blue_dolphin

Roasted butternut squash salad with pears and Stilton from Fine Cooking magazine (RIP) The recipe called for bacon but I was out so I used guanciale and I pretty much ignored the plating instructions.

I’m not a Canadian but I grew up in northern NY, about an hour south of Montreal and have visited both places multiple times. I’m sure you would enjoy either option but I agree with Kerry that Quebec City is worth a visit. It’s pretty unique, almost like visiting another country. And it’s small enough that with good planning, you can see a lot in 2 days and it would add a very different experience to your trip. The weather is likely to be a few degrees cooler than Montreal, not enough to make a big difference but in mid-May, you may notice that trees that have leafed out in Montreal are still in bud in Quebec City. There shouldn’t be crowd issues that can make the place less charming in July so you can make the most of your time. If you’re interested in a more urban, metropolitan experience, then staying in Montreal might be better for you. Lots to do and see. Two great cities - you really can’t go wrong!

I agree, the description sounds quite appealing. I generally avoid prepared meals from TJs or elsewhere. Usually due to salt content, meaning too much for me. Occasionally I try something but there’s nothing I’d recommend so despite being a very regular shopper, I’m no help in that area. On the upside, here are a few items I’m liking. The soup is in the refrigerated section. A friend served it recently at a ladies lunch. She thinned it with chicken broth and added extra broccoli so that’s my plan. I suspect it would be rather rich on its own. I’ve been buying the cherry & pecan shortbread cookies for a few months now but haven’t mentioned them because it seemed like there was never much stock and they might disappear. And they might, but if you like shortbread and see them in your store, try them. I bought 3 boxes this morning. The Greek EVOO from Crete is very good. It was $8.99/500ml bottle. TJ’s used to carry a Greek Kalamata olive oil that’s been MIA for some time. It was my go-to cooking oil. This isn’t the same thing. It’s actually a lot nicer.

Well, I figured the cabbage may give off some liquid when it thaws, but if it could be reheated on the stovetop, it could easily be reduced back down. I’ve frozen things with chunks of cooked pork that didn’t suffer too much so it seemed promising to me. Just a hunch. Edited to add that I’ve mostly frozen cabbage in soups. Seems the worst that could happen is that it would be soup after thawing but a nice soup, at least!

Heck, I’m pretty sure I’ve had cabbages that lasted two months in the fridge so it could outlast the recovery period entirely 🙃 That sounds very amenable to freezing, too!

Very smart to avoid over complicating things! Which makes me wonder why (aside from the presence of a 5 lb cabbage) you want to combine 6 new-to-you recipes into a newly designed and untested creation at what seems like a rather stressful time. Maybe this is a fun activity to keep your mind off of the stress? If so, great. If not, I’m wondering why you’re not leaning into the sameness and freezing batches of old favorites.

In this context, I don’t think the sameness is a bad thing as you probably won’t get tired of having the same thing as often as twice a month or even once a week.

I know you didn’t ask me, but I’m curious. Can you give us some examples of casseroles that use a separate sauce? I don’t think I’ve had one with a separate sauce, let alone two sauces.

Charred sweet potatoes with garlic & herb labne and Calabrian chile crisp. From Samin Nosrat’s Good Things. I used the purple-skin, white-flesh Japanese sweet potatoes. They’re charred after cooking (I steamed them first) by placing them directly on a gas burner for 5-7 min. Not the same as being cooked buried in the coals but the skin is crispy and the flesh underneath has some of that same delicious roasted flavor.

A simple carrot salad from Good Things. Kind of a riff on the classic carrot-raisin salad. This one tosses the carrots with dates, fresh ginger, garlic, ground cumin, cilantro and pickled Thai chiles, then adds a quick dressing of olive oil, lime juice, chile vinegar (from the Thai chiles) and salt. I piled the salad on a bed of baby kale that I dressed with the same dressing. This wasn’t a meal salad, I had it alongside a salmon burger for lunch.

In my experience, it’s usually the texture that suffers rather than the flavor. YMMV For umpteen years, I brought frozen meals to work for my lunch every freaking day. Lasagne, soups, chili, enchiladas, bean stews, lots and lots of pasta with vegetables (chunky shapes, cooked very al dente, both the pasta & veg) hummus and other bean dips. Always accompanied by a zip top bag of raw carrots, celery, snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, jicama, radishes, cherry tomatoes which offered a nice textural contrast. Not everyone cares as much about texture as much as I do and even those who do may be satisfied with less of it when feeling under the weather. There have been times when I’d have preferred all nutrition be something I could sip through a straw so I didn’t have to chew anything 🙃 Along those lines, if I were having surgery, I’d be filling my freezer with smoothie kits that could be dumped into the blender with juice, milk or yogurt. I’ve got lots of combos with a couple servings of both fruit and veg, protein and fiber. It’s not going to feed the rest of the family but there have been times that’s all I could stomach!

A food item that has been freeze-dried has indeed survived the freezing process. Importantly, it has never been subjected to the thawing process. Instead, the ice crystals are removed via sublimation. Pretty much anything containing moisture can be successfully frozen. Thawing? That’s a different story! If you are keen to dive into making freeze-dried meals, like backpacking or emergency rations in multiple servings, that’s going to require a significant investment in equipment but rereading that thread would be an excellent primer.

A quick search for freezing cookbooks on Eat Your Books and my local public library shows two main types of cookbooks: Preserving cookbooks, either dedicated to freezing or covering freezing among other preservation methods. Cookbooks with recipes intended to be frozen My library had quite a few available for to borrow online via Libby so you might check yours. Another place to find recipes for freezer meals is the Souper Cube site. You don’t need to use their product but they have ideas that might be useful like freezing single servings or freezing meal components separately in “meal kits”

My advice isn’t specifically about cooking but if I were having surgery, I would be setting up accounts with the grocery delivery and errand running services in my area and trying them out with simple orders. I’ve learned that being already sick or in recovery is not the time to set that stuff up. No amount of advance planning can prepare for all eventualities so it’s wise to have some delivery options in your back pocket. Particularly pharmacy pickup or delivery options. For yourself, make sure you’re set up with easily digestible options that might not be otherwise appealing but can get you through. I keep some of these on hand at all times. I donate and rotate them out periodically. Soft fruits: bananas, applesauce, avocado, pumpkin, canned fruit (packed in water not heavy syrup), and melons Steamed or boiled vegetables: carrots, green beans, potatoes, and squash Low-fiber starches: white bread, white rice, saltine crackers, cream of wheat, instant oatmeal, and noodles Unseasoned skinless baked chicken or turkey, scrambled eggs, yogurt and kefir Drinks: bone broth, apple juice, coconut water, Pedialyte, weak tea If you have friends or neighbors who want to help out with something like a meal train for you or your family, give some thought to how you’d like that to work from your end. People like to help and the more you can guide them, the better. Setting up a clear drop off spot, including a cooler can be a big help.

Today’s lunch was the Cauliflower with Olives and Tomato from Six Seasons of Pasta. I had a mix of white, green, yellow and purple cauliflower which this recipe doesn’t particularly show off to its best but it was still a fine lunch. I added a few handfuls of baby kale that aren’t part of the recipe