So...whats for dinner?

Can't remember who was interested in the Fagor multi cooker, but the price just dropped at Surly Table:

http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-2195139/?utm...

Another comfort food eater here, although TN is a not so balmy 30 or so degrees today. I grew up in MN so I do remember -6-no thanks. Brrrr!

We are having a beef roast (mine is also in the oven) with roast potatoes, onions and carrots.

Eric, so glad your daughter is OK and so sad for the others

Susan Beautiful

Those with older parents they are so lucky to have you and you them

Dinner Kimchee the one thing I can make buckets of, taught by a childhood friend, but this is bought, garlic chili edamame, Fried calamari with roasted red bell pepper and mango sauce, vegetable tan tan men and ( crispy chicken skin ?) WTH My friend wants it. On to pick it up. It will be -20 with the wind chill. I broke out my -40 parka and -20 boots from when I lived on the tunda.

Keep warm all. Keep the faucets dripping

Eric, where do I go and what do I get to put on the windows to keep the cold out. It has to be very clear so I can't really see it.. Sorry liberated women, you can chime in too!

Nancy, please tell me that “the works" did NOT include ketchup!! When I ate hot dogs & beef “Polish" sausages (with the bun), my NYC roots poked through: just tomato, grilled onions and mustard (preferably brown Gulden's). That's because no Chicago hot dog stands offer sauerkraut. Back in NYC, I always go for just mustard and kraut. (And I prefer my dogs grilled, not Chicago-steamed or NYC-street-cart “dirty-water").

Dinner tonight is Brussels sprouts sauteed with blood orange olive oil, tossed with lemon white “balsamic" and finished with truffle salt; fried cauliflower “rice" (stir fried in ginger & garlic oil & finished with Ponzu); and a mid-rare grass-fed ribeye with cracked black pepper and espresso sea salt. We had 2 oz. ea of Gauthier Pinot Noir (preserved with the Coravin) and Bob continued with his Malbec. Dessert was a chocolate-almond Alyssa’s Cookie (40 cal., 4 net gm. carb).

Here's the first of the promised food reports from HI. Dinner the first night was in the University area at Tsukuneya - "fine & family dining from Nagoya Japan". The 'kids' like appetizers first then they order a few dishes & then a few more depending on our hunger. Very relaxed way to eat. In addition to wonderful ahi sushi & tsukune Yakitori (chicken on a stick), and other things I can't remember, my favorite was a salad called "Ripened Avocado & Shrimp Salad Roll". Wish I knew what was in the dressing.

Lunch the next day was in Chinatown at the Pig & the Lady – "globally accented modern Vietnamese cooking." I had Vongole & Brussel Sprouts – Manila clams cooked with vermouth, brown-butter fish sauce, market citrus & Brussel sprouts gremolata on home made pasta. Excellent & the owner said new to the menu which changes often. I tasted a good Banh Mi and of course we had to take fresh beignets home.

So... I got the suitcase unpacked, four loads of wash done and all the plants dragged back outside & watered from where I'd secluded them from freezes. I haven't made it to the grocery store yet. The neighbors who watched my house took me out for spaghetti the first night. One night was smoked oysters with an assortment of cheeses & crackers. One night was old pumpernickel from the fridge fried in butter with an egg cracked in the middle. Tonight was cottage cheese w/canned peaches and a bowl of shelled Edamame from the freezer. Feels like a contest to get rid of things but I'll need greens soon & milk.

Sandy, oh good heavens no! The works = onion, pickle, tomato, relish, mustard, sport peppers, celery salt, all on a poppy seed bun. Please refer to my previous diatribes on ketchup. (For the most part, I loathe it and see no place for it in the world except perhaps on French fries and even then I would rather have malt vinegar.)

Susan, he is very stressed from being in the hospital so long and feels he would be much better at home. He does realize he is weak (from being in the hospital so long!) and it would be risky for him to be alone. He also knows that his foot problems are serious and dangerous, but still thinks he can manage. Truthfully, I think he would be better off being anywhere but there. It is the worse of the two hospitals in his town and I really don't think he's getting the best care, especially at night. The problem is that I'm 100 miles away and can't be there every day. He does have a case manager that I have been communicating with, but of course, all of this happens on the weekend when the regular staff are not available. I will be back there on Monday and will get some answers. I have not been able to find if they have a patient advocate. If they do, they're keeping it a secret.

Nance - I'm so sorry about your Dad. It's very hard to take care of parents via long distance. My folks were in No. Calif and at least a 4 hour plane ride away. Dad was very stubborn about insisting he could take care of everything w/o any help and not giving up their home. I was fortunate that their "family doctor" always answered my questions or called me if there was a serious problem. Hope you can find someone to communicate with.

Minus, I am positively drooling over the food you had in Hawaii! Thanks for giving us some warm and delicious tropical thoughts on such a frigid night!

Nancy, my heart goes out to you caring for your dad living so far away. In the last year of my mom's life, I was ping-ponging between Chicago & Delray Beach every three weeks or so. And a year after that, I had four trying weeks with Bob's elderly folks being in different wings at LIJ, with me based in a Garden City motel because Bob couldn’t take time off to be in NY. Bob's dad made it out but it became clear after his wife died (at almost 96) that it was not safe for him to live on his own. He had been all set to move into the same assisted living highrise as several of his neighbors until he decided it was too costly and he wanted to live closer to us. Bob brought him to Chicago on Gordy's college graduation weekend, intending to have him tour some nice retirement hotels along the lakefront....but after one taste of my cooking, and one Mass at St. Gertrude's, he refused to budge. So for two years, life got, uh, interesting. (Our housekeeper got combat pay). It was very trying at times--we clashed on lifestyles, spending, health, diet, politics, etc. But after 2 yrs he had a massive irreversible stroke and passed away at 91, exactly 2-1/2 yrs. after moving in with us. He was a brilliant, multifaceted and at times thoughtful man, and I miss him, despite our differences.

-9 at 8:44am. Cold. *susan*

Moon - sorry for your ER trip but yes, we do understand your relief that it's "just" kidney stones.

Susan & all back east - thinking of you. Hope pipes don't freeze and cars start.

ChiSandy - can't remember when you're going to San Antonio but I found something else that might be interesting. WitteMuseum.org is now hosting "Salud!" dinners at the museum. They've already had 15 dinners, 'tapping into San Antonio's culinary scene to bring conversations about food into the evening' with chef's explaining their process & taking questions. One was a Bug Dinner. Think I would have passed on that one. Schedules are on their web site.

Lacey, I vastly prefer ribeye to tenderloin--nearly as tender and MUCH more flavorful!

Right now it's in the high teens with snow showers. Ugh. We're walking to Valentine's Day dinner in a few hours. That means UGGS, which also means casual clothes (didn't get to wear my new shimmery swing-jacketed palazzo-pants Chico's outfit last night, since our house concert was postponed two weeks). Fortunately, dinner’s at our casual but upscale neighborhood joint (where we walked to & from the Super Bowl party last week), so jeans & sweaters will be the order of the day for most patrons in weather like this. Clear tomorrow, more snow Tues. and then a warmup. Nicest day will be Thurs.--39 but sunny. Fri. will be 56 (!), but extremely windy--very typical for Chicago in late winter & early spring. Gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.

The ribeye with espresso salt and cracked peppercorns was delicious--and I got 3 servings (2 dinners and breakfast) out of it. I flash-steamed some halved Brussels sprouts and then sprinkled them with blood orange oil, lemon white balsamic, and a combo of black truffle and Sicilian orange sea salts.

We have a shop in N. Evanston near the hospital/cancer center and Hogeye Music called “Old Town Oil." It has spigoted tanks along opposite walls: one with oils, the other with vinegars. Not just various EVOOs from Italy, Spain, Greece and California--but flavored ones and nut oils as well. The vinegars run the gamut from aged balsamic to red wine to flavored white “balsamics" (an oxymoron, acc. to foodies) and sherry vinegar. The combinations I like are the blood orange oil + grapefruit or lemon balsamic, lime oil+ lemon or blueberry balsamic, and walnut oil + sherry vinegar. The sherry vinegar is also great for pan-finishing skate wing quickly sauteed in browned butter, the sprinkled with capers. The resulting pan vinaigrette is poured over the fish. Yum! You choose your oils & vinegars (free little paper tasting cups just like at fro-yo shops), and they bottle it and shrink-capsule the neck on site. You can bring your empties back for refills or recycling. You can buy any quantities from a cupful to a quart. I usually buy 12 oz.

Susan, your pulls are lovely. They will look great with your cabinets. We gutted our entire house six years ago, and with all the construction. I swear I can still feel that layer of fine dust on my skin that wouldn't go away. It's worth it in the end, but the process can be a nightmare. My husband is an architect, so he did the drawings, but we hired a general contractor to execute his plans. Oy vey. It wasn't easy.

Lacey, I LOVE rib eye. Yummy, marbling goodness.

Auntienance, my dad was hospitalized twice in the last three years for pneumonia. He was also in the hospital for a year after a botched surgery in 2003. I've had my share of snarky RNs, and it's just not acceptable. When I even remotely sense an attitude with respect to my father, I would say, you choose your career. My father did not choose to be in the hospital. I would then put in a complaint, and not allow that nurse to be with my father.

Sandy, we have an oil and vinegar bar at my local Whole Foods. I'm fascinated by the idea of a blood orange oil. I have macadamia oil, avocado oil, almond oil besides EVOO. But I look for other interesting oils. I'm also just getting into vinegars. I have sherry, champagne, besides my standard balsamic and my aged balsamic. White balsamic kind of makes me cringe.

Tonight I made a ragu out of my leftover pot roast. I sautéed onions, garlic,mushrooms and carrots, added a little diced tomatoes and the shredded meat. I let it simmer for about 1/2 hour and added a touch of heavy cream. Paired this with rigatoni and it was delicious. I also made a Caesar salad.

It was in the mid 80F degree range today. Sorry.....but you all can laugh this summer when it's 119F in the shade. My wife's hometown was -37F (thermometer) temperature...no wind chill.

Susan, if the house is more than 30-40 years old, I would certainly hope they checked for lead and asbestos before they started all the work.

Bedo.....storm windows are the best, especially if they are all properly weather stripped. Since it takes a long time to build storm windows, 8 or 10 mil clear plastic sheeting, cut with scissors, stapled and taped in place, would help. It's not perfectly clear..think frosted glass...but it's (should be, anyway) cheap. Most improvement stores should sell it. It's probably going to be a bit hard on the wall finish, but......

I suppose you could get 1/16 inch thick Plexiglass and cut it large enough to cover the windows with some extra margin on the edges. It's very clear (used for aircraft windows) but it's not cheap and would require some work to be cut to size and secured over the windows.

The phone......

Dinner tonight was braised lamb shoulder a la Julia Child. I made some flageolet beans with bacon, shallot and spinach. The flageolet beans were clearly a bit old as they didn't gain the consistency that I crave in a bean. I am being nice to myself since this is the first time I have cooked these beans from dry. When we discovered them in France, it was the season and we bought bags and bags fresh. What a treat! There are lots of leftovers. We shall see how much we eat before I send the dish to the freezer.

Here is another picture from today's visit. Obviously, this is the fridge that was in the building when we bought it. We are starting to think the kids can live with these new appliances for a bit so we can afford to finish the rest of the project.

*susan*

If that were me, I'd probably have grill marks from trying to keep warm. That steak looks good and the table setting is amazing looking too.

Moon..ouch...hope they pass with no undue issues...."Oh good. It's only kidney stones" is probably not the usual reaction to that diagnosis, but like you said, it's completely understandable.

Except for asbestos and lead removal, I did all the work on my grandparent's "built in 1870" home. Hsant, there were a few nights I slept on a cot on the back porch or in the dirt floor detached garage...where it wasn't so dusty. :-)

Susan, those cabinets are awesome. I love light colored cabinets. Good choice! :-) As for the stainless refrigerator, just tell them to put enough pictures and stuff on the 'fridge so the stainless won't show!

Dinner last night was sweet peppers of all colors, onions, a bit of garlic and mushrooms all sauteed...I'm guessing there was about 2 pounds of "not meat", along with about a quarter pound of thinly sliced strip steak....there were no leftovers. :-)

I've not encountered a snarky nurse and the doctors have run the gamut from "not very personable" to "OK" to "really good"....except for one. He was involved in Mickey's end of life care/ pain management. I pitched such a fit about his care/competency/humanity that...a bunch of security guards showed up and Mickey got a new doctor.