Well I got tired of both cooking and eating my own cooking, so I signed up for Freshly when I saw they had a promo going. These are individually packaged meals, unfrozen (refrigerated), delivered weekly.
My first batch last week was pretty good. Meal choices and seasoning levels are what I describe as “Middle America” - not bland but you won’t find a thai curry that makes you break out in a sweat or rave about the floral lemongrass accents. It’s not economical for large families, but for just me and W, it’s a nice bit of extra variety and convenience.
Back on topic - mapo tofu for dinner tonight. Super easy one-pot dish. Ground pork, garlic, onion, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, vinegar, sambal oelek, and firm tofu. Bonus points for fish sauce if you have it. Serve over rice or with chinese egg noodles. I like mapo as a standby because the only thing I really have to purchase in advance is the ground pork and tofu (and even the tofu is optional), everything else is already in my pantry so great for non-planners like myself.
I’m very, very excited because my youngest son is making dinner tonight. He’s a great cook so his food is normally awesome, but tonight sounds especially yum - beef wellington. I love it when he gets bored and wants to make a “project”. Last week he made jars and jars of interesting jams and marmalades.
If this SAH doesn’t end soon we’ll all double our weight and die of heart attacks.
@anomander - we always have fish sauce, it’s very tasty. My family thinks they don’t like fish, but I add fish sauce to all sorts of things and they like it. What they don’t know…
I’ve been on the phone/texting all day organizing gift basket to be delivered to my very good friend whose brother (only in the 40’s) died last night of a massive heart attack. He will get tested for Covid.
I called our local village market owner - who we (and my friend) have known for 30 years. He put together a beautiful basket. When he dropped it off at my house (we are adding wine to it) he told me he (and his wife) added an additional $30 worth of goods. He told me just to call tomorrow with my CC to pay for the rest.
I found a couple of nice filet mignon in the freezer I forgot about and thawed them for dinner tonight. H will grill the steaks and I’ll roast some baby red potatoes with garlic and thyme and make a mozzarella, tomato and basil salad with the ripe heirloom tomatoes I have. It’s a warm day here so we will probably open a bottle of rose instead of a pinot noir.
@milee30 What kind of jams and jellies did your son make? Do you have fruit available? I make lots of hot pepper jellies, but don’t even have pepper plants in the ground yet. I’m jealous!!
We live near an Amish/Mennonite farm stand type store so have easy access to all sorts of fruits at really good prices. It’s that nice season of overlap when we have the tail end of nice local citrus and the beginnings of nice local berries and peaches. He made a variety of marmalades (mixed citrus, including grapefruit, orange(s), lemons and limes), peach, peach raspberry, blueberry port, raspberry Grand Marnier, blackberry, blackberry + raspberry, blackberry+strawberry+Grand Marnier.
All but the raspberries and blackberries are local but they were on super sale so I was OK with him getting them.
I’m with you on loving the hot pepper jellies, but the rest of my family disagrees. What type of pepper plants do you usually plant?
I love hot red pepper jelly on top of cream cheese, served on Triscuits. My late mother in law introduced me to that and I still do that as an appetizer when we get together with family (and always think of her when I do).
One of my favorite satisfying dinners tonight - big salads! Chopped romaine and kale and then took a lazy susan type dish with lots of compartments and filled them up with chopped veggies, a couple cheeses, hard boiled eggs from the instant pot (my first time!), diced chicken, olives, almonds. Make your own!
I also had two homemade dressings - a ranch and then a family recipe for a lemon/olive oil dressing.
Whole Foods delivery earlier this evening as I can’t get a time slot for the big order I have ready and waiting for Hannaford.
Among other things, I ordered a fresh baguette and some of Whole Foods cooked shrimp which are the only shrimp I’ll eat these days. So much better tasting than the shrimp I can get at other local grocers. So, I made shrimp salad and we had that on the fresh bread with tomatoes and lettuce. Very simple but hit the spot and not much to clean up afterward.
I had a bag of flash frozen flounder filets i bought long before this pandemic for some unknown reason as we don’t normally eat flounder. I made a marinade for the fish, then my husband grilled them. We shredded it up and had fish tacos. I had four very ripe avocados that were nearly past their prime so I also made guacamole and served with chips.
All this talk about pepper jelly and cheese is making me crave it. Fairly certain I have some gourmet jelly in my pantry so I may have to add Brie and crackers to my grocery list!
@milee30 thats awesome that your son is so talented in the kitchen. Mine make things like omelettes and buffalo chicken quesadillas. Nothing too exciting.
For the last few years, I’ve been growing hot peppers and making hot sauces and pepper jelly. I’ve grown habaneros, ghost peppers, Thai chili peppers, serrano, cayenne, and jalapeños. I’ve made ghost pepper jelly, raspberry habanero jelly, and peach habanero. I’ve tried lots of combinations. Also, I’ve made sauces: ghost pepper sauce and a hot sauce with Trinidad scorpion peppers (it’s super hot). I’ve dried the Thai chili peppers–use them like red pepper flakes.
I put hot pepper jelly on brie or cream cheese and serve it with crackers. I’ve used it as a glaze on a pork roast, fish, ham, or as a dipping sauce for meatballs, pot stickers, chicken wings. You can put it on a bagel with cream cheese and also peanut butter and hot pepper jelly sandwiches.
I’ve been doing “Meatless Monday” since the first of the year. Tonight I’m doing a very thin pizza crust which I’m topping with olive oil, caramelized onions, a few different cheeses and some kale the last few minutes.
Pork schnitzel, leftover couscous, and green beans . We have always done most cooking and eating at home, even before all this. Wonder how many people are enjoying cooking at home more than they thought they would? Older son used to eat lots of free food at his workplace. Now that he’s working from home, he has gotten into more cooking -and he and his fiancee emailed a picture yesterday of his first foray into baking a cake from scratch - a carrot cake. It was cute and he looked very proud posing next to his cake!
