Sun October 27, '24, trick or treat or dinner?

Battered breaded cauliflower and mushrooms, baked for 1 hour, served with honey mustard sauce or stir fry sauce. Coconut PB blondie.

Brisket tacos. They tasted good, but the brisket was bone dry.



CD

I had a recipe for ham salad so I made a ham salad sandwich. Diced ham, some toasted almonds, diced celery, mayo, chives, Wooster sauce (which I forgot), and spicy brown mustard. It was good and that's great, because I have enough for two or three more sandwiches. But OMG! Trying to keep all that diced stuff on the bread was a trial. I think next time I'm going to toast the bread and just have an open-faced sandwich and eat it with a fork. Then the bread itself just fell apart. Takes the phrase 'eating with your fingers' to a whole new level.

The other thing I might do is add a little bit of onion and put in some yellow or Dijon mustard instead of spicy brown. This was one time spicy brown mustard just clashed with the flavors of everything else. But I was also supposed to add honey and I didn't because I didn't have any. That might have made a difference, too.

I had some stuff planned, either a salad Niçoise or a Danish version of chicken Stroganoff or even just roast some sausages and veg. But, the chicken breasts and the sausages are frozen and I just wasn't up for the effort of defrosting them. I was less motivated by the salad Niçoise and then realized I don't have green beans, only wax beans and I would have to cook some 'taters. Okay, for most things, was beans are a perfectly adequate substitute for green beans, but I wanted the green colour. The yellow often disappears. So, I had some organic bacon, a couple of eggs, and some whole wheat toast. No defrosting or chopping needed. It was delicious on a chilly autumn Sunday. I had some cocktail tomatoes which I deseeded and sprinkled with Tajin seasoning.

Chicken salad, club crackers, Babybel cheese, Oreo cookie ice cream sandwich.

Chicken breast, pilaf and peas.

Cottage Pie but with Hash Browns on top. Nahh... OK but will stick to mashers for the top.

Tonight I made a pasta dish to use up a lb of mushrooms, some more of that choy sum, and some of those very ripe tomatoes. I started with a quarter lb of bacon cut into 1/4" squares, and put it in the Instant Pot, on Sauté medium, and cooked, stirring occasionally, while cutting up a large onion, and I added this, when the bacon was about 3/4 browned, adding a little olive oil (less than a tb of bacon fat rendered), and cooked, while chopping up 6 small cloves of garlic, with about 3 tb of fresh rosemary and 4 tb of fresh sage. When onion was medium browned, I added the garlic and herbs, along with a generous 2 tsp of red miso, and cooked about a minute, stirring constantly, then turned it off, and deglazed the IP with about 1/4 c white vermouth. Then I poured in close to 30 oz of tomatoes, blended into a coarse purée, turned the IP back onto Sauté/medium, and let the sauce cook down, while cleaning, slicing, then cooking the mushrooms, then chopping up the choy sum and parsley. I added about 2 tsp soy, for the salt, and a generous tsp of black pepper, then about 2 tsp red wine vinegar (needed a little more acidity added to the tomatoes). I then added 3 1/2 c water, let it start simmering, then turned it off, stirred in the mushrooms and chopped choy sum stems, and 1 lb of medium shells, and stir to get all the shells under the sauce, seal the lid, set the IP at Manual/3 min., and when the 3 min is up, release the pressure quickly; when totally released, remove lid, and stir in the chopped leaves, stirring for a minute, until wilted, then stir in the parsley, and taste for seasoning. I served with a little grated Asiago on it.
Choy Sum leaves, to add last, after opening the IP, and stirred until wilted, followed by the parsley. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The tomatoes ready for the pasta, after adding the chopped choy sum stems and mushrooms. Chopped leaves go in last, to cook briefly. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished pasta mushroom dish, after stirring in the chopped choy sum leaves, and stirring about a minute, then stirring in the parsley. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished pasta dish, before grating a little Asiago on top. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

CD, I don't eat meat, but that looks really good!

Some comfort food tonight, Tater Tot Casserole
Layer 1 : " Chopped meat" & Onions ( Morningstar Farms Crumblers)
Layer 2: String beans and corn ( Home grown string beans and frozen corn, thawed )
Layer 3: Cream of mushroom (Bechamel - like sauce using oat milk, then cooking slice mushrooms in it.
Layer 4: Tater Tots
Bake at 350º F for about 55 minutes uncovered

***For all you OCD people (Me included), I know one of the rows of tater tots goes the other way than the other rows, but if I did them all the same way, there would have been 1 centimeter gap along the side, which would have bothered me more than the one row being different. Trust me, I sat there contemplating it for a few minutes before I made the final decision***

Larry, there are 8 rows of tots with the 9th going in the other direction. It is in perfect harmony. Like when you fold down the top of the bed sheet. Only other way to have done it is to have put the 9th row as the 5th row, giving you 4 rows, 1 row, 4 rows.

A Royo everything bagel with cream cheese and no sugar jam, plus leftover green salad. and some chocolate almonds.

I defrosted zucchini soup for DH and he had some whole wheat sour dough which Fresh Direct brought earlier.

dragnlaw said:

Larry, there are 8 rows of tots with the 9th going in the other direction. It is in perfect harmony. Like when you fold down the top of the bed sheet. Only other way to have done it is to have put the 9th row as the 5th row, giving you 4 rows, 1 row, 4 rows.

Click to expand...

I would have sat and dithered about whether or not I should rearrange them to that pattern, which is obviously the correct pattern.

Beef and Noodles using leftover rib meat and garnished with sour cream.