Bite. Sip. Repeat…

Easy dinner, tortellini and salad.  I made an quick white sauce for the pasta, thickened a cup of milk with roux and seasoned it with salt, white pepper, parmesan cheese and a bit of garlic.

Got some nice looking wild salmon at Costco.  Made a tossed salad, oven roasted some baby potatoes.  Seasoned the salmon with Essence of Bargabus and lemon, baked it until just barely done.

One of my son’s friends joined us for dinner.  She tries to eat a gluten-free diet, so I decided to keep it simple and serve oven-baked chicken breasts, rice and steamed veggies.

Seasoned the boneless, skinless chicken with my spice mix (Essence of Bargabus, recipe here) and baked it at 350° until it was at an internal temperature of 165°.  Rice in the rice cooker, steamed veggies for the kids.

For Lisa and I, I made some collard greens.  Sautéed a slice of bacon, a small onion (diced) and two cloves of garlic (pressed) in a large stock pot.  After the aromatics had softened, I added the greens and cooked them until they were wilted. The greens almost filled my large stock pot, but wilted down to about 2 1/2 cups of greens.   Then I added a cup of chicken stock, covered the pan and let the greens steam on low for 20 minutes.

B: breakfast tostada (fried egg on toasted corn tortilla, cheese and salsa

L: leftovers

D: Pork Stir Fry (pork tenderloin, veggies, pasta)

We had a bunch of miscellaneous fresh veggies, so a stir fry sounded good to me.  Younger son complain about having had this meal a few days ago, but he ate it.

Cooked a pound of capellini (angel hair pasta), drained it and added “the mix” (5 Tbs soy sauce, 2 Tbs each of honey, rice wine vinegar, and sesame oil).  Stir, cover and let the sauce soak in.

Meanwhile, I had sliced a 3/4 lb. pork tenderloin into small strips and marinated it in 4 Tbs of oyster sauce, 1 Tbs corn starch and 1/4 tsp of ground ginger.

Stir fried the pork, set it aside.  Stir fried the veggies (onion, sugar snap peas, broccoli, green pepper, mushrooms and carrots) in the same pan.  When nearly done, I seasoned them with 2 Tbs of soy.  Served in individual bowl, pasta on the bottom, veggies, then pork.  Yum.

B: toast

L: sandwiches

D: we ate separate from the boys, pizza for them, take out for me and Lisa from El Cotixan

B: Toast, fruit

L: Tuna sandwiches

D: Chicken “Fried” Rice

Had an emergency computer service call come up and we didn’t have time to shop yesterday.  We had a bunch of miscellaneous veggies, so I thawed a couple of chicken breasts and made a cooker of rice.  Marinated the chicken in oyster sauce, sesame oil, pepper, cayenne and ginger.  Diced the veggies small (sugar snap peas, green pepper, mushrooms, onion, garlic, scallions, carrots).  Sautéed the chicken and set it aside.  Sautéed the vegetables in a teaspoon each of canola and sesame oil.  When they were still a bit crisp, I threw in a handful of frozen peas and added in the cooked rice, about 2 cups.  Mixed in the chicken, seasoned everything with some salt and pepper and it was done.  I took a tip from Ming Tsai who doesn’t use soy sauce to season his fried rice.  I like this version.  Pretty tasty

B: Clif bar (white chocolate/macadamia nut)

L: leftover chicken and veggies

D: Pork tacos and “Mexican” coleslaw

I cooked off a pork shoulder this afternoon and shredded it for the tacos, with tomatoes, avocado, and onion.  My version of “Mexican” coleslaw is similar to Fidel’s in Solana Beach.  Shredded cabbage, scallions and cilantro dressed with a red wine vinaigrette seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin and a dash of cayenne pepper.

B: Shredded Spoonfuls

L: steak salad

D: homemade pizza (margarita, chicken sausage and veggies, cheese)

I’ve been meaning to do a whole post on homemade pizza. I’ve been using this dough recipe.  It’s super easy and requires no kneading; mix it up, let it rise for 2 hours and start rolling it out for pizza.

When our kids were watching the Peanuts holiday shows, my 4 year old got Charlie Brown’s name a little wrong and said he wanted to watch that “Charlie Barley Show”.  It sort of stuck and that’s now one of my son’s sometimes-nicknames.  I saw the 7 bean and barley mix in the bulk foods aisle at Henry’s market and, of course, had to get it.  The boys were cracking up about me making Charlie Barley Soup.

I started with about a pound of 7 bean and barley mix.  Continue Reading »

The boys get a huge kick out of breakfast for dinner.  Our #1 son buys lunch at school once a week and they even have a breakfast for lunch option sometimes.  Tonight, it was scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, and toaster waffles for them.  Lisa and I were going to have the same thing (toast, no waffles), when I saw Continue Reading »