So...whats for dinner?

carolehalston

Laundry day for me.  Hit my favorite laundromat at a great time.  Not busy.  

Will be a hot day today.  In the 80's.  Dinner will be chicken or beef fajitas with corn tortillas.  Will cook out on the deck again, using the electric skillet.  Handy because the temperature can be set so easily.

bedo

Dropping off laundry, put in my list with peapod for pick up tomorrow-$2.95, robot vacuum running and litter robot taking care of the cat poo.

Could I be any lazier? No, .

I hope all you Floridians (sp)? Southerners and Westerners stay cool and get some rain.

Hope everyone one with sides feels OK

Remember, All dogs go to Heaven.

Hake for dinner with caper butter sauce and shallots. The Captain brought it just for me.

eric95us

Sharon and I were out on the back porch just lounging. For what it's worth, at 7am it was already in the upper 80 degree range. Anyway we kept wondering aloud what was happening to the surface of the water in the bird bath. I finally got up to see what was happening to the water and realized it was one of those one drop every 10 seconds rain "storms"..

We came inside just before 8am when it hit 90F.. So, yes, we are getting rain out west. Right now it's just one of those dehydrated rains. :-)

Breakfast this morning....Sharon is cooking bacon and eggs and I'm contributing aebleskiver.

Redheaded1

I'd like some aebleskiver....bet you have the right pan to cook them in.....

I went to Bob Evans this a.m. and made the mistake of ordering "multigrain pancakes. Needless to say, I was not sure if they were cooked right, but they seemed kind of doughy in the middle, so I ate 3/4 of them along with the bacon and coffee and called it done.......Will not repeat it.

Dinner tonight was pasta with some more of the Rao's Eggplant sauce. Can't say I am a big fan of it, but it had nothing unhealthy in it preservative wise. So I thought of it as a healthy choice. Can't take my carbs away, but maybe some of the sugar and other crap they add to the food.....

Hope everyone is well. WE have been predicted to get storms for 2 days now, but just the heat and humidity so far......

Lacey12

I saw an old acquaintance today whose daughters now live in AZ and she also spoke of the intense heat they are having....tho I guess you guys are used to this. Or are there summers when you do not hit the hundreds? We expected thunder storms all day, and finally took our walk at 5:30PM keeping an eye to the sky. Nothing!

I was happy that it stayed dry this afternoon since the Farmer's Market folks did not have to scramble. We had a ball there loading up on greens and veggies, and it was fun to see what a new Asian vendor had from his farm. His produce was all lined up in the most meticulous and visually appealing way, and many of the greens were new to me. He answered lots of buyers questions about things like amaranth, unusual spinach greens, and purslane. Well, it was a riot to learn that it is the weed we pull up from between our patio flagstones! Not so sure I am ready to eat that! Always have to worry about the darn allergies....

So I spent the afternoon cleaning and storing all the greens and veggies (including a huge amt of basil that was on sale). I will be making pesto like mad tomorrow. I already gave one bunch to my next door neighbor, but everyone else is away, so here I am with basil galore. The bunches of it still have roots attached and I thought I might pop some back into the ground to see if it will regrow. We'll see.

Tonight we had grilled balsamic, garlic, and rosemary marinated chicken breasts, and grilled sweet onion and yellow squash, along with local first of the lot corn, and a huge salad with almost every green variety we bought, including pea tendrils which I love.

Most likely we will repeat that menu tomorrrow night since we always get back from stretching class late and I am usually too tired to create a new meal.

On Wednesday we head back to the lake (because why would we want to stay still, afterall!!), and we just had a call from a neighbor there asking if DH would be willing to assemble and bring all the songs he can with the word "moon" in the title. The association is holding a "Blue Moon" party this weekend, thus the request. I had not even read about it yet, but it should be fun.

Bedo, you sound less lazy and more millennial-ish since that is how many of the young'ens manage their lives. So you are young at heart!! The hake dinner sounds great.

DH and I are moving into the barnyard for our food this week since we figure our mercury levels must be pretty high after totally eating fish for the last two out of three weeks, daily! Yikes!

Lacey12

Purslane info.....next we'll be eating crabgrass!

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/030726.html

eric95us

Two whole chickens..using the covered grill like an oven.

eric95us

I missed the posts before mine.

The aebleskiver pan is a specialty item, and new ones are $20-$30, so it's not a huge investment of money. The thing looks like a round skillet with 7 "looks like tennis balls cut in half" depressions in it. Any of the search pages should offer a bunch of options and show pictures.

As for summers. I've been here since 1979 and, every summer, there are several days where the high temperatures exceed 115F degrees. I think people would panic if a summer went by where the high temperatures stayed below 100F degrees. :-)

SpecialK

Last night was a salad dinner - curried chicken salad over romaine, red potato salad with sour cream and dill and we each had an artichoke. It has been raining a lot here - more than usual, but with no let up in the heat - so somewhat of a steam room effect. We had a dry early summer but now it is not - even got an email from our lawn guy saying it is too wet to mow without risking damage because of the muddy soil. Unfortunately, rain in the summer in FL also means lightning. DD was driving to work the other day and the semi in front of her was hit by a bolt and blew out a tire. No accident but the truck stopped dead (probably fried the electrical) in the middle of I-75, so created a traffic mess. A few days before that she witnessed a single car spin out in heavy rain and hit the jersey wall, airbags deployed - she stopped because she has first responder training and the accident had just happened. The driver was a 19 year old young man - he was crying, so she calmed him down and called FHP. He was unhurt but scared and his car was in a precarious spot on the overpass. Eeesh!

Suladog

I grow purslane and besides being higher in Omega 3 than any other plant and good for one is absolutely delicious. If you have purslane in your garden you will have more purslane

bedo

Haha Lacey, I also don't shop for clothes much any more and rely on my "personal stylist" to send me things from Stitch Fix, once a month, I send back what I don't like in the prepaid envelope for no charge, and I rented my "Mother in Law" dress from Rent the Runway, although it was not a typical MIL dress, it would have cost $500, too rich for me. My DD keeps me young.

May I have your pesto recipe? I am also over run with basil

Also, you can make a TON of Kimchi with Bok Choy cabbage, if you like it, it's Korean from one of my oldest friends who I met in 4th grade

Oh, Special, so glad no one was hurt!

Sushi for dinner.

No idea what happened last week to make me tired. Probably "acute exhaustion" haha due to cats jumping on me in the night or the perfect storm of little things. Feeling a lot better today.

Rain and crazy down pours today.

I know that Adult gummy multi-vitamins are not food but they sure taste good- I ordered them with my peapod order and just got them today. Yum. Will have to remind myself not to eat the whole bottle. Could be dangerous if you have kids.

MinusTwo

Bedo - I love Bok Choy. I used to saute it with Mei Yen seasoning but I'm having a problem finding that seasoning any more. However, I did buy some Bok Choy yesterday so we'll see what mood strikes me.

Edited to say - Bedo I'm so glad that you've found your adventurous seafood gene. Sushi!!! Hooray. And all the other great seafood you've been posting regularly.

SpecialK

Tonight was chili natchos - or the name we coined Natchilis, like Brangelina or Bennifer, It was chips (I used Luke's Kale chips - delish!) with the hot leftover chili spooned over, with toppings - shredded lettuce, salsa, pepperjack cheese, black olives, red onion, avocado chunks, diced tomatoes, and scallions. Easy, fun and yummy!

I like to add bok choy to stir fry in place of celery - works great!

M0mmyof3

leftovers

Lacey12

We needed to pick up a bluetooth speaker (for the Blue Moon event at the lake) from DS2 last evening, so headed there after our Stretching class. Got to see their storage space, which I was curious about since I have never been inside one of those buildings before. I kept thinking of the possibility of dead bodies behind one of the doors, (there were so many!!) but since there was no decaying smell, I gave up that morbid fantasy.


Anyway, for dinner we picked up pizza from a chi chi new restaurant, Pastoral in the Seaport area and ate at DS2's and DGF's. I was not sold on the pizza, (when I ask for mushroom pizza, I like to see the mushrooms) and the salads were odd and not so tasty IMHO. One of them had a whole anchovy fish lying next to the small half romaine covered in grated parm, which kind of helped me lose my enthusiasm for that salad. But serendipitously, DGF's employer had given their staff a ton of very nice ice cream treats, so we had that for dessert. Perfectly yummy!
Tonight DH is out and I will have leftover chicken and greens since the fridge is overloaded with them! I also need to make a bunch of smoothies and get cracking on the pesto production.
Bedo, I rarely use a recipe for my basil pesto, so can't give you exact measurements of the basil leaves, garlic, nuts (I use walnuts rather than pine), cheese, and olive oil. But it is a pretty common recipe so if you google it you get lots...mainly the same, I think. One thing I try to do these days is briefly blanch my basil first so that the color will be a bit brighter. I actually prefer the taste of arugula or kale pesto better than straight total basil pesto, but I think this will be good for some bruschetta that I can make for the blue moon beach party.
This is a pretty good link for pesto (like the hundreds that exist!)

http://www.thekitchn.com

Hope it comes up...the link had lots more words on it, but if you go here and type in "pesto", it will hopefully bring you to "How to Make perfect pesto every time".
Happy Pesto making!

carolehalston

Tonight we'll have the fajitas that we did not have when I said we would a couple of nights ago. That night we had the rest of the Nathan hot dogs with Boar's Head sauerkraut that came in a bag. One of our neighbors gave us the kraut. DH did not like it. I thought it was very mild but tasted ok. I like a little more "sour" in my sauerkraut. My Polish sister-in-law liked Frank's brand.

Back to tonight's fajitas. I thawed out some skirt steak and have corn tortillas. I don't have any black beans, though. I think I'll shred some romaine lettuce, dice a tomato and an avocado. Or may make guacamole with the avocado. Salad will be sliced cucumbers with some onion for dh.

We have bought a boat but it sits near our deck as dh fusses with this and that. I washed the hull today and did some cleaning. It's a 1988 Lund. Lund is a popular boat brand in MN and WI. Now when everybody else heads to the dock to go out in their boats, we can go out in ours if we want to. Or not go out. We won't feel underprivileged!

Where is Nance? A lot of other folks are missing, too.

Suladog

Just checking in with chilled vegetarian Borscht from vegetables we grew ourselves (organic) and homemade creme fraiche

auntienance

I'm here! Been busy with out of town guests. Will try to post more tomorrow.

Lacey12

Sula....beautiful and delicious looking soup!

Carole, congrats on becoming boat owners!

Glad you are " here", Nance.

I just finished a wonderful huge bowl of salad with our leftover chicken, salad bowl lettuce (looks like an oak leaf), arugula, and pea tendrils, scallions, kalamata olives, shaved carrot and grape tomatoes. It was dressed with a chili lime dressing, and really delicious...as well as spicey.

auntienance

Hello to all! Guests have all gone, resulting laundry of sheets and towels all done and foodstuffs replenished. Lots of food happening this past week. On Saturday, my DSIL and DDIL made me a belated birthday dinner. It was quite wonderful -- panko/parmesan crusted chicken breasts topped with a salad of bitter greens lightly dressed with a lemon vinaigrette and fresh pasta with fried zucchini. My contribution to the feast was a smoked salmon spread with bagel chips and some flatbreads brushed with olive oil and topped with homemade ricotta, garlic, roasted tomatoes. roasted artichoke hearts and fresh basil. Oh, DDIL brought garlic and blue cheese stuffed olives. YUM. DSIL made a three layer chocolate cake layered with whipped cream. Holy moly! Here's a pic of the cake, DSIL and me:

After we stuffed our faces, we played a rousing (and interminable with 6 people) game of Chicken Foot (thought about you Minus) which, much to her great pleasure, DDIL won. She's very competitive lol! The house seems very quiet after they all left by Tuesday.

Rain interrupted the deck refinish, so DH has to finish it alone (doesn't want my help. He hates me and paint in the same sentence) tomorrow. We have to have 48 hours without rain, nearly impossible this year. I am managing to get some things from the garden, including some very delicious tomatoes, although not many. Cucumbers are coming in as well as green beans, chard and squash. I see pickling in my future.

Everyone's meals sound fabulous. I have no idea what dinner will be but I'm sure it will involve garden vegetables. I have some roast pork shoulder left from a previous meal that may become pork tacos.

I like to get the baby bok choy and cut them in half for a stir fry. I happen to have some and that might be something to do with the pork too.

Carole, so glad you got your boat! We love Lunds and always like to rent them when we're in the northwoods. DBIL just traded his in for a pontoon boat. I saw your deck on another thread -- it looks terrific. Beautiful geraniums!

Lacey, loved your garden path. Susan, you are amazing. I'm sorry for everyone's heatwave, but we've been having upper 90s with humidity about the same. The next few days are supposed to be in the 80s with lower humidity so maybe I can get some weeding done without passing out.

After our binging all weekend, DH and I headed to the gym for the first time in two months. I had my mind all right and was ready to get back into my workout routine. But wait! It was closed for a whole week for annual cleanup. Doesn't open again until Saturday. Sooooo, we start next Monday. Hope I can keep my mindset.

I have lots of purslane. To me, it's a weed. My DSIL would probably eat it. She's a country girl.

susan_02143

What a wonderful picture! Love seeing so much happiness.

*susan*

auntienance

Eric -- funny story!

Luv -- hope doggie is better.

Bedo - if I ever get another cat, I'm getting one of those litterboxes.

SpecialK

auntie - adorable pic and yummy looking cake!

Tonight is kale salad with almonds, avocado, blackberries, strawberries and strawberry vinaigrette - I am topping it with roasted chicken breast. Fast and easy as DH will go to the gym en route from work, so probably won't eat dinner until about 8 or 8:30. I got new every day dishes and specifically got some wide and large flat-ish bowls from Crate & Barrel for this type of salad, they showcase the ingredients because they are shallow so you can see all the delish stuff!

carolehalston

Cute picture, Nance. I have acute cake envy!

Brown rice is steaming on the stove. To be served with chicken and sausage gumbo I cooked this afternoon. First time I've ever used boneless skinless chicken breasts in gumbo but did so with dh's encouragement to use up what's in the freezer. I also used a pkg. of cooked okra and tomatoes. And two links of smoked sausage.

The wind has been blowing all day, a steady 20 to 30 with gusts to 40. The poor bread and pie lady was packing up early when I stopped today in time to buy a loaf of Ezekiel bread and a package of 4 huge cinnamon rolls. Confession: I ate TWO of them and they truly are very large. Another stalwart woman was not packing up. I bought beets, cucumbers and a cabbage from her. And a combination of green and yellow snap beans.

One common and delicious meat here in MN is bulk country sausage. We bought some at Thielen's Meats in Little Falls on Mon. when we were returning from St. Cloud, where we bought the boat. This morning I did a scrambled egg and sausage dish for breakfast. At Thielen's we also bought pork chops, rib eyes, and brats. So much for emptying the freezer. Out with one hand and in with the other.

carolehalston

Our new deck built by Dh.

carolehalston

Da boat.

carolehalston

MinusTwo

OK Carole - I'm ready to see the pictures of you water skiing. Ah, a man & his boat. Love the deck.

auntienance

Carole, you'll be bringing home stringers of walleye before you know it!

MinusTwo

Fantastic lunch out w/a friend at a wonderful prime rib place. Since it was lunch, I had a prime rib french dip. Oh my goodness - 12" long on a home made bun and 4-5" thick. Excellent fries dusted w/garlic & spices. Needless to say I brought home half of the sandwich. My friend had a prime rib taco. The beef was lightly sauteed w/onion & bell pepper. They also offered prime rib quesadillas, prime rib nachos, prime rib BBQ sandwich, blackened prime rib wrap. YUM!! Wish I could have had two meals since Red Snapper was the fish of the day.

Nance - I want some of that cake!!!

Eric - have you melted away? We were over 100 the last two days w/a heat index of 107-108. I wish we could get some of the rain back from FL.