Friday, May 23, 2003

 
I had totally forgotten what we had for dinner on Sunday. This is why I have to keep up with my posts. I just now remembered, after racking my brain for the last 10 minutes. Of course, as soon as I stopped trying to think of it, it came to me. So, here's the week of dinners:

Sunday
We made French Onion Soup, not quite from scratch, but better than pre-made. First, we sauteed 2 red onions and 1 white onion, thinly sliced, in a little bit of butter, just enough to help the caramelization. That took about 15 minutes or so, While the onions were cooking, I made some croutons by slicing a baguette into rounds, broiling in the oven for a few minutes and then rubbing them with a clove of garlic. I also grated some fontina cheese. After the onions were cooked down, we added a carton of Pacific Organic French Onion Soup and heated it through. We also added some salt and a dash of worchestershire sauce to brighten the flavors. Then I ladled it into some porcelain souffle cups we got at Larry's market, just for this kind of thing, and put the croutons and cheese on top. Then I put them under a broiler until the cheese melted and just started to brown on top. We also made a salad to go with the soup. It was really very good, even if a touch sweet for my taste. Next time, I may try to make the soup base myself and see if we can make it even better.

Monday
Monday I had class, so Leah made dinner. The thing that sucks about having class is that dinner is usually cold by the time I come home and so I have to reheat it in the microwave. Leah also has this habit of making fish whenever I have class, and it's usually not as good when you microwave it. So, on Monday she made cornmeal-crusted halibit w/ sauteed brussels spouts and oven-roasted baby potatoes. So, by the time I got to eat it, the crust was a little hard and the fish was a little dried out, but it wasn't too bad, just not that great. Leah said it was better when it was fresh, so I'll just have to trust her on that one.

Tuesday
Tuesday night I had an inspiration...it just came to me while we were driving home from work. Leah had set out some chicken to thaw that morning, so it worked out perfectly for my plan: chicken gyros. We already had pitas, tomatoes, cucumber and kalamata olives. We also had garlic, yogurt , tahini and chickpeas to make tzatziki and hummus. So, I marinated the chicken in lemon juice and herbs while we made the tzatziki and hummus. Then I put the chicken on the George Foreman grill and heated up the pitas on the stove. I sliced the chicken, spread a little hummus and tzatziki on the pitas, added olives, tomatoes and cucumbers and then put the chicken on top. It turned out really good! The hummus and tzatziki was super-garlicky, because the garlic was so strong, but it still tasted great. We didn't even need a side dish to go with it and Pop could even chew everything without too much trouble.

Wednesday
Again, I had class, so Leah picked up dinner from Torrero's at Third Place Commons. She got me pollo asada, which I like, so it was a pretty good meal.

Thursday
We went out for a couple of beers with a friend after work last night, so we didn't feel too much like making anything by the time we got home. We stopped at the store on the way home and picked up frozen dinners for us and fried chicken and potato salad for Pop. I had a Healthy Choice french bread pizza and Leah had Healthy Choice chicken and pasta. One thing about Healthy Choice is that they never add salt to anything, which sucks, and as Leah said, "The dinner was so tiny!!" We also got some Slim-Fast ice-cream sandwiches...they were okay, but not as good as the fudge bars. The cookie gets in the way of the creaminess of the ice-cream, which you can really only get from sucking on a bar :) Oh, also, we got Pop some pre-cooked mashed potatoes and pot roast for dinner tonight, because we are going out on a DATE!!! Leah planned it all, so it's a surprise to me. All I know is that we're getting a whole evening out, alone, just the two of us, with no Pop and no dogs to bug us...how sweet is that?

Jacki 5/23/2003