Cooking when you’re Staying home

@Milee Thank you for the recipe. It’s for dinner tonight!! I do have dried chickpeas and will soak them all day.

Spaghetti and meatballs is DH’s favorite dinner. We have it year-round, altho I have a bigger salad and less spaghetti and meatballs in the summer.

@BunsenBurner - care to share your borscht recipe? I’ve never made it, but I’m about two weeks away from harvesting what looks like a bumper beet crop.

For that matter, I’ll take anyone’s beet recipes. I’ve only ever eaten them raw, roasted, or steamed in salads (usually paired with goat cheese and walnuts). Any other ideas?

Baked my pita bread. It was delicious, not pita bread but very tasty.

My cheat, I make the dough in my bread maker. I put the risen dough in the refrigerator overnight and baked the next day. I don’t like the way the bread maker bakes the bread but the bread I’ve made this way has turned out really well. Saves a bit of time and mess

I made this roasted beet hummus a couple years ago for Easter and loved it!
https://www.livestrong.com/recipes/roasted-beet-hummus-2/

You eat your borscht hot? Never heard of that being done.

No idea what we are having tonight. Might defrost chicken thighs.

I picked up a rotisserie chicken yesterday which I’ll turn into chicken enchiladas. I’ll grate my own cheese but otherwise it’s pretty easy since I’ll use canned enchilada sauce. Will probably make a salad and guacamole. I have about 10 avocados that are ready or close to it. We will be eating a lot of avocado over the next few days.
Lunch was avocado toast on Ezekiel sesame seed bread. The bread freezes great and makes great avocado toast.

Icy martinis and crab stacks (again) followed by grilled sourdough Margherita pizza tonight. It will be 106 by 5PM, but DH doesn’t mind grilling pizzas because they finish so quickly. He’ll probably need an extra martini for his effort, though.

Made the strawberry summer cake yesterday that was posted upthread but with blueberries. Very light and tasty. Amazingly, there is still some left, so we’ll have that with tea later while we finish up Normal People.

Last night I cranked up the grill. I grilled beef ribs and chicken legs. Had the beef ribs last night with garlic toast and a spinach salad. Tonight I’ll reheat the grilled chicken legs, plus make mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans to go with them.

I have a small amount of instant pot beer-braised pork shoulder left from earlier in the week. Tomorrow I will probably fry that with some cumin and onions in bacon drippings until the meat crisps up around the edges for pork carnitas. Pork will go on oven-fried corn tortillas to make carnitas tostadas, topped with a local spicy salsa, cheese and shredded lettuce. Tosadas will get a side of calabacitas (mixture of sautéed bell pepper, onion, chiles, zucchini/summer squash and corn).

Any leftover calabitcitas will get mixed with canned black beans and any leftover chicken for quesadillas for Sunday.

Dh had to go to the grocery store yesterday to get a few ingredients for last night’s dinner (https://www.averiecooks.com/thai-chicken-coconut-curry/ It was very good but we agreed we would cut back on the shredded carrots it called for). He happened to see sausage in the meat department and bought it on a whim as we are getting tired of chicken! So tonight he is grilling the sausage with onion and pepper. He also picked up fresh corn on the cob from our produce stand.

We leave for our beach house this weekend and looking forward to eating fresh locally caught fish!

Bistec Empanizado (Cuban Breaded Steak) with white rice and black beans.
Home made flan (my wifes flan #1)?

People leave mangoes on tables outside their houses. My puppy couldn’t stop eating one. I had all those peppers from the farm, so made stuffed peppers. I gave away all but one, and that was enough for dinner.

Here you go!

https://natashaskitchen.com/borscht-recipe-with-meat/comment-page-1/

I usually make chicken stock from bony chicken parts with whatever spices and celery, carrot, onion, garlic. Then I strain it, take the meat off the bones, and put back into the broth. I usually matchstick the beets. They taste better with a little texture than grated beets. But the most important part of the recipe is to sauté the beets in oil with tomato sauce as in the Natasha’s recipe above. If you dump them raw into the soup… the result will be pale and not very flavorful. I don’t use vinegar and sugar and don’t add potatoes (just use the whole head of cabbage instead of 1/2).

I will type up the “recipe” I use in a bit!!

Yesterday was H’s actual birthday. We had a dinner to celebrate Monday night. So last night I had to figure out what to make. Fortunately D2 had stopped by a local gourmet market and picked up 2 kinds of fresh pasta and 2 fresh pasta sauces. I made a bit of each pasta and sauce and added a nice green salad. We had leftover fruit from the Monday night dinner that we had for dessert with fresh whipping cream, honey and Cointreau. H was very happy with the results.

We had a can of pumpkin on hand so I made these muffins:

https://www.peakptfitness.com/pumpkin-pie-superhero-muffins/4170/

maybe not the "right " season, but they are delicious.

H is grilling pork chops later. I mixed up the marinade which is one of our favorites:

4 Tablespoons Teriyaki sauce
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons minced green onion

I made eggplant parmesan last night for the first time in quite a while. It really hit the spot! Plenty for leftovers tonight.

I am cooking the last of the steaks in the sous vide and trying a Korean barbecue marinade to finish for dinner tonight. I hope it’s good! It’s served with rice and lettuce wrap and a sauce - ssamjang. Unbelievably I had all the ingredients at home except for scallions, pear nectar, and butter lettuce. We’re set now!

@FallGirl, as far as I’m concerned there’s never a wrong season for pumpkin!

@FallGirl Thanks for the porkchop marinade, that’s what I just came online looking for!

I’m also looking for side ideas to use the bumber crop of kale and amaranth leaves in the garden right now. Maybe I’ll chop skinny for a salad with shredded apple and beets. Blue cheeses. Walnuts. Yum.

And something the kids will eat. Sigh.

I told H he is in charge tonight. So he took already made tomato and basil quiche from village market out of the refrigerator and he’ll make a salad. He hasn’t cooked once since WFH except throwing steak or burgers on the grill. I gave him a bit of grief but in a kidding kind of way.

Salmon fettuccine Alfredo tonight with a crisp white wine.

The Ice Cream Maker thread is making me wish we had ice cream for dessert, but that stick of butter sitting on the counter for the Alfredo sauce is shaking a yellow finger at me.