So...whats for dinner?

MinusTwo

I sat up at the sub division pool from 5:30-9p last night working with home owner registrations. Between people, another resident & I pruned the 6 large crepe myrtles. No one had touched them since last May so it was a big job. It's been over 90 most days for the last few weeks. I was too hot & tired to deal with cooking by the time I got home. I had half of a leftover baked potato & called that dinner- served between two gin & tonics. Registration again this morning from 9-11. Lunch was a 1/2 a meatloaf sandwich on sourdough bread. Dinner will be salad.

carolehalston

Minus, your subdivision is lucky to have you for a resident.

The Belmont pre-race chatter is on the tv. What a sloppy track! As messy as the Kentucky Derby.

Dinner will be the last very thick beef fillet steak in the freezer. Side will be the last of the small potatoes! We have butter but I think we've used up the sour cream. Not a problem for me. There is romaine in the veggie drawer for a salad. Also ripe avocados. We're all set for a delicious meal!

I've been busy today packing up plastic bins with the "take me along" items. Had to go out this morning to the post office and bank and Sam's Club pharmacy to take care of things that I could already have done, like cash checks and forward mail. In addition to picking up prescriptions at Sam's, I bought big chunks of romano and asiago cheese. The nearest Sam's Clubs at our location in MN are St. Cloud's (at least 2 hrs.) and Fargo (an hour and a half). We usually go to Fargo at least once during the summer. There is a poorly stocked Walmart's in Park Rapids and two nice supermarkets. It's not as though we can't buy food and liquor and wine.

Deciding what clothes to take is a big headache for me. I hate packing for a short trip, let along packing for 4 months with a range of temperatures to consider. DH has a clothes rack in his truck, which is handy.

ChiSandy

Rejoice—it's safe to eat romaine again!

MinusTwo

Carole - In spite of the heat, I really enjoy getting to see & visit with my neighbors... Who got married, who's kids graduated from college, who is having their house re-piped because of aging water lines. We only have 188 homes and I've been here a LONG time, so I know most of them. This seems to be the only time I do so as: a) I age; or b) people get more busy. No one is out much in the summer because of the heat, or the winter because of the rain. Spring might be 4 days & fall is hurricanes.

I've spent much of the afternoon going through my Mother's 1930s Better Homes & Garden cookbook. She wrote personal recipes on all the pages & noted who shared them with her. And also going through her recipe box. It was fun memory voyage of foods & people. She made the most heavenly, melt in your mouth orange rolls. I don't think my Dad liked them so she made them for ladies luncheons or special Sunday. I thought about making them but there are 15-20 steps: Mix & rise an hour, add more stuff & rise two hours, add more stuff & rise again - not to mention punching it down between each step. Also found 10 or 12 recipe cards that were hand written by my Grandmother, who was born in 1887 and some by my Grammy who was born in 1878. From 5 different kinds of pickles to Swiss Steak to Fudge Cake & lots of pies. I'll be sending those to my next oldest girl cousin. She has lots of children who will be interested.

My grandpa only liked two kinds of pies - HOT & COLD.

Eric - I found a recipe for rye bread that you might like.

Meatloaf sandwiches again tonight. This time on sourdough instead of pumpernickel.

SpecialK

minus - we share the same weather issues, lol! I also share your grandpa's pie philosophy!

Yay for romaine!

MinusTwo

Joyce - I can smell it from here. Eric's the lucky one with an outdoor oven. I try not to turn mine on for too long for the next xxx months while it's over 90 outside.

auntienance

Carole, wow can't believe it's time for you to go to MN already. Are you guys managing again this year?

Cooler and rainy here too so I have a beef roast to cook today. If it warms up too much I'll sous vide it. Sides will be asparagus and some tiny potatoes.

queenmomcat

A little far behind, obviously, but ChiSandy: I'm not surprised the Baffo restaurant failed. It was awfully stodgy. I didn't even know it was connected to the Chicago Eataly.

carolehalston

Yes, we are managers again this year, Nance. DH has a resort cell phone and has taken calls and made reservations during our months away from MN. This summer I plan to join a women's golf group at Headwaters Golf Course, where we bought a membership. They have a weekly golfing event. There is also a weekly women's event at a little golf course near the resort. I will give that a try, too. Plus, we'll join the Anytime Fitness gym in the closest town and try to work out at least a couple times a week.

I'm bringing my embroidery supplies, crochet and knitting needles. We'll have our bicycles and our fishing boat. There should be enough to do if I can keep dh from becoming too absorbed in "managing." He has a tendency to be over-conscientious as though he is the owner. I also plan to attend a WW meeting once a week in Walker, a little town about 30 miles away. There is only one meeting, on Tuesday afternoon at 5:30. It would be wonderful to get down to goal weight this summer.

Dinner tonight will be the last of the chicken breast fillets. Sides will be carrots and romaine salad.

auntienance

Sounds like a fun summer Carole. With all you've outlined I've no doubt you will get tio your goal weight this summer.

eric95us

I have not *needed* to use the outdoor stove/oven yet, but I've been using it anyway just so I'm in "practice" for when it is really worthwhile.

Minus.....I like *all* bread recipes! :-) My recipe notebook has more bread recipes than most anything else.

I've been losing weight more slowly than I'd like....the body can be so irritatingly efficient with food!. I'm moving 10-12 miles per day where my heart rate is above 130 beats per minute and the biggest change I've seen in "my stats" is that my resting heart rate is now around 45 beats per minute.

Sharon has about 4 more days of work and she'll be retired too. We can't wait!!!!!! :-)

DD drove to Las Vegas with one of her roommates to go to a EDC music festival (not quite a "rave" as it has security, EMS, etc.on site). They are staying at my brother's place which is less than a mile from where the shuttle buses pick up and drop off folks going to the festival, so besides the tickets and getting there, there isn't much in the way of expenses. I start to get a bit "ahhhhh", but then I remember driving to Rocky Point, Mexico and camping out on the beach for a week at a time and then I just give her one "be careful"...and that's it.....

Edited to add....

I just put a stock pot of frozen turkey bones on the outdoor stove. I had only six 12 ounce jars left. When I'm done, I should have an additional two dozen jars of broth.

ChiSandy

Still icky & cold—47 for today’s high. May hit 70 later in the week but not holding my breath. At least it’s cool enough to wear a jacketed pantsensemble that won’t stick out the bottom of my parka (!). Bob is taking me for early dinner at North Pond Cafe inside Lincoln Park, since he was working Mother’s Day. Will post food porn when I get home.

eric95us

Currently it is 97F/36C degrees on the back porch. I

I don't know if I posted this before....During a live TV news broadcast, the weather map went "crazy" during the weather section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXuc7SAyk2s

SpecialK

eric - pretty hilarious, lol! "Steel boils at that temperature, don't even bother looting..."

We have the hot and rainy temps Joyce alluded to earlier - hope its not a sign of the summer to come... mid 80's and rain, ugh.

MinusTwo

Carole - drive carefully & let us know when you've landed.

illimae

Tonight was spaghetti and meatballs, yum!

Magari

It's been a pretty blustery day here, with a high of 61 that felt more like 55. Tonight I'm making chicken cutlets with shallot/lemon/white wine pan sauce and ultra crispy roasted potatoes with fresh thyme.

ChiSandy

Sat. night Bob came home after a big lunch and I had leftover mac & cheese (Annie's mini-shells & cheddar, not bad); by 9:30 we were hungry again so he brought home soft taco platters (chicken & ground beef) from the Mexican joint that recently moved around the corner from us.

I know I promised you food porn tonight, but we got lost in conversation (and my phone's battery had only enough juice to call a Lyft home and Bob's kept ringing off the hook from his paging service app). So here's the description of tonight's menu at North Pond Cafe (a Frank Lloyd-Wright-influenced building that began in 1912 as a warming house for ice skaters inside Lincoln Park).

(edited after consulting online menu--I typed the original post still "under the influence")

Amuse-bouche: lamb gyro slices in a yogurt sauce with minced cucumber & rhubarb.

App #1: charcuterie plate for two consisting of pork rillons (chunkier than rillettes), veal chorizo, pork bologna, saucisson Napoletano, thin slices of beef heart, bresaola, pickled fiddleheads, English pea puree, arugula with balsamic vinaigrette, olives, candied hazelnuts and black olive/saucisson toast.

App #2: for me, sauteed soft shell crab on a bed of peas and spring carrots with watercress & pea tendrils on the side. For Bob, a Maine lobster almond-purple-top-turnip veloute with green olive, snap pea gribiche, caper, Meyer lemon, rhubarb. (We split both dishes down the middle).

Entrees: For me: prosciutto-wrapped saddle of rabbit, nasturtium-apricot rabbit chorizo verde; sweet pea-nasturtium puree, Japanese turnips, pickled baby red onions, flax chips. For Bob, shallot-crusted hake (the menu lists it as "Merluza," but we kept hearing the expediters calling "fire up a hake..." instead), gulf shrimp; glazed snap peas (I made those Fri. night), parmesan-creamed arugula (their riff on steakhouse creamed spinach, charred Vidalia onion, strawberry, granola

Dessert: pistachio semifreddo, rhubarb "clouds" (sort of like a cross between marshmallow & whipped gelatin), candied pistachios, raspberry meringues, raspberry coulis, raspberry geleé and...fresh raspberries. Mignardises were salt-caramel-filled dark chocolate bonbons and coconut macaroons (light as a feather).

Burp.

Lacey12

Minus, I agree with Carole that your subdivision is fortunate to have you as such an active, involved neighbor. And yes, it must be fun to catch up with family milestones as you process pool registrations. I had a Minusesque dinner tonight.....a piece of rosemary bread, salad, and a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and walnuts. DH had the leftover seafood risotto I’d ordered while at another graduation dinner last night, and ate about a third of. He enjoyed the risotto and I enjoyed my oatmeal!

Carole, was it last year that you left for MN earlier than you had in previous years? It sounds like you have lots of fun activities lined up to keep you busy....and good luck with the WW effort! I too find packing an onerous task, so empathize with yourtrying to pack for a whole season. But atbleast you do it once and it’s done. We tend to bop around to many spots all summer so I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy packing and unpacking.

Sounds like everyone is experiencing weather variations and mini-challenges. Tonight we have a warm and humid atmosphere after a cold (50 degrees) and rainy day yesterday. I had to dig into my heavy winter sweaters to find something toasty enough to wear to dinner last night...on May 19th! No need for outdoor ovens here! I had never even heard of those before.

Fortunately, it looks like the temp will hold in this relatively warm pattern through this week and supposedly over the long weekend. We head to the lake to open up the house on Friday, so warm and dry will be appreciated if the forecast stays that way.....one never knows, living here. And never knowing always keeps that packing job interesting.

eric95us

Chi, I like the ending of the food description.... :-)

Lacey, it was quite a nice accident that I ended up with the 2nd stove-oven.

The neighbor's stove quit working and I offered to fix it for them, but they had already bought a new one. He said the recycling places charge to accept large appliances, so he was going to put it out on the street with a "Free--needs fixing" sign on it and if it were still there the next day, he would haul it to the recycling place.

Stoves and ovens are simple to fix, so I brought it over to my back porch, fixed it and hooked it up.

ChiSandy

I'm currently going nuts trying to change light bulbs in my range hood. They're halogen and burned out a couple of years ago (and the knob fell off the switch), but I decided I needed to stop trying to cook in the semi-dark. Those suckers are a bear (was about to use a stronger b-word) to replace: they have perfectly flat lenses, there is practically no clearance between their edges and the recessed mounts (surrounded by a decorative non-removable flange), they use a two-pin click-and-turn rather than a normal screw-in socket method, and the flat lenses give no "purchase" whatsoever. It was a miracle I was able to pop the first one out, but it took half an hour, rubber gloves, and the saltiest words in my vocabulary before I could press & turn the replacement bulb so it wouldn't fall out. I couldn't budge the second one.

Called the merchant--they wanted $179 and a week before they'd send a tech over. (How many aging boomers does it take to change a light bulb? Damned if I'm gonna have to pay three figures to find out). E-mailed Broan, which sent me a diagram which I'd already figured out, and suggested I use their dedicated suction-cup removal tool, which I ordered from Amazon. The tool arrived: it didn't work, but now I have a wrenched shoulder and a sore R wrist to match my injured L one. I'm gonna scrounge up some rough-surfaced duct tape as a last resort (as others have suggested). Went to my neighborhood blog, where one guy touted an app where you name your price and get bids. First of all, my phone has so many apps I had to put them into folders; second, to use the app you need to start an account (divulging bank or cc# info) and use their own proprietary payment app (no, they don't take cash, check, plastic, PayPal, Venmo or Zelle--at least it isn't Bitcoin). Not gonna happen. Then a couple of teens messaged me that they'd do it for ten bucks. Now we're talkin'! (And the replacement knob arrived, and fits).

The bulbs are $33 each and the tool $17. Just like with anything else these days, they get you by the consumables.

The guy who designed this lighting system is--like Frank Lloyd Wright before him--a brilliant draftsman but a lousy builder. Either that or he flunked kitchen design or hates home cooks.

MinusTwo

Eric - sorry, now I've lost the recipe for Rye bread. When I come across it again I'll send you a PM.

eric95us

There is no hurry Minus.

Tonight I made a big salad with salmon on it. That was all we ate...no side dishes--nothing else.....

Sharon was pretty tired today and while she was hungry, wanted something light and fast...and after running 3 miles in the heat, I wasn't in the mood for a large meal.

Chi, when I would interview for a product design job, I would always stress that my design knowledge combined with my product repair experience would make a powerful combination....the manufacturers were never interested. One place said that if it increased the manufacturing costs, then it was "not possible". Another place was worried that if they made a product maintainable and someone did a bungled repair that caused a safety issue, then the company might be liable "because they did not take steps to prevent bungled repairs"...... I could almost understand the first, but the 2nd one always mystified me.

ChiSandy

I don't understand it either, Eric, and I studied product liability law--which is "strict" liability regardless of intervening human behavior.

Gordy & I shared last night's leftovers. I added grilled asparagus and pan-seared scallops in brown butter; for him, jasmine rice and for me, roast red and golden beets.

MinusTwo

I had to pick my Sister-in-Law up after some medical tests today since she couldn't drive. On the way to the med center, I was able to get by the Battered Women's donation area and take 7 boxes of clothes. I also save all the shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc. that come for free with most hotel rooms. When these women have to leave - maybe in the middle of the nignt - they have nothing.

So my SIL was NPO after midnight & needless say STARVING by 2pm. Except because of some of the contrast they used, she was not supposed to sit up very long (or lie down flat either for that matter), so it had to be fast. We went to Avalon Diner. This used to be a part of the Avalon Drug Store from the 1940s. When the pharmacy was sold, two separate things were formed: a stationery & gift store and the old diner. They have breakfast all day, plate lunch specials, and are only open until 4p. I had a patty melt AND (you've never heard me say this since it's been 20 years or more since I've indulged) A CHOCOLATE SHAKE - that came in the original, old time, metal mixing container. It was enough to serve three. Yum, yum. No dinner for me. Probably no breakfast tomorrow either.

illimae

Treatment scheduled late = Infusion room eats.

MinusTwo

Wow Illimae. I need to change my provider if I need more infusions. I was at Baylor. We had free coffee and for awhile there were free sodas. Now I believe the fridge is gone. I used to take my own lunch. Occasionally patients brought in trays of goodies. Sometimes if the nurses were going to order out for delivery, we could piggy-back on those orders. But this is amazing. Where do you go?

illimae

MD Anderson and I work for the State, so insurance is pretty good. Private room and free lunch or dinner. I don’t mind really, I usually watch American pickers or a movie while the drugs do their thing.

eric95us

That does look pretty good for a hospital meal....

Tonight was a salmon, brussells sprouts, mushroom and salmon....covered with a honey-rice vinegar-Teriyaki-garlic-ginger marinade. The recipe idea came out of a year old magazine.

Sharon says this is one I should make again.

april485

Hi everyone,

Tonight I am making sauteed sea scallops (they were on sale at our local fish market for 12.99 a pound and they are gorgeous!) and I am hoping to get just the right crust on them in my cast iron pan. I will make a white wine lemon sauce and asparagus and jasmine rice or couscous, not sure which grain. I rarely buy sea scallops because they are 20 bucks a pound around here (more costly than even lobster by far) so this will be such a treat!

Tomorrow, I will make a pot roast in the crock pot and let it go all day while I am in work. Likely Friday we will have pizza and this weekend making a veggie lasagna. Sunday, I will make roast chicken. That rounds out the week and we will likely have leftovers from many of these meals to eat later.

Hope all of you are well. Things are finally breaking weather wise here in CT. Today it will be 80 degrees with low humidity! I am so sick of all of this rain. Finally!

Have a great day everyone!