We went to the rare beer dinner, which Shannon suggested to me before I could suggest it to her, for New Years Eve at the Cheese Bar. It was quite a delicious meal paired with a bunch of beers that I got two glasses of (as Shannon wasn’t drinking). Unlike Shannon’s last experience with blood sausage, this one went a lot better and she actually liked it. But the meal over all was wonderful. It was early enough that you could go to another celebration, if that was in your plans, but late enough for us that we called it good (Shannon worked that day).

Skillet Turkey Burgers

I’m curious if the gelatin is actually needed. I suppose they tested it with and without. So it probably is for the texture they are looking for. I had the gelatin, but apparently had run out of Parmesan at some point and didn’t notice (I’ve been cutting back on cheese quite a bit). As it stands this worked out pretty well, even without the Parmesan, it had a good flavor and nice bit. I’ll have to try it again.

Spicy Chocolate Milk–Simmered Chicken

Even after hearing how surprisingly good this, I still had my doubts. So I follow the recipe and adjusted it a little, because I had more chicken in the package and extra chocolate milk. I used full fat chocolate milk, and I added a bit more full fat milk a bit later too (it was getting a bit dry). Frankly this was fantastic. I admit I may have skipped the zucchini step. Even so, served over quinoa a quite filling meal without a ton of effort.

Spaghetti in Poblano Salsa

While I didn’t have poblanos, nor did I see any in the store, I did have New Mexican chiles that were grown and roasted here, saving me a step or two, already in the freezer. I may have forgotten to buy parsley, but I added more chilies (5 instead of 3), and this turned out to be a dish that we both liked, so much so I was disappointed that Shannon got to the leftovers before I did. I used sour cream instead of cream and I couldn’t find bucatini pasta. I think with the additional pepper addition it was a bit more needed, so when added the cotija cheese at the end I didn’t need to add any olive oil. Without having to roast the pepper, it cut down quite a bit of the time. I do have a blow torch, so I suspect I can roast outside with much ease, without worrying about setting off the smoke detectors.

Speedy Chicken & Potato Curry

This was speedy, especially considering it didn’t use a paste or much of a short cut. The biggest pain about this dish was getting the cinnamon stick out of the container. They were crammed in so tightly, I couldn’t shake them out. I’d get some to pop up, but they’d be of an edge where they couldn’t be moved to actually come out. After much shaking, I got one to pop up a bit in the middle and was able to slowly pull the cinnamon stick out. I bought the CostCo package on a whim, and now have a whole container to go through. The rest of the recipe went through pretty quickly, as I prepped most things in advance. I did make just barely enough rice, as my mid-sized sauce pan lost it’s lid a while back and I haven’t gotten around to replacing it. I did have to mush up the tomatoes a bit after their cooke time as they didn’t dissipate enough, but even with that, it was easy, fragrant and a nice Saturday night meal.