The kids packed their lunches again today. My daughter had a pasta and bean soup, crackers, grapes, and v8. My son had pasta and meatballs, string cheese, and a yogurt smoothie. My hubby was home this afternoon so we took advantage of the kids being in school and went out for a lunch date. We went to this great local restaurant run completely by a woman and her husband. We had cream of fennel & potato soup to share. We each had the special: a veggie burger made with roasted portobello mushroom, quinoa, whole grain rice, and vegetables on a freshly made cracked wheat bun with an organic green salad, corn fritters, and a slaw I think was made out of green papaya and daikon radish. Everything was amazing. On our way out, she talked us into (very easily) lemon cookies, raspberry granola, and a blueberry ricotta poundcake.
Tonight's forecast has our very first frost advisory for the year. Sigh. I'm not ready for my garden to get hit yet. So I spent hours this afternoon harvesting, cleaning, chopping, dehydrating, blanching, and freezing some of my goodies. I froze two quart baggies of sliced green onion and stuck a container in the fridge. My dehydrator is full of sliced green onion. I'm not sure if I will make it into onion powder or keep them as slices. I have one quart of blanched green beans in the freezer (and a container in the fridge to eat). I washed a huge container of lettuce. I have a gallon bag full of green peppers. I have a bunch of jalapenos, apples, and tomatoes that I will need to work on tomorrow. I'm hoping that our garden will pull through tonight ok. Wish me luck!
After working on that stuff for four hours, I didn't feel like making anything too difficult for dinner. I browsed a recipe for portobello stroganoff. I read through the comments and some suggestions were to add worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Hmmmm. I closed out of the recipe and decided to just wing it.
I sauteed onion and fresh garlic in butter for a few minutes. I added a box of (sliced) baby portobello mushrooms. I let them brown up a bit and then I added local red wine. Shocking I know. I usually use white wine. I wanted this to have a "beefier" taste. Ha. Funny coming from a new vegetarian right? I let the wine cook out and then I went to add broth. Uh oh. I was out of vegetable broth. I saw that I had a packet of onion soup mix. I added it to 1 1/2 cups of water, stirred, and then scooped out the dehydrated onion. I probably could have left them in there but I just wanted nice fresh onion. I added the "broth" and let it simmer for a few minutes. I added in probably about 2-3 tablespoons of worcestershire sauce and a few shakes of salt. I happened to have half a can of tomato paste in the fridge so I added that too. I stirred a couple tablespoons of flour into about 5 ounces of sour cream. I turned the burner down to low and added the sour cream. I served the sauce over egg noodles and with freshly grated romano cheese. I made a side salad with garden lettuce, arugula, peas, green onion, cherry tomatoes, julienned cucumber, and sunflower seeds.
How did my thrown together dinner turn out? Two bites in my hubby said "this is really good". My daughter said she loved it. The three of us all had second helpings and couldn't think of anyway we would want to improve it next time. My son on the other hand didn't like it. Crazy boy doesn't know what he is missing out on.
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