That is spinach. My wife now uses brown rice because it is supposed to be healthier. I prefer Japanese white rice myself

That looks delicious.

Ok, here are a few more meals that I have prepared this week. I should also add that except for the rivel soup, I found all of the recipes here: https://www.sugarfreemom.com/

I made chicken with balsamic vinegar in the crock pot. The rice and potatoes are boring, but the chicken was tasty. I made it two days in a row.

DSC01982 by mkeller234, on Flickr

Today I made some salsa

DSC02007 by mkeller234, on Flickr

Then used it in the chicken chili that I made

DSC02005 by mkeller234, on Flickr

Oooh, chicken chili sounds good. I haven't had that in a few years. I had a couple slow days, after that pork butt, which is actually a shoulder cut, not what it sounds like. Shrimp spring rolls yesterday, and I ate more than I should have. I have the pork shoulder in the oven now, and it's been there for about 4 hours, so I need to occupy myself for about 2 more hours, LOL.

A couple final foodie pics from my visit to France.



Burrata (the white dish on the right), and a strange, long clam-like dish (left). I'd love to know the English name for it, if anyone knows. It was listed as couteau ("knife") on the menu, though the server did not know the actual English name for it. Whatever it was, it was delicious.



Pig head country pate with salad. (Background dish is mushrooms stuffed with escargot.)

Randy, I believe that's known as a razor clam in the States. I've never seen them prepared any way other than battered and fried, and I always assumed that was because they taste horrible otherwise. Apparently that assumption was incorrect!

Razor clam it is...pretty popular up here around Prince Edward Island.

Burrata is so good it makes my veins constrict just thinking about it. Num.

My local seafood market frequently has razor clams, but I haven't seen any decent non-fried recipes for them. I'll have to go a-googling...

Edit - never mind, yuck.

Randy those pics are great! I sure ate well in Paris. I don't think I had a bad meal and I ate foie gras (pate) at least twice a day.

Razor clams are nice, but depending on the season they can get a lil' chewy. Good stuff. Had them with lemon sauce a few weeks ago.

My mom had a bag of spinach leftover from a salad. She wasn't sure what to do with it. I knew. Lasagna. Not one for those on a diet.

Here's what you need. Recipe is for two persons.

-a pack of lasagna sheets. I bought dried ones, but fresh ones should work too.
-about 500 g of spinach, fresh. I had a little less and it was barely enough
-bacon, sliced, about 50-75 should do it. moar if you're into bacon. Less if you want a vegetarian meal, works well enough without.
-a nice chunk of blue cheese, about 50 gram works but more cheese is like more bacon. Better. I used danish blue. Depending on your taste you can substitute it for any available blue cheese, but bear in mind that some can be quite overpowering and will quickly drown out all other flavors, zo use them in moderation. A bit more creamy ones like Danish blue or gorgonzola works better for the sauce.
-a large table spoon of flour
-a large table spoon of butter
-500 ml milk

Here's what you do.

-Open your beer
-set your oven to pre-heat at 190-200 c (or just whatever temp it says on the lasagna sheet carton)
-boil water
-grease a oven dish with butter or olive oil (no bearing grease, sorry guys)
-dice the cheese
-Dunk the spinach leaves in the boiling water to shrink them. Just a quick dunk is enough. Then strain to get most of the liquid out and set aside. Not really critical to get it all dry since the moisture from the spinach is important later on
-prepare the bechamel-based sauce. This is the tricky bit. For those who don't know how: Melt the tsp. of butter in a sauce pan, add the flour (well sifted!) and get a nice golden paste. add milk in 100 ml. intervals whilst whisking the brew vigourously. don't add more milk until it's all nice uniform mass. After all the milk has been added, melt the cheese.
-now, time to build the lasagna. Just make nice layers of pasta, spinach and sauce. Make sure to cover the entire sheet with filling, or else you'll end up with uncooked pasta, since the moisture in the spinach actually cooks the sheets.
-work a layer of bacon in somewhere
-cap it of with a sheet of lasagna, drown the top in sauce and garnish it lavishly with any leftover cheese, or as I did in this particular instance, with grated Parmiggiano.
-put it in the over, covered with aluminium foil for about 30-45 (depending on the side of the dish)
-anticipate. Drink. be patient.
-Remove the tin foil and allow the crust to get nice and crispy for another 10-20 mins.
-wait s'more. Drink.

-EAT!

Wine suggestion: anything that goes nicely with cheese. We had a slightly oily, sweet and heady (14%!) Chilean wine that went very well with this dish.


Untitled by ctjr, on Flickr

Yes, bacon goes with most anything. At a certain audio site I frequent, there's an ongoing thread dedicated to just bacon. I made a giant bowl of Barilla carrot-tomato pasta recently, with the last of that pork, and prefab alfredo sauce in a jar. It was definitely different, and it was definitely delicious.

How to avoid rubbery razor clams

That's a good looking lasagna! Too much spinach has never been a problem for me either. A bunch of garlic and a really hot pan is all I need; mmm.

Don't get me started on bacon, guys. I can wax poetic about pork for hours. My friends and I have raised and slaughtered our own hogs every January for the last 15 years or so. I'll have to upload some of my pics and post them. It's really great to carry on a tradition that has disappeared from most of the 1st world.

The last couple of years I have forgone the curing of my entire allotment of my pork belly and reserved some choice pieces to braise later on for such things as banh mi sandwiches.

^ thanks! yeah, as a side dish with garlic it's good too. That pork looks great.

That looks delicious!

That is outstanding. Way to be conected to the food that you are eating.
And that sandwich looks really yummy.

I don't know if I ever mentioned where my motivation to cook came from. Starting around February, I have been home evenings with my daughter. That makes me responsible for her dinner. After a week of ramen noodles, macaroni and spaghetti.... I decided that I needed to cook more nutritious meals for her (and me). I'm really trying, but it doesn't always come easy!

Here is a "salad" with quinoa, organic dried cherries, scallion and chicken, almonds and dressing (oil, lemon juice, minced garlic). I've never had quinoa before, but I really liked it.


DSC02025 by mkeller234, on Flickr

Today I made turkey, kale and rice soup in my crock pot. The rice just fell apart and soaked up all of the broth.... not what I wanted to happen. Even though it's not really soup, it still tasted good. Maybe I need to try a different kind or rice? My daughter really seemed to like this one.


DSC02026 by mkeller234, on Flickr

These are quinoa, egg, zucchini, parmesan and some other stuff. They were supposed to be made in a mini muffin pan, but I only have large one.


DSC02027 by mkeller234, on Flickr


DSC02028 by mkeller234, on Flickr

Nice work, Matt! I like quinoa a lot. It's got a unique "pop" texture to it. I'm not a big fan of rice as a thickener for soup myself. Maybe next time just add par cooked rice once the soup is almost finished and thicken it with a roux, puree of a starch that's in the soup (i.e. potato), breadcrumbs or a slurry if you have to.

Those muffins are a good idea for breakfast on the go.

OK, a ham and egg sammy right? Don't get me wrong I think its the best thing ever, just didn't know it was a cyclist classic OR that it came from Germany. I thought it was an American classic, like Apple Pie.

I dunno, eggs on top of a meat dish seems to belie something Teutonic, like the early configuration of the Hamburger. Roasted Steak with that spicy mustard is good, too, especially this time of year.

Man, I love this thread

lately, I've been on a noodle bowl frenzy. Almost daily for a couple weeks now. I can't get enough.

I went to the fair this weekend and tried deep fried EVERYTHING! Fried cheese curds, fried twinkies, fried oreos, fried butter (which was more like a beignet with a molten butter center)

Not necessarily a cyclist classic, but a traveler's lunch classic for sure. Thing is, it's really hard to ruin this dish. The bread can be stale, the ham dry, the eggs overcooked, but even then it beats the pre-packed sandwiches one can buy at gas stations by a mile.

BTW, this particular "uitsmijter" was served by the Mastenbar restaurant at the Enkhuizen marina (credit where it's due!), where I'll be again in a week or two to launch my C&V sailing yacht (old crappy boat to most people) for the summer season. Looking forward to have lunch there again.

There has been some news recently on competitive cyclists that have been consuming "interesting" things, but this is new to me. Does it work?