So...whats for dinner?

Happy dance for SpecialK! With clothes on!

Susan, the purple color doesn't look all that purple in your photo. Is it a vivid purple? There's a house in a very upscale subdivision back in Louisiana that is the color of a purple eggplant or maybe a purple plum. There is definitely a Home Owners Assoc. but the color must have been approved.

Dinner tonight is a skillet dish with smoked sausage (with turkey), sliced leftover boiled potatoes, red bell pepper, mushrooms, and green onions. I'm sure dh will be putting ketchup on his serving!

jsfree, spinach, peas, lima peas, kale, broccoli raab, mushrooms, artichokes, most greens like collard, and broccoli are all high protein vegetables. If I recall correctly, sun dried tomatoes also give you a good amount of protein. I ate a lot of hard boiled eggs during chemo. If you crave any dairy, then smoothies with yogurt could also give you a great protein source. And if you are eating salads, a bit of cubed cheese is a great touch.

You will find that people on this thread put more-than-average effort into eating things that are decent. Let us know what you are craving, and someone will know how to get it into your diet.

Nice that my years as a vegetarian, several of them as a macro, is useful to someone!

*susan*

Special, so glad you can cool off....with your clothes on!

Susan, I also thought that the purple house reminded me of the painted lady victorians....which are often pink. It's a real trade off to have HOA regulations vs. "owner's delight" when it comes to neighborhood house colors.

Sula, that dessert was so beautiful! Bet you all enjoyed it!

We are back home after....packing up the car, then enjoying Marconi Beach yesterday, (we were happy that we saved eighty dollars using our senior parking pass for Nat'l Seashore beaches during our four visits....the advantage of being old . On the way home we stopped in Plymouth and had a very nice dinner...DH had halibut with a pecan sauce, squash and a simple salad. I ordered a baby kale salad with berries and goat cheese...it was huge and great, except not a piece of kale was in it! I actually did not care since the many greens (and purples!) in it were lovely! My entree was chili rubbed salmon over broccoli rabe with basmati rice. Most of it came home as I was full from the salad.

Today we were both really tired from all the transitioning and not everything is yet unpacked....partially because we will head to the lake in a few days. I am honestly tired of these short trips, and have more coming up. Maybe I am just too used to the winter pace of hanging out at home thru snowstorms!

We had no food in the house today, and first thing, DH offered to head to the store since I had a doc appt. Yay! He actually filled the fridge with everything we needed....lots of fruit and greens and yogurt...and chicken breasts to grill tonight.

So we had our first home cooked meal in over a week.....teriyaki chicken, an arugula and baby kale salad with blueberries, pecans, red onion and carrot, dressed with a spicy chile almond dressing to which I added a bit of white balsamic. Very good if you like spicy! Our veggie was mashed butternut squash with a bit of maple syrup added.

I got on the scale this morning so I could avoid being shocked/horrified at the doc appt. As expected, I was three pounds heavier than last week! DH is also horrified that his P-town meals added several pounds, so he avoided buying bread for dinner today. Amazing!

Tomorrow I am meeting up with former colleagues for lunch. Had planned to go to the beach, but thunderstorm forecast is moving us inside....more food! Then Wednesday we are supposed to go boating with friends to which we are bringing lunch. DH is planning to pick up sandwiches for that. Good lord....so much food! Maybe the thunderstorms will cancel us out.And DH just reminded me that for next week our friend at Martha's Vineyard is busy making reservations for a few dinners there while we are visiting. So I might just fast until then! And getting back to my full exercise regimen would help. It seems our three mile morning walks did not! I guess I really need to be in charge of my own food prep.

Carole, I hope you had a great time meeting up with your bc friend. I do often think of the ways BC has expanded my life experiences/connections. And Minus, I hope we will be seeing you sometime in the next few months.

Am up too late again and actually fell asleep this afternoon for an hour....odd for this non- napper. I need to re-establish better sleep habits.......nite!

Jcfree....welcome!

And Susan, thanks for the quick summary of protein rich veggies you enjoyed. I had forgotten that you were vegetarian back in the day.....

I have to share a non food related story that happened in P- town.

Each morning as we would take our three mile walk into town, we passed lots of other walkers going in the opposite direction. Our impulse was to say "Hi", and we were struck by how many people did not look up or respond. DH recalled how, on our walks in Pariano last September, everyone we passed would greet us with a cheery "Bon Giorno". So he decided to try doing that as we walked. Well, it was hysterical! We passed and greeted at least 25 people who totally ignored his efforts. But he persisted.....and a few blocks later, a man out watering his postage stamp front lawn looked up after DH's greeting, smiled, and sang out the most beautiful Bon Giorno in return. DH was delighted and we smiled for the rest of our walk (and day)! I was reminded of this experience last night (this morning!) when Seth Myers was sharing his stories about hiking in Italy last week, and he said some very funny things about his dilemma in deciding how to respond to the greeting Italians. Oh well.....I am realizing that this is one of those "you had to have been there" moments to be amused. But if you ever pass anyone on your walks, do greet them....in any language you prefer! :

Lacey, I love your greeting story. I always thought 'greeting' was an East coast vs. West thing. I grew up in CA, have lived in New Mexico, Utah & Texas and traveled extensively in the West. Everyone always said hello on the streets, or at least smiled. When I made trips to NYC in college it was sort of a game so smile & say hi. Very few people answered & it sure startled everyone. Now of course most people have their noses down in a phone and would never see you - or at the very least - ear buds so they wouldn't hear you. I don't understand why there aren't more collisions.

I've been putting together a new TV/entertainment center & moving everything around so haven't been cooking much. Last night I was 'crying' about 148 cassette tapes since that player will no longer work. Silly since I still have the vinyl in most cases, but lots of music & lots of memories. Today the front porch is filled w/furniture & boxes for Salvation Army. I did brown some pork chops Sunday - sage & S&P - then slow cooked in electric skillet. When finished, I added sour cream to the drippings & made a lovely sauce. Last night was left over meatloaf.

Hi to everyone. Even if I'm not answering individually, I'm reading and you're in my thoughts.

People here in small-town MN are friendly. They almost always make eye contact and smile and speak. The other bikers on the bike trails are friendly, too, except for the occasional "serious" biker. It's probably mostly city folks who can't be bothered to acknowledge other humans.

I didn't realize you were once vegetarian, Susan. If you ever mentioned it, I had forgotten. Glad you were able to give some good advice about proteins in vegetables.

I made a large container of mashed potato salad this afternoon. I had some potatoes that had made the trip north with us and I had a yen for potato salad. It has diced celery, dill pickle relish, boiled eggs, and a mayo and yellow mustard dressing. A package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs are thawing. I'm thinking I will season and bread them with whole wheat panko and pan fry to a nice brown color, using an electric skillet outside on the deck.

Lacey, love your story

Here is a story of my own. My sister's former husband is 1/2 Japanese. I often heard her say " Oya soomee na sigh" to her husband as she went up the stairs at night to go to sleep. She told me it meant "Goodnight. " As an RN in a teaching hospital in Boston many years ago, I thought that it would be nice to say that to my Japanese patients who only spoke Japanese, when I worked 3-11pm. So I said it for a few years. I was met with silence, so I thought I was pronouncing it wrong. When I asked my sister for help, she said "Don't ever say that!!!!! That is the type of goodnight that a wife says to her husband as she goes up the stairs in her nightgown and slyly winks at him" I missed that part.

When I lived in Georgia and Atlanta everyone would nod or wave as you drove past.

It is too hot. I'm defrosting cooked shrimp to serve with cocktail sauce, cottage cheese, avocados, cold water and tomatoes, and I'm bringing it for lunch tomorrow too.

Susan, lol, it was a hamburger for me!

Thank you Susan, every recipe you have shared has been too delicious!

My Salad is really good an d easy----1 tub of organic baby arugula, 1 cup of dried cranberries, 1 cup of crumbled Feta Cheese and about 1 1/4 cups (dry) of ORZO pasta and pine nuts to taste (abt 1/2 cup)

Cook the orzo and rinse in cool water till cool. Combine all ingredients and then blend 1/4 cup lemon juice with 1/2 cup olive oil. Pour over the top and toss.

You can use less Orzo if you want it to b e less pasta...... SO GOOD, and pretty "clean eating" I think. My cranberries were from the health food store and sweetened with apple juice only.

Red I am on the coast in Rhode island

http://www.farmfresh.org/food/farm.php?farm=3119

Special, that sounds awesome!

Red, that salad sounds delicious and right up my alley! Thanks for detailing it for us.

Susan, I'm glad that you are getting "familial tour relief" while your body works on feeling better. Hope you do so very soon! And I am not surprised at the eye rolls at the book suggestions....that is the kind of idea I would offer and receive the same response from the younger generation.

Re: the greetings issue.....I should mention that in our little town, many people walk, run, bike all the time (even last winter after the storms....I used to see them going by while out shoveling), and almost everyone greets one another, which is why we were so struck by the absence of that in P-town. Also, both DH and I are half Italian and I know how much DH wishes he could speak that language. He recently suggested we go to classes for it. I can just imagine how he would be freaking out the walkers with newly learned phrases.

Bedo, your story was hysterical!

My lunch today with former colleagues was great. We met at our friend's home in Cohasset and went to an outdoor restaurant on the harbor there. It was lovely, and the food was exceptional for "patio food". I had a grilled chicken breast sandwich on brioche with avocado spread, bacon, tomato, red onion and lettuce. It was accompanied by a very large and tasty baby greens salad with balsamic dressing. Others had caesar salad with chicken and one friend had fish tacos (made with cod) that looked wonderful. The rain held off and a nice breeze from the water made for a delightful long dining and catch-up afternoon.

I got home after the dinner hour and by 8pm was a bit hungry, so just had some bing cherries and a biscotti. DH had made himself an omelet for dinner.

We were supposed to go boating with friends on the North Shore tomorrow, but the weather looks threatening, so we have postponed the trip....and I have a mile long list of things to get done here before we head back to NH Thursday after my MO appt. Feeling relieved to have some spare time....and it will allow us to spend a bit of it at the gym...if I have enough energy for that. Am hoping my notable physical fatigue has to do with this crazy travel frenzy and not anything else. Will probably have bloodwork done at MO appt., so that will let me know if anything is awry

We have a whole chicken brining, ready for the grill, but at the moment, it is raining hard out there. We may have to go to Plan B which involves either Wednesday Fish Night or a taco. My favorite Mexican restaurant does $1 tacos on Tuesday. Strangely, I have never been on that night. He must loose his financial shirt on Tuesdays, but I know he is trying to drum up some business. They haven't built a big enough clientele even though they are the real thing. Baffling to me.

The whole "hot dish" thing is so upper Midwest. We saw those a lot in Montana as well, a place with lots of really big families doing physical labor. I guess it is a way to fill bellies using as little expensive protein as possible.

I think your California burger sounds much better to me.

Here in our urban Somerville, locals actually do wave to each other as we pass while driving especially if you have to pull over a bit to let them pass on these very narrow streets. Not sure about greetings, but it happens quite frequently with the "older" crowd. So many older residents here are from Italian or Portugual that it must seem normal to them.

*susan*

Susan, when you say your Mexican restaurant is the "real deal," do you mean it does not serve Tex Mex? That's what most Americans want when they go to a Mexican restaurant. What we call Tex Mex. Burritos, fajitas, chimichangas, etc. The best Tex Mex we've ever eaten was in Texas, of all places! As with pizzas, I like the Tex Mex cooked at home better than what I get in the typical Tex Mex restaurant.

One of our neighbors here at Pine Hollow, a woman from Fargo, told me about a potato tots hot dish. It uses the frozen tater tots, ground meat, and, yes, cream of something soup. That should be carb fuel to keep some old-fashioned farm workers going for quite a while.

Susan, that fish place sounds wonderful. I think it would be my favorite restaurant among the local places. Good luck with that huge project.

We ate at an upscale Mexican restaurant many years ago. I don't remember where. It was very fancy and pricey with, of course, no vestige of Tex Mex on the menu. I think I had a beef dish. The memory isn't tagged with a Wow, but that's no reflection on the restaurant. Somehow the experience wasn't special.

My mini Keurig has been acting up, not wanting to brew a full cup of coffee. I went online and got some tips about what might be wrong and did a repair job using a straightened paper clip. Today it worked fine!

What to cook for dinner? Corn cut off the cob and cooked in a little butter with some diced red bell pepper. Steamed beets, peeled and sliced and sprinkled with vinegar. Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Cannot think of a meat that draws me to the freezer so maybe we'll just eat vegetarian.