So...whats for dinner?

I'm probably late but:

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Nance, hope you enjoy your salsa chicken! And your "sides" sound delightful!

I did some spontaneous shrub pruning this morning and then went to an allergy appt., and then did lots of errands (mainly had to stay out of the house since there were six workers crawling around everywhere from early AM, making quite the mess drilling holes through walls, trampling all over our perennial plants where they had to put the compressors, and traipsing in and out leaving the floors dirty and doors open with flies abounding). I am an intolerant customer for such work....so it was better that I stay out. When I came home the work was completed and DH was relaxing in the cool family room after vacuuming much of the mess...for which I was very thankful! I have yet to see the bedroom clean up effort.

While out, I picked up some lemejun and baba ganoush for dinner at a Middle Eastern market and then stocked up on veggies and fruit to bring to the lake. At the produce market I saw Jersey tomatoes, which looked great...but they were only half great...unless I have idealized them since being an adult no longer living in NJ.

Carole, I have always been intrigued by the tagines, and a few months ago we attended a dinner at some friends and was very surprised to see an enormous one on top of their stove ( it had cooked the Morrocan chicken in the oven). This couple are very interesting foodies and their meals are wonderful. Seeing the tagine just added to the interesting quality of the meal. If anyone was interested in giving one as a gift tho, you'd really have to make sure the recipient has good storage space! They are often quite large, and somewhat fragile. Here's some interesting info on tagines....

http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/moroccanfood101/f...

Tomorrow, packing up for the lake. I wish that I were as organized as Laurie is for her lake trips! At least today I got everything I need to pull off making pet rocks with the "grands" and other kids at our beach. It should be fun!

Nancy, I copied that Moroccan chicken recipe.  It looks really good.  Very similar to chicken tagine.   I'll have to make preserved lemon when I get home.  Did you make yours in a canning jar?  I'll also have to loosen up the purse and buy some saffron.  It's so expensive I've never bought it.  But the chefs rave about the flavor.

Lacey, I must have missed your mentioning installation of a/c?  I grew up without a/c.  We had a big window fan that pulled the air through the house.  At night it got so cool we covered up.  We also had to clean mildew off the walls!  The fan also drew in the dampness in the air. 

The white chili was quite tasty.  Our only side was Mary, the Pie and Bread Lady's Honey Wheat Bread with real butter. 

Today we're driving to Walker and biking to Akeley and back to Walker.  We'll take a picnic lunch and enjoy it at the park in Walker on the shore of Leech Lake, which is so large you can see the opposite shoreline. 

Dinner will probably be Eat the Leftovers night. 

No Trader Joe's or Costco's where I live on the North Shore!  Costco has come to Baton Rouge. 

Eric, I bet it would do just fine with the exception of the clay factor which apparently adds a flavor of sort? My guess is that the use of the tagines is just a carrying on of the Moroccan cooking tradition....and of course the enjoyment of "cool foodies". And they do look very cool.... Maybe someone else knows more about this.

Carole, in recent years I have always gotten my saffron from Traders. It used to be dirt cheap there...still reasonable, but since you don't have one near you, how about Penzeys online? I find that the regular grocery stores are most expensive with spices, so I avoid getting any spices there if I can help it. It would almost be cheaper to fly to Spain to pick my own crocus stamens! LOL

We have never lived in a fully air conditioned house, tho had room air conditioners in family room and bedroom....pretty noisy. But after having an energy audit recently, we decided to install this newer technology for cooling and heating, called mini-splits. They are totally silent, which is nice, and provide a lot of cool dry air, as well as heat in the winter to the two rooms that tend to be the coldest during the winter. One reason for having them installed is to take the heating burden off our old gas furnace which is fine, yet old, and I would prefer not to have a new one installed. We figure that we will sell this large house sometime in the next few years, and the next owners can decide what they prefer to do re: HVAC service. In the meantime, these mini-splits will carry us through our time here. Not sure how I will cope with being in this constant air conditioning environment since I am used to happily running a fan in our kitchen area that keeps me quite comfortable, even with the humidity...tho nothing like LA humidity, I'm sure. I will keep that trusty fan running unless DH feels compelled to extend the cooling from family room through the kitchen area.

Nance, that Moroccan recipe sounds great!

Well we had the frog strangler rain starting just 30 miles N of us. 15" of rain in Denton county just to our NE. We've had about 2" since 7 am. Found one of our downspouts shooting out water back towards the foundation and the flowerbed about 5" deep in water. Don't think any got in. DH took end off, filled with dead gunk. Can you tell we are not yard people. Put it back on and worked fine. Thank goodness soil is still dry and we have sandy loam not clay - in soaked in quickly once it stopped. Just what some of the lakes needed; some up towards Denton already up 1 foot. Hope maybe even the one that supplies most of our water.

Not much cooking going on here. DH had tamales and Spanish rice last night. I had a bowl of raisin bran. I do have to make a grocery run tomorrow. Going to Mexican food and then to friends' house for ice cream on Saturday. I have a Smuckers chocolate sauce but think I will make a blueberry sauce also. Grocery has their froz. fruit on sale. DH voted for blueberry.

Tonight was dinner out to meet 2 other ladies I met on BCO who live in my County.  We met at CJ's, a restaurant at our local airport and we sat outside and watched small airplanes come in and the weather was just perfect.  Here in Central Illinois we are having low 70 days and mid 50's nights.  Think it will be changing back to 80's by Monday. 

 We were very good and had salads and iced teas.   It was so nice to meet them and learn more about their journey's.  Lakegirl takes her final Chemo tomorrow and she just looks amazing. And Ritajean is responsible for starting the Illinois Ladies board where we all met.

Love Love Love this site.

bedo - hello!  Congrats on the engaged DD!

Hi, Bedo.  Congratulations to DD! 

SpecialK, did you make the meatballs? 

Redheaded, I know Ritajean from another forum.  Glad to know she's doing well because she hasn't been posting lately.

Like LMG, I haven't been cooking.  Last night we had giant hamburgers at the Royal Bar in Park Rapids after playing golf in the afternoon.  Tonight we're going to an outdoor concert at Spirit Lake in the little town of Menagha so we're planning to have a chili dog and a mug of rootbeer at A&W on the way.  I love the rootbeer in the chilled mug.  This is a bring-your-own-chair free concert.  The setting on the lake is lovely. 

Today we've been couch potatoes watching the British Open Golf on ESPN.  We switched to Tour de France on the commercials!  TV sports junkies is what we are. 

It's a beautiful day, 70's and breezy. 

I found a recipe for freezer jam using zucchini. Didn't someone have an abundance of them?

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pina-colada-jam

Kinda makes me want to try it but even here in the heat zucchini is high in the grocery. I bought one of the local - like maybe 8 miles - wonderful cantaloupes. Also blueberries to make blueberry sauce for ice cream social tomorrow night.

Bedo - congratulations on your DD's engagement.

Special K - your blackberry sangria sounds yummy as does your entire meal.

Special, that sangria sounds delightfully refreshing! Yum!

Nance, thanks for the invite! I am so envious of you and anyone who is enjoying produce bounty already! Our growing season is extra slow this year in MA and NH. Even beautiful days like today don't qualify for the preferred hot growing weather of tomatoes. Oy! 

So we are at the lake with the family, DS1 and 2, DDIL and the little grands, who are a riit and totally exhausting! 

I had forgotten how much time revolves around food with little kids....so that was how we spent our day, here, at the beach, and in the boat.....pbj's, fruits, nuts, crackers, cheese, avacado/ hummus sandwiches with lettuce and tomato. For dinner, I threw together spaghetti sauce with shrimp (DS1 no longer eats meat) over whole wheat cappelini, my fave spinach salad, and garlic bread. We had watermelon and Trader's coconut cookies for dessert. They were really good!

Tomorrow AM, I hope to get out of the house for my walk while the rest chow down on DH's pancakes since I feel a bit like a sloth after not exercising much for two days.

Congrats Bedo!

SpecialK, that's an interesting idea of something to do with ground turkey--mix with chopped spinach and make meatballs.  But with no oven, I would have to cook the meatballs in a skillet.  Always challenging with a round shape!

Nance, your garden bounty sounds like an earned blessing.  Goodness knows when we will see veggies at the farmers' mkt.  I talked to one fellow Wed. who lamented that his green beans plants hadn't even flowered.  It has been a very cool (and even cold on some days) July.  For us, a comfortable July.   But the gardens should be soaking up the sunshine and heat this weekend as it warms up. 

Dinner's meat will be a couple of pork chops.  The sides are unknowns at this point.  I have carrots.  Two ears of corn.  Potatoes.  Green beans in a microwaveable bag.  Green salad makings.  I will probably bread and pan fry the chops because that's the way dh prefers them.  They're center cut and can be dry cooked on the grill. 

Any inspired ideas on cooking ground turkey?  Without an oven.

Tonight was unstuffed cabbage rolls over brown rice and sliced cucumbers and onions in rice wine vinegar.

Tomorrow is my birthday, so no cooking for me! Dh will do the honors.  we were supposed to go to lunch at a brick oven pizza place in Hannibal but to my disappointment, they are closed on Sunday. I don't know what plan b is.

Ditto to Carole's idea, Nance! Happy Birthday!

Wish I could help with the grnd turkey request. I never buy it, but know lots of people who make skillet turkey  chili, that they love. I'm sure there are lots of recipes for that online. And maybe it s not too hot to cook such a meal?

We had a very long and busy day with the family and another family of friends we have known here for many years...our four boys grew up summering on the lake together. 

First off, DH cooked up pancakes for our family, them he and I took a long walk, after which I went food shopping with DDIL and picked up essentials (carrot cake, and balloons, which our little DGD now pronounces correctly....yay for her advanced speech, but two months ago, "bayoons" was awfully cute!) for a party planned for tonight to celebrate our DS1's birthday, and that of his friend (older son of our friends). Before heading to the beach, I made a salad for tonight, knowing how chaotic it gets in our kitchen on our return from the beach.

We spent most of the afternoon at the beach, during which time neither child sat once, and our little billy goatette climbed every boulder she could at the beach, only falling once. I've learned to stop feeling nervous. Once home, we ordered lots of pizza, since our sons claimed to be famished and we had that, garden salad, and ratatouille. 

At the late hour of almost 8PM for these little kids, we had our friends intergenerational family over for cake and ice cream, and a simple sparkler show which the young fathers put on, on the deck, and the rest of us watched through the LR windows. The kids, who are babies, were thrilled! Then we all had cake and ice cream. But just when I thought things would close up for the night, someone asked my DH to play some dancing music, ( he's an informal DJ) and we had a total dance party. It was a riot and the babies entertained us dancing with each other and dancing with us for over an hour. Such fun! Needless to say, they were revved up...but a good time was had by all...and there is a lot of joy in watching little kids dance and perform with such total joy.   I think their young dads enjoyed their birthday party!

Tomorrow....another beach day, if the weather holds up. Then maybe off to the lobster roll place and the arcade and kiddie rides place next to Winnipesaukee. 

I'd better get some rest for this excursion.

Happy Birthday Nance, I agree - stretch those birthday meals out for at least a week !!

Lacey - sounds like a wonderful way to spend a day.

So my news - I was in my friends truck last week - we got rear ended - stupid woman who was in a bigger truck, didn't even try to stop - according to reports - doing about 70-80 km and bang!  But lucky not in my car cos I think we would've been squished like flies.  Totalled my friends truck.  So had lots of aches and pains from that - yuk!

Have had friends staying with us as there is a forest fire (under control for the time being) and they were evacuated.   Now gone to their parents - hopefully they'll be able to get back home tonight or tomorrow.  No homes lost in this one - thank goodness.

DH golfing this afternoon so dinner will likely be toast

Hugs and thoughts to all xxxxx