What are you Cooking the Week of July 10, 2022?

[Mike Nolan]

I've got a half-pound of ground beef to use, so I'm thinking tacos tonight. Browning a small amount of beef doesn't heat the house up much.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Joan Simpson]

Tonight we had a chargrilled chicken breast that I marinated in Italian dressing,garden peas baked sweet potatoes and a salad of leftover lettuce and tomatoes from taco salad a day or two ago.

Have any of you ever cooked a sweet potato in the microwave.I will grease the potato and wrap in a paper towel and cook.These were small ones and they cooked in about 7 minutes.I cook all my "baked" potatoes in the microwave, saves on heating the oven.

[Mike Nolan]

I generally do sweet potatoes in the oven (my wife likes them, I do not), but regular potatoes using the 'potato' setting on my microwave. I put a little butter and salt on them and put them in a ceramic bowl with a plate for a lid. I'm told you can do the same thing with a sweet potato, but probably using oil instead of butter and salt.

Be sure to poke lots of holes in your sweet potato.

[BakerAunt]

I used to do baked potatoes in the microwave when they were not sharing the oven with the entre. I've never tried sweet potatoes. These days, I use the countertop convection oven for smaller amounts of sweet potatoes or regular potatoes.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tacos, sweet corn and some cantaloupe. The cantaloupe was sweet enough but not very soft or juicy, so it was sort of crunchy.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I made jam using black raspberries from our terrace and a few my husband gathered in the woods. It was a disappointing season for the berries, after a promising start, because we had too much very hot and dry weather. Some failed to develop and others dried up.

After crushing the ones that I have been picking, I realized that I only had 2 cups, and the low-sugar recipe requires 3 1/4 cups (usually I use at least 3 1/2 cups). I did not even have enough for the high-sugar version. I stopped work and went to the grocery and picked up a small package of blackberries and a small package of raspberries, which gave me enough for the low-sugar version.

I canned three (8 oz.) jars and one 4 oz. jar. I have a scant 4 oz. jar that I stuck in the refrigerator without canning. I think that the raspberries may overwhelm the black raspberry flavor.

On the terrace, the blackberries are turning red, so they should be ripening soon. We had two significant rains this past week, which helped the blackberries, but I am not counting my jam jars until the berries ripen.

[Mike Nolan]

My son in Pittsburgh has been buying flats of black raspberries, either at a farmer's market or from the company that does his farm share. I think he's bought 3 flats (of 8 cartons) so far. My guess is they're coming from nearby West Virginia.

He's made jam, jelly, syrup, and probably a few other things. He was infusing vinegar with left over pulp. The vinegar should be good for vinagrettes and sauces. I think he said he was doing some kind of black raspberry liqueur too. We're SOOOO jealous!

We got about 2 cups of black raspberries from the east side of the house this year, but that's more than we got the last several years, though some years we never got around to checking for them until the season was over.

We originally planted a few vines (2 or 3 at most) at the back of the lot along the fence, the ones there got crowded out, but the birds helped us out by spreading seed to both the east side and west side of the lot. The vines on the west side used to do very well but have also been crowded out these days.

[RiversideLen]

My brother was over yesterday so I made strip steaks on the BBQ. Had a large salad and a slice of chocolate cake, "Death by Chocolate" from Whole Foods. It's really good!

I don't know what's on tonight's menu, I'm going to have to forage through the freezer.

[Joan Simpson]

Tonight I cooked a chicken breast in butter on top of stove,while that was cooking I cooked a handful of mushrooms and onions with a pat of butter & salt and pepper in the microwave for two minutes. When I flipped the chicken I poured the mushroom & onion on top and covered for a few minutes with that we had thickened potatoes and creamed corn.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--one of the venders at our farmers' market had a limited supply of black raspberries: $5 for a half pint, and they did not have many, since they face the same weather issue as we do. Your son must be getting a much better deal. I do not recall if it were four or five years ago when I had so many black raspberries that I even made 2-cup jars of jam. At the time, I thought that was the norm and had plans to can pie filling. If these recent weather patterns hold, those days may be over.

Dinner on Monday night was a lentil-barley-turkey-vegetable soup that I threw together using some of the broth I made yesterday, the potato water from the potato salad I made last week, carrots, celery, red bell pepper (from our garden), ground turkey, mushrooms, garlic, rehydrated dried onion, 2 cups mostly brown lentils although I mixed in some red as well, 1/3 cup barley, 1 Tbs Penzey's Bouquet Garni, a zucchini and turnip greens (both from farmers' market), and 2 tsp. cider vinegar to balance out the greens. We have enough for several meals.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't asked him what he's paying for them, not sure I really want to know. But West Virginia is where most of the black raspberry jam is from, so I assume it is actively cultivated there.

[RiversideLen]

I had an Italian sausage sandwich and a salad. Slice of chocolate cake for dessert.

[Joan Simpson]

We had fried cube pork,rice and gravy and peas and carrots.

[Mike Nolan]

We had sweet corn and BLT's.

[RiversideLen]

I simmered boneless chicken breasts in pasta sauce and had one with bow tie pasta and kale.

[Author]

Posts