Nesting

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking over the past week, in spite of (because of?) being sick. I made homemade chicken soup, although I used boxed vegetable stock, and I made slow-cooker BBQ pork, although it also relied on a store-bought ingredient–the BBQ sauce. (Big fan of KC Masterpiece, BTW)

Last night was our usual grilled salmon–marinated briefly in Worcestershire sauce and topped with Old Bay or the generic equivalent–cheesy mashed potato casserole, and broccoli.

Tonight will be a bit of a cop-out, because although I want to cook, I’m still getting over this sinus infection and couldn’t think of anything I specifically wanted to make after getting home from work. Therefore we will be having spaghetti, with our usual array of jarred sauces.

I’d like to use the slow-cooker more during the week, but mine runs hot, which would result in burned dinner by the time we got home. People have suggested leaving it on a timer, but I keep hearing horror stories about houses burning down because of slow-cookers. And why would it be good to leave the food sitting out for several hours before the timer kicks on? I guess it would be less bad this time of year than in the summer, but it doesn’t seem like a great plan.

Oh well. At least there’s spaghetti and jarred sauce.

 

Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve was very low-key at our house, with one friend joining us for what turned out to be an evening of conversation and South Park. The menu:

chili (ground beef, no beans)
cornbread casserole (good, but needed to bake longer in the center)
make-your-own brownie sundae based on Ghiradelli brownie mix, Dreyer’s ice cream, and homemade hot fudge sauce

Now there’s chicken soup cooking slowly in the slow cooker, so we’ll be eating left over comfort food for the rest of the week.

 

Speaking of the George Foreman Grill…

Last night we made one of our easiest summer meals. Take a salmon fillet and marinate it in something (yesterday I used Newman’s Own Sesame-Ginger salad dressing; Worcestershire sauce also works). Then grill it for four minutes and 20 seconds. Goes great with garlic mashed potatoes, but what doesn’t?

Also, Costco salmon fillets are individually packaged and easy to use.