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/30-Jul-18: Dinner was a half recipe of Creamy Prawn Curry (200Budget, p188). This was good, easy, and fast. Might have had too much shrimp, though. A half recipe calls for 300g cooked shrimp. I usually use half of this for the two of us, so we had a lot of shrimp. I made, more or less, the Spiced Coconut Rice that was a suggested accompaniment. I didn't have chopped creamed coconut; I just used the rest of the pack of coconut milk that I used for the curry, topped up with water. Then I made (sort of) Southeast Asia Broccoli from FoodNetwork. They won't show recipes from the .com site in Europe now, so I had to look at a cached version. This was good, but a bit salty from the fish sauce. It was good mixed with the curry and rice. For dessert, we finished the tapioca pudding.

Tuesday/31-Jul-18: I had the idea to sneak in some home-made pasta today. Cleaned off the counter and got out the recipe I intended to use, only to discover that I'd forgotten that it wanted a serious amount of parlsey and I didn't buy any last week. Easily discouraged, I used frozen tagliatelle to make a half recipe of Tagliatelle con Salsa di Noci—Tagliatelle with Walnuts and Marscapone (Top100Pasta, p12). Having no mascarpone in the fridge or freezer, I used cream cheese, which was the suggested alternative. This was quite good although it would have liked a little bit of the pasta water to loosen the sauce up a bit. Before the main, we each had an artichoke bottom with green tapenade and half a crottin de Chavignol, with the cheese melted under the grill. Following the pasta, there was a big salad of roquette/arugula. Then we each had a Rustic Cherry Tart (web), more or less. I had frozen cherries that needed to be used, as well as some squares of pâte feuilletée, which I used instead of making pastry myself. Pretty good this was. Ed has his with cream.

I didn't get the list made today, so it looks like we'll shop on Thursday instead of tomorrow. Start of new month means new cookbook-of-the-month, which takes some research that I hadn't done in preparation. Oh well.

Yogurt on overnight.

Wednesday/1-Aug-18: Finished the list today, whew.

Oops, didn't remember that the lentils for tonight's dinner needed to be soaked for 3-4 hours. So I precooked those a bit to make a quarter recipe of Palestinian Rice with Lentils and Browned Onions (WorldVeg, p404). Served with a half recipe of Pumpkin or Hubbard Squash Cooked with Bengali Seasonings (WorldVeg, p289). Used a good chunk of our first winter squash from the potager. (These were supposed to be acorn squash but clearly aren't. Picked two more this evening. Tomorrow we'll pick the first of the other sort of winter squash we have. Both these are burying the zucchini.) Unfortunately my mustard oil was a bit rancid so the dish had an unpleasant taste. Served with Sliced Tomatoes in a Tomato Sauce (WorldVeg, p303). This was good, but I overlooked the instruction about cutting the tomatoes into only three slices. It would have been better that way I expect. Little ice creams for dessert.

Thursday/2-Aug-18: Shopping today.

Our meal was Seared Salmon with Pesto Fettuccine for Two (web). This was possible because I found some refrigerated pesto, which turned out to be pretty good, at Grand Frais on my last visit. I'll freeze the rest of this up in small portions tomorrow. Couldn't find whole wheat fettuccine, so I used whole wheat spaghetti already in house. Ed barbecued the salmon, along with slices from the rest of yesterday's squash. This was pretty bland really, but worked ok. He thought thicker slices worked better than thin. For starters we had artichoke bottom with green tapenade and goat cheese, grilled. For dessert there was store-bought riz au lait with red currants.

Friday/3-Aug-18: Dinner was a halfish recipe of Le Filet de Poulet à la Crème Fraîche Chavroux. (This is from a new Chavroux product; I've not found an online source for the recipe.) First oddness, the recipe calls for filets de poulets, which are generally kip filets or skinless, boneless chicken breast halfs; but the photo shows what looks like a skin-on kip filet, with a bit of wing bone sticking out. Never seen a chicken breast like that for sale. I used kip filets. They are cooked in a 180C oven 10min on one side, 2min on the second; this worked fine, to my surprise. The sauce wanted 1.5 soupspoonsful of the crème fraîche. That wasn't nearly enough to deal with 150g of sliced mushrooms (mine were shiitakes). I topped it up as needed. Made some sautéed potatoes with the rest of the potatoes on hand. Reheated the peas and corn. Mini ice cream bars for dessert. We're full.

An interesting thing about the chicken dish is that the kip filets were cooked in the oven, 375F, 10min on the first side, 2min on the second. The kip filets were fairly flat, and fit into the largest dish that will fit in my little, old toaster oven. Interesting, rather low-fat, way to cook them.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/4-Aug-18: Using up one zucchini and a roasted beet, our starter was (more or less), Zucchini Beet Salad (web). I made a halfish recipe, one beet and one zuke (cut on mandolin rather than spiralized). This was good, but the half recipe was really too much as a starter for the two of us, and not quite enough for a main. Odd portions, but yummy.

Our main was Grilled Pork Skewers with Green Mango (Thrill, p158). The recipe serves four supposedly. A half recipe would have served three, but we managed to eat it all. Very tasty. Served with All-Purpose Rice and Beans (BigFlav, p262). Even though I used borlotti beans (have no canned black beans in the stash), this was still yummy. Stuffed we were. We drank a bottle of Brin (a Fronton, 100% negrette), which I liked better than Ed. Just wanting the taste, I finished with two tiny slices of Chaource which was on sale last week.

Sunday/5-Aug-18: The menu planner  needs a good talking to. A stir-fried Chinese meal on a super-hot day probably wasn't the best choice. But it used up some of the pineapple juice malingering in the fridge. And it was super-delicious.

We had World's Greatest Lemon Chicken (Chinatown, p73; cookbooker). I been told this truly was the best lemon chicken, and I think that was right. Really tasty. Served with plain rice and Hot and Spicy Wrinkled Beans (Chinatown, p106). I've made the green beans a number of times. It was still good.

Made some Butterscotch Tapioca Pudding (MC) in the morning. This one was only the French tapioca. Worked fine. Yay!

Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG: no for Jul, no for Aug; #2 VEG/FISH: 4; #3 COOKBOOK: yes
Cookbooks of the month: Big Flavors of the Hot Sun, Thrill of the Grill, License to Grill
This month: #4 PASTA: yes for Jul, no for Aug; #5 BREAD: no for Jul, no for Aug; #6 GUESTS: yes for Jul, no for Aug

This week in the kitchen

Monday/30-Jun-14: Had an urge for Penne all Arrabbiata, so that's what we had tonight. Made some very vaguely following the recipe in Top100Pasta, p38. My tomato sauce was made with one real tomato, seeded, and 1 cup last year's of tomato purée from the freezer. Good stuff. Then a big salad. Then double chocolate mini magnums. Then a long dog walk.

Tuesday/1-Jul-14: Had an ENT appointment today and did a bit of shopping at a health-food store near the hospital. Impulse-bought a packet of stuff for making pain au levain, a kind of sourdough bread. I thought it was the whole packet for a loaf, but on closer reading you use 25g of the 240g packet for one loaf. They give bread machine instructions too. Then we did our regular shopping.

Discovered that a cow has been in the South Forty and managed to break the top half off of Martha (a sweetgum). it was held together by a small strip of bark, so Ed wrapped it all together and put in a big stake to hold the top up.

It was Time-Life Scandinavian for dinner this evening. For dessert we finished off a box of chocolate roses.

Wednesday/2-Jul-14: Tonight I made a starter for IHCC. The main was (sort of) a half recipe or Orecchioni with Piquant Sauce (PastaCarlu, p28; cookbooker), an easy kind of a pasta sauce. I used pennoni, rather than orecchioni, which I've never seen; the picture in the book looks more like big shells. Then we had a small salad with the rest of the latest lettuce picked from the salad garden.

Martha looking surprisingly good. Some wilted bits, but large parts of the top look okay. This break is really a shame, since she was looking really well this year. Mama (pink dogwood) doesn't look too well at all, for no reason to be seen. Papa (pecan) is recovering well from last year's trauma. We wonder if there was a cow last year that caused that damage, but I think they were already tucked away for the winter.

Before I started dinner I made the shortcake from Berry Banana Shortcake (MC). We had a wedge of this with blueberries from our garden and vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Thursday/3-Jul-14: Yogurt on overday. Made a loaf of the pain au levain in the bread machine. Nice texture and tasty. It will be nice baked regularly, so that it gets a proper crust.

Oops I forgot to note that tonight's planned dinner needed some attention early in the day. Quick replan. Dinner was Tuna and White Bean Salad (MC), a recipe from Cooking Light, muchly redone. Broccoli instead of asparagus. Forgot the tomatoes. More oatmeal shortcake with blueberries and ice cream for after.

Friday/4-Jul-14: I was off all day at a stained glass workshop. Ate out for dinner.

Saturday/5-Jul-14: Made another batch of the pain au levain in the bread machine, this time half whit and half whole wheat. Oh dear, that was more-ish. And unneeded, since Ed brought home a bread yesterday after choir on Thursday and I didn't notice.

Dinner was Nigel Slater's Pepper, Tomato, and Basil Pasta (web). I didn't have the kind of pepper he wanted, so I used two bell peppers instead. It was really good. You roast the veggies, then take them out of the pan and toss the cooked pasta in the roasting pan and tasty oil. Ed is sicky, so didn't eat dinner and didn't tell me till I was almost ready to serve. I put his part in the fridge and we'll see if it doesn't make a good pasta salad sort of thing.

Sunday/6-Jul-14: This morning at breakfast Ed noticed that the concert I thought started at 17.00 (as originally advertised) now starts at 19.00. I'd planned a crockpot meal to be ready and waiting after the concert, but there wasn't enough time for it to cook to eat two hours earlier. Major replan, using the defrosted meat.

Instead, we had Ravi's Kerala-Style 'Bhuna' Lamb, Pork, Beef, or Veal (Kerala ka Bhuna Gosht) (100Curries, p112). Pretty easy to make, but lots of prep work. Once that's done it sits on a low fire for a long time largely unattended, except for an occasional stir. Good stuff. As go-withs there were plain basmati rice and Spiced Green Beans (IndLight, p174), an alternative to my usual Indian green bean side. For afters there was No-Cook Indian Ice Cream (Kulfi) (MC), which is a snap to make and pretty darn tasty.

Yogurt on overnight.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 COOKBOOKS: yes; #2 VEG/FISH: 5
This month: #3 PASTA: yes for June, no for July; #4 FotW: yes for SCA, no for CRE; #5 BREAD: 0 for June, 0 for July

This week in the kitchen

Monday/25-Nov-13: Dinner was Penne with Wild Mushrooms, Asparagus, and Pancetta (EAT-L), sort of. Used mushroom-flavored, chanterelle-shaped pasta. Used a sliced dried ham from the freezer instead of pancetta (not as fat). In the end it seemed dry, so I stirred in some pyramid goat cheese rather than add more oil. Good enough it was. Then a salad.

Tuesday/26-Nov-13: We were sitting around this afternoon quietly doing our things. Snap! Caught a little mouse behind the stove. Think it might be a juvenile, it was so small. Ed let it go down the broken brick road, quite a way from the house.

Dinner was Grilled Chicken Pasta with Chipotle Cream (web), sort of. Served over mashed potatoes instead of pasta, although, in retrospect, polenta would be better. Made more or less a whole recipe, which should serve 4-6, and we ate it all. Although Ed had trouble finishing his double portion. Used all the chipotles, unseeded, and it was nice and hot. Making a half recipe for two, over polenta would probably be fine. Roasted the last of the asparagus and some broccoli for a side. Split a Magnum classic for dessert.

Life without the internet is pretty weird, You don't realize how often you go to look up something up. And read mail. And check the weather and the news and ...

Wednesday/27-Nov-13: Yogurt on overday. Shopping today.

Ed asked for salmon, so that's what he got. I made a winter menu, "A Fresh Way with Salmon," from RushHour, p207, and posted it for Cook Your Books. If I don't feel like baking a pumpkin pie tomorrow, we'll have more of the clafoutis for our Thanksgiving dessert.

Thursday/28-Nov-13: Made two batches of Tart Dough (Tenth, p256). The first batch went for pumpkin pie, right from the Libby's label. The second went into the freezer.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was Indian-themed, since that the only turkey what was in the freezer. Pretty good it was.

Friday/29-Nov-13: For breakfast, we had some clafoutis, egg, milk, and fruit, can't be bad, right?

Pasta for dinner, yay! The sauce was a half dose of Pasta con Verdura (Top100Pasta, p64) made with tagliatelle cut from Whole Wheat Pasta (Fancy, p77). I made half of a dish that should serve four, but we will get three servings from it. Or, more likely, a side dish for two. Didn't follow Kennedy's instructions for making the pasta, but did it the way I usually do now, mixing by hand. Cut it at 5, which made a tasty, chewy pasta. Thought I'd make a salad, too, but there was more than enough food without it. And we finished off the very yummy pumpkin pie from yesterday.

Saturday/30-Nov-13: Went to a movie tonight. In the afternoon, we had leftover enchiladas and rice, followed by a salad.

Sunday/1-Dec-13: Yogurt on overday.

Meat night tonight, working on clearing out the freezer. Did, more or less, a menu from MJFamily: The Best Roast Pork, Ecuardor-Style (p127), Garlicky Cranberry Chutney (p127), Asparagus and Green Beans with Sesame Seeds (p128), and Rice and Potato Casserole (p128). The pork was yummy and really easy to do; definitely a keeper. For the chutney, I embroidered on the remains of last year's Thanksgiving cranberry sauce, yes, it's been hanging around the fridge all that long. Not bad, either. For the veg, I used frozen asparagus, which are pretty blah and needing to be used up, along with frozen yellow haricots verts (that makes no sense, does it?) from our neighbor's bounty. This dish was OK, but not wonderful. The rice and potato dish was OK. For afters we each had a mini Magnum.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 IHCC/COOKBOOKS: yes (once posted, plus others), #2 VEG/FISH: 2
This month: #3 PASTA: yes for November; no for December, #4 BREAD: no for November and December

This week in the kitchen

Monday/5-Sep-11: Off at a quiz tonight. Nothing much happening in the kitchen. Did make a start on washing the new dishes.

Tuesday/6-Sep-11: Yogurt on overday.

It was unplanned, but today turned into a kitchen day. Started quince jelly, using the quince I bought at a vide grenier on Sunday. Baked a Pear Bundt Cake (MC) using pears that Ed brought home from choir practice last week. Now I've got some oldish plums plus a big pile of raspberries that Barbara sent this afternoon that need to be dealt with.

Washed more of the new dishes and realized that Ed has a counting problem. There are 23 each of the salad and soup plates. Washing on a "space available" basis, it may take quite a while to get them all done.

Dinner was Amy's Grilled Chicken Breasts (MC), which was good. Accompanied by grilled potato slices, parboiled first, then coated with a half and half mixture of mayo and dijon mustard; quite good, although I cooked them a bit too long before the grilling. And for our daily zucchini, there was Courgette, Lemon, & Ricotta Salad (Jamie mag, soon to be MC). Very easy and quite good, this was. Followed by pear cake, of course.

Wednesday/7-Sep-11: Shopped today, after another trip to Emmaus. Got some sorrel, have to adjust the menu plan. Didn't finish the quince jelly or make apple-plum butter or deal with the raspberries today.

For a starter, we had Jamie's leftover salad. It held up remarkably well, making me think it might be happier marinating longer than the 10 minutes suggested. Then we had a half dose of Noodles with a Carrot Cream Sauce (KnowHow, p245, cookbooker), which was interesting. Then a plain-ish salad. Didn't feel like dessert and it was too late anyhow.

Thursday/8-Sep-11: Finished off the quince jelly this morning, two small pots. It should have had lots of pectin, but didn't seem to want to set. I added a bit of sugar with pectin to help. It took ages to get up to the right temp (maybe the first time I've used that thermometer), but it finally did. Hope it will be set when it cools.

Also made a double dose of apple-plum butter, using some of the cheap, but tasty, fall apples from the store and some plums that need using (they were tasty enough, but dry and unpleasant in the mouth). That turned into a single dose actually, what with the small apples and boiling it a bit too long.

Used Barbara's raspberries to make up the "broth" for raspberry sherbet. Surprise—there were some strawberries in the bottom of the box. I took care of those all by myself.

Dinner was Creamy Zucchini and Dolcelatte Soup (SoupBible, p53). It was good. Might be good with broccoli too.

Friday/9-Sep-11: Yogurt on overday. Didn't get the sherbet made. Tomorrow.

Dinner was a repeat from last year's sorrel season, Risotto con Gamberi e Acetosa (Wild Sorrel and Prawn Risotto (WildCarluccio, p20). Yum. And a salad with half a big tomato, deseeded, from the garden. Bonne Mamam baba au rhums for dessert. (On sale at the grocery.)

Saturday/10-Sep-11: Another walk with meal this evening. Pretty quiet in the kitchen all day.

Sunday/11-Sep-11: Froze up the Raspberry Sherbet (Scoop, p132) this morning. Filled a liter freezer bakje quite full.

Picked 1.5 kilos of assorted cherry tomatoes today. And more than 3 kilos of beefsteak tomatoes. The biggest beefsteak baby was 675 grams.

Dinner was Penne or Rigatoni con Zucchine (Top100Pasta, p44), using the zucchini I collected today. It was good, but the mozzarella didn't melt as it ought to have, so the sauce was a bit stringy. Tasty though.

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