So...whats for dinner?

eric95us

im at the vet with Jessiecat.....He's 17, at least and i'm not sure how it's all going to turn out. :-(

HappyHammer

Oh Eric...that doesn't sound good.  More thoughts and hugs your way.

auntienance

Oh no Eric!

MinusTwo

Eric - holding you in my thoughts.

eric95us

It looks like he got bit by a spider. The vet said that if it's one of those Brown Recluse spiders, then the outcome will be pretty poor.

The vet did a bunch of blood tests and an X-ray and "for a 17 year old cat, he's not in bad shape". No kidney, liver, heart or lung issues, so he went ahead and shaved Jessie and cleaned out a huge abscess in his mouth--it didn't involve teeth--and removed a lot of necrotic tissue.

He's home with antibiotics and some pain killer, but doesn't seem to be interested in turkey broth, tuna fish or anything else tasty and soft that cats would like. The dogs try to eat the broth and tuna, so they're sitting outside and sounding very annoyed.

Adding.

He is trying to hide and that worries me a lot.

PontiacPeggy

I have Samsung washer and dryer (and yup, the clothes washer was a recalled one). I replaced the bad one with a front loader from Samsung because I actually liked it. My kitchen came with a GE Profile gas range and dishwasher. I had to purchase a refrigerator and got a French door Frigidaire Gallery - I'd had Frigidaire Gallery fridge, gas range and dishwasher in my old home. Didn't like the Frigidaire gas range that much - the 5th oval burner was wasted and it was hard to clean. But I adored the dishwasher. After coping with the GE dishwasher for less than 2 months I actually replaced a working appliance. I had sworn off doing that years ago because when you do that the gods don't like it and the replacement dies 1 day past the warranty expiration date. I also have a Frigidaire freezer coming next Saturday (the White-Westinghouse one that was 20 years old, died).

HUGS!

Moonflwr912

Eric, hugs. Hugs to all with elderly patents too, thats not easy. And Sandy, hope your kitchen is moving along. Glad Lacey and Carol and anyone else in the storm's path is safe. Nasty storm for sure but it was south of us, so we were spared.

This Monday my DD2 called me up at 9:30 pm to ask if there was anyway I could sit that night. She got called in for 6 am and so I spent the night to be there in the morning. It was the first day I left the house since I got sick at the end of January. So of course I went. Then I went for my usual Thursday overnite with them. Things going well, the Mommy and me dance class was ok, until my DGD1 puked on my DD2. Oops, home we went. She threw up 4 times, then my daughter looks at me and says, oh no. She ran to do the same. Up til 3 am, 6 loads of laundry, including the special blanky, (both of them)holding puky baby while DD throws up. Fun. So, after almost 3 weeks of being sick, I now have at least an 80 percent chance of getting that myself. Sigh.

Since I'm in a holding pattern until I see if I'm contagious, I cooked another Home Chef box. This one was Dijon Chicken with green beans. It was supposed to have mashed cauliflower, but I swapped out tge squash I had in my fridge as it was getting iffy. I'll use the cauliflower later. The chicken was breaded with parm and panko. The sauce was dijon and evaporated milk and finished with butter. It was really good, my DH ate his all up. I had half of the chicken and the rest of the veggies Turned out great. Had just enough leftover for a small lunch, stored it in the freezer. Looking forward to the next meal, steak wellington. Probably make it for myself on Valentines day. LOL.

Much love to all.

ChiSandy

Eric, hope your kitty will soon be on the mend. 17 is a good long life in cat years but Jessie may not have exhausted all nine lives. (My first two lived to 17, but my fourth cat made it almost to 20 despite kidney failure, heart murmur and a spinal stroke).

Whole Foods had pasture-raised ribeyes on sale for $12/lb., and we haven’t had red meat all week; so I bought one. Spent much of the afternoon working on my older skillet (the one with the rust spots on the outside bottom). Dabbed some vinegar/water solution on it, scrubbed with a stainless ChoreBoy and a chain-mail scrubber, then immediately dried & oiled (canola) it. Rubbed in a bit of flax oil (not as stinky as canola) after heating it up, then when it had cooled I wiped it out, put it in the oven upside down. Reinforced the seasoning on my Lodge Logic with coconut oil and put it back into the oven. Cranked the oven up to 500F so that the pan would be evenly hot when I put it on the burner for searing the steak. Surprised that the steak stuck less than before—and discovered, after cleaning out the steak fat, that I had used the old yard-sale (newly flax-oil-seasoned) pan instead of the Lodge Logic. Found this out when I recalled seeing the “Lodge” logo on the bottom of the pan still cooling in the oven. Flipped over the pan I’d used and determined from its markings it’s a 1960s-era Lodge (made after they switched to mass-casting but before spraying on pre-seasoning coatings). Got an incredible sear, came out perfectly mid-rare, and the herb butter sank in while I tented the steak and nuked the WF prefab sides (balsamic grilled zucchini & yellow squashes, and grilled plaintains) and made an insalata Caprese: heirloom tomato, mozzarella di bufala, basil, orange olive oil & lemon white balsamic vinegar). Dessert was Michigan hothouse-grown strawberries dipped into real balsamico. (One st

I’m really enjoying my cast iron (building up my arms). Just ordered a new 12-incher with helper handles (my 10-inchers were made before the advent of those). Have a newfound appreciation for my Ove-Gloves. Still using nonstick stainless for scrambled eggs, fish, & acidic foods.

eric95us

Maybe it's just me, but I think the older stuff is much better at the non-stick.

Jessie is still going. He doesn't seem to like the turkey broth (!?), nor the tuna, but he did eat a couple of chunks of dry food and he drank a lot of water. I'm hoping, but if it looks like he's painfully existing just to keep me happy....

M0mmyof3

Haven't looked in the freezer yet to see what sparks my interest to make for tonight.

auntienance

Yikes Monica! Joe you escape the latest scourge. You've had more than your share.

Aww Eric, what a good kitty. Our oldest lived to 18. She was pretty heathy up until the end. If Jessie's in good shape otherwise, he may just pull out of it. Here's hoping!

I have a chuck roast in the fridge waiting for me to determine its fate. It will probably be pot roast with veggies. No imagination, I know. The problem is absolutely nothing sounds good right now. I'm going on 3 weeks with this virus and I don't feel much better than I did at week one. My voice started to come back yesterday. Still raspy, but at least I could complete a sentence without cracking. Now if I could just get the nose to quit the faucet imitation . . .

eric95us

Chi, some of my mom's cast iron skillets are *smooth* inside and turned out wonderful. Several items, I can, in a cold and dry (no oil) skillet, put an egg in it, turn up the heat, cook the egg "sunny side up", and the cooked egg will *slide* out when I tip the pan.

When I cleaned and reseasoned all of my mom's stuff (175 pounds, or more), I put on my propeller hat and built some makeshift (but very effective) cleaning and de-rusting "machines". It still took me 3-4 months to do it all. But, oh, was it worth it. :-)

SpecialK

eric - hope your kitty is hanging in and improving, will send up some positive thoughts for him.

auntie - DH had a similar sounding virus in Oct. This man is never sick and he was in bed for two straight weeks - it took at least three weeks for him to feel human, and it was a little scary for him. I think he continued to be fatigued for a while after that, but was able to return to work. No fun and I hope you feel better soon!

ChiSandy

Eric, the reason the old stuff releases better is that the cooking surface was milled smooth after being sandcast. The newer stuff is far less labor-intensive to make, with multiple sand molds. Because it's too expensive to mill each skillet smooth (gotta increase productivity to keep up the bottom line), they retain a pebbly surface. So while they're cooling after being unmolded, they're hung on a moving array of hooks and sprayed with vegetable oil to "pre-season" them. But they get only one pass by the sprayer before being cooled & packaged, so you still end up with a pebbly texture. The first thing you need to do when buying a new one (and Lodge is far and away the best on the market) is wash it off with tepid water, a sponge or brush and a tiny bit of soap to remove any packing & manufacturing residue; dry it thoroughly, and do at least one or two seasoning cycles before trying to cook with it. And always use a little fat or oil to cook, to minimize (and eventually prevent) sticking and promote more polymerization of the fat or oil, which is what seasoning is: in the first cycle, the heat opens the cast iron's pores so the fat or oil gets in and polymerizes (chemically changes the structure of) the oil and actually makes it bond with first the iron and later, with each preceding coating. But it will always have a somewhat pebbly surface.

But pebbly doesn't necessarily mean “sticky" and smooth doesn't necessarily mean “nonstick." A regular plain stainless steel or even cast or anodized aluminum pan will never be nonstick (you can't season it because stainless isn't porous like cast iron and aluminum won't take as high a heat as cast iron), and neither will enameled cast iron. And some nonstick pans have a textured surface, and even maintain much of their nonstick properties until too much of the teflon comes off. Even that pseudo-“copper" or “ceramic" eventually (sometimes only after a couple of uses) requires some fat or oil to remain nonstick, even if metal utensils never touch it.

M0mmyof3

Had steak, onion rings and a veggie. Steak was big enough for both me and my hubby. Ran into a bit of a problem when I realized that I was out of cooking spray to keep the steak from sticking to the pan so hubby told me to put a little butter in the pan. Did as he suggested and the steak came out nice and tender. Guess I will have to remember that in the future.

SpecialK

Tonight having boneless pork chops, roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes. Last night had sliced brats that were cooked in a pan, then added leftover penne, heavy cream and parm, and a generous amount of Cajun seasoning, yummy! Served a green salad on the side to offset the naughtiness of the entrée, lol!.

HappyHammer

Sunday night supper with the next door neighbors as per our usual...black beans, grilled pork chops, potato salad, tossed salad, fresh fruit  and green beans.  Love a "covered dish supper" and that we split what is left for the upcoming week.  SInce DH leaves tomorrow for a job in VA- am set for the week with some grilled chicken and veggies I have in the fridge to be cooked.

ChiSandy

Bob will be home very late, and I didn’t feel like cooking while watching the Grammys, so I ordered in from a new place a mile north called Rogers Pier—seafood & Cajun. Really good gumbo (with the rice on the side, a nice touch) and the first oyster po’boy I’ve had since down in NOLA the week before my diagnosis. Taking a breather right now—no room for the lovely salad I ordered (never mind the bourbon pecan tart—didn’t even touch the chocolate mousse heart I bought yesterday).

Got a 6-pack of microfiber lens cloths for seasoning my cast iron without leaving paper towel lint. (Cotton rags leave fibers too). Good thing, because the outside bottom of my modern Lodge seemed sort of sticky. So I scrubbed off the gunky parts, dried it off, inverted it over the burner and rubbed some coconut oil on it once it got warm. When it had cooled, the surface was smoothly-pebbly (not tacky).

eric95us

Tonight I didn't get home from taking my brother and SIL to the airport until almost 7pm, so we got a pre-cooked chicken from the deli and had that.

Jessiecat hasn't been eating, so I tried giving him a little bit of the chicken. He ate 2-3 ounces of that and then drank a lot of water.

Sharon and I signed up for a camp style dutch oven cooking class. This is the dutch oven that has legs and a t

eric95us

Tonight I didn't get home from taking my brother and SIL to the airport until almost 7pm, so we got a pre-cooked chicken from the deli and had that.

Jessiecat hasn't been eating, so I tried giving him a little bit of the chicken. He ate 2-3 ounces of that and then drank a lot of water.

Sharon and I signed up for a camp style dutch oven cooking class. This is the dutch oven that has legs and a t

ChiSandy

Those recessed-lid Dutch ovens go back at least to Colonial times: the recessed lid allows you to place hot coals atop it to do actual campfire or fireplace baking.

MinusTwo

We did that kind of dutch oven cooking/baking when my son was in Boy Scouts many years ago. There was a wonderful booklet 'Dutch Oven Cooking' by John Ragsdale. It was first printed in 1973 and very hard to find for awhile. Looks like you can get it on Amazon now. It's a wonderful reference - from the history of Dutch Ovens to how to choose, how to clean, pit cooking, etc. And then the recipes. Yum. Eric - I think you will particularly like the Sourdough section. Miner's muffins, 49ers pancakes,biscuits, Ranchers bread, Mountain cobbler.

https://www.amazon.com/Dutch-Oven-Cooking-John-Rag...=dp_kinw_strp_1/153-7374695-1939435

ChiSandy

America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated has a new cookbook called Cook it in Cast Iron. Might get it. I do have a couple of enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens (a cheap Tramontina 5-qt. and a Le Creuset 7-qt.) that can be used for campfire cooking, though it’d look a little foo-foo city-slicker to all the other campers.

eric95us

Sharon called me in the middle of the post and I guess I messed it up a bit. Yes, it has the legs and the rimmed lid so that coals can be put under the oven and the lid can hold coals without them falling into the food.

I use a stove top dutch oven a lot but have never used a camp one.

Freya244117

Eric, hope Jessie's health improves. I'm another fan of the old cast iron cookware. Nance, I do hope you start to feel better soon, 3 weeks is too long.

I got knocked on my a**e today. I went to my MO appointment, and she told me that if the chemo I start this week doesn't work or I can't tolerate it, I only have weeks, if lucky, months to live. The last 4 chemo's I have tried have been a failure.

I had no idea, I was still thinking in years. She has sent my medical records to the best Oncologists she knows for their opinions.

Thank you all for being so welcoming and for your kindness. I'm not sure if I will continue to post, if I do it wont be about my health anymore, unless of course it is good news

april485

(((Freya))) I hate this f#$king disease so much! Will hope for a great response to this treatment or that one of those other MO's come up with something that works for you. Please know we care and will be pulling for you all the way.

Eric, try picking up some forti-flora (something like that) and sprinkle on the kitty's food. It usually helps to entice them to eat. You can find it at any pet store like Petco or you can get it on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Purina-Fortiflora-Feline-Nutritional-Supplement/dp/B001650OE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486986092&sr=8-1&keywords=forti+flora+probiotic+for+cats

auntienance

Oh Freya, what lousy news. Let's hope this round does it's job. Please know that we are here for you, check in when you are able. (((Freya)))

eric95us

Freya. That is a kick in the a**e news. I hope this next chemo does the trick.

You are always welcome here. Like any kitchen, we talk about much more than just food.

SpecialK

Freya - this thread has had a number of stage IV ladies as participants, and we will rally around you and provide support if that is helpful to you, or just talk about food if that is what you need - we want to be here for you in whatever way is best for you. Holding up hope that this upcoming chemo is both tolerable and turns the tide for you.

HappyHammer

Freya~ hugs to you and, prayers for the new chemo to kick cancer's a**.  I hate this stupid disease!