What Are You Having For Dinner

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A ribeye and a salad...

I'm finally getting caught up organizing my foods since I replaced the freezer. I like diced ham on a salad but don't eat a lot of them. A package of diced ham will go bad before I use all of it. I cut tinfoil into squares, just big enough to hold the ham for one salad. They go in the freezer. Any time I want a salad I just toss a pkg of ham in a cup of room temp water... takes about 10min to thaw one pkg.

Ham freez a.JPG
 
Garden meal tonight. Fried taters dug a couple weeks ago, pinto's from last year, maters and cukes picked tonight. And for the topper we opened a jar of pickled onions the wife did about a month ago. Decided before supper was over to find a good long keeping receipe and do a big batch of those. I could of ate half a pint myself if I hadn't stopped myself.
Wife was happy with supper tonight
 
Found another package of brats in the freezer; cut them in to bite sized pieces and threw them in the fry pan. Once they browned up nice I added a jar of maters I canned up last year and let them cook down. Little salt and pepper and it's a good meal. Store bought cookies for desert because I'm too lazy to bake anymore.
 
Tonight I tried something different. If you read the ingredients in the recipe, it's kind of like WTH?

Pork Picadillo: Pork shoulder, slowed cooked all day in crock pot. Other ingredients (added later in the cooking cycle): Saute onions, bell pepper and garlic in olive oil. Then add diced tomatoes, raisins and pimento stuffed green olives. For seasonings you add in cumin, allspice, oregano, cinnamon, pepper, kosher salt, bay leaves and apple cider vinegar. Add this mix to the pork shoulder in the crock pot (I drained 2/3 of the pork juices out of the crock pot first). After a while I pulled the pork out and chopped it up into smaller chunks, then returned it to the crock pot. There was still enough juice in there for everything to be submerged.

I will admit, reading this recipe frightened me. But it came out great. Who would have thought raisins vs. olives vs. onions with a cinnamon twist would do anything but make you barf? But whoever came up with this recipe was a genius. The ingredients play off of each other very nicely. If you're tempted to leave the raisins and/or olives out ... don't. I don't particularly like either of those by themselves, but they really make this dish.

Here's the basic recipe I used:

https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/252830/pork-picadillo/
For the 1 lb ground pork that was called for (that wouldn't be enough meat for all the other ingredients IMHO), I substituted a 6 lb bone-in pork shoulder cooked all day in a crock pot on low.
I used one 14oz can of petite diced tomatoes rather than the 28 oz can called for. Just dumped the whole can in, juice and all.
I subbed apple cider vinegar for red wine vinegar because that's what I had on hand.

I was going to make rice to go with this, found I was out, so made a package of chicken flavor Rice-a-roni instead. That worked out fine.
 
Dinner was out at the Rock, a local bar and grill with a nice patio overlooking what should be the city but it’s covered in trees, so it’s pretty. Club sandwich and sweet potato fries for me, “not yo momma’s grilled cheese” and potato chips for him.

I’m grateful for him granting me the respite from cooking. I’ve been head-down working on a game jam for the last three weeks and exhausted by dinnertime.

Tomorrow, however, will be at home — either leftovers or maybe Japanese curry, hmm.
 
We went out for Ethiopian food. Not my favorite. The daughter wanted it. It was better than the last time I had it. The lamb dish was good. The lentils were good. Other things ... not spiced to my taste. Edible though. Ethiopians have this fermented bread that is very unique. Spongy and stretchy. You use it to pick up your food, with your hands, since they don't have forks.

If you have back problems, or are fat, scan the restaurant for normal tables and chairs first. You'll definitely want those. Leave the midget stools and tables woven like baskets to the younger, more physically fit and flexible folks. Unless you like sitting there with your knees in your armpits, bent over trying to eat something the consistency of a bowl of chili with your fingers. Hint: Ladies, do not wear short skirts! The seating position is anything but modest. We're jeans and shorts wearing type of people so that part didn't affect us, but the party next to us seemed to have some issues in that department. Our entire parties food came on one big plate for the entire table. About 3 feet in diameter. Lots of reaching. Definitely skip the white shirt. And dangly necklaces too. Don't plan on a quick meal. Several hours at every Ethiopian restaurant I've been too. There always seems to be only one employee - owner, front desk hostess, waitress, cook and busboy. All-in-one. And meals appear labor intensive to make.

All-in-all, it was a fun evening. At least, once we moved our seating from the Hobbit stools around the woven basket to a normal table. Up until that point, we were pretty miserable. And learn that you are eating in a place from a different culture. Expect your water glass to remain empty for extended periods of time, if you even got it in the first place. If we had waited for the bill to be delivered on the proprietors timeframe, we would probably still be there waiting today. No greeting when you come in or checking in on you to see if everything is alright or if you need anything. Service means different things in different cultures. The proprietor did come talk to us after dinner and was friendly. The low service level followed by the friendly after dinner chat must be more in keeping with the culture I think. About $20 -$25 per person for the food. Drinks, appetizers, desserts, tip extra on top of that.
 
Haertig said:
We went out for Ethiopian food. Not my favorite. The daughter wanted it. It was better than the last time I had it. The lamb dish was good. The lentils were good. Other things ... not spiced to my taste. Edible though. Ethiopians have this fermented bread that is very unique. Spongy and stretchy. You use it to pick up your food, with your hands, since they don't have forks.

If you have back problems, or are fat, scan the restaurant for normal tables and chairs first. You'll definitely want those. Leave the midget stools and tables woven like baskets to the younger, more physically fit and flexible folks. Unless you like sitting there with your knees in your armpits, bent over trying to eat something the consistency of a bowl of chili with your fingers. Hint: Ladies, do not wear short skirts! The seating position is anything but modest. We're jeans and shorts wearing type of people so that part didn't affect us, but the party next to us seemed to have some issues in that department. Our entire parties food came on one big plate for the entire table. About 3 feet in diameter. Lots of reaching. Definitely skip the white shirt. And dangly necklaces too. Don't plan on a quick meal. Several hours at every Ethiopian restaurant I've been too. There always seems to be only one employee - owner, front desk hostess, waitress, cook and busboy. All-in-one. And meals appear labor intensive to make.

All-in-all, it was a fun evening. At least, once we moved our seating from the Hobbit stools around the woven basket to a normal table. Up until that point, we were pretty miserable. And learn that you are eating in a place from a different culture. Expect your water glass to remain empty for extended periods of time, if you even got it in the first place. If we had waited for the bill to be delivered on the proprietors timeframe, we would probably still be there waiting today. No greeting when you come in or checking in on you to see if everything is alright or if you need anything. Service means different things in different cultures. The proprietor did come talk to us after dinner and was friendly. The low service level followed by the friendly after dinner chat must be more in keeping with the culture I think. About $20 -$25 per person for the food. Drinks, appetizers, desserts, tip extra on top of that.
Click to expand...
We eat Middle Eastern food/ DW calls it Mediterranean cuisine, maybe she is right, but I think of pizza, pasta, wine, olive oil & Gyro as Mediterranean. Anyways, I like the lamb dishes & hummus.
 
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