So...whats for dinner?

Nance - hope you are having a wonderful birthday. We'll be looking forward to hearing about your "special" meal (and hoping you didn't have to cook it).

I had never cooked Orzo until Lacey posted a recipe some time ago with cod & marinara & lots of veggies. Now I've found a new orzo treat. "15 Minutes Salmon & Creamy Orzo with Spinach & Mushrooms" from 'Eating Well'. Chicken broth, heavy cream, garlic, sliced mushrooms, orzo, spinach - cooked in one pot. The salmon is cooked separately and plated on top, so you could sub chicken if you're not a fish person. Again - I ate WAY too much.

On deck for this weekend is FINALLY Korean Pork - mostly from Wally's recipe if I remember correctly. What did you serve with it Wally? I'm thinking black rice - but I did look up a recipe for Korean Braised potatoes that sounds really good.

Nancy, happy extended birthday!

Where was I on this date in 1969? 18 years old, taking a couple of summer-session college classes between soph. & jr. year (CUNY Brooklyn was a commuter-only college). Summer session classes were at night, I remember grabbing a kosher deli hot dog before a hot & sticky subway & bus ride home, and I napped on the couch waiting for the moonwalk. Missed the "Eagle" landing. Awoke to see the lunar module & ladder sitting on the moon's surface, in B&W. After what seemed like an eternity, saw Armstrong walk down that ladder and utter his famous words.

"Better Than Bouillon" is my go-to, even replacing canned or boxed stock or broth. I use the reduced-sodium version. A demitasse spoon in a mug of boiling water and a couple of shakes of parsley flakes & dill weed do the trick for a stuffy nose or touchy tummy. I just got a jar of the "roasted chicken" flavor--it may be the key to a richer pan sauce.

Last night we walked to Moody's Pub, which has served massive burgers for close to 70 years. It has three patios--good thing, because the interior is gloomy & dark. Had a burger with lettuce, tomato, onion, Gouda & bacon; removed it from the brioche bun it came with, cut it in half and ate it in a smaller keto (1gm) bun I brought from home. (Ate the rest of it with a knife & fork). Next time I'll just tell them to hold the bun--I already say "no fries," so they knock a buck off the tab.

Tonight we walked to Mas Alla del Sol. We shared verdolagas (sp?) salad--I think it's the Mexican version of mâche, ceviche, and a fantastic piece of grilled Atlantic salmon over grilled veggies including squash blossoms. (First time I've had them "unstuffed"). Dessert, back home, was a Halo Top keto (2gm) salted caramel ice cream bar coated in dark chocolate. Just like "Honey, I Shrunk the Dove Bar," but just as tasty. Much better than their weirdly-textured pints.

As for chocolates, I try not to touch them if they're less than 72% cocoa solids (except if Lily's or Vgan sugar-free, in which case I'll do 70%). My favorite "normal" (sugar-sweetened) chocolates are Chocolove or Teuscher 77% and Lindt 78%. I sometimes do 85%, but that seems pretty austere even for me. I found out Dove--sugar-sweetened--"Promises" are only 60% cocoa solids. No wonder they taste so good! Unfortunately, Bob's patients have been sabotaging my diet by bringing him chocolates from Poland: chocolate-covered prunes (tastier than it sounds) & cherry jams, and those infernal booze-filled dark chocolate barrels. I have taken the sage advice to brush, floss & put my retainer back in well below bedtime, so as to lessen the chance of cheating by ruining my intermittent-fast.

divine - I too smiled at your memories of growing up - my mom always put the orange in the toe of our stockings, and we had nuts too! That actually is the one time she did bake - but it was fruitcake only, lol! I felt a little squeeze of my heart when I read your comment about remembering your mom's hands stretching the pizza dough - those are the kind of memories I treasure. I make a number of my mom's recipes and when I smell them cooking I think of her.

Speaking of pizza - last night was cauliflower crust pizza - Italian sausage (chicken), DF mozzarella, yellow pepper on top of Rao's sausage and mushroom sauce for a base for DH, mine was veggie only - olives, peppers, onion - and goat cheese on top of pesto as the base. Dinner tonight is TBD, but I am thinking something with chicken - possibly just roasted with mashed red skinned potatoes and chicken gravy, steamed green beans on the side.

minus - I love orzo, and finally found a GF one. I like to make orzo salad - especially in this hot weather. I cook the orzo, let it cool a bit, and add Greek dressing when it is still a bit warm. Then add cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, red onion, kalamata olives, and feta or goat cheese. I usually add more dressing, S&P, and some oregano, garlic powder, and basil. Orzo with lemon is also good with fish or chicken - lemon juice/zest and olive oil, whatever herbs and seasonings you like, and you can add almonds or a green vegetable like broccoli or asparagus. I feel like almost anything you could do with rice you can do with orzo too.

The old memories are wonderful. Thanks everyone for sharing.

Wally - it must have been someone else. I copied it to an email but just wrote "BCO". Hope the OP (original poster) will jump in and take credit. KOREAN PORK: 8 garlic cloves, 1-2" pc ginger peeled & sliced, 1/2 c dry sake (OP used sauvignon blanc) 1/2 c Gochujang; 1/2 c mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine), 1/4 cup veg oil (OP used sesame oil & half that amount), 1.5 lbs pork loin cut in thin strips, 5 or 6 green onions cut in 2" pieces added to marinade. Puree garlic, ginger, sake, gochujang, mirin & oil in a blender. Set 1/4c marinade aside; chill. Transfer remaining marinade to large dish. Add pork; turn to coat. Chill turning occasionally for at least 2 hours. OP cooked on the stove in a pan approx 8 minutes or until desired tenderness, then added rest of the marinade until it thickens up.

Minus, not me but boy, that recipe looks incredible! I may try it with tofu for tomorrow.

I made socca "pizza" bbq chicken last night; leftovers tonight.

Thanks Special & Eric. I was thinking of SerenityStat - but no. However since I shared it on the 'joy' thread, she's interested.

I've used it as the medium to make a "tabbouleh" like cold salad (parsley, diced tomatoes, lemon juice, blah, blah).

Yesterday for brunch I made a Denver omelet--good thing because due to first traffic and then massive transit snafus we missed our dinner res at Ravinia's buffet--all we had time for was to-go from their "Market Place." Unfortunately, thanks to pandemic supply chain issues they were out of napkins and all utensils except knives. In order not to cheat on my diet, I had to stab the brisket chunks in the sandwich with a plastic knife and then use half the bun as a plate for the coleslaw, fow which I used the knife to scrape it into my mouth. Not fun. You can bet that when we finally made it home near midnight (more train delays) I had myself a slice of the aforementioned coffee cake one of Bob's patients brought him. Definitely not cheat-worthy, so I will not be tempted. Did have a bowl of keto "nutnola" and almond milk at bedtime.

This afternoon I made a "Margherita pizza" out of a low-carb tortilla, which I toasted and topped with an egg-white wrap, tomato slices, basil leaves, mozzarella, and olive oil. Pretty tasty. Bob had a very late steak lunch en route home from work, and didn't want dinner. I nuked a couple of keto chicken enchiladas verde, followed by a handful of nuts, and sour cherries mixed with Greek yogurt and monkfruit-vanilla syrup.

Divine, we had the same stockings, but ours had yellow delicious apples. We also weren't allowed desert and had none of those things in our house. Desert was whipped cream on fruit on Sundays. We used to go to her house in Michigan in the summer and she made the best yellow squash, just mashed it up and put a ton of butter, salt and pepper on it. I believe that I make it the same, but it doesn't taste the same because she didn't make it. We also picked gooseberries, which are a little sour, but she made gooseberry pie. For anyone who remembers me, I work occasionally, finishing next week. I decided to fill in the "Divot" from the lumpectomy and will get some fat from my stomach for it. Twofer!!. Just eating cheese sandwiches with mustard, as I'm lazy. I am so glad to see that everyone is still here 10 years later. My love to all of you

If anyone has a favorite grocery store frozen pizza they love, can you please share?

Tonight will be tofu, bok choy and sweet potato. Still up for grabs on how I'll prep it.

Bedo! Nice to see you and I hope you are well!

Thanks for the birthday wishes. It was a low key birthday, suitable for a 74 year old I suppose. My celebratory dinner was three lobster tails from Costco, some very disappointing corn on the cob and new potatoes in herbs and butter. I had enough leftover for a lobster roll for lunch the next day. All pretty tasty. It was over 100° so much too hot to bake, so I told DH to buy a cake instead of making it as he usually does (from a box of course). My favorite cake is white with white icing (wedding cake) so a pretty easy order. There are only grocery store bakeries near us so he got one at the local grocery, which was predictably only ok. But it was small, so that's a good thing. The icing was gaggishly sweet and scraped off before eating by me.

I'm a member of the "two chocolates after dinner" club. I like Lindt or Ghiradelli as well as the Godiva ones from Costco that Minus mentioned. Currently I have the dark chocolate sea salt caramels from Costco. They are largish so one of those is sufficient.

I was an only child and we never had Christmas stockings. I was blessed with over indulgent grandparents who spent a fortune on their grandchildren at Christmas so a stocking was not something I ever missed (plus we never had a mantle). As a married adult, we always have had stockings and they're one of my favorite holiday things to do. One gets all sorts of things in a stocking at our house - anything from underwear to bottles of liquor (small bottles). And always chocolate.

My mother was not a good cook. I never remember her baking anything but cornbread, which was the best thing she made. Fortunately I had three grandmothers who were wonderful cooks. My great grandmother could bake anything out of what seemed like nothing and without ever looking at a recipe. Eric - we had those same pie crust trimmings every time she baked a pie, which was weekly for Sunday dinner.

I've never found a widely available frozen pizza that I like except for Trader Joe's margherita and Amy's margherita pizzas. There are several local restaurants here that sell their frozen pizzas at the local grocer and they are really good.

All of your meals sound better than mine. I love reading about them. Last night was grilled lamb chops, some utterly delicious just picked corn on the cob and a tomato pie. Probably the best meal I've made in a while. However, tonight's offering is grilled lemon garlic chicken with some less than tender green beans that are being cooked to death with some onion and pickled pork - leftover new potatoes to be added, and some more delicious corn removed from said cob. I bought a dozen ears so we'll be having it for a few days.

I love orzo. This is my favorite orzo recipe. Sorry if I posted this before.

Creamy Orzo with Asparagus & Parmesan

Ingredients:

1 cup orzo

1 cup asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 tbsp butter or margarine

1/4 to 1/2 cup cream

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Directions:

Bring a large sauce pan of water (filled about halfway) to a boil over medium heat. Cook the orzo until tender, about 10 minutes.

After the orzo has been cooking for about 5 minutes, add the asparagus to the same pot (this will allow the orzo and asparagus to cook in the same pot and keep the clean-up to a minimum!).

Once the orzo and asaparagus are cooked and tender, drain and return to the pot.

Quickly add the parmesan cheese and butter. Stir thoroughly, allowing both the cheese and butter to melt. Slowly add the cream to the mixture, while stirring. Continue to stir and add cream until you reach your desired consistency.

Season with salt and pepper.

Even though I was raised Jewish, we still had stockings at Christmas--which usually overlapped or followed Hanukkah. Our parents weren't into giving one present per kid each of eight nights (basically because we were not only Reform but couldn't really afford it). We lived in an apartment with no fireplace and therefore no mantel--so our parents would hang them from the top drawers of our bedroom clothes chest. They were just ordinary knee socks rather than actual Christmas stockings, and we got tangerines, chocolate coins ("Hanukkah gelt") and a tchotchke or two.

When I could eat "normal" pizza and didn't want to order out, I was partial to 365 Margherita. Nowadays, I get Quest four-cheese (which I supplement with peppers, mushrooms, tomato slices & basil) or Supreme (I hate pepperoni, but there's enough sausage & veggies on it that I can pick the pepperoni off it). Its thin crust is "meh," but at least it's on my diet.

Got up early so skipped breakfast before Lyfting it down to 900 N. Michigan for Bob's haircut. There's an old-fashioned British-style barbershop in there (formerly Truefitt & Hill, now called Merchant & Rhodes) he's liked for over 35 years. He's had the same barber now since 1995. We went downstairs to Aster Hall, the high-tech food court; but nothing really appealed to me that I could eat. So we opted for Adorn, the restaurant in the adjoining Four Seasons hotel. Bob had a bagel & lox. I had their summer-veggie hash with a poached egg--and they made it from scratch for me without potatoes. Tricolor cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, red pepper and eggplant, Boursin cheese, no meat. We skipped our usual trip to Teuscher for chocolates, because we figured they'd melt in the heat.

We took the bus to the Art Institute for the Cezanne exhibit, plus the antiquities collection and sitting by the Chagall windows (the third set I've seen, the other two being in the museum in St. Paul de Vence, France and the Hadassah hospital outside Jerusalem) to take a load off my aching left foot. Then a shared early dinner at Cindy's Rooftop atop the Chi. Athletic Club: a dozen oysters (6 each Island Creek from Cape Cod, and PEI); and a porterhouse that came with generously-sized portions of spinach/arugula salad, grilled asparagus and maiitake mushroom. (Gotta see if I can find one of those at the grocery--it was interesting & very meaty). We took half the steak home--was able to hail a cab right away. Bob swears that next time we eat there he's going for the "grasshopper" ice cream sandwich for dessert. We opted for cappuccinos instead...that were the size of huge lattes, and even comped.

At home for dessert I had some Ken's keto "Swedish pistachio" ice cream with five of the remaining MI sour cherries. It took me back to my Brooklyn childhood, when Cantonese-American restaurants served maraschino cherry-pistachio ice cream for dessert (along with kumquats, litchis and pineapple). The only other place I've encountered that flavor was Knott's Berry Farm.

My oyster preference is Pacific (various Hood Canal, BC, OR); but this summer there's a bacterium that has hit the West Coast oyster beds, whether wild or farmed. Of course, the best I've ever tasted were LaRochelles from western Brittany near the Atlantic and also some from Normandy--but those don't cross the pond.

Reader, I've never had tomato pie, but it looks like something I'd like to try!

Weighing in on the dark chocolate topic, I've never cared for it. I know it's supposed to be a better alternative to milk chocolate but I don't like how it tastes. Even if it's an addition to something, like dark chocolate covered raisins, I will pass. While I like regular chocolate, I'm not a chocoholic but more of a person liking the whole gamut of different kinds of sweets. I cut back on potato chips and salsa and chips as I'm in the prehypertension category and watch salt intake. Occasionally I'll treat myself to Utz barbecue chips.

Wallycat, we haven't bought frozen pizza for years. There's a proliferation of pizza shops around here—along with plenty of churches and bars; standard joking material for our town. I'm in the land of square pizza and not complaining about it! Easily purchased and consumed. When ds lived at home, I always bought Stouffers French Bread pizza. It was a favorite snack at the time, I loved the crunch. I tried some a couple years ago and it tasted very salty to me.

Another funny story of my grandkids. We once ordered pizza while they were here and dh went to pick it up. When he was gone, my granddaughter said, “We don't have that kind of pizza place where we live (a large metropolis)." I asked what she meant and she said, “Where you go pick it up yourself." Apparently, they only get delivery! It was so funny that she thought their shops didn't offer pick up! Dh and/or I always go get food takeout orders, opting out of home delivery.

Aussie, working at a charity shop seems interesting.

Our dinner last night was warmed up Thanksgiving dinner in July that Mary gave us. Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, dressing and winter squash. It tasted good and was so easy.

The frozen pizza had an Italian name that I don't remember. The pizza was quite acceptable with a thin crust. I'm probably not as "picky" or discriminating as some of you. I've even wondered if "taste buds" age along with the rest of the body.

I've never eaten a tomato pie but it has appeal since tomatoes are my favorite produce out of the garden. The ones grown in a greenhouse are available now at the farmers market. In the next week or two the other veggie vendors will have more normal tomatoes that don't look artificially perfect. Corn on the cob is available on many street corners, being sold out of pickup trucks.

Tonight we'll have fresh green beans and new potatoes with something else not yet decided.