You Are What You Eat: August 4 through August 9
This was a good week for home cooking. I didn't make any new recipes, but I did make a bunch of things for the first time this year. I also had two new (sort of) restaurants on the books.
Sunday, August 4 - M and I joined several of our friends at Blossom to see Heart and Joan Jett. Before the show we met up at Pub Bricco. The food was reasonably good, as usual, but the service was abysmally slow on the patio this day. On the other hand, it's very convenient to Blossom and we had no problem leaving cars there to consolidate into a single vehicle for the concert.
Monday, August 5 - I made my mother's chili recipe (or more accurately, my variation of my mother's chili, since I add peppers and mushrooms for beyond her original version) for the second time this year. I also air fried up some potatoes for us to eat again, although that's so trivial I hesitate to call it cooking or even a recipe.
Tuesday, August 6 - It had been a while since I tapped the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, so in the morning before breakfast I threw together the Vinegar Slaw with Cucumber and Dill. It cured all day in the fridge. M loves slaw, and this made enough for her to have for lunch the rest of the week.
Of course, you can't live on slaw alone unless you are M, so the night before I had prepped a crock pot with Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken. I have no idea where this recipe originally came from, but it generates a richly marinated chicken with a lot of sauce that tastes good over rice.
Wednesday, August 7 - It's not quite autumn yet, but I was able to find all the ingredients to make Roasted Autumn Vegetables & Chicken Sausage from the September/October 2015 Eating Well. This is a nice one pan roasting recipe that generates enough for dinner and a couple of lunches. It's got red onion (M's favorite) with squash and Brussels Sprouts (both also M favorites) plus chicken breakfast sausages.
Thursday, August 8 - Food trucks came to work on Thursday, so I had dessert first and scored some frozen yogurt from The Little Penguin, which bills itself as Ohio's First & Only Self-Serve Food Truck. I had a blend of mint chocolate chip and chocolate, covered with chocolate toppings. I liked it, but I can't say it's dramatically better than other frozen yogurt options.
M had dinner with a friend, so I made Macaroni & Cheese. However, this means that I used my mother's doctored recipe which starts with the Kraft box and then adds a bunch of other stuff to get a rich and creamy mac & cheese that's so much more than orange powder. I ate it with peas and tuna, as always.
Friday, August 9 - M and I went out for dinner to El Rinconcito Chapin, which is Cleveland's only (so far as we know) Guatemalan restaurant. Remember, it's not Guatemalan cuisine if they don't have bottles of Picamas on the tables! This was the first time we'd been to this restaurant, sort of. We ate once at their original location, but then they closed. We thought they'd closed for good, but it turns out that they just took six months to move and remodel. That's a big gap, so I'm counting this as a new restaurant. The appetizer platter was delicious. The entrees weren't too bad (we split one order of pepian and another of Ejotes Empanizados), but they were definitely less interesting than the appetizers. Given M's soft spot for Guatemala, I'm sure we'll be back.
We had a lot of time to kill after dinner before our movie started, so we went to Rocky River Brewing Company. M had beer. I had a root beer float.
Totals For This Post
Days Covered: 6
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 4 / 6
New Recipes: 0
Leftover Nights: 0
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 2
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 2
New To Me Restaurants: 2
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 0
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 0
Repeated Recipes: 2
Overall Totals 2019 (less January 1)
Days Covered: 220
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 133/ 186
New Recipes: 76
Leftover Nights: 8
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 108
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 43
New To Me Restaurants: 53
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 40
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 14
Repeated Recipes: 20
Sunday, August 4 - M and I joined several of our friends at Blossom to see Heart and Joan Jett. Before the show we met up at Pub Bricco. The food was reasonably good, as usual, but the service was abysmally slow on the patio this day. On the other hand, it's very convenient to Blossom and we had no problem leaving cars there to consolidate into a single vehicle for the concert.
Monday, August 5 - I made my mother's chili recipe (or more accurately, my variation of my mother's chili, since I add peppers and mushrooms for beyond her original version) for the second time this year. I also air fried up some potatoes for us to eat again, although that's so trivial I hesitate to call it cooking or even a recipe.
Tuesday, August 6 - It had been a while since I tapped the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, so in the morning before breakfast I threw together the Vinegar Slaw with Cucumber and Dill. It cured all day in the fridge. M loves slaw, and this made enough for her to have for lunch the rest of the week.
Of course, you can't live on slaw alone unless you are M, so the night before I had prepped a crock pot with Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken. I have no idea where this recipe originally came from, but it generates a richly marinated chicken with a lot of sauce that tastes good over rice.
Wednesday, August 7 - It's not quite autumn yet, but I was able to find all the ingredients to make Roasted Autumn Vegetables & Chicken Sausage from the September/October 2015 Eating Well. This is a nice one pan roasting recipe that generates enough for dinner and a couple of lunches. It's got red onion (M's favorite) with squash and Brussels Sprouts (both also M favorites) plus chicken breakfast sausages.
Thursday, August 8 - Food trucks came to work on Thursday, so I had dessert first and scored some frozen yogurt from The Little Penguin, which bills itself as Ohio's First & Only Self-Serve Food Truck. I had a blend of mint chocolate chip and chocolate, covered with chocolate toppings. I liked it, but I can't say it's dramatically better than other frozen yogurt options.
M had dinner with a friend, so I made Macaroni & Cheese. However, this means that I used my mother's doctored recipe which starts with the Kraft box and then adds a bunch of other stuff to get a rich and creamy mac & cheese that's so much more than orange powder. I ate it with peas and tuna, as always.
Friday, August 9 - M and I went out for dinner to El Rinconcito Chapin, which is Cleveland's only (so far as we know) Guatemalan restaurant. Remember, it's not Guatemalan cuisine if they don't have bottles of Picamas on the tables! This was the first time we'd been to this restaurant, sort of. We ate once at their original location, but then they closed. We thought they'd closed for good, but it turns out that they just took six months to move and remodel. That's a big gap, so I'm counting this as a new restaurant. The appetizer platter was delicious. The entrees weren't too bad (we split one order of pepian and another of Ejotes Empanizados), but they were definitely less interesting than the appetizers. Given M's soft spot for Guatemala, I'm sure we'll be back.
We had a lot of time to kill after dinner before our movie started, so we went to Rocky River Brewing Company. M had beer. I had a root beer float.
Totals For This Post
Days Covered: 6
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 4 / 6
New Recipes: 0
Leftover Nights: 0
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 2
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 2
New To Me Restaurants: 2
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 0
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 0
Repeated Recipes: 2
Overall Totals 2019 (less January 1)
Days Covered: 220
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 133/ 186
New Recipes: 76
Leftover Nights: 8
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 108
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 43
New To Me Restaurants: 53
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 40
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 14
Repeated Recipes: 20