So...whats for dinner?

HI Mogari

Today I cleaned my "blackening pan". It's a very thick 20 inch cast iron skillet that I get "screaming hot" on the propane grill and I cook the fish...45 seconds, flip, 45 seconds, flip, 45 seconds, flip, 45 seconds, serve. The skillet won't fit on the stove and that's OK as the process sure does make a lot of smoke.

I have one of those "point and read" thermometers" and "screaming hot" is around 650F/350C degrees. I don't want to try to clean something that hot, so I wait until the morning to do it.

The blackening spice is 'thrown together'-- equal amounts of onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, white pepper, chipolte pepper, ancho pepper, salt and oregano. It's a very spicy mix. :-) I keep the stuff in a large Penzey's spice jar with a shaker top and after buttering the fish, I sprinkle the seasoning onto the fish.

Tonight was London Broil from the "magic freezer", along with some more green beans and a salad.

DD has decided that it's OK to go out, but only in groups of 5, 6 or more. She'll be back to her college apartment tomorrow around 3pm, so maybe the grey hairs will stop falling out.

Sharon is talking with her mom and getting a laugh. One of the new teachers at her school got a message to return a call to a Mr. Lyon and the number to call was the Phoenix zoo.

I wonder how many Kentucky Fried Chicken places get calls for Colonel Sanders from someone at a nearby military base.

Oh Eric, you must have been worried sick. It's definitely a different world from when we were that age. Glad she is coming home soon.

Good luck tonight Lacey. It will be a lovely party and you will be the hostess with the mostest.

I have no idea what's for dinner. I have a freezer(s) full of food and no inspiration. The only thing I know for sure is a pineapple upside down cake ;-D The ripe pineapple is sitting on the counter looking at me. I'd better get to it.

Minus, I did eat the leftover pineapple. It was perfectly ripe and delicious. Let's hope the cake is too. 😋

I use a slow cooker so seldom anymore I can't recommend anything. I only know that if I were in the market I would definitely be looking at the programmable ones. Unfortunately the smallest I've seen is 6 quart. There are smaller 3 setting models that I've seen recently on Amazon that seem to be highly rated.

DH decided that since its such a nice day - sunny and 50s - we should grill something for dinner. His choice is pork burgers (the man never met a burger he didn't like.) I've made some potato salad for a side. I'll probably steam some broccoli for myself or perhaps I'll whip out the spiralizer for some sauteed squash, onions and peppers.

Auntienance, wow, that look delicious!!!

Tonight is Cod, oven baked potato wedges and leftover salad.

Good morning, all, from foggy San Francisco.

auntienance - I love pineapple upside down cake but haven't had it in years! Yours looks delicious and I actually have a pineapple sitting on the counter. But I'm definitely more of a cooker than a baker. And with only 2 of us at our house that is probably a good thing!

We are going to make Thai-style grilled chicken for dinner tonight, so perhaps we'll grill some of the pineapple and I'll cut up the rest for fruit salad. (I find fruit very appealing post-chemo - when not much else is. And having some already cut up in the fridge makes it easy to eat a little any time.) We'll char an eggplant along with the chicken and make a smokey eggplant salad with that. Leftovers can be turned into baba ganoush.

I will also be whipping up Asian soba noodle salad with ginger peanut dressing to take with me to chemo for lunch tomorrow. Will make dressing, prep carrots, cabbage & other veggies today and assemble in the morning so it doesn't get too gummy. May shred some of the leftover chicken into it for some protein.

Instant Pot: I had been considering a slow cooker but opted for an Instant Pot instead and love mine. (The recent recall only applied to one model, which was the largest size.) Being able to brown meat, onions, etc. in the insert and then switch to the pressure option in the same pot means fewer pans to clean. My chile verde comes out far superior to the version that took hours longer on top of the stove because I don't need to add water or broth to create the sauce - the tomatillos release enough moisture under pressure. My chicken stock also has much greater depth of flavor in about a quarter of the time. It is great for dried beans, which I never remember to presoak. I use it pretty much exclusively for soups/stews (have not used it to make rice, yogurt, or boiled eggs) and I still think it's very much worth having. Other brands: I've read good reviews on the Breville Fast Slow Pro at more than twice the price and the Fagor Lux, which is slightly more expensive and wasn't available at the time I bought my IP.

The recalled instant pot product was not the pressure cooker, it was their slow cooker (which I've never even seen.) Carole, you know I'm all about the pressure cooker lol! When I got mine, the Instant Pot was one of a very few that had a stainless steel liner. I see Fagor has now got one but is much more expensive than the IP. I wouldn't get anything other than the stainless liner, no scratching and cleanup is a breeze. Its worth having just for making beans and chicken stock if nothing else. Oh, and tiny little 7" cheesecakes, perfect for two people.

Carole - I am very anti single use appliances because they do indeed take up lots of space and only do one thing, which I can usually figure out how to do without them. So no rice cookers or air fryers for me. (I shifted things around in my cupboards and am just barely able to fit my Instant Pot in a lower cabinet.) I don't know a lot about air fryers, but my understanding is that most can only handle one or two potatoes at a time despite their relatively bulky size.

I currently avoid frying at home primarily because of the mess and wasted oil. But the side benefit is that we eat almost no fried food, which is of course healthier! I occasionally make oven fries using a Martha Stewart recipe, and they are pretty satisfying. I love fried chicken and treat myself to it in restaurants a few times a year, which is probably enough.

Bought some grass-fed beef yesterday and will be using the Instant Pot to make Irish stew with it for St Patrick's Day.

auntienance - I haven't tried any dessert items in the IP, and may curse you for telling me about the cheesecake!

Eric - Very glad to hear that your daughter is home safe and sound.

Ordered out from a new tapas bar last night for a paella mixta: seafood (salmon, shrimp, NZ mussels.), chicken, and chorizo. No soccarat, though: it arrived in a foil takeout pan, and I sincerely doubt whether it would have been made to order (the menu also included mariscos & Valenciana, as well as squid ink, which would have needed a separate pan--I suspect they just make a very large batch and when an order is placed, add the necessary ingredients). I could have removed it and put it into a preheated skillet to create a soccarat, but we were just too hungry to wait for that. Delicious, though, and otherwise authentic: found a couple of saffron threads in there.

Tonight will likely be bison hanger steak with whatever veggies I pull from the crisper.

My younger sister loves her air fryer and uses it almost every night. Her dh does not eat veggies except breaded and fried. She cooks pork chops, chicken, French fries, sweet potato fries. All without oil and quickly. A convection oven would work the same since the air fryer works like a small convection oven. My sister does not enjoy cooking. Quick is good and nothing fancy. She struggles with weight control despite being physically active, doing chores like handling bales of hay. She and her dh have horses and beef cows.

Minus, my spiralizer has never been used. I bought it on a whim (ordered it online) when everybody was talking about their spiralized veggies. It is currently covered with a cloth and stuck up on a shelf in the laundry room. Soon after it arrived, we departed for the summer and by the time of our return my interest in it had died.

Love the new avatar, Nancy!

Tonight I cast-iron-seared bison hanger steak, with chimichurri (bottled, Whole Foods) on the side. Braised asparagus with lemon & garlic, steamed rainbow carrots with cinnamon & honey for me, roasted smashed multicolor (Yukon Gold, purple, yellow Finn) fingerling potatoes with fresh rosemary & olive oil for Gordy. Accompanied by 2010 Trinitas (Napa) Old Vine Zin.

Sharon, at DD's urging, is wanting to reduce the meat in our diet. So I made veggie burgers. The basic recipe was found here. Since I had time, used dried black beans to make veggie burgers.

And after we finished eating, we went up to the car dealer section of town, about a 5 minute drive from home, and bought a Subaru Forester. I guess the dealers get referral fees from the loan companies as the amount the dealer would reduce the price was much greater when buying with a car loan than just writing a check for the full amount. I looked at the contract and there is no penalty for paying the loan off early, so I will probably do that in the next month or so. I hate loans on things that drop in value.

So, until I decide what to do with the Volvo with the broken engine, I'm back to 7 cars. Sigh.

I have an endoscope like device that I can use to look inside car engines and I figured out what happened to the engine. A spark plug broke and the debris from that put a hole through a piston. Getting the engine out of the car and fixing things is easy (and only about $300 worth of parts).. Putting the engine back in is more of a problem. Two people can do the work in a few hours, but with just one person it takes a couple of days and it's not terribly safe. I helped my friend put an engine in his truck a couple of months ago and afterwards his back was hurting for over a week. I guess being 71 does that. Anyway, I don't want my friend to be sore like that because of me.

As for dinner tonight--I'm not sure yet.

Yes, 7 cars, but I want very much to get it back down to "just" six cars. Three of them are antiques, three are daily drivers and the one is going to be sold very soon.

Has anyone heard from Susan?

Dinner tonight was black beans cooked with a fair amount of chili powder and some peppers from the garden, quinoa, cabbage and onion tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and rice vinegar, cheese and some salsa.

I used less salt than I would have liked and made up for it with extra peppers. It was pretty spicy, but for us, it wasn't "deadly". :-)

En route home from my mani-pedi in a sudden snow squall (hey, considering what you New Englanders are going through, that's nothing). stopped off to pick up a few things--soda bread for Bob, chopped liver for our housekeeper (she loves it), great big half-sour pickles for me and Krispy Kremes for Gordy (and me). The marinated Tuscan-style chicken thighs on the hot bar looked great, so I brought some home. Reheated them for dinner, along with lemon-garlic broccolini (I used Sicilian orange sea salt, chili flakes and lemon zest). For a starch I was going to nuke some Seeds of Change quinoa-brown rice blend; but since it too was garlic flavored (as is the half roll of polenta in the fridge), I figured I'd go full-on Italian and did spaghetti cacio e pepe instead. Used small amts. of truffle butter, a few twists of the black pepper mill, sprinkled a bit of black truffle oil and grated a small amt. (too small, according to recipes on YouTube I consulted afterward) of Pecorino Romano. It (and a NYT article by Frank Bruni how when he visits Rome to compare their emerging turmoil to ours, he goes for comforting constancy--pasta alla grecia, aka an eggless carbonara, or cacio e pepe).

A You Tube video showed how to make the "base" for it--huge handfuls (at least 2 c.) of grated Pecorino, about 1/4 c. of freshly ground black pepper, and cold water dribbled in while mashing it all up with an immersion blender till it made a huge blob of paste about twice the density of pesto. Then take a portion of drained cooked spaghetti, add about a ladleful of the reserved salted starchy pasta-cooking water and at least 1/4 stick of sweet butter and a generous knob of the cacio paste and stir it together till everything is coatad evenly. Then grate more Pecorino until your pacemeker has to kick in.

One month from Friday I will be on an Alitalia flight for nearly a week in Rome. A little touring, a little legal lecture, a tour of the courts and a whole lotta eatin' goin' on. Can hardly wait!

Eric, you'll love that Forester. Hope you got one with EyeSight and blind-spot monitoring. My Outlook has the former but not the latter--it's the only feature our '11 Fusion Hybrid has that the '14 Outback lacks,

I bought the air fryer. It was on sale at Sam's Club and cost about $100. Actually it's the same model that I bought about a year ago and returned. I made room for it by moving the old unused breadmaker out to the "gym," which is no longer the gym but just an outbuilding that houses the 2nd refrigerator, the empty chest freezer and a lot of other stuff. I set the breadmaker on a shelf next to the unused electric pressure cooker. I hope they get along!

I put the Kitchen Aid into the space in a lower cabinet that the breakmaker had occupied. NOW there's room for the air fryer on the counter and the quilted cover that protected the Kitchen Aid fits the fryer. Ta Dah!

I have used the fryer successfully two nights in a row. Breaded pork chops, the larger fatty chops with flavor. They came out brown and crisp. Last night was a whole chicken and it was a success, too. What I like most is that the "mess" is contained and the cleanup really easy. The 5 lb chicken cooked in 40 minutes, 20 minutes on each side with a 20 minute rest. The fryer is reasonably quiet.

I may use the leftover chicken in a pasta casserole for dinner. DH is recovering from surgery yesterday on his ear for a skin cancer (skin from his chest for a graft) so he would probably appreciate comfort food.

Bummer on the lost post, Lacey.