So...whats for dinner?

Oh I am another one who loves bluefish. And I really, really love smoked bluefish. This is not a fish for people who don't like fish though. Much like mackerel, it is a "strong" and oily fish with lots of character. After smoking, I like to make a bluefish mousse to serve as part of an hors d'oeuvre platter, or make bluefish-herbed cheese toasts, or as a part of a breakfast, or as a substitute for lox on a bagel. When eating it not smoked, I like to grill it and serve with tons of lemon, and perhaps something like a dill-butter or Romesco sauce. In fact, now that I think about it, I have two fillets from last season that my friend caught off Cape Cod. It is a short season, so you have to eat it during the short window of time.

Carole, I am so pleased that your foot recovery is coming along so very well. Something about feet.... too often recovery is neither fast nor full. Such complicated bone structures in the foot, and far too many surgeons that are not up to the task.

Eric, your DD should drive this pieced together car with great pride. How many seniors drive a car that they built with their Dads?

We did not throw out underwear. We left travel books and gifts of maple syrup. Our bags were lighter coming home than going to.... and I am a tad lighter as well. I had lost more in Barcelona, but Istanbul included some wonderful food with the family and a friend but less walking. Mr 02143 was at Wilson Farms this morning at the opening and bought some great looking vegetables, eggs, and chicken along with some plants [dill, parsley, chives, tomatoes.] We are on our way to having a stocked kitchen once again. Made an omelette for lunch. Funny how different the food tastes here!

*susan*

Susan, your trip sounded amazing. I was particularly interested in Istanbul because our next trip to Sicily includes two one day stops in Istanbul.

Welcome home.

Mo37

Welcome home Susan. Passport control is never fun. I did make one lady behind the counter smile for just a brief instant. She probably got fired for that severe transgression.

The spices look great.

The car is temporarily done. The last part, the front passenger side headlight frame, had to be ordered from the main US Volvo warehouse and has not yet arrived. Tonight while DD was asleep, I spent about 5 hours and made one assembly from the broken parts of four other frames. It looks weird, but it's perfectly safe and will work fine until the new parts arrive. Tomorrow morning it will be interesting to see her reaction when she realizes she can drive the car.

Bedo, boo hoo on the blue fish being sold out.  I wonder if the red fish you bought is the same red fish that we have here in Louisiana.  It's a favorite fish for sports fisherman to catch.  It has to be cleaned in a certain way to prevent a fishy taste. 

Eric, I had a nice Volvo sedan once that I bought new and drove it for my usual 12 years.  When I traded it in, it looked so good that it was driven onto the used car lot at once.  My only complaint was the a/c.  The heat was more than adequate. 

I've been leafing through a stack of Cooking Light magazines with some Bon Appetit mixed in and cutting out recipes to keep.  So far the collection of keepers is small.  I will probably let the CL subscription expire.  The trend now is dishes to cook fast with shortcuts.  I can pretty much do that on my own. 

I found an easy recipe for Leftover Lamb Curry yesterday.  It is non-gourmet and fit the bill for a prep that didn't require a lot of standing.  Ingredients were apple, onion, celery, garlic chopped in food processor.  Cooked in some butter and olive oil with curry powder and ground thyme.  Addition of tomatoes and chicken broth.  Simmered with lamb cut into pieces and seasoned with s & p. 

DH loved it  served over polenta enriched with a little butter and grated parm/reg.  I liked it, too.  The recipe will go into the notebook.

Nance, I have liked the lamb I ordered from the IN farmer and will probably order again in the fall.

Minus, the green V-8 I bought some time ago tastes ok.  Kind of like apple juice, but it is so unappealing in its color that I will probably dump the rest of it.  Life is too short to drink something that barely tastes ok and is ugly to look at.  Unless it's medicine that's necessary.  I would rather drink water with breakfast to swallow my pills! 

Happy Sunday.

Carole - thanks for the green V-8 review. I'll leave it off my list.

The first car I owned was an old humpy back Volvo - 1958 maybe. It had over 100K miles when I bought it Wonderful car. Of course no A/C but I lived in NM then and it cooled off at night. The only problem was a tendency to vapor lock. I always carried a gallon jug of water so it wasn't a major problem, but it really shocked people to see me jump out, pop the hood & poor out water to cool when I was 7 & 8 & 9 months pregnant.

Eric - I can't tell you how great I think it is that you are spending time with your daughter to pass on some of your auto skills (not to mention your cooking skills). She will value the car because of the work she put into it, but even more she will value the time with you. My Dad also taught by letting us do it, whether it was wallpapering our own rooms, changing car oil, tying a fishing lure, roofing a house, installing a new toilet, etc. He had so little time away from work but so much patience. We'll look forward to hearing your DD's reaction when she sees the car is drivable.

Readjusting has been hard from SOME members of this family. I poked my head into my husband's work studio around 5:45 last night to see if I should start dinner and he was fast asleep. I check every hour until 10PM when I decided I was simply too hungry not to eat something NOW. I made a bit of bulghar and was just sitting down to eat when he emerged. Don't think he ate anything, but was in bed with me at 11PM and claims he went right to sleep again. He woke at 4:15, and I was up at 5:30. So, I slept 30 minutes later today than yesterday. I have just learned that he ate a huge bowl of granola at 5am since he was starving!

Tonight is family dinner.... tandoori chicken thighs, lentils, rice, and I think I will try to make a spinach dish of some kind, either a "curry" or a saag.

My first car was a 1968 navy blue beetle. It cost me $400 and died within three weeks and I didn't have the money to fix it. Dumb mistakes kids make.

*susan*

My first car was a faded red 62 VW beetle. I paid $325 for it and it required another $250 of work, which I could ill afford. After two rebuilt motors, I replaced it with a 63 model with slightly fewer miles on it. I had two more VWs after that, one a microbus. I finally got tired of having to scrape the windshield from the inside during the winter and having one foot freeze while the other burned up. I married dh, who had a Ford. That's not why I married him but it was a point in his favor. He also had a washer and dryer. That's why I married him ;-)

Nance - I love the point in your DH's favor. Washer & dryer true story. My son had a condo with a washer & dryer when he first met DIL. She lived in a tiny walk-up with a Murphy Bed so she went over every weekend & he did her wash. Fast forward 14 years. Two years ago I was visiting and they had purchased a front loading washer & dryer the year before. I wanted to run a load so asked DIL to show me how. She said she she didn't have a clue. DS always does the wash and she had never even touched the units.

Salad Dressing question - does anyone have a good Roquefort or blue cheese dressing? I'm looking for the creamy, fattening kind maybe w/mayo or sour cream, not the oil kind. Thanks in advance.

Rao's update. I just ate the leftovers of my first Rao's meal (cooked turkey, artichoke hearts, black olives). I meant to add mushrooms but never got a round tuit. I think Carole's right. It is economical for me to buy this wonderful sauce since I got two full meals out of 1/2 of a jar.

Minus - here is a basic blue cheese, I have seen the milk ingredient be milk, half and half or buttermilk - I feel like they are relatively interchangeable. Some mix in some of the cheese when combining the main ingredients, then fold in the remainder so you have chunks in the dressing.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-ki...

Thanks Special. I'm trying to reproduce my mom's Roquefort recipe. I am not an inventive cook but I can follow a recipe. Her very old & damaged recipe card reads something like: 3T cheese mashed in milk, 3 heaping T mayo, 1 cup sour cream - add minced onion, dill, Worchesterchire, tarragon & salt. I think she also added a dash of Tobasco, since that's what she did w/her Blue Cheese oil & vinegar dressing. Just about an even switch from the one you sent between mayo & sour cream. Needless to say I will have to drastically cut the measurements since I'd never use all that in 3 days.

Susan wht are nigella seeds and what do you do with them.  I've enjoyed your trip so much!

Tonight I tried lamb again.  Grilled two kabobs I got at Hy-Vee--one was peppercorn seasoned and the other one was Mid Eastern seasoned--- I liked the peppercorn one better.  Fixed saffron rice (Vigo Brand) to go with it and opened a cab wine.  Very good dinner, so the lamb taste is growing......

When I had bluefish, it was served with a ginger cream sauce......no clue how they made it, it was at a small restaurant on Cape May called Louisa's. 

Memory lane fun for sure!

I never touched a steering wheel in college...no cars on our campus for residential students in those days. Then I bought my first car with my graduation money...a '67 Mustang which my father strong armed me to buy since he Did not think I would be safe in aBeetle which I dearly wanted. That Mustang was not Ford's finest effort at mechanics and it spent a lot of time at the Service Center. It was eventually stolen near my Cambridge apt., was involved in a police chase, and was totalled by the thief who ironically and tragically crashed head on into a man in a Beetle, disabling him. Mid-winter and carless, ( and needing one for my job), I borrowed money to get the least expensive reliable car I could afford....a Toyota Corolla, named Timothy. He was with me, then us, for many, many years. Loved that little green car.

Temps here warmed up nicely on this beautiful sunny day.

Tonight DH grilled chicken breasts I'd marinated. We had baked potatoes, grilled veggies and a salad with romaine, lots of ad-ins and balsamic dressing.

Carole, your curry sounded delish!

So, my riff on a Indian spinach dish was a huge success! I found a recipe in one of my Indian cookbooks for spinach and tomatoes. Then I just modified it to suit the ingredients I had in the house. Started with a bit of sunflower oil, got it to the shimmer stage and threw in some mustard seeds. When those had all popped [love that magic trick!], then I added thinly slice onions and garlic. when they were soft I added the dry spices [ginger [used all the fresh for the chicken], cumin, coriander, garam masala, turmeric, and paprika as a sub for cayenne pepper..] After they smelled good, in went the diced tomatoes, stirring to coat with the spices and finally the spinach, again with the toss. A bit of water, and let it simmer for about 7 minutes. Damn, it was fast and delicious!

The fragrant rice was also delicious, but I will not substitute this often for our plain basmati.

I keep forgetting to find my favorite blue cheese dressing recipe, but I doubt it is what you remember from your Mom. Oh oh!~!! The Cook's Illustrated one probably is. Do you still need this Minus?

Nothing special planned here for the holiday. The tomato plants are in. Next up are the herbs and peppers. And then we wait.

*susan*

Susan, I enjoyed your travels, and now am enjoying your productive reconnection with your kitchen! That Indian spinach sounded like so much fun to make.....or is it just your joy at being back in full culinary swing?

Carole, my "Timothy" was the same "stripped down" version as your Corolla, and we sold it to an eager buyer after 13 years of reliable service. I had to quickly learn to use floor shift before buying "Timothy" so I could drive it off the lot! My only prior experience with standard shift was with my mother's old Buick with a stick on the column. It was a bear to shift....and drive, especially in hilly areas! So I had been happy to avoid standard shift cars. Then I learned how easy the small imported cars with floor shift were to drive, which was a lifesaver for me during that car crisis. Oh, those were the days......

I am feeling like a zombie today, and think it could be related to sleeping with an open window during my high allergy season. Tonight we'll try using a fan instead if it's warm.

Have a good Memorial Day everyone....

Sharon has huge allergy issues. They were very much worse before the allergy shots and the "roto rooter" nasal surgery. When she was pregnant and not allowed to take much in the way of allergy pills, I dusted daily, got a HEPA rated vacuum cleaner and used it daily, ran 5 of those Honeywell HEPA filters in a 1100 square foot house and changed the air conditioner air filter on a weekly basis. It helped a lot. Before I started that, I'd come home from work and she'd be in tears over the frustration of being unable to easily breathe.

Today has been a huge paper shredding and cleaning day. We shredded all the medical bills from 3 years ago..glad that "crap" is now three years ago.....

Later I'm going to my mom's house and if she wants, I'll take Lieutenant Staiger, USNR (Staiger is her maiden name) to the veterans' cemetery to visit Major Lawson, USMC.

This evening I'm going to kick Sharon out of the house while I dust the books, bookcases and behind the bookcases. There is enough dust on the books that they no longer look to be different heights.

Susan, is the jet lag going away? I hate that feeling...tired enough to sleep through next week but can't get to sleep....