Katya4me

We hit up a local Peruvian restaurant for lunch yesterday and had the leftovers today. I had Cau Cau and the last of the salad while my husband enjoyed the chicken and rice.

Tonight was grilled steaks. I pulled them out of the freezer a couple days ago and after they came up to room temperature this evening, I seasoned with some Worcestershire sauce and Penzeys Northwoods Fire seasoning. We had a couple of parsnips in the fridge, so I made oven roasted parsnips. Those got olive oil with turmeric, cumin, paprika, cayenne and black pepper before going in the oven. Those roasted while the steaks cooked. Once those were done, it was a delicious meal.

Tonight was more of a wild fruit punch. I had some plum wine in the fridge, along with some cherry juice and OJ. I had an 11 oz. can of lychee that I put in the blender along with the juices and wine. We also added some Grog from Old House Vineyards for some more citrus flavor. Added a couple of ice cubes just to chill it and blended it all up. Poured it into our glasses and topped it off with some seltzer as it was a little sweet. Once I did that, it was perfect.

Tonight, I made the salmon recipe I didn't make last night. We had some extra bok choy in the fridge and this was a good way to use it up. The glaze was a little saltier than I'd like but the meal was very good.

Unlike last week's attempt, this week's bread was a success. So, this morning I made toad in a hole with spiced oil in the skillet. I used a bit too much cayenne for my taste, but my husband liked the spice level. We both felt the bread ended up too crunchy, so I'll need to revisit this recipe.

I've been defrosting some salmon fillets but after a long work day, I didn't feel like making the planned recipe for dinner. We're out of bread flour currently, so I found a couple of bread machine recipes that use all purpose flour and made an herbed French bread yesterday that turned out really well. My husband made some tuna fish salad and we had delicious sandwiches for dinner.

We've got quite a bit of moonshine that we've picked up in previous years visits to the Gatlinburg area. As of tonight, we had 2 jars of sipping cream, so I decided to work on one of them. I made a myself a mocha and added the butter pecan cream shine to it. Bit warm for tonight but very tasty.

Last night was a massive salad. We had a bunch of veggies in the drawer including some celery and 2 romaine hearts that needed using up, so all went into a bowl along w/ the last of the salt & pepper chicken. It was delicious and exactly what I wanted last night.

Last night was salt & pepper chicken over rice. We had some basil paste, but no fresh basil leaves. So we put some of the paste in the batter and sprinkled nori over afterwards. I loved how easy it was to make as the marinade was incorporated into the batter and then no deep frying required. I'll definitely put basil in the batter again as I really liked how it added to the flavor. We made Palomas to go w/ the meal and ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

Yesterday was tofu salad on baguette with quick pickled carrots.

Last night was a cheese tray. Manchego and Rosemary Asiago cheese w/ Spanish chorizo. I'd smoked some tofu last weekend, but didn't like how it turned out, so it's been sitting in the fridge. But we made tofu salad with it and the smoky flavor came through and it was fantastic that way. The final element was woven wheat crackers to go w/ everything.

Today was the last of the zucchini fritter batter. It was my first time using this recipe and it'll be the last. I thought I drained the zucchini enough, but it was incredibly wet and did not fry well at all. But it's gone now.

I actually just started the bread machine because I'm now out of grits and I like to have those or toast for breakfast. WashPost had a recipe today for egg in a hole, using spiced olive oil, so that was my incentive. Last night was shredded honey garlic chicken over leftover baked cheese grits.

We made Bang Bang Chicken the night before and had it cold over daikon radish noodles (doodles?). Absolutely delicious and definitely making again in the future.

My husband made bialys, which I had for breakfast with an egg easy over.

Last night was scallops w/ crunchy spice oil. I forgot about saving an avocado when we made guac for Cinco de Mayo, but had all the other ingredients and it turned out well. I don't think it missed anything with not having the avocado and I'd do it again the same way.

We had some sliced mushrooms that really needed to be cooked, so we did grilled pork chops w/ mushrooms last night. We cut the amount of Worcestershire sauce down to 4 TB, but otherwise followed the recipe and it was very tasty.

This morning was cheese grits w/ the last of the store-bought bacon crumbled over top. I cured and smoked a pork belly last weekend and that bacon is tastier, but I wanted to use this up.

We went all in for dinner tonight, making up for Meatless and Margarita Monday, along with Taco Tuesday on Cinco de Mayo. We did sweet potato, corn and tofu tacos with blueberry margaritas. 😋

My husband made baguettes for the first time so that we could have banh mi and they were fantastic. We used this recipe and it definitely was a good one: https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2007/05/vietnamese_bagu.html. I ordered an assortment of pork products from Fresh Meats to You, a local commercial farm, which just started doing orders from the public. I got some pork belly in the order and did crispy pork belly.

We've been doing carryout once a week, for the last 3 weeks. We're out in Dale City, so we've done Dixie Bones and they did a fantastic job prepping the order and including instructions for how to clean, reheat, etc. This past weekend, I was craving Indian, so we hit up Taste of Tandoor, after verifying they were still open since they hadn't updated their website or FB page. Haven't settled on what we're getting this weekend yet. --- New Big Wong (Mark Slater)

Tonight was grilled burgers w/ picante provolone cheese on potato slider rolls that were hiding in the freezer. And then we had ice cream for dessert. Store was out of chocolate chip cookie dough, so my husband brought back 3 different other flavors for me to try. Tonight was Haagen-Daz HEAVEN Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel Light Ice Cream and for a light ice cream, it's pretty fantastic.

Tonight was Swilled Dog's Caramel Apple cider. Not my favorite, but we're still got 4 cans of it left. Well, 3 now...

Tonight was smoked bacon wrapped chicken thighs. They spent about 90 min at 275*F and I'd say that was about perfect. My husband had his with the last of the corn from the other night and I sauteed up the last of a head of green cabbage that's been lingering for far too long.

Tonight is Original Sin's Black Widow cider.