<p>Boysx3: What time is dinner? Kreplach AND Matzoh balls? I’ll be right over!! :D</p>
<p>Mom60: Glad to hear your D and her horse are enjoying college. I remember you are in CA…is your D nearby or far away? I forget…</p>
<p>anyway, a meal for after a crown…huh. Maybe warm soup and grilled cheese sandwiches? Or fish? That’s light and flaky…mashed potatoes? Cooked carrots? I’m trying to think of soft things…or even a Costco Rotisserie chicken pulled apart is soft…</p>
<p>Tonight we have a combination of several leftovers and will start with a new meal tomorrow eve…</p>
<p>To celebrate our first meal ever at a real table (rather than our now retired coffee table), I am making baked chicken and potatoes tonight. One of my mom’s meals, really easy but it feels like I put a lot of work into it when it’s done. XD I’ll line a baking pan with foil, chop up a ton of potatoes to line the bottom, put in two bone in chicken breasts, chop up an onion and lay a few rings over top, maybe some carrots, some dairy free butter, salt and pepper, cover in the foil, and bake for… I don’t know, somewhere between an hour and two hours-- until whenever the potatoes get soft. We take it out to baste the juices over the top a few times and uncover it towards the end to allow the chicken to brown. My mouth has been watering all day! :)</p>
<p>I found a recipe for copying Trader Joe’s Chili-Lime Burgers. Trying that with guacamole for topping the burgers. Also reheating leftover roasted veggies–kohlrabi, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, potatoes, and garlic.</p>
<p>I made chicken noodle soup with the left over roast from earlier in the week. I really don’t enjoy cooking just for me and with H working practically 24/7 since the storm and likely need to be in the city at least 4 days a week for the foreseeable future, I fear I’m going to waste away.</p>
<p>Grilled chicken kebabs (rosemary lemon garlic marinated boneless thighs) with tzatziki sauce (Ina Garten’s recipe), orzo, and green beans from the farmers market. And an australian Shiraz.</p>
<p>Tried out three Cook’s Illustrated recipes for the first time on our company last night - two hits, one just sos-so:</p>
<p>The hits: </p>
<p>The all-purpose gravy. Absolutely delicious. Did not need meet drippings. Made hours before dinner and just reheated. Highly recommend.</p>
<p>The slow braised carrots. So simple and delicious. Just a little unsalted butter, a little water, a tsp of sugar and a sprinkle of salt. Then cooked real slow covered on the stove for a bout 45 minutes. Delicious.</p>
<p>The So-So :</p>
<p>Roast Pork Loin. It was perfectly cooked but a little bland in our view. Could have used a rub perhaps. The recipe has you soak in a salt/sugar brine for an hour, brown on the stove top, then roast. Very moist and good texture – just no wow factor.</p>
<p>I work hard at trying to make healthy choices for meals…</p>
<p>so even I was surprised at what we just had for dinner tonight! I would not put it in the category of healthy…</p>
<p>Nachos! Yum. Lots of chips with cooked ground beef and a tomato sauce mixture of grilled onions, peppers, carrots, garlic, tomatoes, also salsa and then of course shredded cheese! :)</p>
<p>Okay, it was gooood. But I better not get in the habit of those kind of dinners! ;)</p>
<p>^ That’s still better than the dinner I had - hot and sour soup mixed with leftover fried rice from yesterday’s takeout, some eggs sunny-side up, and leftover Halloween candy. :o</p>
<p>Eggplant parm. using spaghetti squash topped with spaghetti sauce, roasted eggplant,sauteed onions and parm. cheese with garden peas on the side…lowfat frozen yogurt for dessert.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, thanks for sharing that carrot recipe. We love carrots at my house! The simplest recipes are often the best–sounds like this might fit into that category. </p>
<p>Would you guesstimate the amount of water you used? Also, did you just use sliced carrots?</p>
<p>I have another friend who swears by the CI gravy recipe. She keeps some in her freezer at all times…</p>
<p>The carrots recipe is in my Cook’s Illustrated book “The Best Slow & Easy Recipes” which is one of my all time favorite cook books!</p>
<p>It calls for 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 lbs carrots, peeled, cut in half length wise and then into two-inch chunks
1/3 cup water
3/4 teaspoon sugar
S&P</p>
<p>You start out melting the butter and putting in the carrots, cut side down. Add the water and sprinkle in the sugar, then cover the pan and cook low for 30 minutes. Then uncover and go on cooking another 10 or so minutes, then flip them and cook another ten minutes. Then season with S&P.</p>
<p>I am still in a state of awe over the All-Purpose Gravy. Have struggled with trying to make decent gravy right before the meal is served for decades and now it’s solved. Yay! Can’t wait for Thanksgiving to show off my great gravy.</p>
<p>It is a chilly, rainy, windy day here in Georgia. We will be having our leftover chicken and dumplings, corn muffins, and spiced apples. It’s the perfect cold weather, lazy day at home meal.</p>
<p>I have an easy peasy recipe for Carrot Kugel, which when cooled, can easily be cut into squares like a cornbread:</p>
<p>It’s really yummy.</p>
<p>Here goes:</p>
<p>2 cans carrots (sliced, strained & mashed) medium sized cans
4 eggs
1 cup flour (add a bit more if necessary for batter consistency)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 stick margerine/butter</p>
<p>Mix well in a mixer, adding a bit more flour if needed for batter consistency. Bake in a rectangular greased pan for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Freezes well too.</p>
Yum. Lots of chips with cooked ground beef and a tomato sauce mixture of grilled onions, peppers, carrots, garlic, tomatoes, also salsa and then of course shredded cheese! :)</p>