What I'm eating tonight! ❄️ Winter ❄️

AdahPotatah2024

More soup... 🤧

AdahPotatah2024

Another fish recipe...

Old Bay Tilapia with Broccoli

This is an easy and delicious tilapia recipe with Old Bay that only takes about 20 to 25 minutes!
Submitted by Claire M allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 tablespoon salted butter

6 frozen tilapia fillets, thawed

1 tablespoon seafood seasoning (such as Old Bay®)

½ tablespoon garlic salt, or more to taste

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 (10 ounce) package frozen broccoli

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a shallow baking dish.

Place tilapia fillets in the prepared baking dish. Cut butter into 6 pieces and place 1 on top of each fillet. Season fillets with seafood seasoning and garlic salt and squirt a little lemon juice over each one. Arrange broccoli around the fillets.

Bake in the preheated oven until fish is flaky and white all the way through and broccoli is blanched but still a little crunchy, about 20 minutes.

Nutrition Facts
Calories 143

AdahPotatah2024

I'm going to use this recipe but with fresh lemon slices and wrap in parchment paper...

AdahPotatah2024

🩷💕February Plan ❤️

Saturday- sweet potato/chickpeas curry or some other bean dish
Sunday-pizza or pasta/ salad
Monday- Beef stew and mashed potatoes or sheetpan meatballs/ roasted potatoes &green beans
Tuesday- casserole or mac/cheese with salad
Wednesday- leftovers or cold plate
Thursday- various restaurants
Friday-fish dish/salad

AdahPotatah2024

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-axh0eRLk

Crockpot Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Garbanzo Beans

AdahPotatah2024

Around 70 ° here, today, time for cold plate dinners!:D
This restaurant menu is my inspiration

AdahPotatah2024

Leftovers from Friday and Saturday

AdahPotatah2024

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

This spaghetti cacio e pepe recipe has been made in our family for many years, and everyone loves it. It is a very basic and easy variation on mac and cheese.
Submitted by Jennifer Torrey
Prep Time:
5 mins
Cook Time:
15 mins
Total Time:
20 mins
Servings:
4
Ingredients

1 pound spaghetti

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1 ¾ cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Directions

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti in boiling water, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, about 12 minutes. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain spaghetti.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir garlic and pepper in hot oil until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add cooked spaghetti and Pecorino Romano cheese. Ladle in 1/2 cup reserved cooking water; stir until cheese is melted, about 1 minute. Stir in more cooking water as needed, 1 tablespoon at a time, until sauce coats spaghetti, about 1 minute more.

Cook’s Note

You can substitute butter for olive oil.

Adjust the amount of cooking water added in Step 2 for a thicker or thinner sauce. If you add too much water, add some more cheese.

I add flavor-enhancing ingredients like pancetta, depending on my main dish. I always experiment when creating food.
Nutrition Facts
Calories 807
Total Fat 36g
Saturated Fat 12g
Cholesterol 54mg
Sodium 633mg
Total Carbohydrate 88g
Dietary Fiber 4g
Total Sugars 3g
Protein 32g
Vitamin C 1mg
Calcium 585mg
Iron 5mg
Potassium 317mg

neanderthin

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

This spaghetti cacio e pepe recipe has been made in our family for many years, and everyone loves it. It is a very basic and easy variation on mac and cheese.
Submitted by Jennifer Torrey
Prep Time:
5 mins
Cook Time:
15 mins
Total Time:
20 mins
Servings:
4
Ingredients

1 pound spaghetti

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1 ¾ cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Directions

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti in boiling water, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, about 12 minutes. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain spaghetti.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir garlic and pepper in hot oil until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add cooked spaghetti and Pecorino Romano cheese. Ladle in 1/2 cup reserved cooking water; stir until cheese is melted, about 1 minute. Stir in more cooking water as needed, 1 tablespoon at a time, until sauce coats spaghetti, about 1 minute more.

Cook’s Note

You can substitute butter for olive oil.

Adjust the amount of cooking water added in Step 2 for a thicker or thinner sauce. If you add too much water, add some more cheese.

I add flavor-enhancing ingredients like pancetta, depending on my main dish. I always experiment when creating food.
Nutrition Facts
Calories 807
Total Fat 36g
Saturated Fat 12g
Cholesterol 54mg
Sodium 633mg
Total Carbohydrate 88g
Dietary Fiber 4g
Total Sugars 3g
Protein 32g
Vitamin C 1mg
Calcium 585mg
Iron 5mg
Potassium 317mg

It's always interesting to see the differences in traditional dishes. For example I don't use any olive oil or garlic. It's funny that cheese based dishes in Italy seem to avoid garlic like this one and alfredo, carbonara, Pasta alla Gricia, Bucatini all'Amatriciana for example.

acpgee

@neanderthin
I never use olive oil or garlic either. However, I do now stir an extra teaspoon of cornstarch into the pasta water to increase the starch content. Apparently it makes the sauce less likely to split if not at the ideal temperature.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/science/cacio-e-pepe-recipe-corn-starch.html

neanderthin

acpgee wrote: »

@neanderthin
I never use olive oil or garlic either. However, I do now stir an extra teaspoon of cornstarch into the pasta water to increase the starch content. Apparently it makes the sauce less likely to split if not at the ideal temperature.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/science/cacio-e-pepe-recipe-corn-starch.html

Yeah, that's interesting and would help no doubt.

I use about half the normal amount of water for cooking the spaghetti so I end up with a pretty starchy water. I use a lot of cheese, just saying and in a sperate bowl I mix that cheese with some of the pasta water before I start to put the dish together to make an emulsion. I take my pan, heat it up add the pepper to release it's flavor to which I add some pasta water. I then using tongs or a pasta claw remove the spaghetti to my pan to continue to cook the pasta until I get close to my desired al dente. I turn off the heat or remove the pan, this is key to not getting that cheese to be overcooked and avoid that “mozzarella phase.” Then I add the cheese emulsion and mix and mix and the more you mix the creamier it gets and if I need to add more water to increase the amount of cheesiness, I do that. Pretty basic, and most failure is about the heat and not the starch in my opinion, but yeah, more starch makes it easier but it still can be overcooked.

AdahPotatah2024

Thanks, I'm going to try that recipe next time!:)

AdahPotatah2024

Making Jolie Gabor's Eggs with Salami recipe tonight

AdahPotatah2024

Restaurant!

AdahPotatah2024

Revised 🩷💕February Plan ❤️

Saturday- Lentil Soup
Sunday-pizza / salad@ pizzeria
Monday- Hungarian Goulash or stuffed green peppers
Tuesday- cheesy egg noodles with salad
Wednesday- leftovers or cold plate or salami omelette and potatoes
Thursday- various restaurants
Friday-paprika fish dish/salad or chicken paprikash

AdahPotatah2024

I made a weird, impulsive goal to eat and workout like zsa zsa gabor for 15 days...
I recently bought her mother's cookbook. They both lived until they were around 100 years old apparently eating a lot of sour cream!

AdahPotatah2024

An easy noodles recipe/ salad

AdahPotatah2024

Revised 🩷💕February Plan ❤️

Saturday- egg noodles with poppy seeds/ big salad
Sunday-pizza / salad@ pizzeria
Monday- Hungarian Goulash or stuffed green peppers
Tuesday- leftovers or cold plate
Wednesday- salami omelette and potatoes
Thursday- various restaurants
Friday-leftovers or soup/ niçoise salad

AdahPotatah2024

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgRispGojc&pp=ygUTbWVkaWV2YWwgSXJpc2ggZm9vZA%3D%3D

I'm using this video plus some other research papers to eat an early European diet this month!

AdahPotatah2024

For thousands of years the staple diet was grain based, mainly oats and barley, generally eaten in the form of porridge but also ground into flour to use for bread. It was the most important part of the diet of both rich and poor.

Meat was important at some periods of history but not always. There are periods when farming seems to concentrate on crop production and during these times animals such as cattle and sheep would mainly have been kept for milk production and the making of cheese or curds, a common food.

At other times, little farming of crops took place and people ate a lot of meat, both from animals kept for the purpose and wild animals. Birds, wild boar and goats, deer and even hedgehogs were commonly eaten. Meat was always more commonly eaten by the better off rather than the poor.

By the start of the 16th century there were areas of the country mainly devoted to producing grain crops and others where the production of meat was more important, depending on the type of land. Farmers sold their produce and livestock at local markets, directly to householders or to agents who took it to the larger towns.

Tenant farms – worked by farmers who paid rent to a landlord – were often required to sell exclusively to their landlord at fixed prices, frequently well below the market rate.
Until the mid 1600’s dairy produce and eggs were not widely either bought or sold at market, instead just about every household kept a cow and some hens to provide their own. In some parts of the country, especially close to the sea, the eggs of wild birds were eaten.

Fish was important, from both the sea and the many inland rivers and lakes. Shellfish was widely eaten but was considered inferior and was a food of the poor, especially mussels, periwinkles, limpets, crabs and razor clams which could be gathered without the need for boats. The same was true of edible seaweed, which was commonly mixed with milk and honey to make a sweet dish still popular with some people today.

Vegetables were not cultivated at all in Ireland until around the 8th century, before that wild leaves, roots, berries and fungi were eaten. When they did arrive, the main vegetables grown were carrots, parsnips, celery, turnip, cabbage and onion.

Throughout history people ate wild fruit and nuts, especially hazelnuts, but until the mid 1500’s apples were the only cultivated fruit.

English colonists who arrived in the middle of the 17th century developed extensive vegetable gardens and orchards around their houses and brought with them pears, strawberries, plums and cherries. They even grew exotic fruits such as peaches, nectarines and figs, presumably under cover. The poor Irish of course had none of these delicacies, other than those which they stole from time to time.

Bread was commonly eaten by the 16th century, and even cake, though this would not have been everyday fare. The wealthy kept a store of exotic spices and various types of sugar, while the poor seasoned their food mainly with salt and honey, using the latter even on fish, which sounds particularly revolting.

https://www.dochara.com/the-irish/food-history/food-in-early-ireland/

AdahPotatah2024

Despite it’s popularity in today’s Irish cuisine, the potato is a relatively new import into the Irish diet. The starchy carb was first sold in Spain in 1573 and by the 1590s had spread throughout Europe. Whilst the exact date of its arrival in Ireland is unknown, by the mid-1600s, it was the cornerstone of Irish diets. In the time before the Potato famine in the 1800s, a diet of oats and potatoes helped sustain the Irish peasantry. The change in the Irish diet after the introduction of the potato cannot be underestimated. Take for example, a menu plan from an Irish workhouse in the 1800s

Breakfast Dinner Supper
Kilrush
Men 4lbs potatoes, 1 pint skimmed milk. The same, with herring instead of milk in Winter. Not always provided.
Women 3 lbs potatoes, 1/2-1 pint skimmed milk The same.
Scarriff
Men 5lbs potatoes, 1 pint sour milk The same. Herring when milk cannot be had. The same
Women 3lbs potatoes, 1 pint milk The same The same

Source: http://bit.ly/1JA0xzH

Wrapping Up…

So how can one eat like their Irish ancestor? Quite simply. Eat real, unprocessed food with a good balance of meat, vegetables and carbohydrates alongside generous amounts of dairy. If you want to go more modern add in potatoes. If you want to go super modern just head to your local take away!

https://physicalculturestudy.com/2015/06/07/the-traditional-irish-diet/

AdahPotatah2024

AdahPotatah2024

🍀 March Plan 🍺 🍀

Monday- Beef Shepard's pie or sheetpan meatballs/ mashed potatoes or turnips & cabbage
Tuesday- pork loin/carrots, celery, onions
Wednesday- leftovers or cold plate w/ cottage cheese
Thursday- various restaurants
Friday- salmon dish/greens/ whole grain rolls
Saturday-leftovers or cold plate w/ cottage cheese
Sunday- Italian restaurant

AdahPotatah2024

I forgot and ate avocado toast for breakfast, but I'll try to stick to apples/ oatmeal for brunch or toast with lingonberry jam and eggs.

AdahPotatah2024

Sort of difficult avoiding tomato and avocado (I made exceptions for potatoes)

Making meatballs, peas and carrots tonight...maybe more potatoes