What are you cooking?

[fishorama]

OK, I just mentioned jaylach's applesauce in mac & cheese & husband thinks it sounds good! He also reminisced about 1 of his fav lunches when he worked. They used real cream! & potato chips were a possible add in & other things too. Not for me, bleh! I was more jealous of Burmese tea leaf salad that was also from 1 of his lunch spots.

Black bean tacos on hard shells tonight.

 

[jaylach]

@jaylach I think you may have misunderstood my au gratin potatoes w/ham, the broccoli was separate. I know you like to mix everything together, lol.. I do broccoli & rye in cheese white sauce but no ham (both have a little finely chopped onion cooked slightly in the butter before sauce) so your version sounds pretty good too. My husband is a cheeseaholic but didn't like ham or bacon in mac'n'cheese, his most favorite food of all time.

I like celery in chicken stir fry (but not beef or pork), some soups & potato salad, that's about all. I just searched celeriac & it's just grown for the bigger root, they're the same veg. Hmm, more intense & slightly earthy taste...I'll need to think about that before I buy it.

I'm also not a celery person. I like the crunch factor in things such as pasta/potato mayo based salads and have no problem with it soups or stews. Ya, stalks with peanut butter is cool. It is just that I can't buy just a stem of celery but have to get an entire stalk. More than half the stalk would end up in the trash. Hmmmmm Never really looked but my local grocery has a pretty good produce area as long as you are not looking very exotic. I may have to see if they have celery loose and by weight.

 

[fishorama]

I seem to remember being able to buy just a couple stalks back in the long-ago day, but not now. Maybe when there were grocery salad bars? Except for a very few things, I don't like it raw, w/veggie trays no matter the dip. It's that tongue coating yucky feeling more than just the taste. I use celery salt in mashed potato soup, it's more peppery with a mild celery taste. But that's gotten harder to find too. Last time my husband bought some at a bulk food area, but it didn't taste at all right to me. So, I spent $6+ for tiny jar of "organic"; it was better.

"Exotic" depends on where you live. We have a Chinese market, a few Hispanic 1s & somewhere, not by me, there are Indian 1's. Cuts of meat & some veggies are different than I was used to on the east coast. Kind of a fun learning curve in some ways. I miss the little bay scallops I treated myself to for lunch once in a while (not a husband food, lol).

I wonder if celery can be frozen if it's going to be cooked? Might turn mushy & weird, but I've done it in soups a couple times, it seemed ok.

 

[Beastije]

I took a prettier picture of the meal (I hope). Not sure if I will eat it all, it is over 500grams!!!
I added corn that I had leftover

 

[Beastije]

I wonder if celery can be frozen if it's going to be cooked? Might turn mushy & weird, but I've done it in soups a couple times, it seemed ok.

I use frozen celeriac for soups and all sauces like Bolognese so that works. Never tried it frozen for fries or steak.
I recently purchased green celery to give it a retry if I still don't like it and use as a base in some stew/soup, so I used that one stalk, peeled and cut all the others and froze them. Then I added them to soups/sauces next time (though granted I thought it was parsnip initially. I never label my food in the freezer cause I assume I will 'just know') and it was very fine. Lost the overpowering taste for me but was still crunchy in the soup and brought the flavor.

 

[fishorama]

Thanks, good to know

 

[fishorama]

We'll be having Italian marinated grilled chicken, egg noodles with toasted herbed breadcrumbs & broccoli, maybe carrots.