Monday/5-Apr-16: Yes, that Beefsteak Pie has come in handy. We had the rest of it for our lunch today, along with a melange of sautéed veggies. And a mini magnum for after.
Tuesday/5-Apr-16: Dinner out in Limoges tonight, prior to a concert. Nothing happened in the kitchen.
Wednesday/6-Apr-16: Dinner was a half recipe of
Gnocchi met Citroenricotta (AH,
web); seems to be from a 2007 issue! I had some store-bought gnocchi in the freezer and used them up for this. Pretty good and easy. I did forget the grated cheese at the end, but neither of us missed it. Then a big salad. For dessert, I mixed the rest of the ricotta (which was a bit grainy from being frozen) with a bit of crême de framboise and used that to top some frozen, defrosted raspberries. Not perfect, but quite edible.
Thursday/7-Apr-16: Couldn't manage to shop yesterday, and was looking forward to shopping at Intermarché today while Ed was in choir practice because there was tuna on sale. Not. That was at Leclerc where the tuna was on sale. Got salmon instead. Solo shopping takes a lot longer than the two of together. Intermarché has quite a few things that Leclerc (our regular grocery) doesn't: hoisin sauce, 10% white vinegar (known to us as
schoonmaakazijn). Their veggies are pretty good quality, but the selection is limited. Except that they frequently have very nice looking corn on the cob; impulse-bought some of this today. A better selection of Magnums too. But other things are really limited in choice. Definitely worth going to occasionally, but not sure about making it our regular store.
I saw my second hoopoe of the season today, Ed's first, on the way home from shopping.
Seems like Vanessa is keeping two chickens now. They've found a hole in the fence and have come into our yard two evenings. Really cute. I do like chickens. I went over to a neighbor to ask if they were missing any hens. He said no, but Vanessa had two now. Hope they last longer than the kitties. Ed has closed the hole in the fence.
Dinner was a halfish recipe of
Thai Salmon Cakes with Basil Lime Mayonnaise (
web). Very good. Not hard, but time-consuming. The Basil Lime Mayo (aioli, they call it) with store-bought mayo was finger-lickin' good. Served with basmati rice tossed with a bit of rice vinegar, and some
Cucumber Salad (
Delightful, p51). For dessert, some store-bought
framboisiers, which were definitely passable. (There were only two, so I figured they were ours.)
Put the chicken for
Citrus-Marinated Game Hens (
Picnic, p14) on to marinate overnight. There were no game hens, not even a coquelet (which I've used before for this recipe) at the store yesterday, so I got the smallest chickie I could find, at 1.1kg.
Yogurt on overnight.
Friday/8-Apr-16: Cooking day. Started
Parmesan Meat Loaf (
MikeRoy, p64) in the crockpot. Made this ages ago, and we found it a really yummy meat loaf. But the sauce has tomatoes and we've only recently discovered Ed can have deseeded ones.
Then made Ed's "picnic" meal for tomorrow's singing workshop and my daytime meal. Cooked the chickie halves by broiling them, three 10-minute stretches (last one a bit short), skin-side down, skin-side-up, skin-side down. About halfway through the middle stretch, I moved the broiling pan onto the bottom of the broiler rather than the rack.
Then roasted (i.e., broiled) some bell peppers, one for
Couscous Salad with Roasted Peppers (
Picnic, p16) and one for something else. Then made the couscous salad. Then made
Marinated Green Beans with Toasted Almonds (
Picnic, p18). Having no walnut oil in house, I used avocado oil for this; not sure it was a good idea. Meanwhile, I also made
Chocolate Bread Pudding (
TLNewEng, p132).
Dinner was meatloaf with some steamed broccoli and corn on the cob (GMO from Senegal, not seasonal or local, sorry, but delicious). For dessert there was, yes, Chocolate Bread Pudding, served with store-bought marsacpone-cream instead of heavy cream.
This was actually a bit of a strange recipe. First it called for fresh bread, which is exactly what bread puddings don't do. They're generally meant for using up odd bits of bread. The bread is shredded/crumbled very fine and makes a kind of bread mush with the milk. The result was tasty, but the texture wasn't especially nice, and a lot of liquid wept from the not-quite-custard.
Saturday/9-Apr-16: Oops, meant to buy eight plum tomatoes for oven-roasting, but seem to have only seven. They're in the oven roasting.
Ed ate only part of his chicken half today. I ate only the salads and was getting ready to start my chicken half when he got home. We'll save that for another day. I finished his while he gnawed bones, then we had some fruit, then we piggily finished the bread pudding. The chicken was extra yummy. Broiling worked very well. Not sure it would be a good idea with a bigger bird, but was fine with the small one I had.
Fourteen tomato halves with concentrated flavor in the freezer now. They smell delicious.
Sunday/10-Apr-16: Another, less elaborate picnic lunch for Ed's at his singing workshop. We both had
Roasted Eggplant and Pepper Sandwich (
Picnic, p23). I roasted the bell pepper on Friday with the one for the couscous salad and grilled the eggplant slices yesterday. Assembled the sandwiches thsi morning and added some basil leaves. Good. Accompanied by
Cantaloupe Soup (
Picnic, p25). It's a bit early for melons but there were some small ones in the shop. One small one made a nice bit of cold soup for each of us.
There were some munchies at the end of the workshop day, after a little concert. Nothing else happened in the kitchen.
Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG: no; #2 VEG/FISH: 3
This month: #3 PASTA: no; #4 BREAD: no; #5 FotW: no for April/May
