This week in the kitchen

Monday/11-Jan-16: Tasty dinner tonight. I steamed some eggs to hard-boil them (setting the time, but forgetting to press Start, it's amazing I got them right), then made Hard-Boiled Eggs in a Spicy Cream Sauce (MJ1, p84). Accompanied by Gujerati-Style Green Beans (MJ1, p102) made with snijbonen (whatever they may be called in English), since haricots verts didn't look good this week, and Simple Buttery Rice with Onion (MJ1, p140). The egg dish was made without tomato paste, but was still extra yummy.

Tuesday/12-Jan-16: Late change of dinner plans. Dinner turned out to be Prawn, Leek & Lemon Risotto (web). Sort of. I didn't bake it, but made it on the stovetop like a regular risotto. Interesting thing about this recipe is that no wine is added. Instead, fresh lemon juice is stirred in to start things off; then more is added to finish it off. Ed thought it was a trifle too lemony.

Went to inventory some drugstore stuff prior to making an order and discovered that we seem to have had a mouse in the bathroom chewing labels. I've just recently cleaned that cabinet, so it must have happened recently. At the same time, Ed discovered mouse activity in the kitchen on the cookie shelf. The Figalous are okay; this time it's the chocolate-covered cornflake piles that were attached. We've got a live trap set tonight.

Yogurt on overnight.

Wednesday/13-Jan-16: Ed set the live trap in the bathroom. The mouse (assuming there's only one in the house) was busy in the kitchen last night. Trap has been moved now. Don't understand why the cats aren't interested. Guessing it might be one Oscar brought in. The bathroom is one of the places he likes to carry his prey to finish them off. Maybe one escaped.

Shopping today. Dinner was Salmon with Anchovy-Garlic Butter (web), which was quite yummy. The anchovy flavor goes away, leaving a delicious bit of sauce. Served with polenta and steam broccoli.

Thursday/14-Jan-16: Oops, went to put the goat on to marinate for tonight's dinner and realized that I goat the forequarter out of the freezer instead of the hindquarter. (I think I marked the hindquarter off the freezer list too. A roasted forequarter, no sure how that's going to work.

So, we had Roasted Goat with Mountain Herbs and Potatoes (O&C, p395) for dinner. Turned out pretty darn good. The hindquarter would have had more and better meat on it, but the forequarter was fine. The meat was easy to shred after cooking. I was out of the room and didn't hear the timer, so it might have gone slightly over an hour. But it was good. Followed by a big salad (with feta, of course, to go with the Greek goat). Followed by a concert in Limoges.

Friday/15-Jan-16: Ed says he noticed Sophie being interested in the shelf where I keep the dried fruit. Thought I'd better give it a look. Pulled out the box with the dried fruit. Apparently woke up a cute little mouse (female?) who scooted down between shelves and disappeared behind the shopping boxes. I cleaned off that shelf good. Doesn't look like she got into the fruit, but seems to have explored the basket with spices, chiles, etc. All boxed up, but lots of poop. Ed might put some peanut butter on the bait for tonight. Sure would like to take it off far far away from my kitchen.

Cooked chicken for enchiladas, but didn't feel like eating or assembling them. Picked the goat bones (and froze them up, waiting for me to cook the other quarter). Made up a hash sort of thing with onion, garlic, potatoes, broccoli, and goat, sauced with some Tikka Massala from the fridge. Not bad. Peaches with a toefje whipped cream from a can (too sweet!) for dessert.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/16-Jan-16: Peg&Jim sent us some tortillas for xmas, so it was back to the Great West tonight for Enchiladas de Jocoque—Tortillas Filled with Chicken and Sour Cream (TLWest, p124). Served with Mama's Spanish rice and some guacamole. The enchiladas were okay, a bit bland, nothing special. No pimiento, so used some roasted yellow and red bell peppers from a jar. Used Greek olives, were probably the bland American black olives would have been better. One cup of stock and three cups of sour cream (crème fraîche, but I won't tell) made way too much sauce and it was too thin. I think it might have been better to reduce the stock to 1/2 cup (instead of 1 cup) and add to only two cups of sour cream. Then add only about 3/4 cup of this mixture to the chicken for stuffing.

Sunday/17-Jan-16: Scratched the falafel itch with some Crockpot Falalels (web). They weren't bad, although I'm not sure what the crockpot added. Better, I think, would be just to make them up, put them on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven. Served with lettuce and tomato and the falafel version of Tahini Dipping Sauce (WofE, p359). The crockpot recipe is rather similar to Jaffrey's recipe in WofE, spice-wise, except that Jaffrey starts with a cup of dried chickpeas that have been soaked for 24 hours, the chopped up in the food processor. Maybe I should try this next. There's also a hand-written not to bake "in oven for 20min@375F, loosen from pan & shake during baking." Might be healthier and easier than frying.

The kitchen mouse is still around. Last night she (I think it's a she) found the Figalous, a favorite of a previous mouse.

Progress on tiling continues. Much of the wall behind the sink is done; missing the bit in at the far right and the bits on the wall above the level of the window floor. And the trim. Steady progress.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG: no; #2 VEG/FISH: 4
This month: #3 PASTA: yes; #4 BREAD: no; #5 FotW: no for January/February

This week in the kitchen

Monday/11-May-15: The plumber came this morning to fix the water heater, which should solve the leaking/dripping problem and reduce our water usage, which went up in the last year.

Really didn't feel like making what I'd planned for tonight's dinner, or even cooking. So I made Mushroom Risotto from a "mix" that I won recently as part of gourmet basket. (Still have to add broth and stir stir stir, but no chopping.) That and a salad and the rest of the butterscotch pudding.

No ants in the kitchen today. Fingers crossed this plague is over. Instead we have bees getting into the hosue somewhere.

Tuesday/12-May-15: Dinner was Mormon Split-Pea Soup (TLWest, p19), about a 2/3 recipe with all the meatballs because that's all the split peas I had. A pretty good split pea soup. Mini magnums for after.

No ants or bees today.

Wednesday/13-May-15: Shopping today. Can't figure out why we're spending so much on food this year, but we're well on the way to setting a record.

Our main was Pepper-Grilled Swordfish with Preserve Lemon Oil and Wilted Chard (Raising, p43; cookbooker). First time I've used this book and my, my was this good! A sauce of (seeded) tomatoes, garlic, chili flakes, preserved lemon, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Served on a bed of chard, well, there was no chard this week, so I used spinach instead. As go-withs there were oven-fried sweet potatoes and haricots verts. The sweet potatoes were tossed with cornstarch before tossing with olive oil and some of the Moroccan spice mix Jody&Steve brought us. The potatoes were crisp when they first came from the oven, but soggy, as sweet potatoes tend to be, when we sat at table. The fish recipe said not to use the pulp of the preserved lemons, so I chopped that up and tossed with the green beans; that was a really nice touch. Altogether a very good dinner. For after we had some store-bought riz au lait, a new brand for us, very good.

Thursday/14-May-15: Yogurt on overday, with a new starter. Seems to have worked okay.

Wanted an easy dinner tonight, so I defrost what I thought was crayfish in a sauce. No sauce, but looked like they'd been frozen in a block of water. As suggested, I made a sauce of tomatoes (five of them, peeled, seeded, minced) and cream. Added some home-made cajun rub. Needed something. Added some oregano. Needed something. Added some piment d'Esplette. Turned out pretty good. Served the sauce over polenta, then we peeled the crawdads and added them on top. Not bad, if more work than expected. Then a simple salad, feta, watnuts, croutons. Then the last two riz au lait.

Friday/15-May-15: Ants are back, eating on the pears sitting in a basket on the kitchen counter. Sigh.

Finally did something from Japan. Dinner started with Toriwasa—Chicken and Parsley with Horseradish Sauce (TLJapan, p30). Pretty good it was, but lots of improvising required.   I thought I had a little bottle of sake stashed away. It's either very well-stashed or non-existent. After a bit of research, I used dry vermouth instead. Opened my tin of wasabi powder to find it covered in mold. Used some ancient horseradish powder instead. I should horizontally slice chicken breast into paper-thin slices? Uh, no. I did some fairly thin vertical slices, then made shreds, more or less. I wonder what kind of green would be used in Japan instead of flat-leaf parsley? Besides the chicken slicing, all was easy to do and the result pretty tasty. (That's a rice bowl, not a big as it looks.)

Our main was Asian-Style Frittata (MW@Home, p295). A bit of red pepper flakes didn't hurt. Some ice cream and strawberries for dessert.

Saturday/16-May-15: Went off to a fête du pain in the early afternoon, but could find no trace of it. Stopped at Intermarché to buy some bread, and some hanging baskets from the lady across the street.

Ha, went to cook dinner and discovered that the pork chops should have marinated a long while, maybe overnight, and that they would cook an hour. Pork chops? Quick replan brought us Pork Chops with Red Pepper Grits (MC, CL) which is fast and good. Have made it quite a few times now. As a side there was Karhai Broccoli (MJ@Home, p148), which I really ought to make more often. It's very easy and tasty and takes minimal attention for the last bit.

Sunday/17-May-15: Yogurt on overday. The new starter seems to have done the trick. Knock wood.

Lunch with friends today. Where I learnt that we're not the only ones having ant problems this year. Nothing further happened in the kitchen today.

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

This week in the kitchen

Monday/2-Mar-15: Cooked Jody's xmas lima beans today, intending to use some of them for dinner, but they weren't quite done when we were ready to eat, so I froze them up in small batches. Uncooked they were pretty, white with red markings. Cooking they look a lot like big flat red beans. Taste better than regular limas.

An easy dinner tonight. Soup from a tasty, if bitter, Ancho Bisque from the freezer, with a big can of corn added (a regular size, rather than the tiny ones that serve two), some merguez sausages in chunks, and a can of black beans, lacking limas. It wasn't bad. The corn helped with the bitterness.

Yogurt on overnight.

Tuesday/3-Mar-15: Dinner was a half recipe of Lemon Chicken (TLWest, p57). (I wonder how many recipes from how many different cuisines have this title?) Any recipe that uses Angostura bitters has to be worth a try, right? I used four thighs rather than cutting up a chicken. Didn't much like the sugar in the sauce and this meant I couldn't dump the extra bit into the freezer bag with bird bits for the next batch of stock. Served with more steamed gesneden snijbonen and brown rice. For dessert, we had some Angel's Dreams.

Wednesday/4-Mar-15: Shopping this afternoon, a bit late since Oscar had an emergency trip to the vet after a cat fight.

Dinner was more or less a half recipe of Polenta with Creamy Mushroom Sauce (web). Was pretty good, although we thought the tarragon was a bit strong. No polenta-in-a-tube here (that I know of, and I probably wouldn't buy it anyhow), so I made polenta ahead of time and let in cool in a dish in the fridge before baking it. This kind of thing would work with any tasty sauce, since polenta is good for that kind for thing. Then a salad. Then some store-bought vanilla yogurts, which were good. Actually I thought I was buying little rice puddings, but these were still good.

Thursday/5-Mar-15: Cleaning cookbook shelves again. Found enough cheese recipes and info clippings that it seems like a small notebook might be in order. Found two books to give away. A mere drop in the ocean. But found a group that I haven't used much that I might try in the next months, as candidates for giving away if I don't find them useful.

Dinner was Creamy Salmon with Lemon and Fresh Dill (web). Easy and pretty good, although the cooking time must be wrong. At a temp like 425F, fish will be done in about 10min per inch of thickness. In 35-40min it must be crisp all the way through! Served with brown rice and a little carrot salad. With a bit salad of rocket and mâche after. Then some squares of chocolate with hazelnuts.

Yogurt on overnight.

Friday/6-Mar-15: Dinner was Lime-Curry Orzo (FF&S, p136), a whole recipe to serve two instead of four. I misread the instructions and put the spices in together with the ginger, S&P, and lime juice, but it was still quite edible. A bit odd, the curry spices with black olives and feta, but it worked okay. Served with a salad as suggested. Some squares of chocolate with hazelnuts later.

Saturday/7-Mar-15: We misunderstood about going to a movie today, so instead of going to an early  movie and having dinner on our return, we went to a later movie and had our main meal early.

For our meal there were Balsamic Lamb Steaks loosely based on (30MinCook, p180), about as easy it as can get. As go-withs, I sautéed some boiled potatoes and made Creamy Broccoli and Carrot Slaw (web), which was pretty darn good. For dessert, we had some cookies in the car on the way to the movie.

Sunday/8-Mar-15: Dinner was a half dose of an Ottolenghi recipe, Gigli with Chickpeas and Za'atar (web; cookbooker). Pretty good, if a bit dry as chickpea-y things can be. For a side, there was a half recipe of Tomatoes, Preserved Lemons, and Sweet Red Peppers (Morocco, p86; cookbooker), which was remarkably good in spite of wimpy tomatoes and roast red peppers from a jar. Must try this again in the summer. (This book has a number of really good salad recipes.)

Didn't work on my recipe backlog this week, unless you count gathering binder clips and writing paper clips on the shopping list.

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

This week in the kitchen

Monday/23-Feb-15: Was cleaning a cookbook shelf today and discovered another batch of bread (unsorted) bread recipes. Sigh.

Tonight's dinner was Chickpea, Chorizo, & Spinach Soup (web). A whole recipe made our dinner, plus enough for lunch in the next days. More of a stew than a soup. Good. Used frozen spinach. We finished of the walnut cake from the mills for dessert.

Tuesday/24-Feb-15: This was supposed to be pasta night, but I just didn't have the oomph to do it. Instead, I used crozets de savoie (which were the inspiration for the dish) for a half recipe of Buckwheat and Brussels Sprouts Open Ravioli (Dusoulier2, p166). It wasn't bad, but not anything to do again. Roasting is still the best way to do Brussels sprouts. Made a salad but put it in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch. For dessert I made up a couple of Banana Mousses (green book; MC). I absentmindedly whizzed the yogurt with the banana, so they were a bit runny, but still tasty, flavored with vanilla and kirsch.

Getting really tired of feeling so bad. Sigh.

Wednesday/25-Feb-15: Added our lunch ham and feta to last night's salad to make our lunch.

Sorted through my newly discovered batch of unsorted bread recipes. Some really old stuff there, including a list of places selling Soezie products in NL. Also found a nice list of food-related books. Like I need more. Merged the recipes into my previously sorted stacks. Separated the biggest pile into no-knead bread (probably some duplicates here, but what a stack!), bread-bread, and flavored breads. Have trouble with pizza, flatbreads, foccacia, and ciabattas. One stack or four? It's the lumper/splitter debate. Next I have to merge these into my notebook, which needs a good tidying up anyhow, and add the most interesting to a page in my spreadsheet. Not that I really mind kneading dough, but some of the no-knead recipes are really inspiring to get going with, especially one that makes enough for three loaves, but you keep the dough in the fridge.

Dinner out tonight, at the Acoustic Club at Les Tilleuls.

Thursday/26-Feb-15: We planned to go shopping today, but in the end decided to go tomorrow since we'll be in La Roche anyhow for dental checkups. Replan.

Dinner was (sort of) a half recipe of Creamy Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts & Mushrooms (web). Having not much appreciated the sliced and sautéed sprouts on Tuesday, this time I roasted them, then halved them to add to the sautéed mushrooms. Used whole wheat spaghetti in lieu of making it myself. This wasn't bad at all. For dessert I made up some chocolate pudding using my mother's recipe. Topped with a bit of cream. Good stuff.

Friday/27-Feb-15: We ate lunch in La Roche today after dentist, before shopping. New place. Not bad. Fruit and carrots in the evening.

Too bad beans aren't whole grains.

Yogurt on overnight with a new starter.

Saturday/28-Feb-15: We ate lunch at 16.00, so dinner was really late. A halfish version of Broccolischotel met Koolvis (web). The fish was lieu noir (saithe?), which we like. Used cream cheese for the zuivelspread. Really easy to do, quite tasty, and easy to change up. As suggested, served with some boiled potatoes as a side dish. For dessert we finished off the chocolate pudding.

Sunday/1-Mar-15:  Dinner was a half recipe of Shrimp and Chilies with Sherry Sauce (TLWest, p43). Wasn't bad, but can't say it was a success. No sherry in house, so tried shaoxing wine. Couldn't get that to ignite properly. Tried white wine. Ditto. Ended up pouring that into the pan and cooking briefly to make a little sauce. Suspect the alcohol content of both these was too low. They would both ignite at the edge, but wouldn't flame as they ought. Too bad, the burnt taste might have been nice.

Served with steamed hand-gensneden snijbonen. (These are called haricot coco in French; not sure of the English name.) We shared a magnum classic for dessert, then went to a move.

Have done a preliminary sort through my stack of sweets recipes. Pondering a dilemma in how to sort. In the past, I've sort of vaguely had stacks for chocolate and for fruits and then the other stacks are cakes, pies&puddings, quick breads, muffins, etc. But where do you put a chocolate pudding? I think there are two things to sort by: flavor (chocolate, fruit, and "other" might be sufficient here) and form (cakes, pies&puddings, etc.). That means I need to have a second sorting within my big piles. I think I usually choose something because I'm wanting chocolate or fruit, so those might be the big piles. Back to the drawing board here.

Not doing all that well on goals, particularly unused cookbooks and grains.

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