is leftover Chicken Pozole Roja, made on Halloween evening while handing out candy. It's become tradition to have a simmering cauldron of that fragrant soup. Kids at the door have said "What smells so good?" That and a couple of shots of Deep Eddy Lime.

I had some work to do here in Spain this weekend, and my wife decided spontaneously to come with me.

We went to a nearby place here in the Barri Gòtic, where everyone is either Catalan or Filipino. So I greet them in either Catalan or Tagalog, and there‘s always a table for us. I spent a year here in Barcelona as a teenager, so I can speak Catalan well. My Tagalog is minimal, but I speak enough to get a big smile from Filipinos, especially when they find out I‘ve never even been there.

She had minestrone and nachos with guacamole. I had calamars sevillanes and roasted potatoes in spicy garlic oil (papes braves). We had a big lunch, so it was plenty for an evening snack.

Tonight I'm making Swedish meatballs with noodles and a nice iceberg salad (with lots of fresh veggies).

I used bow ties. I cooked some ground beef with onions, garlic, mushrooms and peppers. I had a jar of salsa opened, so I added Italian seasoning, basil, parsley and paprika to make it taste more like spaghetti sauce. Worked fine

Zucchini brownie cake for dessert.

with some little yellow potatoes, carrots, onion and celery.

It is in the crock pot and it is not done yet, but smells so good.

baked w/ lemon/pepper breading
rice pilaf
green beans
sliced tomatoes

dessert: homemade chocolate cake w/ homemade mocha frosting

otherwise, quite good

The chocolate cake recipe is the best ever--incredibly moist and chocolate-y

I got it from the back of the can of Hershey's cocoa powder years ago. (My mom always used the recipe.) I don't buy Hershey's cocoa anymore because they have been terrible to their employees.

Got the frosting recipe the same way--same can--but I altered it by flavoring the milk w/ instant coffee. First time I ever tried that. Will cut back on the coffee next time.

The recipe, sort of, is in yesterday's What's for Dinner post at
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1157134617#post5

I was worried about how the rice would come out with whatever reheat method I chose.

I found a number of ways to reheat with the InstantPot, most involved the STEAM button, which I don't have, so chose a method like this (essentially it uses the preheat phase of the pressure cooker to heat the food):

Put in the trivet and pour in 1 1/4 cups of water (way more than enough but no matter. The amount of food is one large serving)

Put the food in a pyrex bowl and put it on the trivet

Put the lid on and ensure the Vent/Seal switch is in the Seal position

I pressed Pressure Cook and set 1 minute cook time and pressed Start at t+0. I also pressed the Warm button to turn Keep Warm off

Steam started coming out at t+6 and preheat was over at t+7. It was done with cook phase at t+8

I let it sit for 5 minutes to naturally release steam and then did quick release the remaining steam

Anyway it was thoroughly heated and the rice was good and fine. 

Total time from pressing Start to taking the lid off was 13 minutes.

I don't have a microwave. I suppose stove top reheating would be quicker but I'd have to stir now and then. Or steam it on the stove top in a steamer basket but there are 2 phases: get the water to boiling, turn down the heat some and put the steamer and food in..