Katya4me

Last night was yaki udon, but with shrimp instead of pork. I think I should have tried to get the shrimp a bit drier before sautéing them with the other ingredients, but otherwise I really liked how it turned out. I had a napa cabbage in the drawer, so used that and baby carrots instead of a medium carrot. Dessert was Ghiradelli brownies from a mix with a scoop of eggnog frozen custard.

I felt like noodles last night, so I pulled a box of elbow noodles out of the pantry. I'd made a batch of onion masala about a year ago and it was still in the freezer. I took 6 of those out of the bag and put them in a skillet with some beef broth to defrost while the noodles cooked. I added some chopped curly kale and half pound of ground beef from the freezer next and once it was cooked through, added the drained noodles. I sprinkled it with some nutritional yeast and added a dollop of harissa. I was pretty surprised when the taste of it gave me a strong hamburger helper vibe, but in a good way.

We had some potatoes, sweet potatoes and 2 squash that had been sitting on a counter for a couple of weeks now. So, we cubed them all up and did 3 trays of roasted veggies to eat this week. While those were roasting, I made some spicy fried rice with leftovers. I had an onion, half a steak, some bacon, 1 bok choy and a long green hot pepper in addition to 3-4 cups of cooked white rice. Chopped all of those up, scrambled a couple of eggs with Sriracha and had a delicious dinner.

Dinner last night was spicy chicken thighs over couscous and I had some of the leftover roasted carrots as well. Hadn't made the chicken since 2017 and it was really good so I should make it more often.

Last night was calamari over corn risotto. I'd initially planned to grill the calamari once it was done sous viding, but it was too cold outside for my taste, so I popped it under the broiler and that worked perfectly. I'm always looking for risotto recipes that don't call for wine (or beer), so this one caught my eye and I was happy with how it turned out. I used frozen corn and dried thyme as well.

Yesterday's lunch was ramen. In the pantry, I found 2 packets of Purple Potato & Brown Rice Ramen Turmeric Curry Soup. I had a sad bunch of chard in the fridge, half an onion and some frozen corn. While the noodles boiled, I sautéed the veggies and made a sauce of miso, sweet soy sauce and sesame oil. Added that to the veggies, then poured the veggies into the broth and topped with a sliced jalapeno. Really good meal and quite filling.

Last night's dinner was delicious but eclectic. We wanted to use the ham bone in the fridge and I thought I had split peas in the pantry. Couldn't find them, but I did find a bag mix of rice and dried veggies with seasoning, an 8 oz. bag of farro and an opened bag of red lentils. So, I filled a pot with water, added the ham bone and once it came to a boil added the rice blend, farro and about 8 oz. of lentils. I also had a small amount of leftover ham glaze and added that to the liquid. Let that simmer for about 40 min. and it absorbed most of the liquid. I wanted a little more to go with it, so I found 2 Andouille sausage links in the freezer and cooked them up, sliced small and tossed into the pot. I wanted a little more seasoning, so in the cupboard, I found 2 spice packs that I thought might work: a bloody mary seasoning mix and a 4 French pepper blend. Poured them in, gave it another stir and called it good. Hubby liked it as well and lots of leftovers for the next couple of days.

Tonight's dinner was an evolution. I saw this Korean rice cakes recipe and it looked good, but my husband is not a huge fan of gochujang and we had sliced mushrooms and a steak in the fridge. I did the water with dashi powder and got the rice cakes boiling. Sliced the steak up into thin slices and cooked them with the mushrooms slightly. Made a sauce from chili garlic paste, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, sake, and sesame oil. I added that to the broth that was starting to reduce and after a couple of minutes added the mushrooms and steak, and cooked for about another 4 min. Still closer to soup than sauce, but the umami flavor was fantastic. I also roasted broccoli stalks for myself and had those with some of the extra sauce.

Went to the farmers market yesterday and they had a lot more good looking produce than I was expecting. I got some fennel, leeks, selection of peppers, honeynut squash and more. After getting home, I realized that I was going to need fridge space for my grocery order today. So, I made a gratin using 2 potatoes, the leeks and fennel. It called for fontina, but I had smoked gouda, so used that instead, and mostly halved the recipe. It turned out well, but more watery than expected. I cooked it for a bit longer, but may have to look into that if I repeat the recipe. We had a package of 2 stuffed chicken breasts in the freezer, so baked those while the gratin was cooking. I was glad to have them out of the freezer, but don't think we'll buy them again.

My husband has had great success with this gougeres recipe over the years. The only change he makes is that he uses 8oz habanero cheddar instead of listed cheese. Fun story: We took them to a family Thanksgiving dinner many years ago and his aunt loved them. At the time, she threw an annual Christmas Eve dessert buffet. She made all the treats, you were not allowed to make a thing, and there were no savories to be seen anywhere. So, we got our invitation and she asked him to make and bring a batch of the gougeres. We thought this was a bit odd, but loved being invited, so made a batch and brought them with us. When we met her at the door, she took them and promptly popped them in the fridge, hidden away for her future consumption.

Today's lunch was peanut sauced noodles. I ended up using a box of regular angel hair noodles, swapped in 3 cut-up roma tomatoes for the cherry tomatoes and and tossed in a bell pepper. I also had some pork chops that needed to be cooked, so I tossed the cooked veggies and noodles into a bowl, then cut them into thin strips and cooked them in the same skillet before tossing it all with the sauce. Very good meal and looking forward to it as leftovers.

Dinner tonight was sous vide pork with curried spaghetti squash. I wish it didn't end up using 4 dishes to make but the pork came out perfectly cooked and the squash mixture is very good. I was out of carrots so I swapped in a bell pepper instead.

Yesterday's lunch was 2 cans of TJ's beef and bean chili. Very tasty and filling on a wet day.

Last night was shrimp and pork lo mein. I followed a recipe I'd used before, but we both thought the sauce was a bit lacking. I went back and mixed together some chili garlic paste, fish sauce and sesame oil, then added to the remaining dish and that seemed to be more what we were looking for.

It's fall, so last night was a mix of apple cider with Q ginger beer to cut the sweetness a little. Very tasty. The other night, we went out with friends for dinner in the Merrifield area and discovered the Black Dog Beer Shop. Turns out they have an assortment of ciders as well and the employees are very friendly and helpful in showing them and offering recommendations. We picked up a few different varieties to try. One that was unexpectedly tasty was Buskey's Watermelon Rosemary. It's past summer now, but really good flavor combination.

I got very excited when I saw that Wegmans carried rice cakes so I planned on this for dinner last night. Unfortunately, the shopper couldn't find them. Womp, womp... So, we made it and served it over rice and it was still delicious. I had some green onions and noodlized carrot in the fridge, so I tossed them in as well.

Last night, we did a noodle curry. The last time I went to the Asian market, I I just got a whole stack of all the different pastes and slowly giving a try to the ones that aren't green or red. I took a can of Kaeng Par curry paste and mixed it with coconut milk, tossed in diced chicken, with chopped bok choy and daikon radish. Once the chicken was cooked, tossed in some fresh udon noodles. It was tasty, but definitely cleared the sinuses right up.

It' not the same, but this one is also really good and uses rice cakes: https://www.tablefortwoblog.com/korean-rice-cakes-with-spicy-turkey-ragu-and-bok-choy/ Now I'm reminded that I haven't had this in far too long.

I didn't have Capsaicin powder, so I skipped that, but did add some cayenne pepper instead. It probably was not as spicy as it could have been, but we both enjoyed it.

We made tahini noodles for lunch. I prepped them in advance so we could have them cold for a picnic lunch. I think I sliced the sweet potatoes thinner than called for as they were very crisp and on the edge of being burnt. Also not overly sweet, which I was quite happy with. However, the sauce was a bit saltier than I expected, so it may have been a better balance if they had been sweeter. I did like the contrast of textures and the kale went well with the noodles.

We made Cheese Buldak the other night. I've got a lot of gochujang and my husband is not a huge fan of it, but likes this dish. We added in some leftover rice and had it with roasted diced potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash for a delicious and very comforting meal.

After doing a good job of cleaning out most of the fridge last weekend, I did have a fennel bulb hiding in the drawer and a few small potatoes. My husband cubed the potatoes, sliced the fennel and a red onion and tossed them all with olive oil, salt and pepper before roasting for 40 min. I came home and microwaved some of the remaining smoked pork and it made a fantastic dinner.

A couple years back, I got all these spice blend samples and have slowly been using them up. Today, I used a packet of coffee and chile spice blend with some smoked salt for smoked chicken wings. I smoked the wings for 4 hours and they are delicious. In addition, I made potato leek soup and seasoned it with shiitake powder.

This afternoon was clean out the fridge/ cook lots of stuff time. I made okonomiyaki for a late lunch and put the leftovers in the fridge. That used up the Chinese cabbage and beet greens. I made up a Sriracha mayo to drizzle on top and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Made a breakfast egg casserole last week and polished off the last slice of it this morning with an Asiago bagel. I was concerned the eggs would be a little bland, so I added some red chili pepper paste and Italian seasoning to the mix and was very happy with how the flavor turned out.