What's for Dinner?

[livius drusus]

Barley, red cabbage and roasted chicken bewb salad with a nice fresh thyme vinaigrette.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by lisarea

old used ABC noodles

I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means.

[lisarea]

It does.

Technically, though, they weren't. I was just being dramatic!

[livius drusus]

Tonight I'm making something I haven't had since I left Rome: Tuna and Rice Salad a la Guidecca. It's a traditional Italian Jewish dish served on Fridays involving rice, tuna poached in white wine, steamed artichokes, minced shallots, chopped cucumber and a scrumptious dressing made from olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, anchovies and chopped green olives.

I'm doing it on the cheap using canned tuna and jarred artichokes, which has the added bonus of not requiring me to actually cook a damn thing other than the rice (and the cooker does that), a major advantage in this heat.

The rice is dressed (you do it when it's still hot) and cooling down now. Once it's room temp, I'll add the tuna and veg and it'll be old home day.

[lisarea]

Ugh. I was going to make spaghetti and sausage, but it is SO STUPIDLY HOT I'm not. It's 5:00 and it's still like 95. I am not going to go stand in front of the stove. No way.

If I had the stuff for it, I'd totally make that tuna thing and be twins.

[livius drusus]

OMG I want to be twins! Make Maturin drag his lazy ass to the store.

[Ensign Steve]

I'm having chicken with veggies and cheese sauce. I'm not cooking it, though, except that I cut up the veggies. I'm a better sous chef than I am a chef.

[lisarea]

Sadly, Maturin's lazy ass doesn't even get here till like 7:30.

And truth be told, I don't even want to make that. I just want to have popsicles or something.

Tell me ahead of time next time and we'll do twin dinner then.

[Dingfod]

I'm having HamBeans™ 15 bean soup.

[Legs]

We have NO FUD!!!1

I've been gone for 2 weeks and Widget has been eating at his club. I need an emergency grocery trip or HorseGirl and I will have to split the 8 year old can of Shrek Soup in the cupboard.

[Master Taran]

Since we're not going to see houses tonight. BB-Q Meatloaf.

[Master Taran]

Beer in the Butt Chicken

[lisarea]

Fish tacos.

We went out last night. I had chile verde and Maturin had a giant vegetable burrito. He picked the zucchini out of it.

[Dingfod]

No dinner tonight, had late breakfast at 11:00, then lunch at 4:30, deep-fried chicken wings served with hot sauce and bleu cheese dressing from The Brook in Tulsa. No, that's not Buffalo style, I had to dip each wing into the sauce.

[livius drusus]

I have two different kinds of beets plus their greens, so they'll definitely be the featured performers in tonight's dinner.

[Dingfod]

Chicken chili unless I can scratch up enough cash to buy a couple pounds of ground beef.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

I have two different kinds of beets plus their greens, so they'll definitely be the featured performers in tonight's dinner.

With an encore tomorrow morning, I'm sure.

[livius drusus]

A veritable riot of swirling color. And on the anniversary of Woodstock too.

[Ensign Steve]

[lisarea]

liv eats prettier than me. No fair.

I lost track of time yesterday and didn't even think about dinner until really late, so I made bubble and squeak to get rid of this cabbage that was pissing me off.

Tonight, we're having ground turkey curry.

That'll be two formless beige meals in a row.

[livius drusus]

What's the opposite of twins? Because that's what our dinners are right now.

[Master Taran]

Since I'm home alone. It'll probably be a Subway sandwich.

[livius drusus]

I'm feeling very virtuous because I used the beets from head to hoof in one dish.

First I roasted the whole beets with some olive oil in a foil-covered pan. The red ones were larger than the golden ones, so I popped the latter in the pan 20 minutes in to the 50 minute roast. Then I took them out and let them sit until they were lukewarm.

I peeled them, tossing the stems and skins into a tall pot of water. I boiled the water then strained out the beet solids and set the water aside. I chopped the beet greens into strips and put them aside.

I chopped two Vidalia onions and caramelized them. Once they were all teeny and brown (30 minutes or so), I added 3 minced cloves of garlic, stirred until fragrant then deglazed with a little white wine. While it was still steaming, I threw in the greens, covered the pan and let them wilt for 5 minutes.

While that was happening, I brought my pot of beet water to a boil, added some linguine and cooked until al dente. I didn't save any of the cooking water but I should have because it came out a tad dry.

Then I added the pasta to the onions and greens, mixed them up but good, sprinkled some crumbled goat cheese and parmesan and served the whole shebang topped with toasted pine nuts.

A riot of color was not an understatement. The beet greens were a particularly happy Kelly green once steamed, and of course the two colors of beetroot were like deliciously sweet jewels. The pasta turned bright pink once the beets were thoroughly mixed in.

Like I said, it was a bit dry, but nothing scary, and the flavors are just great. Lots of variety in every bite.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Sounds pretty, liv.

[Sock Puppet]

That's it, Ima stop cooking altogether.