So...whats for dinner?

MinusTwo

I'm not a big bell pepper fan but I chop them up very small & freeze in batches for lots of dishes.

auntienance

Favorite things to do with peppers:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/parmesan-peppers-365672

And from Julia Child, one of my most favorite dishes - sauteed chicken breast with a piperade.

Pipérade

Sliced red and green peppers in garlic and olive oil

"This colorful vegetable sauté, of Basque origin, is a wonderfully
useful condiment, either hot or cold. Use it on open-faced omelettes,
for instance, or pizzas, and for various simmerings such as fillets
of fish or breast of chicken."

For about 1 1/2 cups

1 medium onion, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced
1 large clove of garlic, puréed
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Pinch of mixed dried herbs

The pipérade. Sauté the onion slowly 5 minutes in a frying pan with the oil. When tender and translucent, add the peppers along with the garlic, tossing with a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and herbs. Sauté uncovered, tossing several times, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the peppers are nearly tender.
Ahead-of-time note: May be refrigerated 2 to 3 days; may be frozen.

I don't make puttanesca because the hubs won't eat an anchovy or an olive. I love it though and will order it at restaurants on The Hill in St. Louis when I'm there. Special's solution sounds like an acceptable modification to me.

I too have a limited selection of Rao's here, so I rarely buy it and I think it sells around 5.99 here. I usually keep a supply of homemade in the freezer anyway.

Food has been happening here, if not very exciting food. There has been stroganoff made with leftover tenderloin from DH's birthday meal, gumbo, chicken and dumplings, ham and beans (along with the required cornbread), chili and other stuff I'm sure. Tonight was a reverse seared thick pork chop with apple cider pan sauce, roasted potatoes and baby peas. I have a freezer full of meats, if only I had a freezer full of ambition. Last week, I was suffering from my annual change of season malaise. Every year after the first cold snap, my allergies go ballistic causing endless misery, including no interest in food, for about a week.

Carole, I have the same problem with abundance of salad, so I started just make individual salads right onto the plate. The salad doesn't get dressed as well, but it works for us.

Lacey - thanks for the Cardinal condolences. It was quite the frustrating season when our heavy hitters all decided not to at the same time. Congratulations to Houston though - what an exciting win for them!

Loving all the food pics - keep 'em coming!

Enjoy the Canyon Eric - on of my favorite places!

I don't think I will eat an Impossible Burger.

Lacey12

Special, (nice to see you back) those modifications sound good...tho I will check the ingredients on one of my many jars of Rao’s puttanesca that I stockpiled the last time they were on a good sale, to see if anything else is needed. I’m not an anchovy fan either when I can see their little shapes, but when I need to add that ingredient to a sauce, (and it makes such a wonderful difference in the rich taste of the sauce)I use anchovy paste from a tube I keep in the refridge. Unless someone has a fish allergy, they would never know that anchovies were part of the recipe. Not that I’m encouraging anyone to be deceptive! 😉

Nance, I’m with you on the lack of ambition... and btw, I recently learned that the cause of my more severe allergies recently could be related to Peak Week, an intensely allergic time in late Sept. In fact, mine have abated a bit since then. Love your chicken recipe...sounds like a lot of the ingredients I used last night.

Last night I made veggie omelettes, to which I always add colorful bell peppers, along with garlic, Vidalia onion, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, chopped sun dried tomatoes and whatever else moves me, and a selected spice...last nite, Penzies oregano. I sprinkled shredded lite mozzarella cheese on top and a bit of fresh parm. We had sides of leftover farro and a cuke salad purely due to my inertia.

Tonight I wasn’t really hungry, so I decided I’d just have my typical romaine garden salad and some hummus with raw green beans. I thawed a prepared lamb burger for DH, since he needs that main feature on his plate.

Tomorrow evening, we attend a campaign event for our local state rep at a pizza restaurant that makes very tasty and healthful pizzas. So we will have pizza and salad there. I will really need to limit my desire to try more than two of their varieties!

Tuesday nite we are headed to Cambridge to hear a “Moth Slam” event, so before that, we’lltrek around Hvd Sq in the rain to dine in a restaurant near the theatre. These days I’ve been cooking just about daily, so I’m excited to have a few days off.

I hope our Houston crew on here enjoy baseball as much as the elated fans last night who got way more than their money’s worth especially with that ending. DH watches baseball much more than I, but I can enjoy playoffs...until basketball season! This week...yay!

Eric, safe travels for you and Sharon! And enjoy your hikes!

WorryThePooh

Well I hope it's OK to jump in to this thread... you all seem to know each other well.

Tonight I am going to cook Atlantic salmon with a herb butter sauce and serve it with chips and salad.

eric95us

Hi Worry. Welcome to "the table".

WorryThePooh

thanks eric95us

Yogatyme

thanks for bell pepper ideas!

auntienance

Hey Minus, saw this recipe and thought of you:

Ricotta Lentil Meatballs

Makes 15 meatballs

Ingredients

• 3 cups cooked lentils
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup ricotta
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
• Store-bought pesto

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Add lentils to bowl of food processor. Pulse a few times to slightly mash it up.

3. Add egg, ricotta, Parmesan, garlic powder, salt and breadcrumbs. Pulse a few more times, mixing until just combined. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed to fully incorporate all of the ingredients.

4. Use a large cookie dough scoop to portion out into 1 1/2-inch balls.

5. Place on parchment-lined baking tray and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown.

6. Serve with pesto drizzled on top.

I keep individually frozen anchovies in the freezer to sneak into dishes. They're easier to disguise than olives lol.

carolehalston

Welcome, Worry. I met you on the Oldies discussion forum. We are happy to have newcomers join us. I have been here since my bc journey began in 2009.

SpecialK, thanks for the suggestions on making puttanesca sauce. I will write down the ingredients instead of relying on an increasingly unreliable memory.

Nance, your ho-hum menus sound appetizing to me. We did not pass your house this year on our return to LA since we took a route to Chicago.

Last night as we were eating dinner (shrimp, stewed okra and tomatoes and crunchy bag salad with addition of avocado), dh announced that he is cooking curry for tonight. He admitted that he has been wanting curry and looked up a recipe. So the menu for tonight is chicken curry with brown rice. I will cook the rice.

I came home heavier than I left in May, about 5 lbs. I am gradually edging the weight down and my wedding ring fits again. Weight gain always brings excess fluid. So far exercise has been house cleaning activity but tomorrow we plan to go back to our home gym, the YMCA. Once I reach the previous "overweight" number, I hope to edge that down as well.

Yogatyme

Stuffed the peppers with pinto beans, andouille and onion. A hit w DH.

SpecialK

yoga - sounds yum!

Tonight is spaghetti Bolognese, broccoli salad, garlic toast. Not making a trip to the grocery store because we are leaving on Thurs for a long weekend in Washington DC to celebrate DH's 60th b-day, trying to use up what was left in the house after my weeklong trip to California! Very excited as we will see our son (the paramedic/firefighter) for the first time in a year - he missed all the holidays as he was too new on his crew to have accumulated any leave! Kind of funny that he also just saw his sister since she was up in Virginia for a trade show - when it rains, it pours!

eric - hope you and Sharon have a good trip!

auntie - good idea on the anchovies - I also put pesto into an ice cube tray, freeze, then pop out the pesto cubes and put them in a ziplock. Makes it convenient to be able to use what I need that way. My DH won't eat olives of any kind, while I will eat any olive, any time.

worry - welcome! Some of us are old timers on this thread, but there is always room at this table!

carole - I have to write everything down, I'm a list girl...

lacey - thanks! It is nice to be back! Your omelets sound delicious!

minus - butterscotch bourbon...you're on to something...

MinusTwo

Nance - the lentil meatballs sound good. I'll share with my DIL also, who is actually vegetarian. Maybe she could even use them w/spaghetti & red sauce for my son, who is not a vegetarian. Thanks also for the piperade. I like bell peppers cut up & cooked, so I may try this & just cut them smaller. I will not be eating an impossible burger either.

Worry - welcome to dinner. Or breakfast or lunch. I was wondering on a different thread if we should call you 'worry' or 'pooh'. And then could we remember which you specified. Salmon with herb butter sauce sounds delicious.

Lacey - yummy omelette. How do you get all those veggies to fit in? I've only succeeded doing that with a frittata. This Houston' crew' celebrating - tentatively. I've lived her long enough to cheer many sports teams who blow it at the last second. Cynical? Just a bit. Ticket prices are of course out of sight.

Carole - did I read that you & DH are going to move toward more vegetarian meals? Or was that Lacey? I don't plan on committing to a change, but probably only eat one steak a month and one chicken breast &/or piece of fish per week. Interesting that I usually choose salad or veggies or pasta instead most of the time.

Eric - we'll all be interested in hearing about your Grand Canyon trek.

MinusTwo

Special - you'll have to give us more details about your CA trip when you get a chance. Or you can wait and tell us about DC. Great that you'll get to see your son. That was a (very short) highlight of my CA trip since it had been a year for me too since I'd seen my son.He actually had dinner with us three nights, but probably influenced by the fact that his cousin was there with me.

ChiSandy

Worry, welcome to the chef's table. Atlantic salmon with herb butter? Head on over to the "how about drinking?" thread and post about the Oregon pinot gris that'd be a perfect match. (An unoaked Chardonnay, Tuscan Vermentino, Piemontese Gavi, really good Pinot Grigio, or NZ Sauv. Blanc would be great, too).

From what I recall, besides red pepper flakes (not as much as for arrabiata) and anchovies/anchovy paste, puttanesca also calls for black olives.

Last night was leftover NY strip & broccoli/French green beans from Bob's birthday party, plus a tricolor homegrown heirloom tomato (red, yellow, Cherokee purple) salad with homegrown basil. Got two more warmish (high 60s) sunny days than expected, so leaving the 5 remaining little green (as yet) tomatoes still on the vine for now.

Was going to make Chilean sea bass (WF had it $10/lb off!) tonight, but forgot Bob is staying over near the hospital tonight. (The pull date is 10/23 but it was previously frozen, so I'll make it after Bar Show chorus rehearsal tom'w night). Instead, nuking palak paneer and chicken tikka masala, plus the remainder of the raw cauliflower rice in the fridge.

MinusTwo

Sandy - hope all goes well at the doc tomorrow.

ChiSandy

Thanks, Minus. I'm pretty sure that--given my Stage IA low recurrence risk, and the size of that seroma (and the stronger radiation to the area)--it's just scar tissue, but one can never be too careful; if there's anything wrong, we'll be nipping it in the bud.

SpecialK

minus - the trip to CA was great - absolutely perfect weather - high mid-70’s, sunny and no humidity, lows in the 50’s. My friend got us tickets to Hamilton for my birthday, and it was a truly excellent show. Down the row from us in the theater sat Steph and Ayesha Curry! Took a great hike the next day, then returned to Sacto. I impacted by the PG&E power outages, but we were lucky.Had some fun meals, took a lot of walks, including one where we encountered an estate sale and walked the rest of the way home with some treasures, lol! Mostly we hung out and had good long talks and chilled! The trip to DC will be fun, although because of the firefighter job schedule we will only see our son on Thurs night for dinner, and on Sun during the day for brunch/lunch (DH’s actual b-day) but I’m also hoping we can go see him “at work” and see that environment. In keeping with this thread he does a lot of cooking for his crew and he is very good! We are having dinner Fri night with our old across the street neighbors at a restaurant I used to work at. Sat night is dinner with old military friends we haven’t seen in many years. It is still hot here in FL, but I’m breaking out the sweaters and leather boots for the trip - yay! We also plan to watch the World Series - maybe from a bar at the Navy Yard across from the field - should be fun!

auntienance

In your pocket tomorrow Sandy!

ChiSandy

Thanks, Nancy!

Beaverntx

Sandy, joining the crew in your pocket tomorrow.

SpecialK

chisandy - I somehow missed what this appt is for - in your pocket regardless

MinusTwo

Special - I picked up Sandy's doc appointment from another thread so you didn't really miss it. But like she said, checking a small 'lump'. We're all hoping for scar tissue.

SpecialK

minus/chisandy - will hope for that, or something equally non-worrisome.

JosieO

Squeezing into that pocket of well wishers for you, ChiSandy. If good thoughts are medicine, then you have a big dose going with you tomorrow. Best...

Josie

eric95us

Me too, Chi.

ChiSandy

It could also be I never noticed my "pecs" before, so fingers crossed!

keywestfan

Sandy,

I had what sounds like the same lump description last month. The, oh so easy on the eyes, BS, after mammo and exam said too long since April surgery to be a hematoma or seroma, but is fat necrosis. Primary, last week, said the same. Also had a bony lump on on chest just to the left of right breast. Said that was prominent now because of some weight loss. Just as an unneeded protection, sending you a very strong magic spell.

Jud

Yogatyme

Sandy, hope things go well for you! 🤞🏻

eric95us

It took a masters degree in engineering for me to hold the antenna. :-)

Beaverntx

Eric, just goes to show a master's degree can open up many opportunities!