|
Post by paquebot on Feb 7, 2021 12:53:56 GMT -5
Room Service did make one mistake last week, their first in 8 years. When food arrived, there were two covered plates. "You must be hungry!" We looked and there were 3 strange things that I had never seen before. Nurse said that they were chicken quesadillas and they are very good. I suggested that we keep them for breakfast and it would be arranged to warm them but that they are also good cold. They indeed were great. Since we like tacos now and then, I think that we will be adding a bit more diversity to our meals.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 7, 2021 15:54:00 GMT -5
paquebot, I make chicken quesadillas for dinner sometimes and we love them. Mine are made with sautéed green peppers, onions and chicken. Of course they also contain whatever kind of cheese I feel like using. Salsa and/or sour cream are good to dip them into as you are eating or you can spoon some between the layers.
|
|
|
Post by paulf on Feb 7, 2021 17:18:24 GMT -5
Lunch today was a nice surprise. Spouse made chicken and dumplings. Have not had that for many years and it was delicious.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 7, 2021 20:12:54 GMT -5
Simple meal tonight. I had some left over mashed potatoes so I added Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan and garden peas. The recipe calls for putting the cooked chicken under the broiler to make the cheese bubbly but I was happy just to melt it on the chicken. Not quite as pretty but just as tasty and less dishes to wash. IP - Chicken Parmesan by Brownrexx, on Flickr
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Feb 7, 2021 22:52:17 GMT -5
Broiled chicken breasts with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Not one that you'd expect from any restaurant as it definitely didn't look right. Potatoes were Magic Molly. They are black inside and keep that color!
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2021 14:18:29 GMT -5
I cheated and got a rotisserie chicken from the local supermarket, they make very good ones in a variety of "flavors', and cheaper than buying one and cooking it myself. I am changing my diet a lot, and trying to be good, *sigh*, but oh, some things I shall miss having often...and the idea that I shall most likely never have good pineapple upside down cake again is just depressing, LOL!!
Oh woe is me !!! (LOL)
But I do get to have butter, thank goodness, and many other good things.
Maybe it was the variety, pacquebot, but the twice before that we tried having purple potatoes they tasted sort of pastey and not good. How did you fix them?
|
|
|
Post by farmerjack41 on Feb 8, 2021 16:20:05 GMT -5
Stuck a roast in the crockpot this morning. That and a tater with some corn.
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Feb 8, 2021 16:40:19 GMT -5
The Magic Molly potatoes are closer to black than purple. Chicken and vegetables were all spread on a cookie sheet under the broiler in the oven, drizzled with oil, and something like Dash. When Magic Molly is roasted, as yesterday, they looked very black. When I grew them several years ago it was in very black prairie silt. Soil was damp and had to look close to see if something was a tuber or clod. Texture is a bit mushy and not one of my favorite spuds. Although it was my seed stock, it was a friend who grew them last season and gave me half of the harvest.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2021 22:22:46 GMT -5
Worse than digging potatoes at night!! Nice of your friend to share back with you.
Left over chicken for me tonight, same as my late lunch. And a small piece of fresh pineapple for dessert.
Since it is going so cold here (for us), I am thinking of some broccoli cheese soup this week, got the broccoli and might as well use the vitamix.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2021 22:48:48 GMT -5
Simple meal tonight. I had some left over mashed potatoes so I added Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan and garden peas. The recipe calls for putting the cooked chicken under the broiler to make the cheese bubbly but I was happy just to melt it on the chicken. Not quite as pretty but just as tasty and less dishes to wash. IP - Chicken Parmesan by Brownrexx, on Flickr That looks good. How did you make the sauce?
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 9, 2021 7:48:44 GMT -5
That looks good. How did you make the sauce? It was made in the Instant Pot but wouldn't need to be. Sauté a chopped onion and a minced garlic clove in 1 tbsp. olive oil. Add 1/2c. chicken broth and scrape browned bits from bottom of pot. Add and mix together a 14 oz. can of crushed tomatoes, 1 tbsp. tomato paste, 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper. Nestle chicken breasts into the sauce, seal the IP and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes. Natural pressure release 10 mins. The recipe calls for adding shredded mozzarella after cooking but I used a slice of mozzarella. It's a tasty sauce and I saved the left over sauce to use on some grilled chicken breasts next week.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 10, 2021 9:31:37 GMT -5
Chili.
I usually have some cooked dry beans in the freezer but I didn't have any yesterday so I put some of my homegrown Domingo Rojo red beans, unsoaked, into my Instant pot with broth and water. I pressure cooked for 20 minutes and they were still a bit firm so I put the lid back on and added another 5 minutes. The beans were perfect. I really like the IP for cooking dry beans.
Chili was good and it contained homegrown garlic, green peppers, tomatoes and beans. I think that it's rare for me to cook a meal that does not contain something that I have grown myself and that makes me happy.
|
|
|
Post by bestofour on Feb 10, 2021 12:50:18 GMT -5
I cheated and got a rotisserie chicken from the local supermarket, they make very good ones in a variety of "flavors', and cheaper than buying one and cooking it myself. I am changing my diet a lot, and trying to be good, *sigh*, but oh, some things I shall miss having often...and the idea that I shall most likely never have good pineapple upside down cake again is just depressing, LOL!! Oh woe is me !!! (LOL) But I do get to have butter, thank goodness, and many other good things. Maybe it was the variety, pacquebot, but the twice before that we tried having purple potatoes they tasted sort of pastey and not good. How did you fix them? sticking to a specific diet is hard. When I worked on a renal unit most of the patients couldn't stick to their renal diet when they went home because it's so strict. Consequently they were repeat visitors to our floor. One of our patients kept returning with high potassium and we couldn't figure out why until one day his mother walked in with a bucket of strawberries for him for "snack". FYI a moderate amount is NOT a bucket full
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 10, 2021 14:10:40 GMT -5
Vegetable beef soup tonight and once again it contains a lot of veggies grown by me but it is still not my favorite. Hubby loves it and I take out my beef cubes and give them to him so that makes it palatable for me. I am just not a big beef person and I have never liked beef vegetable soup. I do make chicken vegetable soup sometimes and I like that a lot better.
Side dish is warm pear slices in light syrup. I freeze them in syrup during the summer and then just heat, sprinkle with cinnamon and eat during the winter. The pears are from our trees.
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Feb 10, 2021 22:54:47 GMT -5
Had a pasty but with a story that's uncanny. These are from Iron Mountain, MI. A friend brings some down when she gets tis way. Todays;s were brought down several years ago. A couple months ago, brought the last two up from the basement freezer. Wife wasn't feeling well this aft and told me to feed myself. Opted for one of the pasties. Hadn't heard from my friend in ages. Got done eating and went to the mail box. There was a Get Well card from her! I am still shaking my head to figure the odds.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2021 0:56:59 GMT -5
Chicken tortilla soup tonight, I made it almost a bit too spicy, but still good and warming.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 11, 2021 17:51:05 GMT -5
I have a pork loin roast in the sous vide right now. (Actually, I am using my son's sous vide which he hasn't asked me to return it yet.) Since you are supposed to be able to cook things directly from frozen using the sous vide, that is the method I am trying today.
When the roast comes out of the sous vide in a little while, it will be cooked internally. So it will just need a quick sear in a hot pan before serving, and then I will make some sort of pan sauce on the fly. Sides will be macaroni & cheese (to make the kids happy), rolls, and a veggie from the freezer, probably broccoli.
Hope the roast comes out tender and juicy like it's supposed to!
|
|
|
Post by farmerjack41 on Feb 11, 2021 19:16:15 GMT -5
Another supper of breakfast tonight. Eggs, hash browns and sausage.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2021 19:59:59 GMT -5
I have always liked breakfast for supper. When a kid, pancakes for supper were a wonderful thing, especially buckwheat ones.
Laura, how did the pork loin come out?
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 11, 2021 23:21:31 GMT -5
I knew I'd have a craving for Thai curry, after talking about it on another forum, so I got my oldest chicken and a pound of Thai beans from the freezer last night, along with my last cup of red curry paste, and thawed them in the fridge overnight. And I had all that butternut squash I had to use up (I had to cut a bad part out of one, and it was too much for this!), plus some mushrooms I had to use. Thai curry is something that I can put just about anything in, and it's still delicious! This one has about 24 oz chicken, 22 oz of cut up butternut, 2 onions, cut into large chunks (something I put in most of these curries, for the sweetness), 16 oz frozen Thai red long beans, about 12 oz creminis, cleaned, quartered, and pre-cooked, plus the standard Thai curry ingredients. This was a lot - 40 oz of coconut milk, though 8 oz is cooked down, for that initial frying of the paste in the coconut oil. Lime leaves, fish sauce, palm sugar, Hanoi Market chiles, and red curry paste, for Thai curry. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Thai long red beans, butternut, and onion chunks, for Thai curry. by pepperhead212, on Flickr A cup of the coconut cream, cooked down to separate, and caramelize some. by pepperhead212, on Flickr A cup of red curry paste, cooked in the coconut oil for 4-5 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Chicken and everything except the butternut, cooking 10 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Finished Thai curry, after cooking the last 15 minutes with the butternut. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Thai curry, served around a mound of jasmine rice, mixed with millet. by pepperhead212, on Flickr That jasmine rice and millet mix is what I've been doing since trying to reduce that jasmine rice in my diet. I tried a number of grains; however, all but the millet drowned out the aroma of the jasmine rice. I soak the millet first for 25-30 minutes, then add the jasmine rice, and cook in the IP in rice mode - 12 minutes on low pressure. This is sort of brownish, only because I de-glazed the pan I pre-cooked the mushrooms in, and used that for some of the water. Jasmine rice and millet, 1:2, steamed together in IP. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
|
|
|
Post by spike on Feb 12, 2021 11:45:45 GMT -5
I am going to make breaded pork and mashed potatoes tonight but I am also going to make hubby Shoo Fly Pie. He loves that pie. I think it is revolting!
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 12, 2021 15:03:40 GMT -5
I have always liked breakfast for supper. When a kid, pancakes for supper were a wonderful thing, especially buckwheat ones. Laura, how did the pork loin come out? It was tender and juicy as hoped. But searing the roast turned into a comedy of errors! The fat at the bottom of the roast slipped off during searing and stuck to the pan, leaving me with un-seared meat and a stuck-on mess that burned to the pan. The coating of cooked-on marinade that had adhered to the roast when it was in the the sous vide bag also came off and burned in the pan. I eventually got it seared, but there was no way to make a pan sauce out of the black mess in the pan. I had to improvise a sauce - using a clean pan, of course! The sauce eventually came out well, but it was much more time consuming (took a lot of tinkering with flavor) and didn't have the flavor "oomph" that a proper pan sauce would have had. I have another roast in the freezer with the same marinade. After I sous vide it, I think I am going to rinse it off thoroughly to get the remaining marinade off the surface, then dry it with paper towels (so it won't pop in the oil) before searing. I'll also pull off any loose fat from the bottom. I should be able to get a trouble-free sear and make a pan sauce that way. Or if I am feeling lazy, I might just have my son or DH sear it on the grill and serve it with BBQ sauce.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 12, 2021 15:58:35 GMT -5
The other experiment I tried last night was "one pot macaroni & cheese" inspired by the Tasty recipe: tasty.co/recipe/easy-one-pot-mac-n-cheese One of my sons was really anxious to try it. The notion is that you can avoid making a roux and do everything in one pot because the macaroni is boiled in the milk. Since the cooking liquid is never drained, the starch that cooks out is retained, making for an extra-creamy sauce. It did work as promised, but using so much milk also gives a definite sweetness to the pasta that I didn't care for. The "salt to taste" step took a while to get that sweetness balanced out without making it too salty. Also, I cooked mine in the microwave, because I know from experience making puddings, hot cocoa, etc., that boiling milk on the stove = scorched milk unless you stir it constantly. (My son had tried it at his apt and made a mess of his cookpot because he didn't know how prone to scorching it would be.) I had too many other things to do to stand there and stir constantly. The microwave worked, but it took longer than the stovetop. (My microwave is old and probably not as powerful as newer ones.) The macaroni also required more milk than advertised, but that may be because my son likes his pasta cooked really soft. In the end, I don't think it's any harder to just make a quick roux and then cheese sauce while the pasta is boiling. It's more dishes, but it's quicker, partly because you can boil the pasta faster on the the stovetop, and you don't have to fiddle with repeatedly adding extra salt until you counteract the sweetness from the milk. I'd rather spend the money on more/better cheese than all an extra 5-6 cups of milk. And honestly, if you're making mac & cheese for kids, a kitchen hack is to skip the roux entirely and just add at least half Velveeta (I know, processed cheese, eww!) and no more than half real cheddar to your cooked, drained (not rinsed) pasta, along with your seasonings (I use a little ground mustard and ground white pepper) and a little milk to get the desired texture. Check the salt, but the cheese is salty and if you salted the cooking water, you probably won't need much, if any, salt at the end. If your cheese mix is at least half by weight Velveeta (or other processed American-type cheese) the sauce will come together fine. These don't have the flavor of natural cheeses, but both Velveeta and processed American cheese melt beautifully. And frankly the flavor using Velveeta and/or American cheese for half of the cheese mix is closer to the flavor of the boxed mac & cheese that nearly all kids prefer anyway. For an emergency hack when you have no refrigeration due to power outages, make mac & cheese on the side burner of a gas grill! To save propane, use the bare minimum amount of water to cover the macaroni; less water means less propane needed to boil the water, plus you will waste less water when draining. You can also add the macaroni directly to the cold water if you stir frequently to keep it from sticking together. This will also reduce cooking time. To the cooked, drained pasta, add Velveeta (it doesn't need refrigeration until the package is unopened), powdered milk and water, plus seasonings if you're feeling fancy. My family calls this "Apocalypse Mac." Add a side of summer sausage (again, no refrigeration needed until it's opened) or serve with heated canned chili for "chili mac." Voila, an easy hot meal the kids or grandkids will like. I am sure you could do this over a campfire or in a fireplace if you're experienced at cooking over open fire...the trick is not scorching it once you add the milk and cheese. Dessert would be canned fruit, of course.
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Feb 13, 2021 0:00:34 GMT -5
I will never get used to black potatoes no matter how they are prepared. Friday night so it was fish filets Hubbard squash, and potato wedges. Tasty and filling but potatoes are not supposed to be black! But still may hold some of those Magi Molly back to grow again.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 13, 2021 1:28:50 GMT -5
Besides more of that Thai curry that I made yesterday, today I treated myself by making these Salted Butter and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread - They are fantastic! And what smells better than CC cookies, of any type? www.bonappetit.com/recipe/salted-butter-and-chocolate-chunk-shortbreadI changed the method to the way I have made countless types of shortbread - in the food processor! I just put dry ing. in the bowl, pulse a few times to mix, then add the butter, cut up some, and process until it starts to come together. then, in a recipe like this one, or one with nuts, they get worked in my hand, and in this one, it is formed into a log, and chilled. The chocolate chunks were a little hard to cut through - a thin knife I often use for slice and bake cookies didn't cut through them well, so I got a saw-toothed bladed paring knife, which cut through them fairly well. When it seemed that it was pushing a chunk out of the way, instead of cutting it, I just started sawing it, and it went through well. As with all similar cookies, they are delicious warm, but also good cooled off. However, it seems shortbread gets better in just a day - something about the butter getting stronger - I only ate one each way, and saved the rest! Making the Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, adding butter to the dry ingredients. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Butter and dry ingredients blended in FP, and starting to come together. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Shortbread dough, ready for the chocolate chunks. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Log of shortbread dough, with chocolate chunks mixed in, ready to chill. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Shortbread log, brushed with egg and rolled in the raw sugar, prior to slicing. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Shortbread ready to go into the oven. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Finished Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread by pepperhead212, on Flickr
|
|
|
Post by september on Feb 13, 2021 11:35:15 GMT -5
Eating one? Not gonna happen here, with my lack of will power! Recipe sounds delicious!
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 13, 2021 17:02:31 GMT -5
Mmmm...they look great!
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Feb 14, 2021 18:30:12 GMT -5
With minus temperatures outside, need for lots of heat inside. Had some super chili and all from pantry or freezer. Two quarts of special spiced tomato juice made just for chili was base. Two pint jars of kidney beans plus fresh onions and frozen sweet peppers. 1¼# ground venison and good dash of my semi-hot chili powder. Going to taste twice as good tomorrow evening when pasta is added to stretch it out.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 14, 2021 19:49:55 GMT -5
Christmas Eve lasagna left overs from the freezer.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 15, 2021 18:02:03 GMT -5
Tonight was our Valentine's Day meal since we were away over the weekend. It was crab cakes, a home grown baked potato, shrimp cooked in Old Bay and mango/berry fruit salad. Dessert will be a decorated white cake with white icing and our names with a heart around them and red and pink roses. I bought everything except the potato at Wegmans so it was an easy and delicious meal for me. Valentine's Day 2021 by Brownrexx, on Flickr
|
|