This week in the kitchen

Monday/3-Aug-20: Tthis afternoon Ed said how much he liked yesterday's dessert. Surprise. He especially liked the misbegotten dumpling-ish things on the top of the peaches.

Started some Abm Whole Wheat Bread (MC) (WW/Rapid/L/-/-). My goodness this smells good when it's baking!

Dinner was a halfish dose of Baked Greek Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta (web; cookbooker). Used 300g of cooked shrimp (with covered tails) that I added more or less frozen. Served over orzo.

Peach cobbler with ice cream and cream for dessert.

Tuesday/4-Aug-20: Off to BookChatters today. Only four of us, but a long discussion.

Dinner was a half dose of Artichoke Purée with Olives, Capers, and Oregano (PeV, p33), served over linguine. Good stuff. We finished off the peach cobbler with plain ice cream for after.

Wednesday/5-Aug-20: This was vet day. Sophie had her shots and seems not to have kidney failure or diabetes as we'd feared. Oscar isn't doing well and probably won't be long with us. :-(

Dinner was Grilled Chicken with Peach and Onion Relish (MC; web), a third of the meat with half the relish. The relish was delicious; I used half the sugar I should have. Have lots of this left for something else. It was served with very plain kip filets, where it could have used a more flavorful meat, chicken thighs, pork something? Served with short spaghetti and some steam-sautéed mixed veggies (carrots, broccoli, zucchini, eggplant), cleaning out the fridge a bit. They were good, with lots of lemon juice at the end. We're full and satisfied.

Thursday/6-Aug-20: Dinner was a close version of Shakshouka with Potatoes (web). Easy and pretty tasty. Filling on a hot hot day.

Yogurt on overnight.

Friday/7-Aug-20: Buckwheat Bread (BMB, p49) this morning (WW/Rapid/S/-/-). A small loaf, as are all in this book, but quite delicious.

Dinner was Eggs on Curried Rice (Rodale2, p113; MC). Short grain brown rice. Old recipe. Good stuff. Then a bit of salad.

It's occurred to me that my cookbook reading has largely ground to a halt. I was reading as we travelled to and from the grocery store. But that's not happening any more, and likely won't for quite some time, so I need to find another way to work this into my schedule.

Saturday/8-Aug-20: Another hot hot day. I don't do hot well.

Ed picked up an order from Intermarché, so it's fish for dinner.

Which was Coconut Fish Curry (web). No coconut oil or coconut aminos. It was okay. We got a mango in the groceries, but I decided not to make that fish dish. Instead I made Cucumber Mango Salad (web), a recipe printout I found tucked in a book last night. This was pretty good. I stirred in some cilantro, which only made it better. I made up the broth for some ice cream and macerated some peaches and nectarines, but didn't feel like freezing it. Tomorrow.

Ed brought in a bucket full of purple plums, so tomorrow is probably jam-making day.

Sunday/9-Aug-20: Busy day in the kitchen. Started out making a loaf English Muffin Bread (BMB, p17). The dough must have been a bit too wet and the top sank. Tastes great, though, so I'll try again.

I used about half of the bucket of plums (quetsches) to make Plum Jam (FancyPant, p92). I was also looking at Classic Plum Jam (PutEmFruit, p211). I used the amount of sugar (sucre de confiture with pectin included) from PutEmFruit and omitted the lemon juice. Followed FancyPant's procedure of softening the plums with the pits in, then putting them through a food mill to remove them. That didn't work very well, and I ended up picking them out by hand. Have four jars of jam now, three in the freezer.

For dinner, we had hamburger patties, plain hamburger dressed up with tamari, garlic, and Tabasco. Served these with the Peach and Onion Relish from earlier in the week. Over-roasted the remains of some mandolined potatoes. Made up a broccoli salad. And for after we had some peaches and cream ice cream. We're full.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 BACKLOG: no
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #4 SHORT: no; #5 LONG: no
On-going: #6 READ; #7 RECYCLE; #8 NEW

This week in the kitchen

Monday/23-Jun-15: Dinner was a 20-minute supper, Shrimp & Greens Curry (web), easy and quite tasty. I planned this because there has been bok choy in the shops lately. But not this week, so I used  spinach instead. Served over rice. Some yummy little apple tartlettes from the boulanergie for dessert.

Tuesday/24-Jun-15: A friend whose wife is away for a week came for lunch today. We bbq'd Grilled Lime-Marinated Flank Steak with Chipotle-Honey Sauce (Thrill, p141; cookbooker). French cows don't have flanks, so I used bavettes instead (no idea what those might be in English). The sauce (with slightly less honey than asked) was scrumptious. Schlesinger and Willoughby recommend serving this with Black Bean Salad (Thrill, p319) and Corn Bread Salad with Lime Juice and Cilantro (Thrill, p312), so I did. These are so much alike, it really wasn't a good suggestion, I think. I've made the black bean salad before; it was still good. The corn bread salad was ok. Might have been a bit better if my corn bread had risen properly; this is where I discovered my unexpired baking powder was dead. Neil brought some Nutella chocolate brownies with ginger for dessert and I made some easy vanilla ice cream. No more food needed for the day.

Wednesday/25-Jun-15: We ate at the marché des producteurs in La Roche this evening. Nothing happened in the kitchen,

Thursday/26-Jun-15: Went up to the Montemboeuf market this morning to see what I could find, and stopped at the butcher for some nice pork chops. Since we're changing shopping day to Friday, I hope to visit the market more often.

Dinner was, yes, grilled pork chops, topped with the yummy sauce from Tuesday. Then some potatoes, loosely based on Crash Hot Potatoes (web). (I drizzled with a mix of olive oil, harissa, sale, sesame seed, and lemon juice.) And some of the combined black bean and corn bread salads. Mixed the rest of the sauce into this for future use.

Friday/27-Jun-15: Shopping today. During which we learned lots of people buy fish on Friday. I walked away from a line with two people in front of me, only to come back to a line with six people in front of me. Sigh. But, they had samphire/salicorne/zeekraal.

So I changed the menu and made Roergebakken Zalm met Zeekraal en Knoflook (which I got in a newsletter from visrecepten.nl, but can only find online here); that's Stir-fried Salmon with Samphire and Garlic. Served over tagliatelle. I hadn't realized that there was enough samphire to call that this a one-dish meal, so I also made a quarter recipe of Green Beans and Radishes Braised in Orange Juice (web). I took a bite of this, but the rest is in the fridge for another night, maybe as a salad. Two squares of dark chocolate with almonds for after. (Dark chocolate with hazelnnuts, my favorite, seems to be out these days.)

Saturday/28-Jun-15: Not much happened in the kitchen today. We had dinner at the Fête de la Motte in the evening.

Sunday/29-Jun-15: Starting to deal with the flat of apricots I bought on Friday. Made a half recipe of Apricot Habernero Salsa (p72, PutEmFruit) which made less that expected. Tasted pretty good

We had our main meal in the early afternoon: Ricotta-Zucchini Pasta Salad (web). Surprisingly tasty for as easy as it was. Then a salad. Then some fruit juice popsicles.

Another 2kg of apricot's going for Fatima's Confiture d'Abricots, the one with almonds, except I had an inventory failure and there were no sliced almonds. And, yes, well, I bought the apricots to make jam, but forgot to buy extra sugar. We're now more or less out. Guess I'll have to stop somewhere tomorrow to get more so I can finish off the last batch of apricots. Eight AH jars from this batch into the freezer.

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