To those who have served or are currently serving...dinner
 

What are you making?

If Mr. Clod's coming-home schedule is normal, then Buttered Chicken, an Indian dish that's one of our favorite recipes. If he ends up needing to work indeterminably late, then a pasta in a cream sauce that doesn't take as long to make.

"Potato pie" - i.e. sliced onions, potatoes, carrots, turnips in baked in a little stock with grated cheese on the top. I frequently bake this sort of dish in one of these as it's cheaper to run than a full sized oven. In fact a similar dish is described in the fifth paragraph on this page.

The next meal I'll make will be a white pizza. And after that, the next meal I'll make will probably be a clam sauce spaghetti.

That looks interesting, Limey. Too bad they don't sell in the US.

Buffalo Burgers, smoked mozzarella pasta salad, and red potatoes. Maybe some asparagus in place of one of those side items.

I like sauteed mushrooms and onions so I might throw those on top of the buffalo burger. I never serve buffalo burgers in a bun in case you are wondering.

I won't be happy with it however, not since you fools created the crab or lobster thread. Nothing is going to taste good until I have crab legs and I will have you know, that you have ruined my life. :) Once again. lol!

Some pre-prepped skillet pasta dish from the freezer, with added broccoli. Too tired to cook these days.

Tonight; chicken soft tacos made from a rotisserie chicken, a box of spring mix and a jar of salsa (actually 2, mild for the kids, hot for me). I slaved over the toaster oven for like 10 whole minutes...

Pot roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery in a rich tomato-based gravy, simmered all day in the crockpot.

stuffed crumbed chicken breasts with roast potatoes and greens. thanks, beest :yum:

I spend more time preparing the toppings than on anything else when I do tacos.


Whats spring mix?

A mixture of sorta fancy greens. Baby spinach, radiccio, that sort of thing.

I thought as much after I posted it, but she wrote a 'box'. Greens in my part of the country come in bags.

Technically its a compostable clam shell. I like it better than the bags, the greens seems to stay nicer longer.

That was all the toppings - I forgot about the tomatoes I had...

Ah hah.

I can't see a picture on their site - can you take one and post it?
I'm intrigued. I just know I have the wrong image in my head :)

Mm. Couple of marinated, seasoned (sort of Mexi-spicy, from the market a few blocks away) chicken breasts between three people, and abundant frozen veggies: 3 colors of peppers, TJ's Harvest Medley (like stir-fry mixed veggies) and half a bag of frozen peas, and some frozen TJ's Toasted Corn. Slowly cooked the breasts from frozen, pulled them out and kept them warm in the toaster oven, and cooked all the veggies in the chicken juices.

Okay, all in all. Maybe not super memorable, but sufficient. Playing with seasonings doubtless would add to the fun factor.

I don't have a kitchen, but I'm trying to be creative. Tonight, I will serve nachos. I put tortilla chips on a plate, pour a can of chili on it, a little hot sauce, canned cheez wiz, and some chopped jalapenos. I sit it on my window sill to warm it up in the sun (my room faces west). I plan to wash it down with a couple of bottles of British ale

Roasted acorn squash, grilled lamb tips, assorted sauteed veggies (sugar snap peas, mushrooms & carrots)

Tonight it's salad for me; box of spring mix, diced chicken breast, snap peas, carrot shreds, avocado, and tomatoes, with black bean and roasted corn salsa as dressing. The kids are having chicken quesadillas with their choice of raw veggies on the side.

Last night was faux mac & cheese (pasta with pureed butternuts squash).

Oh God, I can't believe I ate those nachos. I think they are fermenting. This is going to be bad......

Hang on...I've obviously missed something very, very crucial....why have you no kitchen and why are you Currently Homeless?

I'll shoot you a PM

Ta:)

I noticed his photos were coming out of a random Hotel Room. It's all so confusing....I thought he was just on business.

Ok, here it is. I'm a soldier recovering at a Military Medical Center. I'm living in outpatient quarters, hence no kitchen or dining facility. I have a bed, a chair, and a desk.

I'm homeless because my wife divorced me while I was on my first deployment to Iraq. She couldn't handle the situation. Thus, I have no home to return to when I leave here.

Hopefully, the Army will get things fixed and I'll be able to volunteer for another deployment. I won't have to find a place to live, etc for another year. That will make 4 deployments in 5 years

Are you likely to be well enough for a new deployment sarge?

Sarge, I was going to post about the very tasty MRE (meal ready to eat) that I"m about to enjoy. But wow, shoot me pm with your alt email addy, I can't get on my AKO mail right now.

I guess I need to explain further. The Army is very good to me and is really giving me some great care. I am a Senior NCO and I make a very good living. On top of that, I draw separate rations pay to cover my meals. The Army provides me with a nice clean place to live. Please don't think I'm destitute.

I have Lupus which has affected my face and arms in addition to other things. I have become very sensitive about my appearance, so I don't go to restaurants to eat. I buy food on post where I feel more accepted.

The Army is doing there very best to stabilize my medical problems in order to retain me. If I am able to deploy again, it will delay me having to return to the civilian world till 2010 where I will have to get a job and find a place to live.

I'm sorry I turned this thread into such a bummer. I didn't mean to. Let's get back on track talking about some good food. BTW, don't ever try that nacho recipe I described earlier. "It weren't a pretty sight" about 2 hours later:p

Sarge, thank you for your service and your honesty. You're a good man.

Sarge, I just want to say Thank you. For everything you have done for our country, and everything you will do. You have a remarkable outlook on life and I wish you all the best.

Thanks ya'll. Now what's for supper tonight

Sarge,

I'm very sorry to hear about your Lupus. One of Mrs. Dar's college friends had it.

How are they treating it?

I'm thinking pizza for dinner. With beer.

Yum, me too Pie.

Some Cassano's pizza and some Miller Lite. I haven't partied for my b-day yet! This means green olives on my pepperoni and extra cheese pizza; I may be the only person on earth who likes green olives on a pizza, so I am going to have to get some just for me!

Dinner last night was beef stir-fry. Easy enough to do with a real wok and a gas stove. It was delicious. I've got the rice thing down.

Cleaning up is less fun, however.

You've got that wrote, dar. If'n you cook the spouse cleans up (and vice versa, of course!)

You'd have to see how I cook. It wouldn't be fair to make someone else clean it up.

The one appliance in my kitchen that I absolutely could not live without is the rice cooker. That thing is a miracle of modern convenience.

No you're not! I love both kinds of olives on my pizza...and banana peppers too.

Has anyone used a rice cooker to cook quinoa? Any suggestions?

The way a rice cooker works is by temperature--water boils at a constant temp. Once all the liquid has been boiled off and/or absorbed, the cooker senses the pot temperature rising above boiling point, and shuts itself off. This is why you couldn't do risotto in a rice cooker (aside from the fact that you have to keep stirring it while it's cooking,) because the final product is still very liquidy. I've never eaten quinoa, but if it's "done" when all the liquid is absorbed, then yes, you could make it in a rice cooker.

I'm going to have cornflakes.

You means "saucepan" - right :eyebrow: ?

Oh no, believe me, I am quite experienced at ruining rice in a saucepan.

Yep, as a (sorta-not-really) Indian, I gotta say that a rice cooker is a must-have. Indians, Chinese, Japanese, all swear by theirs.

Yes; it's the only way I ever have. It works. Have the liquid 2x volume of quinoa. Use chicken stock for the pilaf effect. Remember to rinse the quinoa in a sieve beforehand to remove the bitterness.

We're having spicy beef stew tonight.

Yummm. :)

Muchas gracias! I'll be giving it a try as soon as I get my rice cooker out of storage. :D

Yabbut, I'm really picky. I hate black olives, any kind of pepper, onions, mushrooms...etc.

People hate ordering pizza with me! :o

We won't be sharing Shawnee - for me it's not pizza without onion.
I also love pineapple, jalapenos, anchovies and pepperoni. It's funny how often people say, "Oh we can just share, I'm not fussy" then back out when they hear my preferences.

My evil ex used to order pizza for us both, and because I wasn't paying I didn't get any choice (personally I compromise if I'm treating someone!) So we always had Meat Feast. Which as I remember it was meat, meat, meat, meat and mushrooms.

heheee...I'm always like "you know, you can live without mushrooms, and I can't eat it with mushrooms...sooooo" and then we proceed to order 2 smalls instead. ;)

On the same token, I don't insist on green olives. There are few pizza places who know how to get just the right amount of GOs anyway, and it works best on the kind of pizzas you can get from the bar where I worked so many years. There are a couple places around.

I wish I liked more stuff. You wouldn't know to look at me how terribly picky I am. ;)

I'd eat that pizza, except for the anchovies, but you basically can't get those anywhere here anyway.

But seriously, do they not do half-toppings on pizzas where you guys live? It's a given here that you can put any of your toppings on all or just half of the pizza.

You probably can now - I haven't shared a pizza in years :(

ANCHOVIES ... PEPPERONI - I'l fight you for 'em SG! Come up here and we'll make our own (bread-machine dough and any topping you like). YummmmMEEEEE!

You can, but with things like peppers, putting them on half does you no good. The pepper oils creep over big time. 'Shrooms you can get away with, but mostly the people assembling the pizza don't really care, and you end up with stray shrooms all over the place. They're pickable, of course, but it's easier to just get a small pizza I like.

You can't get anchovies??? Did I just read that correctly??? What's a pizza without anchovies!?!

I have never heard of any pizza place actually serving anchovies in the States, even the fancier specialty restaurants. But I'm sure there are a couple out there somewhere... when I was a teen working at a fast-food pizza place, we had a British guy call up once and try to order corn on his pizza. He was just blown away that we not only didn't have it, but were doing the telephone equivalent of pointing and laughing at him.

(Of course, now that I am a gourmet adult, I actually make a pizza involving corn on a regular basis. But to be fair it doesn't use the traditional tomato sauce either...)

Must be Texas. I never order anchovies, but I just looked at a couple of local places that have their menus online, and they all have anchovies. The big chains don't have them, but big chain pizza is no good.

Well, okay, it does seem that I spoke in haste. Now that I've done a more thorough search, I did find an Italian restaurant here in town that openly has them on the menu. But it was part of a larger article on anchovies, and the restaurant's quote in the article is about how they just sit on the shelf and no one ever orders them.