What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Ingredients: Enriched Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid) Salt, Canola Oil, Sugar, Contains Less than 2% of Dextrose, Monosodium Glutamate, Cornmeal, Paprika, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dried Onions, Spice, Yeast, Dried Garlic, Caramel Color, Maltodextrin, Citric Acid, Extractives of Paprika (Color).

So, it's bread crumbs with salt, oil, sugar, and a dash of seasonings (including three more kinds of sugar) pre-mixed for you?

Tonight: chicken pot pie.

Green chile stew, tortillas, and a salad of assorted greens. Simple, but yummy.

Jeff, not sure what you mean by "premixed for you", but yes, those are the ingredients listed on the box of Oven Fry.

Jeff, not sure what you mean by "premixed for you", but yes, those are the ingredients listed on the box of Oven Fry.

Just that I can mix paprika and corn meal together myself.

I do understand the convenience factor but I much prefer the simplest variety of Panko made with flour, yeast, water and add my own seasonings rather than be stuck with the same seasoning profile in a ready mixed box of crumbs. Not to mention the offending extra ingredients. I try to avoid things in boxes, bags, cans, bottles with lots of additives that I can put together myself.
Panko toasted with a bit of butter or olive oil and seasoned to fit the dish is often brilliant over pasta, vegetables, braises. It's an easy way to dress things up with textural contrast.

General Tso’s Chicken for me tonight, tweaking a bit with fresh pineapple chunks and broccoli, topped off with green onion. Friday is my "see what needs to be used up" day.

General Tso’s Chicken for me tonight, tweaking a bit with fresh pineapple chunks and broccoli, topped off with green onion. Friday is my "see what needs to be used up" day.

For us, it's more corned beef and cabbage and I ain't complainin'.

General Tso’s Chicken for me tonight, tweaking a bit with fresh pineapple chunks and broccoli, topped off with green onion. Friday is my "see what needs to be used up" day.

Pineapple sounds like a good addition to General Tso's.

[Jenise]

Last night we had roasted potatoes with the leftover carrots and cabbage from Thursday's corned beef dinner in order to avoid having red meat three nights in a row as I'm doing a curry-cured steak flank steak salad to take to a wine tasting event today.

No leftover cabbage or carrots here from the corned beef and cabbage. We just ate the last leftovers tonight, and it was still good. One of my favorite holidays d/t the food.

Breakfast: French toast using frozen slices of homemade bread, bacon, eggs, fruit (banana slices, strawberries, Sumo mandarin).

[Jenise]

Last night we had roasted potatoes with the leftover carrots and cabbage from Thursday's corned beef dinner which avoided having red meat three nights in a row (I'm doing a curry-cured flank steak salad to take to a wine tasting event today.

[Jenise]

No leftover cabbage or carrots here from the corned beef and cabbage. We just ate the last leftovers tonight, and it was still good. One of my favorite holidays d/t the food.

And the leftovers are so good--I look forward to them as much as the original dish. We had Reuben sandwiches already, and tomorrow or Tuesday we'll have either corned beef hash or a Reuben bread pudding.

Tonight for dinner: homemade pizza. Italian sausage, green bell pepper and red onion which was our mutual favorite in the early years of our marriage. Haven't had that combo in ages. Last time we tried to have it, we ordered it at the takeout counter at our local Whole Foods which has a pizza bar. It was horrible! Instead of fresh green bell peppers, it was a red/yellow/green melange from frozen. Wimpy texture, no flavor. Just awful.

Tonight: veal, porcini, and sage stew, to be served over baked potatoes. Roasted acorn squash on the side.

[Jenise]

Today is Meatless Monday, so lunch will be a bowl of creamed corn (fresh, cut from the cob) topped with lightly marinated green chiles and dinner's going to be cucumber salad, roasted "baby cauliflower" which is actually a cauliflower family member known as fioretti, I think, in a lemon and rosemary sauce over rice, most likely unless I decide to fold it all into a baked rigatoni. Decisions, decisions.

[Jenise]

The rigatoni won. And it was divine.

Tonight we're having Carribean-flavor-marinated cornish game hens on jollof rice, which will follow an avocado salad.

I'll be making chicken tagine with preserved lemons and olives tonight. Served with couscous, of course.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

No plan yet. Last night's hens were a disappointment. They were Mary's Air Chilled brand which I consider to be a step up from any other, but they tasted old, and that in spite of my heavy marinade. Never again. Maybe something veal. I have some scallopinis.

Tonight it is half of a very large chicken breast, bone-in and skin-on. it is doused in butter, low-sodium soy sauce, and lemon juice, s & p and Thyme, Will be cooked on a bed of sliced onions surrounded by slices of sourdough bread baked with whole roasted garlic cloves inside the bread loaf. The bread will be crispy in some parts. A sauté of multi colored mini peppers and green onions will be my veggie and a suggestion from Jenise....a few Ore Ida Fast Food fries will be cooked in the oven This will leave me with leftovers for tomorrow night as well.

[Jenise]

Sounds good, Karen. Americans in general under-use bread in cooking--when visible and not just a breading, it's either grilled cheese or salad croutons. It can do so much more!

Sounds good, Karen. Americans in general under-use bread in cooking--when visible and not just a breading, it's either grilled cheese or salad croutons. It can do so much more!

Monte Cristo, for example.

But even better is when it is perdu... French Toast!

Tonight was a bison steak med-rare with sauteed mushrooms and onions.

[Jenise]

Sounds good, Karen. Americans in general under-use bread in cooking--when visible and not just a breading, it's either grilled cheese or salad croutons. It can do so much more!

Monte Cristo, for example.

But even better is when it is perdu... French Toast!

Or a savory bread pudding, or sliced thick, toasted lightly or grilled and served underneath, like a mattress, something with a lot of delicious gravy.