So...whats for dinner?

Suladog

Susan,

yes it has. As to Indian restaurants, I hear ya! Cannot do that anymore.

Redheaded1

So what would you recommend as a first try for someone who has never had Indian food before?

bedo

Sula Hi!

A friend a I go weekly or every two weeks to "India" restaurant and have for years. I love Indian food.

I was vegetarian from age 16 but started eating shellfish 3-4 years ago during radiation to get more protein and then fish recently. I sometimes feel that as I've gotten older, I need more protein to stay strong. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I do have more energy and have lost 6 pounds without trying.

Red, that is so funny! I have a picture of one of my black cats, Gonzo, lying asleep in a bunch of catnip scattered on the rug after running and playing. I say he looks like a bum with an empty bottles around him. And both of them seemed so disappointed last fall when I gave them the store brand again.

Sorry for those I've missed. Tired again after work.

susan_02143

Mr. 02143 chose tonight's menu, keeping my work schedule and "tired" factor into account. I suspect he also noticed his "crave" factor since for some reason there is cream and potatoes and gruyere in the fridge. He is grilling a rib eye steak pulled from the freezer, and I have made a potato gratin and a huge salad. Femara is doing a number on my appetite, sadly. Just don't have much at all. The potatoes sound good, but meat hasn't appealed that much lately. Maybe that will change when there is a slice or two on my plate. One ribeye gives us about 5 servings now, so at least one meal tomorrow is already done!

*susan*

carolehalston

Welcome Suladog.  Share some Indian cooking basics with us.  I bought and read a book about classic Indian cooking.  Susan has it, too, and knows the name of the author.  I also bought a whole cabinet of spices and have cooked a couple of the recipes.  Hope you'll join in.

Good to know the new potatoes can be baked.  I just sampled one in the green beans and YUM.  New potatoes are have such a distinctive taste.

Suladog

South Indian salad Carole,

Here's an easy recipe

I'm having trouble with these links from my iPad but my site www.thecolorsofindiancooking.com has about 6 years of mostly Indian recipes on i

carolehalston

Thanks, Suladog.  I'll check out that site.

auntienance

My new potatoes will not be in for a long time. I planted so late that seed potatoes I wanted could not be found. I ended up buying some organic Yukon golds in the grocery store. Although they had a few eyes, they were not sprouted at all so it's taking them a long time to get going. Only about a third have come up. I should have put them in my potato bin, potatoes seem to sprout quickly in there lol!

We're having an outing tomorrow with some friends. We're heading to St. Louis county to visit the World Bird Sanctuary. They do a lot of rehab of raptors there. Should be interesting. After that were heading to a casino to have dinner and spend the night. Don't know what the offerings will be.

DH just ran out to the deck to chase a raccoon who comes to raid the bird feeders every night. And we now have a baby rabbit who has taken up residence on the front porch. He is helping himself to my flowers. Sigh! Wild Kingdom.

I love Indian food but I don't know what anything is.

auntienance

I take it back. I know rogan josh and indeed have some lamb chunks in the freezer that are destined for this dish.

Suladog

Auntie,

I just put my vegetables in a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping to plant potatoes, but there weren't any available. How does the planting of regular potatoes work? Never tried this before

auntienance

Sula, it's the same as with seed potatoes. It helps if they're sprouted a little so you can see the eyes better but they don't have to be. I just cut them up with at least one eye in each piece.

eric95us

I had a sprouting potato in the pantry and I cut out one eye and put it in a large pot. I got several potatoes out of the deal.

Lacey12

Welcome Suladog! I will have to check out your site to see what I might try to make. I get nervous about making dishes with spices that I might have an allergic sensitivity to, and have mostly avoided Indian restaurant food. Obviously making my own would help with that.

Nance, silly question.....how does one know when your potatoes are ready to be harvested?

So after our meeting today we popped over to Seaport and met DS2 for dinner at Legal Test Kitchen since it is next door to his office, and he planned to return to work after eating. Well, maybe I was just hungry, but did I love our meal!! We ordered an appetizer of Turkish Lamb Pizza, (a rectangular flatbread) with romano cheese and fennel yogurt.....SO DELICIOUS!! Even non-mammal eating DS2 had a small piece. Then I had a combo plate of a crabcake and one skewer each of broiled shrimp and sea scallops......all done perfectly. And even better was that the accompanying salad on the plate was kale with a buttermilk dressing. They must have seen me coming!! I can imagine that a lot of customers might not be so enamored of that greens choice.

DH had the paella, which he reported was just okay, and DS2 had the Thai Chili Mussels.

On our way home we stopped at a local ice creamery and destroyed any health points for the night. Tomorrow back to the gym.....

It was so cold and rainy here today, I resurrected my winter hooded parka for our trip into town. It was interesting to see the range of dress styles and layers folks were wearing today....from no coats and open toed shoes to sweaters and down vests and parkas and big rubber boots....all on June 2nd! Hoping for a bit of sunshine tomorrow to warm things up.

We turned our furnace off several weeks ago when it got warm out since it was making noise and we are replacing it in a few weeks. Well, now this is one cold house except for our bedroom and the family room where we have our recently installed "mini-splits"...thank goodness for those!

Two views of Boston Harbor from the 31st floor of One Post Office Square. A very grey day indeed....

Suladog

Auntie,

Www, I can do that. Is it too late/early to plant them this year? I'm in California

Suladog

Lacey,

I have a lot of non Indian dishes also, I wasn't doing a whole lot of cooking (or eating) during chemo as everything tasted terrible. My tastebuds seem to be back now but the herceptin gives me off and on nausea do the appetite is not what it should be .

auntienance

Sula, unless it's very hot where you are, I doubt that it's too late. They're usually planted early here but I've planted them as late as may. Lacey, the plants flower and then they die. You can harvest anytime after that. (Actually, if you want small ones you can harvest before they die. If you're careful, the plant will keep growing.) It's rather fun if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. Kind of like an Easter egg hunt.

Lacey12

And Nance, do your critters not dig them up while you are waiting for the opportune harvest time? Before your newly installed protective fencing, that is. You really do have quite the nature preserve there! Admire your persistence with your vegetable gardening....I gave up this year after that groundhog ate everything I planted last year. DH saw a lean one walk across our yard in NH over Mem Day weekend. So, I'll try a doggie gate by the deck stairs for anything I grow in containers there...and see what happens.

Sula, glad your taste buds are back, but sorry for that intermittent nausea....must be so frustrating for someone who is creatively involved in food prep and writing about it. Susan and I have planned a lunch for later this week, so I am hoping that nausea takes a vacay from her that day.

carolehalston

Photo op!  Photo op!  I'm referring to the lunch with you and Susan, Lacey. 

I'm meeting some of my golf friends at the club today for lunch after they finish playing.  So the time isn't definite but probably not before 1 pm.  The menu has some good salads and a turkey burger with blue cheese that I like.  Finding food that I can enjoy eating is never the challenge.

Nance, hope you enjoy your trip to St. Louis.  Why don't you eat at a restaurant on the Hill.  For me! 

Dinner will probably be leftover meatloaf.  And salad or another easy side.  The meatloaf, green beans and new potatoes last night were much enjoyed by Midwesterner and southerner alike.  I don't put ketchup on my meatloaf, though.  Yuk. 

Sula, I checked out the website but it seemed to end rather suddenly.  Is there more? 

Redheaded1

Lamb shank update----they were scrumptious.   The prep and mess about did me in (did I tell you I have a tiny galley kitchen?)  I think I've scrubbed dishes more times than ever before and the floor needs to be mopped good, but they were worth the effort.

Leftovers--just tear the meat from the bone and put the sauce over it and I'm good?

carolehalston

Redheaded, I'm glad the lamb shanks and white beans turned out to your liking.  It sounds good.

For lunch I had a shrimp remoulade salad, which I enjoyed. 

Lacey12

Oh drat!! Just lost my post......grrrrrr!

Nance, have a great time....looking forward to your meal posts!

Carole, if Susan's a willing subject of this iphone camera happy lady, we will get a pic. Really exciting is that I will get to take more of a virtual tour of her travels while enjoying lunch at Mario Batali's new Boston restaurant, Babbo Pizzeria.

bedo

So fun to read what everyone's doing. Working tomorrow then three day weekend Wooo Hooo! I always have Fridays off.

I will be doing errands, catching up on Dr. appointments and maybe putting beet seeds in the garden, plus practicing for playing "fiddle" at the Solstice Festival on the 17th. ( I promised my teacher who is in the band The Gnomes, that I wouldn't let her down) We don't get paid, we are the "advanced" class Susan knows how bad I am, but they trot us out like kindergarteners, before they play. We stink. We are tone deaf. We get in free and get comp tickets and all the cheezits and orange soda we want in the Green room!

Tonight I have a lot of cod and cans of tomatoes. I'm thinking some kind of stew or something.

Going out for dinner tomorrow, a bike ride Saturday and then a food truck festival on Sunday. I'm Hangry!

Suladog

Carole,

just go to the home page via that link, there's 5 yrs worth of recipes of all sorts like this fast vegan ice cream for summerFast vegan ice cream without a machine

Redheaded1

Nice Blog!

susan_02143

Stomach is still unhappy, so I changed our dinner from a composed salad with the leftover steak to onion soup for both of us, and the leftover steak and potatoes for Mr. 02143. He declined a salad making my life even easier.

Bedo, perhaps you all need orange t-shirts that say "I perform for orange food." BTW folks, they aren't as bad as Bedo says.

Red, sadly, good food sometimes involves messes, but this seems a bit extreme! The floor too?

As to photos, I hate how I look with the Graves Disease eyes. I'll ponder the possibility. :-) Haven't told Mr. 02143 that I am going to Babbo for the first time without him just yet. He might be a tad jealous.

If I had a slightly bigger yard, I would grow garlic, but not sure about potatoes. I would have to have excess space. We get such great new potatoes from Maine in August, not sure it would be worth the effort.

*susan*

Suladog

Susan,

we put in 7 big raised beds and this year is my first crop at the new house. I just hope I get some edibles out of it. I know the radishes and beets are coming up for sure, I've got black eyed peas, bitter melon., three varieties of eggplant butternut squash, tomatoes, three sorts of chiles, carrots, okra, cucumbers, and now thanks to auntienance, I'll see if I can add potatoes! The goal is to grow a lot of what I like to use in my cooking. Fortunately living in Sonoma there are tons of local farms and farmers markets etc. Well, I've got to go see what to do about dinner, at least now I have some taste buds coming back.

susan_02143

I would have to remove a part of the house from the lot to get seven raised beds! I have an urban garden, and I do love it. So tomatoes, raspberries and lots of herbs suffice. Massachusetts grows some of the most delicious vegetables on the earth, and as they come in, we feast on just picked foods from local farms. Our growing season is very short, so we have to take advantage during those short months.

*susan*

carolehalston

I don't like being photographed, either, so a verbal description from both of you, Susan and Lacey, will be great.  Why not include the husbands? 

 

 

Lacey12

Carole, that was my thought when I just read Susan's concern about restaurant "cheating" on DH. If your DH can make it, let's have them join us. My DH has a mid-day window so it would work for him. Your call.....:)

susan_02143

No no no. I want to spend time with Lacey..... time with husbands in tow is different, and what I need right now is Lacey time. Is that okay?

*susan*