Tag Dinner

Food For Thought

Michael 2 Comments

It’s time to clean out the refrigerator. For me it’s that time every time this time of week. I’ll be getting ready to cook.

Perhaps I should start in the middle. When I was in the hospital, because of why I was there my sister naturally was also in the hospital. That took two members of my immediate family out of daily activities including, among other things, cooking. The other two spent much of their time at the hospital while were inpatients, limiting their available time for daily activities including, among other things, cooking. But friends and other relatives eased that burden by creating food chains or meal trains. When it became evident that I was destined for a much longer than anticipated hospital stay and recovery period, those friends and relatives along with friends of relatives and even relatives of friends presented us with the modern equivalent of hot casseroles, gift subscriptions to meal services. So many in fact that this Sunday we will be preparing the last of the gifted meals.

We in this case are my daughter and I. We’ve been spending a day a week almost every week since mid-June, first in her kitchen now in mine, preparing the following week’s meals. This is hardly unique. Much of the working world preps and even pre-cooks the upcoming week’s meals. Even when I was part of the working world I would do some manner of advance preparation. Then it was often a matter of my daughter and I chopping, seasoning, arranging, and storing in a suitable cooking vessel that day’s dinner before I went off to work and she to school each morning. Sometime after her return in the afternoon she cookrd and plated as I dragged myself in from another day at the rat races. (I always bet the #7 rat to win the 7th race by 7 lengths but he never came in.)

So you see, meal prepping is in our blood, or at least on our resumes. Little things like my daughter’s own entry into the working world and my entry into the limited lifting and standing world, coupled with the fact that we no longer live in the same house, make daily prep pretty inconvenient. But the once a week plan has really made life much easier for me.

Something else it’s made me is it’s made me think how fortunate I am to have a daughter who is willing to give up one of her two free days each week to spend with her father. It’s also made me realize that if there are a few others like her out there maybe this world isn’t destined for global annihilation as soon as the last of the Baby Boomers leaves it. The few hours it takes us to chop and season, arrange and cook, store and clean up make for some pretty quality time. And so does the eating and sitting and chatting and re-bonding after.

A family dinner really is a gift. Even a bunch of them all at once.

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Cold Comfort (Food)

Michael 4 Comments

We are moving toward the end of summer and harvest time seems to be in full swing at the local farmers’ markets. A modest investment in fresh produce turned into a couple days spinning circles in my tiny kitchen meal prepping for the next few weeks.

I always try to have something ready to eat on the days when I get home from dialysis. My scheduled time at the clinic is 11:30 which puts me back home around 5 in the afternoon. That’s the perfect time to start dinner except the last thing I want to do after dialysis is … well, anything.

During the summer I spend most of my cooking time in front of the grill on the patio. There it is easy to throw on extra of whatever I’m cooking and pack up a second meal that I would heat up for a future dialysis day dinner (DDD). In the winter, not unlike so many kitchens, mine plays host to casseroles, stews, and chilies. All yield multiple meals that can be refrigerated or frozen for use on those days when the thought of actually preparing a meal is more exhausting that actually preparing a meal.

But now we’ve entered that in between season. Eventually even I tire of my fabulous smoked chicken thighs with grilled zucchini planks and I’m not ready for Italian sausage and acorn squash casserole. What to do? Take some of that farmers’ market bounty and turn it into frozen dinners or sides. So yesterday I did just that, blanching beans, stuffing peppers, rolling cabbage leaves, and more. Now I have a freezer full of DDDs.

TVDinner

The Original

What makes any of this blog worthy? Because today celebrates the birthday of the classic American frozen dinner, Swanson TV Dinner. Yep, Sept 10, 1953 the frozen turkey dinner hit the markets and Swanson figured they’d sell maybe 5,000 of them. The first year they sold over 10 million dinners and created a new market niche.

In 1962 Swanson stopped labeling them as the “TV Dinner” but the term stuck and anybody who ever adjusted a pair of rabbit ears (go ask your grandfather) still calls any frozen meal a TV dinner.

So I’m happy to say I have celebrated National TV Dinner Day with gusto and with gustatory appropriateness (or appropriate gustatoriness).

And it’s been a pleasure to post about anything actually older than me!

Timing Is Everything

Michael 4 Comments

Time’s Up

Yesterday for Easter, the family went out for dinner. It was a very good and we had just as much fun visiting and chatting at a table among other tables of families doing the same as we would have had at a table within one of our own set of walls. The only downside was that after the meal, after the dessert and coffee, after sitting back into a good stretch for a moment or two, as we waited patiently for our check, our patience ran thin as that patient wait ran to 20 minutes before we even spotted the person with our check to be in her apron pocket. Not for the first time did an efficient wait person who was always ready with a suggestion, always available with a drink refill, always timely with the next course, was nowhere to be found when the time to say goodbye came around.

 

AprilSnowThe Little Scamp

Yesterday was a hockey night and on the way into town as the late afternoon sun shone through the car windows warming the interior close to July levels I almost thought about switching on the air conditioning to have a good preseason run through knowing it wouldn’t be long before warm days become hot days. This morning, the day of the local baseball team’s home opener, we woke up to four (yes, 4 (!)) inches of snow. I know Punxsutawney Phil promised us six more weeks of winter but he usually orders them up consecutively.

 

Best of Two

Today is Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Yes, it is. Really. To celebrate I was going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, something I do maybe once a year, usually on Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Plans were going well. I got out the peanut butter. I got out the jelly. I got out the bre… hey! there’s no bread. Then I remembered that late night post hockey game ham sandwich assembled on the last of the bread and saying to myself it was ok, I’d run out in the morning and get some. For those of you following along, that was the same morning that found 4 inches of snow on the ground and me saying boy I’m glad I don’t have to out for anything this morning.

 

Sometimes the time’s timing is running a little bit late.

 

The “Not Togethers”

Michael 5 Comments

I like yogurt. I like chocolate. I recently found out I don’t like chocolate flavored yogurt. Some things aren’t meant to go together. Even when not obvious, it soon becomes apparent that you are facing a combination that never should have been. Eventually the natural order of things will correct the imbalance and life goes on.

Every now and then, however, an aberrant pairing sneaks through and escapes corrective action. Sometimes they work. For consideration I give you oil and vinegar. Sometimes they don’t. Think pineapple and pizza. (Do not try to argue that point. If you disagree you’re wrong.) (Period.) Sometimes they should never have been put together in the first place, like good food with bad service in a restaurant.

Tuesday a friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going out for dinner. Since this was in celebration of their anniversary they had picked a new to them restaurant. I hadn’t heard much about it and since it was a dialysis day, I had 4 hours in front of me with not much to do. So I pulled out my trusty tablet, connected to the free guest WiFi, and did some research. Regardless of the source, I found consistency in the reviews. The food is very good. The service is below average.

What do you do with that kind of information? Going out to dinner is more than just eating. At a fine dining restaurant that goes without saying but what about at a local, family owned eatery. Good food coupled with a good wait staff gets added to the permanent dining rotation. Bad food brought by disinterested servers is equally a no-brainer; there is no reason to ever go back. Pleasant efficient wait people serving bad food is a little challenging. You don’t ever go back and spend money on disappointing food but you should slip the name of a good restaurant to the waitress in hope of a career upgrade.

But the good food/bad service establishment can be problematic. It’s hard to argue with good food. On the other hand, with a little planning and some care and attention, you can make your own good food in your own good kitchen. And as I already noted, going out to dinner is more than just going for the food. Service is called service because you expect to be served. And you want to be served well. You can’t separate the food and the delivery.

YogurtIf the server and the cooker are related you absolutely take the establishment off your future consideration list. Otherwise the decision is difficult. As much as you want the tasty morsels you can’t subject yourself to bad behavior to get them. Maybe you give them one more chance and see if the owner saw the errors in his or her earlier hiring practices and has upgraded the front of the house staff. On the other hand, if a subsequent visit reveals the same poor presentation, well that’s a combination that just has to go.

Just like chocolate yogurt.

 

The Dinner That Didn’t

Michael 6 Comments

Before I start today’s post I want to apologize to some of you. Somehow my site’s notification commands got changed and I haven’t been notified of new followers or comments since sometime in June. (OK, I probably did it, but I didn’t know I did it or even how I did it. Hmm. Maybe I didn’t do it. Anyway…) Unless I just happened to run across something you left for me I may not have acknowledged you. I’m sorry. It’s fixed now and if I haven’t caught up with you yet, I will soon.

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The Dinner That Didn’t

Yesterday was a dialysis day for me. But today is not a dialysis post. Today is a dinner post.

My dialysis time is right in the middle of the day. I leave home around 10:15 in the morning, about 2 hours after breakfast, and I get home at about 3 in the afternoon, at least 2 hours after when lunch should have been. Usually when I get home I grab a snack to settle the hunger pangs that had been roiling for 2 to 3 hours. That way I can still have dinner around 6ish and maybe a light snack sometime later so I don’t wake up famished. The only thing that makes this all a little tenuous is that on dialysis days I’m pretty tired (exhausted), and cooking is often not (never) something I want to take on. What I usually do on the four days of the week that I don’t have dialysis is cook enough for a small army, or at least two meals. When I get home from my treatments I can then rely on the “heat some leftovers method” for that evening’s meal. It usually works like a charm. And sometimes not.

Yesterday I was running a little late. I rushed out the door closer to 10:25 than 10:15. Actually, I was rushing out the door closer to 10:30 than 10:25. Things happen. But I still had 15 minutes to make a 20 minute drive. I can do that. I was merrily on my way with my bag of comforts (book, tablet, crossword puzzles, soft warm woolen blankie (ahhhh) (what can I say, I get cold there)) on the seat next to me when I realized I had forgotten not only my glasses (no crossword puzzles for me) but also my wallet. (Darn! Danger, danger! Reduce speed!!!.)

A while later I was sitting in my dialysis chair, not working a puzzle, controlling my heart rate, and thinking about what I was going to have for dinner. I took the proverbial mental inventory of the fridge and decided on…hmm, nothing. As my mind’s eye scanned the shelves I saw eggs, breakfast sausage, deli meat, several cheeses, some homemade relishes (I should really post the watermelon rind relish recipe I just did – fabulous on fish), condiments, milk, water, a couple of juices, white wine, a large bowl of cut fresh fruit, and a jar of leftover pancake batter. All perfectly yummy in their own right but nothing dinner-worthy. Oh there was plenty in the freezer but it all required real cooking. No Stouffer frozen entrees up there. (Darn.)

EmptyFridgeI thought about this quandary. I had plenty of time to think not being able to see well enough to read or write. That’s when I realized that I had a golden opportunity right there in front of me. Stop on the way home and treat myself! Yes! That’s when I remembered why I had such an empty refrigerator.

The day before yesterday I had a doctor appointment. On my way home I was going to treat myself to lunch at a local diner close to me. The only problem was that this hole in the wall greasy spoon (when I decide to treat myself, I go all out), doesn’t accept cards and I was cashless. No problem that a quick stop at the drive through ATM couldn’t fix. Except for the storm raging and the chain across the driveway that held the sign, “CLOSED. NO POWER.” (Darn.) (Again.) (Or the first time.) (Do you think I overuse parentheses?) By then I was so close to home and so hungry I just went home and ate. My last leftover meal. *sigh*

No problem, I chuckled to my remembering self. That was yesterday (actually 2 days ago), this is today (actually yesterday). The power’s back on. And I sat back in my chair and tried to relax without the help of my glasses. And I relaxed like that all the way through the rest of the afternoon and right on up until I pulled onto the greasy spoon’s parking lot and then I remembered some more. Still no cash. No wallet. No ATM card. No treat. *bigger sigh*

So yesterday for dinner I had pancakes with sausage and fresh fruit. I thought about topping it with watermelon rind relish but I think I’ll turn that and some cod I have in the freezer into fish tacos for dinner today.

Unless I go out and treat myself instead.

 

Eat your veggies!

Michael Leave a comment

Supermarkets are a great place to get your dinner. Duh. No Kidding? Isn’t that what they are for? Well yes, you can get all the bits and pieces you need to make a dinner. Yes, they have your meats or non-meats as you prefer, bins and bins full of fresh produce, rices, pastas, salad fixings, and desserts both ready to eat and in pieces waiting for you to create them. But today’s mega-marts also have their own salad bars, hot foods lines, and prepared dishes. Sort of semi-healthy fast food alternatives.

My most often visited market has taken to packaging some of their more common selections into grab-and-go choices sized for one. They have each package, in fact the entire section, labeled “Meals For One.” It’s nice and handy and it saves the single shopper like me the embarrassment of asking the attendant at the prepared food counter for the ridiculously small portions only one requires. I can’t tell you the number of over-the-glasses-glances I’ve received after asking for a quarter pound of orange chicken and one egg roll. It’s nice to be able to take refuge at my own cooler of prepackaged loser portions – err, solo selections.

But they still don’t have a good handle on how much, or more appropriately how little only one eats at one meal. It’s not often that I’ll want to eat one pound of rigatoni in meat sauce at one sitting. Nor do they yet have a grasp of what makes a meal. At my last visit to the market I noted packages of the aforementioned rigatoni along with chicken marsala, stuffed shells, baby back ribs, chicken wings, and General Tso chicken with a choice of rice or lo mein. Except for the inscrutable general, none of them included anything other than the protein. No veggies, indeed no sides anywhere in site. Your mother would not approve.

They mean well. They just have to temper their desire to sell, sell, sell with the single consumer’s wish to save, save, save. Still, I grabbed a packaged chicken marsala knowing I could augment it with pasta and a nice salad after I got home.  That’s when I saw it. Proudly labeled Meals For One there was a pound of fried mozzarella sticks. With marinara. Back in went the chicken and into my cart when the cheese sticks. Hey, it’s not my place to argue with professionals about what makes a meal. And a tomato is a vegetable. Our government said so.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Time Travel with a Chance of Meatballs

Michael Leave a comment

Have you seen this commercial? Some guy wants the newest version of his cell phone so he builds a time machine to go forward in time to when the contract on his current phone expires and he can upgrade. It’s not important what they are selling (well, it probably is to the company that paid for its production and air time but not to me). What is memorable about it is the end of the commercial. The time machine dings, the neighbor dude says “What’s that?” and the time traveler replies, “Just my lunch. Leftovers from tomorrow’s dinner.”

That really stuck with me. I can’t explain it but I like the idea. Imagine if we really did have time travel. What would you do? Where, or when, would you go – to some past historic event, perhaps the defining moment in mankind’s history? Ok, when would that be? Is there really some single event that created the essence of who we are today? Maybe you want to go forward in time to a not yet occurred event. But if it hasn’t yet occurred how do you know you want to go there, or then? Nope, I think regardless of how sophisticated we want to think we are our needs are pretty uncomplicated.  Food, shelter, sex. And the greatest of these is food.

It was just yesterday that I was thinking I needed lunch. Badly. I was hungry and I didn’t have anything to make a light meal with. I could have put a sandwich together but I wasn’t in a sandwich mood. I could have made a wrap but that’s just a sandwich that knows somebody. I could have had yogurt but why. What I really wanted was some spaghetti and meatballs. As luck would have it, that was the plan for today’s dinner and I was well aware of it at the time.

Think of the possibilities. Some big problem with leftovers is storing them (my fridge is always too full and by the time the next day comes around I’ve forgotten most of what’s In there), heating them (microwaves turn everything gummy, ovens take forever, and stovetops create as big a mess to clean up as the first time around), and eating them (face it, except for chili, nothing is better after sitting around for a day). Had I had a time machine I could have zipped from yesterday to today and put together a leftover plate, travelled back to yesterday and had the lunch I wanted. There’d be no storage issue, it would have still been hot so no heating would be necessary, and it would have tasted fresh since it is, was(?), will be(?). A bonus is there would be no waste. Nothing to sit around in the refrigerator, forgotten until the day before garbage pick-up day.

Yep, if I were to get my hands on a time machine I could solve the leftover problems of the world. It’s a great thing that commercial. I have no idea what they were trying to sell but they unintentionally sold me on spending some time inventing practical time travel. Gotta run. Today’s meatballs are calling. I hope I remember them tomorrow.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

You Are What You Eat

Michael Leave a comment

I am an omnivore. I don’t say that with any particular reason other than as a preface to this post. I will eat just about anything you put in front of me. Anything traditionally considered food. I’m not ready for nor desirous of a guest role on Fear Factor, I don’t want to eat anything that would be featured on any of cable TV’s various weird food shows, and I do not test my manliness by eating peppers hot enough to substitute as rocket fuel when pureed to a diesel like consistency. But I will at least try just about any meat, vegetable, seafood, or dairy product – umm, except liver. And sometimes all in the same dish – think pizza with pepperoni, sausage, onion, mushroom, peppers, anchovies, and 2 or 3 cheeses. Add a beer and you have the basic food groups covered in full.

The thing about people like me who have somewhat indiscriminate pallets is that when it comes time to eat we just eat. I bring this up because the other day I realized I had prepared a fish for dinner for almost an entire week. I go through binges every now and then (see “Soup’s On”, May 14, 2015 and “It’s Taco Thursday,” August 6, 10215), but a fish binge got me dangerously close to declaring myself a pescatarian. The thing is I like fish. I could do that. And that’s scary.

I thought about this. Salmon alone could cover a week’s dinners. Salmon in mustard sauce, salmon salad, grilled jerked salmon, salmon and Thai chilies, salmon burgers, blackened salmon, and the classic cedar plank salmon. Those are just the preparations I’ve done. There are probably 3 or 4 million others. Add to that the few thousand other fish recipes, seafood pastas, sandwiches and tacos, and sushi rolls and there are enough fish dishes to not double up for an average life span.

It could be done. But would I really want to do it. I don’t know. A lifetime without bacon? No leftover turkey from Thanksgiving dinner? No hotdog to go with baseball and apple pie? A picnic without cold fried chicken? Nope. It sounds tempting, and very healthy, but there are just too many good things in the world to eat not to at least try them all. Variety may not be the spice of life but it certainly makes a respectable entrée.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

That’s a Bargain!

Michael Leave a comment

There’s something very satisfying about finding a great buy. I’ve run into quite a few lately. No, not at the used car dealer, not on a call from a broker, not even at the dollar store – and you know how much I love the dollar store. The bargains I’ve been running across have been at the meat counter.

Really, the meat counter. Everything we’ve heard this summer says meat is the last place where there should be bargains. Droughty conditions are still responsible for less than the traditionally fatted calf not to mention the somewhat older steaks on the hooves. Bird flu is dropping chickens like clay pigeons. Pigs seem to be making a comeback but bacon prices are still playing the yo-yo game. Meat just isn’t on top of the specials lists.

One of the effects of not going to work every day is having lots of time on one’s hands. And I still have to get my exercise in. At this stage of my recovery walking is the best exercise I can take on. But with temperatures in the 80s and 90s a casual walk around the neighborhood could mean a sudden case of heat stroke, or worse. The answer is daily walks around the local mega-mart.  A trip along the perimeter is quite a healthy distance and I get to pass produce, bakery, deli, fish, meat, dairy, and the as-seen-on-TV section. With the exception of the tele-specials it’s almost like shopping at a local farmers market. I can buy just the veggies and salad fixings I’ll be using that day, I can get fresh rolls every morning, the fish monger is laying out his catches of the day just as I’m passing buy, and at the meat market they are marking down all the stuff left from the day before. I’m saving 30 to 40% from the regular price because they want it out of their refrigerators and into someone else’s. Mine will do.

If you figure the regular weekly shoppers are picking up a few days’ worth of meals on one trip, they are ending up with the same day old product at home in a couple of days. I’m buying what I’m going to be cooking in a few hours. And saving a bundle doing it.

Yeah, I know it’s a little over the top for just a couple of dollars but it gives me something to do before the noon news comes on. You have to make a little fun for yourself somehow. What better way than a good hunk of meat, fresh veggies, and a gadget that lets you make a bowel out of several strips of bacon. That’s a bargain.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

It’s Taco Thursday!

Michael 1 Comment

Yes, I am quite aware that the entire rest of the world recognizes Taco Tuesday. But I post only on Monday and Thursday and Taco Monday sounds stupid even though I’m just as apt to eat a taco on a Monday as a Thursday or any other day of the week.

In fact, that’s the point of today’s post. And you thought this was going to be pointless like all the others. The point is I’m worrying myself a bit. I seem to have fallen into a taco trough. (That’s sort of like a taco rut but more alliterative.)  I really am apt to have a taco any day of the week and any time of any day. And not just tacos. Toss into that mix burritos, fajitas, and enchiladas, just about anything with meat and cheese in a tortilla and you have my diet from the past couple of weeks.

Lately I’ve had a lot of appointments and trying to do as much as I can around the house. For me that means I’m working sometimes up to two, maybe three hours a day. (I tire easily.) Standing in front of a stove isn’t on the list. Nor is on the list standing in front of the counter prepping something to go into the oven. A sandwich is quite doable, but who wants a steady diet of sandwiches? Thus, the taco. As quick as the sandwich but certainly more fun. And just as versatile.

Over the past week I’ve had a couple of breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, sausage, peppers and onions, and tomatoes in a flour tortilla. I had a quick lunch of ham and cheese quesadilla, a fajita made from thinly sliced flank steak that I originally was going to use in a cheesesteak, grilled peppers and onions, some provolone cheese, and some tomato slices. I made a dinner of a soft corn tortilla with leftover pot roast and caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, Boston lettuce, and a splash of hot sauce. I even had a more traditional taco dinner with seasoned ground beef, jack cheese, lettuce, red onions, green peppers, and black olives.

All of that and there’s not a drop of Hispanic blood in me unless I got some during a transfusion. Still, the adaptable wraps of the southwest have been far outpacing my ingrained Italian cooking. This weekend I may have to make lasagna to re-center my chakra. Or maybe I’ll do layers of spiced chicken, cheese, and flour tortillas in an enchilada casserole instead. That’s pretty lasagna-like, don’t you think?

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?