BeeZee

Green salad with avocado, tangerine, and leftover cooked chicken breast. Some white balsamic/tangerine juice for dressing. Much needed respite from carbs.

Last night made eggplant rollatini with ricotta/spinach filling, also a quick sauteed thin cut chicken cutlet. We wound up spooning some of the extra sauce from the pan over the chicken. Keeping it a bit healthier by par baking the eggplant planks instead of battered/fried. I also did the salt/drain step before, which I usually skip, and I think that contributed to an overall “sweetness” which was very nice. Have enough leftover for another dinner, bonus.

My husband used to work for Breyers, they had a facility in West Philadelphia. Needless to say, we love ice cream too.

Christmas cookies. And an apple.

@Anna N, those look like very fine cannoli!

that's pretty cool. My husband and I have vacationed in Tucson twice, will keep this in mind next time we return. It seems we wind up there every 5 years so I'm feeling that we are due soon...

Question, and I hope to not have to deal with it, but how does the hospital accommodate dietary preferences of the patient. For example, if I smell eggs it makes me want to vomit. I remember when my Mom had cardiac surgery they gave her a menu to choose from for her meals, but I have a feeling that isn’t the case in most facilities? I know that when my in-laws were in a nursing home the food looked atrocious. My MIL kept some snacks in her room.

@HungryChris, I used to go to Mohegan Sun once a year for a regional company meeting and I was always pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food.

@Shelby, haha, I like how the string of mozz looks like a noose laying over the lasagne on your plate!

@catdaddy...relish the victory (couldn’t resist)!

@Anna N, we have 5 diners, maybe 6 within 20 minutes of our house (NJ is the diner state). DH and I have a favorite "low brow" and "high brow" diner, and you are correct, sometimes nothing beats a good diner for a hearty basic meal.

I eat roasted chickpeas or favas for high protein, savory snack. Biena is a brand of chickpeas with various flavorings available in my supermarket, they have small pouches for single serve. Also dry roasted edamame (Seapoint Farms).

I had an avocado mishap that forced me to deal with very ripe flesh of one immediately, I squished it into a freezer ziploc bag, forced as much air out as I could, and threw in the freezer immediately. It did not turn brown. However, after defrosting 2 days later, it seemed that it started to oxidize much faster than one freshly cut (I'm thinking the mushed texture contributed to that). Stirred a little lemon juice in to arrest that. It was fine used as blobs on top of a bowl of chili, but I vote for freshly cut for guacamole.

Non-traditional, kitchen sink "chili" with chicken. Frankly it's pretty far-fetched to call it chili, it has beans and many of the spices you'd associate with chili, but I also include diced yam (I like the sweet offsetting the spicy), lentils, and brown rice. Served with some avocado and pickled jalapenos on the side for DH.

Cauliflower “fried rice” style with chicken and sugar snap peas. I boosted the flavor by dicing mushrooms and sauteeing them in a separate pan with onion powder until they gave up all of their liquid and dried out, they were more or less the same size as the grains of cauliflower. Kind of a brown dish, glad I had the snap peas for the color and sweetness.

How about rum soaked raisins!

David, if they are just vacuum sealed with nothing else, they will just kind of taste starchy and you likely won't notice them in your loaf. To make them stand out in your bread, maybe you can coarsely chop them and sort of lightly "candy" them in a pan to bring out the nice roasty flavor/sweetness?

With DH out of town and its Halloween it becomes a mainly chocolatarian area around here I did have a Wasa cracker with cheese for some nutrition, or just for some salt after all the sugar is more like it.

@Okanagancook, that’s pretty spectacular. How large was it and how many people did it feed.

My Mother is hosting, I will likely bring mushroom stuffing, which is moist and reheats really well. I've made it every time I've hosted, so I'll call it a Thanksgiving "regular" at the table. I also do "make ahead" turkey gravy using roasted turkey wings, since my DH eats gravy with a spoon and Mom didn't have enough one year and he was pouting.

I made some stuffed veg with a filling that was probably half mushroom; baked at 400 the mixture got nice and brown and the mushrooms had a terrific chewy texture (the filling had been sauteed until the liquid cooked out). Best of all was the few little bits that fell out onto the bottom of the pan and got really baked, sort of like mushroom jerky. I may try to recreate that with a sheet pan/parchment.

I remember seeing notes on the menu and/or table during one bad drought in NJ that water would not be served unless requested. Generally the waitstaff are asking for your beverage order “to start” as soon as dropping the menus, so I’ve not experienced any issue with getting water. The refill of said water....that is another issue...

Got a second blade in todays mail, probably 10-11 months after the initial request (I had sent 2 emails in, using different email addresses, maybe 3 weeks apart). Heck of a lag time.

Wait staff asking if you’d like dessert, before you’ve even finished the entree. In such a hurry to get that check closed out... Clearing the table while one person is still eating. And the follow up, asking the diner who is finished if they would like dessert, while the other person is still eating their entree.

@lindag, we got the little raisin boxes in our lunch box also, and the empty box was turned into a kazoo. I prefer golden raisins to the dark ones now.