Eating Dinner With My Family

It's a cheating post!  I made these yesterday, but for tonight's meatless Monday dinner we made cauliflower soup out of some cauliflower I hade from FPP. It is a repeat, but it is magical that it turns one of my son's veto ingredients in to something he eats. No not eats but devours. (And I smugly say see you don't hate cauliflower!). As for the drink, YUM!  It was perfect for me, but my husband found them a bit fiery and diluted them with some tomato juice.  That didn't stop him from still enjoying them ;).  I loved this take on one of my favorite cocktails. Kimchi Bloody Mary 2 packed cups kimchi (16 ounces) 46 ounces tomato juice 1/4 Cup Sriracha chile sauce 2 Tbl Worcestershire sauce 2 Tbl sherry vinegar Salt Freshly ground pepper 2 Cup vodka (16 ounces) Ice Mint sprigs or shiso leaves for garnish 1. Working in batches, puree the kimchi with the tomato juice, Sriracha, Worcestershire and vinegar. Set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and str...

I am afraid of what you will think of me when I say what I am about to say.  Please don't judge me too harshly, but I have never seen Breaking Bad.  Still with me?  Ok, my husband is watching it on Netflix, and I think I would like the show, but I really hate mob movies and all the killing and violence in them and I have lumped (I am told unfairly) Breaking Bad in to this genre.  As such, I have as much desire to watch it as I do to eat sweet and savory together.  (regular readers inside joke;)  But any reason for a party and themed food works for me, so when I saw that The Savory was suggesting this Breaking Bad Burger, I was so in.  (like I need a reason for burgers in this house)  it wasn't too hard to prep, but when I was cooking the burgers they broke and it was bad! (I know groan!). But it's true. The burgers didn't stay together well. I managed to keep one intact for the picture, but a few of them had a ring crumble off and I had ...

My son requested shrimp tonight.  I like shrimp well enough, but I hate peeling them.  And even though I buy 'deveined' I always need to get rid of that little bit by the tail that they never seem to get rid of.   So I was poised to be annoyed and not very impressed with the dish. I gotta admit, they were really good and it was super fast to make. (OCD peeling of the shrimp aside)  I got a baguette and quickly made a green salad and dinner was done in about 15-20 minutes.  Sizzled Shrimp Provençal   1/4 Cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 1/2 Lb jumbo shrimp peeled and deveined Salt and freshly ground pepper 2 large garlic cloves very finely chopped 2 Tbl small capers drained 1/4 Cup fresh lemon juice 2 Tbl finely chopped flat-leaf parsley 1.In a very large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until shimmering. Season the shrimp generously with salt and pepper. Add the shrimp to the skillet and cook over high heat until they...

I had bought shiitakes for a meal I didn't end up making.  I needed to do something with them because I didn't want them going bad.  Not only are they my favorite mushroom, but they are on the pricey side.  I found this in the to try file and thought it fit the bill perfectly.  Now I did mess up a bit, which consequently caused my only complaint with the dish: I had 1/2 the mushrooms called for.  I was thinking of the packages in terms of the regular mushrooms which are 8 oz each.  I had 2 packages of shiitakes, so I was thinking I had 1 lb of them.  Well oops, the shiitakes are 3.5 oz each.  Having half the mushrooms needed was not a making for a perfect dish, but on the bright side, I decided this dish was a great base for a lot of  veggies.  All I need to do in the future is pick one that could cook like the snow peas in the pasta water (broccoli, cauliflower, carrot coins) and one that I will sauté.  The sauce was really great, ...

My husband choose this throwback Thursday dish.  I followed the sauce recipe, but the meatballs I played around with a little bit.  Mostly, I just made my life easy by getting the meatloaf package of ground beef/pork rather than get a package of both meats and most likely have odd bits I didn't need for tonight's dinner.  As always, if you don't eat beef or pork, you can switch out the meat for other ones, but the beef & pork combo is traditional and I think the tastiest.  I totally am loving the greens in the meatballs.  I don't know where I first saw this idea (and it was most like spinach that was in the original recipe), but I have used collards and now bok choy with fantastic results.  (my next experiment will involve the leavings from my juicing, but that is for another time:)  I also love coating the meatballs in bread crumbs. This coating absorbs the juices (and fat) cooking out of the meatball and adds a lot of flavor and a nice crisp...

I was so very excited to have delicata squash in my Front Porch Pickings Basket.  I love squash but have never had delicata before.  (refer to my many previous posts advocating being in a csa or finding a purveyor of local/organic produce)  I knew going in however, that this dish was about as far out of the zone of types of food I like as you can get and I was worried a bit.  I say all the time I do not like sweet and savory together. (I do not like them Sam I am)  I am constantly being pointed out to, by my husband, that, that isn't true, I have found plenty of dishes I like that have both. (like the lamb and date tagine ) However, that doesn't stop me from having a prejudice and an inherent dislike of them mixed.  I did object to the flavor and texture to the apples, and I thought the over all dish was too sweet for me, personally.  (the delicata was very sweet and delicious all by it's self)  That being the said, I like the dish way more ...

We are all sitting here, wretched full, because it was a really great dinner. Not only is it pretty easy (super easy if you buy tortilla chips rather than make them, but it's totally worth it to make them yourself it really doesn't add that much time, and you can avoid all the chemicals and such by making your own), but it is tasty and economical!   I did alter the recipe a bit.  First of all, we didn't need a whole chicken worth of meat for the 4 of us to eat, and since we had 1 & 1/2 breasts left over from the hobbit dinner, I shredded them and just made a few more tortillas worth of chips to make sure we didn't have too much sauce to filling.  So obviously an other change was more tortilla chips.  I also used Parmesan in place of the cotja cheese, but feta would work too if that is what you have in your fridge.  Oh and the onion I had was really big, so when the rest of the veggies came out of the oven, I separated the quarters in to thirds by t...

For meatless Monday, I thought I would try these Broccoli Cheese Bites from Pinterest.  I know I have been doing a lot from Pinterest, but I have thousands of pins, I need to get through some of them, and when planning dinner, it is so much easier to use my phone rather than my computer.  (SMH I am so lazy!)  I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I thought that if I chopped them larger, and made the patties larger, the broccoli would still be crunchy, and in my family, mushy veggies are not cool! They were so much better than I expected.  Oh I left out the salt and pepper because I was thinking that there would be plenty of flavor from the cheese and seasoned bread crumbs, and I think they were great as is.  I did dip them in Sriracha Cream sauce , (blush) but they were good plain too.  (maybe a bit of seasoning if not dipping;)  I think these would be a great way to use up a lot of different kinds of veggies, individually or in a big hodgepod...

Today, I let my nerd flag fly high! (again;)  I saw that today, would be Frodo and Bilbo's birthday, so what does a proper foodie nerd do?  Why have a celebratory dinner of course!  My husband said he would happily have the same dinner we did for our The Hobbit on DVD meal 'An Unexpected Dinner'.   I wanted new recipe for the blog, but I tried to stay pretty close menu wise to the last one.  So, found this recipe for Julia Child's favorite roast chicken on F & W, and this month's issue had these mushrooms sautéed in red wine, and since I omitted po-tay-toes from the last dinner, I chose these amazing looking potatoes from my pintrest side dishes to try board.  And of course cheese, (the same as last time, a English Double Gloucester   with chives) bread and pickles. The chicken was wonderful, juicy and perfect!  The potatoes were amazing and I nearly died of delight when I tasted the mushrooms!  We made Hobbits of ourselves...

I am not the biggest fan of pork chops. I like pork tenderloin, bacon, ham, etc, but chops not so much. I do dig a good pan sauce however so I still was kind of excited. I do like good schnitzel, yes pork schnitzel, but this recipe did not produce that wonderful schnitzel I like. The sauce was pretty yummy and the boys didn't complain about the s so it must be my issues (again:).  My husband picked it off Pinterest and since it was from allrecipes.com I have no problem posting it here. (I am always a little concerned about allrecipes. I have had a few really good recipes, several fixable and a few bad recipes from them.)  I totally forgot about sides when I was at the store, so I cooked a half a box of whole wheat pasta I had cluttering up the pantry and tossed it with a bit of butter.   (and then dill sauce ;) And I steamed some broccoli too.  The boys rated it a 4 & a 4.5, I am torn because the sauce was a 4.5 for sure, the pork more like a 3 for...

Ahh these throwback Thursdays are teaching me about the fallibility of memory. This ranked among the top 10 things we ever made, and was a strong contender for #1, and it was still delicious, but it didn't neatly make me faint and cry with joy the way I  remembered it.  My boy, who picked this TBT dish, still proclaims it a 5 star dish! My husband too.  I really enjoyed it and truth be told the sriracha cream does still make we weep with joy, but I was a smidge disappointed. Perhaps, in the exalted perfection of memory, I set my expectations too high. I shouldn't be complaining, it was a fine, nay excellent dinner, but I had put the memory of it on so high a pedestal, I should have known, it was going to lose in the comparison. I hope I haven't put you off the dish with my lamenting my first world problems. It is an outstanding dish.  It looks pretty too. (Although I think that the first post picture looks better than tonight's) It isn't too hard, or pricey. By thos...

As you may or may not know I love Korean food and a bulgogi just might be my favorite of all the dishes. This was a good dinner!  Totally yummy!!  If I had any criticism it would be that I didn't get enough, and I would have liked some more veggies.  (Not really for flavor but for health).   It is pretty easy to make too.  The only real preparation that needs to be done is the marinating early (or do it overnight like I did).  I did use the optional pear, I didn't taste it in the final product but I think it must have done something.  Kimchi Bulgoi Dubbap Recipe (Kimchi Bulgogi Rice Bowl) For Bulgogi tenderloin or rib eye tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)    (I used soy) sesame oil large cloves garlic Ilarge onion Asian pear (optional) agave nectar or honey mirin black pepper For Sautéd Kimchi napa kimchi gochujang (Korean red chili pepper (she said you could leave this out if you don't feel like running to the o...

I actually made these as the side to last night's quesadillas. However I am posting  as tonight's recipe because have green beans from my Front Porch Pickings basket and we adore this recipe for Fusilli with Green Beans, Parmesan and Pancetta .  However tonight, the pancetta will be played by bacon, as I didn't want to make another trip to the store.   The boys will be so spoiled with 2 repeats this week. I don't know if the will know what to do with themselves;) Crispy Baked Zucchini Fries     whole wheat flour eggs Panko breadcrumbs Salt Pepper garlic powder cayenne pepper zucchini Recipe and Instructions here

I am on a Pinterest roll!  Clearing out another one I wanted to try.  This one is a recipe from a food truck; a tex-mex-korean truck.  I was excited to try it after the other tex-mex-korean dish from a food truck we made, French Fries With Bulgogi And Caramelized Kimchi .  It  was unreal, so we had high hope for this one too.  It was good but I am putting it in the fixable file.  First of all, I halved the butter I used to saute the kimchi.  A whole stick was more than I thought we could handle and it seemed a colossal waste.  We also held back on the cheese a bit.  To be fair, I didn't have any shiso leaves, and I didn't bother trying to even look on line to see if I could get them.  I didn't even try to see if there was a substitute.  The end product was super greasy!  I think that could have been fixed while still keeping the tasty flavor these quesadillas had.  Another thing, I added a sour cream dipping sauc...

Yum, yum and yum!!  It took a little longer than I expected and it made enough meatballs to have the 4 of us eat 2-3 huge meals each but, I'm not complaining; they were great meatballs in an amazing sauce.  I will happily eat leftovers:). We served them over mashed red skinned potatoes. (Like the picture on the from the original blogger.) It was a perfect vehicle for the gravy/sauce. I know it's not healthy gravy, but the vast majority if the sauce was stock and veggies so I'm calling it quasi healthy and you can't convince me otherwise because I'm going to eat an obscene amount of it! Lol. I can't get over that sauce. As I sit here stuffed, I want to go get more now that I'm thinking about it. Porcupine Meatballs With Cream Sauce   Meatballs: ground beef ground pork rice onions egg water salt ground black pepper Cream Sauce: butter large carrots onions garlic cloves minced tomato paste flour chicken broth heavy cream salt and peppe...

Another recipe from pinterest and fellow blogger.  We hadn't had any seafood this week and I happened to have some potatoes left over so it was perfect.  I'm not a baker, but the biscuits were super easy, and I liked them even though they do violate my no processed foods as they are make from Bisquick. My son adored the soup and ate 2 huge bowls. My husband liked it too. I thought it was quite good despite the fact that I'm not the hugest fan of chowders. It really is that I'm not a fan of chunky soups, so I did alter the recipe a bit because of that and used the immersion blender and gave the soup a quick pulse or two before I added the shrimp.   Everything came together pretty quick and my only complaint was there was tons of leftovers.  The boy was happy but, I don't think shrimp reheat well.    New England Shrimp Chowder onions Olive oil fish or chicken stock potatoes salt pepper fresh shrimp milk cheddar cheese minced pars...

So for the second installment of throwback Thursday, I picked these short ribs. My husband had mentioned them recently believing them to be PBE (pre blog era) and wanted them. However they were on the blog so I surprised him with them tonight. I was off to the monthly wine tasting, and since I don't dig meat on a bone, I wasn't too disappointed to be missing dinner. The boys adored them. This time, by throwing in the potatoes in with the meat, it made for an easy meal. Just toss a salad and you are done. Yes the braising takes a bit of time, but the only real work was the chopping the onion and browning the ribs.   Short Ribs With Creamy Mustard Sauce 3 lb Beef Short Ribs 1/2    Onion Chopped fine  1 c  Beef Broth, Plus More As Needed 1/2 c  Heavy Cream, Or More  2 Tbsp Dijon or other good mustard Salt And Pepper Canola Oil 1 pound of red potatoes, quartered unless really small, then half them Heat a la...

I asked my husband to pick dinner often, he is completely daunted by the attempt to choose something we haven't made.  Only recently did he discover, that I was ok with him just picking a protein or even a genre (if you will) of meal.  I would be happy if he said: Salad, Thai, Fish, anything that can help me narrow down the myriad of choices I have lurking in my to try file or pintrest boards!  Well he took the new information and said,  uh... salad, to which I responded by filtering the to try recipe to the salads and asked him to look and see if anything sounded good.  Of course he choose the chicken taco salad.  Taco salad....  the only "salad" that has more calories than a happy meal!  And, chicken :/.... Again:/...  but I asked for it so I am going with his choice.  Then I pull up the recipe.  It is TWO friggin pages long!!!  Ok, breathe, we have 90% of the ingredients, and I opted for the rotisserie chicken instead of coo...

In the pan it looked prettiest:) My daughter wanted pasta, I didn't and I didn't have any "pasta" dishes planned. I did, however, have this chicken Parmesan with pepperoni planned, and I had planned to have pasta as the starch. Even though I am not a huge fan of chicken, or pepperoni, it is totally something the boys would love.  I also try, with varying degrees of success, to vary our proteins across the week, so chicken must come up about 1/7th of the time.  It didn't photograph well, but it was pretty dang tasty.  I bought the thin cutlets so I wouldn't need to pound the chicken to 3/4" but I should have and it really should have been more like 1/2" to cook through in the amount of time stated.  I also found something I didn't do, process the panko to fine powder.  It amazes me how often I miss something when I read each recipe at least 10 times!  And I personally, bought the "sandwich" pepperoni from the deli counter, so it woul...

So, its meatless Monday again. I don't know if its the back to school blahs, coming off a cold, or just a plain ole funk, but trying to find a new recipe that I'm excited to try, and isn't too taxing for my tired and/or lazy self is pretty impossible.  It is a testament to my laziness that Im not looking on my computer and that I prefer browsing on the couch with my phone, my boards on Pinterest, in which I pin every thing from yum, to dear God I bet that is horrible but I can't resist pinning it because I have to know is it that bad?!  (Like the tater tot sliders I just pinned. I know. WTH was I thinking. I don't care for 1) tater tots 2) processed food & 3) a carb on carb sandwich. however I pinned it because, like a deep fried Twinkie, I'm intrigued.  But I ramble on. (Pause here and sing with me as drift off in to Led Zepplin:)  This was on my meatless board, I had most of the ingredients and it looked fast and easy.  I loved it. The boy seemed to like t...