“Beef and Barley Stew with Mushrooms” from Simply Recipes. “Cauliflower with Mustard-Lemon Butter” from Epicurious.

Dinner tonight was a Real Dinner. Stew with melty-soft chunks of beef and roasted cauliflower so wonderful that I’m glad I had already packed away the rest of the dish, otherwise I might have gone back for seconds, thirds and possibly eaten the entire head.

I kept both recipes mostly the same, although I only casually measured the ingredients for the stew. It’s likely that I inadvertently increased all of the vegetables. In addition to turnip, I also added a fennel bulb as suggested by one of the recipe’s commenters. Really enjoyed this additional. I didn’t use sour cream.

Unfortunately, Real Dinners have become a little few and far between recently. I’ve lately been feeling a little uninspired when it comes to eating and then there’s this matter of going back to Real College: balancing 36-hour work weeks during the day with nine credits at night. Thankfully, this stew has not only fed me tonight but has also put a total of five additional meals into the fridge and freezer.

Flank steak with “Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Lemon” from Simply Recipes and “Parsnip Purée with Olive Oil and Sage” from French Revolution Food.

I made the side dishes fairly faithfully, making only minor changes for convenience or carelessness. Both were quite good, although I’d definitely put the Brussels sprouts ahead of the parsnip purée in order of excellence. The texture of the parsnips wasn’t quite right for me; they were a little too wet despite my cutting back on olive oil.

Lemon-thyme rubbed pork chop with spinach-walnut pesto. Very adjusted version of “Mustard-Roasted Potatoes” from Smitten Kitchen. Brussels sprouts with pancetta.

Pork chop with herbed potatoes and green beans with shallots and mustard.

Filet mignon with mustard compound butter and roasted potatoes with lemon and dill.

Meat and potatoes. Nothing green except that handful of chopped dill. It’s a little shocking, I know. But also very good. Habits should not be made of food like this.

Potato and chicken salad, based on “Mostly Not Potato Salad” from Serious Eats. Eaten with mizuna.

I made several changes to the original recipe but it’s still very similar. The most significant omission was the green beans, because I simply didn’t have any. The other very prominent change I made was substituting chicken for tofu because, as much as I like to eat it, this didn’t seem like the best application. The chives are also missing and sorely so. Despite my strong dislike for celery, I didn’t completely leave it out, but I did cut it back to only two stalks and surprisingly, I didn’t hate it. I added a shallot, tweaked the volumes of seasonings and completely omitted the sweetener. I did just notice that I forgot to add a splash of olive oil but I have leftovers.

There’s always tomorrow.