Going out for dinner and a movie - going to be tough because of my diet - Italian restaurant and pasta is hard for me to resist. Going to try and stick to salad and some kind of meat.
Also bread and butter - difficult for me, my downfall.
Antipasto is your new best friend. Cheese, salumi, pickled and marinated veggies, they're all delicious and fill you up nicely. Enjoy those first to take the edge off and you'll be fortified against the bread and pasta.
For the main course, don't forget fish. Any Italian restaurant worth its salt should have delicious roasted or grilled fish options. If the meat/fish dish comes with potatoes, ask for them to be replaced with a non-root vegetable that's also on the menu, like maybe sauteed spinach and garlic. Or else just order a salad or something a la carte and give the potatoes to fiance.
Don't be afraid, Limoncello. It's just a restaurant. Even Mississippi finally ratified the 14th Amendment. Only you own your body.
Tonight is satay stir fry for me, but Sou is just having egg fried rice.
I think I have mentioned before that Lee Kum Kee Satay Sauce is the greatest satay sauce in the world. It's as good or better than any I have ever had in a restaurant. I've made many different ones at home from many different recipes and they cannot compare. Both Sou and I looooove it. Until they finally started putting ingredients on the bottle
It has fish sauce and shrimp paste in it. This isn't a problem for me, but veggie Sou has had to give it up. But the homemade egg fried rice is pretty spectacular too, so she'll be ok
Now I know why homemade satay recipes were never up to scratch I guess, no fish sauce or shrimp paste
Edit: Holy shit, I only just learned that satay refers to "a dish of seasoned, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce" and doesn't mean "peanut sauce" I think every time I've ever had had anything labelled satay in anyway it's been a peanut sauce. So I guess I'm having peanut stir fry tonight since there is no skewered meat involved.
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Last edited by slimshady2357; 06-21-2017 at 05:24 PM.
Sugar is the third ingredient too. Jarred sauces are a problem for people with all kinds of dietary restrictions. I've basically given on up on all of them, including my beloved sriracha. Thank the baby Jesus for Huy Fong's chili garlic sauce and sambal oelek.
Last night I ended up having chicken cacciatore with extra vegetables in lieu of the side of pasta they were offering. It was loaded with onions, sweet peppers, tomatoes and zucchini and I loaded it with fresh gound pepper, chili flakes and parmesan. Very satisfying.
Tonight we have Moroccan Curry soup and pork tenderloin with broccoli and cherries.
Yesterday was just punishingly hot, so I could barely even think about food until it started getting pretty late, so I made cacio e pepe and salad.
And that's why I don't think I could ever give up pasta. Like 90% of my emergency pantry dinners are pasta, and probably 20% of my dinners are emergency pantry dinners. I'd starve to death.
Kelp noodles have fished my chestnuts out of the fire more than once on a lazy night. (Also omelettes.) Since they don't taste like anything, you don't need to smother them with sauce to cover up weird tastes and textures like with other so-called pasta substitutes. Thanks for the cacio e pepe idea. Haven't had that in years.
Grass-fed filet mignon topped with blue cheese butter served with steamed spinach and garlic and a salad of arugula, broccoli sprouts, scallions with a chevre chive dressing of my own devising. It was so exquisite I can't stop thinking about it. It's like in this thought bubble above my head at all times.
Well fine. I came in to brag about the burger I just had but you had to go and pretrump me before I could do it. And to top it off anyhoo, you went and had yours homemaded and everthing. HARRUMPH, SIR. HARRUMPH, I SAID.
It was called the primetime burger. A friend told me about it so I had to try it. It would have been a slightly above average burger if it was just the burger meat all by itself. The additions made it just that slightly more above slightly above average. In this case all it took was some melty swiss cheese and sauteed mushrooms. But here's where it took that other extra steps to differentiate and elevate itself another extra step: They added some shaved prime rib to it and included a horseradish dip as well as some au jus.
There are a couple of howevers however. Something on one of the meats was a bit overly salty. Forgivable thanks to the other seasonings in the mix, but still a little discordant flavor marring the experience. Also detracting from the meal profile was that the horseradish wasn't nearly tangy/sharp as it should have been. And, oddly enough, the au jus wasn't as savory as I would have preferred.
It was still a very tasty burger.
But, please, let's all celebrate your filet mignon boon.
Did I mention that the garlic clove I chopped and added to the spinach had been used to flavor the basting butter for the filet so it was all buttery and steaky? I'm seriously considering hitting the market and getting another filet mignon (on sale for $14.99 a pound) and having the exact same thing for dinner today.
Your burger sounds damned tasty, Bort, despite the accent items being insufficiently sharp and/or savory. Since I kicked the sugars, starches and refined carbs, I find my tolerance for non-sweet flavors had skyrocketed. I crave them, in fact. Things are rarely as sour, hot, bitter or funky as I would wish them to be nowadays.
I have always had spotty luck with falafel, but I'd really like to be able to make it for my Tuesday night dinners sometimes, but also I have to make it without flour because one of the people who comes doesn't eat gluten, so I tried this method* last night, and it turned out pretty good.
* Not the to the letter recipe, because following recipes exactly is bad luck.
Friends dinner night!
So I made that falafel again, and it turned out even better this time. I don't bother with the salad spinner or the instant read thermometer, and I just eyeball things and put in what I want, but the general guidelines are really working for me, so I recommend that falafel recipe.
With basmati rice with sumac, lemon, and rosemary, cooked in chicken stock*; plus a bigassed chop salad (romaine, Italian parsley, grape tomatoes, red onion, red Bell peppers, cucumber, kalamata olives, feta, and a lemony garlicky vinaigrette.)
Plus tzatziki and some way too hot harissa I made last night that was only edible with the tzatziki, but once you cooled it down and diluted it, it was delicious. I warned everyone and put out sriracha as an alternative, so I think only Mabel and I ate it. I will do a better job of seeding the peppers next time because apart from being too spicy, it was perfect with the falafel.
Then we sat around and ate a big bowl of lychees. One lady had never had them before and was pretty danged enchanted by them, which is really great.
That was a really good dinner I think.
* I thought about leaving the chicken stock out just so it'd be all vegetarian, but I didn't have any vegetable stock and the rice needed something. And I was tired and couldn't think of anything else.
Last night, I wasn't very hungry but I needed to eat something, so I found an almost expired can of vegetable soup. It was so gross I almost didn't finish it, but I powered through. Everything was all mushy and bland and just sort of wrong-tasting.
I'm making bolognese tonight because I'm out of expired soup.
I need to know if I'm weird. Okay, I'm p sure there's some weirdness, but not usually when it comes to food.
I made a thing. But I can't figure out how I did it.
I made some chili dogs. Something quite simple. I like to think I'm fair at the making of chili. Now, not award winning good. But fair enough I suppose. The surprise for me this time lay in the extra I used to accompany it.
I addded a type of coleslaw. I won't take full credit since most of it came from a bag. And I don't think the slaw by itself is something to post about. But combine the two andthere's a kind of culinary magic slash voodoo that happens.
My standard-ish chili goes thusly:
Now, for the slaw I know I wanted to avoid mayo, though based on my choice of lubricant it probably wouldn't have mattred. I've also tried a mustard base and a bbq base, but neither really tripped my fancy. I really liked the veggie mix I found tho.
And that's al I did for it. It came out good, but on its own not worth enposting.
But combining those two makes my mouth happy.
(Also, also, I added the super basic oscar mayer turkey dogs to complete the dog portion of the chili dog sandwich meal.)
Re: What's for Dinner?
..
I think every time I've ever had had anything labelled satay in anyway it's been a peanut sauce. So I guess I'm having peanut stir fry tonight since there is no skewered meat involved.
But the taste....
found a carrot in the back of the lunch fridge
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