What's For Dinner? - 2018

[1 bruce 1]

What happened to 1 bruce 1 When I click on his profile, I get an error message. I always enjoyed his dinner posts, especially about Manwich.

I don't know what's up with my profile. Maybe I'm gifted =) (Doubt it, ha!)
But I'm around. Not as active here as I was but I'm around =)

orange&white those hand held whappa-ma-jigger beef pies look delicious!

 

[raysmyheart]

Grilled cheese and sliced cucumbers from the farmstand with balsamic vinaigrette.

 

[Winchester]

Looks like I'll be eating hand-held beef & veggie pies for dinner for a few days.

Great job on the Pasties orange&white ! I'll post mine tomorrow if I don't burn them to a crisp. Here's the recipe if anybody else wants to try making them:
Michigan Pasty (Meat Hand Pie)

Those pies remind me of Cornish Pasties. I make pasties often because Rick likes them so much. They're bigger than your Michigan Pasties and I serve them with a red wine sauce. Beef (not ground beef), potatoes, onions, 'shrooms, etc. I think true Cornish Pasties have turnips, but I don't use them. Yours look awesome.

Shrimp for dinner tonight. If the weather holds, I'll do Tequila-Lime kebobs on the grill. If it rains, I'll do them on the indoor grill.

 

[orange&white]

Those pies remind me of Cornish Pasties. I make pasties often because Rick likes them so much. They're bigger than your Michigan Pasties and I serve them with a red wine sauce. Beef (not ground beef), potatoes, onions, 'shrooms, etc. I think true Cornish Pasties have turnips, but I don't use them. Yours look awesome.

Shrimp for dinner tonight. If the weather holds, I'll do Tequila-Lime kebobs on the grill. If it rains, I'll do them on the indoor grill.

Upper Peninsula Michigan pasties (and the pasties "famous" in Butte, Montana) are indeed rooted in Cornwall. The traditional Cornish Pasty recipe immigrated with coal miners from England to America in the 19th century.

It was fun trying a new recipe. I'm used to making Empanadas. Very similar, but more meat in the Tex-Mex version and Empanadas are much spicier than the English/Michigan Cornish meat pies.

 

[maggiedemi]

1 bruce 1 --Glad to hear that you're alive and not dead! You must have your profile set to private or something. Have you cooked anything interesting lately?

If you guys try making the pasties orange&white had to turn down the heat towards the end so they wouldn't burn. So you might have to fiddle with the cooking time/temp. I'm making mine for dinner tonight, hope I don't burn them!

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

i've got some beanless chili, which i'll heat in the microwave and serve over a microwaved potato. some more canned pineapple chunks with juice, a banana split brownie for dessert -- later in the evening.

 

[Tobermory]

Chicken curry with mushrooms, broccoli, and carrots over brown rice tonight. And, of course, always a green salad with heirloom tomatoes from the garden and a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing with a tiny bit of homemade pesto. I wish we could grill but the air quality is still too bad to sit outside for any length of time.

 

[1 bruce 1]

1 bruce 1 --Glad to hear that you're alive and not dead! You must have your profile set to private or something. Have you cooked anything interesting lately?

If you guys try making the pasties orange&white had to turn down the heat towards the end so they wouldn't burn. So you might have to fiddle with the cooking time/temp. I'm making mine for dinner tonight, hope I don't burn them!

We made a rather interesting baked spaghetti awhile back. It was very good but I'm kind of weirded out because I still couldn't tell you exactly what went into it and how much of what, but the flavor was nice and it was easy to store/re-heat!
Garden season is winding down and we've done some preserving and our neighbor is making a canned condensed tomato soup that will store for years! Neighbor is a garden/preserving whiz and they provide us with a lot of food!
We've been taking some of the less good veggies from the garden and juicing them. Mighty fine groceries right there. It's like being injected with liquid energy. After I drink my share, I just want to do stuff, anything...the joke is after juicing, I can brag that I re-roofed the sun room. Twice!

orange&white the home made hot pockets look kind of like the attempt we did to make something similar but we cheated are ***es off and used tubed crescent rolls!

 

[maggiedemi]

1 bruce 1 --baked spaghetti sounds good. I bet Taste of Home has a recipe for that, I'll check. I like their recipes because they seem to turn out better.

My pasty turned out really good until I baked it. An hour at 350 degrees was just too long in my oven. It was all dried out, the outside and the inside. I used an electric oven, maybe the recipe was written for a gas oven? Is there a difference? Here's a pic. My eggwash on the top was kinda sloppy!

 

[orange&white]

1 bruce 1 --baked spaghetti sounds good. I bet Taste of Home has a recipe for that, I'll check. I like their recipes because they seem to turn out better.

My pasty turned out really good until I baked it. An hour at 350 degrees was just too long in my oven. It was all dried out, the outside and the inside. I used an electric oven, maybe the recipe was written for a gas oven? Is there a difference? Here's a pic. My eggwash on the top was kinda sloppy!View attachment 247585

That looks really delicious and beautiful!

 

[maggiedemi]

My food always looks good, it just never tastes good! I always fail in the actual cooking of it. Maybe I have the wrong kind of oven.

 

[Winchester]

M maggiedemi As a rule, there's no difference in a recipe for a gas versus electric oven, at least not that I'm aware. Have you checked your oven's temperature lately? Oven temps can be off by quite a bit sometimes. I keep a thermometer in my oven at all times and will glance at it from time to time to see if it's in range. If you check your temp and find that you have it set for 350 and your thermometer says 370 (degrees F), then you know it's running high and you can compensate.

If you check your pasties (or anything else) and you think your food is getting too brown, top it with some aluminum foil. Also, check to see where your rack is in your oven; maybe it's too low. You can also top it with the foil right from the beginning, then take it off when you have about 15-20 minutes of baking time left; that gives your food a chance to brown.

When I make pasties, mine are about the size of dinner plates. Yeah, they're big. Even so I don't cook mine for an hour, more like 45 minutes. That doesn't mean the pastie recipe is wrong; that means that's what my oven is like. Oven runs differently and you can't always go by what the recipe says. With my oven, if a recipe says "Bake for 45-50 minutes" then I check after about 35 minutes and continue checking; I can often take my baked goods out about 5-7 minutes before the time stated in the recipe.

I'm also a real bear about setting timers when something is baking. If I don't, then I get busy with something else and forget about the food. And again, if the recipe says "Bake for 45-50 minutes" then I set my timer for 35 minutes. Because....well, sometimes food gets done sooner than you think it would. That 35 minutes is just so I know to start checking.

Sorry, I don't mean to go off topic here. Just wanted you to know that maybe your oven is running too high or there could be something funky going on. Your pastie looks beautiful!

 

[Winchester]

Whatever Rick wants to make for dinner is fine with me.

 

[1 bruce 1]

M maggiedemi As a rule, there's no difference in a recipe for a gas versus electric oven, at least not that I'm aware. Have you checked your oven's temperature lately? Oven temps can be off by quite a bit sometimes. I keep a thermometer in my oven at all times and will glance at it from time to time to see if it's in range. If you check your temp and find that you have it set for 350 and your thermometer says 370 (degrees F), then you know it's running high and you can compensate.

If you check your pasties (or anything else) and you think your food is getting too brown, top it with some aluminum foil. Also, check to see where your rack is in your oven; maybe it's too low. You can also top it with the foil right from the beginning, then take it off when you have about 15-20 minutes of baking time left; that gives your food a chance to brown.

When I make pasties, mine are about the size of dinner plates. Yeah, they're big. Even so I don't cook mine for an hour, more like 45 minutes. That doesn't mean the pastie recipe is wrong; that means that's what my oven is like. Oven runs differently and you can't always go by what the recipe says. With my oven, if a recipe says "Bake for 45-50 minutes" then I check after about 35 minutes and continue checking; I can often take my baked goods out about 5-7 minutes before the time stated in the recipe.

I'm also a real bear about setting timers when something is baking. If I don't, then I get busy with something else and forget about the food. And again, if the recipe says "Bake for 45-50 minutes" then I set my timer for 35 minutes. Because....well, sometimes food gets done sooner than you think it would. That 35 minutes is just so I know to start checking.

Sorry, I don't mean to go off topic here. Just wanted you to know that maybe your oven is running too high or there could be something funky going on. Your pastie looks beautiful!

Agreed.
For an hours long baking/cooking, we usually do 45-50 minutes and let it rest, covered, at room temp for a good 15-20 minutes (or more, depending.) It continues cooking even once it's out and it gives it a chance to let the heat go through evenly and cool down so you don't give your throat 3rd degree burns...

 

[maggiedemi]

Thanks guys. I try to follow the recipes exactly, so that must be why I keep failing all the time. The rack is right in the middle, so I think that's okay. I just must be cooking things too long.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

i'll microwave a potato, get some beanless chili heating (in microwave), add some salt/pepper/margarine to potato, then top potato with the chili. some canned pineapple chunks in juice, and the last banana split brownie for dessert -- later in the evening.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Hekitty tells me that we're having (for me) tuna salad and (for her) tuna soup (juice from water-paced tuna can). YES, she told me that. She has a special bowl for her tuna soup, and when she knocks it around the kitchen, IT IS TIME!

 

[1 bruce 1]

Thanks guys. I try to follow the recipes exactly, so that must be why I keep failing all the time. The rack is right in the middle, so I think that's okay. I just must be cooking things too long.

It's trial and error! And sometimes the way a recipe makes something we don't like and we can make small adjustments to suit us.
I love Cattle Drive Cookout which is basically beef and a ton of vegetable and beans and whatever thrown into a pot or onto a pie crust, but we've never followed the actual recipe precisely and add, subtract and substitute.
If cooking times are difficult, remember you can ALWAYS cook it a little bit more if it's not done, but if it's a charred cajun frisbee (like my first cake I attempted, that was not good LOL), you can't "un-cook" it by 20 minutes. Just check the food often and taste test if you have to.
With food it's like minor non-perfections enhance things and can give you ideas that will keep you in the kitchen til 3:00AM =P

 

[miagi's_mommy]

Hey I live in butte and love pasties. with ketchup and gravy.

We had steak tonight.

 

[Winchester]

With food it's like minor non-perfections enhance things and can give you ideas that will keep you in the kitchen til 3:00AM =P

1 bruce 1 I have been known to spend the entire evening in the kitchen, testing this, doing that, messing around and the time flies by. Not so much when Rick is home, but when he goes away and I have trouble sleeping, the kitchen is a good place to be. And then I look out the window and see that it's getting light outside!

Hmmm dinner tonight. I think Rick can make whatever he wants and I shall have a simple salad, maybe with some tuna for protein. Right now, I'm not at all hungry. I didn't eat anything last night, though, so we'll see how I feel.