So...whats for dinner?
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Nance - loved that video. Wonder if I'll remember to try it the next time I decide to spend $1.69+ on just one avocado
Oh - forgot to add - sushi for dinner. California Roll.
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Nance, that's the way I peel avocados and remove the pit, except I do hold the avocado in my hand. Minus, I've been paying $1.28 for avocados at Walmart this summer. Worth every penny. Just like buying tomatoes for $2.50 a lb. from the gardeners at the farmers market and $1 each for home grown cucumbers. I had a ham sandwich with sliced tomato for lunch yesterday and it was so-o-o good. The tomato makes all the difference. Gardening is hard work and I appreciate the efforts of others. Oh, and we're enjoying "new dug" potatoes which have a taste altogether different from "old dug" potatoes.
I think the important thing with avocados is that they be at that perfect stage of ripeness.
Saturday one of the venders at the farmers market who calls himself a forager had gorgeous shitake mushrooms (which he grows on logs) and lobster mushrooms which he found in the woods. Both very expensive. He suggested trading some of his products for one of dh's turned bowls. So I have shitake and lobster mushrooms to cook and a bottle of his maple syrup. He got a more expensive bowl than the total of my purchases but he's a nice guy and very appreciative of wood products.
I plan to do a pasta and mushroom dish for dinner tonight. Minus, I may even splurge and buy the smallest carton of cream to add to the sauce. But no brandy in the sauce!
Magari, you are a lucky person to have fresh halibut. My halibut envy is much stronger than my hatch chili envy! Even in Alaska some years ago when we were there, halibut sold for $21 a lb. It's rare to even see it.
Nance, what a gorgeous dessert. You are such a talented baker. DH and I have made a habit of buying cookies from another vender at the farmers market. She sells them 2 for $1 and we buy two of each of the four or five varieties. They are large cookies and the best I have ever eaten. I am not a big cookie fan like dh but I do enjoy her cookies. Not sure why they're so good. Probably butter and sugar.
Off to the gym this morning.
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Personally, I'm not a huge cheesecake fan - one small piece is enough for me for quite a while, therefore most of it went home with the kids. I am a big raspberry fan though and I have a pkg left from the prep.
I bought an avocado for 99¢ from Aldi just so I could slice it the new and improved way. Kudos to you Carole for being ahead of my curve. It's very green so will have to wait a few days though.
Tonight is a small top round roast that's been languishing in the freezer for a while. Sides will be some green beans with new potatoes and another Caesar salad to finish off the rest of the dressing from Saturday. I made pasteurized eggs with the sous vide for the first time for the salad dressing and they worked great. I'm happy to have that option since my egg man quit selling fresh eggs and I'm reduced to store bought because I haven't found a replacement yet.
Hot and humid for the next couple of days. We've had an awesome summer with moderate temps and reasonable humidity, so I'm not complaining (for a change) lol!
Special, please come to my house and organize my vast recipe collection.
Sandy, congrats on your significant weight loss - no mean feat!
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Last night Bob ate dinner at a steakhouse near his hospital and ate filet mignon (not my fave). So he ordered me a bone-in NY strip to go. It was HUMONGOUS! I ate less than half of it (probably won't finish the remainder tonight either), plus half a so-so (iceberg) salad, steamed spinach & sauteed mushrooms.
This a.m. I had my 2-month weigh-in--down 13 lbs. since starting (-28 since making the appointment and starting Invisalign). Lost 2-1/2" off my waist, and my BMI is down >2 whole numbers. In other words, just about halfway to goal: which would be losing enough to drop my BMI from "obese" into "overweight" and purge my closet of any clothes ending with "X" or "W." The bariatric NP went over the past few diet log entries and asked why I have been full-keto since Thurs. morning, and I explained about Wed. night's wine pairing dinner. She asked me how I'd feel about continuing full-keto, and I mentioned I really miss yogurt, berries or the occasional low-carb BLT or avocado toast. She said that's fine--just no more than one whole-food-carb per day, shoot for 64 oz. of water a day (the hardest part!) and try to be a bit more active. (To the latter end, I'm going to make a podiatrist appt., because the bottoms of my L lateral toes hurt when I weightbear--even when I pad my shoe insoles in that area, unless I'm wearing my loudest, cushiest trainers. If my feet can stop hurting, I can walk more).
Think I'll nuke a couple tablespoons of quinoa tonight to go with dinner. (Ate the rest of the salad with half a can of sardines for a late lunch). Have to be NPO after midnight, since I'm getting fasting a1c and lipid profile drawn tomorrow morning).
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I was up before with the birds at 4:45 AM today making food shopping lists in preparation for DS2 crew's long weekend,and hopefully my sister's Saturday visit, so thought I'd check in before the chaos ensues tomorrow evening.
I say “chaos" because within two and a half days, we will import three adults, one baby, two separate (and hopefully compatible) dogs, babysit so son and wife can golf Friday morning, prep some “carry in" food to bring on an afternoon beach visit to some former neighbors from here (who now live on the other side of the lake and whose daughter is married to my son's co-worker/friend), figure out dinner for that night, while sorting out baby schedule/needs throughout the day.
Saturday morning, after early breakfast (DH is breakfast maker in this family) we have an important Beach Association Meeting (by-law changes being voted on and we'd like DS2 to attend with us since he will likely take on this house in the future), my sister arrives with her wild dog, we figure out lunch for the diverse appetites, then possibly a trip into town for farmer's market and bi-centennial “old home day" activities, then back for beach and boating and introducing our newest family member to our neighborhood friends here. I say this while counting on the predicted clear, warm day weather forecast...but here in the hills, that can change in a moment.
DS2 had DH's birthday gift of a turkey fryer/ lobster pot delivered yesterday, and I think he hoped DH would use it for making Sat dinner. But since my sister insists she will be heading home that same day, I think we need to have a very early simple dinner (dunch?) so she can drive back over the mountains and gaps during mostly daylight. So this will all be interesting! Baby Mila will wonder about the crazy family she's been born into! And we can't wait to see her! DS2 sent a pic of her being read to, knowing that it would make her Nana very happy. It did!
Meanwhile, meals here have been pretty boring, grilled chicken, pizza, salads, waaaay to much cheese for beach snacks, which DH packs for us. I've been asking him to try to switch to Kind Bars to be kinder to our arteries!
Last night we ate at a local diner before seeing a wonderful performance of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at our favorite, Winnipesaukee Playhouse. The diner featured lobster rolls for a special, so DH had their typical mayo/celery variety and they accommodated my request (given my celery allergy) for plain lobster meat on the roll, with drawn butter/lemon on the side. We were also able to sub out their usual massive mounds of fries for steamed broccoli and cole slaw, which I appreciated. Here are both:
His
HersBTW, I am much more careful about extracting those darn avocado pits these days! Yes, Carole, perfect ripeness is sublime. “Old dug" and “new dug" potatoes is a new concept to me! Am guessing I've been eating “old dug"guys my whole life .....
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Lobster envy once again! Good luck the next few days Lacey, they sound like they'll be filled with adventure lol!
Last night was a carry in dinner at a friend's farm. I brought Michael Ruhlman's late season baked corn and a green bean and potato salad. Like Minus's chicken foot group, they never tell anyone what to bring so usually, there are lots of desserts and salads. This time things were pretty evenly split between sides and salads with only two desserts. The hosts provided pulled pork and fixings and drinks, including alcohol. Their house sits on top of a hill overlooking their very green fields. After a round of severe storms yesterday, a cold front came in and provided cool temps and a nice breeze. Everyone got enough to eat and it was a lovely outdoor evening with friends.
I have two dozen ears of corn in my refrigerator waiting to be prepped for freezing. The only thing I know about dinner is that there will be corn.
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Yum, lobster. My head spins just reading about your schedule and activities, Lacey. I envy your energy and motivation.
Sounds like a lovely get-together with good food and accommodating weather, Nance.
Night before last, I scrapped my dinner menu in favor of cooking some bacon, slicing some tomatoes, making toast and putting everything on the table for make-your-own bacon and tomato sandwiches. Very tasty. Side was leftover cauliflower and potato salad.
Last night I got out the sautéed shitake and lobster mushrooms and cooked some fettucine for a rare version of fettucine alfredo. Very hi cal with butter and heavy cream and a splash of white wine. Quite delicious. Side of composed salad with tomato, cucumber, avocado with Kalamata olives on mine and diced sweet onion on dh's.
Dessert was the last two cookies from the cookie lady at the farmers market.
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Oh man, that lobstah looks amazing!
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illimae - concur, lobster = amazing!
lacey - all I can say is wow! On several fronts! That is a lot going on!
I am trying to avoid the grocery store so last night I made a big pan of penne with my cooked and frozen penne. Got it out of the freezer, microwaved it just enough to be able to separate the pasta, and combined it with turkey meatballs and a random leftover 1/4 c. of whipped cream cheese in a 9x13 pan. Added marinara and grated asiago and romano, stirred together and topped with grated parm. I may be fresh out of rabbits to pull from a hat (or the freezer) so may have to resort to the store, but currently have 4 boneless chicken breasts thawing. Am considering slathering with Dijon, and dredging in panko and herbs, and baking - they are pretty substantial, so don't want to dry them out. I do have some wide egg noodles so could do those with butter, lemon zest, and parsley, and I do have some frozen asparagus, so maybe the grocery store waits another day...
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10 days to CA. San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, San Simeon & on south for my brother's step-daughter's wedding. I've wasted the day looking up restaurants, plotting bus & cable car routes, determining hikes (&/or walks) by the ocean, fine tuning how much we can fit in everywhere.
Magari - It's a packed 2 days in San Francisco doing tourist things with my niece since she's never been to CA, so I won't get to meet you this time.
Special - Thanks for the beach comparisons. We are going to do dinner in Santa Barbara after touring the Castle at San Simeon and before landing in Calabasas the eve of the wedding. Looking for a dinner recommendation if you still know any of the restaurants in Santa Barbara. Fish of course.
Lacey - We are going to stay at The Anza. Thanks for the recommend. What did you think of the country club in Westlake Village - apart & aside from the occasion for your visit of course? The on line site says women are requested to wear heels (not happening) and no sun dresses. I'm considering wearing pants. Men must have coat & tie.
My late lunch was 5 pieces of California Roll. After water aerobics I'll have a couple of ears of fresh corn and some sliced cucumber.
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Minus, I so miss the CA coast--in our 20s when we were impoverished grad students, we used to camp all the way down from Seattle (treating ourselves to cheap motels in Astoria, OR and Berkeley) to Big Sur. Never made it to San Simeon, alas. When Gordy was a toddler, we stayed at the Lodge at Pebble Beach (formerly the Del Monte Lodge, which we dreamed some day we might afford) and the Inn at Spanish Bay. Not sure if they're still resorts, or private golf clubs (heard Japanese corporations bought them as retreats, just as they did the Hudson Valley Resort--the last Catskill resort standing).
Last night I used up the last of the Chinese leftovers from Fri. (Bob helped himself to the roast duck leg quarter in the middle of the night): stir-fry of roast pork, Chinese broccoli, shiitake mushrooms, homegrown tomato, and konjac shirataki fettucine; seasoned with tamari, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and five-spice powder. Messy but yummy.
Tonight gonna make a choucroute: sauerkraut drained and sauteed with bacon, then adding juniper berries, dry riesling and caraway; Hot Doug's Hungarian smoked sausage, a Hebrew National hot dog, and Hillshire Farm's kielbasas: turkey & sugar-free beef. Put the sausages on the kraut, cover and simmer till they begin to split. I usually have both "extra fort" smooth and coarse ground Maille Dijon mustards on the side. I used to think that only Kosher-style brown mustards--Gulden's or Ba-Tamp-Te--would do; until on a trip to Paris when I had pastrami on rye at Jo Goldenberg, they served the same sinus-clearing Dijon mustard that the Alsatian brasseries served with their choucroute garnie. (Technically, the dish is supposed to include a thin boneless pork chop, but I don't have any--the sausages will be more than enough).
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Hi all, not much cooking going on here as I've been under the weather and we're traveling Friday through Tuesday so using up stuff in the fridge. But tonight hubby is out and I did Chinese. Honey walnut shrimp for the win!
Love reading your varied healthy menu ideas. Also lobstah envy!!
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Oh, yeah, lobstah envy. Tell you what, Lacey--next time we get lobster rolls, I'll take your celery and give you my rolls! (Kills me to have to ditch the bun, but I always do unless the restaurant offers the lobster salad over greens or wrapped in lettuce).
Anyone hear from Susan (who runs a hands-on AirBnB)?
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minus - I have not eaten in SB for many years - usually passing through on my way to somewhere else, but one of the most memorable dinners of my life was at the El Encanto hotel on the terrace, ocean view from up high, with an old family friend. Pricey, but possibly worth it. Here is a link to the hotel:
https://www.belmond.com/hotels/north-america/usa/ca/santa-barbara/belmond-el-encanto/user-gallery
Dinner menu:
http://belmondcdn.azureedge.net/pdfs//ele_dining_dinner_menu.pdf
Giada De Laurentiis did a travel show and ate at Bouchon, which also makes Trip Advisor's top 10.
reader - feel better soon - agree that honey walnut shrimp is a win!
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Good to hear others are cooking in the heat! Tonight was taco salad, provided something tasty but not too heavy or warming. Had a glass of Montipulciano with it and now sitting with a light buzz ( Thanks Tamoxifen for decreased wine tolerance!).
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Tonight I made a seared lamb leg steak with rosemary red wine pan sauce and oven fries. Enjoyed a glass of one of the Bordeaux we picked up a couple of weekends ago, which went very well with it.
We've figured out that for Bordeaux, we prefer "Right Bank" Merlot-based wines to most of the Cabernet-based "Left Bank" wines. (Which tend to be pricier and need more age, so aren't really for us anyway.) This works out, since we'll be staying in the Right Bank area!
Minus - I'm sorry to miss you, but completely understand your busy schedule. Have a fabulous trip!
I too am envious of the lobster....
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Nance, what a lovely sounding dinnerevent! And how nice for the weather to cooperate.
Carole, my head is also spinning as we approach the weekend, and I wish my body could keep up with it! I think that the most challenging part of the few days with the family together will be coordinating the “have tos” along with the “would like tos” given different association events, interests, and a baby’s needs. Also, I truthfully am very behind schedule with food planning/prep. I asked DDIL for her preferences for food, and she said “no special requests” Oy!!!! That is such a challenge for me since she is the most selective eater I know. If we can work out the timing (with my sister having to leave Sat with within daylight hours), we may well fry a turkey since I know everyone eats that. Hopefully I can find a fresh turkey in these here parts tomorrow!
Tonight the two of us went out to dinner to celebrate DH’s 74th. I always like when he catches up to my age. 😉 We had a gift cert to the local preferred steak house that overlooks the lake, so used that. Not much of a view since it was pouring rain. But the meal was good.We shared a lovely shrimp cocktail. Then I had an almond crusted haddock with a house salad (yay, lettuce not from a bag!) and sautéed mushrooms, and DH had a duck entree, house salad and asparagus hollandaise. We split a very large piece of chocolate cake for dessert, which was almost as good as I remember it to be four years ago when our sons took us there to celebrate our 70th birthdays. Maybe I was not eating cake then, so it was even more divine!
Minus, I hope you enjoy the Anza. I liked that there was a lot within walking distance in the area, given a suburban hotel. As far as WestLake CC, it was fine. Tho please remember that I zoned out due to a heckling SIL, so I wasn’t my most observant self. But I just looked at some photos I took and see that most women were in dresses, but there were also some in black slacks, and pant suits. Men mostly wore coats and ties, but a very few were tieless and even w/o jackets. However, DB’s memorial attracted an extremely conservative group of people, so their personal dress codes would fit what you described WLCC dictated. I would not worry about wearing slacks at all. Don’t you think they are just trying to avoid having people coming into the more formal parts of the club dressed as tho they were ready to golf. I didn't find it terribly pretentious nor stunning, but for a wedding they might go all out to impress. That said, I wouldn’t give it a further thought! I hope you have a wonderful trip!
I’d better get to sleep...had wanted to get up at 5:30 to see the USA basketball team in an exhibition game with Australia. DH hooked up the chromecast device to the bedroom TV so we could watch it with very little energy expended. Opening my eyes might be too much energy at this rate!
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Well, I managed to get up....and the USA-Australia game was worth every minute of it! Might just take an hour nap now before starting my day. Yaaaawnnn....😴
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Minus, your trip sounds busy and interesting. Hope everything goes as planned and any surprises are good surprises!
Last night's dinner was simple and used some of the excess of veggies in the refrigerator. DH grilled a rib eye and slices of eggplant, yellow squash and zucchini. Since our dinner was so "light," we indulged in ice cream later as we watched tv. Double chocolate moose tracks with whipped cream from a can.
We subscribe to Britbox through Amazon Prime and enjoy a number of British detective series. Last night was Lynley. a character from Elizabeth George novels.
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Love the Elizabeth George Inspector Lynley books (except one). I liked the tv series ok except for the Barbara Havers character - didn't fit my visualization of her and she's my favorite in the books.
Last night ended up being calzones using up the leftover pizza dough and fixings. So tonight will be a grilled ham steak with a baked sweet potato for me - regular for DH - and CORN. I too have a ribeye in the freezer that will no doubt end up on the menu this weekend.
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I too love the Elizabeth George novels. I've never seen the shows. She is not schedule to speak at our indie bookstore this fall, but Deborah Crombie is. And Nevada Barr.
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Didn’t feel like cooking tonight, so I had a salad and hubby got something for himself
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I'm having the remaining 1/2 of a bagged salad (Asian) with added carrots, cucumber & black olives and the last ear of Olathe corn. Paired with (be still my heart) Izzio Artisan bread - San Francisco Sourdough style. Their bread is pricey ($2.99 for 8 slices) but 100% non-GMO w/no artificial flavors or colors made in small batches from fresh milled flour. Might as well wake my taste buds up early.
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Sharon wanted to get out of the heat, so we took our tent trailer up into the forest and spent 3 days at about 7,500 feet above sea level. The temperatures ranged between 50F and 80F degrees.
....typical camping meals and tonight we're going out to eat...
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Eric - are you by Flagstaff? Or further East by Snowflake?
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We were about 35 miles east of Payson, AZ.
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Beautiful lake when I googled. My cousins are in Taylor. My brother's mountain cabin is in Mund's Park - not quite to Flagstaff.
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Dinner tonight was insalata Caprese with mozzarella, homegrown red & yetlow tomatoes, homegrown basil, EVOO and balsamic. Second course: zoodles (a few strands of butternut squash thrown in) with pesto.
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Tonight we went to a nice local seafood place and had a dinner size fresh lobster salad (yes!) With loads of greens, grilled corn, tomatos, avacado and other goodies. Really lovely after all this talk 😉
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How nice to have access to lobster salad!
I didn't like a couple of the Elizabeth George novels, one where Barbara goes off to Italy to find the neighbor's daughter and another that gives the background story leading up to the murder of Lynley's wife. Actually I like the actress playing Barbara in the series. It was the Lynley actor who didn't fit my conception of the character. We also watch Frost on Britbox and Morse, the latter based on the Colin Dexter character. We were sad when we watched the last of the Vera series. She's a great character. Except for news and sports, we don't watch much on regular tv.
Last night was pork piccata made with half a pork tenderloin and boiled new potatoes eaten with butter. Happy hour over on Mary's deck featured some heavy snacks. Normally I don't eat the snacks since they kill my appetite for dinner.
Tonight will be dinner at a restaurant with the couples golf group. Not sure which restaurant.
Eric, what a pleasant option to escape to cooler temperatures in a pretty place.
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