Hi friends! What’s on the menu this week?
I’m going to try to make a version of the Trader Joe’s autumnal harvest marinara sauce, it was super good and as far as I can tell it was basically tomato sauce with pumpkin puree and some warm spices. Should this work, I’ve got IKEA veggie balls in the freezer to add to it and then also some pasta.
Recipe I’m going to go with — https://cookieandkate.com/creamy-pumpkin-marinara-recipe/
@myopicprophet – I like this new link formatting, it feels more intuitive
And as always, if anyone has a desire to do one of the NOTs, just drop me a line. 🙂
I made dry rub ribs tonight and they actually turned out pretty well. I tried Cousin Matt’s Brussels sprouts recipe (because Mrs. Butcher brought home a pound for reasons passing understanding), but it seems the only thing more bitter than me is a dish of Brussels sprouts.
We made Cousin Matthew’s sprouts as well. Keitel is still not a fan, I really liked them.
If I cook brussels sprouts, I need to use something like a little maple syrup to cut the bitterness.
If they’re sliced really thin or shaved on a mandoline, they work great in salads/slaws where one would normally use cabbage. But for all that fucking effor, Imma just use green cabbage unless I have a bag of shaved sprouts from Trader Joe’s for some reason.
Sorry the sprouts were such a dud! There are very few foods on God’s green earth that I won’t eat and kale, for reasons I don’t quite understand. is one of them. Your kale might be Brussels sprouts. You’re not alone.
I’d avoid altogether (did Mrs. Butcher like them?) but it you want to try them again, soak them in some cold water for a while. That should leach out some of their natural flavor. Pat them dry as best you can and steam them. Make a quick cheese sauce, like you might for broccoli. But at this point you’re really taking desperate measures to disguise the fact that you’re eating something you don’t want to eat anyway, so…
Interesting… Tomato plus pumpkin sauce sounds weird to me, but I won’t count it out since I haven’t tried it. It does remind me that sometime I want to try to make that pumpkin kaddo dish (which included a sort of tomato and yogurt sauce) that I used to get from an Afghani restaurant. Funnily enough, when I went to search it, I immediately found a copycat recipe of the exact restaurant in question.
https://food52.com/recipes/37497-kaddo-afghan-pumpkin-with-yogurt-and-tomato-sauces
I doubt I’ll try it this week though. My energy level has been very low lately. I’m planning a grocery order tomorrow and getting a fair amount of ready made freezer meals and such. If I stop being so low maybe I’ll rally and make a big thing of fried rice, we’ll see.
We did manage to get the pod emptied this morning, ready for pickup tomorrow, so that’s a nice victory. And got our little living Christmas tree.
Yay the pod is empty!!!!
If it helps, this dish took about half an hour start to finish, plus time to puree with the stick blender after it cooled. Like it was literally chop the onion, garlic, and red pepper and cook for a little bit and then dump a can of diced tomatoes and a can of pumpkin puree in there and cook for about 15 minutes.
I used a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, oregano, basil (I had no tarragon), black pepper, and coriander. I don’t taste tomatoes and I don’t taste like mmm marinara sauce. It’s just a warm wintery sauce that is very savory and comfy, if that makes sense?
I have no idea. I had grilled orange roughy for dinner. I need to look up some recipes.
Fun facts with brightersideoflife!
Orange roughy is a renaming to be more appealing to the masses. Kind of like how mahi mahi used to be called something like dolphin fish and people were like “oh no am I eating dolphins? I love Flipper!”
So orange roughy used to be called slimeheads. Because they produce squalene and have a slimy head.
However, slimehead fillets don’t sound like something folks want to buy at the store. Hence the rebranding.
Also I think they became more popular as other fish populations were dwindling so it was like “fuck, what do we got a ton of still? slimehead? okay, how do we sell that to people?”
Ha! I’ve never heard this before, but it’s hilarious. 🙂
It is a fact that all fish sound more appealing in Hawaiian.
Dolphin – Mahi Mahi
Tuna – Ahi
Red Snapper – Opakapaka
Moon fish – Opah
Wahoo – Ono (which also means delicious which it is!)
Also, Hawaiians do NOT eat Talapia. That is what we call garbage fish. It’s like eating carp or a goldfish.
aren’t tilapia a freshwater cichlid? do they even exist in Hawaii?
They do in canals & areas where nasty water meets the ocean. Not sure how they got there but poor & homeless people would fish for them.
You got me curious, now I know…
https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/ais/427-2/
LOL, I would not buy slimeheads!
Nothing baked for a little while, no matter what. The electronics in my oven shorted out after 20+ years, so a new one is hopefully getting delivered on Wednesday. I am glad at least that this didn’t happen 10 days from now.
Oh hell
Agreed about the timing at least it’s not during the actual holidays.
Were you able to get a new oven with nicer features than your old one? Do you even care about the features? I admit I’m so rarely a baker that I am like “does it heat? evenly/sort of evenly? GOOD ENOUGH!” when it comes to ovens.
When I was house shopping a few years ago, the realtor was concerned I’d want a house with double ovens. I legit cackled and was like lady I live alone and cook like twice a week, I don’t need double ovens.
I’ve honestly debated in the past whether I really needed an oven at all, versus just my toaster oven (and stove top). I use the convection toaster oven probably 95% of the time.
Cooked ahead for the week… Asian slaw, Cousin Matthew’s sprouts, homemade dog biscuits, almond cookies, roasted tomato sauce, baked salmon…and will do faux burgers, freezer clean out, breakfast for dinner, and maybe a take out this week as well. @BigDamnHeroes, we made your rice and beans yesterday, and they were phenomenal.
Good idea, @BigDamnHeroes‘ rice and beans!
Yay!
Burgers are also in my plans (I like Morningstar spicy black bean burgers). Excellent low effort meal. Brinner is a good idea too.
That is a lot of cooking! I am impressed!
@brightersideoflife, I work 9-10 hours a day M-F plus little bits in the evening, due to staff 6 hours ahead and 4 hours behind my time zone. So it isn’t feasible for me to cook each weeknight – thus the full week’s menu plan and cooking what I can ahead. And it is a lot, I get weary of it after about three hours straight. It used to go faster, but I am trying new healthy recipes and that take’s longer than stuff I can do without a thought.
For sure, that makes total sense.
Also yes! The healthier stuff does typically take longer.
welp..today im not cooking….gotta buy my christmas cards after work and then go visit a mate whilst hes still here figure i wont be home in time for dinner…probably buy myself a dirty burger n chips on the way home
beyond that it kinda depends on exactly how locked down we are about to get
i have rice and eggs and veggi ham cubes…so probably nasi goreng tuesday
rest of the week is too far away to even think about…lol
I have a chili seasoned pork roast in my crock pot right now and I made a side of pinto beans. I see my misfits market box being delivered Wednesday has tomatoes, jalapenos, serranos, green peppers and scallions, so I guess I’m making salsa. That worked out pretty well!
I pulled some random packages out of the freezer on Saturday, which turned out to be brats, a pound of 90/10 ground beef, and a large steak/small roast of some sort (stuff from the food pantry isn’t always labeled). So I’ll be doing something with those the next couple of days.
Last night, I made fake enchiladas… I found a bag of 5 beef burritos in the freezer that were all icy and the tortillas were all cracked, so I scraped off the ice and put them in a baking pan, covered them with a jar of enchilada sauce and some salsa, and topped them with shredded jack cheese. They were so good!