So...whats for dinner?

Tonight will be lamb chops, boiled potatoes and a salad. Made it to Sequim for odds/ends and costco's lamb looked really good. And not that anyone has missed it but OY on the price hikes.

Cyathea, doesn't it always seem to go that we have so many different providers to see that sometimes we mix up the appointments? I have some at Evanston Hospital and some at Skokie; and sometimes for the latter I forget to make the turn to go northwest and instead keep heading north...or vice versa.

For brunch I made keto French toast, using 0-net-carb bread instead of the high-fiber low-carb (allegedly) I'd been buying. That loaf was about to get moldy so I tossed it. For dinner, I heated one of Bob's empanadas (he had one overnight, along with all of our sliced cheddar) and made him a grilled provolone, tomato & bacon sandwich on sourdough. I had "zoodles" (yellow & zucchini) pomodoro with grated Parm-Regg and fresh basil. Sadly, his reason for wanting to stay home didn't pan out: the Sky were eliminated from the WNBA playoffs.

It was so nice to have dh cook dinner last night on the grill. Big slices of eggplant, zucchini and small carrots. Hamburger patties were the meat. The grilled veggies are so sweet.

Neighbor Mary is cooking a turkey dinner for tonight and we will join her on her deck.

Tiny new potatoes with butter & Herbes de Provence seasoning. Served with asparagus steamed in butter & EVOO with garlic.

Prepped for tomorrow. Sauteed onion & garlic & zucchini slices. Added Rao's marinara. Tomorrow I'll saute a cod 'steak', then put together & let it simmer per Lacey's wonderfully easy recipe. Serving over pasta.

Special K - 9/16 would Mary See's168th birthday. Specials starting tomorrow for a week to celebrate the 100+ years they have been making candy. Drool.

Cyathea - I grew up in Northern CA and Sees was always a special treat. I know I've tried them all at one time. My favorite remains butterscotch squares. Along with 6 or 8 others. Special K was in Southern CA for a long time and I know she loves them too - & so the post.

Tomorrow we'll be leaving for a driving trip to Traverse City to help DD and beau load up a rental truck, get the truck to Detroit and then help them unload.

It's a "speed run" to Traverse City, a few days with DD and beau, and a slightly more leisurely trip home.

We didn't want to put Frankie (dog) into a kennel, nor have him fly, so we are driving. We also decided that since we have a short time window, it would be easier to take the car instead of the truck/camper. DD is excited to see Frankie, so it all works out.

We had planned to go out or order in, but by sunset it was still nice outside--so I defrosted and grilled a grass-fed ribeye (10 oz. was more than enough to share). Put together some Jason's Cauli "Mac" & Cheese (tarted up with a fresh grating of nutmeg, plus a little black truffle oil & white truffle salt). Salad was tomatoes & basil over arugula (no need for a Caprese as the cauliflower had cheese). We started with golden whitefish roe & crème frâiche on blini for Bob and cucumber slices for me.

I was up much of the night and not really hungry for brunch; turned down Bob's offer to bring me back quiche & salad. Went for my updated Moderna booster, and when I got back at 3:15 I had my first (and only) coffee of the day, followed by egg-in-the-hole on keto bread, with the "hole" cutouts toasted as faux biscuits for a sausage-patty at 4:45.

Even if it's storming tomorrow evening we'll go out for something ethnic or order it in (tandoori chicken & palak paneer, plus samosas for Bob, is always a safe bet--I like to order out for Indian food because I always leave those places reeking of garlic & cumin, and have to shower before I can even stand to hit the pillow). There's a new Cambodian place on the Evanston side of Howard St. about a mile or so north. Either that, or Peckish Pig for "American tapas." Bummed out that the Eritrean restaurant in Rogers Park closed before we could try it.

Brunch today was a keto toaster-waffle (made Bob a full can of split pea/ham soup and toasted a couple slabs of sourdough). Not much of an appetite--due both to a doozy of an immune reaction to yesterday's bivalent booster and worry over my flooded (sewer-backup) basement. Whole neighborhood is experiencing this thanks to 2-4" of rain falling w/in a couple of hours early this morning. HK and I will try to attack it tomorrow with bleach, mops & buckets. So bad that it unmoored the two litter boxes. Can't even reach the brand-new Litter Genie (the current one, recently emptied, fell over). So will make do with my deep-fry "spider" and my stash of produce bags. (The upside to being a pack rat).

Dinner will likely be fridge-and-pantry-foraging, as I'm sure Whole Foods is flooded (our temple and the place we usually order brunch from are both closed due to flooding). The temple is right on the lake (literally--there is a short seawall between the lake and low-lying parking lot) so every time it storms and especially with high waves, its first floor gets swamped. This is one of those times I'm glad that we live 8 steps up from street level. I don't know how the family who lived here before us coped: with 6 kids they turned every possible space into a bedroom. When we moved in, we had to rip up the basement carpeting twice before giving in and painting the bare concrete floor and installing a check-valve & sump pump. They didn't even have a standpipe. The owner was the chairman of the English dept. at Loyola--he & his oldest sons watched a few episodes of This Old House and Hometime and figured they could DIY everything. 35 years later, we're still fixing their mistakes.

Words to live by: Never give a PhD access to hand tools.

Fake caprese tonight. Canned san marzano's that were nasty...hope it was a bad can because no way is it worth triple the price, fresh moz and and added sliced avocado.

We have been indoors for 2 days because of air quality. Seattle did hit 92 yesterday so they have broken their record. We only hit 72 yesterday and today but no way to leave windows open with the air. Should be OK tomorrow. It is cutting into my fishing!!

I can't imagine a Caprese with either San Marzanos or canned tomatoes, much less canned San Marzanos. They're strictly for cooking (though some use fresh plum/pear tomatoes as slicers for sandwiches because they're firmer even though they ripen earlier and are usually cheaper than the round ones).

Had the plumber over today. Turns out the basement muck was not raw sewage but rather silt. Soil, car exhaust soot, street dust and the like washed down the storm drains along with the torrential rainwater, especially the stuff that ponded up because of the backflow valves installed in the curb drains to avoid overtaxing the sewer system and prevent the water from entering basements. Didn't work, because 4-5" of rain in 3 hrs. was too much for the system to handle. That's 2.5 gal. of water per sq. foot. Our sump pump worked but turns out our check valve bit the dust years ago--we just never noticed. Estimate for an outdoor-installed pump/one-way valve flood control system that'd prevent a rerun of yesterday? About $16K. Ouch. But considering how much the house is worth, saying no is a false economy. Should have done it years ago, the last time the basement flooded.

Whole Foods was open yesterday, so Bob walked over and picked up a couple of their deli-dept. "entree+2 sides" dishes. Baked salmon, green beans & Brussels sprouts--and I could finish barely half (was still feeling crummy from Sat.'s booster, but. I'm fine today). Brunch was a toasted cheese & tomato sandwich on keto white bread. Dinner will be last night's leftovers.

Dinner was mushroom ravioli with kale, walnuts, and a cream sauce. (DH had marinara sauce since he is on Coumadin and has to watch his Vitamin K intake.)

Sandy, I hope you have some help with cleaning the basement from the flooding. So sorry you’re dealing with the mess

I saw people at the farmers market carrying huge zucchini. I assumed they would be used to make zucchini bread. I like yellow summer squash but am not a big zucchini fan, though I do occasionally cook it. It's available in the supermarket year round.

Dinner last night was a huge salad on dinner plates, topped with strips of chicken breast fillets I had pounded, breaded and pan fried.

One of our neighbors brought a homemade apple caramel pie to happy hour. DH took a slice to enjoy for dessert but I passed. The tight fit of my jeans is a clear signal that I must cut back on food choices and portions.

Speaking of zucchini, our friend gave us a huge one from his garden, not sure what to do with it yet. Tonight we had salads.

I saute sliced zucchini with olice oil & herbes de Provence; grill planks of it; spiralize it to make "zoodles;" make thin slices lengthwise as "lasagna;" ratatouille ("E.Z.-POT," the order of adding to the pan: eggplant, zuccini, pepper, onion, tomato); and hack it up (along with yellow squash, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomato and sausage crumbles) to make breakfast hash, with an egg on top. Don't even miss the potatoes (though I do adore corned beef hash).

Special, think of it this way: bad shot reaction=strong immune response. I got my Moderna bi-valent booster on Sat.aft. , and ached all over for almost 36 hrs. No real fever, though, and I was fine by yesterday morning, Bob gets his Pfizer tomorrow morning, and I told him to plan to take it easy for at least a day. If he doesn't feel like going out to dinner, I'll order out for BBQ. (Grilled wurst & tomatoes tonight...because we could). Or might defrost cod and nuke it in parchment with veg & herbs.

My HK cleaned the basement yesterday and moved stuff from cardboard boxes into plastic storage tubs (discarded what was ruined) today. I'm picking up some more storage tubs from Container Store tomorrow. What we basically need doing is playing heavy-duty real-life Tetris: stacking dry boxes atop each other and salvaging what we need to salvage from flood-damaged boxes, transferring it into plastic containers, and discarding what can't be saved &/or what we'd not used in >10 yrs and wouldn't use again. All the instrument cases were high up off the floor.

Minus, I’ve made zucchini boats several times and did so a couple months ago with others from the friends harvest. DH also made cheese stuffed zucchini balls last week, which were delicious. This one is so big, we could use it in multiple ways. No plan for tonight yet.