So...whats for dinner?

Hadn't made chicken curry in a while - I use Patak's curry paste and add sautéed red and green peppers to the recipe on the jar. So delicious

Chi Sandy, glad you are doing better, hope you did not lose your voice or that you were not doing the singing part in the first place. If I am having any leftover homemade pizza, the one with the thicker crust, because they usually serve pizza in Europe on the thin crust, Sweden in particular like very thin-crust pizzas. But if I am doing my one dough or buying it, the crust will be more substantious. So I just cut them into smaller square pieces, put together and grill them in the sandwich grill for a lazy breakfast or branch. My eldest girl's boyfriend still remembers those tiny pizza sandwiches that tasted so good. His exact words were: you guys probably do not remember because you probably eat breakfasts like this all the time but I do because at our place we .. and my daughter just cuts in: mom, they eat oatmeal with lingonberry jam every morning. That girl did not eat any oatmeal since she was three. Well probably why they are staying healthy and I got what I got. But good way to utilize the pizza, I can sprinkle extra cheese between the slices.

I have been cooking most part of the weekend, the mentioned boyfriend spent it at our place, he is 1,94 cm tall Swede, because we are not natives, and as soon as I look at him I feel like he must be starving. She does not feed him either, she is small and eats when she is hungry so someone has to take care of him especially when I really believe that this one is a keeper. So I fried some burgers and asked him what he wants on it, the answer was: everything, and he had two. On Sunday I cooked borsch, a beet root soup, and he said that he would absolutely like to try it and he got, liked it too. I also did a Persian stew with very nice bit of organic prime rib, great fatty parts, turned to be very delicious. Meanwhile the daughter was very accurate to cut off the fat on her chunks, he was devouring it telling her that he loves fat because this is where the taste is. Either he has to learn how to cook or she has. They are still very young though.

I bought a lot of prunes, dried mango and apricot to eat as a dessert but saw that they contain between 70-50 gr of sugar per 100. So I have been eating unhealthy and I am in treatment so I do not know exactly what is valid. According to cancer rehab dietitian I can eat a little of everything except for grape but then I red when you, ChiSandy, commented one of the newbie's threads about not eating any anti-oxidants during treatment, which to me completely makes sense, so finding this balance is a tricky thing, meanwhile I am also experiencing cravings to the range I did not have when I was pregnant. Like today I need sugar and tomorrow it can be cured meat or sushi. My taste is not affected so I gained 7 kilo, nice.

carolehalston, I checked for this gumbo file, it is a spice, or grounded okra maybe, there is no way I can find it here so we will have to do without. No andouille sausage here either but I red that it can be replaced with kielbasa or krakowska, that basically also is a sort of kielbasa. I will try to do my gumbo this weekend. Your way of grocery store visit, totally recognize it, interesting that when I send my husband or the daughter they only come with the items on the list, they are not looking for anything else, I will always check for the fruits and veggies on sale, if there are good peaches I will take it instead of apples, but they just won't. To come home with a piece of meat out of the list and say: honey we can freeze it for the weekend roast, never happened here which is a pitty because I consider it as a very nice quality in a man. On the other hand I never wash my car.

So, today we are eating leftovers and I will cook an eggplant stew, it is similar to Sicilian pasta alla Norma but with onions and garlic instead of only garlic. And feta cheese instead of their ricotta that is more firm and salty in Sicilia and cannot be replaced with continental creamier one.

Thank you, Chi Sandy, I stopped all my supplements right after the diagnosis. I hav been using turmeric in my stews for 20 years and continued with it during the first two weeks just mixing it with water and black ground pepper until I found information about turmeric being a phytoestrogen, then I stopped taking it.

Ok, then I will continue using it my stews. I have been introduced to turmeric by my former mother-in-law who claimed it was an anti-cancer spice, and I used it everywhere and still got this bc. I also use another Persian spice that contains clover that also is an phytoestrogen but I guess it is the same and these quantities cannot be harmfull. I am not using so much soy products, just usual soy sauce and white miso paste for miso and some stews. I quitted alcohol after the diagnosis but does non-alcoholic beer contain less phytoestrogens or any other toxic components except for alcohol itself? Not that I will drink it anyhow, already gained a lot of weight, this daily cinnamon bun surely does taste good but I cannot exercise now and I crave sugar as never before. So annoying Cherry

Cherry, send me a personal message with your address and I will send you some gumbo file. It is ground sassafras leaves and very inexpensive here. It should be available through a mail order herb and spice catalog, like Penzey's.

Tonight's dinner is stuffed colored peppers, Brussel sprouts and baked potato. The stuffing for the peppers is ground turkey, finely minced mushrooms, diced green onions, fresh bread crumbs and seasonings. This is the first time that I ran short of stuffing! I steamed the halved Brussel sprouts in chicken broth and will brown them a bit in olive oil and season with grated romano cheese.

On Nance - wish I could have joined you at the Italian market.

Dinner was a couple of 2-1/2" portabello mushrooms stuffed with spinach & cheese. Served with a packaged slaw & kale salad with cranberries & sesame seeds. A pomegranate dressing came in the salad, but I used my sesame/Asian dressing instead

Last night I joined some friends at a strip center restaurant run by a Vietnamese couple. I'd had their Lo Mein before, so I tried fried rice this time with grilled shrimp. The Lo Mein was better. One friend had shrimp tempura w/fries, the other had a fish platter w/fried fish,oysters,shrimp,stuffed crab & fries. I don't usually eat fried fish but I do like tempura. It was just so so. Too mushy for me. The corn meal batter on the fish was quite good. So now I have 3 containers of fried rice in the freezer - probably 2 cups each.

Chi Sandy, za'atar is an Arabic spice common in Egypt if I remember correctly, sumac is used by both cuisines. The one I was mentioning is called gourmeh sabzi, availble even here in Sweden in some general grocery stores,it is a mixture if dried parsley, dill, chervil, sometimes wild leaks, and clover. The one I am using right now was bought in Dubai in Souk Spice where they just mix it for one right away. I asked about adding more clover for the flavour and the salesman just shook his head explaining it would turn bitter. The name gourmeh comes from French, sabzi means green, green delish with other words, it is used for a stew with the same name but I use it in many dishes. I highly recommend Iranian cuisine, it is very spicy but not hot, sour too.

auntienance, this market sounds awesome, cannoli is the best, I also love their cassata.

My retirement day is today. This is will be the last day I make the 3 hour round trip drive to and from work.

I'll miss the people and (most of) the work. I won't miss the drive at all! :-)

Eric - yay! You will miss both for a bit (work and people) but it's amazing how fast you adjust and treasure the fact that your time is now your own. I know you will have plenty to keep you busy. Enjoy!

I drove this 1950 CJ-3A Jeep to work on the first day I worked for the company that became part of Verizon...November 11, 1991. I decided to drive it on my last day.

I got laid off from the electric company in May, 1988 and I bought this the day after I got laid off, which was well before I received the severance check.

I started a new job two days after I bought the Jeep.

eric, this car is stinking cute, congratulations on your retirement

We can usually get four or five dinners out of one takeout meal from Reza's!

It's Southwest night - a Trader Joe's tamale (pork for DH, chicken for me), a chicken verde burrito and some seasoned pinto beans that I just made in the pressure cooker. The chicken burrito filling is another Serous Eats pressure cooker recipe that I made previously and froze.

Afternoon snack was a sweet tango apple and a miniature milky way that was all soft and gooey from being in my apron pocket all afternoon. Good stuff!

Lost the 2 lbs. I gained in Vegas, but hesitate to blow it. Might order out for chicken shwarma and chopped salad.