Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Smoking a chicken today. Wild rice and haricots vert (French green beans) as sides. It is a little spendy to use haricots vert instead of green beans, but they are better. Kind of like using Cointreau instead of triple sec in a margarita. Either one is fine and not the star of the drink/dinner. It does make a big difference for me with the chopped salad and not so much with smoked chicken being the star attraction.

And once I introduced Cointreau to my wife's margaritas there was no turning back. Ain't no way I ever make her a margarita with Grand Marnier Centenaire. I would go broke.

I think that once I made her a margarita with Don Julio blanco tequila when we had no other tequila, but I told her never again unless it is your birthday.

Tomorrow will be a chopped salad (using the rest of the haricots vert), then a reprise of pasta Bolognese on Tuesday (I always make a double batch of the sauce), and finally a tomatillo based chicken posole on Wednesday.

 

Leftover Bolognese sauce over orecchiette tonight and a salad and tomorrow is the green posole.

Thinking down the road I want to smoke a lamb shoulder for pulled meat and also make a Thai red curry with shrimp and one with chicken. I now have a large enough kaffir lime tree to use some leaves for making the curry. One problem is that I rarely see whole lamb shoulders at my supermarket. Maybe I need to ask for one.

 

A buffet of leftovers tonight.

 

Boneless rib makes even less sense to me than jumbo shrimp. But this is an open secret and old news. Almost exactly the only choice.

I made to my mind an awfully good attempt at humor.

LOL.

 

We might be going out to a friend's house tonight so dinner is up in the air. What I want to make if we are not going or need to eat early is Thai red curry with shrimp and that is pretty quick.

I was going to smoke Memphis style pork ribs tomorrow but a friend will be in town on Sunday so I will wait a day.

 

So we are going to see friends and the plan (I was not consulted) is that we are taking Thai take-out.

And I have the fixings for Thai red curry shrimp and unfrozen shrimp does not last long even in the fridge

I hope my family likes Thai two nights in a row.

I have no problem with that.

Edit:

Now my friend will be here on Monday. I think that the shrimp will be OK until Sunday, so ribs on Saturday. Maybe posole rojo on Monday as it is one of his favorites Or carnitas tacos? He is originally from Central America so he likes real Mexican food.

 

I wish that I lived closer to your house.

 

Dinners have been sorted out.

Today I am smoking Memphis style dry rubbed pork ribs with a Carolina vinegar based slaw. I don't mind mixing BBQ things from different regions. I like my ribs done just shy of fall off the bone. They should have a little bit of tooth in them. One change from how I usually cook them is using Guldens brown mustard instead of French's yellow mustard to make the rub stick. I didn't know that I was out of French's and no way was I using coarse Maile Dijon mustard for this.

Tomorrow I will use the shrimp that I bought for a Thai red curry dish to make pickled shrimp with fennel and onions with a side. Probably some rice dish. Maybe my yellow rice pilaf with vermicelli noodles.

On Monday my friend arrives and we left it up to my youngest son to pick between red posole or carnitas tacos. He couldn't make up his mind so he did a coin flip and it is carnitas tacos. Easier for me because I won't need a trip to the Latin market for the correct dried peppers to make the chili sauce.

My wife was hoping for the posole rojo so I will make that soon.

 

And Swiss cheese.