So...whats for dinner?

I made soup again. Chicken broth, chopped carrots, summer squash, cabbage, bok choy, ground seasoned turkey that I cooked the other night, capellini and salt and pepper.

I finally found a butternut squash soup that is pretty good as far as taste goes and doesn't have a soy base. It's made by a brand called Imagine. Unfortunately it has the texture of water so I might use it as a base and add in some chunks of butternut squash, sweet potatoes and pecans.

Carole I love how you whip up your own recipes such as the one you described above with the chicken. I appreciate those kind of recipes when I run short on ideas.

Tonight will be a homemade pizza and salad I think.

Today I’m baking two loaves of multigrain/whole wheat bread and a pineapple upside down cake. As you all know I’ve made this cake many times but for the first time today when I flipped it over two of the cherries came up missing. WTH? I finally found them migrated under the pineapple slices. First time that’s ever happened. A piece of the cake edge stuck to the pan as well so not my best effort. Hope the bread comes out better

Tomorrow I’m making chicken stock with a whole chicken that will end up in chicken and dumplings. Tonight’s offering is minestrone with the fresh bread.

The storm left us with only a couple of inches of snow which theyve already plowed and shoveled the walk and driveway. Yay!

The snow brought lots of bluebirds and others to the window feeder

There hasn't been much going on here.

Tomorrow, or Monday, depending on what's happening tomorrow, I'm going to be baking some more sourdough bread.

The house packing is still going on. Now that it's all the "big stuff" going into storage, a little bit of effort is very obvious. The house is getting where it is quite echoey.

Oops - so we lost power for several hours. Horrendous winds and we have overhead power lines. I'm glad I had decided to re-heat leftover sauteed cabbage & turkey fried rice in the mid afternoon, so I opened a bottle of "Toro" Tempranillo wine and didn't even have to open the fridge. (BTW - the sauteed cabbage - bag of Cole Slaw - with the addition of sunflower seeds was amazing even left over).

And I'm REALLY glad that power was restored since it's going down to 31 tonight. I have the heat turned up to 'over' warm the house in case power goes off again. My potted & hanging plants were moved inside 10 days ago and I managed to get the crucial garden beds covered before dark with blankets & bricks to hold them down because of the wind. Never boring!!!

Eric - assuming you still have beds? Do you have a target date?

Edited to say - Wally, I have been watching the tsunami warnings since I know people in Tonga. Glad you didn't have any problems.

Carole - wow, that’sa lot of sugar! DH’s grandmother’s yeast roll recipe called for quite a lot of sugar too (as a lot of those old recipes seem to). I cut it way back. I don’t know how large your recipe is or how sweet you want your buns to be but a tablespoon of honey would not be an excessive amount. I used 4 tablespoons for two loaves of bread yesterday and i can barely taste it.

Just discovered I have no buttermilk for dumplings which means a cold trip to the store. Ugh. At least the streets are clear and the sun is shining so goodbye to the snow today (need I say good riddance?

That bun recipe sounds like Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls.

Avocado toast again for brunch. (So much tastier than using packaged guacamole). 1/4 avocado mixed with a grating of garlic, 1 tsp. juice from pico de gallo+ 2t. pico; pinch of salt; squirt of lime juice, 1t. mayo. Topped with 2 t. minced shallot, 1T. coarse-chopped cilantro; 1 diced large grape tomato; and a olive-oil-fried egg with a couple grinds of Alessi avocado toast seasoning atop a slice of low-carb hi-fiber toast. Yesterday was the same, except I didn't make guac out of the 1/4 avocado.

Dinner was a Caesar salad with black olives, and my leftover salmon over winter veg. Tonight--unless I find something yummy & on my diet at Whole Foods--will be a salmon burger on a keto bun with lettuce, tomato, onion and Stonewall Kitchen lemon-dill aioli.

Dinner tonight was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach and tossed salad. Have leftovers to look forward to.

Eric, I'm tempted on the starter but I don't like the concept of "feeding" it....

I've had those sourdough aseptic Costco ready-to-bake breads and they are quite tasty for how they are packaged.

The sous vide experiment was incredible. I'd swear I was eating tenderloin if I didn't know better.

Not sure what tomorrow will be...maybe vegetarian Indian food. The venison was so good, there are no leftovers.

I never got into baking sourdough, but it's my understanding that Eric is right--you must "feed" the starter dough to keep it alive and kicking. (Sort of like eating prebiotic foods to keep your good gut bugs alive as well as any probiotics you may be taking). Some bakers even "anthropomorphize" it. I remember in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential that his restaurant had a contract with a baker who baked sourdough for a number of eateries--the dough had to be fed daily to maintain it for baking. He was a real character--an eccentric & a stoner among other things--in a profession full of similarly odd ducks, He named the starter "the B**ch."One day the baker was sick--but when he left a message on Bourdain's answering machine, which consisted of a drunken growl: "Feed the B**ch!" Bourdain knew exactly what he meant, and ran down to the restaurant to feed and punch down the dough. If he missed even a day, there would be no bread for the next dinner service.

The pork roast cooking in the oven filled the house with a wonderful aroma yesterday. It tasted as good as it smelled. The gravy was delicious over brown rice. Large romaine salad with a whole avocado, compari tomatoes, and Kalamata olives rounded out the meal.

Minus, I love bread, too, and do not dare indulge myself with eating it regularly.

My 8 qt. multi-cooker has a sous vide feature but I have not used it. I don't own one of the machines to vacuum pack plastic bags.

chisandy - I actually have Just Egg in my fridge! I also loved the Just Mayo by the same company, excellent taste and texture considering it was free from all the usual ingredients in mayo - namely eggs and soy - and it was available inexpensively all over town - Publix, Target, and Whole Foods. The company (Hampton Creek) had some issue with the mayo, I believe related to food safety - eeeks! - and it disappeared from everywhere except Whole Foods, but it is in a much smaller container now - same size as the Vegenaise from Follow Your Heart.

Dinner last night was chili. Was supposed to have DD, her beau, and visiting mom of beau over for dinner on Sat, and I made a whole pan of real deal scratch lasagna. I had planned to have extra sauce with spag squash and bypass the beautiful lasagna, but beau's mom brought a suspected symptomatic case of Covid with her so the dinner was cancelled. I put the as yet unfrosted cake layers in the freezer for another day, and sent the lasagna to DD's house to have there, along with some garlic knots. DH went to work and got an instant test (they have a supply - can't find them in any stores here at all) and beau's mom tested sort of negative. Full neg line on top, edge of a pos line underneath. She is unvaxxed....ugh. She went ahead and flew home so I will stay tuned to hear how she does. DH met her (everyone masked and distanced) to administer the test, but I didn't want to risk exposure so will have to meet her another time.

Dinner tonight is the spag squash with leftover meat sauce and probably a salad.

I'll have to remember the cauliflower trick.

My favorite hot sauces are a Siracha sauce made by Huy Fong Food, Frank's Original and Cholula Original hot sauce.

About an hour before "my" medical team got on the transport plane to go to from Atlanta to Puerto Rico (Hurricane Maria), I asked the team commander about stopping at a grocery store to get some Tabasco Sauce. The team commander had already decided to do exactly that, and the bus stopped at a grocery store. The store only had some of the "itty-bitty" bottles of Tabasco, so we all picked up several large bottles of Franks. It was a couple of weeks before something other than MREs were available, and Frank's became one of my favorite hot sauces.

MRE designers seem to have "built" the MREs to the least common denominator as far as spicy. They are BLAND! The ones I got did have a ketchup like packet of Tabasco, but it was not enough to get it spicy enough to overcome "the bland". :-)

Eric95us - first off thank you for your service in Puerto Rico. My father lives there and Maria truly was devastating.

Re: hot sauce, my family sends me hot sauce from Puerto Rico as nothing here (in WI) is spicy enough for me, with the exception of anything made with ghost pepper; can't handle it, but also do not like the taste of it.

I had a salad, not much of an appetite today. My son wanted pasta so I made him some baked ziti with garlic bread.

Tomorrow he'll have leftovers assuming he doesn't want to join my SIL and I for Mexican.

I like Siracha and I like Sambal Oelek. I have just purchased Gochujang and am looking forward to trying it. And I like Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp. But after my years in New Mexico, my go to is always green chili salsa. Hatch if I can get it or Mrs. Renfro's if not. I purchased some Gringo Bandito Hot Sauce for my son for Christmas but I don't think he's tried it yet. I bought it as much for what what is says on the label by the nutrition facts as anything else:

"Hot sauce really doesn't have nutritional value. It's vinegar and peppers, for God's sake. What did you expect? Why are you even trying to determine the nutritional value of Hot Sauce? Just enjoy it."