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/16-Nov-15: For dinner I made a three-course menu from a VPG. I served the entrée/starter, Croustillants de Courgette à la Feta (Crispy Things with Courgette and Feta), with the main course, Agneau Mariné et Houmous au Cumin (Marinated Lamb with Cumin Hummus). There are lots of versions of the lamb recipe to be found on the web. Some of them even include the instruction to cube the lamb, which is clearly shown in the picture, but not instructed in the version I cooked from. I just grilled the lamb steaks quickly. We're still out of tahini, which I didn't remember, so I made the hummus with peanut butter with some sesame seeds thrown in. Ok, if a bit crunchy. The starter was a mixture of grated zucchini, mixed with feta and gruyère, wrapped in brick, which is like phyllo, but round, then fried a bit. Pretty good mixture. Dessert was Gratin de Pommes Vertes (Gratin of Green Apples), well, only one Granny, since I was making a half recipe. Apple peeled and chunked, then sautéed in a bitter butter with some sugar. Into gratin dishes*, topped with egg yolk mixed with honey and sugar, then under the broiler. Not bad.

*Sounds impressive to have gratin dishes around? Actually they're the dishes from the frozen crème brulées I buy occasionally. Mostly they get used for feeding cats, but sometimes they're useful in the oven.

Tuesday/17-Nov-15: Back to Germany tonight for Hoppelpoppel—Eggs with Bacon, Onions, and Potatoes (TLGer, p67). Kind of comfort food, potatoes, eggs, and bacon.

Yogurt on overnight.

Wednesday/18-Nov-15: Orange (France Telecom) sent a technician this  morning to work on our internet connection. The phone support guy I've been dealing with insisted that the problem was in the house. The guy came and checked everything and said all is well. Before he got here, he did something outside ,somewhere in the village, that increased our download speed from about .9Mbps to over 2Mbps. Nice for us. Hope it stays up.

Somewhat belatedly thinking about our Thanksgiving meal today while doing the meal plan for the next week. Better late than never. Couldn't find a copy of our favorite dressing recipes so really have to turn on the Cube in the next days to get to Mastercook.

Dinner was a half recipe of Pici alla Salsccia e Funghi—Pici with Sausages and Wild Mushrooms (Lorenza, p140). The pici wasn't homemade, but storebought in Italy. The shrooms weren't wild ones, but shiitake. The plum tomatoes were really ones from our potager. Ah well, it was good anyhow. Then a salad. Then we split a magnum classic, a third for me, the rest for Ed.

Thursday/19-Nov-15: Busy with Stuff during the afternoon and it got late. Dinner was a favorite old stand-by, Artichoke Spaghetti (Art, p59), made with linguine and with a can of tuna stirred in at the end. Yummy stuff. Served with a salad of tomato and fennel, which was also pretty good. Finished off the egg custards for dessert.

Some of the Stuff I did included making pickled green beans and cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.

The big news today was that Café Clemence, where my BookChatters group meets monthly, is closing. Today. So we are looking for a new place. And, it turns out, a new day. Such a mess.

And the Cube won't turn on. Seems like the power supply no longer does it's job. One on order from Amazon for not too much.

Friday/20-Nov-15: Shopping today. Our shopping bag was searched on the way into the grocery store. Not my shoulder bag, but the shopping bag. Not at one of the outside doors, but at the inside gate to the grocery. Very weird and fairly useless if this is an anti-terrorist move.

We'd planned to go out this evening, but Terry wasn't feeling well, and the weather is miserable, so we stayed home. Popped the leftover zucchini croustillants in the toaster oven to crisp them up, then some frozen multi-grain pancakes.

Saturday/21-Nov-15: Dinner was a half recipe of Ligurian Fish and Potatoes (web), appropriate since we've recently dabbled our toes in the Ligurian Sea. Wow, the fish was way too salty, even though I rinsed after salting. Served with a made-up sautéed zuke and tomato thing I've done (sort of) before. Which was lightly salted, so mixing all together worked well.

Yogurt on overnight.

Sunday/22-Nov-15: Started Ruhlman Easy Turkey Stock (web) today. It will sit in the oven overnight.

No lunch and had our dinner earlyish (is that linner?). A half recipe of Eggs on Curried Rice (Rodale2, p113), which I've made before. This time with wildfond instead of beef stock. Then a small salad. Then we each had the meat off one of the roasted turkey wings. And a mini mag for dessert.

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