What's for dinner?

[NerdGirl]

Tonight I am having chicken, spaghetti squash, and peas. But only if the chicken thaws out soon. If it doesn't, I'm having popcorn and a ring pop.

[Digit]

Those of you without a Wegmans within driving distance have my sympathies.

[Dragon Lady]

Tonight I am having chicken, spaghetti squash, and peas. But only if the chicken thaws out soon. If it doesn't, I'm having popcorn and a ring pop.

Stick it in a bowl of water.

[Talons]

If you like leeks, try pasta with bacon and leeks. When my wife is in her happy place, she is in a quiet room eating this meal.

By the way, do you use wine when you make this? Chicken stock?

Chicken stock. We also add corn even though the recipe doesn't call for it.

[bobtheenchantedone]

We had pasta in some kind of white sauce with bacon. Yes.

[thebigcheese]

Tonight I am having chicken, spaghetti squash, and peas. But only if the chicken thaws out soon. If it doesn't, I'm having popcorn and a ring pop.

Stick it in a bowl of water.

Why does this make chicken thaw better? I always do it that way, but I don't know the reasoning behind it.

[Dragon Lady]

I'm guessing because it transfers the heat from the water (even at room temperature) into the frozen chicken without cooking it (which is why you do room temperature water).

[Katya]

I'm guessing because it transfers the heat from the water (even at room temperature) into the frozen chicken without cooking it (which is why you do room temperature water).

To be more specific, the thermal conductivity of water is higher than the thermal conductivity of air, so if you have a chicken thawing in air and a chicken thawing in room temperature water, the chicken thawing in water will reach the temperature of the water faster than the chicken thawing in air. (Real physics people, feel free to correct me on this.)

That said, water actually has a very low thermal conductivity, in general—your chicken would thaw much faster in a vat of mercury. (But that might present other problems. )

[Katya]

Also, I had twice-baked potatoes for dinner last night. (They're pretty easy, but they bake for about 90 minutes, total, so they're not a good last-minute meal.)

[thebigcheese]

I'm always looking for easy meals that I can make quickly. Like those 5 ingredients or less recipes...but not 5 obscure ingredients -- just stuff I might actually keep in my kitchen. Anybody got some good ones?

[Dragon Lady]

Stroganoff. Cook 1 lb. hamburger (with onions if you have them). Add 1 c. sour cream, 1 can cream of mushroom, 1 tsp. garlic salt and 1 tsp paprika (or just sprinkle it on top to look cool). Serve over rice, mashed potatoes or egg noodles. Mmmmmm. So good!

[krebscout]

Stir fry is simple, which is what we had last night. A bag of frozen stir fry, some frozen chicken strips, and Trader Joe's stir-fry sauce. We use brown rice, which takes a long time but no more effort. It's our favorite lazy meal. And I just realized that we've had rice every day for like five days.

[Marduk]

Depends what obscure ingredients are for you, tbc. For example, do you make a habit of keeping corn and flour tortillas on hand? Or beans? Or cilantro? Or limes? Or tomato sauce? Or peppers? These are things my kitchen always has, but I don't know if others would. And from these with just a few additions here or there, these things can make dozens of meals.

[Dragon Lady]

Last night we had a combo of hawaiian and mexican haystacks. Based on whatever happened to be on hand. We had rice, chicken gravy, crushed pineapple, coconut, black beans, sour cream, cheese, mushrooms and chow mein noodles. (Maybe more? that's all I remember.) Turns out, pineapple and sour cream go really well together. I never would have guessed! Really, though, dinner last night was delicious.

[thebigcheese]

Depends what obscure ingredients are for you, tbc. For example, do you make a habit of keeping corn and flour tortillas on hand? Or beans? Or cilantro? Or limes? Or tomato sauce? Or peppers? These are things my kitchen always has, but I don't know if others would. And from these with just a few additions here or there, these things can make dozens of meals.

We usually have a lot of those things. Except cilantro. I don't think I've ever bought cilantro. I try to keep a pretty stocked kitchen, but it seems like there are always funky spices or random ingredients that I buy for one recipe, then never end up using again. So I'm tired of doing that because it makes cooking really expensive. Here's my idea of a stocked kitchen:

I always have chicken, fish, ground beef, beef roast, italian sausage, breakfast sausage, and bacon in my freezer. Frozen vegetables include corn, green beans, peas, carrots, onions, cauliflower, and broccoli. Fresh vegetables usually include tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, carrots, spinach, lettuce, and potatoes. Fresh fruits currently include grapes, strawberries, and apples. We also frequently buy oranges, limes, lemons, and grapefruits. In my cupboard, I have 6 types of noodles. Plus an assortment of soups, cream of whatevers, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. A few canned meats such as tuna, chicken, and corned beef. Pre-mixed spaghetti and alfredo sauces. Probably 4 types of canned beans. Rice. A rather large shelf devoted to spices, powdered mixes, and powdered marinades. Olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, butter, margarine, lard. All the standard baking ingredients, including 3 types of flour. Plus an assortment of canned fruit, and several different bottled and frozen juices. Usually two kinds of cheese. Oh, and sauces...ketchup, mustard, dijon mustard, BBQ, steak sauce, couple of marinades, soy sauce, teriyaki.

I think that's most of it. Getting married greatly boosted my kitchen storage capabilities, and I am forever grateful.

[thebigcheese]

Now that I think about it... One of the challenges of American cooking is the fact that we often try to cook such an enormous variety of foods. If you're regularly trying to cook Italian, Mexican, and Chinese...which I think is pretty typical of most American households, you're going to need an enormous kitchen to store all of that because each type of food requires such dramatically different ingredients.

[Dragon Lady]

Tonight is California Cheese soup. Bigcheese, you might like this one, too. It's basically 1 qt. water with chicken bouillon (I did just chicken broth) brought to boil, lots of veggies (about 7 cups?) added (best if broccoli is one of them), simmer till they're all soft, about 30 mins. Add 2 cans of cream of chicken and 1 lb. cheese cubed. Cook until cheese is melted. Voila! Great in bread bowls.

[Marduk]

Mexican Cobb salad. Greens with a corn and black bean salsa, with a cilantro-lime-ranch dressing. Optional (but not included this time) tortilla strips and queso cotija.

[NerdGirl]

udi's bread! With peanut butter, cream cheese, turkey, anything I can get my hands on! It's the only gluten free bread that you can take out of the bag and eat just like real bread, and I managed to score 4 loaves of it at the store yesterday! People stalk it and get it right away and it only comes in once a week and it's gone within hours, but I got lucky yesterday. It smells like bread, too! I am in udi heaven. You can even put it in the freezer and defrost it and then eat it right out the bag without toasting it! Man, I am so excited.

For lunch I made homemade tomato soup with an udi grilled cheese sandwich. But tonight I've gone past the point of even acknowledging any food aside from the udi's bread and the stuff that can go on top of it.

[NerdGirl]

Tostadas made with homemade corn tortillas and slowly braised beef, bell peppers, onions, and cauliflower, topped with fresh cheese curds. I had the incredible idea of adding a bit of xanthan gum to my tortilla dough and it was so much easier to work with! I wanted to make enchiladas, but there haven't been corn tortillas in any of the stores around here for a while, and I'm not yet good enough at the homemade ones to make enchiladas out of them. They are too thick and not quite big enough. But tostadas are good.