Dinner--or Dessert--Tonight

[ab_grp]

Currently, I am focusing on more salads, more veg, more plants, etc. You get the drift.

As for the chow mein, maybe it was in disguise... as we know, everything tastes like chicken!

It was incognito.

Maybe it was trying to avoid the social media attention that it had previously received.

And we ended up eating our BBQ chicken and potato salad quota for lunch, so I will have to revise my projections to include the possibility of a veggie burger for dinner.

[mamselle]

In related chicken news, I made chicken curry again, this time adding one of those sauces-in-a-jar to my usual recipe.

Just a bit tooooo spicy, but not bad.

Next time, I'll cut back on the rubbed black pepper, a bit.

Maybe.

M.

[AmLitHist]

Leftover enchiladas from last night.  (Made with ground turkey and corn tortillas--ALHS is still on Weight Watchers, but I've been so stressed I'm eating everything that doesn't eat me first, for the past 5 weeks.)

[ab_grp]

The curry and enchiladas both sound good! I have also used the add jarred stuff approach, and it can save a lot of time and not require having extra ingredients on hand.

We got a bit delayed last night due to some work calls that came up, so we were just going to have veggie burgers as planned, but husband suggested BLTs instead.  Great! Then he put some jalapenos in to roast, and that made me want paninis.  We ended up with a Swiss cheese, tomato, bacon panini and a provolone, bacon, jalapeno panini.  Tomato soup was served on the side, though really in a bowl in the center of the plate.  Tonight will be the BBQ chicken and potato salad again to keep it easy and try to eat earlier.  I think it's been affecting my sleeping.

[secundem_artem]

A zucchini, potato, onion & tomato tian and some leftover chicken.  Chocolate pie for puddin'.

[ab_grp]

Ugh.  We had ordered some seafood (through a third party vendor I have used in the past) as a splurge for our anniversary and were really looking forward to it, but it got delayed en route and is totally inedible.  So, no special anniversary dinner to look forward to, and a lot of money on the line, plus it's a real shame about the ruined and wasted seafood.  I emailed customer service and hope there is some resolution on the money side, but it is really a downer.  Especially this year, it would have been nice to have something this special to look forward to, and I am just really bummed out right now.  First world problems, I guess.  I figured fellow foodies might understand the disappointment.

We haven't made too much that's very exciting recently, but did make some shrimp fra diavolo a couple nights ago.  Haven't had that in a while.

[dismalist]

On Saturday, I made a skirt steak for Ms. Dismalist and me. These are large, so I cut in half and marinated separately. Saturday's meal was squisito. I advertently left the other half in marinade until today, to eat myself. It tasted like marinade! Twelve hours max for marinating, I think. :-(

[sinenomine]

Staggered away from my computer a moment ago and recalled that I had gone grocery shopping this morning. Looking forward to a dinner of crab cakes and a southwestern slaw mix, chased down with a cocktail of some type. And followed by a cider donut.

[lightning]

This is the second time this week that I have seen reference to someone having crab cakes for dinner. I'm jealous. And I thought I was living it up with homemade shepherd's pie.

.... WhyTF is it called shepherd's pie, anyway.

[AmLitHist]

I just lowered the burner for tonight's chili to simmer for awhile.  It's been cold with a chilly rain and clouds all week, and everyone in the area must have the same idea:  ALHS had to search for a couple of cans of tomatoes at the store.  That, or people are already stocking the larders for winter/continued hard times.

[mamselle]

Made a yummy chicken pot pie from scratch last night.

Trouble is, it was so good I ate it all....up!

At least I had lots of chicken and veg left over to marinate for a curry, with more good stuff added, tonight.

Mmmmmm....

M.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

It's been awhile since I had a chicken pot pie! Sounds good!

I smell good things coming from the kitchen, so I'm anticipating the following:

Beverage = Soda/water (not sure which yet)

Main = SO's glazed meatloaf (beef), mashed potatoes (scratch), peas

Dessert = Halloween candy?

[ab_grp]

Having had only a banana for lunch, all of the above sound very delicious.  Well, they would in any case.  I haven't had meatloaf in years.  Or shepherd's pie! Or crab cakes!

Mamselle, do you put a crust on the pot pie? We have been making fish pies lately, and we use a store-bought crust on them most of the time (mashed potato topping other times).  The crust is one of my favorite parts of a pot pie.  I used to eat those frozen pot pies after school a lot of days.  Is there a recipe you like to use?

We've had so many pizza-related leftovers from my great pizza-and-such hunt that we haven't had to make much new.  I looked up the ingredients for a salad that a friend and I always got when I lived back east, and we have made that a bunch of times.  We've also made the paprika chicken and brussels and made steak, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and roasted sweet/mini potatoes last night.  We've started putting blue cheese on all of that latter dish, along with some balsamic sauce, and it is even better. 

I am also happy to say our anniversary shipment of seafood was reshipped to us, so we got to have lobster pot pies, lobster rolls, and a lobster corn chowder so far.  We're trying to ration it out.

For the pizza hunt, I now have a spreadsheet, and we have officially (i.e., ordered in a deliberate way, results entered in aforementioned spreadsheet) tried three places.  There's a clear winner out of them so far.  We still have quite a few to go, and I am just fine with that.  We also (two math majors) have now realized that a 20" pizza is really quite a bit larger than a 16" and that ordering two of the XXLs is more pizza than we can really deal with (though we did finish it all).

I am also going to be starting a spreadsheet for Chinese restaurants in the area, but fewer of them deliver.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Beverage = a Coke

Main Course = Veggie Alfredo

Dessert = Chocolate gelato with 2 choco biscuits

[mamselle]

Mamselle, do you put a crust on the pot pie? We have been making fish pies lately, and we use a store-bought crust on them most of the time (mashed potato topping other times).  The crust is one of my favorite parts of a pot pie.  I used to eat those frozen pot pies after school a lot of days.  Is there a recipe you like to use?

Yes, I put a crust on it and it is indeed the best part (well, the gravy isn't too bad either, if I do say so myself...).

I use Bisquik (you could also just use whatever your favorite combination of baking powder/flour, or baking soda/vinegar, etc. is) and work butter into it with a fork as you would for pie crust. I then add several drops of water and keep mixing just a bit, so it doesn't get leathery, until it's at the right consistency--almost runny, but not quite. Sometimes I make it in the same bowl in which I've just made the cornstarch gravy for the pie itself. It still has some of the spices (basil, herbes de provence, rubbed black pepper) and butter clinging to the sides, and that might give the crust a bit more flavor, too.

You may notice I haven't said "how much" of "what"....I really do just do it by feel.

A few tablespoons of mix, a teaspoon of butter? Something like that.

I'm only making a small one for individual use; you'd need to make more to cover it if it were larger, of course.

And, my sense of the "difference" between a pot pie and shepherd's pie was that the latter uses mashed potatoes on top, instead of a pie-crust-like topping, but I could be wrong about that.

The very best ever shepherd's pie I had was at an Irish restaurant that used ground lamb and had the most delicate rosemary-lamb liqueur instead of a gravy for the meat (I suspect a light white wine or cooking sherry, maybe? But I didn't ask...), and the top must have been brushed several times with butter while baking to put such a crispy crust on it.

I also just read somewhere about a vegetarian pot-pie with dry-roasted root vegetables topped with spicy mashed sweet potatoes (i.e., not sweetened further, as with OJ or honey, but zinged up a bit..I'd have to look up what spices they used...it might have been a tiny bit of mustard and cinnamon or something like that...).

That's the thing about going to a really good restaurant every now and again and taking ideas home with you....

More fun stuff to try out!

M.