What are you cooking?

[jaylach]

For those that do, what are you doing for Labor Day? I'm having a nice pound of rib eye bone-in steak and mayo based pasta salad. The pasta salad will cover a bit as to a veggies as there will be onion, fresh peas, carrots, black olive and, mayhaps, some sweet corn. There will also be a decent dose of crisp bacon. Normally I'd add hard boiled egg to make a sort of deviled egg pasta salad but leaving out the egg this time. I'm out of egg.

 

[Fishmanic]

I was feeling lazy tonight so I was ready to just have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a couple of hot dogs. I opened the freezer to get some ice and what do I find?.....I find frozen veal parmigiana. So I figured that would make for a great dinner tonight...certainly better than a hot dog. I defrosted it in the microwave for 15 minutes and made a pot of spaghetti. Opened a jar of my favorite sauce.. Bertoli's tomato and basil sauce. I heated up some broccoli and sat down for a nice dinner. It was delish!

 

[gimme30]

For those that do, what are you doing for Labor Day?

I took advantage of the break to get some miles on the bike, so no cooking for me at all! But while I generally travel light I'm kinda wishing I'd brought food now. I paid more for a meal in Steamboat than I'd pay for an entire month's worth of groceries and a bison burger in Yellowstone that I thought I'd have to sell an organ to pay for.
Just got back last night and I do not feel like cooking at all, so it's pizza or Chinese take-out tonight.
Or maybe I'll just head to Winchells and get all sugared up this morning and sleep through dinner.

 

[jaylach]

Won't actually place the order but I just finished my grocery order for delivery tomorrow. Thursday is "seniors Day" but I save more by doing on-line. Best I've ever done on senior day in the store was saving $15.00-$20.00. Ordering on-line I saved $58.00. Granted in that I tip well for the driver let's say I saved $38.00 due to a $20.00 driver tip. I still saved around twice the amount if I shopped in the store.

 

[fishorama]

Gee whiz, I spent a boring day going through old paper files before a realtor's "shredding event" tomorrow. I did find a few things worth saving, then ran out of steam with dust sneezing. We did this last year so there was much less. All I can say is pack rats shouldn't marry...& that's just paper. Downsizing other stuff will take years, lol

I was planning to make au gratin potatoes with ham earlier but bailed. We settled for burgers.

 

[fishorama]

Well, darn! Our milk was "off" today, not quite "bad" but no. There was a time we bought a gallon of milk & it almost never went bad. Now we often throw out at least part of a half gallon. Less cereal & mac'n'cheese I guess

So, no au gratin potatoes. I decided on sauteed Italian chicken, the last in the freezer Fried potatoes maybe with onion & red bell pepper, green salad with cheese & chickpeas, for me anyway.

Soaking dried black beans & starting a new grocery list.

 

[jaylach]

Well, darn! Our milk was "off" today, not quite "bad" but no. There was a time we bought a gallon of milk & it almost never went bad. Now we often throw out at least part of a half gallon. Less cereal & mac'n'cheese I guess

It costs a little more but I switched to Fairlife milk. It has a shelf life of around 6 weeks. I no longer throw away milk.

 

[Fishmanic]

Well, darn! Our milk was "off" today, not quite "bad" but no. There was a time we bought a gallon of milk & it almost never went bad. Now we often throw out at least part of a half gallon. Less cereal & mac'n'cheese I guess

So, no au gratin potatoes. I decided on sauteed Italian chicken, the last in the freezer Fried potatoes maybe with onion & red bell pepper, green salad with cheese & chickpeas, for me anyway.

Soaking dried black beans & starting a new grocery list.

I have the same problem wth milk when I buy the half gallon size. So instead of wasting a quart or so, I always transfer a quart or so to another container and freeze it. It freezes just fine and no more wasted milk.

 

[fishorama]

I've tried freezing milk before leaving on vacation. It doesn't thaw back to "normal", it kind of separates that shaking doesn't fix. Fishmanic is there some trick to it? It may be different "sell by" dates in different states? There are stores we don't buy milk from. I think their fridge units or delivery trucks don't keep it cold enough. We always check dates, 2+ weeks is preferred.

 

[Fishmanic]

I have found if you don't freeze it for more than a few weeks, it thaws out just fine in the fridge. May take a day or two to fully thaw but it will thaw out properly. If you leave the milk in the freezer for a month or two, it might not thaw out properly.

 

[fishorama]

We're not gone for more than 2 weeks at most. Could it be different fat content? I haven't tried freezing it in many years. We're down to 1-2% these days. Of course, neither of us use milk in coffee so slow thaw seems like a good idea. We used to leave it for the fish sitter along with veggies that won't keep.

 

[Fishmanic]

I use 2% milk. I used to use half and half but my coffee is very hot and I need to cool it down a bit before drinking and extra milk remedies that. I use an insulated tumbler so the coffee stays hot for a long time unless I used extra milk to cooI it down. I could do without extra fat from using too much cream.

 

[jaylach]

Either wings or burger and fries tonight. I have a three pound bag of raw wings thawed and ready for cooking but I like what I call "sticky wings" with BBQ sauce and don't really have enough BBQ sauce until tomorrow or Wednesday depending on when I get around to placing my grocery order. However, I have a full bottle of oriental orange sauce that I may try instead of BBQ. I like my wings to have either a sweet sauce such as Teriyaki, a mix between hot and sweet such as BBQ or really on the hot side. The orange sauce I use has a really pretty high bite as to heat so may be good.

When I do Sticky Wings (BBQ) I crisp the skin in a little oil then use paper towels to soak out the oil and use a bit of white rum to deglaze the pan and add doctored and watered down BBQ sauce. Let that go for a couple of hours at a very low simmer and be careful removing from the pan as they WILL fall apart. Need a roll of paper towels to eat these things as they make a mess of your hands. I don't currently have one but I used to keep a dish towel for my hands that I'd wet to wipe my hands. Ya, messy but good!

Sounds odd but, sometimes, I'll add cut carrots to the wings in the later part of cooking. Hey, get wings in a food place and carrots are usually included so why not?

 

[Fishmanic]

Today the senior center held an outdoor BBQ under a tent at a local town owned estate. They had 50s rock songs playing in the background. The weather was perfect...sunny and low 70s temperatures.
They served hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and a pasta salad. Apple cider was offered. For dessert, they had apple cider cake and brownies. About 100 seniors attended. They even offered leftovers if you wanted to take a meal home.

 

[fishorama]

Sounds great, Fishmanic!

We went to a new bar/restaurant for football yesterday. No sound & pricey food. Good pizza, enough to share. & our Eagles won a close game.

Tonight it was fried potatoes & ham with salad. Some of the chickpeas were still frozen making a new textural & temp different treat.