There was a bag of shrimp in the freezer I was obsessed with getting rid of.  They were pre-cooked shrimp, which means they’re only really good for shrimp cocktail, at least to me.  I guess we’re having nibblies for dinner.

DINNER - Nibblies - Shrimp cocktail, smoked salmon with cream cheese, hummus and a veggie plate with ranch dressing for dipping.

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It’s a good thing I had planned an easy meal for dinner.  I found out at about 3:30pm that I need to work for a couple hours tonight.  A couple hours could easily turn into 4 or 5 hours, we’ll see.

DINNER - Top Sirloin Steak - Top sirloin steaks grilled out on the grill and served with a baked potato and a surly side salad.  I was getting ready to take a photo of the salad and D asked if that was really necessary.  The salad commented it was a part of the meal too and demanded to be in the picture.  D called it surly but in the end, edible.

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Safeway had a ground turkey special last week, buy 1 get 1 free.  I bought 2 packages of ground turkey and used 1 within a day or two.  The other has sat in the fridge damn near a week, so I felt I needed to eat it right away.  My plans keep getting postponed so tonight was the night.

DINNER - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce - Guess what the meat in the sauce was?  Yes, turkey!  You guys are brilliant.  Ground turkey, onions, green bell peppers, garlic, crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes in their juice as well as spices make up this typical American / Italian style meat sauce.  I served it over spaghetti, of course with a side of sauteed green beans with sliced garlic. 

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Before we get to the food I have a couple minor comments.  First is blog.com British?  On my dashboard page is a chart of how many people a day view the blog.  It’s like a British car, it works for a couple of weeks and then breaks down.  I email blog.com to fix it, it works again for a couple of weeks and breaks down again.  I’m done with it, if my readership skyrockets I’ll be the last to know.

Second, I’ve missed a few days.  We either go out to eat or over to a friends.  I used to blog about this too, but no longer.  If I didn’t blog, I didn’t cook.

DINNER - Basil Chicken Hash - Chunks of potato, chicken, onion and red bell pepper with garlic and other spices.  I served it with a side salad made from whatever I could round up in the vegetable drawer of the fridge.

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We had Philly cheesesteaks about a week ago so of course there are leftover rolls.  They come in a package of 6 so that’s 3 meals worth of hoagie rolls.  I noticed the rolls are about the size and shape of a fish fillet the other day…

DINNER - Fish Sandwiches - Battered and fried tilapia fillets served on hoagie rolls with tarter sauce, lettuce and tomato with a side of cole slaw.

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I was cleaning out my pantry last weekend when I noticed 2 packages of gnocchi in the back.  Their “best by” date had expired, but not by too much.  I used to be able to buy gnocchi at Crapway, but of course they stopped carrying it, so when I came across it at another store I bought several.  Now we have to eat them, and soon.  Lucky for me the second worst grocery store in my neighborhood had ground turkey on sale and that is a key ingredient for on of my favorite gnocchi applications.

DINNER - Goulash - Ground meat (chicken, turkey or lamb work well, tonight it was turkey), onion, red bell pepper, mushrooms, spices, tomato sauce and sour cream play host to the gnocchi in place of noodles.  Tonight’s side salad featured pickled beets, radishes and tomatoes on a bed of poppy seed dressed romaine.

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It looks like I forgot a day.  I took a picture of dinner and everything, I just forgot to write about it.

DINNER - Philly Cheesesteaks - I took the last pound of the beef tenderloin, sliced it thin and cooked it on the griddle at high heat.  When it was done I melted provolone cheese over it and placed it on hogie rolls with lots of caramelized sweet onions and red & yellow bell pepper.  I made a tomato, onion and cucumber salad as a side dish.

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Although the freezer is still full of meat I failed to thaw any out, therefore when I went to the store this afternoon I bought several packages of fresh meat for us to eat on the rest of the week.  I’ll thaw some out tomorrow, I promise. 

I was craving this corn salad I make and was wondering what went well with it.  I was planning on coming up with some sort of Mexican fried chicken.  The store had fresh corn on the cob on sale so I’ll forgo the salad until Sunday and just go for basic American grub tonight.

DINNER - Oven Fried Chicken - Bone in chicken breasts with the skin removed and dredged in bread crumbs and spices and baked.  I served it with white corn on the cob (the bin said yellow corn, but that’s OK, I’m not prejudice) and a side salad with Roquefort dressing.

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I had taken a bunch of freezer meat to thaw last week and we ate the last of it tonight, not the last of the freezer meat, just the last of the thawed meat.  Plenty more meatcicles to go around!

DINNER - BLTs with Tomato Soup - An easy meal for sure, bacon, lettuce and tomato on 12 grain toast with a can of tomato soup doctored up with celery salt, fresh ground pepper and Parmesan cheese.

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I wanted to make myself a cake this weekend for by birthday.  The flavor of cake has been a matter of debate for weeks, chocolate cake with a white coconut frosting, white cake with a lemon filling, etc.  Finally I decided on a German’s chocolate cake with a combination of the standard caramel pecan coconut frosting for the filling and top and a chocolate buttercream for the sides. 

For dinner we still have 2 lbs of beef tenderloin to eat.  As the area of the house with the computers and internet was under temporary construction I didn’t have access to many of my recipes.  I decided to just wing it and hope for the best.  Luckily for me the best is what I got.

DINNER - Beef Tenderloin with Bearnaise and Garlic Horseradish Mashed Potatoes - The name says it all, a 1 lb chunk of beef tenderloin cooked out on the grill until just past rare and thinly sliced.  I topped it with a Bearnaise sauce and had some mashed Yukon gold potatoes with roasted garlic and just a teaspoon of horseradish for punch on the side.  As a veggie we had a spinach salad with tomatoes, pears and toasted walnuts dressed in a raspberry vinaigrette.

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