Category: dinner

still sick.  Sick enough that I kept myself home from work today in hopes of shortening the length of this thing.  I laid around on the sofa with my cat and watched Pawn Stars.  True confession.  It’s kind of interesting the stuff that comes into that store.  I think I got an enduring love of history from my dad and I like to see the odds and ends that people bring in thinking they are going to sell it to the guys at top retail dollar.   I can’t imagine they are all that clueless. Z called after I had started dinner and heroically offered to bring home takeout.  I was in the throes of roasting butternut squash so he brought me two things-crab cheese wontons and a pecan pie.  Hurrah for that!  I made a fall risotto for dinner (meat free Monday on Thursday).  It was filled with sauteed mushrooms and topped with roasted butternut squash.  A healthy sprinkle & swirl of Parmesan cheese.

great big head cold where all I want to eat is cinnamon toast and pecan pie filling and not make dinner.  But I finally made those pork chops.  We have two or three super easy (thirty minutes to done) pork chop recipes.  All could probably be made with chicken as well.  This one originally came from Nigella Lawson, Nigella Express.  It is almost a non-recipe.  Pan fry a couple of salt and peppered boneless chops  (maybe 1/2-3/4″ thick) for 6 or 7 minutes on a side.  Remove to a plate to rest.  Drop in one tablespoon of grainy dijon mustard and stir in a half cup of cream.  Drizzle over your chops.  Easy peasy.  I didn’t feel like making dinner but it’s done now with a serving for each of us tucked into the fridge for lunch later this week. Done and done.

Sorry about this photo.  It tastes better than it looks.

I have a head cold sort of thing going on and the idea of making dinner did not appeal in the slightest.  So, because I can’t remember the last time I bought/made chicken soup I opened up a box of Trader Joe’s Roasted Red Pepper Tomato soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches.  Dinner in five.  I make grilled cheese this way.  Slice up cheddar.  Throw some butter in a skillet.  Place bread on butter and lay on the cheese.  Top with second slice and heat until golden and crispy flipping mid-way adding more butter so other side is crispy too before you flip.  Do you butter the bread or butter the pan?

are you sick of this yet?  Another thing I have realized through working through this thirty days of dinners and sharing them all is that we do have a few favorites or at least we have a few things we have made a handful of times.  The real tried and true favorites haven’t really been blogged about because they are so low brow or because I probably think I already have.  People think that just because we eat well means we eat ‘gourmet’ all the time.  Definitely not true.  We eat well in that I take the time, usually on Sunday, to plan out a weeks worth of meals and then go shop for them.  I suppose it takes me two hours to put a list together and make it through the market and home.   I ask every week if there is anything Z wants.  If he has any input at all it is a standard litany of pasta, burgers, pork chops and mashed potatoes.  Mostly all things that he knows we both like.  He is quite a good cook but takes a long time because he is careful and studies the recipes and preps before he starts cooking.  I on the other hand, prep as I go and am not very careful if the quantities don’t quite come out.  This can lead to slightly better and slightly worse things and sometimes aggravation when I don’t remember how I made it better last time.  Tonight I planned to make pork chops but ended up making sloppy joe’s because I decided I had the wherewithal to work on dinner for an hour or so.  The sloppy joe’s were on the better end of the scale being sufficiently spicy.  The sides were pretty fun.  I made the new Alexia sweet potato waffle fries.  They were kind of good but went from limp to lightly charred in the blink of an eye.  We also had dilly beans.  I feel like an idiot typing and/or saying dilly.  I make dilly beans a few weeks back and we tried the first jar tonight.  They were crunchy and a tiny twinge of heat.     They are different and slightly scary-being canned beans.  The vinegar is what makes them ok though.

it’s kind of a challenge writing about dinner every night.  I wonder what I’ll learn from it.  I would say that so far, all I’ve learned is that I think eat eat too much bacon.  Tonight I made a throwback recipe that I posted about on January 11, 2011.  I actually did use four slices this time instead of 6.  So, cheers to that.  It looks somewhat more refined in a white low bowl too.   I can kind of see that my knife skills have gotten better in slicing green onions which is also interesting although I don’t look all that consistent.  Z chose this menu item for the week and it was delicious.  Looking forward to ‘school lunch’ leftovers too.