinner tonight. Started with a little salad made from the leftover couscous gussied up. Then Coquilles à la Florentine (MC 2BTried), which apparently came from Cooking Light a long time ago. Quite nice, although a bit of the instructions seems to have gotten lost at some point; all the online versions I've found have the same problem. Is the sauce under, over, or mixed with the spinach and scallops? Accompanied by some orzo, a trifle too lemony tonight. Then a big salad.

Ended up with Pear Clafoutis (H2CE, p642, cookbooker). Very nice this was. Comice pears.

Yogurt on overnight.

Sunday/6-Nov-11: Working on my preserved lemon stash, dinner was Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons (NAfrica, p61). Turns out that I made this before (in July), but didn't mark the book at all and managed to keep the page spotless. It was good again. Served with couscous and a repeat of the North African Spiced Carrots. Pear clafoutis for dessert.

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

This week in the kitchen

Monday/11-Jul-11: Hot weather coming back. Minnie in an even worse mood today than yesterday. Ended up reinstalling the operating system, and downloading, again, the updates. Think Apple may have reached its end in the household. So many problems with upgrades that have been reported for years and still no fix. You didn't realy want your calendar or address book, did you?

Made a carrot cake for the Club Liseron meeting this evening. Put a bit of cream cheese icing on it, but that's pretty limp with the heat. (But, the icing, and the cake, were a hit. Got to share the recipes for one of the simplest icings you could possibly make.)

Last week I saw an odd, but appealing, recipe on Giuliano and Leah Hazan's blog, and printed it to make soon. This morning I saw someone whose blog I followed had made it, and what's more it's from a cookbook that I have. So, today it was my turn for Spaghetti with Melon (30MinPasta, p73; cookbooker). We had a charentais (cantaloup-like) melon wanting to be used, so this was our late lunch, simple, fast, and nice to eat. For as salad I grated more carrot to go with the leftover from the cake and tossed this with a lemon vinaigrette. No dessert.

No bread in the house. Made Whole Wheat with Bran (BigGerman, p81) (WW/Rapid/Med/—) in the evening.

Tuesday/12-Jul-11: My that's a good whole wheat bread. Doing breads on Rapid (with much shorter cycle) seems to make better breads.

For lunch we had the leftover leek-surimi tart cold from the fridge. Not bad, but it would have been better warmed, or at least at room temp. Then a big salad.

Wednesday/13-Jul-11: Off-piste dinner again tonight. Curried Chicken and Broccoli Couscous (MC), made with the last of the Thanksgiving turkey from the freezer. Pretty good for minimal effort.

Thursday/14-Jul-11: Bastille Day today. We stayed home.

Sometimes I wonder why I make any kind of meal plan, since I hardly follow it at all. Thursday this week, and I'm still working on last week's sheet, mostly not cooked. Oh well. Off the list again, I defrosted two pork chops this morning and found a new rub recipe. The defrosting chops were in a cabinet but Sophie manage to get to them and ate a quarter of the smaller one—mine. Roasted the rest of yesterday's broccoli and slices from half a zucchini/courgette. Defrosted some hominy, added a can of chopped chilies and half a chopped adobo chipotle. Since we finished a package of cookies for lunch, we skipped dessert.

Friday/15-Jul-11: OK, the first recipe using preserved lemons tonight. This was Fish Baked with Preserved Lemons, Eggs, and Onions, (NAfrica, p58). I made a half recipe with panga. Pretty good, interesting taste, easy to make. The stuffing between the fish layers is sautéed red onions with preserved lemons, a fried/scrambled egg, and cilantro. As a go-with, I made a half dose of Moroccan Zucchini Salad, a recipe I found on the web. Also good and will be MC'd one of these days.

My cooking challenge for the next weeks is to keep up with the supply of zucchini coming from the garden. I've used all the regular ones now, but there are several more ready to be picked tomorrow. And I've got four globe zukes in the fridge needing to be used, plus more of these on the way. Not understanding how they can be producing so well without water.

Saturday/16-Jul-11: Working on the squash backlog. Emptied two globe squash and chopped the contents. Defrosted some cooked lamb, left from Jaffrey's leg of lamb, and chopped that. Sautéed some chopped onion, then added garlic, then added the lamb, some turmeric and some garam masala. Added some dried bread crumbs too. Then stuffed the squash with this and steamed them. Accompanied by Rice and Peas with Garam Masala (SpiceKitch, p65). For dessert there was arrowroot pudding, first time I've made such a thing. I was looking for something that tastes like baby food vanilla pudding, and this was pretty close. :-)

Sunday/17-Jul-11: Preserved lemons again today: Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons (NAfrica, p61). Quite good, even though I didn't have the right kind of olives and no coriander. I'll freeze the rest of the sauce and meat for another dinner. (And now I have two chickie carcasses in the freezer, so must get busy making stock now.) Sliced up another zucchini (there are at least three more big ones coming soon and oodles of globe ones), salted it a bit, then broiled it, sans oil, and it was fine. Maybe would have been better if I'd greased the bits, but it was good as it was. Served this with a quickie sauce of yogurt, minced garlic, and salt. And some couscous. Later, some Maroilles cheese, a first for us. Interesting, not a favorite.

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

This week in the kitchen

Monday/4-Jul-11: Finished off the peach butter this afternoon. Pretty tasty, but not much of it. Dinner at the quiz tonight. (We came in third, but aced the 4th of July section.)

Tuesday/5-Jul-11: Shopped this morning. Made Herb Salt (Art, p172), since we're almost out of this.

I checked the website for the magazine where I think I got the lost recipe and turned up one similar, but not the same. This one, though, uses up the surimi that's in the freezer. So, dinner was Tarte aux Poireaux, Surimi, et Curry. Lazy me, I used a store-bought pâte brisée, rather that a home-made one, which really is better. The tart was good. Then a salad. Then some store-bought tiramísu, from a new brand, Gű. Somebody has to give these new things a try. Edible, but only so-so.

Wednesday/6-Jul-11: Almost didn't bbq this evening because of the wind all day (and danger of fire), but that finally died down, so we had Spicy Grilled Peppered Lamb Skewers (BigFlav, p142), which is nice and tingly especially when you use half the rub with a third of the meat. Accompanied by lots of Dusolier's Perfect Roast Potatoes and some sautéed zucchini, maybe the last store-bought one for a while since those plants seem to be doing OK. Finished off the peaches and cream ice cream.

Thursday/7-Jul-11: Yogurt on overday.

I've finally subscribed to Vie Pratique Gourmand, a biweekly French cooking magazine, whose latest issue arrived today (although I saw it at the grocery two days ago). This issue's C'est la saison section is on melons. Wherein I learned there are two major sorts of melons, cantaloups (the orange-fleshed ones) and galia (the green-fleshed ones). Galia melons are favored by North Europeans, which explains why they were largely the only ones available in the Netherlands. Of the cantaloup group, the charentais melon (from the Charente, of course) accounts for 90% of the melons grown in France. I was very happy when these would occasionally show up at our Dutch greengrocers. They look like mini versions of the cantaloups as I knew them in the US, with more or less the same flavor.

Dinner was Eggplant with Hot Garlic Sauce (MC) using lardons fumées for the meat bit. Over rice. Tasty, especially with a squirt of sriracha. Finished with half a petit camembert.

Friday/8-Jul-11: This morning I was rummaging through books looking for recipes for long pepper and for preserved lemons. I found a similar, better written recipe for preserved lemons (NAfrica, p125) to the one I used. This one said to top up the jar with boiling water. I haven't been able to add enough lemon juice to keep the lemons immersed, so I implemented this immediately. It also said to remove the seeds after almost quartering them. I'd wondered about the seeds, but suppose you can remove them at cooking time. Might add a few more days to my lemons, since the top ones, no matter how the jar is sitting, aren't really immersed in spite of the addition of extra lemon juice.

We found more zucchini ready to use in our little potager. These are some big regular zucchinis and some globe zukes.

Tonight, with one of the big zucchinis, I made (very loosely) Kaye's Shrimp-Stuffed Eggplant (MC), which started life has a recipe from a Cooking Light book, but I've adapted for our use. This time I replaced the eggplant with zucchini. Pretty good, although I think I made a typo when I entered the recipe into MC because it tasted a bit too strongly of celery seed. For dessert we had some blueberry cheesecake from Gű. This was tasty enough, but also had a soggy bottom, so we probably won't get any more of these in spite of the coupons we have now.

Saturday/9-Jul-11: An evening randonnée (9km) with meal tonight, so nothing much happening in the kitchen.

Sunday/10-Jul-11: Yogurt on overnday. Spent most of the day moving from the old Cube to the new Mini; frustrating to have so many annoying problems to resolve, ones that have been reported for years, but still not resolved for Apple. Grr... More tomorrow.

For dinner I adapted a recipe from an email for a courgette/zucchini pasta sauce. This turned out quite good, and I'll enter it into MasterCook one day. For two people, chop about 250g of courgette and sauté in olive oil. Chop one big or two small garlic cloves, 2 anchovies (the recipe said 5 anchovies for 500g courgette; I used two, but one was big), and some basil. Add these to the courgette after about 5 minutes. Continue cooking and stirring until the courgette is done (it looks a bit transparent). At this point I puréed the mixture, right in the skillet with my staff mixer, leaving a coarse texture. Stirred in a glob of crème fraîche (sour cream would do), S&P to taste, and a pinch of cayenne. Warm through. Toss with about 6oz short pasta. Why short, I don't know. Maybe if you left the zucchini chopped this would be better, but puréed as I did, I think linguine would be nice too. I used some mushroom flavored things that were quite good. In fact, mushroom might be a good addition to this. Then a salad. Finished off the Camembert for afters.

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