What’s Cookin’?

[Necie]

Figured this might be fun to help give each other ideas. Hope everyone joins in!! 

 

I don’t cook/bake as much in the summer cuz... busy. 😂 Maybe one or two nights a week and the rest of the time, it’s leftovers... or *free for all*. 
But once market is over (October), I’m in the kitchen nearly every day—cooking, baking, canning. I don’t do breakfast (unless it’s for dinner), don’t even usually do lunch, but I love coming up with new or old comfort stuff for dinner. 🥰

 

Last night I made:

mangalitsa pork steaks (raised by DS2)

mushroom gravy 

mashed potatoes (DH made—instant) 

kale

 

Got cast iron pan HOT and seared steaks, turned heat down and added cream of mushroom soup with some water. Put lid on and let simmer til tender. Kale was just on a low boil while steaks cooked. 
DH (D isn’t always for *dear* 😉) doesn’t like kale, but I’ve taken the attitude that I’ll make what I like sometimes and he can make something else or not eat. 😏

[Littlesister]

That looks so good. Now I am hungry. And I like kale. 

[Necie]

Here’s tonight’s supper. Kinda a variation on boiled dinner:

 

sliced smoked sausage 

1 qt canned potatoes 

1 pt carrots 

1 onion 

ham soup base and a pkg Sazon

(all veggies were from the garden)

 

I did NOT put the kale in the pan... that would be ruuuude! 😂 I heated it in the micro and added it to MY bowl. 😉

 

DH made cornbread, but I didn’t get a pic of it. 🥴

[Littlesister]

That looks good also. If I cooked like that for my GS and SIL, they would both starve to death. 

[Ambergris]

Supper was sauteed chicken slice, camote (purple-skinned/orange-fleshed sweet potato, not candy-sweet), and vegetable soup with cheese in it.  Lunch was fish, same sweet potato, cauliflower, avocado.  Usually the soup is for lunch, but today was up-ended by fridge cleanout. 

Tea and coffee to drink.

Snack was Greek yogurt with cocoa powder stirred in.

[Littlesister]

GS and I had cleaned out the fridge and finished up the leftovers tonight. Back to cooking tomorrow.

[Necie]

Pan fried bluegill and jalapeño poppers yesterday.

 

DH is grilling chicken leg quarters tonight and I’m just making some plain ole broccoli. Probably one of the last times to grill for the year. 

[Ambergris]

Big Red Hen made her debut in a soup for lunch, very rich and full-flavored, but I'm under the weather and didn't enjoy it much.

[Littlesister]

Buffalo chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn. I added left over Brussell sprouts for me. GS doesn't like those. Yep, more for me. 

[snapshotmiki]

I will be making a signature sandwich from a Pizza place I worked at in FL. Called a Big Frankie. Put deli sliced ham on a hoagie type roll. Top with mozzarella cheese and a small strip of cheddar cheese. Put under broiler for a few minutes to melt cheese and toast roll. Top with sweet coleslaw. It sounds weird but is a great combo! I made the coleslaw and we used to make the rolls fresh every morning. Great sandwich!

[Jeepers]

Oh Miki, that sounds really good. I know a lot of places put coleslaw on sandwiches. Especially in the south. Who would have thought putting sauerkraut on a sandwich would be any good but Reubens are great.

[euphrasyne]

I have on a pot of leftover soup.  I make it about every 2 months or so.  

Recipe:

Throw every* (that makes sense) leftover in the fridge into the crockpot.  Add water or broth.  Add seasoning or extras as needed. Cook all day.

It was a rough week and the family did not eat the leftovers well, so today we have soup.  Deboned chicken leg quarters, peas, cheesy  Mexican corn, chicken and potatoes in some sort of creamy sauce (I forget what I made), broccoli, half a box of off-brand velveeta.  It looked like the basics for chicken enchilada soup to me, so I added in  a quart of vegetable broth, a quart of poblano chicken broth, and some salsa.  I'll add in some fajita seasoning or cumin later depending on how it tastes in a few hours.  

 

There was rice, stuffing, and field peas also, but I felt like people would eat these and that they would not do well with the rest.  

[Ambergris]

Leftover cheese empanadas today. 

[Littlesister]

Roast beef sandwich for me last night. Nothing special. GS left for work at 2pm and I was exhausted for some reason.  Now I know I have an ear infection. Where did that come from. But I already have some antibiotic ear drops from before so I'm good. 

[Dee]

Today I cooked up a pork roast I'd put in the freezer dated 6/2022.  Yikes, I'd lost it until I defrosted the freezer.  I put it in the crockpot with cream of celery soup, onion, garlic, pepper, etc.  I was surprised at how delicious it was.  No taste of freezer burn and moist as could be.  

 

I hate to admit there's another in the same bag, but I'll cook it too in a couple weeks and hopefully have another great meal.  It's amazing what meat cooked in a crockpot can do.

 

[Littlesister]

Dee, I have meat in freezer from 2019 I have been using. No freezer burns. I wrap the meat in freezer paper and then use the seal a meal bags. Seems to keep the meat much longer that way. Now I am working on meat from 2020. Need to get the soup made before I run out of beef. I do chicken and pork the same way when I get it ready for freezer. 

[Mother]

Today we had a whole meal of older frozen foods.  Grilled sweet corn dated 2021, beets dated 2022, Bok Choy dated 2020 and chicken dated 2019.  All was good tasting with no freezer burn but they had been packed well.  The corn had been previously oven roasted and was a but chewy but still good.  
 

We are slowly trying to use up the old.  

[Necie]

Last night was a free-for-all. I had some hard boiled eggs to use up, so had egg salad sandwiches. Don’t even remember what DH had. It wasn’t egg salad... he doesn’t like it.  I have no idea how I ended up with such a picky man!! 😂 

Tonight DH made *chicken and noodles*. He made a couple of those butter/herb noodle pkgs and added a store bought can of chicken. Easy, but yummy!

[euphrasyne]

The soup was good, a bit acidic, so I added a pinch of baking soda and a huge sprinkle of tropical sazon for seasoning.   

 

Last week I used the last of the 2020 beef roast in the crockpot.  Everything else is 2022+.  Apparently, I did mostly canning or dehydrating in 2021 and not much freezing.  I haven't thawed anything for today, but I have  a storebought cooked chicken in the fridge from yesterday's groceries.  I'll do something with that.  Cooked chicken is cheaper than raw chicken.  It is crazy that way.  

[Ambergris]

I look forward to having a freezer again.  What I have now sits on top of the fridge and has less than two cubic feet before the frost builds up.  It needs defrosting on a monthly basis.  Sigh.  Food would not be good more than a month or so after going in there. 

Separate freezers are not a thing here, but side by side fridge/freezers can be found in a lot of the appliance stores.  That's what PM has and what I'll be looking at when I get my own place.  Shouldn't be hard to get plastic boxes to fit each shelf of a side by side to hold the cold in better.  Tried that with my stand-up porch freezer in Florida, but needed two boxes per shelf, and with both of us loading the freezer (three or four of us sometimes) it stayed chaotic. 

I always wanted a side by side.

[Necie]

FINALLY!!

 

Backstrap and boletes!!! 

[Littlesister]

That looks good Necie. Though I have never had boletes. 

 

I just ate some leftovers in fridge for dinner. Need to get those used up. 

 

euphrasyne,  I have to agree. Buying a chicken already cooked is cheaper than buying one raw. And no, it does not make any since.  I used to cook my own rotisserie chicken but now it is cheaper to buy it already cooked. 

[Necie]

1 hour ago, Littlesister said:

That looks good Necie. Though I have never had boletes. 

 

I hadn’t had them till about 5 years ago. Started finding them at my mom’s out by her woods... in the yard, under her hammock of all places!!  I had to really read up on them before I’d even try them. These are red boletes. There is a lookalike that causes stomach upset. But everything I read says that even the lookalikes are ok if FULLY cooked. So I fry them in butter nearly to death!! lol They still taste wonderful! DH won’t eat them... he doesn’t like mushrooms.  Again... picky-@$$!! MORE FOR ME!!  I got 5 pints of them this year and left plenty to spore out.

[Necie]

Ordered carry out tonight. Deep fried cod and *roasted* potatoes. They cut a BIG baked potato into 6 wedges and bread them in the same breading they fry the fish in... it’s a wet then dry breading. OMG!! SOOOOOO YUMMY!! 🤤 I drown the fish with lemon and TONS of pepper, slather the potatoes with butter and dip in sour cream. Every bite, I’m mumbling: “This is sooooo good!” DH laughs at me! 😂 We only get this 2-3 times a year cuz it’s a bit expensive- almost $30 for a lb of fish and one order of the potatoes. It’s plenty for both of us. We’re STUFFED! I could eat the fish every day... and used to! I was the bartender there from May 2000 til Oct 2011. 😁 After gaining 30# in the first 3 yrs, I learned to limit myself. 😉 But, it’s our tradition for Thanksgiving Eve. This is our 23rd year!! 

 

(Sorry... it was half eaten before I thought to take a pic. lol)

[Dee]

Yum, Necie.  I would be sick all night if I ate that but take away 20 years and I would enjoy every single bite.  Makes me think of Long John Silver's fish where I slathered it in malt vinegar.  It does look delicious!!!