BeeZee

Timely post yesterday on Epicurious: https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-to-battle-kitchen-burnout-cooking-exhaustion-article One of the times when I just couldn't face deciding what to cook, I grabbed a stack of printed out recipes and asked my husband to pick 3 things he wanted to try. Probably once a week my fallback dinner is to defrost some grilled chicken breasts, chop them up, and put them on a salad. Can use up odd bits of veg, too. The variation is in the dressing, I throw together whatever tastes good. No great creativity, just basic food and healthy. Its the forced nature of the task, rather than the task itself, that I think is driving a lot of us crazy. Not to mention the never ending cycle of dish washing that it spawns. The lack of spontaneity...meals have to be planned out because you are buying your weeks groceries and that's what you have to work with. Is it any wonder many don't feel "inspired"?

Exactly right...open faced bagel, I put a piece of lettuce on top just to have something to rest my finger on rather than squishing into the lox!

Our first taste of Fall weather today, apple cake seemed to fit the bill.

After saying a week ago that she though she'd skip it this year, Mom texted me to ask if my husband and I would want to come to their house, so it will just be 4 of us, spaced around the dining room table. My sister and BIL are not included because I won't spend time in a confined area with him, he's exposed to many people at work and I don't believe he's careful enough. To paraphrase @weinoo, an unintended benefit. As far as food, I'm tasked with noodle kugel. Mom will probably make a small brisket and some chicken breasts since I don't eat beef.

Maybe that's the problem, nobody used enough booze. I like gingerbread, rarely have had a honey cake where I wanted to eat more than one slice to be polite.

You are thinking of Russian honey cake. The Jewish honey cake resembles a brick, in more ways than one.

I guess I'll call this short term preserve. Bought a pound container of figs at TJ's and they were under-ripe and tasteless, so I chopped them up and made fig compote with a pinch of cardamom. Will likely freeze it in 2 portions. Hoping that co-worker who has a friend with a fig tree comes through this year.

Yes I have, there have been some awesome pops posted by @blue_dolphinshe inspired me to jump in!

Thanks-I was figuring on reducing the sugar a bit and maybe incorporating some fruit puree with minimal sugar to increase the possibility of having it freeze a bit more solidly. Most of the ice cream pops are enrobed in chocolate (or something resembling chocolate). The pops I made with a skyr/heavy cream base froze solidly enough, my molds are pretty small (4 oz I believe). I don't mind eating the failed experiments.

I do have The Perfect Scoop, I'll give it a shot!

Opposite question from what is normally desired...if I want an eggless, stabilizer free (I have no powders) ice cream that freezes hard, what would you suggest? My intention is not to scoop, but to freeze as pops.

I like the concept of pairing savory snacks/hot sauce by region...so you could pair Asian products, then pair Mexican products. If you don’t have easy access to ethnic markets, or a curiosity.

Chicken enchilada casserole (not pretty), included black beans and lots if veggies. Avocado that had seen better days, and a beer that was living in the back of the fridge for a long time, the “best before” date was literally today...*phew* crisis averted.😉

Good to know about the bags. I wrapped my pops in saran and put in a tupperware type of container, I loathe wrangling saran wrap.

Silicone popsicle molds, two sets of 4 with wood sticks, found on sale on Amazon for under $6.

Grilled chicken breasts, corn (literally the first weekend my neighborhood Shoprite had fresh local corn), shishitos, yams.

My first pops...had 1/2 cup blueberries so made a half batch blueberry yogurt swirl. The blueberries are cooked just a couple of minutes and mashed with a bit of sugar to make compote. I added a bit of creme de cassis. For the cream portion, it is greek yogurt or skyr (my choice), sugar, and heavy cream. Very delicious. I have to work on my stick insertion skills.

I bought an assortment of flavors back from a trip a couple of years ago for my office. They went mostly uneaten by the vultures.

I just restocked my Grape Nuts, I use them to add crunch to yogurt and when I make overnight oats/muesli I sometimes add some just before eating so I get a little crunch with the mush.

At the office today...Philly soft pretzel with spicy mustard, and fruit. To be healthy.

I would just tear the "ear flap" off that slice, love a well done crust!

Dinner was a bit of a combo freezer dive plus fresh. Falafel (frozen), pita, homemade hummous, leftover grilled veg salad, cuke, farmstand tomato.

I’m jumping in on this, ordering molds from Amazon. DH loves having fruit pops after dinner and I like the idea of mixing in some coconut milk, or yogurt, for variety.

@blue_dolphin How do you wrap your pops once you remove them from the molds?

Photos from the little roadside stand I stop at when driving to my Dr’s office, he has a lot of peppers. Big tomatoes today, none of the little guys. This was around 4pm, so maybe I was scooped. I took a closer photo of a container of little green striped guys, are these Thai eggplants?