I stopped at the Italian grocery and bought fresh pasta, meatballs and Mama Gallucci's spaghetti sauce. I ain't cooking tonight.

Tonight's dinner plans to make Szechuan asparagus & chicken got scrapped so I got lazy & had microwaved chicken nuggets, but I'm daydreaming about fried rice & dry chili paneer for another day.

I think it's pasta for me too, although it ain't fresh. But I got some good Parmesan.

Some spinach tortellini, tossed with 1 diced leftover sausage, a half a freezer bag of diced peppers, and a half a frozen container of garden pesto left from summer. It was pretty tasty for a cobbled-together freezer meal.

No dinner. Because I had such a large birthday lunch.

How funny that everyone went with pasta, I made the Serious Eats Baked Ziti and sauteed some green beans to go with it.
The recipe calls for leaving out the ricotta. I say to hell with that, and I dumped a bunch in anyway. Reader, it was delicious.

Think I will make this:

Curried Chickpeas and Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:
6 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/3 cup water or low sodium vegetable broth
2 teaspoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest, or other no-salt seasoning, adjusted to taste
1 large onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
4 scallions (green onions), chopped
2 large red bell peppers, diced
2 tablespoons curry powder
3 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 (15 ounce) cans low sodium or no-salt-added chickpeas, drained
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Instructions:
Steam sweet potatoes in a large saucepan filled with an inch of water and fitted with a steamer basket for 10 minutes or until cooked through. Set aside and keep warm.

In another large pot, heat 1/3 cup water and stir in VegiZest, onion, ginger, garlic, scallions, red peppers, and curry powder. Stir, cover, and cook for 3-5 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add chickpeas and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Add vinegar and sweet potatoes and heat for a few more minutes, stirring gently so as not to break up potatoes too much. Add additional water or vegetable broth if needed to adjust consistency.

It's chanterelle season here in the PNW and this is one of those great years where they are especially cheap. So tonight I made a pizza using Essential Baking dough, marinara, fresh mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, fresh ground pepper, red bell pepper, yellow onion, cashews, fresh basil and of course plenty of chanterelles. I usually make a chanterelle pizza every year and this one was hands down the best one I made. Just a perfect combo of sweet, salty and umami. And the chanterelle's were so cheap I still have bunch to use in other meals.

Tonight was roast beef. I think honestly it is the first time I've ever made it, though it was a Sunday staple growing up. It was really good, not as good as my mom's, but good. I followed a recipe for a mustard-herb-bread crumb crust - and it was delicious. Roasted some potatoes and brussels sprouts at the same time. Easy, 1 hour in the oven while I got other stuff done, and spectacular.

Tomorrow it's back to our weeknight kibble rations, so this was nice.

Fifth food group coming up; chips and salsa. All types from generic to Milagro; from Pace to chop and mix at home. Healthy yum yum and easy.

About a month ago we bought a donabe, a big earthenware pot with a heavy lid, for cooking all kinds of winter soups and stews. It makes cooking so easy we use it at least thrice weekly. We usually have lots of broth left over which we use as a base for the next day's soup, or we add some katsuodashi, a brown soup stock made from fermented dried skipjack tuna, and make oden, a hot pot full of daikon (long white radish), carrots, boiled eggs, and fish cakes.

Tonight's nabe will contain Pacific cod, napa cabbage, leeks, tofu, itogonnyaku (yam noodles similar to shirataki), and mochi kinchaku (fried tofu purses filled with sticky rice cake). The nabe will sit on the table and we'll serve ourselves from the pot with long chopsticks.

We'll make ponzu dipping sauce out of soy sauce, vinegar, and kabosu from my wife's parents' garden. Kabosu is a citrus fruit similar to a lime; it is also the name of the dog in the Doge meme.

There will also be rice. I've been buying ten kilo bags of locally grown rice at a nearby liquor store. It's so tasty.

I made really good black bean soup with cumin, red and yellow bell peppers, habanero from my patio garden (!), onion, and tomatoes. Then I ate it all topped with avocado and cheddar.
And now I wish I'd doubled it because I want more but I'm lazy.

Tonight I'm making brocchiblu!

Tonight we ordered a pizza. With ghost pepper salami.

I lied. I did not make brocchiblu; I was too tired after my workout. But I will make it tonight.

The brocchiblu sounds yummy - I've emailed myself the recipe so I can try it!

I made a vegetarian take on Japodog's KUROGOMA KIMUCHI for lunch yesterday that was so good I'm going to do it again today. I used Essential Baking Rustic Rolls, Field Roast Franks and Kimichi from Kimchi Girl Seattle (no website that I can find, but hot damn this is great Kimchi). All local Seattle products and probably a lot better than what Japodog is using :)

o hai! I made a delicious frittatta this morning for breakfast/lunch out of a bunch of random crap that needed using up. A lonely sweet potato, 3/4ths of an onion, a yellow bell pepper, and a big scoop of those bacon crumbles you can buy bulk in a bag from Costco plus 8 eggs.

topped it with some cheese and garnished with some fresh cilantro and it was awesome.

This week is Restaurant week and we went out for a splurge, $28 for 3 courses each. We don't go to good restaurants as often as I'd like so this was really a nice opportunity to do so without breaking the bank. We split everything and so we had:

-Pork Terrine with giardiniera, mustard, and crostini
-Mushroom arancine
-Bibb lettuce salad with tomatoes, bacon and house-made buttermilk ranch
-Grilled salmon with Greek yogurt-garlic sauce, farro and brussels sprouts (me)
-Tagliatelle Bolognese (him)
-Toffee pudding (yellow cake, whipped cream and warm toffee sauce)

OMG. Roll me home.

Having been temporarily freed from catlap I managed to doll up a frozen pizza with some remaining mushrooms, lunchmeat, last of the garden green peppers and extra cheese. Helped warm up the house too.

Last night: baked up some chunks of chicken from the freezer in bread crumbs, ate solo with chips and salsa, LT got home late and ate a sandwich
Tonight: frozen french bread pizzas

We have our peaks and valleys