So...whats for dinner?

Lacey, all I can say is Yum, Yum to your eating adventures.  Same response to Moon's pictured dinner! 

I ventured off to the Laundromat about noon yesterday with plans to go to Coburn's Supermarket afterwards to buy Canadian walleye to cook for dinner.  DH texted that one of the fishermen at the resort had given us fillets from a walleye.  How nice is that?  I used the cooking method of Barry, the handyman, who is a walleye fisherman, too, and a MN native.  Seasoned the fillets with s & p, lightly dusted with flour and pan fried in liberal amt. of  butter.  DELICIOUS!  We also had steamed asparagus and a wonderful salad of romaine, tomato, cucumber, avocado and blue cheese with vinaigrette of white balsamic and EVOO.  DH always makes a tartar sauce of mayo, dill relish and horse radish.  He eats most of it. 

This morning the scale is showing a downward trend. 

It's in the low 50's here this morning and the heat pump is humming and making the interior of the camper comfy.  It's also windy out.  We usually bike on Mon. but the out of doors doesn't look inviting.  This week we will have the resort to ourselves.  Even Barry, who is here much of the summer with his son Kyle, went home. 

Happy Monday to all.

Nance, you are the most impressively productive kitchen diva!

And how lucky are all those hummers?! Since we haven't been at the lake in well over a month, we haven't seen a one. But I'll get the feeders up  this weekend when we are there with DS1 and crew. The kids will love watching the little guys. We get a small fraction of the hordes you so generously feed.

By the way, was it Susan who used to preserve meyer lemons? I miss her posts and hope she is doing well.

Joyce, that salmon dinner sounds delish!

We went to the gym yesterday sfternoon, and our stretching class. I had to laugh that afterwards, our class instructor came over to chat about restaurants with me. Guess my reputation is out! 

We stopped at Trader's on way home and picked up their chicken cacciatore and salad fixins. I made a bit of pasta to go with the chicken and a spinach salad with baby portabellas, red onion, cranberries and feta. I actually like my salads better than any restaurant's......probably because I clean the greens so carefully, so I really enjoyed this one!

Carole, so I mentioned walleye to DH, and he thought it was what we called "pike". We used to catch pike as youngsters too. Can't recall my mither fixing it tho. Sounds delicious! There was a pic on the news of a Minnesota woman fishing, bundled up in a parka and raingear, so I guess she is not so far from you!

Have to get some meal ideas ready for the crew this weekend..... 

Meant to comment that it was Susan who made the preserved lemons.  I've seen the process on several chef programs and it's fairly simple.  Lemons and salt, as I recall.  Patience to let the process happen. 

I, too, would love for Susan to return, if only to tell us how she's doing.  Hi, Susan!

Since I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't tried the Salsa Chicken, tonight will be my maiden voyage. I'm going to try it in the slow cooker, but will brown the chicken first. Sides will be rice, a cucumber salad and sliced melon. I'll probably make some guacamole for me with this very ripe avocado sitting on my counter next to some rapidly ripening tomatoes. DH is not an avocado lover, silly man.

I'm amazed that throwing raw chicken, salsa and black beans together produces a tasty dish!  But it does.  On my last effort, I forgot the order Laurie had given.  I put the black beans before the salsa.  The taste was the same but chicken was a little dark! 

We're having white chili tonight.  Our of the freezer came a pkg. of ground turkey (blah), two pkgs of cooked cannellini beans, some red and yellow bell pepper, a pkg of chopped green onions.  Other ingredients:  pureed onion, diced garlic, can of diced tomatoes w/chilis.  Liberal amt. of cumin, Hungarian paprika, s & p.  No chili powder made its way from house to camper.  Just turned it off and gave it a taste.  Not bad, to quote the Midwestern version of a compliment. 

Hm...  Just remembered the fresh spinach in the refrig.  That would probably be a good addition? 

Nance, how will you use the preserved lemon?  Chicken tagine?  I've watched several chefs prepare that dish and have meant to attempt it but have not.  I love that special tagine dish that is used in Morocco. 

Minus, I would ignore the frozen chicken advice in this instance.  Your timing is all about cooking the chicken and melding the flavors.  The salsa and beans are already cooked and safe to eat.  The slow cooker recipe book I have gives lots of recipes with thawed raw chicken as well as frozen and cooked chicken.  I can't remember the name of it but it's very popular and in all the book stores.  I didn't bring it along.  In your case, you'll probably want to substitute green enchilada sauce for the red salsa.  Is there a green salsa? 

Maybe if you wanted to start the slow cooker in the morning and have it going on slow all day, you might start with frozen chicken.

Carole, the chicken dish on this page http://www.npr.org/2013/04/08/176577903 is one I want to try. In my previous post I said Mediterranean, I meant Moroccan dish.

I'm probably late but:

http://fork-handles.1091203.n5.nabble.com/file/n38045/happy_anniversary.gif

Nance, hope you enjoy your salsa chicken! And your "sides" sound delightful!

I did some spontaneous shrub pruning this morning and then went to an allergy appt., and then did lots of errands (mainly had to stay out of the house since there were six workers crawling around everywhere from early AM, making quite the mess drilling holes through walls, trampling all over our perennial plants where they had to put the compressors, and traipsing in and out leaving the floors dirty and doors open with flies abounding). I am an intolerant customer for such work....so it was better that I stay out. When I came home the work was completed and DH was relaxing in the cool family room after vacuuming much of the mess...for which I was very thankful! I have yet to see the bedroom clean up effort.

While out, I picked up some lemejun and baba ganoush for dinner at a Middle Eastern market and then stocked up on veggies and fruit to bring to the lake. At the produce market I saw Jersey tomatoes, which looked great...but they were only half great...unless I have idealized them since being an adult no longer living in NJ.

Carole, I have always been intrigued by the tagines, and a few months ago we attended a dinner at some friends and was very surprised to see an enormous one on top of their stove ( it had cooked the Morrocan chicken in the oven). This couple are very interesting foodies and their meals are wonderful. Seeing the tagine just added to the interesting quality of the meal. If anyone was interested in giving one as a gift tho, you'd really have to make sure the recipient has good storage space! They are often quite large, and somewhat fragile. Here's some interesting info on tagines....

http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/moroccanfood101/f...

Tomorrow, packing up for the lake. I wish that I were as organized as Laurie is for her lake trips! At least today I got everything I need to pull off making pet rocks with the "grands" and other kids at our beach. It should be fun!

Nancy, I copied that Moroccan chicken recipe.  It looks really good.  Very similar to chicken tagine.   I'll have to make preserved lemon when I get home.  Did you make yours in a canning jar?  I'll also have to loosen up the purse and buy some saffron.  It's so expensive I've never bought it.  But the chefs rave about the flavor.

Lacey, I must have missed your mentioning installation of a/c?  I grew up without a/c.  We had a big window fan that pulled the air through the house.  At night it got so cool we covered up.  We also had to clean mildew off the walls!  The fan also drew in the dampness in the air. 

The white chili was quite tasty.  Our only side was Mary, the Pie and Bread Lady's Honey Wheat Bread with real butter. 

Today we're driving to Walker and biking to Akeley and back to Walker.  We'll take a picnic lunch and enjoy it at the park in Walker on the shore of Leech Lake, which is so large you can see the opposite shoreline. 

Dinner will probably be Eat the Leftovers night. 

No Trader Joe's or Costco's where I live on the North Shore!  Costco has come to Baton Rouge. 

Eric, I bet it would do just fine with the exception of the clay factor which apparently adds a flavor of sort? My guess is that the use of the tagines is just a carrying on of the Moroccan cooking tradition....and of course the enjoyment of "cool foodies". And they do look very cool.... Maybe someone else knows more about this.

Carole, in recent years I have always gotten my saffron from Traders. It used to be dirt cheap there...still reasonable, but since you don't have one near you, how about Penzeys online? I find that the regular grocery stores are most expensive with spices, so I avoid getting any spices there if I can help it. It would almost be cheaper to fly to Spain to pick my own crocus stamens! LOL

We have never lived in a fully air conditioned house, tho had room air conditioners in family room and bedroom....pretty noisy. But after having an energy audit recently, we decided to install this newer technology for cooling and heating, called mini-splits. They are totally silent, which is nice, and provide a lot of cool dry air, as well as heat in the winter to the two rooms that tend to be the coldest during the winter. One reason for having them installed is to take the heating burden off our old gas furnace which is fine, yet old, and I would prefer not to have a new one installed. We figure that we will sell this large house sometime in the next few years, and the next owners can decide what they prefer to do re: HVAC service. In the meantime, these mini-splits will carry us through our time here. Not sure how I will cope with being in this constant air conditioning environment since I am used to happily running a fan in our kitchen area that keeps me quite comfortable, even with the humidity...tho nothing like LA humidity, I'm sure. I will keep that trusty fan running unless DH feels compelled to extend the cooling from family room through the kitchen area.

Nance, that Moroccan recipe sounds great!

Well we had the frog strangler rain starting just 30 miles N of us. 15" of rain in Denton county just to our NE. We've had about 2" since 7 am. Found one of our downspouts shooting out water back towards the foundation and the flowerbed about 5" deep in water. Don't think any got in. DH took end off, filled with dead gunk. Can you tell we are not yard people. Put it back on and worked fine. Thank goodness soil is still dry and we have sandy loam not clay - in soaked in quickly once it stopped. Just what some of the lakes needed; some up towards Denton already up 1 foot. Hope maybe even the one that supplies most of our water.

Not much cooking going on here. DH had tamales and Spanish rice last night. I had a bowl of raisin bran. I do have to make a grocery run tomorrow. Going to Mexican food and then to friends' house for ice cream on Saturday. I have a Smuckers chocolate sauce but think I will make a blueberry sauce also. Grocery has their froz. fruit on sale. DH voted for blueberry.

Tonight was dinner out to meet 2 other ladies I met on BCO who live in my County.  We met at CJ's, a restaurant at our local airport and we sat outside and watched small airplanes come in and the weather was just perfect.  Here in Central Illinois we are having low 70 days and mid 50's nights.  Think it will be changing back to 80's by Monday. 

 We were very good and had salads and iced teas.   It was so nice to meet them and learn more about their journey's.  Lakegirl takes her final Chemo tomorrow and she just looks amazing. And Ritajean is responsible for starting the Illinois Ladies board where we all met.

Love Love Love this site.

bedo - hello!  Congrats on the engaged DD!

Hi, Bedo.  Congratulations to DD! 

SpecialK, did you make the meatballs? 

Redheaded, I know Ritajean from another forum.  Glad to know she's doing well because she hasn't been posting lately.

Like LMG, I haven't been cooking.  Last night we had giant hamburgers at the Royal Bar in Park Rapids after playing golf in the afternoon.  Tonight we're going to an outdoor concert at Spirit Lake in the little town of Menagha so we're planning to have a chili dog and a mug of rootbeer at A&W on the way.  I love the rootbeer in the chilled mug.  This is a bring-your-own-chair free concert.  The setting on the lake is lovely. 

Today we've been couch potatoes watching the British Open Golf on ESPN.  We switched to Tour de France on the commercials!  TV sports junkies is what we are. 

It's a beautiful day, 70's and breezy.