Today I made turkey, red cabbage, roasted butternut squash and rice.

I had 2 lbs. beef stew meat in the freezer, so I made Vegetable Beef Soup. I've made this for decades. The last time I pulled a quart of it out of the freezer, the taste fell flat. I thought I was tiring of the soup. Today, I added half of a large jalapeno (fine dice) to the simmering beef, herbs, and onions. I wasn't sure if I should put in the jalapeno then, or wait until I added the carrots. I also put the usual pearl barley in the soup, even though I wasn't sure jalapeno would go good with barley. The finished product tasted only slightly different, but a pleasant heat lingered on the tongue after eating, so I declared the experiment a success. The heat is not so intense that I'd refrain from giving away this soup to people who don't normally eat jalapenos.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 12 months ago by Italiancook.

This week I cooked the three meals that I received from Blue Apron: Pimento cheeseburgers, roasted pork & cheesy mashed potatoes and chicken with kale and roasted vegetables. For someone who didn't think she like kale, I found it delicious. . Also I was introduced to miso and sushi sauce. I now have some new ideas I can experiment with.

I roasted some fresh salmon season with The Spice House seasoning blend called Gateway To The North, which is a blend of maple sugar, brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic, onion and green onion flakes. It was pretty good.

Sounds good to me, Mike.

We ate lots of leftovers during the beginning of the week - the Mexican chicken and the broccoli Alfredo pasta. On Thursday, I made a batch of barley vegetable soup so we would eat through the weekend