What's for dinner June 06

DH's trip got put off a day (Tues-Friday, now) so I'm going to marinate some chops for grilling. I don't have sides worked out yet...maybe pasta salad and cold veges.

It's going to be a gorgeous day so the DDS and I plan to spend the afternoon at the pool. A heavy cooked dinner just doesn't fit with the idea of "summer vacation!"

Blessings,
Lenora
"...if woman's work is never done, why bother about how much of it [isn't] getting done at any given moment?"
~ Claire Fraser in The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

it's over 5hrs ago...! Ummm... smashed Jersey royals with butter, more of yesterday's burgers and cowboy beans.

Kerri.

We're having chicken chasseur, probably with rice.

The chicken chasseur was due to take ages to cook and we were starving, so we each had a slice of bread with hummus while we were waiting, which must have been what DD saw on the webcam I wish it WAS cheesecake...

However, I turned on the top oven and put the chicken chasseur in the bottom oven, so when I went take it out over an hour later it was raw. I rustled up a very quick chickpea curry with couscous instead.

Tomorrow's dinner will be chicken chasseur

Homemade is good! Then you can add as much garlic as you like. But it was on sale this week so I bought a little tub for weekend snacks.

A nice simple supper tonight: grilled tuna, grilled turkey dogs for the girls, some rice pilaf, and a spinach salad with gorgonzola, almonds, and dried cranberries. Nice and fast with minimal cooking!

This week's up coming meals:

BBQ chicken from the crockpot
Oven-fried pecan-crusted catfish
baked mushroom ravioli with bechamel
Asparagus risotto
Pasta shells with chick peas, hominy, and mozza. cheese

We've been eating fish and chips regularly (home made, oven-fried, Target Market Pantry brand -- it's good!), and of course quesadillas are always a standby.

Not sure what else. But I guess that's seven meals!

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

Yesterday we had lentils, rice and mango chutney.

Today we are having sausages in bbq sauce, potatoes and broccoli.

DH and I hit a new little restaurant after seeing X-Men 3. The movie was so-so (and I enjoyed the first two) but my dinner was fabulous!

I had black pepper fettucini with pan seared sea scallops, red onion, and spinach in a sweet vermouth cream sauce.

Divine!
Sublime!
I didn't even want dessert because I just wanted to remember how delicious my entree had been.

Man! I need that sauce recipe!

Blessings,
Lenora
"...if woman's work is never done, why bother about how much of it [isn't] getting done at any given moment?"
~ Claire Fraser in The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

that's interesting because bratwurst is German for sau*age. Well, wurst is the sau*age part but bratwurst is a particular kind (there are so many kinds of wur*t it's hard to keep up!).

anyway we had wurst in a bread roll, also known as a hot dog on Friday. proper English sausage to be fair, and the kids had that while I had a burger with onions - yummy! It was the school summer fair and the headmaster was working the grill. Plus we had to get to judo so they needed something early enough to digest it. That doesn't quite explain the ice-cream we had first but it was hot!!

Saturday night my parents took us for a pub meal to celebrate us getting our first outlet agreed (need to go brag about that elsewhere!), and Sunday was the pizza I'd bought for Friday and left in the fridge because the freezer was full.

Tonight?? No idea, but we've got a lot of potatoes, so it'll probably be potatoes or maybe rice, because this Asian family hasn't had rice in weeks (don't tell my MIL!).

Kerri.

ps. kept getting flagged for potential spam!

You're right Becky! Bratwurst is German, isn't it? In N. Minnesota where DH grew up there is also something called "Polish" or Polish Sausage which is a similar concoction. Often homemade I think. I've seen his Mom boil them!

For Christmas Eve I let my Polish-heritage husband relive his childhood and we ate more Polish sausage than you would think possible, all from a fabulous, old-time East European deli/butcher in Minneapolis. There were tons of Polish sausages to choose from. I think most people use Kielbasa and Polish sausage interchangeably to describe the same thing. Or maybe that was just my grandpa . . .

Our fennel pasta was OK, but we didn't have enough fennel to really appreciate it. Ditto tonight -- I made kale and red beans with cilantro and feta cheese. It didn't make much, so I put it on pasta. The kids liked it, but the bland pasta flavor diluted the taste of the kale and red beans.

Tomorrow: Pineapple Fried Rice from Thailand, served in a hollowed-out pineapple! Baby bok choy on the side (not sure if that is very Thai, but we have a bunch because local Hmong farmers grow it like crazy), with Ginger Ice Cream for dessert (again, not all that Thai, but this meal seemed like a great excuse to buy this boutique ice cream!)

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

Pasted below is the entry in the Wiki. Of course the Wiki is not necessarily fact checked by Poles, so whoever wrote the entry could just be repeating the same misinformation that I am!

And may I say that the Krakowska is really good! (If you like garlic)

Kielbasa (in English usually pronounced /kiːlˈbɑːsə/ or /kɪlˈbɑ:sə/; in Polish spelled kiełbasa and pronounced [kʲewˈbasa] listen (help·info) is the generic Polish word for sausage.
Sausage is a staple of Polish cuisine, and comes in dozens of varieties, smoked or fresh, but almost always based on pork (although in some areas, it is possible to get it in beef, horse, lamb, turkey, or even bison). Every region has its own speciality. Popular types include kabanosy (thin, air dried sausage flavoured with caraway seed), krakowska (a thick, straight sausage hot smoked with pepper and garlic - name comes from Krakow), and wiejska (a large U-shaped pork and veal sausage with marjoram and garlic - name meaning "a country one", pronounced in Polish /ˈvʲejska/). In the U.S., "kielbasa" or "Polish sausage" almost always means some form of wiejska (although often not U-shaped and seldom containing veal), which may be fully- or part-smoked or unsmoked.

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

but mine *are* the two-legged kind!

no idea for tonight's dinner yet. We had yummy homemade asparagus soup for lunch, and tomorrow I'm having scampi with my parents (not my favourite - prefer my prawns au naturel!) because I need to be up at 3am to get them to the airport for 2wks in Malta!

Oh yes, I bought some more of those tasty fresh burgers we had the other week for our BBQ since I was in Asda for a change. Also picked up some salad, so I see a meal forming...

Kerri.

Yes you can detect a note of sarcasm. Salad is soo boring! Nevertheless, that's what I made for lunch - tuna salad. Lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, raw onion, green pepper, sweetcorn and tuna. Boorriinng.

I wasn't very hungry this evening. I made a bacon and cheese melt for DS14. Me? To counteract alll that boring healthy salad I just ate a packet of instant ramen noodles.

We had a Fray Bentos pie (from a tin) and fries (from the freezer). I certainly can't be the one to criticise other people!

So far I seem to be eating what I said I would! Last night we had the ravioli with bechamel, with a few zucchini thrown in. Green beans and steamed broccoli on the side. I think I used up all the veg! We're leaving town tomorrow so I wanted to clean out the fridge by actually eating, rather than tossing, the contents.

Going picknicking tonight -- will bring a pasta salad to share and possibly something for the grill. Have to find out if there is a grill first!

Friday dinner - sandwiches in the car.

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

but, hey! - at least i'm posting about it!

we found some potato skins in the supermarket stuffed with cheese and bacon and 50% extra free (Morrisons Zillah, Honey), used up some leftover fresh burgers and threw some salad at it. That was yesterday. Today we were driving back to look at an office/warehousing site for the second time (forgot some details the first time) in the pouring rain at about 5pm, and the route took us past a fish and chip shop. The rest is history!

Kerri.

Tonight is a flank steak marinated in soy/honey/rosemary with broccoli and baked potatoes.

Yesterday was nachos with chicken, olives, and onions.

Tomorrow is a salad made of romaine lettuce with shredded carrots, scallions, red pepper matchsticks, snow peas, and shredded chicken breast with a sesame rice vinegar dressing and topped with chow mein noodles.

After that-who knows!

it's possible your fridge is generally too cold, but more likely is that the chicken had drifted towards the back and I often find that things don't do well right against the back wall of the fridge (lettuce is really not suited). BUT, because of the fact that the chicken was still in the fridge rather than the freezer I would suggest that there may have been variations in temperature enough to make that chicken not really safe to have frozen. I know that throwing out food is a budget buster, but I would think very carefully about whether or not that chicken is going to be safe to eat. Most of the time the worst you'll get is a stomach upset if it's gone bad, but obviously it could be worse.

Lecture over! We had something approaching real food last night but it was still pretty fast - pasta with a bacon, mushroom and cream sauce, with a splash of white wine because it was there. The kids helped, which is unusual, but it was just as well really because it was the only chance I had for spending much time with them yesterday, but at least they didn't feel too neglected when they had both helped to make dinner.

Jo, your meals sound lovely, but I haven't had time for anything remotely complex recently. All my potatoes are sprouting because potatoes are more effort than pasta or rice!

Kerri.

Hot dogs this evening, as I didn't get home until 6.30 and was really tired.

As for the chicken, it was at the front of the fridge, but on the bottom. Things do freeze there sometimes. Can't see what's wrong with slinging it in the freezer and having it another time though. It hadn't been previously frozen.

It seems like ages since we had a proper dinner. Maybe next week I'll get myself organised.

we bought a roasted chicken from the supermarket yesterday afternoon on the way back from DD's judo competition and before the football. Put that together with some wraps and salad and that was lunch/dinner combined. We're getting cleverer about the stuff we buy and how we use it sometimes! Cheating doesn't always have to mean eating badly.

Kerri.

And the freezer too. We go camping for 9 days on Friday. Should be some very interesting meals created from the use-whatcha-have philosophy.

Tonight: turkey mignon sandwiches, green beans with almonds, broccoli in cheese sauce, potato puffs

for courgettes with butter and lemon or something. I know your feelings on ratatouille! They could be added to most sauce/casserole dishes though. I sometimes add them to spag bol. You can grate them and use them instead of carrots in carrot cake even! Don't forget they don't have to be chopped into convenient circles - small dice would probably hide in more dishes.

Kerri.

Are courgettes the same as zuccini?

So are the freezer and cupboards.

Tuesday we had balsamic rosemary marinted chicken breasts, buscuits, the rest of the potato puffs, pineapple, cottege cheese, and broccoli.

Last night we had leftovers from the previous two nights, and grilled cheese to fill in and finish up the bread and cheese, and smoothies to finish up the ripe bananas and yogurt.

We're out of milk. Oops!

Tonight, I think I'll have to resort to pizza takeout. We leave tomorrow.

The lemon chicken I made on Wednesday was okay. DS loved it, I wasn't so keen. It called for sprinkling flour on the chicken before frying, and I didn't like the resultant floury ickiness that coated the chicken, even after it had been fried and then baked for an hour. Next time I'm omitting the flour.

Zillah, your courgette tian sounds lovely. I'm not sure on the soup, or on Becky's 'redneck tian' - I've a bit weird about eggs. I can't imagine soup with eggs in, and whenever I've done something baked in the oven that involved eggs it's been a disaster

Jo, what's a potato puff?

Last night we had Fray Bentos pies with vegetables. A calorific nightmare for my healthy eating plan, but I made up for it by not having potatoes as well.

Tonight we are having a picnic. The weather is lovely, and we are off to see a play in the park, so we're picnicking before the performance.

another grocery item I don't get along with If I use it to thicken things it doesn't make any difference until I've put so much in that the whole dish tastes of it. Or it doesn't dissolve. I think flour in general is overrated I don't make bread, pastry or cakes so I only have it in the house for the odd little thing and then it sits on the shelf until it's ancient. The only thing I need it for is pancakes, and we have those so infrequently I might as well buy pancake mix in a single use size package.

Anyway....last night we had our picnic as planned. It was very pleasant in the park, and the play was brilliant.

Tonight we are out at a friend's barbecue, so no cooking for me