Potato gnocchi with freshly grated "Parmesan"*

*P.S. Real Parmesan cost $1,000 per wheel and is used as collateral in certain transactions. It can only be designated as Parmesan if it comes from Parma or Reggia in Italy. Whatever we use in the States is fine, but can't be technically called Parmesan.

Grilled pork chops with a blue cheese sauce, roasted potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and onions with rosemary and thyme, and fresh fruit. Delicious and able to be cooked almost entirely on the grill outside so I didn't have to heat my house up any more than it already got on this oppressively hot day!

Grazed...
* Buckwheat noodles in soy sauce
* 4 whole English muffins
* ⅓ bag of baby Multicolored Carrots

I've been baking bread. It's amazingly delicious and what magic is this? Flour, water (or whey, because I've also been making yogurt), and salt and - voila! Something delicious and chewy is formed.

In honor of Skyrim's 10th anniversary yesterday (yes, I missed the actual date- my apologies to the Dragonborn!) I broke out my Official Elder Scrolls Cookbook and made an appropriate Skyrim feast- Jorrvaskr Mead Hall Companions-style meatballs, twice-baked potatoes with goat cheese and the Stormcloak seasoning blend, Khajiiti moonsugar glazed baby carrots, moonsugar/honey pudding for dessert, and of course, a bottle of wine that had a dragon on the label to drink alongside everything.

Sadly, someone stole my sweetroll.

I've been meaning to bring life back to this thread, but real life is being...real life. That being said, I have found some motivation.

We're currently doing a pantry / freezer clean out so we can do a fall-ish restock. I have (6) 1 pound boxes of macaroni pasta that I need to do something with. It is going to be Pasta Salad Summer. Yikes!

I have a hanging folder overflowing with recipes that we like or have yet to be tried. I've grown tired of this folder, so I'm transitioning my recipes to a disc system like what is used with Happy Planners. I've ordered a cover from Etsy and bought a new printer that prints on both sides of a sheet of paper so I can finally stop wasting paper and ink. I can do this with my current printer if I flip the paper over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

On to what I made for dinner last night:

Cauliflower Broccoli Ham Salad

https://www.eatwell101.com/cauliflo...li-salad-recipe

If you're vegan or vegetarian, leave out the ham and cheese. I didn't add the cheese as Dingus needs to cut back on dairy. You can replace the ham /cheese with something else or serve without either one or both. This recipe came with a recipe for a dressing. I didn't have any white wine vinegar, so I used the following:

Italian Salad Dressing

https://www.eatwell101.com/italian-...dressing-recipe

This stuff tastes much better than the yuck in a bottle at the store and is a fraction of the cost. Instead of using mayo for the endless pasta salad I'll be making, I'll be using this salad dressing instead. Gone are the days of companies selling me expired canola-based mayonnaise.

Boiled egg. Thats right, i just boiled 2 eggs. Normally, when you'd boil an egg and eat it without salt, it has a bland but not offensive taste. This time, somehow i messed up boiling the eggs and they tasted terrible even when i added salt. I even added a sauce. Still terrible taste. How did i mess up something as simple as boiling an egg? I bet even hard tack tastes better than this.

Why so bland? I wonder if the eggs went bad?

Maybe i overboiled them. Idk. Yellow yolk with some small gray patches. If i'd boil them for a couple minutes less i'd bet i would have some ok-tasting eggs.

We had a massive bowl of mystery grain and veggies. I call it mystery grain because its not buckwheat but it sort of looks like it. No idea what the packaging said because even in the languages that I do know I didnt know what the words meant (11/10 language skills right there) but the parentals seemed to know what it was, and we didn't die so its all good. Anyway the veggies were broccoli and carrots with the standard old garlic and onion combo. Seasoning too, but I dont remember what mum's executive decision was.

I let the kids pick when we went to Tesco... they chose: pigs in blankets, chips, battered prawns and vanilla mochi balls.

I was going to make chicken noodle soup since it is cold and crappy out, but then I remembered I have a roast that I need to do something with.

Instant Pot Mississippi Pot Roast

https://amandascookin.com/instant-p...ippi-pot-roast/

I'll probably make some rice and broccoli to go with it.

I like cooking so I cooked homemade pizza for today

Practiced making rice balls in the shape of baby bears. I made 9 with my baby bear mold.

I ate 7 of them and will eat the "survivors" when I am hungry again...🤣.

The first time I made one with rice colored green with natural food dye powder, it resembled a Care Bear (Good Luck Bear)

It turned out that 1 cup of uncooked Kokuho Rose rice and 1¼ cup of water in my rice cooker yields about enough rice for 9 bears.

Better get some cookie cutters and nori punches if I want to up my presentation and use up my nori and mamenori.

I am getting the hang of decoben cooking...

...But not to the point of "Iron Chef", over-the-top, replica of Venice with an opera singing prawn with a golden throat like the famous Enrico Caruso as it navigates the waterways on a gondola.

Tried a new recipe tonight - quesadillas made with brie, arugula, sauteed mushrooms with rosemary, and a schmear of honey. Parsley sprinkled on top. The flavor was amazing.

Also made my second attempt at sourdough bagels. The last ones were tasty, but smallish and almost right. Not sure how these will taste yet as they are still cooling and we ran into one snafu with Alexa not setting the timer while they were baking. They are completely whole wheat and they were left to rise after they were shaped, whereas the first recipe I tried was a mix of rye and white bread flour and was allowed to rise before shaping into bagels. We rolled some in oats, some in white sesame seeds, and some in poppy seeds. Can't wait to try them!

Oven baked chicken drumsticks (my "quick recipe" - I use frozen chicken, and make a "bbq" sauce to slatter on them with some butter, spices, a splash of mild chili sauce and a bit of ketchup), and scalloped potatoes on the side (the "lazy version" from a bag).

Takes about 10 minutes to prepare, and about 40-50 minutes in the oven, so it's quite chill. I never even bother to thaw the chicken...

Not dinner, but there was a lemon meringue pie that we made

We made pizza- one had paprika, tuna, anchovies and onions, the other had more cheese, mushrooms and paprika. I ate some of both but picked out the anchovies cos thats waaaay too much flavour for such a small fish

Celery sticks and Mac and cheese, original tubes.

Shrimp enchiladas. mmm, mmmmm!

Had pancakes for dinner (been a while).



I don't know why I was thinking "Mac and cheese comes in tubes?" (I don't eat MacnCheese) but I was thinking about entirely different tubes (not macaroni tubes). I blame it on a tired brain

Homemade veggie pizza.

Snacks are for dinner because I'm not bothered to do anything about the lack of actual groceries today

Buttered toast (stomach issues).

Currently transitioning to Gatorade and Pedialyte and mild starches

Pasta and veggies

These long green beans I always forget the name of in English. Plus tomatoes, onion and some garlic (duh) and the basic seasonings. When the veggies were done I poured a carton of spicy tomato sauce over it and let that cook for a bit so it didnt taste like battery acid. The pasta was fusilli tricolore because colourful pasta is always more exciting. I mixed all of it together and really wanted to add cheese to it but the everyone said no so I only put cheese on my portion. Wimps.