As I move into the last month of the year, I think I want to play with the format of this journal string. It feels like it’s gotten a little repetitive and I’m just not as excited to write it. So have some patience with me as I experiment with the style.
The week of 12/2-12/8 was a pretty good cooking week. We started the week off by having my oldest and her family over for dinner. I made some broiled hamburgers and a couple of Beyond Burgers for Mel, the vegan. I even went and spent way too much for vegan cheese for her! I love eating with her boys because they are always so complimentary. You haven’t lived until a three old says “Mmmmm…good” to something you’ve cooked. I like putting a blend of spices that come out similar to the boxed onion soup mix you can buy in the burgers. It just takes the flavor up so much.
I did go out, for what might be one of the last times for a while given the trends lately. My friend and I had our bi-weekly happy hour. We had planned on going out for sushi, but unfortunately the planned restaurant is only offering take out and delivery. So we walked a bit and ended up stumbling on an Italian place that opened recently on the square. I think I may have confused my dates and written about this one as being week 87. Oh well. I won’t repeat that then.
Over the weekend, I made two quiches, one spinach and feta and the other sausage and cheddar. We had purchased a very large case of eggs prior to Thanksgiving and I wanted to use them up. As has been the case lately, I overflowed one of them into the oven so my neighbors are going to love the smell when I run the self-clean cycle. But we had quiche leftover for the week.
It’s hard to pick my favorite dish this week because I love those onion burgers and I am a carnivore, but I made two interesting vegetarian dishes that are definitely competitors. The first was a mushroom and dumplings. Think of your classic chicken and dumplings, but a vegetarian version. I found the recipe in the NYT and made a couple of slight modifications, like I couldn’t find the exact mushrooms they called for so I substituted and did a mixture of shitake and baby portobellos. And I didn’t have dried mushrooms. But it was so good that my husband said he wanted the leftovers for lunch.
We also revived taco night. Okay, it was a Wednesday which doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. But I made cauliflower tacos. I roasted cauliflower with chorizo seasoning and olive oil. We then put those into corn tortillas with cheese, tomatoes, guacamole and for me, jalapenos. The hubby is not a jalapeno fan and the youngest of our brood has never tried them outside of me burying them in a dish.
All in all a pretty good cooking week! We didn’t order take out once. This was of course aided by the fact that we had leftovers galore. Now, if I can get that food waste back under control…
Foodie's Delimma 