So...whats for dinner?
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Carole, I like some of the TJ sweets and crackers but I wouldn't go out of my way for most of the regular grocery options.
Eric, I love the name of Sharon's stew.
Wally, I'm sorry your DH is caught between a rock and a hard place. Having had osteomyelitis of the jawbone I understand why he is giving immunity priority. It feels like constantly having abcessed teeth that need root canals; the opiods barely take the edge off. Hopefully there is a tolerable med for him.
Shoveled 5 in of snow that was too wet for the snowblower this morning. Dinner tonight was a chicken and veggie casserole.
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The best laid plans.. so ended up making a black bean vegie fried rice. Sautéed garlic and ginger first, with cumin and coriander, then added the left over vegie fritters, with broccoli and carrots, and brown rice. Yum.
No shoveling needed here yet, but a wintry mix and it’s so cold!1 -
I haven't heard from my son who is North of San Francisco in Marin County. Fingers crossed but I think the center was a ways further North.
Hooray for my plumber. It was the gas valve control (box on the front with the dials & knots & piezo starter) and they replaced it under mfg warranty. Rheem is a solid product, but apparently 4 years ago when mine was installed, they had some issues with these. The plumber said he was surprised I hadn't had problems before now.
My niece is coming over again tomorrow night while her parents go to an office Christmas party. I still think we'll make the easy quiche in the blender, and we'll walk around to see holiday lights before we make cookies. But it we have to read more of those Wild FIre graphic novels, I'll need an aspirin.
Dinner was a package of frozen Yakisoba from Costco. Noodles and LOTS of veggies. Quick, easy & good.
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Tonight was a Taylor's green goddess salad and ham and bean soup. Delicious but too salty. Made by an excellent local caterer. DH was being thoughtful and picked it up since I was feeling a bit punk. I told him I'll make him some soon with a lot less salt. But as I said otherwise it was rich and delicious.
Eric I loved MOM'S market when we lived in that region.
Thank you to those who post more regularly than me. I really enjoy the snippets of everyone's life as well as getting dinner ideas.
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Reader, I bought a lb. of navy beans a couple of days ago and a package of smoked ham hock slices to make a white bean soup. It's one of my favorites. I include diced carrot and celery and onion (very finely diced). Salty food is my enemy. I can retain 3 to 4 pounds of fluid in addition to not liking a salty taste.
A friend makes kidney bean soup with chicken, a combo that seems strange to me. My family ate kidney beans often but never as soup and never with chicken. This friend and her dh do not eat any meat other than chicken and they eat seafood.
Rischaller, your black bean fried rice with additions sounds like a dish I would enjoy. I like black beans a lot and have bought black bean burgers in the past. I should get a recipe and make them with extras for the freezer. I also love fresh beets and buy them when they're available during the summer.
We enjoyed leftover chili last night with sour cream and a sprinkle of grated cheese. DH had a hot dog without bun with his chili. Tonight will probably be leftover gumbo since the weather is perfect for gumbo and soup meals. I had bought a salmon fillet but may have to freeze it for now.
Fresh mustard greens should be available now. I'll have to be on the lookout.
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Leftover duck for tonight. I lucked out that I splayed it. After 3 days in the fridge, it still had some frost in the cavity.
Thank you for understanding my angst for my DH. I know we are all here with challenges and I appreciate the commiseration.
May get windy here but we may reach 50 today. I miss snow. Maybe we will luck out this year. Glad to hear those affected by storms and earthquakes are OK.
Trader Joes is 2 hours round trip for us so I stock up on a few things when we are close by: Their salsa, olive oil, canned seafood, cream sherry, port and dark chocolate huge-bar. Occasionally, I will get their frozen french green beans.
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Wally: My brother is a big fan of Proton therapy for prostate cancer. No drugs, no surgery. He went to Loma Linda, CA where the procedure was originally developed - but I know there are machines through out the country now. Below is a link for their latest newsletter. Always some interesting things.
https://protonbob.com/nov-dec-2024-medicare-advantage-buyer-beware
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Thanks, Minus.
I'll read up on it. We have a referral for Fred Hutch. DH has cancer throughout his bones. They left the prostate since his psa was already 10,000 at dx. Maybe too risky.
Our local onco is just chemo and pills for standard of care so the FH referral should open up avenues for him. Thank you again, so very, very much.
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I hate the angst. I hope the Fred Hutch referral is worthwhile.
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Minus, It's good that your water heater could be fixed under warranty. DD used to read horrible sappy YA novels featuring teens with terminal illnesses. She now reads decent fiction and is a PA at MSK so I guess there was some value in them. Your niece might become an environmental engineer someday.
Wally, I hope Fred Hutch has some good ideas for treatment.
Reader, Adding a bit of lemon juice helps reduce the salty taste but doesn't remove the salt. Cooking a dish yourself lets you control the ingredients but good takeout is great when you don't have the time or the energy.
Rischaller, There are always multiple ways of using up leftovers. Your fried rice dish sounds delicious.
Dinner tonight was stuffed peppers.
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Minus, I think replacing that same part was the fix for our hot water heater, too. DH ordered it and replaced it himself after educating himself with UTube videos. LOL.
The chicken/sausage gumbo tasted delicious last night over freshly cooked brown jasmine rice. I was hungry as I usually am now on WW because lunch is mostly melon and berries and fruit. It's so easy to cook rice with my little rice cooker I purchased a couple of years ago. It has a brown rice setting. My breakfast food lately is old-fashioned oatmeal.
Dh thinks white bean soup sounds good so I will make it today with dry navy beans. They usually cook well without pre-soaking.
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Hi all - I have been absent for too long - I have read back all of the posts since the last time I was on. Everyone has been busy cooking while we have been eating leftovers!
We had 7 for Thanksgiving. We had a good pineapple habanero spread over cream cheese with crackers, and a charcuterie board for lunch/snacking as the turkey cooked. Then had turkey, dressing, gravy, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pineapple and pecans, green bean casserole (the OG, DD's fave), corn souffle, and homemade cranberry sauce. My friend brought a broccoli salad also. For dessert we had pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, a coconut cream pie, a French silk pie, and an apple pie a la mode. For breakfast the next morning we enjoyed huge cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs with avocado and green chile sauce, with mimosas and coffee. Fun!
We are having a dinner next Sat that will be an appetizer of some sort, lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and a ladyfinger cheesecake with fruit on top, and a bourbon chocolate pecan tart. My BIL/SIL and nephew, and DH's former boss and his wife will be there, DD and beau, and us. My dilemma is not all of us can fit at the dining room table, and I need to avoid a "kids table" for the three younger ones who are 30, 35, and 37, lol! Either DH or I need to sit at the eat-in kitchen table - probably me since DH's bro and former boss will likely talk politics, which I would rather avoid…
Dinner tonight is some freezer foraging - two small pieces of cooked pork tenderloin. We will have broccoli and rice too.
carole - I think we have the same rice cooker if I remember correctly from previous posts - I love mine too. I usually cook brown rice in mine as well. I have been cooking for DD since she wants to lose some weight - finding tasty things that are lower in calories can be a challenge! She is so busy between her full-time job, her other side business, and all the livestock at her house that she deals with twice a day. I'm trying to provide healthy stuff that she can grab out of the fridge so she doesn't resort to eating things that are highly caloric or unhealthy from take out. She doesn't really cook, lol! My son the firefighter got the cooking gene.
minus - glad your water heater fix was covered under warranty. My BFF had this same issue!
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SpecialK, as always your meals sound wonderful. Your guests are very fortunate. The desserts make me soooo envious.
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Yesterday we made spicy vegetable soup and canned it. Today we canned the turkey broth made from the Thanksgiving turkey bones and will also can some more of the vegetable soup.
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I'm with Carole on the desserts. DROOL.
I'm making scrambled eggs to go with the last of the potatoes that were swimming in duck fat.
Eric, I envy your ability to can. I never learned.
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Carole, I should get a mini rice cooker. I have a microwave rice cooker that makes good rice but it makes a mess of the turntable.
Special, Your menus for entertaining sound wonderful. Invite two guests you would like to spend time with to eat with you in the kitchen so you get to enjoy the dinner party, too. When DD lived at home she only baked but she now embraces my “ready soon and reasonable calories” approach to meals from my pre-retirement days. DS is a good cook but was happy to become sous chef when he married.
Eric, You'll be all set for warm cold weather meals.
Wally, Those potatoes will make the scrambled eggs taste really good.
Dinner tonight was skillet sour cream and onion chicken.
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During the Great Depression my grandparents had a huge garden, and they canned as much as possible. Mom, age 11 when the depression started, said they kept what they needed and sold the excess to help the budget. Mom said she helped/learned and both mom and my grandmother kept canning even after I was born…almost 20 years after the start of WW2 (and the end of the depression). By then it was mostly spaghetti sauce that mom canned. But it was enough for me to learn how to do it as well.
Our stove is a glass top one and its owner manual says "NO CANNING", so I use an older kerosene stove. The kerosene stove works perfectly, and kerosene is easy to find here.
The Ball Blue Book available form Amazon and most Ace Hardware stores, and also the National Center for Home Food Preservation have lots of information on home canning. See Home Page - National Center for Home Food Preservation
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Eric, my heart warmed reading your post.
I also have induction cooktop/glass….i'll see if my outdoor grill would work. xoxoxo
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My mother, also, came of age in the great depression and canned. Growing up we loved her pickles, peaches, jams, jellies and vegetables. We ate the last jar of her pickles TWO YEARS after she passed away. We had a family dinner and made an occasion of it. Thanks for the great memory Eric.
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My mother canned. Our cousins loved her sour pickles. My favorite was canned tomatoes. They were good eating with a sprinkle of salt. I canned for a few years, mostly different kinds of pickles. Yellow squash, green beans, okra. It was hobby canning. Sterilizing the jars was easy with a dishwasher. The fun stage was hearing the lids "pop" as they sealed. DH built me a nice set of shelves in the laundry room.
My mother happily abandoned canning when she got a big chest freezer.
The navy bean soup was much enjoyed. I added fresh spinach when warming it up to serve. Big container of leftover soup.
This afternoon we're going to a Christmas concert we attend every year with another couple and then to dinner at Sal & Judy's, a favorite restaurant.
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I love reading your stories. Just so heartwarming. My DH has similar stories growing up.I grew up in NYC , and my grandmother did not can, but sitting in her kitchen while she cooked was always a delight and a treat. She would let me turn the handle on the meat grinder as she prepared a stew. I still remember that, it was a small silver table top machine and I felt like such a big girl.
Today I’m cooking a red lentil daal (soup) with brown rice, roasted balsamic Brussels sprouts and steamed broccoli and mushroom salad.1 -
Tonight is a pork tenderloin, rest of the leftover mashed potatoes and salad
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Rischaller, could you share your recipe for red lentil soup? Is the brown rice on the side? Your background of growing up in NYC seems very interesting to me. So different from my background of growing up in the rural south.
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My maternal grandmother grew a garden up to a certain point and canned everything she grew. I did that too before I moved. Won’t be able to garden next year but I will go to farm stands and get produce to can!
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I got back into canning when my dad was put on a low fat, very low salt diet. This was hard to accomplish with commercial foods, so I'd prepare foods that met dad's needs and could be canned or frozen. This way, mom in her late 80s and dad in his early 90s, could "heat and eat" with minimal effort on their part.
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Special - good to see you're keepng busy lol!
I grew up on canned foods as both sets of grandparents grew and preserved food. My dad was a huge tomato gardener so canned tomatoes were a staple. My own canning experience is limited to tomatoes, pickles, jams, jellies, etc . No pressure canning. These days I only use the freezer but I still have friends who can and provide me with things My favorite is blackberry jalapeño jelly that two friends make every year.
Tonight is Swedish meatballs in the crockpot with buttered noodles and sautéed spinach
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Great canning stories. I canned while living in TN when a neighbor offered to show me how. I think she wanted to use my kitchen since I had a gas stove, electricity and running hot water. She and her husband had a wood cookstove, one cold water tap, kerosene lamps and an outhouse. They purchased just flour and sugar and ate only what their small farm produced. I made sure she took almost all of the jars home but she insisted I keep half of the pear preserves since they were from trees in my yard. They canned, smoked and dried meat; I even got to help make head cheese (souse) in a cauldron over an open outdoor fire. It was like Little House on the Prairie alive and well in the 1980's.
Reader, Since the taste of canned pickles depends so much on the maker that gathering for the last jar was a wonderful way to remember your mother.
Carole, I hope you enjoyed the concert and dinner out.
Dinner tonight was steak tips on horseradish potato with bordelaise sauce, sautéed arugula and cherry peppers at a Beacon Hill restaurant. We arrived at 4:30 when nobody else was there so we were able to have a good meal inside instead of takeout in the hotel room.
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Loved reading all of this. I've made "fermented" sour pickles and kimchi, but that doesn't require canning.
Copper river salmon tonight. LOVE!!
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I have not eaten kimchi and doing so has little appeal. Maybe I confuse "fermented" with "rotten."
The dinner outing at Sal & Judy's was enjoyable. I had an eggplant special. Slices of cooked eggplant topped with crabmeat and a tomato and basil sauce. I may have the half serving I brought home for lunch.
I'm hoping to buy fresh mustard greens this afternoon at a vegetable stand if the rain lets up. It is pouring outside now.
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Carole, I think that fermented (not like vinegar-style) is an acquired taste. My dad used to make sauerkraut in our little pantry. Stuff we always ate, had around, and I must have acquired the taste. I much prefer fermented pickles but also enjoy the vinegar style. DH can't imagine eating anything like that…maybe a cultural thing.
Your eggplant with crab sounds amazing.
leftover Copper River.2
