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What's For Dinner - Part 2


happy atheist

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We are having Thai chicken salad with peanut butter dressing. (Napa cabbage, green onions, cilantro, crushed peanuts and chopped chicken) Whenever we buy a whole chicken (whenever it is on sale) that poor chicken gets used until there is practically nothing left. There are only two of us so we eat it as a meal and then the fun begins: Thai salad, chicken pot pie, chicken soup and then, ultimately, a small amount of homemade chicken broth. I have challenged myself to not throw out food so, this morning, I noticed two plums that had seen their better days. They have been peeled, chopped and are on the stove right now becoming plum sauce. Old apples become chunky apple sauce. Grape tomatoes are roasted in olive oil and salt and become the basis for spaghetti sauce. Bread becomes bread crumbs. Any other suggestions?

I like this project!

Fruit that is dead ripe becomes jam or filling for crepes.

My favorite thing to do with tomatoes that have softened too much to stuff or use in salad: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/07/ ... -croutons/

Herbs that are languishing but not bad yet get pestoed (minus any cheese) and frozen in slabs thin enough so I can break off what I want to use later. If they're drying out rather than wilting, I'll remove them from the fridge and hang them up to dry further, then use them for tea or jar them and put them in the spice drawer. (I never make it through a batch of lemon basil without turning some of it into tea, but it makes amazing tea.)

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I made , or rather, am making Polish Chicken Patties. I misread the recipe and didn't notice the part that says the sauce has to cook for 20 min and then has to simmer for another 30 min with the patties in it. Luckily my family still loves me. :). I made Basbusa yesterday so all is not lost. We'll eat dessert first?

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Beckett70, can you post your recipe for peanut butter sauce? Pleeeeease?:D

Tomatoes that are going over the line get stewed down, skin and all, and frozen for a great tomato sauce base. I will bag and freeze roast chicken or rotisserie carcasses until I have a block of time to simmer for excellent chicken broth. The broth gets frozen in either an 8 cup portion for quick chicken soup (heat broth, cook veggies carb, and meat till cooked) no more than 30 minutes with frozen broth, or in 1 cup portions for rice, couscous, quinoa, etc. I cut off the stems from parsley and bag them in the freezer, dump them with the ckicken carcasses when I make broth.

Any small left over portions of meat live another life as quesadilla fillings with cheese, avocado, even some scrambled egg if I need to bulk the filling.

Herbs getting older get chopped up, put in ice cube trays with water, frozen, popped out, bagged. In the dead of winter toward the end of cooking a stew or soup I throw in some herb cubes and there is basil or parsley or dill.

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Beckett70, can you post your recipe for peanut butter sauce? Pleeeeease?:D

Tomatoes that are going over the line get stewed down, skin and all, and frozen for a great tomato sauce base. I will bag and freeze roast chicken or rotisserie carcasses until I have a block of time to simmer for excellent chicken broth. The broth gets frozen in either an 8 cup portion for quick chicken soup (heat broth, cook veggies carb, and meat till cooked) no more than 30 minutes with frozen broth, or in 1 cup portions for rice, couscous, quinoa, etc. I cut off the stems from parsley and bag them in the freezer, dump them with the ckicken carcasses when I make broth.

Any small left over portions of meat live another life as quesadilla fillings with cheese, avocado, even some scrambled egg if I need to bulk the filling.

Herbs getting older get chopped up, put in ice cube trays with water, frozen, popped out, bagged. In the dead of winter toward the end of cooking a stew or soup I throw in some herb cubes and there is basil or parsley or dill.

I really have to try freezing the herbs in water. I am always throwing out old parsley when it really needs to be saved for soup.

As requested, here is the peanut butter dressing for the salad:

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Whisk it together and it's ready to go.

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Freezing old herbs in olive oil is my usual. I will have to try water. I also toss old parsley in my frozen veggie scrap bag for stock.

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Thank you for the recipe, Becket70!

This tip is only good once a year, but we usually make WAY too many dyed eggs for Easter. So pretty much every dinner for the week after Easter features some type of "deviled" egg as a starter. Among the permutations, yolk, mayo, spices-yolk, mayo, sriracha, yolk mashed with avocado, yolk and finely minced olives.

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Jazzed-up, condensed tomato soup and spinach-feta croissant.

Tonight's dinner was vegetarian sausage with peppers and onions.

What's your preferred brand? We used to buy Morningstar before wheat became an issue.

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Jazzed-up, condensed tomato soup and spinach-feta croissant.

What's your preferred brand? We used to buy Morningstar before wheat became an issue.

Field roast, but it is gluten-based and would not be safe for someone with a wheat allergy. This is a pity, because both the fennel/pepper variety and the apple/sage variety are hella tasty. (I like the chipotle version too but find it a bit less versatile. The fennel/pepper, though it's marketed as Italian, doesn't have anything in it that's out of place in Hunanese cooking, so I occasionally mince it up to add to mapo tofu.)

Tonight's dinner was leftover diced melon with lime, green onion, ricotta salata, and mixed greens.

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Tonight is one of our meatless meals. We cook some whole wheat pasta, add cherry tomatoes, peas, fresh basil, olive oil and fresh parmesan. We try to have a meatless meal at least once a week and this is my go-to recipe. Our doctors (we actually go to different internists...weird, huh?) have strongly advised us to limit beef to once a week so we have to come up with some ideas....we are getting sick of chicken and neither of us is a big fan of fish. It's challenging to comply.

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The school year just started for us, so this year, we're trying something new (to us). We're Meal Planning! I wrote a list of 27 entrees that I'm willing to cook, and had my oldest pick a dinner for every week night of August- she could use each one up to twice in the month. I shopped to her choices. Tonight is a whole chicken. In order to get it done at a reasonable time, I prepped it this AM. The kids just have to put it in the oven at 4 PM, and remember to turn on the oven.

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Last night was my first dinner not-alone for a while. I made tomato rasam, chickpea sundal, and rice. The Partner made a green salad. We had cinnamon-lemon ice milk for dessert.

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I made a pasta dish from the food network magazine's "Easy Weeknight Dinners" section. It sucked, but we were hungry. Tomorrow I'm using the slo-cooker.

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Last night I made Mango Chicken over jasmine rice and some sliced cucumbers on the side. Really tasty and easy, this one is a keeper.

Tonight it was bruchetta with garden tomatoes and basil, sliced cucumbers and some feta on the side.

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I am trying out a pureed kale and olive soup recipe that was in the New York Times last week. It tastes like something is missing and I am not quite sure what. Salt? Acidity?

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I made skirt steak and a zucchini smush with basil and Parmesan. The zucchini is from our garden.

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I am trying out a pureed kale and olive soup recipe that was in the New York Times last week. It tastes like something is missing and I am not quite sure what. Salt? Acidity?

If it had olives, it should have been a GO on the salt. I would experiment with some acidity first.

I made the dukkah with your recipe yesterday morning. I had other plans for its first round here, but by evening I was dragging and just wanted something quick. So I cut up a fresh tomato, olive oil, vinegar, fresh basil and a pinch of salt. Mixed and sprinkled with a bit of dukkah. Then I topped that with a poached egg sprinkled with dukkah on top. Italian bread. OHMYGOODNESSDUKKAHROCKS!!! I can't wait to try it with some other ideas I have for it.

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If it had olives, it should have been a GO on the salt. I would experiment with some acidity first.

I made the dukkah with your recipe yesterday morning. I had other plans for its first round here, but by evening I was dragging and just wanted something quick. So I cut up a fresh tomato, olive oil, vinegar, fresh basil and a pinch of salt. Mixed and sprinkled with a bit of dukkah. Then I topped that with a poached egg sprinkled with dukkah on top. Italian bread. OHMYGOODNESSDUKKAHROCKS!!! I can't wait to try it with some other ideas I have for it.

I noticed the article was written by Mark Bittman and preemptively doubled the vinegar, which I still couldn't taste. Ah, well. (MB is my recipe kryptonite.)

I think dukkah might be what the soup was missing. :lol:

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