Dinners Last Week

When it comes to cooking dinners, I am not a big planner. Since I work from home, I generally go to the store every day. The connection there, if you’re looking for one, is that I like getting out of the house and seeing people. I pretend I’m European, though I can’t walk to the shops, and we don’t have the lovely variety that we found in France (cheese shop, wine shop, produce shop, bread shop, etc.) Suzanne often posts her plans for meals for the upcoming week, which I enjoy because sometimes it gives me ideas. Here, instead, is the meals I cooked last week. Maybe you’ll see something you like or want to try.

• Monday – Lentil Tuna Salad (picture above). I’ve written about this recipe before, and this time I have added arugula and cherry tomatoes, because I love them, and also because we had some really good cherry tomatoes from the Farmers’ Market and some arugula that needed to be used. Modifications for my family’s needs: None.
• Tuesday – Chicken tacos. I had some roast chicken breast in the fridge, and some tomatoes and lettuce that I wanted to use. I modified this recipe by adding black beans, and since the chicken was already cooked, I heated up black beans, salsa, and a can of diced fire roasted tomatoes, added cumin and green onion, and then added the chicken to warm it up. Modifications for my family’s needs: Low carb tortillas and vegan cheese options, and a fake chicken option.
• Wednesday – I had some mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used, so I made this skillet chicken and mushrooms wine sauce (new recipe for me!), which was delicious. The Dijon mustard in the sauce added a really nice touch. Modifications for my family’s needs: I used A2 milk instead of heavy cream for Ted, and Maya didn’t eat it at all, she is not a fan of mushrooms. She had leftover pasta.
• Thursday – I don’t remember where I saw this recipe for Quinoa Vegetable Soup, if it was on a blog or an ad that popped up, but it looked good to me. Lots of heart healthy vegetables, plus quinoa for protein. Modifications for my family’s needs: None. Review – It was OK. I feel like it would have been improved by some Herbs de Provence or Italian Seasoning. I’ll probably try it again and make that modification. Or perhaps I’ll just try adding quinoa to a soup recipe that I already know and trust.
• Friday – Ever since the early days of the pandemic, we have been having take out for dinner on Fridays. This week Maya had plans to go out to dinner with a friend, and Ted and I decided that was smart, so we went out for dinner as well. We ended up at Tutu’s in our neighboring town of Lafayette. Bay Area folks may remember a small, locally owned chain of restaurants, Chow. When the Lafayette location closed, Tutu’s came in to replace it and kept the Chow menu. Ted had a lamb chop, I had a chicken club sandwich, and we shared some mussels. It was good, though I wish I had followed my first instinct and ordered the Thai chicken salad, it’s really good.
• Saturday – Ted cooks on weekends. Imagine my joy when he decided that he was going to cook lamb curry and roti. YAY!!! I picture my lamb curry joy as being like Sylvester’s parents’ joy when he magically returns to them. We all LOVE Ted’s lamb curry and roti. It’s the one meat that Maya will sometimes make an exception for. (I sometimes enjoy ending a sentence with a preposition. It makes me happy.) Instead of making curried pumpkin (which is actually butternut squash) like we normally do, we got some curried vegetables from the hot bar at Whole Foods. We didn’t have enough curry powder for both the lamb and the pumpkin, and these curried veggies are delicious. Also from the hot bar was a spinach lentil dish that was fine, and some cauliflower and peas that had curry powder on them as well, which were really good. Plus some frozen samosas. It was a perfect meal. Modifications for my family’s needs: None. Sadly, Maya will likely not splurge on lamb curry again, her tummy had trouble with it after not eating red meat for so long.
• Sunday – Ted again hit a home run by deciding it was time for crab cakes. He makes excellent crab cakes, which we have with green salad and sourdough bread. Fabulous. Bonus, Ted made us dessert! I went to the Farmers’ Market on Sunday just before closing, and got some lovely strawberries. He made us some strawberries and cream (hand whipped, not from a can) which was soft and lovely. A+ Modifications for family needs: None.

We’ll see what we come up with for this upcoming week. Next weekend we will probably celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, unless it’s 90 degrees or something. Did you have anything delicious last week? Anything you are looking forward to this week?