So...whats for dinner?

Beaverntx

For last night's anniversary dinner we went to one of the better local Tex-Mex restaurants. DH had chicken enchiladas with a yummy mole' sauce and I had mahi mahi tacos with the standard fish taco fixin's plus Chipotle ranch on the side -- and a little bit of that was plenty. We took advantage of the "extra hour" to get a good night's sleep.

SpecialK

auntie - mousekeeping...Lol!

lacey/beaver - happy anniversaries!

moon - thanks - the extraction will happen early Tues morning - I need to go vote while I am still numb, lol! Having pasta tonight with spicy sausage and will have a steak tomorrow night! I met up with an old friend on Friday in Orlando - we have been friends since middle school and she was there to visit her in-laws - she has had numerous extractions and implants over the last year due to bone re-sorption. She has had many dental issues dating back to a broken jaw from a roller skating accident in elementary school. She had the implants placed for the majority of her teeth in September and is still on soft food. Hoping since this is just one tooth that my experience will be somewhat more accelerated. I also have the option of chewing on the other side which she does not due to the number of implants she needed.

MinusTwo

I bought a bag of 6 avocados. Working hard to use them all. I've been trying to replicate a recipe that a friend of my Mother's made when they played bridge (60 years ago) (truly - mid 1950s). Mother's written notes that say "Blanche T" aren't detailed enough, but most of the recipes on the web have whipped cream & are sweet. I prefer savory & my memory said not sweet. I came up with something delicious. Lime jello w/1 cup boiling water & 1/2 c pineapple juice -whipped with 4T mayo after chilling, then add 2 avocados diced w/dash of lemon, cashew nuts, tiny diced celery and a small can of well drained crushed pineapple & chill until set. YUM

Also I'm back to experimenting with green Lentils. I made a good batch yesterday with diced carrots, celery, garlic & onions. It had to be pretty plain to take to my shut-in neighbor. Today I'll be adding sauteed mushrooms to my serving. And maybe roasted cauliflower. Wish I had some spinach to add. Tomorrow I'll be adding beets & red cabbage and serving cold over salad greens with blue cheese dressing.

I'd love to hear about any good lentil recipes any of you may like

ChiSandy

Mazel tov on the anniversaries, Lacey & beaver!

We went out to GT Fish & Oyster for Gordy's birthday. Shared oysters (3 ea. BC Fanny Bays, WA Hangtowns, and PEIs--forget the name). Then a smoked fish platter, seared ahi tuna salad, and lobster mac & cheese to share. Entree was a lobster roll, CT-style (warm with drawn butter rather than ME-style which is cold with mayo) with pickled veggies and fried onions. Too stuffed for dessert--took half my food home. (Plus the mac & cheese & Leslie's fries because they didn't have room in their fridges).

This a.m. I had coffee, quiche & salad (half-portions) but now I seem to have had my cold reach my innards. (Having colonoscopy-prep flashbacks). So if I eat anything else today it'll be water, tea and maybe matzo (the only bread I have on hand to toast is wholegrain or rye).

auntienance

Happy anniversaries indeed!

I'm envying all your fish meals! I'm indulging DH and fixing mini meatloaves with sous vide carrots and for the first time, sous vide mashed potatoes. If the potatoes go well, I'll use that technique for after thanksgiving dinner.

I had opted out of doing the traditional after thanksgiving dinner - just too much trouble - but when I told the kids they whined and begged. DDIL volunteered to shoulder some of the burden so I relented. (I kept thinking this might be the last one if we are somewhere else next year.) But it will be a scaled down version. Scaling back does not come easy to me where food events are concerned. My motto seems to be "Excess is never enough." In fact, it's a family joke. We'll see how it goes.

MinusTwo

Oh our family habits. I think I've finally convinced my BFF that it's OK not to cook a huge holiday meal just for one other person if the kids & grandkids aren't coming. Whenever I flew across country to see my parents, my Mother would greet us as the door with "what do you want to eat... I've got your favorite... you'll love....and just taste these...". And that was only to tide us over to the main meal, which was never far away. In the olden days, we would have eaten on the plane, but in any case none of us was ever hungry. We just wanted to recoup from a 3-6 hour travel ordeal.

Certainly my mother's generation was raised that food is love - and I guess mostly my generation too. And maybe that's partly at the root of this thread. We cook because we like to cook but the meals are a gift to the ones we love.

Actually Nance the meatloaf sounds delicious. Maybe I'll make that when my son comes for my sister-in-law's memorial service next weekend. They are vegetarian at home so he might enjoy an old fashioned meatloaf. I'm definitely going to use the Frontera red sauce to make him some enchiladas.

Special - hope all goes well Tuesday. Sorry not to answer the rest of the posts individually. I've been really down about the death of my sister-in-law so only running on 1/2 speed.

auntienance

Minus - they don't call it comfort food for nothing. (((Minus)))

ChiSandy

We're going to take the path of least resistance and host a T-day restaurant dinner--unless one of our friends beats us to the punch.

A milestone this weekend: Gordy cooked (not nuked, not reheated) dinner for him and his girfriend at his place, for the first time. Salad, and linguine with pesto.

GreenHarbor

Hi everyone! I’m new to this thread. I thought I’d chime in since I like talking about food almost as much as eating it. I made a frittata for supper. It’s one of my favorite ways to use up bits and pieces in the fridge. This one had Canadian bacon, onion, mushrooms, yellow bell pepper and cheddar cheese. I had a green salad with it,and my husband had broccoli.

Beaverntx

Dinner tonight was stove top grilled chicken breast lightly seasoned with a hot pepper blacking mix( emphasis on the lightly!), brown basmati rice, oven roasted broccoli and a salad of mixed greens with tomatoes dressed with a "green" olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.

It is looking like we will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner here. Two granddaughters, who are in college in the US but whose parents work overseas will be coming for their break. One of them really likes to bake so she'll likely take care of that part.

Lacey12

Thanks for the anniversary wishes everyone! We had a lovely night. Had dinner at Tartufo in a neighboring town, where I had a delicious scallop and shrimp risotto which had a red sauce in the risotto with small pieces of lobster and thin-sliced cremini mushrooms. I also had a house salad which was a disappointment, given its tell tale limp, unwashed, bagged greens. I am intolerant of lazy salad serving in restaurants!

After dinner we attended a wonderful concert performed by Heather Headley, a Trinidadian/American singer with whom I was not familiar. The audience was the most diverse I’ve ever seen in a Boston theatre, and her theme was songs that resonated with feelings of hope and love...feeling that we all need it now. I was especially impacted by seeing the young adolescent boys sitting next to me being moved to tears with some of her songs. The kids were brought to the concert by mentors from their summer camp. I LOVE this model for at-risk kids, who get not only a camp experience, but continued support all year through regular mentoring. Really a wonderful concert and overall experience.

Special, I hope Tuesday goes well! I also hope you don’t even think of your friend’s experience as you go into this process. They sound like very different experiences... my molar implant experience would have been just a long “breeze” if we didn’t try to save the tooth first! That had an endodontist rooting around in my roots to try to save it, unsuccessfully. My mouth was open for so long I developed lockjaw. Other than that, (which you won’t have to endure!) every next step was pretty breezy...just takesca long time in between visits.

Welcome, Green Harbor!

Nance, I cannot believe you end up doing two Thanksgivings!! You have waaaay more energy than I. We will do a very moderate T-giv here. DS2 and DDIL2 will bring the turkey and a fryer and be in charge of that in our yard. This will be our first experience with a “fried turkey”. DDIL2’s family makes that in the South, so here we go! I love the idea of having an entire oven free for my moderate amount of sides!

Minus, sending hugs your way.... I’m so sorry you are grieving your SIL’s loss especially as we move into the holidays. Holding you in my heart. I hope her memorial service is authentic and beautiful and provides you with some comfort.

Sandy, how nice to learn of such a valued developmental milestone in your son! I bet his GF appreciates it even more!

Tonight I just was in no mood to cook...we had brunch with DS2/DDIL2 to celebrate his 38th birthday. I just can’t think about dinner after eating a real meal at midday. Since DH was not feeling especially hungry either, I heated a bit of leftover chicken And paired it with some cauliflower hummus (delish) and a variety of cut up vegetables. Di the job!

MinusTwo

Thank you all for your condolences. Since neither of us ever had a blood sister we dropped the "in law" years ago & were just sisters. We talked every week and met for a meal at least once a month. We all know it gets easier as time goes on, but there's a big hole. I'm going to grab a quick lunch with my nephew on Wednesday and then I'll have a better handle on how her husband, children & grandchildren are doing.

ChiSandy

He didn't just make dinner and shop for the groceries: he went to Target and bought a stockpot, cutting board and a set of knives. (I'd offered him my enameled cast-iron Dutch oven--used only once before I got a LeCreuset for Christmas--and a roll full of pretty good knives: chef's, santoku, parer, slicer and bread knife; but he had claimed at the time he didn't have room for them). I guess he really does want to hone his independent living skills by choosing his own stuff.

auntienance

Everyone have election fatigue?!

Tonight was a large steak salad using up the leftover porterhouse (which was delicious!) and a hunk of good blue cheese. Dressing was a simple vinaigrette.

Tomorrow is a Costco run mostly for stock items but it's always a fun day sampling the wares.

MinusTwo

Tuna salad on rye bread. Repeat of yesterday's meal. Served w/sliced cucumbers & onions soaked in tarragon vinegar and then drained & marinated in sour cream & dill.

Beaverntx

So glad to no longer have all the election ads on; but they have been replaced with Medicare ads!

Dinner tonight was "use up what's in the kitchen": browned chicken chunks in garlic oil, added left over brown rice, chopped onion and bell pepper, then frozen peas. After that was heated through stirred in scrambled eggs. Sorta stir fried rice but we seasoned it with Worchestershire sauce. Tasted just fine, especially since we were hungry after moving furniture around all day.

eric95us

I am so glad the election stuff is over. The elections in my district were especially vicious contentious this year. During the last few weeks, each day I was getting a 1 inch (or more) thick stack of campaign material stuffed into my mailbox. If the campaign literature were to be believed, both sides are, at a minimum, evil incarnate. :-)

Sharon has been, since Monday, the substitute teacher for 6th, 7th and 8th grade science classes and the teacher will be back on Friday. Yesterday was a chilli-cheese macaroni. Today was a pan seared salmon with a lime zest, lime juice, honey, red pepper sauce.

When neither of us are working, we don't cook so much......which may be why I'm not posting as much. We wake up around 7am, eat breakfast around 10am, eat lunch around 3pm and then often skip dinner.

Edited to ad....

Beaverntx..I too am seeing all the medicare ads. Fortunately I'm not yet the target for those ads.

carolehalston

I was planning to cook a layered eggplant dish for dinner last night, but, alas, I left the eggplant in the outside refrigerator too long and they were good only for the garbage can. Since the frozen home-cooked sauce was thawing, I cooked linguine. The side was a tossed salad with the favorite components.

The two Power Quick pots arrived in separate boxes. One is unpacked. It is huge. I had to clean out a kitchen cabinet space for it and the accessories. The first step will be to pressure cook some water! Included were four cook books with some interesting recipes. There is a yogurt setting, and I plan to give making yogurt a try.

We had few tv commercials during the election cycle and almost no print materials. Sad to live in a state that isn't in play for my "tribe."

carolehalston

I was planning to cook a layered eggplant dish for dinner last night, but, alas, I left the eggplant in the outside refrigerator too long and they were good only for the garbage can. Since the frozen home-cooked sauce was thawing, I cooked linguine. The side was a tossed salad with the favorite components.

The two Power Quick pots arrived in separate boxes. One is unpacked. It is huge. I had to clean out a kitchen cabinet space for it and the accessories. The first step will be to pressure cook some water! Included were four cook books with some interesting recipes. There is a yogurt setting, and I plan to give making yogurt a try.

We had few tv commercials during the election cycle and almost no print materials. Sad to live in a state that isn't in play for my "tribe."

auntienance

How exciting Carole! I'm requesting a full report on the quick pots. I'm especially curious about the sous vide function. I frequently make yogurt in the pressure cooker. It does a great job and I like that you can make it right in the jars.

Snow is expected today. Snow. It is early November. It's bad enough that the stores and ads have gone from Halloween to Christmas, skipping thanksgiving completely, but now we've gone straight to winter. Summer didn't even say goodbye. I should still be wearing shorts. I must leave this place.

Valstim52

Been off the threads for a while.

Dinner will be spicy shrimp stirfry with broccolinni, red peppers, garlic, sweet onions and pea pods. I make my own sauce out of light soy, brown sugar, chicken broth and sesame oil. I serve it over rice.

Valstim52

Been off the threads for a while.

Dinner will be spicy shrimp stirfry with broccolinni, red peppers, garlic, sweet onions and pea pods. I make my own sauce out of light soy, brown sugar, chicken broth and sesame oil. I serve it over rice.

Valstim52

Been off the threads for a while.

Dinner will be spicy shrimp stirfry with broccolinni, red peppers, garlic, sweet onions and pea pods. I make my own sauce out of light soy, brown sugar, chicken broth and sesame oil. I serve it over rice.

Valstim52

Been off the threads for a while.

Dinner will be spicy shrimp stirfry with broccolinni, red peppers, garlic, sweet onions and pea pods. I make my own sauce out of light soy, brown sugar, chicken broth and sesame oil. I serve it over rice.

MinusTwo

Val - so great to see you - even if the computer 'gods' decided to replicate your post. I love the sound of the stir fry. Wish I'd been at your house for dinner.

GreenHarbor

Tonight is leftover soup- curried butternut squash from a Barefoot Contessa recipe. I’ll just serve it with rolls and a green salad.

MinusTwo

My neighborhood is hosting our annual thank you dinner for everyone who volunteers during the year. Twenty-five people will gather at the Olive Garden tonight. We picked that restaurant some years ago after Steak & Ale closed because: 1) it's close and we have a good percentage of older people who are nervous about driving at night; 2) they give us a private room; and 3) the menu is such that everyone can find something to eat no matter their dietary restrictions. We will treat each volunteer to any meal under $20.00 and if they want cocktails or dessert they will need to pay their own. I'm going to pig out on bread sticks. And of course be responsible for paying the bill since I'm the treasurer.

ChiSandy

Last night was Cellars' Atlas Wine Dinner to benefit Care For Real (our neighborhood food pantry/charity). Started with a spiced cider spritzer. Then crab-corn chowder paired with a Sonoma Chardonnay; sweet potato gnocchi in a Gorgonzola cream with walnuts, paired with a Rogue River valley Pinot Noir; turkey saltimbocca with a Sierra-foothils Syrah-dominant red blend; honey-mustard-marinated pork T-bone with roast potatoes and asparagus (by this time I had to start packing half my food as leftovers) and a nice full red Sierra-foothills Zin; and finally pumpkin mousse cheesecake with a sparkling WA blanc des blancs (from cans, no less). The only wine that didn't float my boat was the Chard. Have had better Pinot Noir, though it was lovely. But the two fuller reds were the stars.

This morning was a small slice of portabella pizza reheated in a covered skillet. It also happens to be both National Donut Day and National Cappuccino Day, so I had a chocolate-iced creme-filled Krispy Kreme and an almond milk cappuccino for a late aft. snack.

carolehalston

Welcome back, Val. Green Harbor, I have never tasted butternut squash soup even though I know it's popular. I like the winter squashes but do not think of them as soup makings.

Sandy, as usual I gained three pounds reading about your meal at Cellars!

Last night I finally cooked some beautiful halibut that I brought home frozen from MN. A couple at the resort spent two months in Alaska and went halibut fishing. They kindly gave us the halilbut fillet. I went to Google for a recipe idea and immediately hit upon Heavenly Halibut. The recipe was simple and the result delicious.

Broil the halibut for 8 minutes or until flaking. Then spread the sauce on top and broil for two minutes longer. The sauce consisted of grated parm (I used romano), soft butter, mayo, s & p, dash of hot sauce, fresh lemon juice, green onions (omitted since I didn't have any). The sauce melted so there was extra to spoon on top.

I usually lament that fish preparations in good restaurants are so much better than my home-cooked fish, but this was just as good as a restaurant fish entre. And, of course, halibut is such a good fish. I wish I could eat it more often.

The side was smothered okra made with frozen okra, never as good as fresh, and a can of Rotel tomatoes with chilis, s & p, garlic powder and onion powder. I was too lazy to peel some fresh garlic.

Unfortunately, dh wasn't feeling his best and didn't enjoy the meal as much as I did. There was leftover okra to freeze for a future gumbo.

Nance, do you have a good recipe book for your multi-purpose electric pot?

auntienance

Carole, I use a lot of Serious Eats recipes, Kenji has some very good ones for the pressure cooker. I also use Laura Pazzaglia https://www.hippressurecooking.com/pressure-cooker-recipes/ She also has a cookbook out that I haven't checked out. So far my favorite book is the Great Big Pressure Cooker Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. I use that one for reference a lot. Hip pressure cooking is aimed at the Instant pot so may require some adjustment for yours..

If you use Pinterest at all, you can check out my board Cooking Under Pressure (just search for Nancy Yonker). I've collected some pretty good ones there.