So...whats for dinner?
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Queen - yup, Dijon mustard w/thin sliced, rare roast beef.
Eric - I often have a baked potato for dinner, except I use a lot of butter. Horrible drive. Although we're both accustomed to driving in the West, I know that can be a lot of miles. Are you staying in the greater Phoenix area?
The first time my son went East, he met me in Boston and we drove down to NYC to stay w/friends in the village. He kept saying - Mom, Mom, Mom, we just passed another state line. From Houston going North or West it's more than a full day's drive to get out Texas.
Susan - 10 hours!! Way to go. Glad your system seems to be allowing you to work this round.
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yummy stuff everyone! The breads looked so good.
I just had my leftover pork tenderloin. I kept it in the pan sauce of red current jelly and balsamic and heated it up for a couple min. Baked a potato. That was supper. I Froze the rest for a stirfry in the future. Even reheated it was tender.
I hope everyone is ok on the East Coast. Got clobbered over there! We haven't had a lot yet. Just what we had couple of weeks ago. . Dodged a big one this time. There was a pic of the airport in NY. You could only see the tail of the planes over the snow. That's a lot of snow. Yuck.
Much love.
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I checked my smoked salt and it is applewood. I will try the alder based on all your recommendations.
SK, the emuffin bread has a little more spongy texture but does have lots of nooks and crannies. It toasts beautifully and tastes very similar.
Tonight will be the hamburgers on homemade buns. DH will want oven fries but I want a baked potato. The last batch of buns I made using the milk bread recipe. Not terribly happy with them. Next batch will be brioche buns. The burgers are large so there may not be room for a salad.
Went to see dad yesterday. He's not doing very well. He was very puny and tired and had fallen during the night. I was aware of this because I got a call from the lifeline people at 3:46 a.m.! Fortunately he didn't hurt himself but just kind of sat down hard onto the floor. The paramedics came and put him back in bed and he was alright. He was understandably tired the next day. He has a doctor's appointment today. I'm a bit worried about him. I think his 90 years has caught up with him.
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auntienance, I'm so sorry about your dad. That must've been very scary for him and for you. Thank God he didn't hurt himself. My dad is 87, and I stay with him during the winter in Ohio. It is very difficult to watch a parent get older and vulnerable.
I made arancini this morning with the left over risotto, and gave the majority to my cousin and his family. My dad woke up with a cold, so I'm going to make matzoh ball soup with chicken, noodles and veggies. He doesn't have an appetite, so hopefully I can get him to drink a couple of Ensures
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I love arancini... it is particularly good when the risotto had asparagus or mushrooms. I like to stuff them with just a bit of cheese and roll in semolina before frying. I don't recall ever giving them away!
We are having a heat wave. It is 47º right now! So we are dry-brining a chicken and Mr. 02143 will grill it with our Inner Beauty Sauce as a mop. Spicy and delicious. Sides will be a baked potato and a green salad. Going simple tonight.
*susan*
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Nance, I'm glad your dad didn't injure himself with the fall. How far away is he? In driving time.
DH is going to a woodworkers' guild meeting tonight so he will eat his warmed over leftovers from Sunday dinner for his night meal. Rice and gravy and roast pork. I'll make him a salad if he wants one. I will probably eat the small container of leftover chicken salad from last night and maybe some warmed up turnip greens.
The chicken salad was kind of a waldorf salad with chicken. Diced roasted chicken, apple, celery and walnuts, raisins and small cubes of cheddar. Dressing was small amt. of mayo and sour cream. Foundation for the salad was romaine and avocado slices. White balsamic sprinkled on mine, brown balsamic on dh's.
I cooked a huge pot of turnip greens on Friday. A big bundle of the greens lured me right in. $2.50 and very fresh. I had a bowl for lunch today with hot pepper vinegar and they are good. Greens call for corn bread but I shall ignore the call.
Bedo, is your vacuuming robot a rumba? I talked to a woman recently who got a rumba for Christmas and she loves it. I'm thinking about getting one for a birthday present for myself in March. Or asking for it. Same thing. I think my floors would be much cleaner than they are now. I love the idea of the little disk returning to its charging station!
ChiSandy, I was liking you until you mentioned having a housekeeper. Now that liking is turning to jealousy! Bob sounds like a keeper.
Susan, I'm relieved that so far you have an interest in eating. I've never particularly liked rye bread but have only eaten it on sandwiches in restaurants. Like reuben sandwiches. Your home-made rye is probably very good. I doubt I had eaten rye bread at all until I ate a reuben sandwich and that was probably in my 30's. Background figures into our tastes. When I was a child, my mother made white flour yeast bread and biscuits and cornbread. Bought white bread, the kind you can squish into a ball, was a treat and much preferred over the home-made bread. Now it's the home-made bread that's a treat.
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Auntie and Hsant that is scary to watch your parents get older. I am still happy that your Parents lived to that age and I hope that I do and am still able to live alone. I hope your dad get's better Auntie
Carol, mine is a Neato pet and allergy, about $350 but I don't know how I lived without it,old cabin two cats,wood fireplace allergies . Whatever you purchase get it through Hammacher Schlemmer as they have a lifetime guarantee and all of the vacuums have some glitches. I like mine better than the Rumba because it does not get stuck vacuuming in one spot and seems smarter, but I am not an expert
For dinner tums and prilosec! Don't know what's going on. I did make some chicken soup for cold and ate it, maybe not being used to it.
I am still obsessed with Shaw's frozen cherries, put them in water, or wait till they thaw a bit and eat them down. Yum
Feeling a little better now, craving sardines on Melba toast.
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Carole, I am the only person in the house who likes Rye Bread. Making Rye Bread feels a bit selfish, to be honest, since no one else will ever eat it. I take over the kitchen; flour is everywhere; the brotforms sit out drying and taking up valuable counter space. I grew up in NYCity eating food from Jewish delis. My mother, the quintessential WASP was amazed by the food in NY after a lifetime of living in Boston [18 yrs, haha!] with bland Yankee food. My first solid food was liverwurst for goodness sakes. When we moved back to Boston I was devastated to not find pastrami on rye with mustard and all my other favorite foods. It might be a "what you grew up eating" thing? I have not been adding caraway seeds since I am considering these breads to be a breakfast bread. [My mother did not allow any of the squishy white breads in our house. We had to go to a friend's house to enjoy the making of white bread balls.]
My Costco does not have frozen cherries, but Shaw's does? I don't recall seeing them there. I do buy frozen wild blueberries there. I will look more carefully next time I have to head there. It is a store that I rarely enter.
The chicken was a bit undercooked tonight. Quite disappointing. He threw it back on the grill, but I didn't get quite enough to eat. I got too hungry before dinner and was overwhelmed by nausea. Clearly, I need to have some strategies in place for another high quality snack if this happens again. The green salad turned into a tomato, red onion, goat cheese salad dressed with Greek red wine vinegar and olive oil, placed on top of a bed of lettuce. We purchased a boneless chicken breast at the store today and put it in the kids' fridge. Guess what they are eating for dinner? Score one for the parental units!
*susan*
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Bedo, I'll look into the Neato. This is a new subject for me. The Rumba model I was looking at costs about the same.
It's odd being here at home alone at night. I spent some time reading about artificial sweeteners. It seems that they have been receiving a lot of criticism and blame for all sorts of bad SEs. Any thoughts or biases or whatever? Years ago WW was against sweeteners because they supposedly kept you hooked on sweets. Now the sweeteners are being accused of confusing "good" bacteria in the gut and messing up metabolism.
Sigh....
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Nance and hsant, I do hope that your fathers feel better. Always scary to get the middle of the night calls.
I never really embraced rye bread growing up. I think it was my dislike of caraway seeds, which I think ruin Irish soda bread, too. My father was a New Yorker and loved rye bread...as does DH who loves all things NY deli. You may recall that he sent Katz's salamis to all of our relatives a few Christmases ago.
Carole, I've pretty much avoided artificial sweeteners in the past few years, switching to stevia, which I am hoping is not so unhealthful as those chemicals are reported to be. I wish I could tolerate drinking coffee unsweetened, but I find the bitter taste intolerable. I am also finding that I am developing more of a sweet tooth as I get older....not a good thing! Oh...I must check out turnip greens.
Today I had lunch with one of my favorite former co-workers. We both had BLTs and I made it weird by having it on raisin bread ( purely because the server offered that as one of the bread options, and I thought why not experiment?!). Well, it was okay, but I will probably not mix my sweet with savory in that way again. I do adore raisin bread....and apparently so does one of the cooks at the restaurant who saw this odd creation and decided he wanted one too. LOL
Tonight DH was in Cambridge so I didn't cook....and even worse, I ate three large squares of peanut crunch. Never had a bite of anything dinner-like. See, Minus, you often do much better than I at self dinner prep
Susan, I think I recently saw a recipe for tabbouleh that used something different than parsley. I was excited since my next door neighbor is a great middle eastern cook and I always miss being able to dig into the colorful tabbouleh she makes. I must search out that recipe.
Tomorrow nite I am on my own for dinner again, so will try to actually have dinner!
Thursday we are heading out to Stockbridge again for a few days for DH's board meetings so we will eat very well and enjoy the beauty of the home we stay in with the amazing art collection it holds, and its pastoral surroundings. Even in the bleak winter it is beautiful.
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I sometimes feel embarrassed to mention I have a housekeeper, but she comes in M-F and works half-days. She started out as Gordy's nanny when I had postpartum depression and continued when I went back to work. She's more like the household manager--she keeps us organized and knows where everything is. At this point, she and her husband (they're also Bob's patients) are as close to family as we have here in Chicago. I still do the cooking & shopping. It's not as if I have a live-in maid 7 days a week, nor do we have tons of money to throw around nor consider her salary a trifling expense, but I still know I have it much better than most.
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Thank you friends for the dad wishes. It's nice to have a group of folks who understand.
Sandy, don't be embarrassed, if I could justify it to myself, I'd have a housekeeper in a minute! It would have been especially helpful when I was working. I thought when I retired, my house would become spotless. Ha! I have come to realize that I am an unenthusiastic housekeeper, no matter what. The only spotless things are the kitchen work surfaces. (I'm afraid the floor usually has flour on it lol) Fortunately, DBIL and DSIL are coming Friday for the weekend so (as usual) I am motivated to clean. It's a good thing that they visit regularly.
Because someone mentioned chicken parm, that's what we're having for dinner. I'll make some fresh angel hair as a side and a salad.
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Husband out of town for the night sooo, I scrubbed the kitchen to a brilliant shine and refused to cook myself dinner so I could just sit back and enjoy its beauty for a whole 12 hrs. I had a bowl of ice cream for dinner.
tonight he is back so I will do a meatloaf with mashed taters and a vege of some sort. the grocery store did not have the meatloaf meat mix so I will dig into the freezer and get creative.
Chi I always am intriqued by your wine pairings with your dinners. Do You ever see Fingerlakes wines in your stores? I get so frustrated when I am in NC and cant find a good Fingerlakes wine...everything is California wine and they are not know for their reislings (my favorite) Looks like we will hoard and pack a LOT of wine when we leave this area for good.
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I use sweet leaf organic stevia packets in place of sugar. Stevia is not an artificial sweetener. It'sderived from the Stevia plant.
Tonight is leftover matzoh ball chicken noodle soup and I will also make mashed potatoes for my dad. It's about all he can tolerate with his cold.
For myself, I picked up some gorgeous scallops. Three of them are the orange females. Rarely do I see even one orange scallop, and to find three...well, couldn't pass that up. I will sear them in a combo of olive oil and butter, and steam some asparagus as my side.
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hsant, I have eaten scallops most of my life and never knew the orange ones were females. So why are there so few of them?? Are the white ones also female? Is the orange one like the "queen bee"? Pardon the dumb questions....;)
My only worry about stevia (I buy mine at Trader's in a small bottle...tres cher!) is how pure it will be over time as it becomes more popular and in demand.
Many years ago when I returned to work full time, after ten years of part-time private practice, I tried to continue to "do it all"...the kids' and DH's needs, food, full time job with a commute and lots of reports to write late into the night.....and house cleaning with no support....even tho DH and the kids did keep themselves organized and always took are of their own laundry.
It was hard and I was tired....like most moms (or dads) who keep such schedules.When one of my neighbors saw that I chose to stay home from a family ski trip to NH one weekend so that I could clean the house, she told me about her wonderful house cleaner and strongly suggested that I scoop the very next opening that she had. I did, and it changed my life during that period. Talk about lighten the load! She came every two weeks, which was plenty for us. Over the years we got to know her whole family as she later had children born, and I was happy to help her navigate the "special needs" waters with her for them. So she really became like family. Now with just the two of us, we have her come sporadically. The best thing (besides my enjoying talking with her about her oldest child's college search!) about keeping her service is that we need to clear clutter (!) before she comes so she can clean. We are both pretty compulsive about cleaning the kitchen......no flour on our kitchen floor, but so much paper.....and book/mag piles....definitely not as appetizing!
Enjoy your visit, Nance!
I may have to head to a Shaw's also to look for their frozen cherries. Our local grocer just carries a frozen bag of mixed berries and cherries. Not as exciting.....
DH just left for the gym....I think it would do me good to get there.
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lacey - your post prompted me to look up Stevia farming - very interesting! Grown in sunny wet climates - sounds like Florida! I should start a Stevia farm for the ladies of the So What's for Dinner thread! You need less of it due to its inherent sweetness and it uses far less water and land than farming for sugar (beet and cane) does!
Tonight I am browning some chicken/spinach sausages and red peppers, adding Mia's tomato and basil sauce and serving over angel hair, with an iceberg wedge with blue cheese and crumbled bacon, and a lot of black pepper. Having some pretty intense back pain so going the easy route - even the bacon is cooked and crumbled from the broken freezer debacle - just have to take it out of the new freezer and gently nuke it. Just ironed a shirt for DH for tomorrow and then had to lay down for a minute! Not having fun....
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Lacey, very good questions regarding scallops, which I couldn't answer before I did a quick search on google. The orange tinted ones are the egg bearing scallops. The orange tint comes from the color that's in mature eggs. I assume there are white female scallops (just makes sense), but the orange ones are super sweet. I couldn't find an answer to why you don't see very many orange ones at your average grocery store/fish market.
Stevia has been popular for around five years or so. I highly recommend the Sweet Leaf brand, because it is organic, aka no GMOs.
I'm exhausted reading about how you managed your home, family and career. Wow! You really deserve your house keeper.
Special K, I love chicken sausages. I hope you get some relief from your back pain soon. Back problems Can be excruciatingly painful.
Carberry, I'm jealous of your sparkling kitchen. I need to do a serious deep clean ASAP. It's not dirty, but it needs some extra loving care. Fresh clean kitchens and bathrooms are one of my favorites, along with crisp, clean sheets. Yum....meatloaf. What do you out in yours?I typically make mine with ground turkey, and use quick cooking oats as a binder instead of bread crumbs.
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hsant - the back pain is making me feel like I am 100 - I am trying to power through, just took some Advil, but all I want to do is lay down! I figured out I can remain upright for about 10 mins and try to get one task done and then I have to stop. I am not good at being unproductive anymore - I have had to do too much of that lately, lol!
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I too had a cleaning lady when I was working full time w/children, but I'm so well indoctrinated to being frugal that was only every ever other week. Towards the end I had a guy who cleaned office buildings in the middle of the night and cleaned houses for only a few select people in the morning. Once I quit working, I couldn't justify the expense - so nobody cleans, including me unless company is coming. Well, I do keep up with kitchens & bathrooms, but can't get excited about dusting & vacuuming. I agree w/Lacey, having someone come to clean made me spend time picking up the clutter - mostly paper related. Now it's everywhere.
Has anyone tried Agave for sweetener? I bought a small bottle of pure Organic Agave Necter - low glycemic index, no additives or preservatives & suitable for a vegan diet. My intentions were good but I haven't opened it yet. I just never gave up real sugar (or real butter either).
Last night I didn't get home from a Civic Club meeting until 9:30 so dinner was one gin & tonic and a handful of cashew nuts. Tonight will be a baked potato with the last of the rare roast as a topper.
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I don't see the point in giving up either sugar or butter, to be honest. I used Agave for a bit, and then I read about how it is produced and realized that I didn't really care for the taste, and that was the end of that! I really consume almost no sugar, especially when compared with the "average" American. Heck, even the Buttermilk Lemon Pudding Cake we enjoyed last week was only 1/2 t/l of sugar per serving. Most of the consumed sugars are in prepared foods, and I don't do those at all, so I don't get all those high fructose corn things which I think are the really evil ingredients in our food system.
We have two more servings of the pot roast which I think I will make into a ragu and serve over some chunky pasta. Not wildly creative, but will pair well with a big salad which is what I really want. Oh, and a ragu means I can eat some parmesan cheese. Funny to think of pasta as a lettuce and parmesan delivery vehicle.
*susan*
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Agave is almost all fructose and often has more than corn syrup - even though low glycemic indexed it can raise blood fats and cause inflammation. In the plan I follow I try to not get more than 5g of sugar, regardless of the source, and avoid processed foods like Susan and try to eat foods in their most whole form ifpossible.
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Oh what a wonderful idea for you to become a stevia farmer, Special! You could definitely be my supplier!
Meanwhile, I hope that you can lighten your load and take care of that back! I'm impressed with the work ethic that prompts you to iron shirts! When I met DH he was living in his newly rented apt in Back Bay, with a Chinese laundry and dry cleaners down the street. He came with the habit of taking his shirts to the laundry/cleaners and I never helped him break that habit. He passed that habit on to our sons, so their women should also be happy! As a teenager, I used to iron my uniform's long sleeve "blouses" which were like a man's shirt. I don't mind ironing, but hate facing a laundry basket full of cotton dress shirts, tho sometimes that can provide a zen couple of hours.
So since DH is going to a lecture tonight, I am going to make a big red lettuce garden salad and top it with some of our leftover chicken chili...and maybe some avocado slices. Yum! I am hungry after my brisk walk to the post office.
I was puzzled that Facebook showed a platter of familiar looking pizzelles on my page today....then remembered it was the dessert picture from our neighborhood Timpano effort a year ago when my next door neighbor and I made that for a big Italian dinner during our first of many bigsnow storms. I do prefer today's weather, which was sunny and warm enough to melt most of last weekend's snow. Yay! That neighbor is in Florida this week, but we plan to do a braciole dinner during our next "snow-in". And if we don't have one we'll just pick a date to happily have the dinner anyway!
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Special, just an idea for when you are not in excruciating pain with your back....a foam roller, which really keeps muscles from tightening up. Our trainer and former PTs use them regularly, and DH has benefitted lately from using it regularly since his back was acting up after all of his limping, post hip repair. Our trainer includes a lot of foam roller use in our stretching class, (on backs, hips, legs) and I have found that my back has been happier than its been in years. Hope you can find the best combo of rest and movement for it to get some relief
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My late MIL (God bless her) taught all of her children to iron before they went off to college, consequently, DH is a much better ironer than I. I can't get him to iron my stuff, but I"m happy he does his own. My task as a teen was to iron the family clothes during the summers. Oh how I hated that job. When I got my first job I started taking my shirts to the laundry. My town is so small we don't even have a dry cleaners or laundry but fortunately I now wear a lot of t shirts ;-)
SK - ouch!! Is this something new?
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My PT actually encouraged me to order a foam roller, which I did. But have I ever used it? Thanks Lacey, I'll give it a chance.
I love the ironing discussion. My son was in high school when Polo shirts became the rage. 100% cotton & quite expensive. I said: a) I would buy one for him; b) he would have to figure out how to afford more; c) I would not iron said shirt. He only ever had that one, but he did learn how to iron. The girls in his college came up with lots of innovative trades if he would please iron their shirts & blouses - so he never lacked for brownies or free dinners.
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Minus, be forewarned that when you first roll on that bugger it can hurt like heck, but keep it up and you will love it. The more it hurts the more your body is letting you know that your muscles are really TIGHT....not something that you want them to be. I even love using it on my quads, since it feels great, which it did not when I first started using it. Good luck! I think the best thing for me has been that if my back acts up, using the foam roller prevents the muscles up and down my spine from tightening up. Happy back here! Now if I could find the magic trick for the aging knees and shoulders. Some cortisone may be in my future.
I love hearing about young men who can master personal self care. My sons learned to use the washer and dryer when they were in little league, and had loads of games, and frequent dirty uniforms, which I anticipated could cause a "sports wardrobe crisis" on my work days since I was often working when they would have a game. So I taught DS1 how to do his wash and never looked back. Two memories from that...we miraculously, early on, had only one resulting "pink shirt" due to his mistep with colors....and much later, I always loved how he would organize himself after his exams in college, and do his laundry, bringing home clean folded clothes. Now I only wish I had been as good at teaching them how to be creative in the kitchen.
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I'll give Stevia another try but I didn't find it very sweet, especially in the form of Truvia.
SpecialK, I hope you get relief from the back misery.
We're having warmed up turnip greens and maybe warmed up chili. Do not know how much there is of the latter. DH made his Mexican cornbread today at my suggestion. It's baked in the cast iron skillet and is very pretty.
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Carole, I haven't found truvia to be very sweet either. Perhaps the liquid is better.
As much as I love seafood of all kinds, I've never cared for scallops. I'm not sure why. It may be a textural thing. Go figure. I still try them from time to time, mostly based on recommendations by others ("Oh you'll like THESE".) Nope, still meh.
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lacey - I find ironing relaxing, but tend to iron what we need piece by piece rather than a whole basket at a time. My DS is better with an iron than DD is - but both kids tend to "iron" with the dryer, lol! DH can iron very well - he used to press shirts in a men's clothing store when he was in high school and my MIL made sure all her kids did a full and regular rotation through the household chores. He will sometimes do a shirt if I am not home to be ready for the next day. I usually set up the coffee, pack him a breakfast and lunch - usually oatmeal with fruit and whatever is leftover form the previous night's dinner, iron him a shirt and pick out a sport coat and slacks, and socks (he is a bit color blind) so that he can just get up and go. He leaves the house before 6 am, and doesn't come home before 7 pm - so this is the least I can do. The ironing thing also comes from ironing his military uniform shirts for so many years - same thing as the sport uniform plan - I could never get the uniform shirts back from the cleaner fast enough due to the massive demand. You had to have way too many shirts to keep up! I was always happy when he was in a flying job - that way they wore flightsuits more frequently - no ironing. He worked at the Pentagon during 9/11 and even though they were staff they wore "combat" uniforms after that day - so a flightsuit for him. When I did the Livestrong program at the Y my trainer used foam rollers - I should go over there and roll around a bit - they stretch hard to reach stuff - and I think with the one sided expander situation that might be helpful!
I have degenerated disks in my back and have lumbar discomfort from time to time, but the last couple of days there was a flare up that was quite intense! This evening it seems a bit better, so I am hoping it goes away. My PT wants me to see the ortho though - the thought is that all of the surgery in a short time has deconditioned me and that weakness has made my spine unstable due to the degeneration. To start that ball rolling I have to go see my PCP on the base and get a new MRI, then go see the ortho. Insurance hoops!
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Auntie, I am glad you dad didn't get hurt. Whenever the phone rings and the caller ID shows it's mom's LPN caretaker, my heart jumps up into my throat.
The clean kitchen stories made me laugh.
When I was in college, my house was the typical college guy "clean" (in other words just clean enough to keep the city from condemning the place)...but the kitchen was absolutely 100% spotless. I was so proud of my clean looking kitchen.
Mickey had a lab class where she had to collect swab (Q-tip brand looking things to gather bacteria) samples and culture the collected bacteria. She did probably 10-15 samples from my kitchen counters and an equal amount of samples from the bathroom.
Result: Backwards results, a very crestfallen guy and a girl "laughing her head off".
Her teacher told them ahead of time that this was very likely to be the case and offered suggestions for "fixing the problem". I took those to heart and the 2nd set of samples came out in the desired order.
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