Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking. This is perfect for me since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!I haven't written a Weekend Cooking post in a while because I've been so busy this summer. This week, my two sons were up at their grandparents' on their annual sailing vacation with their cousins, so my husband and I were on our own! I spent much of the week resting and recovering, but I also enjoyed cooking a few meals for the two of us, without worrying about picky eaters!
Coincidentally, our CSA haul this week included a wild mix of veggies my kids wouldn't touch, including beets, purple cabbage, okra, sorrel, dandelion greens, and cucumbers. So, I planned our meals around the veggies.
One night, we just had a simple dinner salad, with some Boston lettuce mixed with the sorrel (which is a bit bitter), and topped with cucumber, green beans, and roasted beets, plus some sliced steak, with a bit of blue cheese and a vinaigrette. Yum! It was delicious. I really like roasted beets, though they are a bit messy to prepare.
The okra had me stumped since the only thing I normally know to do with it is gumbo, and it was just too hot this week for soup. I searched on Cooking Light for summer okra recipes and found a great one: Corn and Summer Vegetable Saute. I used another recipe, Broiled Shrimp over Black Bean and Corn Salad, to marinate some large shrimp (I cooked ours on the grill) and served the shrimp on top of the Summer Veggie Saute. I even remembered to take a photo this time! It was delicious - perfect for a warm summer day.
And last night, I finally used that cabbage in Simmered Cabbage with Beef, Shan Style. I modified it a bit because I knew my husband wouldn't go for that "meat as flavoring" thing, so I used a half-pound of ground beef for the two of us (instead of the quarter-pound for four people the recipe calls for!). Anyway, it was delicious.The kids come home this weekend, so it's back to more traditional meals, starting with our family's #1 favorite dinner, my own Red Beans and Rice recipe.
Hope you are enjoying your food and cooking this week!
Picky eaters can really hinder kitchen creativity! Glad you enjoyed cooking this week :-)
ReplyDeletei love every veggie in the world.
ReplyDeleteexcept okra. can not stand it! lol
Oh YUM! I love red beans and rice! And black beans with corn salad! Looks delicious!
ReplyDeletethanks for this, Sue.
ReplyDeletePS Did you know that your background image makes it quite hard to read your post - or is it just the way it displays on my computer?
I totally get that -- plan shrimp and mushroom meals for our daughter's week at camp. Looks like a great week of eating!
ReplyDeleteHow nice that you got to experiment in the kitchen this week! I've never made anything with okra, but I've been meaning to since it keeps popping up at the farmer's market down the street. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fun week with some good eating. I didn't think I liked okra but sliced and roasted or stir-fried, it turned out that I did.
ReplyDeleteThat shrimp dish looks wonderful.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm particularly happy you included an okra recipe. We got okra in our CSA this week and I'm not usually much of a fan. I'll check out your recipe -- maybe that will be dinner tonight.
ReplyDeleteCarole -
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you're seeing - the background behind my text is just plain white - I prefer a clean look for my blog.
Is anyone else having trouble viewing my blog?
It looks fine on my computer (a Mac running Firefox and Safari).
Please let me know!
Thanks -
Sue
Sue - The background is plain white and very easy to read for me, too. I'm using a MacBook with safari.
ReplyDelete