Dinner tonight - or last night.

Last night Elena watched the kids and made them dinner so the Puerto Rican and I could go out. We went to this little Vietnamese restaurant and had some pot stickers and Pho, I had the chicken Pho and the Rican had beef. It was delicious!

I'm developing food allergies to everything, so my meals are weird.

Last night, I wanted a sandwich, but bread is verboten, so I roasted (could've toasted, but no toaster cause of the whole bread thing...) two center slices of 🍠 sweet potato. When it cooled, I layered picante sauce, cukes, spinach, a pulverized spread of cauliflower, broccoli & mushroom, and a sprinkling of capers and canned salmon.

It was fabulous.

I'm thinking sweet potato will feature in my week as sandwich bread on the regular.

I sautéed my broccoli/cauliflower/mushroom mix and put it in a mug of miso soup. So good. (I was jealous of JC's pho)

The remnants of yesterday's sweet potato toast were sliced into dipping sticks for my picante.

My appetizers. 🙂

vodka martini (Stoli)
Grilled grouper with mango lime salsa, coconut cilantro sticky rice and green
beans.
I thought the grouper was kind of bland and just on the edge of overcooked.
It had a nice spicy rub, though, and the sides were perfect.

I picked up more salmon at the market today along with some fresh spinach, with some rice on the side.

The kids have rocky road ice cream for dessert.

Trying to decide what to have with my pint of tomatoes. I really just want the tomatoes. Maybe I'll have tomatoes.

I've got some won ton wrappers...
this may lead to ravioli. Um, ricotta and precooked kale and previously cooked spicy eggplant and mushroom mix. Maybe some basil & garlic pesto. I'll call this an experiment.

Or it may lead to potstickers.

Spinach and ricotta rigatoni.
Hello occobucotemp.
Made myself another commitment that I will not purchase boxed pasta noodle ever again. I bought the rigatoni from a market which sells home made pasta.

You lucky dog (we used to say that as kids) to have a market that sells homemade pasta. I've a great pasta making device, but lazy woman that I now am, I haven't used it lately. The brand is Marcato. I always have it out, though, on my shelf between cabinets, since I think of it as almost a sculpture. This may get me going to using it again. It's not actually hard.

My tired computer isn't letting me paste a link today, but it's easily available if you look for Marcato Pasta Machine; it's at least on Amazon.

I was taught by my italian teacher from Bologna, who became a friend, really, of her american students (well, mostly; it was a pretty great class). I bring this up because she threw stuff together, no long kneading effort, just a short one, and her pasta was delish.

Hey, Alex, you don't have to use my whole large username.. Osso will be fine.

need to figure out what to prepare with a partly defrosted pork tenderloin

want for lunch and an adventure with K today. she stopped at Steve's to get a couple of bison steaks to bbq tomorrow. while there, M texted her and told her he wanted to go out tonight. what to do with the pork already defrosting for tonight? not on for tomorrow as there will be bison. here, Beth, take this. mmmm ok. it's a gorgeous big chunk of meat but I wasn't actually planning to cook tonight. have to though. too far into the defrosting process

It was a simple dinner tonight. We had rice soaked with tea and canned fish. We also had takuan, a preserved radish. The interesting thing about takuan is that the founder of this dish was a monk by that name. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Takuan-Soho

When I was in the USAF and stationed at Walker AFB in New Mexico, a Major married to a Japanese woman used to invite me over for dinner, because he would say, "I'm sure you miss your rice, so come over for dinner." He was caucasian, and hated the smell of takuan, and didn't let his wife keep it inside the house. Nice memories.

the pork tenderloin turned into about 15 kebobs.

__

I still haven't made it to the food I bought the other day.

Last night we went to the Legion to listen to music and celebrate a few birthdays. When we arrived, everyone had clamshells of food. hmmm they don't serve actual food at the Legion. Turns out there had been a Greek baby shower and ... leftovers. Roast pork, bbq'd corned beef (amazing!), potato salad, pasta salad with great olives, buns, sandwiches, more more stuff. Set went up and made us two big plates of food. We couldn't finish them so packed them up. As we were leaving the bar steward asked if I liked white rice. mmm yeah ok. Go take the container. I'll take a clamshell ... no ... take it all, I'm throwing it out in half an hour. mmm ok. Took an aluminum tray with about three pounds of steamed white rice and a small clamshell of meat. I've been living on bbq'd corned beef and green salad today. The dogs are going to get a great treat tomorrow - rice with diced bits of roast pork!

I thought the Philipino baby shower leftovers a couple of weeks back were good but this .... eyesrollingbackinheadgoodness

Went out last night for the "Restaurant Week" offering at Seasons 52 in
Burlington. It was a Prix Fixe including appetizer, salad, main course and dessert.

Chicken Pesto Flatbread appetizer
Seasonal Spinach Salad (with slivered roasted almonds, raspberries and feta
cheese)
Filet Mignon (rare) with mashed potatoes, green beans and cherry tomatoes
Two mini-desserts: Key Lime Pie and Pecan Pie

A couple of glasses of Petit Shiraz.

Food gods smiled down on me and....Winn-Dixie had colossal shrimp $9.99 a lb. (14-16)AND filet mignon $9.99 a lb....S0...I made some surf and turf kebabs.
Small whole mushrooms, yellow pepper, quartered onions interspersed with the meat. Damn things were heavy.

Im so damn kinny now that such a bounteous meal would add a statistically significant amount of weight at one sitting.
Whats not to love there.

Last night I had a LEAN CUISINE lsagna. Not exactly gourmand, but it beats the cardboard box the stuff came in (Almost)

My wife and I had dinner at China Stix in Santa Clara this evening. She ordered the chicken salad, and I ordered the fish with some great sauce on it.

We caught several sea bass (small ones we saved for supper). We wokked em and I made a "crispy fish " sauce, served up with sauteed fresh chive stapes and a side of brown rice with onion and mushrooms

Many decades ago, my friend had a boat, and we used to go fishing in the San Francisco bay for striped bass - floating from the golden gate bridge to alcatraz island, and ate them raw (sushi). I wouldn't eat fish caught in the bay any more. https://www.savesfbay.org/pollution-facts

I think most bodies of water are cleaner today than they were in the 1960's and 1970's. (Didnt want to worry you, but you made it through ok without any pancreas or kidney or liver problems ) . Our toxicologist guys always would lecture us in safety classes that these were the big metal pollution target organs.

My kidney now functions at 38%. It was 43-44% last year, but my doc says it's still okay. I think he's trying to make me feel better. The important thing is, I feel healthy and fine. I can still have my occasional glass of wine.