Cooking when you’re Staying home

^^^ Oh, cool. Does it come a few packages to a box??

Tonight was rescue the spinach - spinach walnut pesto for pasta with shrimp and asparagus. Also rescued and bread with broiled garlic toast.

We tried that sour cream and onion chicken recipe someone posted a few days ago (although I baked it in the air fryer instead of shallow frying it) - everybody really liked it. Sides were steamed broccoli and Korean style glazed carrots.

We ate what has become our “don’t feel like cooking” dinner - hot smoked salmon and all the trimmings and cream cheese on toast, Ezekiel bread for me and sourdough for the spouse.

I’m going to try the sour cream and chive chicken tonight. Has anyone tried baking it in the oven. I used yogurt instead of sour cream and the marinade smells delicious. I’m going to try a new side recipe salad with cucumber, mint and mango.

^^^Please let me know how it does with being baked. I’m the one who posted it and wondered about baking but figured I’d “follow the recipe” the first time around.

Tonight’s PLAN (hoping storms don’t divert the plan!) Brats on the grill (bunless for me), sweet potato fries, kale salad.

I baked it in the air fryer, which is basically just a convection oven. So yes, oven baked works fine. If you have an air fryer or convection oven and you cut/pounded the breasts until they were under 1/4", I found it took about 8 minutes at 400 degrees. Also, giving them a quick spritz with olive oil spray helped them turn nice and brown.

Had a few odds and ends of leftover meats from the past few days. Cubed it up then Fried up a bunch of potatoes, onions and peppers and made a hash. One of my daughters’ favorite dishes. Served with an arugula salad.

Thai peanut chicken, red potatoes, broccoli. Enjoyed it!

I love Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano books, and food is a big part of them, so we made pasta 'ncasciata this last weekend (his housekeeper’s specialty, along with rice balls/arancini).

We had a mishap with frying the eggplant cubes; the oil overflowed and made a giant mess. However, we were able to get the right pasta (anelletti) and Italian tomato paste from a local grocer (for those of you in NJ, Livoti’s). It turned out like a very high-end version of Chef Boyardee. And I mean this in the best possible sense.

https://mhzchoiceblog.com/eat-like-montalbano-pasta-ncasciata/

Tonight I made turkey tenderloins following this recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/lemon-turkey-tenderloin-483419

It was just ok, even though I marinated it several hours. I’ve never eaten turkey tenderloin before, but this wasn’t as tender as I had hoped. Have any of you made turkey tenderloins? Suggestions? I don’t have any fancy appliances, just a stove, oven, and crockpot.

Lamb burgers (bunless for me), sweet potatoes and onions cubed and roasted in the oven, sauteed spinach with some leftover cooked bacon tossed in.

I was going to roast some broccoli but it was too old and gross and had to toss it. I hate wasting food. :frowning: It has been much easier to get pick-up and delivery spots from the grocers lately as I think many people are reverting back to more “normal” patterns. so I was telling my spouse that I’m going to go back to weekly grocery shopping like I’ve always done instead of the 10-14 day shopping I’ve been doing lately to avoid the small uptick in wasted produce lately.

I love reading about everyone’s menus! :slight_smile:

I am very tired. Worked all weekend long, and only today caught up with the other stuff that also needed urgent attention. Did not have the time for our weekly Costco run. So frozen chicken mushroom dumplings from TJ to the rescue!!! God bless my Mr. He does not demand homemade meals every day. :slight_smile:

My big salad, made with a bunch of stuff from my CSA delivery was fabulous. My only screw up was I forgot to order crusty loaf of bread from the bakery until it was to late (they’ve been closing at 2pm.) I’m going to order two loaves tomorrow because there will be several big salads on the menu the next week.

Had some left overs from a pork rib roast. Made pork and green chili burritos. Homemade tortillas? Why, yes!

Can you share the cucumber mint and mango recipe? In fact I wish posters would post recipes to most all of these meals!

@emilybee we have found that crusty bread freezes well. Revive it for use by thawing, then wetting the bottom of the loaf and putting it in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Comes out hot fresh and crusty. Works on day old bread too.

Last night I rescued farmers cucumbers with a cucumber blueberry and feta salad to go with chicken piccata, rice and broccoli. Also had some crusty bread from the freezer ?

Thx @Singersmom07

I usually freeze several loafs, and it’s fine but never did The wetting then bottom but. I will definitely try it!

H cooked salmon and topped it with the oregano/pistachio pesto. We also had a charred watermelon and tomato salad. (We got a water melon in our weekly produce box). It was all excellent. I have lots of broccoli left—anyone have ideas for it? I always roast it and I am getting bored with that.

A little back story. I love salad. All kinds of salad. My husband and daughters also love salad. But despite my best efforts, I could never get my sons to eat them (younger son used to say it tasted like he was eating leaves). Then lo and behold, when my son was at a team dinner his junior year of high school, he tried Caeser salad. And liked it. I don’t know what prompted him to eat it there but not at home, but I almost fell over one night when we were ordering take out and he asked me to order him a Caeser salad with chicken. He likes it so much it was a big part of his diet when away at college this past year.

I’ve always used an old Bon Appetit recipe to make Caeser salad dressing. Last week, my husband was home alone with my sons, along with a substantial amount of romaine lettuce harvested from our garden. He looked up a recipe and made them a Grilled Chicken Caeser Salad using these two recipes from Once Upon A Chef and said it was delicious (younger son still refused salad but ate the chicken).

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/perfectly-grilled-chicken-breasts.html

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/caesar-salad-dressing.html

He is now down at the beach with me and one of my daughters and brought all the remaining romaine lettuce from our garden, as well as the leftover dressing. He marinated and grilled some chicken breasts last night and that was our dinner. So good!

@Singersmom07 that cucumber, feta, blueberry salad sounds interesting. Do you have a specific recipe or just wing it?