So...whats for dinner?
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Glad that DD is home safe and happy, Eric.
Congrats on dropping lbs, Sandy.
Dinner last night was crappie fish fillets, lightly breaded and fried in small amount of oil in a cast iron skillet on the outdoor grill side burner. A neighbor gave us the fish, which was caught this summer and frozen in water. DH made a large romaine salad with many ingredients.
Kitchen emergency! We are out of olive oil.
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The new clamp-on grill light arrived yesterday, and Bob came home early enough tonight that I could grill salmon. He needed a starch (which I can't have), so I defrosted an ear of corn from the freezer and grilled it. I cut up my last two farmers' market mini-tomatoes with homegrown basil, Ligurian olive oil (sorry, Carole!) and 25-yr old Balsamico from the Reggio Emilia region. Took a few leaves of rainbow Swiss chard (also farmers' market), stripped them from the stems, which I cooked separately. I let the leaves wilt in their own steam and dressed them with salt & EVOO; I chopped the stems and sauteed them with butter, salt, pepper and supermarket balsamic vinegar.
The salmon was more problematic, though. I figured that since it came skinless, grilling it directly on the grates would be difficult: the last time I tried (following America's Test Kitchen's protocol of scrubbing the schmutz off screaming-hot grates and oiling and re-oiling them 10 times), it still stuck and made it to the dinner table badly "maimed." So yesterday, in preparation, I dusted off and cleaned my hinged fish basket (not the one with square wire grids but the one with three fish-shaped sections). Even oiled it with coconut oil, figuring that the fish wouldn't touch the grill so I didn't need to season the grill grates. Bad idea--the fish-shaped basket squeezed the fillets and let them contact the grates. Came out to flip the basket and found to my horror that there was already considerable fish debris stuck to the grates. And once the fish came up to suggested temperature, it still stuck to the inside of the basket. Managed to loosen them enough to flip them on to an inverted plate, and though there were a few loose chunks, they still looked like salmon fillets. And they didn't overcook. Whew!
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Sandy, my DSIL gave me one of those copper cooking mats for the grill. They work great for things like flimsy fish and grilling vegetables. To my surprise, things brown quite well on it. I think they're pretty cheap.
Eric, so glad DD's adventure turned out so well. You've done a good job with her.
Well, the "stuff" has all been taken care of, we've met with the realtor (and really like her) and we're ready to roll. She's coming Tuesday to take pictures and list the house Thursday. Now all we have to do is maintenance (barring something unforseen God forbid.) I don't think my house has been this clean since we moved in.
Just the two of us for the holiday having typical bbq food - a small rack of baby back ribs, a couple of brats, corn on the cob and either cole slaw or baked beans. I'm leaning toward cole slaw so as not to turn on the oven - hot and humid here. I think dessert will just be some frozen yogurt and California peaches (which have been quite good.)
Carole, what I wouldn't give for some crappie - my favorite fried fish!
Happy Independence Day my friends!
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auntie - hope the house sells quickly, what is the plan if it does?
4th of July food will include burgers, dogs, brats on the grill, made a veggie heavy pasta salad earlier, baked beans with onion/bacon/pineapple added, loaded deviled eggs, and had to choose between cherry pie or Dole Whip for dessert - due to the temps Dole Whip won! DD is out taking care of the horse, but will stop for mortars on her way home, my neighborhood sounds like WWIII on the 4th and NYE - gotta love Florida! Have a safe and fun holiday all!
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Special, the very loosely defined "plan" is to quickly find something to rent short term in the area where we want to locate while we search for something more permanent.
I want to come to your house for dinner.
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We are joining some friends at a home with a good view of the fireworks. Taking potato salad and a watermelon, blueberry and mozzarella balls dish. Hostess has promised sliders and ice cream sundaes.
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Dinner will be brats cooked on the grill and fresh corn cut off the cob and cooked in butter in a skillet. Maybe a salad.
We rode in the boat parade with the owners of a very nice and well-decorated boat. Participation was down to about thirteen boats this year. The ride was pleasant especially facing into the breeze. Island Lake isn't huge so we were out on the water about 45 minutes.
The resort is full but there have been no problems so far. The children are well behaved and dogs have been on leashes.
It's almost drink time! Yay.
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Had a Spinach & artichoke quiche from Costco - accompanied by a lovely old vine zinfandel from Lodi called Mischievous.
Now busy prepping for tomorrow & Saturday. Onions & bell pepper cut & already marinating in the vinegar & oil for the 3 bean salad. Just have to add the beans. Celery cut for the lime jello and moving on the dicing the cashew nuts and then the avocado. All of the avocados in the store were less than ripe on Tuesday. The web said to put in a paper bag with banana or tomato or apple. Two days of that didn't help much so they've been sitting out on the patio table all afternoon in 97 degree heat. Hope they'll be ready to dice in a bit.
Beaver - your watermelon/blueberry dish sounds interesting. Will you share the recipe?
Nance - are you staying basically around St. Louis or moving far afield?
Happy Independence Day.
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Minus, we plan to go about 50 miles south of here to a county adjacent to St. Louis County.
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Thanks Nance. I think you probably told me before, but my brain didn't retain the information. Will it still be urban or will you be in the country with lake or river and trees? I think I've outlived my chance to move from my current house. Everything I see is considerably bigger and I want smaller, or at least the same (3 &2). Unless of course I go high rise closer to town, and that's well out of my budget. As long as we're dreaming, I'd love to live on the Pacific Ocean. Oh well - in another life.
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Minus, the recipe was just that--small pieces of watermelon, blueberries, and mozzarella cheese balls. Took a blueberry infused balsamic vinegar to pour over but many, especially the kids, just wanted the fruit (especially after they discovered the mozzarella was cheese and not marshmallows. Saw the combination on a TV show and decided to try it. Looked festive and tasted good!
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...heading out on a driving/camping trip around the western USA.....
Sharon ***HATES*** the summer heat here....
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Eric - have fun. If you have time, let us know where you land from time to time.
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Greetings all!
I've been absent from the board for a while. Only read the most recent page, but it sounds like everyone has been busy and doing well.
We've been using the grill a lot lately. Leg of lamb steak with fresh rosemary and grilled zucchini. Leftovers used for shwarmas with tsatziki sauce. Made a really good farro salad with some of the zucchini, kalamata olives, olive oil and chopped fresh mint, oregano and parsley.
Tonight we'll grill a spatchcocked chicken and some corn.
Scheduled for implant revision surgery with fat grafting mid-month. So will make some things for the freezer this weekend.
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Was just going to wing it from th freezer or deli drawer, but when i went to WF to replenish some stuff, they had ground bison on sale. So I got a package of that (made 3 decent-size burgers), a liitle under a lb. ea. of wild sockeye (AK) and king (BC) salmon, and a couple of portabella caps. Grilled up a cheeseburger: bison, Tillamook cheddar (Target had a sale), lettuce, tomato, & red onion with the portabellas as a "bun." Of course, it got pretty messy due to one of the caps falling apart when I tried to roast it; so I wrapped the whole thing in lettuce leaves and then parchment. Lovely, drippy, gooey--no need for condiments! Shortly after finishing (and while doing the brush-floss thing), Bob called to ask if I wanted anything from the Italian joint where he'd stopped for a martini. Nope--I think my dinner was better than the pizza he had.
Defrosted a porterhouse to grill tonight--Bob promises to be home early enough. I now have a decent grill light, and the storms aren't supposed to hit till tomorrow. Gotta figure out veggie accompaniments ahead of time: making that burger last night took everything out of me. Got some pre-made fattoush salad, and I can always nuke him some instant brown rice (I can't have any more starch today, as I had a small slice each of low-carb bread with breakfast (ricotta "pudding" to make a faux cannolli) and lunch (tuna salad sandwich). I bought some garlic scapes out of curiosity (mislabled as "baby ramps") so maybe I can grill them as well.
Didn't go see any fireworks--too tired to go to Evanston (and walk nearly a mile from either the train or parking, or to deal with the crowds and traffic), so I ate my burger in front of the TV while watching "A Capitol Fourth" and listening to amateur fireworks going off all around the neighborhood.
There is a Ribfest a few miles s. of me on B'way (a short bus ride south), with Martha Davis & the Motels headlining tonight. But as I said, not into crowds, especially if I have to stand (and I blew my back muscles out again today). And as much as I love a good sparerib, I'd rather savor a great steak with a knife & fork than gnaw on bones these days.
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We're in Hurricane, UT (SW corner of Utah). We snacked about an hour ago and neither of us are hungry, so no cooking in the tent trailer for tonight. We're here for a couple of days to look around the town and go to Zion National Park. Then we will head toward US Hwy 89 and go north...unless we decide differently. :-)
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Weather got much cooler, my back is a bear (again) and Bob is getting home very late so he can accompany me to my dear friend & ex-boss' 90th birthday party up in Skokie early tomorrow evening.
But learned this morning that one of my few first cousins in Westchester County passed away yesterday (all his wife--still in shock, of course--could say was he had a "rare blood cancer" and then got pneumonia while trying to recover from a stem cell transplant). Since he and his wife are observant Modern Orthodox, he has to be buried as soon after Shabbat as practicable. Unlike here in Chicago, gravediggers in NYS do work on Sundays--so the funeral is tomorrow, with first night of Shiva (the week of mourning during which the bereaved receive condolence visitors at home) tomorrow night and thereafter till Fri. morning. Spent most of the day frantically exchanging e-mails with one of my other cousins (who lives in the Boston area) and my sis, who lives in the NoVA DC suburbs. Consensus is that I shouuld attend the party--how many 90th birthdays do we get to celebrate: especially for someone who battled back from a massive stroke only to lose his wife to a sudden heart attack, and who mentored me for almost 20 years after I resumed my legal career once Gordy was old enough? (He also is an elder at my temple who supplemented my religious education).
So instead of grilling or reheating the leftover (blood-rare) portion of the porterhouse, I pan-seared a wild sockeye filet and sauteed some snap peas. Allowed myself a dessert of berries with creme fraiche and an almond milk breve decaf cappuccino.
Will reconnoiter with my sis in the morning to arrange an affordable flight (she from Dulles or Reagan, me from O'Hare) so we can meet at JFK or (ugh) LGA, carpool, and share a room for a couple nights. Closest airport to my cousin is White Plains/Westchester County, but flights to there from Chicago on short notice & short stay are insanely expensive (try >$2000 round trip in Economy).
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Very mundane cooking here. Had a failure Saturday night when I attempted a version of Spanish rice, using the rice combo I had on hand (white, brown, red, black rice. I substituted canned tomatoes for most of the water and added some chili powder. Not great. I cooked boneless chicken thighs with tomatoes spooned on top, used the grill as an oven. The thighs were tender and tasted pretty good. It's hard to ruin chicken thighs, which is one reason I like cooking them. The fat keeps them juicy.
Last night's dinner was with the couples golf group at LaPasta in Dorset. I had the Sicilian spaghetti with a red sauce (too thick) that included olives, mushrooms and capers and hunks of Italian sausage. The sauce was spicy and I enjoyed the dish. Brought half of it home. DH had his usual linguine and Italian sausage and sautéed green pepper and onion. He ate all of his. We both really like the Italian sausage at LaPasta. Wish the owner would offer it for sale in the adjacent small Country Grocery.
Tonight I will try to make the left over Spanish rice more palatable. The rice needs to plump up.
It's Monday so I willl feed quarters into the washer and dryer in our nice little laundry room. It's a short walk back and forth but I get some exercise in the process. DH has a job planned for repairing a leak in the camper roof that he recently discovered so he will be climbing up and down a ladder, not his favorite thing to do at age 80. The forecast has rain for tonight and he wants to finish the job before the rain starts.
Happy Monday after the 4th! I love it when holidays are over and the people go home to their jobs and lives and our little resort/campground becomes peaceful and quiet. My philosophy is that the purpose of holidays is to enhance the enjoyment of everyday life.
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We are camping at around 8,500 feet elevation and overlooking Ephriam, Utah. We made our "wilderness experience" complete and ate at a Mexican food restaurant. :-)
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Dinner last night was not as originally planned. I made a large tossed salad and used the house oven down in the garage/recreation building to cook a frozen pizza from Jake's Pizza in Turtle River, north of Bemidji. We bought two of their frozen pizza's when we ate there a week ago.
The crust was burned around the edges so 15 minutes at 500 degrees isn't the perfect formula. Nevertheless all the pizza was eaten.
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Oh my Eric, you are miles from anywhere. If you keep going North, Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border is a lovely place. Magari - good luck with your surgery. Will you be at UCSF? Carole - I agree that's it's nice when the quiet returns. I've been making it a habit to travel when children are back in school for exactly that reason. Oh my - your DH on a ladder at 80? I'm leery of climbing up to clean out my own gutters with my neuropathy and 'dead' feet. Illi - loved your pictures of tubing on the Frio.
This thread has been fairly quiet. It's definitely too hot to cook and almost too hot to eat. Bought a rotisserie chicken at Costco that I planned for dinner, but yesterday never stopped. I was able to drop the food at home before going to chair yoga but then barely had time to de-bone before I had to leave again for water aerobics. So supper at 8:30pm was Triscuits with smoked salmon dip, lime jello/avocado/cashew salad and 1/2 a bag of cheetos. Picked up some cold boiled shrimp that I'll eat this afternoon. That will be good with my left-over three bean salad and key lime pie from last weekend. And no need to turn the stove on.
As for the non-food update, I had a hearing aid exam at Costo yesterday that was every bit as comprehensive as the two I've had at the medical center - and FREE. (Thank you chemo for the damage.) I was pleasantly surprised that my hearing has improved some in the last two years. While there are definitely things I miss (like some words in plays or some female words in houses with a very high great room ceiling & minimal furniture), she recommended I wait and test again in a year. This suits me since it's only once or twice a month that I'm with someone and have to ask them to repeat things. Most concert & playhouses have headphones you can get at the front desk for free that amplify or are connected directly to the actor's mics. And she said to sit with my back to the wall at busy restaurants so the sound won't reverberate.
Lacey - thinking about you. Hope the CA memorial for your brother was OK.
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Can't remember if I posted about this salad the first time I made it - DD had it in Arizona when she was there for work just before she was to return home, and raved about it. Found a copycat recipe online, and have now made it twice for her and DH - including last night, but have not eaten it myself. They both have commented on how unusual it is, but also how good. It is lined up like a Cobb salad on the plate and you can leave it that way - or mix it. Both DD and DH mixed. It is a line of flaked smoked salmon, a line of cooked and cooled Israeli couscous, a line of gently chopped arugula, a line of dried sweet corn, a line of "trail mix" consisting of roasted and salted pepitas, asiago cheese, and currants or raisins, then a line of balsamic/olive oil marinated Roma tomatoes. The salad is dressed with a creamy buttermilk and basil dressing. I am not a smoked salmon person, so that is why I didn't have any, but when I made it the first time I made more for DH and used chicken breast since I had no more salmon. He said it was good, but liked the salmon version better.
I am thinking tonight may be curried rice, chicken and artichoke salad - minus, I agree on the too hot to cook or eat theory. Here also compounded by too wet, which is not a good combo with high temps. Bleh...
magari - also wishing you the best for surgery!
lacey - sending you strength to get through your sadness, I know it is hard to lose a sibling.
chisandy - also thinking of you and the loss of your cousin.
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Thanks, Special. Flying out there tomorrow to attend the evening shiva minyan (it's late enough in the shiva week that they'll need all the warm bodies they can get), then flying home at noon Thurs. (or whenever my flight takes off).
Sunday night's 90th birthday party was wonderful. The honoree was in great spirits and fine form. It was kind of a reunion of all of us who'd worked with him as well. I was able to stick to my diet: lox appetizer, green salad, and grilled Scottish salmon with asparagus Hollandaise. Berries instead of birthday cake. And last night's dinner was my leftovers. Tonight is the leftover grilled porterhouse with some kale salad.
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SpecialK, your salad sounds really good and appealing to the eye.
We had another mundane and tasty meal last night. Baked sweet potatoes cooked in the outdoor grill/oven. A pork steak I bought from a pork farmer at the farmers market. The pork was really delicious.
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We are in Huntsville, Utah.
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Eric - gorgeous picture of the mountains & reservoir/lake when I google. I'm so enjoying following your trip vicariously.
Dinner is sort of a 'jump up' variation of Laurie's Mexican Casserole. Had leftover rotissarie chicken bits, 1/2 a jar of Mrs. Renfro's Jalapeno salsa, a can of pinto beans & bunch of Campari tomatoes. It's heating now, then I'll add cheese.
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Hello everyone,
I am new to this site, and this topic jumped out at me because I love to cook and try new recipes. I struggle with the post BC diagnosis sacrifices of not eating what I am not supposed to be eating or not drinking what I am not supposed to be drinking because I enjoy and appreciate good food paired with the right wine or beer. I have not turned into a strict teetotaler or vegetarian by any means, but since my diagnosis, I definitely have given up my nightly glass of wine followed by an extra "splash" and I strictly limit my consumption of certain foods. :-(
I've always eaten a rather healthy diet, but now I make an effort to stay away from the "bad" stuff more (although I do still indulge when a special occasion calls for it) and I try to fill my plate with mostly plant-based foods.
I've enjoyed browsing through some of the recipes already posted here, so I will add one I made a few nights ago. This is adapted from a recipe from Gourmet magazine from quite some time ago. My husband and I enjoy it, so I've made it many times over the years. It's a good one on a summer night!
Grilled pork chops (or chicken) with pineapple salsa
Make a salsa out of about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of finely chopped red onion, about 1/2 of a pineapple diced small ( about 1/4 inch chunks), 1 or 2 seeded jalapeno peppers (or pepper of your choice), 1 T of fresh lime juice, salt to taste (up to 1/2 tsp). Set aside. I also add some chopped cilantro if I have some.
Make a mixture of 1 T of olive oil, 2 to 2 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1 tsp of salt. Stir it all together into a paste and rub it all over pork chops or chicken. (Fish may work too, but I do not like fish, so I can't say.) I always made it with pork in the past, but pork is one of the foods I am now limiting, so I used organic skinless, boneless thin-sliced chicken breasts instead. It is better with the pork chops, but it was good with the chicken also. (I'd use pork chops if I made this for company.)
Grill the meat and serve with the pineapple salsa.
I usually serve this with the meat and salsa over a mound of brown rice with roasted or grilled asparagus on the side.
Dinner tonight will be takeout from Chipotle since I did not go grocery shopping this afternoon as planned. I will order either a veggie burrito bowl or a salad and top it with black beans, extra fajita veggies, extra fresh tomato salsa, tomatillo green chili salsa, extra romaine lettuce, avocado, and brown rice. I tell myself that as far as convenience food goes, it's one of the healthier options, although it is on the salty side. So.....home cooked recipe out of Gourmet magazine Tuesday; fast food tonight. It's all about finding balance, right? lol!
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Welcome Super, I love pineapple and pork - the salsa sounds delicious.
The for sale sign is up and a showing is scheduled for Sunday. Yike! It's for real!
Tonight is smoked sausage, saurkraut, mashed potatoes and cornbread. Not fancy but satisfying - especially the cornbread lol
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Hi Super.
We are at. 41.2507638 -111.7902862. I think if you enter that into Google, it will bring up a map showing the place.
Tonight's meal is a simple "beans and rice" with lots of peppers and a salad. It's a minimal dirty dishes meal! :-)
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super - welcome. Thanks for the pork recipe. Actually I didn't totally give up anything in the way of food or drink. I just work for more moderation in the quantities and adding more fiber & veggies.
Nance - whoo boy. Scary for sure. Hope you get positive responses.
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