What's for dinner?

[mickthecactus]

Tarka dahl is one of my favourite Indian dishes.

[tod2]

Maybe a last word on the peas.... A friend in Rossendale showed me how his mother made them and now his turn. He boiled the marrowfat peas until halfway done then added one medium peeled and chopped potato and kept cooking until all soft. This trick gave the mushyness a thicker consistency. Now if I do it here in South Africa, I copy that but boil my peas in chicken stock for extra flavour. Try that Mark and tell me if you liked it.

[whatagain]

We had a barbecue with a taboulé and another salad and small courgettes cooked at the plancha with a lot of olive oil.
Delicious.

[cheerypeabrain]

Yesterday I cooked a large chicken (braised with water and veg to keep it moist). Quite a lot of it left so I've made a savoury white sauce (used a bit of yesterday's strained off stock) and added the chunks of chicken, bacon and cooked leeks. Made enough shortcruspastry for two pies, one for today and one to freeze. Having it with steamed shredded cabbage and carrot batons. Done think we need potatoes (altho Jeffers doesn't think it's a proper dinner without)

[tod2]

Carrots and lightly cooked cabbage are one of my favourite vegetables with any kind of dinner meat. Mr.Tod would also request a few boiled potatoes even though there might be rice or pastry.

[cheerypeabrain]

Even though we had pastry yesterday..we had a quiche today at OH's request. Bought one from the Morrisons supermarket. Not as nice as the one that I make from scratch but convenient. Quiche Lorraine (allegedly) with new potatoes, salad and coleslaw.

[mich64]

Sounds terrific Cheery! With the weather so cool here, I took out a meat pie (from my dear mother-in-law) from the freezer and will make a salad and some potatoes for sides. Hoping the oven will heat up the house a bit!

[lugg]

Pies are always good

[tod2]

Aug 20, 2024 18:00:02 GMT cheerypeabrain said:

salad and coleslaw.

Cheery I have always thought (and served up) coleslaw as a salad... what other salad did you make?
Lately we no longer make a mayo dressing for the coleslaw. Instead I mix a dressing of English mustard, Mirin (or rice vinegar, and honey), garlic & herbs, olive oil, & ground black pepper. It comes out slightly different each time but goes well with the chopped apple or pear, sultanas or chopped dates in the cabbage and carrot mixture.

[kerouac2]

I need to make some more coleslaw soon because I still have a significant and valiant piece of cabbage left, and it is not yet soup season. Last time was extremely classic but next time I feel a need for major experimentation. I fear that I will be crying (I hope with pleasure) because I need to chop up some of my Thai chillies into it and also make it very garlicky.

[mich64]

Tod that vinegar slaw sounds really good, I am going to try it for our next family BBQ. My mother-in-law does a vinegar slaw with celery seeds.

I am so excited today because I was able to finally arrange through the Vetaran’s Affairs a daily hot meal service delivery for my mom and dad! This will be such a relief for my dad and taking this chore off his mind daily will benefit them both.

[bixaorellana]

Oh, that's great, Mich! You are so enterprising & those meals are something your dad has coming to him after his AF career.

I'm was extremely pleased with my supper tonight. It has been very frustrating at my house because my careful moving plan which included using everything up has gone awry since I backed out of the house contract. Last night I had the last of the instant ramen. Yes, I gussied it up, but still.

Yesterday I defrosted some meatballs & sauce, but was in despair this evening as I didn't want to eat pasta again. Then the tiny lightbulb went off over my head. I remembered that I had some canisters of dry food items in a large recyclable grocery bag, unlike some of the other food items that are packed & sealed in boxes.

In a frenzy of joy and inspiration, I cut up a chayote and cooked it with polenta, aka corn meal mush, something I don't usually enjoy. Because I only have one pot & one skillet in use, I transferred the cooked polenta into the Pammed skillet so I could use the pot to reheat the meatballs. (note that I'm cooking on one electric ring, since I sold my stove. ) While the meatballs heated I put little dabs of butter all over the polenta, then put that on the element as soon as the meatballs were done.

I had been so hungry and craving real food. The corn/meat combination was all nice and hot & perfect for this rainy night.

[cheerypeabrain]

Tod...by 'salad' I just mean plain crispy lettuce, chopped cucumber, peppers, baby corn, radish, celery etc. I don't like dressings on my salad veg..preferring the crisp, clean crunch . I buy coleslaw in small tubs from M&S as I'm the only person in the family who likes it. We have salad cream etc but only Jeff likes it.

I've always been a 'fussy eater' and don't like things like mustard, mayo (the stuff on M&S coleslaw is ok) or other dressings and sauces. I use passata in cooking but don't like actual tomatoes.

Last night I made spaghetti with a beef bolognese. I snuck in some garlic and red wine without Jeff making a fuss and it was delicious. The leftover beef bolognese has been popped into the freezer..I think that there's enough there to make a lasagne.

[onlyMark]

Mich, my father had for a year or so hot meals delivered. They were good enough but he got less fibre/roughage than I though necessary and it did turn out he got diarrhoea for a while. Showering your dementia suffering father and cleaning the stuff off him and washing his clothes was not the best experience.

Salad - cultural mix up with Mrs M - early on in the relationship she asked me as I was going to the supermarket to get some salad. I did. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, all the usual suspects. But I wondered why when I was there when I remembered we already had a lot of stuff but thought she had a plan for it all.
She asked me later why I'd bought everything else as well as the lettuce.
It became apparent she used the German word, salat, and just meant the lettuce.
....and completely off topic, but why do German speakers not clearly differentiate between T's and D's?
......and rather than say something like, "I'll do it" say, "I won't not do it." Too many unnecessary negatives in their sentences.

[kerouac2]

In France, a salad can be any cold mixture of vegetables and other stuff, pretty much the same as in the United States, from green salad to potato salad to tuna salad. However, the word "salade" without any qualifier is generally understood to mean lettuce. And there are many kinds of lettuce, so that can be another discussion. We didn't use to have iceberg lettuce in France ("tasteless water" was what my mother said, which also described watermelon for her), but the fast food chains brought it to France and now everybody sells it. I have made my peace with it occasionally since it has a longer shelf (refrigerator) life and is useful when you need it to last several days. However, I tend to buy Romaine most of the time, which lasts just as long and has a bit more character.

[onlyMark]

I get three things from eating watermelon - a meal, a drink and a facewash.

[tod2]

Not all Mark.... You also got protection against sun damage if you were on a sunny beach. The red colour in watermelon (tomatoes, pink grapefruit, guava juice) comes from Lycopene , which, among other benefits ,protects DNA from the ionising radiation damage from the sun. Taken before exposure it protects but taken afterwards has no protective benefit at all, and the DNA damage significantly increases.
Lycopene in watermelon is also protective against DNA damage caused by infection. So you see that delicious cool watermelon not only was delicious but very good for you!

[onlyMark]

You learn something new every day. Nice to know.

[mich64]

We invited my brother and sister-in-law for dinner yesterday. We had BBQ hamburgers, my brother and I love slices of blue cheese on them. I put together a salad of cabbage and kale with a mango dressing with chili flakes and sesame seeds.

[cheerypeabrain]

We fancied a change, so today we had lovely pork and herb sausages in soft bread rolls, with fried onions and Daddies sauce

[whatagain]

No dinner.
I have decided to skip eating when I am not hungry.
I had eaten so many sandwiches I didn’t need anything any more.

[tod2]

Tonight a light meal - blanched and chopped spinach leaves of Chard, blue cheese (like gorgonzola) folded into a monstrous omelette!

[mickthecactus]

Pasta with pesto, bacon lardons, cheese and courgettes cooked in butter.

[kerouac2]

leftovers from the freezer > bourguignon with penne

[mich64]

Aug 23, 2024 9:27:13 GMT onlyMark said:

They were good enough but he got less fibre/roughage than I though necessary and it did turn out he got diarrhoea for a while. Showering your dementia suffering father and cleaning the stuff off him and washing his clothes was not the best experience.

My parents are quite happy with the meals so far. We had to take both parents to a doctor's appointment yesterday so we were able to see what they received. They had a chicken and rice soup, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and carrots and chocolate cake for dessert plus some apples. The food comes from the Victorian Order of Nurses who makes the meals, they are the same meals given to those in the nursing home here. I am sorry to read about the experience your father had. We have recently gotten a personal support worker to come in twice weekly to bathe my mom. She is awaiting long term care but there are very few spots open, all agencies are doing their best to provide care at home for now.

I am making fried chicken burgers for supper tonight. My husband picked up fresh kaiser buns from the bakery this morning and I have some tomatoes from the vine, I will also add some lettuce and cheese, mayonnaise and BBQ sauce.

[kerouac2]

I was so annoyed that there was no way to convince my parents that they needed help, but I was too far away to impose anything. On my final trips to see them, I could see how relieved they were that I did all of the cooking; they just couldn't handle it. After my father died, I did manage to get a helper for my mother, very expensive. Getting people at the end of their life to eat properly is a nightmare. And yet my mother lived another 10 years in the nursing home with proper food and care.

[whatagain]

I cooked the dinner yesterday.

Beans from the vegetable garden - we got loads of them.
Most of our rice was infected by moths so I did some spaghettis.
And when I was ready to cook the meat my wife did it but she overcooked it.
I like rare meat.
She likes it medium rare.
We got it well done yesterday.

[bjd]

Aug 27, 2024 19:45:28 GMT kerouac2 said:

Getting people at the end of their life to eat properly is a nightmare. And yet my mother lived another 10 years in the nursing home with proper food and care.

My mother-in-law ate weirdly for much of her life, eating the same thing every day for months on end, essentially nothing fresh because she preferred canned vegetables. She never ate the same thing as everyone else at family meals. And lots of pills of all kinds. When she was in her late 70s, something finally triggered a reaction and she ended up in the hospital and then a retirement home. And I remember my father-in-law saying, "She eats everything, even salad and french fries!"

[cheerypeabrain]

I made a quick beef and vegetable stew, had some leftover red wine which elevated the stock based sauce. I used a piece of rump steak the size of my palm...fine for the two of us and very tender...the veg were a carrot, onion, celery and a potato...simple but tasty. Half a baguette each to mop up the sauce

[bixaorellana]

Aug 28, 2024 5:46:38 GMT whatagain said:

Most of our rice was infected by moths

My advice to everyone is to put rice, flour, grains, dried chiles, etc. directly in the freezer when you come home from the store. You don't have to leave them there forever but let them stay at least 24 hours. It will kill off whatever produced that moth, also weevils and other creatures that could destroy everything in your pantry.

Aug 28, 2024 6:36:09 GMT bjd said:

My mother-in-law ate weirdly for much of her life, eating the same thing every day for months on end, essentially nothing fresh because she preferred canned vegetables.

That's really eccentric & rather sad. What does your husband say she fed the family when he was a child?

Aug 28, 2024 18:40:29 GMT cheerypeabrain said:

simple but tasty. Half a baguette each to mop up the sauce.  

That sounds so satisfying, down to the last mopped up morsel.