Made-Ahead Meatballs

A few weeks ago, my wife went to the beach with her mother for a week. I made ahead 48 baked meatballs and homemade sauce. Divided into six equal meals of 8 meatballs each plus sauce, I froze them.

So, tonight's dinner of thawed-out meatballs was great (and simple) over rice cooker rice. The vegetable side was microwaved fresh carrots with butter and mint. Olives and buttered olive bread, too.

Olive This Meal

Tonight, olive-crusted roasted salmon. Sautéed cremini mushrooms.

Eggs For Dinner

Not Eggs Benedict. Just poached eggs on sautéed Canadian bacon, on toasted English muffin, with a thinned Dijon mustard sauce. White wine to drink.

Who's to Complain?

Sardines from France in lemony olive oil with mixed olives; side of roasted thyme radishes.

Penne

Tonight, chicken & penne in lemon sauce; side of steamed carrots.

Dinner Last Night & Lunch Today

Last night, I roasted a couple of salmon fillets in the oven. Very simple. Just salmon, salt, pepper, olive oil, and heat. With it, I roasted a brochette of onions and two colors of summer squash.

Today, I had leftover roast salmon served chilled. Still delicious! We finished the squash and onions last night, so, for a side, I sliced radishes and topped them with a yogurt/za'atar/lemon sauce.

Shrimp and Peppers

For dinner tonight, I sautéed shrimp with green peppers and garlic, and deglazed it with fresh lemon juice. Roasted yellow squash chunks on the side.

Poached Halibut

At the Capital Hilton in DC, we once had halibut, soba, and baby bok choy in a miso broth. Since then, I've wanted to poach halibut. So, tonight I did.

I made a broth of 3 cups of water, a teaspoon of hondashi powder, and a dash of tamari and an inch of minced fresh ginger and brought it to a boil in a pot.

In a sauté pan I heated a little olive oil and sautéed in it a sliced small cooking onion, a sliced peeled carrot, a fist full of minced oyster mushrooms, and one minced garlic clove. I sautéed until the onions were limp and the moisture was gone.

The sautéed vegetables (plus thyme leaves from our herb garden) were added to the broth and boiled for a few minutes until the carrots were soft. Then, I added 0.6 lbs of halibut steak to the pot, cut in half lengthwise, turned the heat to a simmer, and covered the pot.

I simmered the halibut until cooked through, about 10 minutes. The halves were served in soup bowls with the vegetables on the sides of the bowls. The broth was poured over, to the top of the halibut.

I garnished the meal with chopped chives from our herb garden.

It was delicious. We could use the same method to cook cod or haddock; or use chicken broth instead of hondashi and poach chicken.

No baby bok choy was available. It (or spinach or a little diced cabbage) would have been a nice addition. So would have a small diced potato or cooked soba or orzo.

Grilled Dinner

I made chicken tonight from a recipe in Marc Bittman's iPad app, "How to Cook Everything."

A pound and a half of boneless skinless chicken breasts were marinated in 2 tablespoons of good temari soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of roasted sesame oil, and 4 slivered garlic cloves. Then, I grilled them over a hot charcoal fire in a covered Weber kettle for 5 minutes on one side and 7 minutes on the other side. They turned out mahogany, juicy, and delicious.

The asparagus was my recipe. It was washed, trimmed, and tossed in a little olive oil, then sprinkled with a pinch of kosher salt. I put it into a perforated grill pan and dropped loosely tented foil on top. It was put on the grill, too, unattended until the chicken was done.

Finally, I opened a can of small potatoes, dried them off, and tossed them in a little olive oil and paprika. They were put into a heavy-duty aluminum foil packet, closed up in a "drugstore wrap." I put the packet right on the coals, and turned it when I turned the chicken.

All garnished with flat parsley from our herb garden.

A very successful meal that I'll make again.

Meatloaf!

What makes dinner good? Meatloaf!

Two pounds of lean ground beef. Two large eggs. A heaping cup of freshly ground breadcrumbs from farmers market sourdough bread. A quarter cup of good Temari soy sauce. A third of a cup of minced parsley from my herb garden. A teaspoon of minced thyme from the same garden. A cup of minced onion from the farm market. A teaspoon of minced garlic and a half teaspoon of black pepper. Made it into a loaf and smeared it with a half cup of ketchup. Baked at 350° F for an hour or so.

On the side was summer squash sautéed with onion and basil; and canned baked beans; and an assortment of olives. Iced tea to drink.

Making Sloppy Joes

Back on January 11th, I made Sloppy Joes. Here's a video.

Making Sloppy Joes