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What are you cooking?

Last night was tamales from El Indio (local take out place that has been in San Diego since the 1940's. I personally think that their tamales are the gold standard). We were able to buy them frozen and cook them in the Instant Pot. They were perfect. I usually cook from scratch for all holidays, but this is 2020 and having tamales was a nice change.

This morning we're having our traditional breakfast - Creme brulee French Toast, a sausage potato breakfast casserole, plus a fruit salad. Dinner will be a standing rib roast, potatoes au gratin, brussels sprouts au gratin (can you tell that we love cheese?), green beans almondine, homemade rolls and the infamous Buche de Noel for dessert.

Back on the diet tomorrow. Or maybe Sunday...
 
Christmas Eve was tamales, refried beans and Spanish rice.

Christmas breakfast was Trilogy (Maui!) cinnamon rolls and Bloody Mary's.

Christmas lunch started with spinach salad with Mandarin oranges, dried cranberries and candied pecans. The main meal was spiral-sliced ham, au'gratin potatoes, green bean bundles and spinach Madeleine (prepared by daughter-in-law). We opened a nice 2009 Antinori Tignanello for the meal and for dessert I picked up four individual cheese cakes before Ruth's Chris closed yesterday.
 
This is what we are having, because this is what my husband requested:
Green Salad
Marinated Salad
Spiral sliced ham
Scalloped Potatoes
Baked sweet potatoes
Fresh asparagus
Hawaiian Sweet Dinner rolls
Pecan Pie
Warm Brownies A la mode
 
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Our Christmas dinner was
Ham with Gingersnap Crust
Scalloped potatoes
Green beans
Buttermilk biscuits

Dessert, still to be served
Warm Cherry Frangipane Tart with vanilla ice cream

55C7A25B-6599-47AF-BED0-93B6BED29139.jpeg
 
It’s Christmas...so it’s time for Chinese food! :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
We had our normal,Christmas Dinner. Rib Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Mashed Potatoes, and Gravey. Our new addition was Red Cabbage salad with Mandarin Oranges.
 
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It’s Christmas...so it’s time for Chinese food! :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Watched some of A Christmas Story, on mute, this morning with Christmas carols on the CD player. As soon as the Chinese restaurant scene came on I wanted Chinese food -- although that turkey looked pretty darn good before the Bumpus' dogs got to it. Always am reminded of my Dad doing his first door to door collections for his paper route and laughing in Mr. Bumpus' face because he thought the name was funny!
 
For Christmas dinner, we did simple and elegant:
Whole beef tenderloin
Twice-baked potatoes
Roasted broccoli
Leftover rolls from Christmas Eve

It was the first time we had ever done beef tenderloin; my friend (who is a private chef) had posted a recipe and then I found them on sale at Costco, and the stars aligned....it was so tasty!
 

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Playing around with the (pseudo) sous vide function of my Instant Pot today: orange glazed duck breasts.

Wow Instant Pot, I’m impressed!

BTW, got the duck breasts at Aldi of all places!
 
Tonight - Try-Tip in the Instant Pot. Turned out perfect.
 
It is my wife's 51st birthday on Saturday and my twin daughters 18th birthday on Sunday. So, I offered to try to make anything they want. My wife wants takeout - which is easy to make.

My kids want foods for the Super bowl, so I am going to try to make Guy Fieri's Trashcan Nachos and Rachel Ray's Mac & Cheese. I will try to post pictures.
 
Ha! I was going to post this a few days ago, and then got worried I was just reviving a "dead" thread, LOL! I made a lot of these strips, and just had one as an Asian chicken wrap (with cabbage, cilantro, hoisin and garlic sauce in a tortilla) for lunch today. Still tasty! :)

From earlier this week:
Chicken strips salads for dinner tonight, made with local greens, homemade Asian-style oven-fried chicken strips (homemade breading made from a pulverized Asian snack mix I decided I didn't like on its own, LOL), and homemade sesame whole wheat noodles.
chicken strip salad.jpg
 
I love duck. Please tell me those potatoes were cooked in the duck fat.
Potato dumplings were boiled, but rested in duck fat for a little bit. I cooked one apple in the duck cavity and served it on the top of red cabbage. Delish. Four hours at 280F unde aluminum tent and few minutes under the broiler uncovered.
 
Ha! I was going to post this a few days ago, and then got worried I was just reviving a "dead" thread, LOL! I made a lot of these strips, and just had one as an Asian chicken wrap (with cabbage, cilantro, hoisin and garlic sauce in a tortilla) for lunch today. Still tasty! :)

From earlier this week:
Chicken strips salads for dinner tonight, made with local greens, homemade Asian-style oven-fried chicken strips (homemade breading made from a pulverized Asian snack mix I decided I didn't like on its own, LOL), and homemade sesame whole wheat noodles. View attachment 31990
Amycurl - Your salad looks delicious. Would you please share your recipe for the Asian-style oven-fried chicken strips?
 
I'm not a strict recipe follower, but I based what I did off this one:

What I did differently:
--I used chicken tenderloins from Costco, because no one has time to cut and beat chicken breasts, LOL
--For the coating, here's what I did:
--flour (flour, five spice blend);
--liquid (egg, soy, tad of garlic chili sauce);
--crunchy coating (took Asian snack mix that I was not loving and used the food processor to turn into crumbs and just used that,
no breadcrumbs at all)

Then I baked it according to the recipe (not need to flip) and then did make the sweet and spicy Asian sauce in the original recipe and tossed them in them after baking. I only tossed the chicken strips I knew we'd eat for dinner; the others I just stored in the fridge in a Tupperware, and could easily freeze.

To reheat, I've just popped them in the toaster oven, and didn't bother saucing (using the hoisin and the chili sauce in the wrap worked just fine.)

Hope this helps!
 
I'm not a strict recipe follower, but I based what I did off this one:

What I did differently:
--I used chicken tenderloins from Costco, because no one has time to cut and beat chicken breasts, LOL
--For the coating, here's what I did:
--flour (flour, five spice blend);
--liquid (egg, soy, tad of garlic chili sauce);
--crunchy coating (took Asian snack mix that I was not loving and used the food processor to turn into crumbs and just used that,
no breadcrumbs at all)

Then I baked it according to the recipe (not need to flip) and then did make the sweet and spicy Asian sauce in the original recipe and tossed them in them after baking. I only tossed the chicken strips I knew we'd eat for dinner; the others I just stored in the fridge in a Tupperware, and could easily freeze.

To reheat, I've just popped them in the toaster oven, and didn't bother saucing (using the hoisin and the chili sauce in the wrap worked just fine.)

Hope this helps!
Thank you!
 
It is my wife's 51st birthday on Saturday and my twin daughters 18th birthday on Sunday. So, I offered to try to make anything they want. My wife wants takeout - which is easy to make.

My kids want foods for the Super bowl, so I am going to try to make Guy Fieri's Trashcan Nachos and Rachel Ray's Mac & Cheese. I will try to post pictures.


The nachos were a lot of work because you needed to make Black Beans, SMC Cheese (queso in reality) and carne asada. All the components were good, but the chips became soggy after assembly. Need to figure out a better way next time.

Didn't make Rachels Rays Mac and Cheese - will make it later this week.

Joe
 
Yesterday I made Cocoa Bars -- a bar cookie in a 9x9 pan with a chocolate glaze type frosting added when they are hot from the oven. I was leafing through recipes I have on computer paper or torn from magazines, not yet transferred to cards, and found the recipe for cocoa bars that I'd asked Mom for six years ago and never got around to making until now. Cocoa Bars are one of the first things I made from scratch as a kid, and I made them probably every other month for years and years. I know I would have copied the recipe on to a card when I moved out, and maybe I made them for Cliff early on, but no longer have my own card and I'm sure it has been 35 years since I made them. I guess now I know why I no longer have my original card, simply not as good and chocolatey as brownies from a box. They are perfectly good bar cookies, I'd serve them to anyone no problem and would expect compliments, but mixing all the ingredients takes more time than a brownie mix and brownies deliver a more intense chocolate punch. And apparently I have no other regularly made recipes that call for cocoa, because I had to buy cocoa for this recipe. I might make them again for Easter dessert since Mom says she hasn't made them in a couple decades either. Will be good with vanilla ice cream.
 
It's almost this thread's one year anniversary, LOL!

Homemade Irish lamb stew with Guinness, made with lamb and veggies from our local farmer's market. Served with homemade Irish beer soda bread. For dessert, a homemade dark chocolate Bundt cake made with red wine fermented fresh fruit. Nomnomnoms!
Irish lamb stew.jpeg
chocolate Bundt cake.jpeg
 
Wood fired pizza, two minutes per pie

6BC44C01-5C6C-4C48-A827-0708FC336722.jpeg
 
Tonight we are finishing up the second five pound bag of rice we bought in April 2020 (after searching long and wide for it). We are down to a two pound box of Uncle Ben's which should last us the rest of the year. I am still doing more cooking than usual (since I rarely cooked before covid, that's a lot!) but hope we go out to eat more as summer arrives. Of course Cliff's veggie garden will be coming on strong, so there will still be more cooking than I prefer.
 
Chicken salad with a roasted lemon-pepper chicken from Publix.
French onion soup with Progresso broth, wine & gruyere cheese.
.
 
I had a southwest style salad - Grilled chicken on lettuce, tomato, black beans, corn, tortilla chips topped with chipotle sauce
(imitating Chili's )
 
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