This week in the kitchen

Monday/14-Jan-19: Soup&sandwich for dinner. We had Butternut Squash Spiced Soup (Ainsley1, p44). I had only about 600g  of butternut squash, and cut the recipe back by that much. Used green curry paste, since that's what was needing to be used. Good stuff. The sandwich was Cajun Chicken Sandwich (Ainsley1, p10). Very good. (This is very much like Black and Blue Cajun Chicken Sandwich, cookbooker, from Ainsley2.) I was too full to eat more. Ed had an ice cream bar.

Tuesday/15-Jan-19: I had lunch out with my BookChatters group. Nothing further happened in the kitchen.

Wednesday/16-Jan-19: Shopping today.

Our main was Smoked Paprika Roasted Salmon with Wilted Spinach (web). I didn't cut the spice rub back quite enough, so that was a bit overgenerous. But it was good. Served with trio rice. Then some Irish Banoffee Pie (MC), which was easy and yummy. The first step on trying to use up my oversupply of condensed milk.

Yogurt on overnight. The last batch I made was liquid, so I used a new starter. Not sure what happened. Possibly I forgot to start it and one of us just put it away in the morning without looking, but I don't think so. A puzzle.

Thursday/17-Jan-19: Dinner was Italian Oven Fried Chicken (MC). I chose this recipe thinking to use up some of the buttermilk I have in the fridge. Instead I used one of the liquid yogurts for marinating the chicken. The kip filets were "breaded" with stale corn flakes, also needing to be used up. Served with tagliatelle tossed with a bitter butter and parsley, and some Broccoli Salad with Garlic and Sesame (web). The salad was good, if a bit crunchy for both our tastes. Then we finished the banoffee pie.

Friday/18-Jan-19: Dinner was Mushroom Stroganoff Pie (web). Pretty good stuff. The recipe says "mushrooms, diced", but the photo clearly shows "mushrooms, sliced". Diced, so I used the cuisinart and had much smaller pieces. Nevermind. It was good. But it only used about half the pâte feuilletée, so will have to do something with that. Then a big salad. Then half a prize-winning Langres cheese that's been around at least a week.

Saturday/19-Jan-19: Busy day. Doctor (to renew rx) in the a.m., then the voeux du maire (we were late and left early), then a Facetime chat with friends. Dinner was leftover lasagna (even better the second time), a big salad, then the last of the Langres. Later, we each had a pair of chocolate-covered madeleines.

Yogurt on overnight.

Sunday/20-Jan-19: Made a Cinnamon Fluff Cake (MC) to help use up the buttermilk. Not the prettiest cake in the world, but quite tasty. Something about cinnamon is very more-ish. Hard to stop eating "just more more."

Shuffled the plan a bit today. Dinner was Veal-and-Pepper Hero Sandwich (TLMelting, p23; cookbooker). Tasty stuff, but too much bread.

Guess I really ought to decide something about this year's kitchen goals, if I'm going to have them, before too long.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG:/no; #2 VEG/FISH: 2; #3 COOKBOOK: n/a
Cookbooks of the month: n/a
This month: #4 PASTA: no; #5 BREAD: no; #6 GUESTS: no
This year: #7 PROJECT: no

This week in the kitchen

Monday/29-Jun-15: Stopped at Spar this morning to get sugar and a box of pectin. Used my last 3.5# of apricots to start Apricot Preserves (FancyPant, p114), using some apricot kernels. I cut my apricots in eighths instead of quarters, and they're going to macerate overnight. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. The freezer is going to be full of apricot jam. Too bad Ed doesn't really like it

Dinner was a half recipe of Pollo de la Plancha—Grilled Chicken Breasts (web). Pretty good (even without the cilantro), easy, and fast. Served with the Apricot-Haberno Salsa, yummy. More black bean salad, which was especially good with the salsa. And the green bean-radish dish we didn't eat last Friday. Fruit juice popsicles for dessert.

Tuesday/30-Jun-15: Electricity problems starting in the night. Looks like our washing machine has a short. New one on order. Might take more than a week to arrive.

Dinner was Pasta with Tuna & Lemon Sauce (web), which was easy and fast. The sauce is uncooked, just tossed with the pasta, and uses stuff that's usually in-house, so it's a good one to save. Then a salad. That was all.

Finished off the apricot jam from FancyPant. Can't say I followed the instructions all that carefully, and they didn't really work either. (Straining the syrup from the fruit in a sieve. Nah. Even a colander didn't work well.) Added a cinnamon stick for the last bit of boiling. Finger licking good. Set up well without pectin, with which I'm now well-supplied. I just need fruit and more jars.

Wednesday/1-Jul-15: Nothing happened in the kitchen today, since we were out all day. The dishwasher didn't even get emptied.

Thursday/2-Jul-15: The heat wave continues, although it's a teeny bit cooler today. Didn't make it to the market.

Dinner was Broccoli with Spicy Tahini (web). This might be meant as a side dish, but I served the whole recipe over brown rice and called it dinner for two. Tossed the steamed broccoli with the sauce before serving. Remarkably satisfying for something so simple. For dessert with had some of the galette we bought yesterday topped with melon ice cream.

Friday/3-Jul-15: Off to have my haircut this morning. Then a quick lunch and off to shop. Don't recommend shopping late on Friday. The store was full, but so many checkout counters were open that there were no lines.

Dinner was a halfish recipe of Pasta Salad with Tapenade & Veggies (p44, PatSalads). A pretty good salad. Ed thought that eggplant fingers might be good instead of green beans. (Boiled eggplant fingers?) Quick and tasty, nice on a hot day. Bought a 4-pack of almost out-of-date caramel semolina puddings and we had a pair of those for dessert.

Another ant invasion. This time on the peninsula. Sigh.

Saturday/4-Jul-15: I hate hot, have I said that before. Thunderstorms this morning and early afternoon. Didn't help much. House has lost its cool. Good bless the bedroom a/c.

There have been some ants around, but not as bad as yesterday. Knock wood.

When I asked for a thick bit of swordfish steak yesterday, I got enough for a full recipe of Spicy Mustard Swordfish and Artichoke Kabobs (web), and indeed it would serve four as advertised. Put the bits on to marinate this morning.

We started with an insalata caprese with one coeur de boeuf tomato, almost seedless, and one regular tomato for me. Some nice mozzarella and some basil. Yum.

Then the kabobs, grilled outside thanks to Ed, served with a half recipe of Quinoa Pilaf (web), unremarkable. For dessert there were two Individual Peach upside-Down Cakes (web), a half recipe, easy and tasty, served with some vanilla ice cream.

We are counting underwear to see if we'll make it to the projected washing machine delivery time. If it's delayed, we'll have to make a stop at a laundromat. Ed took the old machine to the dump today.

Sunday/5-Jul-15: Still hot, maybe a bit less today, but back in force tomorrow.

For lunch I made Toast with Avocado, Fried Eggs, and Soy Sauce (web). Quite tasty and easy. Could be breakfast too, I suppose.

In the afternoon I made Hideg Kapros Tokleves—Cold Cream-of-Squash Soup (p24, TLMelting) and put it in the fridge to chill. We ate it after a concert. A very nice tasty, cold soup. Just enough potato to thicken it, but not enough to give an earthy taste that would be too much on a hot summer day.

Having a thought about stopping with this blog and keeping my recipe list elsewhere. Even started copying into Calendar. But there's no formatting there, and I miss things like the pages. Have to think further about this. Maybe just an RTF file would do with extra files for the pages. We'll see.

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