So...whats for dinner?

Last night at Cellars (I drove--teetotaling for now--so we could bring home the case of wine we bought) we each had Crab Louie--only instead of crabmeat, the salad was topped with asparagus and a tempura-battered soft shell crab. Not bad for fifteen bucks. Bob had contemplated Steak Oscar, but the sight of it on someone else's plate sorta creeped him out: the tempura soft shell straddling the filet mignon looked like the Alien sucking the life out of the steak! And seltzer with a squeeze of lime in a flute didn't taste that far off from an extra-brut bubbly

Will see how I feel after training tonight--might walk there for five-dollar burger night.

I'm with you Illimae!! And I love the notion of a cupcake ATM lol!

Red beans and (brown) rice tonight in the pressure cooker with cucumbers and onions and some garlic bread.

Sandy, dad seems to be a tough old bird so I imagine he'll be back shortly. Don't know why we have to go through such extremes though, from c diff to a blockage in such a short amount of time!

I need to get a spiralizer. I'm drowning in squash already!

I’ve got the kind with a crank. Used to use a cheap one with no moving parts that looks like a Picasso-designed hourglass crossed with a pencil sharpener, but it made irregular zoodles that broke off too easily and took parts of my fingernails & knuckles with it.

Minus, Sharon used this recipe from allrecipes.com

Those cupcake vending machines are adorable! Fortunately, in order to obtain cupcakes in my neck of the woods, I would have to interact personally with at least a cashier (ok, maybe a self-checkout line at the supermarket). So that’s a measure of dietary safety.

For dessert tonight, I had half a cup of Halo Top low-cal/low-carb “ice cream:” both the Birthday Cake and Sea Salt Caramel (by far their best) flavors. Both are under 300 calories for an entire pint. The Sea Salt Caramel is 280 and the Birthday Cake is, I believe, less than 200. (Their chocolate-based flavors taste weird and have bizarre textures. Such is the downside of not using actual sugar). The Talenti Sicilian Pistachio Gelato and Dark Chocolate Sorbetto are sitting in my freezer, unopened, rock-hard, mocking me. I will try not to let them attack me.

Hi Sandy- I highly suspect that you never go to Jewel, but about a month ago at Jewel, I got a catalina for $4 off Halo Top ice cream. When I looked at it, I began wondering how much it was. It was on sale for $3.99, and so I could have gotten free ice cream. I don't know now where the coupon is. Apparently lots of shoppers at Jewel Mariano's and Meijers are receiving free coupons for Halo Top ice cream when they check out. One person said a coupon printed out when she paid for a prescription., and none of the grocery stores in the Chicago area have self checkout lanes anymore. Jewel just took all of theirs out last year. They had too many problems with shoplifting. Target and CVS still have self checkout though.

I get emails from CVS with coupons good for 25-30% off your order. They will not let you use the coupon on anything that is on sale though. You can then apply the coupon to your card. I saved a ton of money when I went to CVS to buy all the stuff I needed for chemo and used a 30% off coupon. Jewel has at least one freebie every weekend, and most of the stuff is processed food that I don't eat, but this last weekend you could get a free box of chloe frozen fruit bars that only have 6o calories if you went into your mymixx account, and applied the coupon to your account. Supposedly a lot of people that went to Jewel to get their free bars, also got a coupon for a free Halo Top ice cream when they checked out. Somebody on mashupmom that I also post on, was asking what flavor of halo top was the best. I will have to post over there and tell them what you said.

I find the halo top mint chip quite good too, if your into that flavor. My DH isn't, so that one is all mine.

DH will be entertaining out of town guests tonight (taking them out to shoot guns) but as I am recovering from surgery and it being the 4th, I'll be making myself Hebrew Nashional hot dogs with a few chips and French onion dip.

Anybody familiar with this one?

Spiralizer 5-Blade Vegetable Slicer, Strongest-and-Heaviest Duty, Best Veggie Pasta & Spaghetti Maker for Low Carb/Paleo/Gluten-Free Meals, With 3 Exclusive Recipe eBooks https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GRIR87M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Iy9wzbP5D8JNT

Lovely family dinner last night. No pictures. There was a 13 mo old that wanted to eat RIGHT.NOW! We only ate a quart of the strawberries that we bought at market, so this morning I went to work. I had under-estimated the amount of rhubarb I had bought at market. I only had 8 ounces, so I adjusted and made just half of the strawberry-rhubarb compote. It was easy to make and the results were delicious. I had some for breakfast– plain yogurt, a bit of Windmill House granola, and some of the compote. I didn't add any additional sweetness. Right now, anything with sugar or honey tastes extremely sweet to me.

I them moved onto some strawberry jam. I used an old-time recipe with a 4:3 ratio of fruit to sugar, and then reduced the sugar just a bit more since the berries were so very sweet. Just in case this method is different than yours, you heat the berries alone mashing them. As the juices are pulled from the fruit you raise the heat until the stuff is simmering. After 15 minutes, add the sugar and cooking until it gels on a cool plate. I was worried that I had pulled the jam too quickly, but I just checked and it is just about perfect.

Dinner was a freshly made cole slaw [also a market cabbage], leftover pasta salad from last night, leftover ribs, and then a biscuit with the newly made strawberry jam. I am stuffed. PET scan in the AM so no more food until about 11 in the morning.

The whole meal.

My plate, and I actually ate this much!

Biscuit with homemade strawberry jam.

*susan*

susan - I almost licked my screen when the jam picture came up - omg!

minus - Trader Vic's! Throwback! When I was in high school I worked with a friend after school in a liquid clay factory (her parents had the shop next door) and we made the tiki mugs for Trader Vic's! That was 44 years ago!

The deli counter at the grocery store has a deviled eggs potato salad that is pretty good.

Fond memories of Trader Vic's in several cities (NYC, Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Chicago) over the years. When Bob was a 4th yr. med student at UW, doing a rotation at the Seattle VA hospital atop Beacon Hill near Harborview, he reported that the cafeteria was done up in a South Seas nautical motif with tikis, fishing nets, float lines, etc. Everyone called it "Trader Vet's."

Mostly nibbled (veggies, figs, Flackers, 86% dark chocolate, Atkins bar) at the fireworks show & band concert last night. Horrendous traffic going home. Was ravenous by then. Bob met me out on the deck and told me he'd brought me home half a filet mignon, garlic bread and a chunk of baked potato from Petey's Bungalow in Oak Lawn where he ate after his shift at Christ Hospital. I hugged him, threw together a small tossed salad and dug in.

We had just finished lunch when my phone rang with "unknown caller" as the caller ID. For some reason, I picked up. Dr. C... PET scan report was in... significant reduction in metastatic activity. I haven't read the report. I don't know the details. I will see her on Tuesday, read the report.... either way. we stay on Taxol and consider the increased pain in my hips to be arthritic activity due to metastatic activity.

Went to our fish place for dinner but they are on vacation. :-( So, went to the Irish pub where I had a fish sandwich and he had a burger. Fish was nicely cooked. WAY too much bread but imagine my surprise when I made it into an open face sandwich and the bread was FREAKING FANTASTIC! I haven't had bread that good in forever in a restaurant. Not the dinner [or price point] we had planned on, but fun none-the-less.

The Floridians who have taken over my house move on tomorrow, and in comes a group from Amish country. Tonight I heard all of their family's cancer stories. First group that has "glommed" onto the hair as a way to invade my emotional space. Clueless; not mean. I have to remind myself of this. Early check out and we can move on.

*susan*

Susan - on that happy note, I'm going to open a nice bottle of wine & raise a toast to you!!!

Edited to add, yeah I know it's 9:30 here, but I had to stay late after water aerobics so dinner is a non-starter. WHy not have wine?