So...whats for dinner?

Calmer this morning, though have a bit of a headache. Just gonna let the medical stuff lie quietly. Will see the doctor on the 15th and assume that the lack of urgency means a lack of need for urgency. Brutally cold here today but Mr. 02143 has agreed to head to the poultry store to get me parts. Can't have a stockless freezer. That would be unacceptable.

I was not a teeny bopper. One, I am too young. Two, I was in a practice room for hours with a very demanding violin. In fact, I am totally and completely pop-culture illiterate.

*susan*

Nurse Lauren just called. Appointment has been moved up to this Thursday. Treatment options will be discussed. Chicken part procurement is underway. Coding has commenced. Appears that my neck muscles, the one that hold up my head are mighty sore this morning. Guessing too much stress. :-)

*susan*

Damn it is cold in Central IL.  We had about 5 inches of snow.  My snow guy woke me up at 12:49 a.m. scraping the sidewalk at the rear of the house near my bedroom.   I keep turning the heat up in the house. Am about to leave for a exercise class I wish I hadn't signed up for.

combined a new Lentil Veggie Soup in the crockpot.  Substituted beef stock for chicken stock and a diced red pepper for a small can of chilies.  Hope it is good.  Fasting till my 2:40 doc appointment as wind chills tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be minus30 

Oh my goodness Lacey - American Bandstand. I'd say yes, it was worth the punishment.

Susan - I used to be an over-achiever in my earlier days so I sang classically w/the symphony & opera and then danced the night away to rock & roll once the instruments were carefully stowed away. Most of my roommates were string players of one variety or another & we sometimes got together for lieder fests on the weekends, although my preference was always baroque. Other weekends I went to see Sonny & Cher or the Beach Boys or the Temptations or Aretha Franklin. I'm old enough that I remember Gogi Grant and Patti Paige & 'mooned' over Pat Boone before Elvis. Sorry - TMI. Sooooo glad you have an earlier appointment.

Eric - way to go. It's only 60 here today & I'm still freezing. (sorry Red)

The blue plate specials at Mel's Diner today were chicken & dumplings or beef tips & rice. (Blue plate specials include a meat & two veg & a roll.) I had the burger special w/swiss cheese, grilled onions & mushrooms & tomatoes on a homemade bun.

Wrote a post and was about to submit it when the tablet ran out of power!  Switched to the laptop which is behaving better. 

Susan, I, too, am glad your apptment has been re-scheduled.  Fingers crossed for minor.  Whatever the medical results, there will be stock in the freezer! 

Lacey, imagine that I am reaching out to touch you.  A real-life person who danced on American Bandstand.  I watched it every Saturday with my grandmother.  We loved the girl named Pat and her dance partner.  Can't remember his name.  In retrospect it seems rather comical that we sat and watched teenagers dance. 

The forecast is for a hard freeze tomorrow night.  I harvested herbs today and have bundles of dill, oregano, mint, and sage hanging in the kitchen to dry.  They look rather pretty.  I bunched the planters close together on the patio and covered them tonight and will do the same tomorrow night.  But the more tender ones aren't likely to survive, the parsley, cilantro and dill.  The rosemary, mint, sage and oregano are pretty hardy.  Maybe the thyme will survive. The plants all look so pretty.  I enjoy looking at them as much as using them in cooking. 

Dinner was edible tonight.  Baked sweet potatoes that didn't soften and exude syrup the way they should have.  Roast pork in gravy out of the freezer, leftover from Christmas.  Canned cranberry sauce with berries.  I had cranberries in the freezer but didn't think about cooking some.   

Susan, your leftovers are way better than my "firstovers."

I get to take my bandage off tomorrow and can actually get my sutures wet. Hopefully I can put together a real meal. We did manage to make a decent chicken soup yesterday with dh acting as sous chef. Fortunately I had some pappardelle drIed that worked out perfectly. Had to make the chicken stock. I still have trouble gripping a knife so we'll see what happens when the bandage comes off.

Carole, I brought in a pot of herbs (basil, oregano and thyme) that are doing quite well in the breakfast room. I have a rather large rosemary bush that goes in and out with the seasons. Dh hates it because it drops needles all winter but I love the smell. I probably need to cut the woody stems back drastically.

My tagine arrives Friday. Need to gather some more recipes!

And that 4 degrees temp is flying up here for Thursday. Please, sans wind! Today was brutal with the wind and cold. I usually tolerate it, but I think my virus is making me crave warmth.

Glad your hand is progressing, Nancy, but please don't lay off your sous chef just yet.

Carole, you must be remembering Pat Molitari....could she "bop"!! I can't recall her partner's name, but Justine Corelli and Bob Clayton will always be easy names to pull up. I actually danced with a "regular" when on the show. Never committed his name to memory. I never admired his dancing, but when a "regular" (even in one's opinion a lower level one;) asks you to dance in real life, you dance! LOL Since Bandstand was a local show for us it was on everyday at 3:30. As eighth graders we would run home and watch it with friends. Practiced our dance steps and gave 'em a try at our Friday evening school dance. Such innocent times...no dirty dancing, no twerking, no wardrobe malfunctions...but we were so happy just dancing thru early adolescence.

Off to try to get a good night's sleep...and may hibernate tomorrow if I still feel crappy rather than sharing germs at the gym. Thursday I need to deliver lessons to two kindergarten classes. Looking forward to seeing the kids

Nance, I know you'll be happy to get the bandage off. 

Tonight is going to be pork ribs, rice and a salad!

in Galveston they give you the baby and you have to put it in yourself.

Lacey, I recommend lots of pho! Feel better!

Susan I'll add that I am glad your appointment was moved up. Sorry about your news though that really is shit. I HATE CANCER. Here's hoping there is more than one trick up your onc's sleeve.

Made he potato leek soup yesterday. Used Emerils recipe. Wanted to try Ina's but it called for roasting them first. Much faster to just cook them. Only thing I didn't have was wine so skipped it. Tasted yummy. Froze half. Didn't add the milk/cream to the stuff I froze. It freezes better that way.

Nancy glad your thumb is healing and that your tagine is coming soon. . Red, I like lentil soup too. LACEY up here they put the baby outside the cake for you to stick it in the cake yourself. It's not a real big thing up here though.

Much Iove to all.

The bandage is off although I can't yield a knife well, so dh's job as sous chef is secure for a bit. At least I can type with two hands now so I'm going to try to report on the reveillion dinner on Christmas eve. I know it's so late as to be irrelevant but here goes anyway.

We got to NOLA around lunchtime on Christmas eve. We had a large breakfast and were going to have a large dinner, so decided to skip lunch and head to Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait. I knew they were closed on Christmas day so wanted to make sure I got there. BIG crowd, which is not unusual but did surprise me a little on Christmas eve. We managed to snag a table pretty quickly though and happily indulged in one of my (many) guilty pleasures. Delicious.

We walked around for quite awhile then checked into the hotel. By the time we got back, the beignets were wreaking havoc on my stomach, as fried foods so often do. Silly me. The upshot is that by the time we went to dinner, I wasn't feeling very well at all. We weren't about to cancel though.

At the Pelican Club, we got seated right away and started perusing the menu. As you know, I had already seen the menu and had planned weeks ago what I was going order, which included a broiled oysters appetizer and the main course lobster offering. Unh uh -- none of that was going to happen. We both ended up ordering the potato, leek and celery soup. I thought I might be able to get that down but was only able to try a few spoonfuls. It was delicious but very rich. The next course was a belgian endive salad with grapefruit sections and a citrus vinaigrette that I did manage to enjoy. I ordered the whole paneed flounder because it sounded the most palatable, of which i managed to eat four bites. I'm not sure I would have cared for it even if I'd been feeling better because it had a slightly sweet tomatoey sauce on it that seemed out of place to me. It broke my heart to leave the 4 huge broiled gulf shrimp on that plate, which was more like a platter, by the way. HUGE portions. DH ordered the filet (of course) which had a Bearnaise sauce. He said it was one of the best filets he ever had. Even though he ordered it medium rare, It looked to be too done for my liking, but then nothing was really to my liking.

Like most buildings in the French Quarter, the restaurant building was old with very high ceilings. The acoustics were horrible. The noise level was so loud our outstanding waiter Kenneth, had to stick his head in the middle of the table to be heard. Like a lot of places, the tables were jammed in too close together but the opposite side of our table was too far away, so we couldn't even really have a conversation, although unfortunately, we could hear our neighbors' conversation quite well. To make matters worse, the place was packed and there were two large tables of millennials in our room whose behavior I can only describe as STUPID. You would think these idiots had never been out in public before from the yelling and strange grunting, whooping and hollering coming from their tables. Truly, I've never seen anything like it. I mean, I know it's New Orleans, but really? I've seen better behavior on Bourbon street.

Anyway, my feeling bad and the atmosphere threw a damper on DH's experience too, so we asked for our dessert to go. I got the Meyer lemon tart which I ate the next day and it was OUTSTANDING. DH ordered the decadent chocolate cake which turned out to be too rich (I can't believe I said that) and fudgy to be good, He agreed that I made the better choice.

Believe it or not, I'm glad we did it and actually, we would do it again, just not at the Pelican Club. And I would be more cautious with the beignets. At least I think I would.

Tonight is Brined pork chops on a bed of fennel and onions and roasted potatoes with preserved lemons.

Susan I'm hoping for lots of options when you go for you appointment tomorrow. You will be in my prayers. I have been remiss in not thanking you for the leek soup recipe.

Nancy - bet you're glad that bandage is off. Sounds like DH still has a chopping job this evening. Sorry your special dinner in NO was not so special. Somehow things like that happen to me too. Buildup is everything.

Not much cooking going on here. DH didn't get home until 3 am Tuesday morning - inventory at his place of business. Yesterday we were both zonked but I went for a haircut/pedi late. Made a Progresso cooking sauce chicken dish - OK but certainly not spectacular. Really dressed up the basics otherwise it would have been "glop". DH won't be home until about 11 tonight. Guess he will get the remains of the Progresso with some flatbread or cheese toast. I do have some boneless breasts I have to cook. Not inspired, many Parmesan oven fried. Anything to heat up this house. Brrr.

I neglected to buy DH's uggg white bread yesterday at the store. GASP I may have to make some. No intention of leaving the house until Sunday and that's looking iffy because of possible icing

Nancy, what a bummer to feel ill for a holiday meal, wherever.  Some details on the potato dish with preserved lemon?  Sounds good.

Lacey, bakeries stopped inserting the pink plastic babies some years ago.  It's not a lot of fun to bite into plastic.  King cakes have to be very fresh.  They dry out quickly.  I like the filled ones.  The filling is injected after the cake is baked.  I like cream cheese with raspberry or strawberry preserves.  Every season of the year has some variety of sugary temptation.

Used leftover brown rice and roast pork to make sort of a jambalaya dish for dinner.  New ingredients were smoked sausage, half a can of rotel diced tomatoes and sprinkling of cumin.  Side dish of slices of sweet potato heated and browned in butter in a skillet.  Not a bad cold night dinner.  Now we have leftover jambalaya!!!!!  Will it never end?

Moved the more portable pots of herbs over under porch roof and covered with a tablecloth.  They probably will perish.

Lacey, sorry you have the crud.  My mother (92) woke up with it this morning.  I will keep a close watch on her.  She wasn't running a fever today.  I spent several hours at her house pampering her and she was in good spirits when I left. 

Susan, hope your appointment tomorrow leaves you (and us) optimistic.  In your pocket.

Tomorrow will definitely be a soup or chili day.

Everybody stay warm.

Susan, I'm glad your appointment was moved up. Totally inappropriate to have the assistant call and say that. The waiting is the hardest part. Hoping for a good plan tomorrow that leaves you satisfied.

As usual, I've ruined the few good recipes that I made by making them over and over again in rapid succession. Split pea soup with rosemary twice in 4 days. And enough eggplant parmesan to feed an army twice. I never want to see them again.

On Saturday I'm having two blushing-not-future brides over for whine-them, cheese(iness) me, and crackers, all of us. As we discuss wedding plans for my daughter and a friend of mine. My friend is in her 20's and I've always called her my "good" daughter, as she never forgets Mother's day etc. They will be meeting for the first time so it will be fun. My friend has said that with the "destination" wedding she already wants to divorce her fiancé before she's even married him, and my daughter says her fiancé is driving her crazy because "he's no help and all he keeps saying is it will be all right" Sounds sensible to me. My daughter seems to think that I know how to arrange flowers and has put me in charge if that. Ha Ha.

I am having as serious case of empty nest. Sad. I went to an open house the other day and saw a baby's room, I was flooded with memories. Where did the time go? What will I do if they move out of state in 1 1/2 years after his graduation?

Maybe I should eat another slice of whole wheat bread with butter. Ya, that's the ticket. 5 would be good. I've already had 4. Really.

Loved reading all your recipes and soon to be recoveries. Happy Wednesday.