ElainaA

Inspired by this thread I visited our local Aldi's yesterday. Sadly, it still smells quite dreadful. I didn't stay. Maybe a local management problem?

These breakfasts are just awesome. If someone would make any of them for me I would devour them. I am unable to think of anything complicated until after I've had tea and toast - well, I can manage a bagel if we have any - and after my tea, i don't need to eat anything more until lunch. And I do drink a lot of tea - I have a standing, recurring order for loose, whole leaf darjeeling with Mighty Leaf - so those little hands would be used here. But like so many others here, I would have to get rid of some of the current stuff to store any new stuff. And I like my stuff......

I'm still exploring Meera Sodha's Made in India. Last night was mixed vegetables - leeks, snap peas, green beans, asparagus and peas with turmeric, mustard seeds, coriander, garlic,chili powder and salt. Also "badsha kitchari" - basmati rice and moong dal cooked with lots of onions, green chili, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric and cumin seeds. Cooked in vegetable stock. Topped with chopped almonds and yogurt. Both very good. I wish I had made some bread to go with. I like Julie Sahni's recipe for poori -"deep fried puffy breads". The kitchari was very like a spiced up version of mejedrah ( or mujaddara or mujadarrah or any one of a dozen other spellings. )

The fish section of our local PriceChopper has just that. A section with fish, chopped vegetables and a recipe card. I've never been tempted. I'm not sure our town (very working/lower class) is the best place for this. I also wonder why they started with fish rather than meat - which I think would be more popular here. Also - they offer basic meals - fish or shell fish, and, usually fried potatoes, that they will cook for you after you choose your fish.

Pork tenderloin. sautéed , with red onion confit (onions, red wine, vinegar and honey), cider sauce with apples and bourbon (made with apple juice because its the wrong time of year for good cider), black rice and sweet potatoes with ginger and scallions (this was wonderful) and a salad (not shown).

I'd be very happy to send you some water. Please come and take it away! (This was taken today - April 6.!) Why can't Mother Nature just even things up?

Salmon with an apple juice/honey glaze over sautéed spinach, very plain potatoes with parsley and a salad with pears and pecans among other things. The salmon was very good - my local grocery had salmon on sale but when I got there they had run out of the sale variety (the regular - I think Atlantic? variety) so the nice fish guy first said 'come back tomorrow' but then offerred me some sockeye at the sale price. The regular price for the sockeye was almost twice the sale price. It pays to be nice to the fish guy. I don't have a picture of Monday's dinner but it was chicken breast breaded in chopped pecans and panko with a sauce of shallots, reduced apple juice and a little cream, caramelized apple slices, rice and a salad.

No outdoor gardening here today. This is what my garlic bed looks like More snow forecast for Monday and Tuesday. April snow is actually pretty usual here but the winter was so mild that plants are way ahead of their usual schedule. I think the garlic will survive. Sadly, the daffodils decided to start blooming last week. Both the blooms and the not-yet-opened buds were frozen.

Naan - posted also on the dinner thread as they were made to do with last night's curried lentil soup.

@liuzhou Thank you. And they were perfect with the soup.This is just my second batch. The recipe is from Meera Sodhu's Made in India.

@Anna N Those portobellos look absolutely beautiful - and also delicious. Last night was curried lentil soup, topped with yogurt (Fage whole milk Greek yogurt - my favorite), home made naan and salad. Wednesday was pasta with sausage, leeks and peas. And salad.

Thanks!

Risotto with the last of the Easter grilled lamb and artichokes. And a salad with micro greens.

Hasn't iceberg staged something of a comeback as "wedge" salad? Or has that already come and gone again? We have salad at least 5 nights of the week with dinner. For most of the year I use mainly romaine and red leaf lettuce, both generously mixed with endive and radicchio. During the relatively brief growing season I go lettuce crazy - I have seeds of 12 different varieties waiting to go into the ground. I particularly like oakleafs (panisse is my favorite) and butterhead - I'm growing both green and red varieties of both. I like batavias (also called summer crisp) too. I never see any of these varieties in groceries here - only in the summer in farmer's markets. But then I have my own. Interesting lettuce year round is one of the best reasons I can think of for a heated greenhouse. Sigh. And, @DiggingDogFarm, I agree - I always grow buttercrunch.

I love Berkley mushrooms!

@DianaB Those baguettes look pretty darn perfect to me!

One of my favorite things about Easter is that lamb goes on sale. This was a mini-leg that I butterflied, painted with Julia Child's mustard-soy-lemon sauce and grilled. After ruthlessly removing all visible fat. There are roast potatoes with garlic and baked tomatoes with breadcrumbs, shallot, garlic, parsley and olive oil. And a salad of endive, romaine, fennel, radicchio, pears, pecans and probably a few other things that I forget. (Many people dislike lamb. The night before my wedding , 35 years ago!, my soon-to-be-inlaws took us out to dinner. I ordered lamb. My almost-mother-in-law looked at me and said "You're not going to eat that, are you?" It was definitely a warning. I love lamb.)

Breakfast here is usually tremendously boring - I'm a tea-juice-toast sort of person in the morning. But one Easter ritual is for my husband to make a frittata: And to go with it, I made hot cross buns -it's the first time I've made them. I like them a lot and the store version i can get locally is pretty bad. These were good.

@Panaderia Canadiense @rotuts said it perfectly. I'd add: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

@Anna N I make something similar - "Cauliflower, potatoes and peas in spicy herb sauce" (Gobhi Matar Rasedur) from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking - that i think is delicious. Let me know if you would like the recipe to try.

When my daughter was in school -undergrad and grad school - that was always the menu she asked for when she came home, minus the mushroom gravy (she always topped her mashed potatoes with sour cream - probably still does). Meatloaf and mashed potatoes one day and pasta with pesto the next.

@liuzhou That's a lot like our last night's dinner. No picture - grilled salmon with onions and balsamic vinegar, whole steamed artichoke and rice with toasted pine nuts. I love artichokes but I can't help but wonder who in the world 1. first saw them as edible and 2. figured out how to eat them? ("Hey! See that big bud on that thistle? I bet if we steamed it, pulled off each leaf, dipped it in something and pulled it between our teeth it would taste great!" "Yeah, right....")

I bought Meera Sodha's Made In India for my daughter for her birthday. So, of course, before I wrapped and mailed it I tried out a few recipes. I had already made the chicken curry and the naan since those recipes were included in the NYTimes article (that's where I first heard of the book). This time I made 3 from the "snacks" section - chicken tikka,spiced potatoes tikki and chaat salad. The sauce on the potatoes is yogurt, mint, lemon juice and a little sugar. The salad has cucumber, radish, scallions, chickpeas fried with mustard seed and chili powder, coconut,cilantro and chaat masala. It was supposed to have pomegranate seeds too but there were none available in local stores. I could have driven to Wegman's in Ithaca or Syracuse and found some but I took a nap instead and added some dried cranberries. I missed the pomegranate but it was still good. I'm ordering a copy of the book for myself. Tuesday night: Mahi-mahi roasted with citrus zest and juice, topped with mustard - lemon juice vinaigrette. With grilled asparagus and rice.

I see collard greens intermittently in the supermarkets here (central upstate NY). I don't use them but they are available.