Cooking when you’re Staying home

Had a major cooking fiasco. I forgot to turn down the heat to 225 from 375 and it almost turned into a piece of charcoal.

Marinated chicken on the grill- soy sauce, garlic, olive oil, lemon. And salad. I went to the grocery store yesterday for the first time in 9 days so we’re set for awhile.

Since we got the grocery pick-up two days ago, front loading the fish. Salmon, wild rice, and spinach/strawberry salad, a go to combo frequently eaten at my house. I always cook extra salmon for a lunch salad.

I start with the most perishable stuff first after a grocery outing. When I went to the store yesterday, I bought Charleston crab cakes and deviled crab that Harris Teeter has and sauteed them that night. I might have gotten salmon or tuna instead of that if either had been on sale. The Perdue thin chicken breasts were next up tonight. I froze some ground meat to make a meatloaf next week. We have enough stuff on hand , including salad stuff and fruit, to last for at least a week.

Hope it’s ok that “Baking At Home” items are in this thread as well. :slight_smile:

This morning I’m making homemade pop tarts. I’ve made them once before and they are pretty darn amazing. I didn’t do the strawberry filling as they listed this time - I felt it was kind of runny the first time I made these - so I just used a good strawberry and then peach jam for a small one!

https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/giant-strawberries-n-cream-pop-tart/#bo-recipe

Don’t worry I ran 3 miles while the pop-tart dough chilled in the refrig and I will have help at home eating it AND I’ll share with my S and DIL who live near by.

We are big on brunch on the weekends! :slight_smile:

I’m making a chocolate chip bundt cake this morning. The house smells wonderful. Tonight I’m making chicken, broccoli and ziti. That’s my son’s favorite.

Sunday has become breakfast for dinner day in our house. I make challah on Friday, so the second loaf becomes french toast. Today I’m making a crustless (DIL if GF) spinach, onion, cheddar, and tomato quiche, shredded sweet/white potato has browns and chicken sausage. Never in our lives has there been a “designated dinner” menu for any particular day but this has become a tradition, quickly!

My husband is making a pot roast today. This is the recipe he uses:
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/01/all-american-beef-stew-recipe.html
We’re having it with an Italian Barolo.

I think what helps this dish is homemade stock, which H makes all the time. We also did a trip to a local butcher shop where you call ahead with your order, which the clerks put on a table when you drive up. We don’t usually buy more meat than we need for a few meals, but we decided to freeze meat/poultry and ordered a larger quantity than we usually do.

Today we made butter from some of that cream we got at the dairy Friday. After stirring in a little yogurt for the cultures, we let it sit to culture the last couple of days and it was the perfect flavor by this morning. Not something I’d often do since cream is normally so expensive, but for $2.50 a gallon (and I think we got about a quart of buttermilk and 3 pounds of butter out of that) it was hard to pass up. And the flavor of the butter really is great.

The homemade kimchi I started from the cabbage in the CSA box was also done today, so that got bottled and stored. Half of us love kimchi and half of us think it smells like death and is poisonous, so the crazy half (that half that doesn’t like kimchi) is glad it’s no longer fermenting on the counter and smelling up the kitchen.

Tonight we’re going to roast a chicken we got at Costco this morning. Their supply chain must be a little wacky because they’re offering not just the $4.99 cooked rotisserie chicken but for $3.99 they have the marinated but uncooked whole chickens, too. That’s a crazy low price, so we grabbed one. We’ll roast it over potatoes and have either steamed broccoli or roasted cauliflower with it for dinner, making stock with the scraps.

I saw those marinated chickens at our Costco, too, @milee30 ! Costco bought a chicken farm/processor to be able to sell the $5 rotisserie chickens at little to no loss. They are probably not selling as many cooked ones as they normally would, so here come the make your own rotisserie birds! :slight_smile:

Linguine with meatballs and a simple tossed salad for dinner tonight.

Had an onion-rich chicken stock started. Added in the fresh summer squash husband bought yesterday and melted some cheese for a nice soup. Hearty but not too heavy.

Did a cupboard and leftovers night. Taco bowls with Mexican rice made from cupboard items and taco chicken with leftover rotisserie chicken. Fixings from frig. Last night we had a zoom dinner with friends. We all made our own but ate “together”. We had instapot spaghetti and meatballs, garlic toast and salad.

H, D2 and I logged 30 miles of walking since Thursday so I decided we needed a little comfort food for dinner last night. We grilled Trader Joe’s jalapeno chicken sausages and served them on soft buns with spicy mustard, red onions, chopped jalapenos and cheddar cheese. I also made scalloped potatoes with fresh chives and coleslaw to go with them.

^^^ Sounds AMAZING. I’m totally on board with that meal!!!

Tonight I made D2 a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. She sighed with delight and says this is the best, Mom, especially since I didn’t have to cook it. I soooo remember telling my mother the same thing.

S2 and I ate the leftover pot roast and carrots, H is feeding himself after he does some yard work.

Baked ziti, salad and Italian bread that I got from village market in my last order.

Got tired of cooking all week long… so last night, takeout it was! Ate dinner on the deck. Still have the leftover homemade stuffed peppers and just finished the bbq ribs I made Saturday… Good in the meats department, but will have to replenish our veggies soon.

We also had ham and cheese sandwiches on hot out-of-the-oven rolls.

I was more energized about baking bread today b/c we got a huge take-out hibachi order Saturday night and I didn’t have to cook Sat or Sun.

We were making a recipe that called for naan - and I thought I had some left - but no. So, I made naan! It’s actually pretty easy. This Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread) with Kale and Herb Sauce uses calls for more of a pizza crust but we feel like it’s too much bread - thus, naan! Leftovers for lunch tomorrow. :slight_smile: