What’s on the menu this week? [NOT 27/12/20]

27/12/20 brightersideoflife 40
overhead image of several bowls of different soups

Hi friends! Post-holidays, what are we eating this week?

For both my waistline and my bank account, I definitely need to get back to cooking and eating at home. Also, vegetables. Need to get back to eating a lot more of those.

I’ve made a butternut squash/kale/cannellini beans ragout, and it’s delicious. Aside from some butter and the shredded parmesan I used, it’s vegan.

I’ve got to figure out what to do with a bag of cauliflower and the rest of the squash. I would make soup but I’ve also got salad fixings to get through first. Fingers crossed it stays good for a few more days.

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40 Comments

  1. Christmas leftovers for this week.  Then, I’m going to be digging into the 6th Edition copy of The Professional Chef which I picked up at a thrift store for $4 a few days ago.  There’s no telling what will come of that.

  2. I made spaghetti today and I have leftovers so I’ll be having that tomorrow. In the last month my eating habits went sideways and I need to get back on track. Once I’m done with the spaghetti I’m planning on making a big batch of black and vegetable soup and I’ll probably be eating that alongside lots of roasted vegetables and salads. For New Years I think I’m going to make vegetable curry with cauliflower, potatoes and garbanzo beans.

    • Ohh I love a hearty vegetable soup! Do you cook the beans from scratch or use canned beans? Not a judgment question – I cook lentils and chickpeas from scratch but typically use canned beans because I have trouble getting dried beans to cook well. 

      • I usually cook them from scratch. About once a month I cook large batches of dried beans and freeze them in portions that equal about one can. I usually do it with black beans, garbanzo beans, and cannellini beans. I do keep a few cans of beans on hand though and will use them if I run out of the others. 
         
        How do you usually cook your dried beans? 

        • Big pot on the stove, with bay leaves and a little olive oil so things don’t stick. They just never softened. 

          Maybe I just had beans that were too old? I never have problems with chickpeas. 

          • I used to cook my beans on the stove but I switched to using a slow cooker a few years ago. I usually cook them on low and I find that I get more consistent results with a slow cooker and I’ve been able to get a good read on how much time each type of bean takes. If I’m not lazy I will soak them overnight to cut down on the cook time. 

    • I love soups and stews. Mainly because they’re so easy to modify and they still turn out good.

      I had a college friend who really wanted a recipe for a soup I made and I was like “well you just put carrots and onion and celery and if you don’t have one of those then it’s still gonna be fine as long as you have onion powder and then you add other stuff like a few glug-glugs of red wine and your other stuff chopped up however you like and you just cook it all until you want to eat or turn off the stove.”

  4. I made a new recipe tonight, cod cut into chunks, dredged with whole wheat flour, and cooked golden in olive oil, served over jasmine rice cooked with onions sauted until lightly brown, garlic, cumin, and crushed cardamom pods. I had to omit the greek mastic resin because they don’t have that here. It was pretty good.

    I’m trying Butcher’s clam sauce this week, and doing the infamous freezer clean out, and open faced tuna melts with celery soup for me and vegan chili for the anti-vegetable fellow. Not sure what else…

    We sent all the holiday food home with my son and his family (they were here Christmas Eve). It was enough to feed her dad and stepmom and the three of them on Christmas day. So that got the not heart healthy stuff out of the house, and lessened the hosting stress for them. Good deal.

    • That’s awesome! I’m glad they were able to enjoy the food and you were able to help them have less stress about hosting.

      Is your celery soup a cream-based soup or a veggie stock one? Do you break out a stick blender to puree it?

      • I saute a chopped large bunch of celery with leaves, a large waxy potato, and a large onion. Then throw it in the blender with 3 cups of vegetable stock, a pinch of white pepper, and puree. Then I thin it with a little cream or half and half. It looks like a thick cream soup after blending, the additional liquid is just to make it a smoother consistency. 

        • Ahhh, the potato makes sense! I was trying to figure out what gave it a good texture and a starchy potato would totally do that!

          Do you like kale or cannellini beans? Sauteeing them with onions and a finely chopped up waxy potato turns it into a creamy rib-sticker dish. 

              • I like kale – especially as a greens substitute for romaine in a Caesar salad. Other people in our home feel that kale is the Devil’s work. Since I’m still trying to finagle that person into eating the celery soup, I dare not kale it up and ruin any possible chance of it…

                • Smart plan, @Elliecoo. Necessary to slowly ease people into kale. The first time I had kale and was like wtf this is good was at a tapas restaurant on a work trip.

                  Sliced lacinato kale, red cabbage, chopped granny smith applies, and a lemon vinegraitte with pureed pistachios in it. SO FUCKING GOOD.

  5. Hoppin John this week for good luck. I have the black eyed peas already. I think I’ll do Chinese dumplings, Japanese Mochi, lentils, donuts, and anything else I can come up with for New Year’s good luck.

  6. I’m making jambalaya tonight, chicken & sausage for part of fam & shrimp/fake chicken for my pescatarian daughter.  Not sure rest of week but need to make yakisoba or some kind of stir fried noodles & I have tons of Mahi Mahi.  Sashimi & Fondue is New Year’s Eve plan.

    • That sounds awesome!

      True confession time – I’ve never had yakisoba. I have a soy allergy and I haven’t ever seen it anywhere where there wasn’t soy sauce in the recipe.

      I won’t go into anaphylaxis from soy sauce, but I’ll be miserable as fuck within about 45 minutes of eating it. 

        • Not really? Some recipes could swap it out for fish sauce, I guess.

          Some recipes say to swap for tamari sauce, but that’s made with soybeans. Soooo not really another option with a similar flavor profile. Other substitutions are typically Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (which are made with soy) or Worcestershire sauce (which contains soy sauce). 

          As dumb as this sounds, I also don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, so I don’t know what I’m missing out on. I just don’t make food that relies on soy sauce. Also I don’t like strong umami flavors in general (I like to believe it’s my lizard brain remembering when I had soy sauce as a younger person and being like DANGER WILL ROBINSON), so … shrug? 

      • Oh no! I’m such a heavy soy sauce user, I buy it by the quart. But I do know of a soy free substitute you should look into: coconut aminos. I think it’s pricier, but I’m always running into it on recipes because it’s trendy to hate on soy at the moment. I think paleo people don’t like it? I don’t know, I can’t keep up. But soy allergies also aren’t uncommon, so I’m glad alternatives exist. 

          • If you have a Trader Joe’s nearby, their Coconut Aminos Seasoning Sauce is a SOLID substitute for Soy Sauce, and really inexpensive!
            Our grocery store carries Bragg’s liquid aminos (maybe soy-based?) for $4.99/5.99 ish, and big bottles of another brand of Coconut Aminos for $12-13.99
            The bottle at TJ’s is $2.99!😉
            It’s a bit sweeter than soy sauce–kinda similar in flavor to/somewhere in between Japanese thick soy sauce and a good aged/reduced balsamic vinegar.
             
            I use the Coconut aminos when I want more *depth* of flavor, in dishes… it doesn’t add a lot of “flavor” really, just a bit of saltiness, but it brings out/punches up the other flavors, if that makes sense?
             

            • Braggs liquid aminos are soy based (and delicious). But they do also make Braggs coconut aminos.
               
              I’ll be honest – I’ve yet to really figure out how to use soy sauce vs Braggs vs tamari, etc… They do have slightly different tastes, but like, not enough that I feel like one fits one place and not another. I do totally support your assessment of them punching up the other flavors. It’s just salt and umami. 

  7. I’ve gotten myself cooking again and just finished up the leftovers from the baked penne I made on Christmas. I made a meatless stroganoff tonight that was pretty good, and we’ll have leftovers of that for a bit. I also bought groceries to make pizza, and a quinoa chickpea dish. The recipe calls for pesto but I’m debating changing it up for a ginger tahini soy sauce dressing. 

    • If you plan on making quantities sufficient for leftovers, the pesto might discolor and be less than attractive.

      I’d swap it out for a different dressing. If there’s red onions or shallots in the dish, a red wine vinaigrette would also work well. 

  8. Now that I have a bunch of time off, I’ve been doing some cooking at home.  May have seen my posts about my mistakes trying to make chicken cordon bleu… I’ve still got two more of those, probably tomorrow and then two days later.  Lentils and rice tonight.  And I just noticed I have a tofurkey and a field roast in the fridge that I forgot about, so will probably try those later this week or so. 

      • @brighterideoflife
        oof, that recipe looks like way too much work for me.  I really don’t like anything that takes more than one pot to cook. 
        I just put 1 part rice with olive oil and heat it a bit, then after a while of that, add 4 parts water and 1 part lentils, and some non-salt/non-acid flavor stuff, get it to a boil, turn it down to a simmer, and let it sit with the lid on for ~30-40 minutes or so, then add whatever salty/acidy seasonings/flavors, and let it cook for a bit with the lid off until the excess liquid is minimal. 
        I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard using salt or acid stuff can make lentils reluctant to soften up, so I just wait till it’s almost done.  and I just throw in whatever is lying around, salt, pepper, worchestershire sauce (I add that to almost anything), onion/garlic powder, hoisin sauce, balsamic vinegar, seasoning salt, herbs/spices, etc.
        I used to do this more frequently as a college student, and then rediscovered it earlier this year as I was rummaging around in my pantry during the initial COVID shelter-in-place bit…

        • Sounds like a solid pantry meal. I’d want to throw some greens in towards the end to complete it. But you reminded me – my other recent culinary accomplishment was making up a vegan worcestershire sauce that is now in my fridge. The trouble is, I’ve never tasted the real deal so I have no clue how close of a mimic it is. I’m just trusting Martha Stewart. 

  9. One of the things I’m cooking tonight/tomorrow is Bean Soup.  
    I have about half the bone-in ham left over from Christmas, so I soaked up some beans (a mix of 15-Bean Soup, and some Favas i got over at the Greek importer close by), threw the ham in the bottom of my stock pot,the soaked beans on top,tossed in some onion, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, and both Smoked Spanish & Hungarian Sweet paprika, and put it in the oven to cook overnight (it was too much stuff to fit in the crock pot, soooo it gets the low & slow oven treatment overnight, instead😉)
    I also picked up some clearanced rosemary-herb chicken legs, so those will get cooked up tomorrow with the thighs i got & froze on Christmas Eve… not sure quite *how* I’ll cook those yet… buuuut I’ll figure something out (maybe I’ll chop up some onions & potatoes, and then get some tzatziki & pita to eat it with?.. I dunno quite yet!)
     
    I also realized tonight, that I want to pick up some Bread Cheese. some more Cotswold, Red Dragon if i can find any, and some Boursin before Friday.
     
    I’ll probably just do a run to Trader Joe’s, sometime this week, to get those & some cured meats, because they usually have them a lot cheaper than the “regular” grocery stores here.
     
    The other thing I wanna get is a baguette from over at Sun Street, because it’s one of the best stores for a good one, anywhere in the Cities–and their baguettes are AMAZING both for “just eating” with chiz, but *also* for slicing, then rubbing with a clove of garlic, before you spread  the slices with a bit of butter & toast ’em in the oven… those toasted slices are the perfect vehicle for almost ANY good cheese–especially a warm, melty one! 😉😁🤗

  10. Sometime in the next couple weeks,I also wanna make this;
    https://www.myneworleans.com/comfort-by-the-bite/
     
    I FINALLY re-found the recipe!!!😉
     
    The onion gravy is seriously drool-worthy, those “3 minutes” and “5 minutes” in there are a LIE though, the overall process *just for the gravy* takes at least an hour, because when you caramelize that many onions it is a process!
    (Also, beef stock/bullion works FINE!😉)
     

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