cook: breakfast for dinner on repeat

I’ve cooked Denver O'Brien potatoes before, but breakfast-for-dinner bore repeating because of the wonderful breakfast my neighbors treated me to on my birthday. I had heirloom potatoes in my pantry that Patrick brought home from the community garden as well for my clean-the-refrigerator meal. Green bell pepper (de rigueur for this dish), tomato, ham, cheese, onion, garlic mise en place on my cutting board.        

 

I also had strips of bacon intended for a Cobb salad which never happened, and so that was going into the dish also. In the bacon fat, I fried the boiled potatoes. I thought they were red potatoes, but the flesh was yellow and tasted like Yukon Golds.

 

Once the potatoes were crisp, in went the bell peppers and then tomatoes and onion and garlic into the cast iron.

 

Next the ham and green onions and lastly the cheese and more green onions sprinkled on top.

And this was my cooking really for the week because Patrick is complaining about too many leftovers in the refrigerator though that includes the macaroni and cheese to go with the grocery store fried chicken for Friday dinner.         

I've one serving left of the potatoes for a fried egg for another dinner this week while I make breakfast sandwiches with the brioche buns in my cupboard and ham and cheese still in the fridge.

cook: asian invasion in my kitchen

Did I mention that it's hot as heck in the Bay Area? Despite my kitchen being as warm as an oven, I needed to not let vegetables molder and decided that they needed to be tempura.

And if I was going to batter and fry kabocha, sweet potato, eggplant, and broccoli, I was also going to make chicken karaage.

I must've stood over hot oil in a skillet for over an hour already, and there were still lots of vegetables to be cooked.

I got it done and there was Japanese food to share with all the neighbors. All that frying because I still had half a kabocha squash in the fridge leftover from a previous Japanese dinner.

Patrick brought home more eggplant, and I still had the zucchini and yellow squash that I hadn't fried as tempura. Thai was next. All the ingredients below turned into a chicken and vegetable green curry with jasmine rice. I also happened to have a lot of peppers, both bell and chili to add with the Italian basil into the curry...

 

....but then Cecilia said I needed to thin her Thai basil plants when I said I was adding the Italian basil and holy basil to my curry and sharing with her.

 

All that herbaceous goodness definitely amped up the flavors of my curry. I wished I had remembered the kaffir lime leaves in my freezer, but.... 

....Cecilia said my green curry was the best I'd ever made and it made for a good lunch the next day at school.

I also still had a couple of pork chops from the bahn mi I made the previous week, which tonight turned into Vietnamese noodle bowls. Cecilia grilled shrimp and culled more Thai basil and mint from her garden while I tossed the leftover chops in Golden Mountain seasoning sauce, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and lemongrass. I also chopped Napa cabbage and cucumbers and shredded carrots along with cilantro and green onion.

 

The surf and turf proteins along with the rice noodles and vegetables melded deliciously with a Laotian coconut chili dressing.

And Cecilia wanted to make noodle bowls for the neighbors, but thankfully they declined and so I have what's left for my lunch at school today.

coziness: on my reading radar and the promise of tinned fish

Even though the Bay Area is hot as hades this past week, I've been pondering fall and winter and all the making I'll do once the off-season outrigger canoe paddling practices are over after November 16th. I've been paying attention to what stories and books I'll want to listen to and read. I'm reading Claire Keegan's "Foster" right now and pondering whether to subscribe to the New Yorker for perhaps just 4 weeks. And I checked out the Mary Gaitskill book yesterday from the library.

Because of Instagram book recommendations not only from the New Yorker, but also the Library of Congress, I also put a hold on the two science fiction dystopian novels and decided that I don't want to read the nonfiction book a slow sewing club member suggested.

I also put a hold on American Mermaid below, but forgot to put a hold on the original Bambi. And so I just put a hold on the story electronically. I also just put a hold on an author recommended by Ann Patchett's Instagram from Parnassus Books because I just finished her audiobook, Tom Lake.

And before I Christmas gift any books to children this year, I thought I'd preview The Dictionary Story, of which I'm thinking for Charlie in Pennsylvania and my nephew Josh's kids.

 

I also just checked out the following from the public library.

I held an impromptu happy hour with just wine and baguette and triple cream brie. Cecilia brought out smoked brislings, which I loved, loved, loved, and so now I'm on a tinned fish kick. I bought a bunch of canned octopus, mackerel, cockles, scallops as well as sardines at World Market, where I also indulged in a birthday gift of napkins embroidered with sardines as well as an Ooni cover and cookbook. Yesterday was my birthday, but my neighbors are buying me brunch as my party this morning and off I go.