I think you'd need a forklift to get it in/out of the oven. :eek:

oooo - I had the first tomato of the summer today.

heaven!

tonight was farfalle (bowtie) pasta, mixed with kielbasa fried in a pan and a couple cans of tomatos with garlic/olive oil added, quartered artichoke hearts, red pepper flakes, and a few fresh chopped garlic cloves in there for an extra kick.

Chinese take out tonight.

It's late, it's the weekend, and I'll be eating turkey burgers.

Fried green maters, okra and pork chops

Tonight I had beans on toast.

But what I really wanted to report back about was the meal we had last week.
I admit I'm submitting this late AND there are no photos. Sorry.

Mum and Dad order wine by the case. It's not all that fancy, just a cheaper way of doing things. It's drinking wine, not storing wine. And if they leave it a couple of months, the wine club tempts them back with great offers; sometimes discounts and sometimes extras. Dad has perfected the art of playing off a couple of different companies against eachother :)

One of the extras was an Italian food package. And one of the Italian foods enclosed was Stinco Arrosto. We had no idea what it was. My Italian is already restricted to hello, goodbye and ordering from a menu and I'd never come across this item before. It came in a box and in a vacuum selaed pack, with instructions to boil for eight minutes, then brown for another ten in the oven (optional). From this we knew it had to be cured meat, but nothing more. The box gave a description of how delicious it was, but no real explanation of what lay within!

Turns out Stinco means shin. It was cured pork (nothing like ham) on the bone. It was so soft it literally fell off the bone as I tried to carve it. I thought of y'all - I ended up pulling it off with a fork.

It was bloody gorgeous.
We all went back for more, Maureen included and she eats so little compared to us.
If it wasn't so cor-blimey expensive (the one we had sells for £5.40 without P&P) I'd ask for it every week. Given that a raw chicken can be bought for under £3 and gives leftovers it's not a cheap option. But I'm thinking of surprising Mum with one for her birthday - yes, still thinking about that menu. After all, I can keep it under my bed!

The sweet potato souffles that went with it were a success too!

I had a very scrumptious dinner last night that included marinated top round roast cooked in the oven, potatoes kind of cooked in the oven (some were underdone) and Garlic Parmesan orzo.

I don't know what to do with the potatoes. I am thinking of throwing them in the skillet with ham and using that as breakfast. Tried that today without cooking them, but the potatoes are just not cooked enough.

The orzo is going to be hard not to sit with the whole bowl and eat it all! It was SOO good!

yeah, bbro, hash brown them taters.

Tonight is a recipe I've never tried before but is relatively simple, a sort of moroccan or north african lamb and bean stew.

I don't have the full recipe in front of me, but it involves 2.5 lbs chopped up leg of lamb, potatos, onions, and beans (fava in the original recipe, but I'm substituting canellini because I can't seem to find any fava beans for some reason. I think it'll work fine), along with harissa (a spicy red sauce), garlic, rosemary, anchovy, lemon juice, worchestershire sauce, and olive oil. probably a couple other things too, but that's the bulk of it. I can post the recipe if anybody really wants it.

Meat will be browned and onions softened in dutch oven on the range, then potatos added and the whole mess shoved in the oven to slow cook for 2 hours or so.

It should be pretty good, I think. It'll have a unique flavor for sure.

That was also my first time hacking up a leg of lamb like that, which was interesting. The meat texture was really markedly different from beef. I suppose I always knew that, and I know they taste different, but really handling and carving a large-ish slab of it made the point absolutely clear. Too used to seeing meat pre-cut into tiny pieces and not really handling it, I suppose, just chucking it in a pot or pan. Good learning experience, and not nearly as traumatic as it could've been. Admittedly it was also already boned by the butcher, but that was more for a lack of skill on my part than an avoidance thing.

Steak and mushrooms with roast potatoes, gravy and broccoli :yum:

Chicken dressing, with cranberry sauce

Ham, green beans, and sweet potato french fries.

Hot dogs from a gas station, chips, tea, and Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns ice cream

mmm..

going to a friend's for BBQ, taking potato salad.

mayo, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar
parsely
chives
green onion
onion
celery
green beans
bacon
potatoes

and frilly bits :D

:yum:

Pancakes (crepes) filled with ground beef, onion, mushroom, bacon, parsley, mozzarella and blue cheese.

fucking awesome, even if I do say so myself.

Essentially, pizzas for shrove Tuesday.


WTF I just typed pizza's. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY BRAIN?

Not that much mozzarella! :eek:

Jambalaya with andouille sausage and shrimp...from a box. I have made it from scratch and it tastes just as good to use Zatarain's, but Zatarain's is easier for a weekday and cheaper

Veg curry.

Deer neck roast

steak n taters

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Right now, chips and salsa and white cheddar cheese. Then after the kids are in bed, chicken stir fry with bell peppers and pineapple. Then probably late at night a bowl of rice chex, blueberries, and almond milk.

Are you pregnant?

We had burritos, guacamole, sour cream, chips, salsa

WHS ...aren't you the one who claims no interest in food? planning three eating events between now and bed seems pretty darned interested to me.... :lol:

Nah, I don't enjoy it, I just have to eat that much or else I fall under the line of being underweight. I probably burn as many calories as a professional athlete during the day, carrying my damn heavy kids all over the fucking place. Though for the record, I didn't end up eating the cereal.

Well they're not yet heavy damn kids, so that's a good sign.

They would be if mum would stop eating their food!

It was gonna be tacos last night until I called Pete and reminded her that her FiL wouldn't appreciate the whole meaty Friday thing during Lent. Spinach stuffed shells instead.

We had midwest (or maybe only St. Louis?) Catholic-lent-Friday-dinner.

Fish sticks and macaroni and cheese.

Hot wings tonight !!!

Baked rigatoni.

a lot like Baked Ziti only when you don't have ziti but DO have rigatoni.

A very late dinner tonight. I'll be meeting MB at one of our neighborhood taverns after he finishes work. Veggie burger for me, I think...and a pint or two of cider.

I bought too much chicken. I mean really too much. Instead of my usual pack of three boneless breasts, I ended up with six. I didn't want to freeze it, so I doused the whole lot in Iron Chef Orange Ginger sauce, threw it in the oven, and have hoped for the best.

I will still probably end up freezing some, but will eat chicken for the next couple of days ...

Cooked chicken is always good to have on hand for quick dinners. Shred it or cube it and keep it in the freezer.

Next time you might make that much on purpose. :)

Three of our favorites:

Tortilla soup
Stir fry
Chicken tetrazzini

I used to be unimpressed with boneless chicken breast. It was always tough and dry and rubbery. But then we learned how to cook it. We do two things differently now. Pound it a little to make it a uniform thickness. Got an instant read digital thermometer so we can monitor it and take it off the heat the instant it reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Now it's moist and tender every time. Cooking method doesn't really matter. Poach, broil, fry. It's all the same inside.

General Midwest. On the weeks you don't have that, you have tuna noodle casserole.

Oh yeah.

yeah, if you're RICH.

We had tomato soup and grilled cheese and we liked it, dammit.

Another common choice. We had this a lot.

Nobody knew how to cook vegetarian back then, and coming from the midwest fish meant fish sticks or tuna.

One we didn't have often back then, but is a lot more common now - cheese pizza.

Shepherds' pie and carrots. yummeh.

.. or maybe it was only one shepherd?

We had that for dinner tonight too! But the carrots were in a salad, so there was lettuce and red bell peppers too. A brownie for dessert.

Roast Chicken and Trader Joe's Harvest grain mix. I might throw some cauliflower in there, too.

I'm about to cook up some baked ziti for tonight's midnight meal.

Neighbors upstairs are having a party...hope they have plenty of their own food! I know what sautéed onions and peppers and baking cheese does to drunk people, and I'm not feeding any of them if they come down and bang on my door. :lol:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/re...10000000257359

Bubbling away now

How'd your potato soup turn out, bbro?

That sounds so good!

Too much pepper :greenface I don't know if I measured wrong, or the recipe just has too much
I am trying to figure out how to salvage it since I made about 10 servings. Also, it didn't thicken like I thought it would with the flour and half and half. Sometimes I don't see the thickening until after a day in the fridge though....trying to pawn some off on a guy friend of mine :cool:

I will be adding corn to it tonight and tomorrow. Then, I am going to add some cheese and bacon bits to try and get some of the Baked Potato feel. Then, some turkey sausage slices. Gotta change it up for a single person who has to eat 10 servings!! :D I am hoping some of this will balance out the pepper.

Other than that - it's not bad. Nice and chunky. I would probably add garlic to it next time, too.

Did you use the fat free half and half? Seems to me that things would be different in a fat-free version of something used for thickening. I wonder if it makes a difference?

I would forgo the bread bowl. They're cute and all but I'd rather enjoy the soup, not eat a loaf of bread.

I definitely did not use the bread bowl - it is way too many calories and seems like such a waste! I did use the fat free half and half. I have never used half and half period, so I just went with it. I usually use skim milk for everything, so never thought twice. This also might be the reason that my soups don't thicken until after a night in the fridge :)

most soups thicken with time. but fat-free half-and-half? what were you thinking? if it can't be named in 2-3 syllables, it shouldn't be cooked with. WTF is fat-free half-and-half anyway? Look at how many calories/how much fat is in the real stuff. Not a whole shitload more. It's not worth the sacrifice.

I was thinking - hey look - a recipe, I will follow it.


Anyway - I added some cheddar cheese, corn and bacon bits to make a very tasty, filling soup. It cut down on the pepper taste, too. I suspect the cheese :) I will definitely be having this again for dinner tonight

I pretty much follow recipes word for word, I'm no chef.

The cheese will always make things better. :) Sometimes it stands alone.

I made spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread last night. It sounded good but didn't taste so great. Frozen meatballs, way too many. Garlic bread always hits the spot, though.

I do not follow recipes. I don't like anyone telling me what to do :lol:

:lol: - If it is my first time making the recipe, I try to follow it since I am not that intuitive of a cook. If I start to make it more often, I will kind of go off on my own.

monkey - that sounds good to me :) I just opened a jar of sauce. I have to doctor it up and do something with it. I might freeze it though.

Baked pork chops
Recipe adjusted as I'm not making for six. Fingers crossed

Last night we had butter chicken and spicy chickpea and lentil curry with rice. It was good!

Chops not nice.
Overcooked.
I forgot American chops are a much larger cut of meat.

Never mind. Worth a try.

I love Butter Chicken!
It sounds so innocent...
Someone would always make it for Diwali or Eid when I lived in Leicester.

Tonight will be shrimp stir fry - from a frozen package - and rice.