What's for dinner June 06

For once I've planned my meals before the week starts.

Monday - asparagus, eggs, bacon, strawberries.

Tuesday - smoked eel, bread, salad.

Wednesday - not completely sure yet, probably puy lentils and whatever looks nice from the veg bag.

Thursday - pasta salad with hot smoked trout.

Friday - chicken, either barbequed or grilled, but certainly with Thai flavours.

Weekend - I'm not THAT organised

Zillah

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

Last night I made a curry with haricot beans and tinned tomatoes. Tonight is still a mystery!

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

Kerri.

Last night we had mushroom gravy with basmati rice. We would have had a green vegetable too if I had remembered to cook one

Don't know about tonight, DS14 went out at 3.30pm and isn't due back until about 10pm. At lunchtime we had a pizza and some cherries. For dinner I'll probably have hummus and bread with salad, and DS can have some if he's hungry when he gets home.

We're having chicken chasseur, probably with rice.

I have an eye witness report that says you were spotted eating cheesecake at dinner time!

we had bacon, cheese, salad and croutons. My smart arse DD asked where the carbs were, and since I knew she would I added the croutons.

Kerri.

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

Mac and cheese with ground beef and tomatoes in it. We're going to have some fruit cocktail soon for dessert, before I actually get around to doing the dishes. Hey, it's only 10!

Honey, have you tried making hummus? DD and I just did it this morning and it's very easy, much cheaper than supermarket version and tastes great. I'll post a recipe if you like.

Last night's puy lentils and something turned into sardine and tomato pate followed by rice and spinach soup.

I HAVE remembered to get the chicken out of the freezer for tomorrow night's supper. Next stage, marinade

Zillah

What makes you think my hummus wasn't home made? You know me too well

Yes please to the recipe, funnily enough Kerri was telling me only yesterday how she makes it. Maybe I will make both versions and compare

Tonight we had pizza with salad, and chicken chasseur! Weird I know.

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

getting boring!

Kerri.

Yesterday we had lentils, rice and mango chutney.

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

We had our BBQ sands on Friday, with some green beans and watermelon, and last night our catfish with some corn pudding and spinach salad. We also had Shaunbalaya earlier in the week -- I think I am in some kind of Southern cooking jag.

But tonight I think it will be pasta with caramelized fennel. A friend who gets veggies from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture -- you buy shares in a farm or group of farms and you get weekly deliveries of fresh local fruits and veggies) didn't want the fennel, so I got it!

She also gave us some White Russian kale (never tried it!) and baby bok choy. Woohoo! Very inspirational. Not sure what I'll do with the kale, but the baby bok choy probably means soba noodles and tofu in miso broth.

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

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

Yum, that whole menu sounds great Lenora. I wonder if they would give out the recipe if you asked.

Last nite: brats on the grill, roasted veggies, garden salad
Tonite: chicken thighs with Thai peanut coating, basmati rice, veggie or salad
Tomorrow: eating at Mom and Dad's place

Just planning a few days at a time right now b/c life is so busy with my parents here, end of year stuff, etc.

OK people, what are these brats you're barbequing? Over here, brats are annoying children. You're seeing the image I'm getting here?

We're having welcome home barbeque tonight for DMIL, who is back from Australia. Salmon steaks, asparagus, potato salad. Then some strawberries and cream.

Later in the week, I'm just not sure yet. I need to go and do some planning.

Zillah

Zillah - short for bratwurst - kind of an Italian Sausage type thing - we just throw them on the grill and eat like a hotdog. Pronounced like brawts. Pretty good and easy. Funny visual you were getting though!

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!

...sausages on the menu for us tonight!

I'm not grilling, though, but will parboil and use sweet Italian sausages, tomatoes, green and red peppers and sweet onion topped with cheese on buns.

I haven't picked sides, yet...probably just a green salad and cut veges. (simple)

I'm taking MIL creamed chicken and biscuts...and a tray of cookies for the floor staff. The chicken and the cookie dough are chilling right now!

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

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!

So Becky, do you think "Polish" is different from Kielbasa?? I'm guessing it is. Sometime I'd like to cook one of each of these and do a tasting! I do l ike these types of sausages a lot. The Polish in Minnesota are often made from deer meat and pork combined with spices and made at home. Very good and meatier than some of the Italian sausages I've had around here, which seem fattier.

Our Thai thighs were a bust, not done. So we threw them in the microwave for a bit and the rest back in the oven. Ah well. Mom and Dad's tomorrow for burgers and I don't know what the next nite.

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

They certainly taste different to me. I don't know anyone who uses them interchangeably. I guess you could call kielbasa Polish sausage because it's a type of sausage that originated in Poland, but the sausages I've seen that are sold as just "Polish sausage" are not the same as kielbasa.

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

You sure do get answers when you ask a question here! Thanks guys, I now know more than I ever knew there was to know about 'brats'.

Zillah

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.

rounded out the meal nicely!

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.

I will be combining it with leftover meat and vegetables, however. Just as soon as I get up out of my chair, which will happen any minute now, really.

Tonight we'll have risotto and salad. Then I need to make asparagus quiche to take to my grandmother tomorrow.

Thursday will be puy lentils, brown rice salad, yoghurt and spinach. Left-overs for Friday's lunch.

DMIL will cook on Friday.

Zillah

Yes, AGAIN. Wanna make something of it?

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!

Last nite: marinated pork tenderloin on the grill, grilled veggies, brown rice, and bakery bread

Tonite: something with chicken breast??? Still working on that one. We will go out or do take out Friday.

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

we've had an Indian takeaway, a meal at a Mexican restaurant and tonight DH cooked - a mixed noodle/veg/prawn stirfry and sweet and sour pork since the kids (actually just DD) had been grizzling about wanting Chinese takeaway. They've just been sent to bed early in disgrace so you can imagine how much fun we've had with dinner today.

still, lots more strawberries and cream for those of us still awake (DS shoulda thought of that earlier!).

Kerri.

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.

I can only remember the last few meals, memory is a blank before that. Tuesday we had friends over, we had a tuna and pasta concoction with salad. Last night DS14 and I had (English)pancakes for dinner. Discovered a Delia Smith pancake recipe online that will definitely be my method of choice from now on, yum. Tonight is a mystery so far, but probably chicken of some description as there are three enormous legs lurking in the fridge that need using.

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!

Change of plan - when I went to take the chicken out of the fridge it had frozen. Why does my fridge freeze things? Aargh. So I threw the chicken in the freezer and we had pancakes. Again.

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.

with fresh rosemary (mine's finally big enough to clip!)

New potatoes (rice for DD11 and me)
baby beans and carrots
cut veges
apple something (cobbler?crisp?) hmmmmmm maybe I'll look at peaches for a cobbler....

Of course, If I expect DH for dinner (which he say's He'll make) it won't happen...sigh. He's somewhere in the corner of Indianna, Kentucky, and Ohio, and the drive home brings him right through a hefty line of storms (we've had a bad week "up here": much flodding, tornados, etc.) I was actually relieved when he had to add an extra day and stay there last night!
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

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.

it was judo night last night, which is 6-7:30pm, so the kids had a small bowl of plain pasta (one had pesto, the other had butter), then basically we had tuna sandwiches for dinner, except that I came up with a good way of getting veg down them without it being a proper meal - we had tuna and salad wraps! It did the job. Should've opened a second can though because we only got one wrap each out of the one can (for me and the kids) and it was a bit light.

Kerri.

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.

We're having Thai green chicken curry, with beansprouts and noodles.

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

by Thursday you could have a rebellion on your hands though!!

we had some ready basted BBQ sauce flavoured chicken pieces - they cook from frozen which is lovely and straightforward. Also boiled titchy new potatoes and my first ever Caesar salad. Actually I cheated - I found a bottle of "Cardini's" Caesar dressing which claimed to be the original recipe, my lettuce was correct, my cheese was romano... it was divine and I'm going to do it every day for the rest of my life. Or until the croutons run out!! Might try making my own dressing since we used a half a bottle today, but it seems very fussy so I might not. More garlic might have been nice. We had a fabulous Caesar salad at Outback Steakhouse a few weeks ago which set this off.

Thai sounds good... might wait a month or so to have Singapore Thai though. So many food options, so little time!

Kerri.

What's that then?

Tonight we had tomato and mozarella salad, then courgette (zucchini) risotto.

I know for tomorrow lunch we'll have puy lentils with basil, potato salad, green salad and tomato salad as we have someone coming for lunch. Beyond that is anyone's guess!

Some weeks it just doesn't happen.

Zillah

I never know what to do with courgettes. I roast them with aubergines and other veg sometimes, which we usually have with lamb and couscous, but I don't know what to do with them aside from that.

Tonight we are having this lemon chicken recipe with stir fried veg.

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?

But healthy-ish frozen food! A baked chicken half-breast, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Then I had some canned apricots for dessert.

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.

So we, too, are finishing stuff off. Tonight's dinner is macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and some kind of vegetable which I have not decided yet. Probably canned fruit cocktail for dessert. None of it sounds too thrilling to me but DH loves kid food.

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.

you're supposed to shake the flour back off so it's only what sticks. The point of it is partly to protect the chicken from drying out, but you can always use cornflour instead.

Kerri.

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

from Morrisons for 99p for a pack of 8 - that's what we had for breakfast today!

I'd forgotten your issues with cornflour. It MUST be dissolved in COLD WATER and then it needs to be cooked out in order to thicken - it ISN'T INSTANT!!! As a protection on your chicken it doesn't need to thicken anything, although any sauce you subsequently make round the chicken whilst cooking will be thickened because of it.

we had more caesar salad, pasta salad, shop-bought quiches, and other salad items for a big lunch which was our main meal so we wouldn't get indigestion whilst watching the football!

there's a party going on behind us with a BBQ, but my kids are making more noise than the 20 or so people at the party. And the party host just lifted a bag of cherries over the back fence as promised!

Kerri.