This week in the kitchen

Monday/29-Aug-22: Dinner was a half recipe of Spaghetti with Green Olives, Garlic, and Fresh Mint (VegHarv, p139). This is easy and tasty, over whole wheat spaghetti. Followed by a simple salad, just mixed lettuces and vinaigrette. A Ben&Jerry mini ice cream cup for after.

Tuesday/30-Aug-22: Dinner was Grilled Pork Skewers with Green Mango (Thrill, p158). Meant to serve with the suggested eggplant dish, but the eggplants I bought last Thursday were both bad. Instead I made, more or less, Cabbage-Radish Slaw With Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette (web), using up my chineeskool. And some white basmati rice, as suggested. A chocolate-covered madeleine each for after.

Wednesday/31-Aug-22: Indian tonight, all repeats. The main was "Hamburger" Kebabs (Q&E, p27), quick and easy to make (toss all the ingredients in the cuisinart and buzz) and delicious. As suggested served with Fresh Red Chutney with Almonds (Q&E, p114), also easy and delicious and with pitas for the (non-)Indian bread. For veggie matter, some Green Peas in a Creamy Sauce (Q&E, p87). I slipped a gear and got yogurt rather than cream from the fridge, but it was still tasty. And a chocolate-covered madeleine each for after.

Thursday/1-Sep-22: Didn't manage to get ready for shopping today, so had to make do with what was in-house for tonight's meal. We had Curried Rice and Peas (Q&EVeg, p202), which is an old favorite, simple, and tasty.  And a chocolate-covered madeleine each for after.

Friday/2-Sep-22: Shopping today.

Dinner was Spanish Vinegar & Garlic Cod (web), which I rather liked, but Ed wasn't fond of the bit of vinegar taste. Served with Sautéd Zucchini with Paprika & Garlic (web); this was easy and very good. (Both of these are from the site Spain on a Fork, where I'm collected a lot of good recipes.) And there was trio rice. Afterwards some Ben&Jerry mini ice cream cups.

Saturday/3-Sep-22: Dinner was a DMA recipe, Chicken with Fennel, Preserved Lemons, and Olives (Morocco, p302). It's easy, but takes a bit of time, and is delicious. Served with store-bought Moroccan couscous. Store-bought riz au laits for after.

Sunday/4-Sep-22: Dinner was Penne con Zucchine—Penne with Courgettes, Mozzarella and Eggs (Top100Pasta, p44; cookbooker). This was quite nice, and easy. Followed by a simple salad. Some coffee cake we got at Kirsty's charity shop for after.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: 4; #2 PHOTO: no;
This month: #3 GUESTS: n/a
This year: #5 BACKLOG2: no; #6 BACKLOG3: no; #7 RECYCLE: 10; #8 NEW: 4

This week in the kitchen

Monday/8-Aug-11: I pigged out on cantuccini today. The scale will tell the tale tomorrow morning.

Leftover pizza for dinner (yum). Not much else happening.

Tuesday/9-Aug-11: Off to Poitiers for a movie today. Lunched there beforehand. Nothing happening in the kitchen.

Finished reading Cooking Know-How, by Bruce Weinstein, on the way. Intended for beginning cooks, no doubt, but I still used quite a few stickies and have added a few recipes to the ToDo list.. He takes a type of recipe (e.g., pasta with cream sauce), explains the steps well (the whys and hows), then gives a table showing variations on the theme. Very well done.

Wednesday/10-Aug-11: Yogurt on overday, Shopped this a.m.

Made a batch of Guiliano Hazan's Homemade Sausage (30MinPasta, p161) for the freezer.

For dinner, I sautéed a panga filet; coated with bread crumbs, parmesan, and herbs; and topped with the last of Ed Giobbi's Sweet Red Pepper Sauce. The leftover zucchini/rice/feta casserole alongside. And some broccoli and mushrooms. Then a bit of cheese. Then some berries and some scrapings of ice cream on a toasted waffle.

Thursday/11-Aug-11: Half recipe of Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Strips with Sesame Spinach (collected from EAT-L). Skewered the chicken and grilled under the broiler. Used arugula instead of spinach, and didn't wilt it. Pretty tasty altogether. Served with some corn on the cob that I found at Intermarché this afternoon. Berries and ice cream for dessert.

Friday/12-Aug-11: Came home from pètanque and made a guacamole snack with two avocados needing to be used up.

For dinner, I made Zucchini and Eggplant with Pork (MC), which says it serves 2-3, but looked more like 3-4 to me. And I didn't feel like eating at all, so just sipped a digestif while Ed ate.

Saturday/13-Aug-11: Made the sauce for Buttermilk Ice Cream (MC).

Dinner was Fettuccine with Preserved Lemon and Roasted Garlic (Essential, p335). Very yum to me; Ed's not such a lemon fan, but liked it still. Then a salad. Then the end of the pave affinois.

After a couple of low-harvest days and a no-zucchini day, we just picked seven pounds.

Yogurt on overnight.

Sunday/14-Aug-11: What a gloomy, gray,drippy day it was today! Hope nothing needed picking in the potager, because it didn't get done.

Found evidence that the droppings I've been finding on shelves are a very discriminating mouse, who prefers Figalous to all the other cookies, sugar, flour, dried fruit, etc., in the room. Have set a live trap and maybe it will catch the little booger.

Dinner was Zucchini Pancakes (Q&EVeg, p220). I used the biggest zuke we collected yesterday to make about 1.5 recipe, thinking I'd have some from the freezer. Not. Served with the thyme and rosemary version of the pyramid goat cheese. Yum. For dessert I froze the buttermilk ice cream and served with blueberries.

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

This week in the kitchen

Monday/14-Feb-11: Hmm ... next thing up on the freezer list (oldest, to be used soon) is two small containers of spicy apricot chutney, a recipe from CLmag. Now, what I remember is that we didn't especially like this and spicy, it wasn't. Dilemma: should I try to salvage these or just toss them?

Valentine's day lunch at Montemboeuf's Cafe de la Mairie today. No need for further food today!

Tuesday/15-Feb-11: Yogurt on overday. No one wanted to go to the boulanger, so I made Bran Bread (BMB, p44), a nice dense bread. Early in the day, I did the chop-chop for Squash and Corn Chowder (Soups4Seas, p34) and we had that for dinner. Not bad.

Wednesday/16-Feb-11: Finished the travelogue part of Auberge last night. On to the recipes now. Today's post at Gherkins and Tomatoes was about this book. How about that for a bit of serendipity?

Dinner was Chiles Rellenos Casserole (CL90, p147), a TNT recipe I haven't made in a long time. Recently some recipes billed as chiles rellenos casseroles were shared on EAT-L, but they included chopped chiles rather than whole stuffed ones. That made me think of this oldie. Not bad. I make it with two of those little cans of whole chilies, which usually contain three chilies. This time one of the cans had only two chilies, and I can't say either was especially big. We ate half of the casserole with a big salad. Neither of us especially hungry, so no dessert.

Thursday/17-Feb-11: Shopping today. Avoided most impulse purchases.

Before dinner, I baked some of the finger-food "packets" that I got for new year's eve, but we didn't eat. They were surprisingly good, and all the flavors were tasty. Dinner was Spaghetti all'Amatriciana with Eggplant (MedHot, p77). This was rather similar to Cooking Italy's recent-ish Eggplant Sauce with Tomato and Red Chili Pepper. We might have liked tonight's better, since it was less oily. The eggplant was cut in cubes, salted, drained, then tossed with flour before frying, which gave it a nice crisper outer surface. Followed by a salad, then by some rice gelato.

Friday/18-Feb-11: A day in the kitchen.

• Yogurt on overday.
• Made some apple-kiwi butter. How will that be, I wonder?
• For our midday meal, we had Lamb Shanks with Mustard and Mash (Diaries, p44). (It's a year project to read through Diaries following through the year.) I cooked the shanks in the oven longer and slower than asked, like the Cajun-spiced shanks I did last July. For a starter there was Zucchini and Feta Cheese Salad (WorldVeg, p648), which we've enjoyed before.
• Made 13 meringue cups (pavlovas, I think they can be called), following recipe in CL88. We had a couple as a belated dessert with some raspberries. The cups didn't work as well as the last time I did them; they're remarkably similar to marshmallows. Hoping the freezer will perk them up.
• Made a double dose of pâte brisée (Tenth, p256) for the freezer.
• Used the rest of a jar of roasted red peppers to make some faux pizza sauce for the freezer.
• Chopped a red chili really fine and macerated this is a bit of rice vinegar. Then I stirred it into one of the containers of not-so-Spicy Apricot Chutney. If it perks up, we'll use it; if not, they both get tossed.

Saturday/19-Feb-11: Leftover chile relleno casserole for dinner, followed by a big salad. Forgot to take the rice gelato out of the freezer beforehand, so we had some cookies for dessert, kind of hazelnut sandies. Tiny cookies, and we ended up eating the whole box. Oink, oink.

Sunday/20-Feb-11: Finished off the jar of fig jam at breakfast, so tomorrow we'll see how the apple-kiwi butter worked.

Dinner was Zucchini Pancakes (Q&EVeg, p220), an old favorite. When I was considering exactly what to do for this, I realized that many zucchini pancake recipes are really pancakes with some zucchini thrown in, while this recipe is zucchini. Since I'm trying to use up some, that's what I chose. This time the bread crumbs I got from the freezer still had some biggish bits in them; those turned out really nice and chewy. For dessert we finished off the rice gelato.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 VEG/FISH: yes, #2 SOUP: yes, #3 MIDDAY: yes
This month: #4 PASTA: not yet