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Need inspiration, what ya cooking tonight


Thimble Hall

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Last night our live in handy man (our 28yr old son) made us his special fried chicken breast fillets. I did the potatoes, gravy and corn. I am liking his new interest in cooking! He also made chocolate chip cookies with chopped up Milk Duds instead of chips. Best cookies I've ever had!

Tomorrow night, I get to pass on the family meatloaf recipe and show him how. Since it is also our little strawberry blond miniature pincer Woodson's 2nd birthday, we will also be making a mini puppy loaves for all three dogs minus the onions and spices.

I am finishing up a major piece of the Sweet Christmas Cottage build today, so tonight's special will be grilled cheese and soup! :drool:

Some of the items on the menu for the next 10 days (I have groceries delivered every 10 days - hate grocery shopping, especially during runny nose season) are:

Homemade pizza - pepperoni, sausage and veggies for the boys and pepperoni & pineapple for me

Chicken & Dumplings in the crock pot so I have more "mini me time"

Breakfast for dinner: Sausage, eggs, biscuits and gravy

Hawaiian burgers with sweet potato fries and baked beans

Pulled pork in the crock pot with homemade coleslaw & beans

Most times I try to make enough so that all I have to do is reheat leftovers the next day, and I do like to have take out teriyaki every couple of weeks. I generally eat only once a day, and if the boys aren't home to cook for I am perfectly content with a sandwich or cereal.

I only have about 12 or 14 meals in my repertoire, as I have always had more exciting pursuits than cooking! :D

 

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I gave up on cooking tonight after finishing up 12 jars of sweet relish, 12 jars of dill relish and 9 quarts of tomato juice.  I did regular tomatoes yesterday and finished up some sweet gherkins.  It has been reall hot for fall in Maine, and I don't do heat well, it was 97 today.  Made a nice salad from the garden instead!

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7 minutes ago, Goldenrodfarm said:

I gave up on cooking tonight after finishing up 12 jars of sweet relish, 12 jars of dill relish and 9 quarts of tomato juice.  I did regular tomatoes yesterday and finished up some sweet gherkins.  It has been reall hot for fall in Maine, and I don't do heat well, it was 97 today.  Made a nice salad from the garden instead!

That's about what our daytime temps are on the Gulf Coast this time of year.  I gave up canning many years ago.

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What a happy load of answers and thank you for sharing them.

 

Jodi lots of good ideas .I am another one who has breakfast for dinner and I only eat one meal a day usually. I also cook for my dogs, both Chihuahuas, Florence and Maisie, they are just three years old and litter sisters. They most often eat what I eat, tonight I did a pan fried (not battered) chicken and made a curry sauce to go with it, they had the chicken bare.

I do however enjoy grocery shopping but apart from perishables I only do it usually about every three or four weeks or so. I have a big oriental supermarket close by and I buy all my fish and much of my meat there, the fish is very fresh very often swimming, so I can get live crab, lobster, clams etc  all year round plus the usual fish in season.

I also love chicken and dumplings  I even have the fat  that I use in the dumplings sent over from the UK. 

I hate leftovers. I cannot stand warmed up food  except pizza sauce and chili, but most everything else is like a punishment to me it never tastes the same. There are a couple of soups I make that will stand freezing, for me like ham and pea  but most I only eat fresh.. I do use meat if left from a roast and I can turn it into something else and I do reuse rice, eg plain boiled will become fried rice the next day with the usual additions, but that is about it for leftovers.

. My husband loved his jams and jellies and English Christmas cake, Christmas puddings and mincemeat , the last three I always made is September but now he is gone I am just on the point of giving up canning. This is the first year I didn't do salmon and I eat very little jams etc but I will still make my English Chutney .He ate dessert every day too so I feel a bit redundant now.

I enjoy cooking, rather like working with clay, it is therapeutic but now I have to be content with one  big cooking day each week when I cook for a homeless project. I usually make 5 or 6 dishes, each will feed 20 to 25. so I am always on the lookout new  good recipes for feeding a crowd.

Holly please tell me about your green onion sausages

Rbytsdy, I looked up the cream cheese cake and it sound really good. I may just make a couple of those for the homeless dinner this weekend as I have a lot of cream cheese and time before Saturday to make my sour cream.. Have you tried it cold or does it have to be warm. Usually I make 4 desserts on Friday night, then cook the other stuff Saturday afternoon.

Barbara when I first read your post I read" I was 97 today " and I wondered how you could do all that canning then I re read it. I doubt I could can in that heat, it seems another life ago when I did cases of canned stuff.

Tomorrow I am going to make kedgeree, I can't get the smoked haddock I would like to use so will use regular halibut. the dogs love rice so they can eat that too.

I have some bananas calling to me so will make banana walnut muffins tomorrow too, I will eat one warm but most will go in the freezer and go to the project at the weekend. I am not too fond of sweet things, just now and again.

 

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Wow, Jeannine! You do do a lot of cooking! And what a special thing to do each week, making delicious food for those having difficult times!

My daughter, 30, is an excellent cook. Very creative and adventurous! She posts photos on Instagram every week, and I am always amazed at what she can throw together on a moments notice! Her Instagram handle is sexylittleatomz if you'd like to take a peek. 

My husband cannot resist dough of any kind in any form! He is daily being tortured as he is currently remodeling and expanding a bakery!!! Poor guy!

I used to get to pick, clean, snap, and can with my grandma each year. I have never tasted a better pickled beet than she used to make. I miss those times so much it aches!

Almost everything I make has been passed down in our family since my great grandma. I am trying really hard to make opportunities to pass it all on to my kids, nieces and nephews, but they are too young and it is such a different way of life. Nostalgia has not hit them... yet!

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Well we seem to do the same meals a lot. We make slow cooked chilli chicken with lots of veg very often, and usually have it will some chopped lettuce and tomato, cheese and quacamole if we have it. We also make spaghetti bolognase a lot. One really easy thing we do is beef meatballs with chopped olives in them and some herbs. We cook them the. put them in a dish with tinned tomaoes and baby bocconcini and into the oven so the cheese melts. We do a lot of quick and easy.

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Over the past years but only once or twice this year I cook the food of different countries or religions on there special days or their holy days.

Everyone knows  St Patrick's day, Irish Stew  etc., St Georges day England   good choice of past years to choose from here , Leek soup etc on Welsh St David/s day.

There are a great many public holidays all over the world, all with their own food. eg St Michaelmas Day. 29th September  Roast Goose and Blackberry pie .The  fruit is picked  on the last day to pick them before the devil tramples them.

It is a great way to learn other folks culture and religions and makes for a change in eating .I can post some of the dates and food if anyone is interested. It is in my to do  list, to get back to doing things  I used to. Often for Lent I give up a lot of rich foods and make only the recipes allowed during WW2 when food was so rationed and I stick to the ration amounts too . I do that most Lents and for 40 days. 

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8 hours ago, Jeannine said:

...Holly please tell me about your green onion sausages...

Rouse's Supermarkets is a Louisiana-based grocery chain that recently moved into Alabama and we are nagging the store managers to get corporate to consider moving into Florida, at least Pensacola, too.  They specialize in Cajun items and do fresh link sausage in flavors.  The green onion is our favorite.

I love to cook and DH loves to eat, and we are on diets for blood pressure and cholesterol issues, so I'm always fiddling with things to make them work for us.  Moosewood publishes several cookbooks that yield some really divine meals.  We eat lots of rice because DH's college roommate was from India and we spent his USMC draft living in Hawai'i on the windward side of Oahu, where we discovered varieties of rice.

Tonight it's shrimp & pasta.

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Whatever my hubby is cooking!  LOL  And tonite it's "fair food"!  :cucumber:  Our town is having their annual street fair this week and tonite is the parade.  It's become the only nite we actually walk down to the fair anymore, but those once-a-year goodies.....YUM!  

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Holly thank you I was hoping it was something you made yourself. I have a couple of Mooseood cookbooks by the way, I have had them for years, they look handwritten. I also use several different kinds of rice .

Jackie enjoy your fair food. sounds  exciting.

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Jeannine, when I make my own sausage I use ground turkey; I do NOT stuff casings!  The next time I get ground turkey I think I shall make my own green onion sausage; I just add cracked peppercorns, a tiny bit of Tony Cachere's seasoning and some sage to the ground turkey and shape it into rolls or patties to cook it.

I'm using up the bag of calrose rice we got before I finally found an Indian grocery where I can get our favorite, basmati.  I made a batch of rice custard.

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I don't enjoy cooking. I've cooked over 14,000 dinners in my life and wish I didn't have to keep cooking more of them.

Today I'm making Salisbury steak because it's easy. I brown the ground beef patties, slide them onto a rectangular casserole dish and prepare 2 packages of McCormick Brown or Onion gravy. Then I just pour the gravy over the patties and bake for 30 to 45 minutes, covered with foil or uncovered depending on how I want the gravy to come out. That sauce comes out so GOOD. Mashed potatoes, lima beans and corn will complete the meal.

I've gotten really tired of my cooking this past year, so I've been experimenting with new recipes. DH & DS are sometimes pleased, sometimes not so much. I really liked my Manwich cornbread casserole, it was tasty and oh so easy, but my husband insists Manwich should be served on buns, not under cornbread. Just prepare a can of Manwich with ground beef, pour it into a casserole dish and sprinkle cheddar cheese over the meat. Then prepare a bag or box of cornbread mix and spoon it over the meat mixture and bake till the cornbread is done. DH liked my cioppino and creole shrimp  and DS liked the Chinese orange chicken and the cashew chicken. I'd been buying Amy's frozen cheese enchiladas for myself now and then, but recently I discovered to my delight, that my chili makes a great enchilada sauce. I've also been making myself chili cheese dogs for lunch - yum. I'm glad I made a double batch of chili last time. I've got little cups of frozen chili saved for hot dogs and enchiladas for my lunches.

Oh yeah, they just opened a Dominos pizza in my town. I'd never had Dominos - I was so excited. I'm tired of making my home made pizza too, by the way.

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I have a chicken breast thawed in the fridge, so tonight I'm having balsamic BBQ chicken.

https://www.centercutcook.com/balsamic-bbq-glazed-chicken/

This sauce is also good over pork. I don't grill the chicken, though. I just bake it in the sauce in a dish and spoon it over the chicken every 10 minutes or so.

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I make Salisbury "steaks" with ground turkey, thanks to Mr Food several years ago.  Actually I use ground turkey in place of ground beef or pork because it's low in fat (that diet, you see....), and there's no aftertaste.  The hubs far prefers it in his cabbage rolls & stuffed peppers.

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Interesting,, Holly  I do make my own sausage, my own copy of a UK banger, lots of marjoram and sage, I find the purchased ones a little salty for me so I have no choice there. I like the idea of a turkey one although I would use chicken as turkey is not a fave of mine, actually having said that I think in a sausage I would not know the difference. I do have a sausage stuffer but I often make patties with it . Do you have an actual recipe or do you just wing it to taste.? I have never managed to make a good cabbage roll, maybe you could help me. It wasn't something my Mum made so I think I am doing it all wrong, I am surprised that you have difficulty finding Basmati rice. I guess being near Vancouver and as we have so  many nationalities local I can pretty much find anything. One of my last years resolutions was to stop using seven or eight different types of rice but I don't think I got through January without breaking it.

I wish I could get tired of cooking. but come early afternoon something kicks in and I want to do it. I should write a cook book for folks who cook for 1 adult  + 2 small pets and doesn't use leftovers LOL

Today was supposed to be a kedgeree day but I drove to the border  to pick up my stuff and had to do a Costco shop ( opposite direction the the fish shop) so I picked up a BBQ cooked chicken there and am having a chunk of that with home grown Sungold  tomatoes, some garden peas and homemade bread with butter..Not very exciting but  I needed the chicken for the babies.

One of these days I need to take a trip much further down south than I have ever been, I would like to get where I can eat some real Creole food. If I had a chauffeur I would take a long trip  all over the US just to sample the local food. It is such a big country that I guess it would take me a long time. Actually I am curious now, whoever you are and wherever, do you have a local dish that the area is known for. I would enjoy learning about that. I have pretty much got Europe, The Orient and India covered but not so much  America..

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I will occasionally start with a recipe, or I might actually follow a recipe, but if I cook it often enough, or if (like my shrimp & pasta) I'm working at reproducing a restaurant dish, I make things up as I go along.  I have sent you a PM.  We had bangers & mash in a pub in Burlington, VT that I have reproduced once or twice, and on the very rare occasions I have leftover Brussels sprouts I make them into bubble & squeak.  Back when James Barber was on the TV we were major fans.

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I'm a fan of the Chef John videos because I need to see someone actually cooking things for me to do and not have a disaster. Plus he tells you why to do certain things and that's helpful, too. And he does shortcuts and usually makes things pretty easy. I melted sugar for caramel once from one of his videos and it was no big deal. I had people not believing anyone but a chef would do that, but anyone who watched his video would be able to do it easy peasy.

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Bubble and Squeak, I didn't expect to hear that from someone here. I love it,grew up on it.

I loved James Beard he was a no nonsense man who didn't curse or yell in the kitchen and always seemed to create easy things without a lot of fuss. He lived just across  the water from me on Vancouver Island. I would have liked to meet him but never got the chance..He looked very much like my husband

I used to like watching Graham Kerr too  , he was funny. not really a chef but his shows were pure entertainment  I need to read up on him, . I know James died about 10 years ago but I don't know about Graham.

 

Kelly what did you do with the caramel?

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