Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog

[Katya4me]

Made this for dinner last night: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a36600776/fish-ball-chow-mein-recipe/

Liked it so much, we made it again tonight but replaced the fish balls with firm tofu. Definitely recommend.

[dcandohio]

Shrimp and corn chowder using homemade chicken stock and frozen white sweet corn from Trader Joe’s. 

[saf]

Still on the intermittent project of using down the freezer - tonight was chicken, frozen from the last roast chicken, chopped and stir fried with blanched broccoli. Sauced with Soy Vey hoisin teriyaki and topped with toasted sliced almonds, on brown rice. It was tasty. The boy added chili crisp and soy sauce to his. Was tasty. Also, salad.

Monday was mac and cheese, with a mix of cheeses to use the ends of cheese, a fried up link of chorizo, and grilled green chilis. Also, salad.

Went to a holiday party last night, so didn't cook.

[KeithA]

I have a glut of CSA veggies and odd pantry items so I'm trying to use up stuff I have:

1. Farro with afghan-spiced butternut squash with garlic yogurt sauce

2. Fried cabbage with onions and apples (no bacon - apparently this is a southern thing, but found a vegetarian recipe)

Still have lots of winter squashes, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, beets, turnips, kohlrabi to work through. Recipes suggestions welcome (except for pickle recipes I have those as backups.). Now if only my kids would eat any of these (and yes I also mean the potatoes, I must have the only kids who will not eat potatoes even french fries).

Earlier this week had a fun surprise with the purple carrots. Unlike red carrots that you peel and cook and they are basically normal orange carrots, these purple carrots are like beets. They are dark purple all the way through and will stain everything. So fried rice became purple/dark fried rice.

[Katya4me]

Had this for dinner tonight and it was absolutely delicious: https://www.isabeleats.com/chipotle-sweet-potato-pork-chili/

[Pat]

Salad (romaine, radishes, cucumber, hard-boiled eggs, marcona almonds; vinagrette)
Roasted mushrooms stuffed with cheese
Tuna noodle casserole

For the mushrooms, I roasted the largest of a package of button mushrooms I had, drizzled with some evoo and sprinkled with a little garlic salt, with the stems trimmed but intact. Once they had roasted and yielded excess liquid, I let them rest a bit. I pulled out the stems to be a garnish and stuffed the caps with cubes of havarti cheese. A few more minutes in the oven and they were bubbling and beautiful. I served them on a plate with the roasted stems scattered around.

[Katya4me]

We did stuffed roasted acorn squash tonight: https://thegirlonbloor.com/sausage-mushroom-stuffed-acorn-squash/

Aesthetically, it was pretty but challenging to serve and eat.  It made about twice as much stuffing as needed, so we plan to cube and roast a butternut squash to go with the rest of the stuffing later this week.

[saf]

Tonight, as ever, we started with salad - ours are never as exciting as Pat's. Our formula is lettuce, carrots, thinly sliced red onions, cheese (often blue crumbles, sometimes grated other stuff. Working on using up the aged gouda left from the thanksgiving cheese plate at the moment), fruit, and nuts. He often adds cherry tomatoes, and always adds olives (usually black, currently digging the orange marinated ones) to his. Then quesadillas. Pepper jack was on sale this week and I had the remnants of chicken fajitas in the freezer. So that was good. 

Last night was salad, followed by linguini with broccoli, freezer roast chicken, and mushrooms in a light cream sauce. English muffins for bread. (Again, thanks for the brilliant idea Pat!)

[saf]

And tonight was baked chicken thighs (rubbed with olive oil and a chicken bbq spice mix). Also salad. Also english muffins. Then rum raisin ice cream for dessert.

[saf]

Tonight was salad, followed by potato pancakes (with sour cream), and breakfast sausage (with applesauce). It was delicious. Later, we will finish the rum raisin ice cream.

[Pat]

Last night was air fryer chicken thighs and pasta shells stuffed with creamed greens (spinach and turnip) and havarti cheese, plus sourdough bread.

Tonight will be salad, leftover pork tenderloin and broccoli, InstantPot pinto beans, and more sourdough bread. I've been buying the bread at Christophe Boulangerie in Georgetown, and it's fantastic.

[Katya4me]

Last night was based on the concept of pad see ew. However, I made it with skinny rice noodles and shrimp and mostly eyeballed my measurements and ingredients. Very happy with how it tasted.  Tonight will be ham tetrazzini using some of the ham I got on sale today. 

[Pat]

Last night was Iron Gate meatballs (first time I've found them from NRG in quite a while); leftover squash-stuffed pasta shells in marinara; leftover greens, cheese, and white sauce stuffed pasta shells; and, new! roasted eggplant and feta stuffed pasta shells. We also had more Christophe sourdough and a salad with Belgian endive, baby arugula, tomato, radishes, and pimento-stuffed olives.

Tonight is more meatballs (I bought a lot🥰) and whatever leftover various stuffed shells there are; more bread; and, a salad of romaine, baby kale, spinach, and arugula, plus radishes, tomato, and pomegranate.

[Pat]

Tonight we're finishing the sourdough and have more salad, plus Chicken and Lemongrass Dumplings with dipping sauce from NRG, plus a big roasted sweet potato and some maple butter.

[saf]

As we hope that our Christmas dinner will still happen, this is the week of easy dinners. So, salad. Monday was enchiladas from the freezer. Yesterday was quesadillas. (I was making chorizo stuffed mushrooms to put in the freezer for Christmas. So, chorizo and mushroom quesadillas.) Tonight was turkey divan from the freezer.

[Pat]

Tonight is leftover salad, Red Apron kielbasa braised in porter, drunken pinto beans, and home fries.

[Katya4me]

Tonight was a version of fish and chips. Trader Joe's oven baked breaded tilapia along with oven baked french fries. I had a small container of a spice blend leftover from when we got Ethiopian food, so that seasoned the fries very well.

[saf]

Leftover turkey divan, along with salad tonight. (Christmas dinner is now down to 5 people, but appears to still be scheduled. Anybody in Petworth need some extra Brussels sprouts?)

[Pat]

Romaine, butter lettuce, radicchio, cucumber, radishes, pomegranate seeds, raisins, toasted walnuts, green bell pepper, feta; ranch dressing
Spinach tortellini in brodo with Parmesan
Grilled herbed turkey and cheese with cranberry sauce on sourdough wheat bread

[Pat]

Christmas meals have been really simple this year. Christmas Eve was salad, Canadian wild cod baked topped with homemade cranberry-ginger-orange sauce, and buttered green peas. Christmas we had salad, Ina Garten's lamb shanks and orzo, and buttered green beans.

I've made the lamb shanks a bunch of times now but messed up the timing, so we ate a bit later than planned. The green beans were perfect, however! They make a very nice accompaniment to the dish.

[saf]

Today is Christmas dinner leftovers. Toasted English muffins are very good as bread for nice roast beef sandwiches. (used to be a place in Alexandria that made steak sandwiches on English muffins and I always loved them) No salad tonight - I didn't get lettuce before Christmas.

Christmas dinner was tasty, but we also had timing problems, so ate an hour later than planned.

Apps:

• Kielbasa (hunter, wedding, and Christmas) (Kielbasa Factory)
• Red wine sheep cheese, sage darby, pierre robert, rogue river blue (Bower's)
• Assorted crackers
• chopped liver
• Union Square bar nuts
• chorizo stuffed mushrooms
• gougeres
• Macadamia caramel corn (A Christmas present from my aunt)

Dinner:

• Beef tenderloin with horseradish orange sauce
• Rolls (I need a new recipe. These were not as good as I wanted.)
• Broccoli salad
• Duchess potatoes
• beets with orange vinaigrette, little tiny mozzarella pearls, chopped pistachios. (there was supposed to be julienned fennel on top. Oops, it got left off. Had some on today's leftovers, and it was good. Was good the other way too.)
• Roasted brussels sprouts

Dessert:

• Yule log
• Ice cream (peppermint, vanilla, frozen cocoa)
• (there were supposed to be cookies, but since we ended with only 5 at dinner, instead of the expected 11, (due to positive covid cases in the kids' classrooms. )(They tested negative, but stayed home to be cautious.)we didn't eat those.

[Katya4me]

My mom hosted Christmas dinner, so we only had to contribute a side.  It needed to be gluten-free and we had a butternut squash hanging around, so we went with a roasted squash and goat cheese dish: https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/a29628010/roasted-squash-with-goat-cheese-and-poached-cranberries-recipe/

I think that it could make for a light meal by itself and happy to have leftovers of it.  We only served the rounds, so we have the rest of the squash we roasted at the same time.

[Pat]

We had leftover salad and cod last night, with extra cranberry sauce. Also had some of the orzo from the lamb plus sourdough bread. I sliced some truffle cheese from TJ to go with the bread.

Tonight we're having spare ribs (the way I've made them several times recently), plus leftover kielbasa and pinto beans, and sauteed greens (arugula, kale, spinach) with garlic and onion.

 

[Katya4me]

We got a ham last week and finished it off today so it was time to make split pea soup. I didn't have celery so tried a new recipe: https://www.food.com/recipe/split-pea-soup-ham-15466

 

[saf]

There were more potatoes than I needed for Christmas dinner. There were breakfast sausages in the freezer, sour cream in the fridge, and applesauce in the cabinet. The cleaners come tomorrow, so it's OK to make the stove a bit messy.

Potato pancakes! (plus salad - I got lettuce yesterday.)

[Pat]

Last night was chicken tetrazzini made with leftover rotisserie chicken from Tortilla Cafe and lots of mushrooms. I added canned corn and peas from the pandemic supplies.

The peas were nearing their expiration date (meaning they must have been pretty old already when I got them). Peas are one of the canned vegetables that I tend to avoid (along with asparagus), but I figured they'd be fairly well buried in all the other ingredients here. These surprised me a bit in that, while they had that unappealing olive drab color coming out of the can, they held up pretty well in the oven and tasted okay.

[saf]

2 hours ago, Pat said:

Peas are one of the canned vegetables that I tend to avoid (along with asparagus), but I figured they'd be fairly well buried in all the other ingredients here. These surprised me a bit in that, while they had that unappealing olive drab color coming out of the can, they held up pretty well in the oven and tasted okay.

I like canned peas better than fresh or frozen. And they are perfect for samosas.

[saf]

There was leftover cheese. And nuts. And chopped liver. And kielbasa. And wine jelly.

I tried to get a baguette at Le Caprice. But there were none. So since I had to go west of the park anyhow, I went to Bread Furst. Such good bread.

Add a salad, and that's dinner. Leftover week can be tasty!

[Pat]

On 12/29/2021 at 1:09 PM, saf said:

I like canned peas better than fresh or frozen. And they are perfect for samosas.

I'm not super fond of them, but canned veggies have gotten better over the years and the worst part of these was the color. I added more back in when we had leftover Chicken Tetrazzini last night, plus salad, and bread.

[Pat]

NYE Dinner:
Champagne (Trouillard Brut Extra Selection NV)
Kalamata & Pimiento Stuffed Olives
Sourdough Ricotta - Fig Jam Toasts
Baguette With Aged White Cheddar and Truffle Cheeses (and some Danish blue for me)
Baked Chicken Thighs Over Leftover Orzo
Green Beans Almondine

I got a demi of champagne (375 ml) from DCanter on Barracks Row. It was excellent and just the right amount for us. The various breads and cheese were wonderful. I could live just on that. The orzo that goes with those lamb shanks lasts forever, and having the chicken with more of it was a nice change.

New Year's Day Dinner:
Ham and Cheese Croissant Bake
Leftover Spare Ribs + BBQ Sauce
InstantPot Black-Eyed Peas
Kale with Vinegar, Bacon, and Hot Pepper Flakes

I made the baked ham and cheese thing because there were only 4 ribs left and no more bread. We ate a tiny bit of it but it keeps to be reheated as leftovers.

I used the last of the baguette and got our fish portion in for the good luck by making spicy tuna salad sandwiches with chopped lettuce for lunch. I used some gochujang along with Hellman's light mayo and a splash of citrus champagne vinegar to dress the tuna and celery for the salad. (I could put this in the lunch thread, but...)

[dcandohio]

My Snowbird neighbors came over for dinner. 

-Salad of spinach, roasted Delicata squash, blueberries, and blue cheese. I meant to put almonds on the salad but I forgot. A friend had given me some homemade blueberry jam and so I used that to make a blueberry vinaigrette. 

-Shrimp étouffée

-Mini lemon tarts with kiwi and whipped cream. I got an inspiration from watching my sister use the Athena tart shells that you can get in the freezer section of the supermarket. I put a slice of kiwi and then about 3/4 of a teaspoon of lemon curd. Topped with a little decorative mound of whip cream. Surprisingly, these were a big hit. 

[saf]

12 hours ago, dcandohio said:

-Mini lemon tarts with kiwi and whipped cream. I got an inspiration from watching my sister use the Athena tart shells that you can get in the freezer section of the supermarket. I put a slice of kiwi and then about 3/4 of a teaspoon of lemon curd. Topped with a little decorative mound of whip cream. Surprisingly, these were a big hit. 

Those little phyllo tart shells are the best. They make good desserts. They make good savory stuff too. I make fake bastilla in them. A friend makes caramelized onion tarts in them. I have also made fake baklava in them. Especially convenient for party food when I like to make everything finger food and bite size.

[Pat]

Tonight:
Salad (romaine, cucumber, radishes; ranch)
Leftover chicken tetrazzini

Dinner on Sunday:
Leftover baked chicken thighs over leftover orzo
Green beans almondine

Monday:
Baguette slices
Pumpernickel bread
Turkey meatballs with gravy
Mashed potato casserole (topped with aged cheddar and truffle cheese)

[Katya4me]

Tonight was the result of rummaging.  I had a half can of coconut milk and some squash in the fridge I wanted to use.  I added another can of coconut milk and a can of green curry paste from the pantry.  From the freezer, came frozen knife cut noodles and shrimp.  Tossed it all together and it made a delicious dinner. 

[Pat]

Tonight:
Pumpernickel bread
Salad (radicchio, romaine, napa cabbage, pomegranate seeds, feta, bacon, radishes, cucumber; ranch)
Leftover turkey meatballs and gravy
Leftover mashed potato casserole

[saf]

Saturday was our traditional New Year's day brunch and games at a friend's house. Her new year thing is corned beef and cabbage. I hate corned beef and cabbage. Luckily, she made a corned beef hash frittata, a tasty slaw, waldorf salad, coffee cake, and later, apple crumb pie with vanilla ice cream. All tasty. The only thing I made was the ice cream!

Sunday we had people who couldn't make Christmas dinner over. Only thing I cooked was the Christmas cookies for dessert! (Takeout from Litteri for food. Also chips and dip.) A friend who came brought apple strudel (she made it) and chlebicky for apps. (Delicious tiny Czech open faced sandwiches.)

Monday was potato soup - no recipe, just read a bunch of them then made a baked potato soup. Also, salad.

Tuesday was angel hair pasta with broccoli, chicken, and mushrooms, and alfredo sauce. Also, salad.

Last night we tried a new recipe for beans, mushrooms, and eggs (had leftover creme fraiche. Sadly, when we opened the tub, it was NOT good. So, subbed sour cream. Oh well.) The boy was VERY dubious, but really enjoyed it, despite the fact that I let the eggs slightly overcook. Also, salad.

Tonight was supposed to be food out of the freezer, but there's a lot of potato soup left. So, more soup! Also, more salad.

And I know, we eat a lot of salad, as it is an easy way to add veg to dinner. But this week, we had some leftover lettuce, then, forgetting we had that we got a BIG thing of lettuce at the Mt Pleasant farm market last Saturday. So, big salads all week!

[dcandohio]

More friends for dinner. 
-Smoked trout salad in the Athena pastry shells. I really like the Trader Joe’s smoked trout, as I find it to be a consistently good product. 
-Arugula salad with another round of the homemade blueberry vinaigrette, with blueberries, blue cheese, and almonds. 
-Shrimp stirfry with lots of red and yellow peppers, yellow onions, tomatoes, garlic, and seasonings served over farfalle.

I made a huge portion of the shrimp stirfry, thinking that I would have leftovers for tomorrow. My guests kept going back into the kitchen for more servings, which thrilled me, but there is zero food left!

[Katya4me]

Tonight was white sauce pizza with shrimp and Italian sausage.  White sauce with fresh herbs: https://www.nelliebellie.com/garlic-white-pizza-sauce/ The pizza dough recipe makes enough for 3 crusts, so we'll probably make another pizza tomorrow.

[dcandohio]

Getting rid of some of the stuff in the refrigerator yielded a lovely smoked trout salad. Mix of the various greens that were needing to be used, piece of a yellow pepper, a handful of beautiful multicolored tomatos, celery, blue cheese, smoked trout, and the last of the blueberry vinaigrette. 

[saf]

Tonight was a freezer night. But not for both of us. He used up the frozen shrimp in a dinner of shrimp and orzo. I had an artichoke, steamed, with butter to dip. Also, salad.

[genericeric]

Last night was Chrissy Teigen's chicken lettuce wraps from her Cravings cookbook (recipe reproduced here: https://studiosheppard.com/chrissy-teigens-thai-chicken-lettuce-wraps/)  

They're... lettuce wraps.  I added shredded carrot, and if I made again would cut the ginger a bit and add diced squash and celery to increase the vegetables.  Then in a brain lapse I decided to make Cauliflower fried rice as the side dish.  This fried rice was tasty, but too similar in flavor and texture to the main.  Next time I'd probably add some toasted sesame seed and perhaps some thai chili to bump things up a bit, but really solid recipe, just poorly paired by me.

[saf]

Monday we made a pork shoulder in the crock pot. Dry rub (the end of a good mix, from a place that doesn't exist any more. Sad), onions, a little cider, and pork. Ate it as pulled pork. Also, corn pudding. The recipe was big, so I did some math and made a smaller batch. Tasty. I think I cooked it a little too long, as it was a little dry. Will do it again though. Also, salad.

Last night was omlettes. Eggs (duh), brie, mushrooms, tarragon. Also, English muffins. Also, salad.

Tonight is leftovers from the freezer - north African meatballs. Also, salad.

[Pat]

We've been eating lots of freezer stuff and leftovers. Of new stuff: Had some air-fryer Korean chicken wings one night and breaded turkey tenders in the air fryer, with couscous, and cranberry orange ginger sauce.

Last night:
Salad [butter lettuce, radishes, green olives; red wine vinaigrette]
Toasted olive bread and herbed evoo
Lemon ricotta ravioli with ricotta, lemon and baby spinach

Upcoming tonight:
InstantPot pork shoulder and gravy
Leftover couscous and cranberry sauce
Roasted brussels sprouts, cauliflower, turnips, and bacon

 

 

 

[saf]

Last night was more use stuff out of the freezer. So, roast chicken from the freezer, chopped, added to jarred red pasta sauce with some sautéed mushrooms over fettuccini. Also, salad and English muffins.

Saturday we had folks over for dinner and games. Chili, corn muffins, salad. Chocoflan for dessert!

[Pat]

Last night
Nachos with pulled pork, black beans, pickled jalapenos, and pepper jack cheese, plus Velveeta nacho dipping sauce [added chi chi's tomato salsa & milk to the dipping sauce, which I made in a standalone tiny electric cooker I got with some appliance years ago; Velveeta was a pandemic purchase and past its best by date]
InstantPot Korean chicken wings [made them again because they were awesome the first time despite my messing up the temp]

Tonight
Tortilla chips with leftover Velveeta nacho sauce
Black bean and pork chili

 

[curls]

@PatInstantPot Korean chicken wings sound good. Would you be willing to share the recipe?

[saf]

Ah, behind again.

So, Monday was split pea soup. With leftover corn muffins, toasted. Also, salad. That was some good soup. I did not have a ham bone or ham hock, but had a chunk of ham with some bone in it, so that worked. Now I have a lot of leftover celery and I don't generally like celery. Need to figure out something.

Tuesday was frito pie, with the leftover chili from the weekend. Also, salad. Sadly, that night was the end of the chocoflan. That stuff is so good.

Last night we tried out a new quiche recipe. Added mushrooms. It was really tasty. Also, salad.

Tonight is more split pea soup. English muffins. Also, salad.

 

Also, Pat, I did not actually realize velveeta had a best buy date!

[Katya4me]

14 minutes ago, saf said:

Ah, behind again.

So, Monday was split pea soup. With leftover corn muffins, toasted. Also, salad. That was some good soup. I did not have a ham bone or ham hock, but had a chunk of ham with some bone in it, so that worked. Now I have a lot of leftover celery and I don't generally like celery. Need to figure out something.

Tuesday was frito pie, with the leftover chili from the weekend. Also, salad. Sadly, that night was the end of the chocoflan. That stuff is so good.

Last night we tried out a new quiche recipe. Added mushrooms. It was really tasty. Also, salad.

Tonight is more split pea soup. English muffins. Also, salad.

 

Also, Pat, I did not actually realize velveeta had a best buy date!

It may sound weird but we made this last year and it was really good: https://thedefineddish.com/spicy-celery-stir-fry/

We made this vegan mac and cheese and really liked it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/12/26/vegan-mac-and-cheese-broccoli-recipe/

We swapped the broccoli out for some baby bok choy that we had and it worked very well.

For dessert, we had oat flour blondies, with butterscotch chips: https://buttermilkbysam.com/oat-flour-blondies/

[saf]

9 minutes ago, Katya4me said:

It may sound weird but we made this last year and it was really good: https://thedefineddish.com/spicy-celery-stir-fry/

I dunno, that looks like I would actually TASTE the celery!

[genericeric]

I'm from Iowa, and we called them casseroles.  Folks from 'up north' call them hot dishes.  Either way, they often aren't that healthy, but are easy, inexpensive, and satisfying in a comfort food sort of way.

Tonight I made Molly Yeh's "Taco Hotdish" which is sort of a frito pie/walking taco casserole situation.  I swapped out the beef for ground turkey, and topped it off with a heaping salad, turning the hot dish into sort of a taco salad base.  I'm tired, its cold, and this was easy and a family crowd pleaser.  I wouldn't want to eat this type of thing every night, but tonight it worked.

Paired beautifully with a High Noon pineapple seltzer.

P.s. I'm growing very tired of having to go to four grocery stores to get the ingredients to make a single dinner.  Make a casserole like this and I bet you can find the goods every time - I did.