What do your meals look like (show me pictures)....

Christmas dinner at my place is on Boxing Day as there is no public transport on the 25th in London. Consequently we ate simply tonight.
Starter of Cantonese turnip cake and a store bought scallion pancake. Main of Singaporean chicken rice with cucumber salad.

Friday we usually eat out. Somali cafe near the flat.

Back last night (Saturday evening) from a trip up to Ontario Canada to visit the kids' family for Christmas. Not bothering to log or post the meals up there and enroute ... let's just say, my months of dietary moderation went down the ol' laundry chute, with richness of foods, not so much quantity.

However, there are two things:

1. My daughter wanted very specific rolls for the Christmas dinner, and I am also the "tutoring chef" for one of the grands (13yo) for breakmaking. There is an old saying, "to perfect a skill in yourself, teach it to someone else." Well, my (our, actually) shaping of the "checkerboard rolls" upped my game from what I usually do at home for myself as seen below.

2. I usually don't post many restaurant/commercial meals, but the "Chicken Riggies" below are an exception. Since I have aspirations to create an "improved" version. This is a Central NY regional specialty which I have heard of but never seen. Full-fat cream tomato wine sauce, a mild heat from included peppers and the namesake rigatoni pasta (the "riggies") combine to make a hearty dish. I aim to make a lighter dairy, somewhat more spicy, more veg version sometime before spring, so "watch this space." In the meantime, I need to restore my system a bit before going down that path, lol. Apologies (if needed) for the odd lighting on the riggies dish ... that is pub lighting with no flash.

Happy New Year to all if I am not back on until afterwards.

acpgee wrote: »

My Christmas hosting event was on Boxing Day when there is public transit in London. It was the dinner for Christmas orphans. We had a Chinese who is seeing her family during Chinese New Year in January, an Australian who finds it too expensive to fly home at Christmas, and a Russian who has been served draft papers and thus didn't want to risk joining his wife visiting family in Moscow.
Guests supplemented dinner with guacamole as an alternative to the chicken liver pate starter served with toast as well as some store bought cakes to supplement my small cherry cheesecake. The main event was roast goose.

It sounds as if you made a festive holiday for a number of folks. That's a good thing.

Christmas leftovers meal number 2: Goose tacos balanced with leftover braised red cabbage, leftover guacamole, and aji verde made tonight from scratch. Green sriracha added at the table. Green salad on the side with dressing made from leftover guac mixed with ranch.

As it was a holiday I cooked something a little labour intensive. Cantonese stuffed peppers with black bean sauce which were not entirely successful. Keeping the prawn mince in those rather flat Turkish green peppers was a challenge. Lessons learned for next time are to use bell peppers and a non stick pan. Siide of Cantonese turnip cake from a batch I made last month. Both of these dishes are actually dim sum standards.

Hubby was worried that my planned meal of pork ravioli (made last month using gyoza wrappers and frozen) with sauteed spinach would be too little food. If he gets peckish after dinner, a snack too close to bedtime upsets his sensitive stomach. I added some storebought dim sum from the deep freeze section of the Asian supermarket that we had in the freezer as a starter.

More Mexican at a local place. Couldn’t resist. Tamales are my favorite food.

Another day of starting dinner late because of work pressures. Cheat's Singaporean chicken rice is an effortless meal, especially if you keep a jar of ginger and garlic pesto in the fridge. Use a rice cooker but measure out chicken stock instead of water. Place some chicken pieces on top of the rice. About 10 minutes before the cooking cycle finishes put in some bok choi on top to steam. Drizzle the bok choi with some oyster sauce. Serve with dark soy, chilli paste, and the ginger and garlic condiment. You can add some tomato or cucumber with commercial asian seesame dressing.

Fill your own tacos. Leftover chilli con carne and aji verde, some store bought relish because we didn't have pickles, sriracha not pictured. On the side chopped salad, leftover stuffing from Christmas we had in the freezer. I made a batch of corn tortillas last month and parked them in the freezer. Tacos are a useful way to use up leftovers.

One of my favorites I haven’t made it in a long time. Some salt and pepper tofu I just made in the stove top and some green beans with a ton of garlic and a little bit of garlic chili oil still crunchy so good.