So...whats for dinner?

ChiSandy

Bob & I are walking to a wine tasting with a buffet, so will report back

auntienance

Everyone's food is more exciting than mine: Cobb salad with bacon, avocado, hard boiled egg, blue cheese, etc., and a baguette half.

carolehalston

The scallops last night were especially good. The black drum was ok.

This afternoon I watched a number of UTube videos of chefs making crab cakes. Without exception they all start off with whisking an egg and adding mayo and mustard and assorted seasonings and herbs. Old Bay is a big favorite. Some used bread crumbs or cracker crumbs and some did not. My mixture ended up pretty wet so I did add 1/4 cup of wheat cracker crumbs.

I used a handful of chives and some Italian parsley from my herb garden. One egg, 4 T of Hellman's Light mayo, a tsp of Dijon mustard, dash of hot sauce, pinch of cayenne, 1/2 tsp salt, squeeze of fresh lemon and the cracker crumbs. Last ingredient to be added was the 1 lb. lump blue crab. The bowl of mixture is in the refrigerator. Not sure how many cakes I will make or whether I will use the remaining cracker crumb for breading the outside. I'll preheat the air fryer to 400 degrees and cook the crab cakes 4 min. on each side.

Not sure about a sauce. Have a couple of good bottled aioli's. I will probably just squeeze some fresh lemon juice but dh has never met a food that doesn't require a condiment.

Sides will be spinach salad and steamed asparagus.

Gorgeous day today. I played golf with three women golfing friends.

CeliaC

Carole - Probably too late now, but I make my version of a remoulade sauce to go with crab cakes. Mayo, ketchup, dill pickle relish, lemon juice, drops of Tabasco, all to taste - Whisk it up & refrigerate to let flavors meld together. We are having crab cakes tomorrow or Sunday. A month from now, will be in Charleston, SC area & cannot wait to have a week of yummy seafood.

ChiSandy

My remoulade: mayo (yeah, I cheat and use Hellmann's), Creole mustard, jarred grated white horseradish, cayenne, paprika and hot sauce to taste (I really like Panola, which was tough to find outside LA before the company went online).

Last night's buffet at the wine tasting was spinach/gorgonzola/cranberry/walnut salad, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, bruschetta, various cheeses & charcuterie, chorizo-stuffed potato skins, rigatoni with sausage & peppers, St. Louis "toasted" (actually fried) ravioli with marinara, lemon chicken breast, haricots verts and lemon curd petits fours.

Tonight was the Bar Show cast party & "Rookie Show" (a parody of the Bar Show--which is of course itself a parody--put on by cast members who've been in the show <3yrs.) at Maggiano's Little Italy downtown. The Rookie Show has become much, much edgier than when I was a rookie 16 yrs ago--and consequently, much funnier. The Bar Show's talent level has risen exponentially. When first conceived >90 yrs ago, it was all-men, few of whom could sing or dance, and held in the Hilton's ballroom as dinner theater for two weeks--open bar all evening, so the cast & band got loopier as the evening went on. (When I auditioned in 2002, you made at least the chorus if you could match pitches and carry a tune. Now you have to sight-read and have a voice capable of soloing--even if you are strictly in ensemble numbers. Half the current cast members were music, theater, or musical theater majors before law school--and some have professional experience, including opera, ballet and modern dance. And we're in a real theater, for four performances). Dinner was served family-style: Caesar & chopped salads, fried calamari, four-cheese ravioli Alfredo, mostaccioli & meatballs, chicken Parmigiana, grilled salmon with spinach, tiramisu & NY-style cheesecake with blueberry sauce. (About wine--I take the fifth...but at least I didn't drink a fifth).

carolehalston

The crab cakes were the best I've ever made and I was very pleased with cooking them in the air fryer versus sautéing in butter and oil. A remoulade sauce would have made dh happy. He didn't especially like either aioli.

Today he will be attending a woodworkers' guild barbecue. I am invited, too, but will pass. He is just as happy going solo and I don't have much in common with the wives. Plus (most important) do not want to eat heavy food. So tonight I'll do something with the leftover pork tenderloin, maybe warm it up in a lemony chicken broth sauce thickened with a little corn starch.

M0mmyof3

Chicken pot pie

MinusTwo

Going to see Leisure Seekers with Helen Miren & Donald Sutherland this afternoon. I hope my friend will decide that she does want to stop for Prime Rib French dip after the movie. Otherwise it will be left overs.

SpecialK

minus - ahhh, French Dip - one of my absolute faves. I have lately been making somewhat of a crockpot version with a roast and onion soup with additional beef broth. I use Cuban bread - cuz I'm in Tampa - I warm the bread in the oven and spread it with a mayo and horseradish combo first, then use the leftover and reduced soup as the au jus.

MinusTwo

Special - we didn't make it for French Dip today, but yours sounds delicious. I recently bought a mini-crock pot. My old Rival was way to big for one and it did not have a 'warm' setting. What type of roast do you use? I'm sure I'll have to cut one in half, but I'm going to try it. Do you use Campbellsl soup? Or Liptons? How far up the side does the liquid come?

The acting was wonderful in The Leisure Seeker and there were funny moments, but the subject was difficult to watch. Probably more difficult than Still Alice. But there was so much love between these old people at the end of the road.

SpecialK

minus - I use a rump roast, but you could also use a chuck roast or any long cooking type. Every time I read or write rump roast I laugh, I'm very juvenile, lol! I use canned French onion soup and either beef consommé or stock. The recipe calls for a 3-4 lb roast, 2 10.5oz cans of French onion soup and 1 can (same size) of consommé. You can cook it on low for 8 hrs or half that time on high. Depending on how you like the au jus you can use it the way it is from the crock pot, or remove some and reduce it on the stove. If you cooked the roast on low, you could also remove it, turn the crock pot to high and leave the lid off and I think it would reduc to some degree. The yield is 8 servings, so half that much maybe 4

eric95us

When I hear rump roast, I remember getting into a VW Bug with black plastic seats....It was early afternoon in June in the California desert and.I had been at swim practice. I forgot to put the towel down on the seat before I sat down.

MinusTwo

Thanks Special.

Eric - LOL. I just finished reading an article in the National Parks magazine about baking cookies on the dashboard of the ranger's car in Death Valley.

ChiSandy

Went out for tapas & paella tonight, brought home leftovers. The older we get, the faster we fill up (but the cheaper the tab).

ChiSandy

If we don't get the predicted yucky precip this evening, we'll walk to Mango Pickle for Indian-Italian fusion; otherwise we'll go to Fireside for so-so comfort food (we have a $40 gift card for it). Bob went to Mas Alla Del Sol for carne asada & huevos rancheros (couldn't even get in the door at Cellars for brunch), and I made use of last night's tapas leftovers: garlic sausage, cabrito al horno (goat cheese in tomato sauce) on garlic toast; and an olive-oli fried egg. (Had a voice lesson at 2 so I couldn't go out for brunch).

Mango Pickle is Michelin Bib Gourmand-recommended, and this month Chicago Magazine named it the city's best new restaurant.

M0mmyof3

Leftover Chicken Pot Pie

Magari

Last night I made Fortnum & Mason's Welsh Rarebit on Acre levain bread, which was delicious. Who doesn't love fancy grilled cheese?

Tonight will be pasta with sweet Italian sausage, goat cheese and first of the season asparagus from the farmer's market.

ChiSandy

Had a nice Grenache-Syrah at Mango Pickle last night, along with house-made ginger/lime soda that was sort of like a spicy virgin Margarita. We had lentil beignets, a giant samosa to share, clay pot chicken with root veggies, palak paneer (housemade paneer cheese, light as air), crispy turmeric basmati rice and naan. Dessert was a coconut milk rice pudding made with cashews, jackfruit, sweet spices and jaggery (palm sugar). Ate Sat. night's leftover seafood paella from Cafe Ba Ba Ree Ba tonight, fleshed out with leftover sardines and some more chopped peppers (red, poblano). I cooked it over med-high heat to dry out the bottom and form that crunchy soccarat it didn't have Sat. night.

Lacey12

This past weekend I caught up reading here, started to post, and then woosh, my volunteer life interrupted, once again. So today I am parked at the car dealership with DH while both of our cars get serviced, and I remembered to bring my iPad so I could fulfill my overdue intention...and brought the notes I’d made so I could remember/comment on the last few pages.

First, thanks Carole for the eggplant/airfryer feedback. And your crabcakes sound wonderful! I love crabcakes, but always have to check in restaurants if they have celery (my annoying allergy) in them, and some do, sadly, forcing me to move on to my next favorite seafood choice. Also, Carole, whenever I have a bit of leftover pork or chicken, I find it easy to make a veggie toss (with, say, some teriyaki sauce) and add that meat in slivers at the end of cooking process.

Minus and Joyce, I saw the trailer for Leisure Seekers and just couldn’t quite bring myself to see it, despite my admiration for those actors. I could probably see it with a group who would have a discussion of the aging process afterwards, but as “entertainment” it isn’t something I would seek out right now. Aside from the issues related to aging, I am not even a leisure seeker, so probably won’t see it at all.

Eric, got a kick out of your bow tying “motor memory” success. I always remember hearing about that phenomenon from my sons’ piano teacher who seemed to know when the kids were playing their pieces if their fingers were doing all the work from their “motor memory” or if they were thinking about the piece. I liked your cauliflower pasta recipe!

I had never heard of Sees candies until my step-mother started sending us lollipops and now chocolates at Christmas. I bring the lollipops to my grands whenever we visit since they come in a huge box which we would never finish.

Given our home menues this week, DH and I should be clucking! We have been having many varieties of chicken, cooked in large portions so that we have leftovers for one or two nights! Good thing that DH doesn’t mind “jump ups” (did we ever learn the origin of that term?) to which I always add a fresh salad and a cooked vegetable. So, basically we have been eating chicken marsala with vermicelli, a chicken, tomato, onion and artichoke concoction with farro, all week......and a chicken teriyaki stir fry one night. We are now out of leftovers, DH has a conference dinner tonight, so I will have a creative Minus meal (my fave thing to do) and we have a Celtics’ game tomorrow night, so it will be salmon over veggies then for me at The Harp. I had a survey from TD Garden this week which included a question about food options in the arena. Once again, I registered my concern about the unhealthful food options there, and would love for that to change. Do all sports fans want to eat fried or greasy meat foods?? What decent foods are offered in other parts of the country at your sports venues?

Joyce, don’t rush back! Your DH is still right. We seem to be having a very delayed winter with just an occasional warmish sunny day. Snow showers abound! The only upside is that I don't yet have to squeeze into spring/summer clothes!

Well, my car is ready and my giant post done, so mission accomplished.

MinusTwo

Lacey - I agree with you decision to pass on the movie. Maybe did the term "jump ups" come from Debbie in Oregon? I know it was a LONG time ago - before Michelle died. If you ever "talk" to Susan, will you ask if you can post an update for us?

Bought a rump roast today to make Special's French dips. Stupid store did not carry any cans of French Onion soup by any manufacturer - so I bought Lipton's dry. If I find a can elsewhere before I start, I have other uses for the Lipton's.

I've been eating fruit salad all week and today I made deviled eggs. Tonight will be a raw veggie relish platter. Canteloupe was $0.98 so that's in the future.

auntienance

Didn't "jump ups" come from Luvmygoats?

Lacey12

Hmmmm.....maybe, Nance. It would be great if we could have a google style thread in which we could enter ‘jump ups’ and the page where it was entered would pop up. 😉


Have to share my purchase coup for today....


DH and I have want to give DS2 and DDIL a really nice 1st Anniversary gift, (cannot believe that their wedding was almost a year ago!)and since they haven’t broken the bank yet to buy a Vita Mix, we decided to look into that. They are so ridiculously expensive, but I remembered that a few years ago, I was able to buy a low end model for the NH lake house at a BB and Beyond with a coupon....so no NH sales tax and 20% off, and it worked out to be almost the price of another brand’s highest end model. So, I thought I’d go online to buy the low end model with my trusty coupon (of which I have many!). Lo and behold, Vita Mix no longer allows those B, B, and B coupons! Darn! So on our way home from car repairs today, we stopped at Best Buy to check their VM models and prices. They had the low end model for the same price we saw on Amazon, and I was obsessing over spending so much, while DH was obsessing over the size of each model’s motor.
I just hated to pay full price for it, and asked an associate there if they ever have coupons (I did not have one, and rarely shop there)and, if so, does VM accept them. Well, she gets on her computer and returns to say that VM does accept coupons and she will give me the coupon price, which was 20% off. So basically we ended up saving $74! And that is what I could make peace with for buying this magic machine! Who knew that just asking would result in a nice savings! I sure hope they enjoy it! I know that DS2 makes his bride smoothies each morning, so this blender will liquify all that kale nicely.

Speaking of the blender, I rarely use mine for much at dinner time these days, (laziness and less for DH to clean up) but made a really nice fresh raspberry vinaigrette in it this past week....when I was trying to add variety to our all chicken all the time dinners. It was really delish (!) on a salad of varied greens, apple, cranberries and walnuts.

illimae

Lacey, I love a challenge. I used the search feature and entered “jump up dinner” in the keyword box. It wasn’t too long before I found this.

Our dinner was spaghetti squash with leftover sauce, steam broccoli and cauliflower and a side salad.

SpecialK

illimae - before I got to your post I did the same search, lol! Great minds... we should form a detective agency.

lacey - I had a similar ask and ye shall receive experience today at the Nike outlet store - I had a $5 coupon from my Verizon wireless phone account but their cell service in the store was not good, so I made sure I could pull it up on my phone while I was in the back trying on shoes, but by the time I got to the front I couldn't get it to load again - I explained and the lovely person at the register just gave me $5 off on my already ridiculously cheap new sneaks! Score for you and me today! P.S. - totally jealous of the VM gift!

Dinner tonight was chicken pot pie with puff pastry crust and a glass of Shine reisling at one of our local restaurants - I also had lunch out with DH's former admin - a delish salad with chicken and julienned apples and orange segments over field greens, who retired after 24 years in the Army. So I cooked NOTHING all day - it was excellent! Also, appears to be a totally chicken day - I'm looking at you lacey...

Lacey12

Well, thank you, Illimae!!! Tech challenges are not my thing, so I really appreciate your taking it on. This brings me down Dinner Thread Memory Lane, when we were carrying on about terms for leftovers. My mtoher learned to call then “for darn sures”from a Southern friend of hers. I’d totally forgotten this passage, but it was worth rereading. Haha! And now we know what “jump ups” are.....

eric95us

Tonight I made a chicken-ginger-garlic vegetable stir fry. Lots of onion, bok choy, ginger, carrots, celery and so on, with just with a little bit of chicken and brown rice.. It came from a "heart healthy" recipe magazine

The only thing with the recipe is that it claims to feed 4-6. The vegetables barely fit into a 15 inch skillet and then there is the rice and chicken. So, maybe they're assuming it's 4-6 high school kids in the middle of swim practice....certainly it's not 4-6 "regular adults". :

I'm getting over a "man cold"...There were a couple of days I didn't feel like doing much, but did anyway. :-) My energy is coming back.

Lacey12

Thanks, Special, too! I should not be such a lazy searcher!

And hooray for your coupon coup, too! Such victories we possess!

ChiSandy

Got a mani-pedi coming up Thurs. so I cracked open a bag of frozen Buffalo wings and had three. Still hungry, so made a single portion (measured out on the lid of the Fasta Pasta) of spaghetti with Rao's marinara, chopped basil, and freshly grated pecorino Romano. Have some potted herb plants on the windowsill: basil, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, parsley & oregano. The basil is finicky--getting some leaf-drop; the cilantro is probably a lost cause--never had any luck growing it. And getting little no-see-ums in the house; we've had fruit flies all winter thanks to fresh produce.

SpecialK

lacey - it's the little things, right? For me shopping is half about the hunt for the thing and half about the bargain - funny, when DD was little she called the coupons "poucons", which of course, has stuck! So yay for your poucon score!

Egads007

SpecialK, Poucons is too cute! My son couldn’t say ‘armpits’ and pronounced it ‘armpints’..we still call them by that name