December 2018 ..... What's Cooking?

It was $2.99/lb. ground chuck & chicken breasts at Fresh Market today. I used the last of my burger patties so I picked some up to re-supply the freezer. While I was there I picked up some of their frozen American Wild Caught shrimp because it was on sale 21/25 for $9.99/lb. and then decided at the last minute that I wanted banger sausages w/grapes for supper.

We do like those fat sausages done with some grapes.....just like Ina taught me!



I just boiled some potatoes (and then spooned my peas on top ~ I do the same with corn.....) and did another bit of the Jello orange/cabbage salad.

I'm doing some ahead stuff for Christmas Eve.  Cooking a meat sauce right now which will become part of a lasagna.  I've never made a lasagna when I've had a crowd, this will be different.  My daughter-in-law is gluten "sensitive" so I am using rice lasagna noodles.  Wish me luck!  

She is also, by her own admission, the world's pickiest eater, but son told me that she does like lasagna.  Fingers crossed.

It is Joe's birthday today and I asked if he wanted to go out but he is busy customizing his garage and will be too tired. I am going to grill a cowboy steak, bake a potato and have a wedge salad. He has a box of See's candy for dessert.

I got out the wok and did a stir-fry with cellophane noodles, snow peas, mushrooms and shrimp.

What is a cowboy steak?

Niagara Visitor wrote:What is a cowboy steak?

It is about a 3-inch thick bone-in rib-eye steak. You cook it indirectly on a grill and reverse sear the last 10 minutes to get a nice crust. My husband loved it but he was up at 1AM with GERD. I told him not to eat so much but he never listens.

THanks, after I asked, I asked Ms. Google, but your description sounds so much yummier!

I follow my Next Door website for things that are going on in 'hood. Someone posted a video of an engineer who worked 7 months on this package for porch thieves. It has a GPS, charging dock, 4 cameras to catch the reaction of the thief. When opened, it spins out a very large amount of fine glitter and sprays F--t spray every few seconds. The reaction from these thieves is so funny. Serves them right.

I just saw a great recipe/idea for potatoes on The Marilyn Denis Show............. a great Canadian show.

This was as the result of a contest to use the small potatoes from "The little Potato Company".  I'm sure you can get similar small, maybe only about an inch and a half big potatoes. 

There has been a contest to come up with a recipe, and I think this is great!  It's potato roses. It won the woman who developed it $10,000.

The roses are done in a muffin tin.  

-Place a piece of bacon (I think it was pre-cooked) in the bottom of each muffin tin. Then a piece along the inside edge of the tin.  The bacon will hold the potatoes. 
-Boil some little potatoes, mash with skin on and place mashed potatoes to about 3/4 fill. 
-Slice some little (raw)  potatoes, skin on, and cook until about half done, just enough so they are pliable.
-Remove from the water, let cool until able to be handled.
-Starting with the outside edge of the muffin tin, place rows of potato petals to fill in making the rose. Because the mashed are in the bottom, the petals will stay in place.
-Put potato roses back in the oven to crisp them up, add a sprinkle of cheese or other "stuff" to decorate the roses.

They looked really nice.

We had a lovely time at Disney Springs with Andrea & Josh.

They were on their last day of vacation in The Magic Kingdom. It's nice that they can use the free Disney transportation to come to an area we can get to for free to meet for a good lunch. I couldn't take all the walking on concrete it takes to go to a Disney Park anymore ~ Disney Springs shopping/dining area is big enough for me!

We went to Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' Restaurant. We all enjoyed our meals. I had the shrimp & grits with tasso ham and tomato gravy. Dane had a Cuban Sandwich which he said was one of the best he'd had, Josh ordered the crispy chicken sandwich and Andrea had the Braised Short Ribs with Mashed Potatoes. Half way through their meals Andrea & Josh traded off because they each ordered what the other wanted to try. And, of course, I forgot to take a pic of anything. My brain just doesn't seem to work as well as it use to!

It was good to have a little while to see them and get caught up on what's going on. Josh is a freshman at Perdue University. He's enjoyed his break from school.

Boy, oh boy......another day of eating out.

I sure hope I can remember how to cook when it's time to make Christmas dinner.

Stomach issues today.
I had raisin bread toasted with cream cheese spread.
The poor wife is beat; with neck, shoulder, and arm infections.
Dr. gave her a shot of cortisone in the shoulder. She said, "This being "73" bull crap, is for the birds!" LOL
I made a fried crispy pepperoni and egg on white bread for her.

Last night at this time, was 23 degrees ....and now, it is 49.8 degrees.

Beth, the last time we went to Disneyland was about 7 years ago and it was so unpleasant that I doubt we will ever go back. We spent $100 for each of our tickets and were only able to stay 2 1/2 hours. First of all, it was November and it 85 degrees. Second, they let so many mothers in with strollers that every single bit of shade was taken up with parked strollers. There were no kids in them, just parked strollers. There was no place to cool of or sit in the shade. I thought I was going to pass out. We were only able to get on one ride. Couldn't even get a place to eat because all tables were in the sun. We left. I wrote Disneyland to complain. I didn't even get a refund and they were not sorry at all. Now they have taken away jump-to-the-head-of-the-line for people who are disabled, sick, or in wheelchairs. They can't go to the park anymore because they simply are not strong enough to withstand waiting in line for 3 hours to get on a ride. I called and asked if they made exceptions to the rule: nope. Imagine those poor kids on chemo who want to go to Disneyland - they can't. Maybe they could if Make-A-Wish stepped in. Back when I was a junior in high school, one could rent Disneyland for a night for $27,000. I went with a Christian group who rented the park. I remember standing in Tomorrowland looking around and seeing no one else. You could walk right on the Matterhorn - no wait. Those were the days. Plus, it only cost $9.95.

I thought I posted this already, but I guess not. It was brisket for dinner last night.

I was planning on making some linzer cookies and I can't find my cookie cutters. I have looked everywhere. They must have been donated or tossed during the move by mistake. I tried finding another set but there isn't one to be had in this town. I can order from Amazon Prime but the cutters are triple the price. You have to be very careful with Amazon. Their prices can be quadruple what you would pay locally.

I finished decorating my Christmas Cookies today. I had done some to take to Joshua as his 'college-man-cookie-fix', he carried them on the plane back to Indy. Andrea thanked me profusely because it meant she didn't have to do cut-outs!




I just checked the AAA website to see what an annual pass would cost to go to Disney all year. They discount the price for Florida residents, apparently. I could get a 'weekday' annual pass for $320/person and a 'everyday' annual pass for $450/person. Considering how much it costs for a single day pass with parking, that's not a bad deal. But there's no way I want to go even once a year so I'll just save my money! LOL

Supper was a pan roasted chicken breast, egg noodles w/gravy and some mixed vegetables.

Supper was a little of this and that, and some of the other!

Beef soup.... Frozen mac and cheese microwaved...
Canadian bacon and egg sandwich for lunch.
Didn't eat / Tina made stewed chicken made with thighs and drums. Uh Uh! nope!

We went out for dinner in old town Temecula. Katie had French onion soup, balsamic glazed salmon with green beans and parmesan risotto, a glass of chardonnay and the most delicious lemon meringue martini made with vanilla vodka. Joe had a French dip sandwich, a green salad and a beer. I had a diet coke.

Out for lunch again today.  This time with son, DIL and her dad.  I had a lovely pickerel, carrots and broccoli ( basically warmed, not really cooked) and a great big baked sweet potato. THey had a honey burbon glaze for the potato, I asked for it plain with just regular butter on it.  It was great.

DD #2 Tried to come up with a 'unique' Christmas gift for us this year. (We always ask the girls to please NOT send us anything because there's nothing we need.....but you know how that goes over!)

She sent us meal kits from 'Hello Fresh' ~ The box came this morning, all fresh ingredients that are packaged for each meal separately.

Here was the picture on the front of the instruction/recipe card:




Here was the meal kit as it came from the box:




The meal prepped and ready to put into the oven:




The meal out of the oven:




The finished meal:



I had always wondered how those kits would work out, especially after going through the process of possibly opening a Dream Dinners Franchise many years ago. 'Hello Fresh' takes the bulk break-down further than 'Dream Dinners' did, and even though I've not looked at the price, I'm sure it's more expensive for the labor and packaging costs included with delivering a couple meals at a time to the customers. But I can see how it might be something busy families would like if they don't have time in their schedules to do grocery shopping and meal planning.

The meatloaf meal we had tonight was surprisingly good considering how few ingredients were included. The main seasoning was fresh thyme, and I cut WAY back on the amount they suggested using because I knew it would be overwhelming if I used all they sent.

We have one more meal kit to make tomorrow.

What in the world is wrong with my brain? For some reason this evening I was sure it was Christmas Eve......HUH???? Where did THAT come from?

I started to panic ~ I didn't have a dessert made.

I planned on a chocolate cake with a 7-minute frosting and I was beating myself up because I prefer to bake my cake layers and freeze them to get a better texture. So, I used a cake mix and got my two layers and 6 cupcakes baked. For some reason I must have overfilled the cupcake liners. The cupcakes overflowed and practically baked off the pans. How in the world could I screw up a CAKE MIX? The layers look OK, but only a taste of the cupcake tomorrow will tell me if the texture is OK.

But at least I finally realized it is NOT December 24th.....PHEW !!!

I made a chocolate cake today too.  I thought about making a flourless one from scratch but quickly decided to just use a cake mix instead.  I always have trouble stacking and icing them. I will have to remember your tip about freezing them first.

I have two little 8" layers. After they cooled to room temperature I had washed the cake pans and I line the clean cake pans with plastic wrap and drop the cool cake back into the pan, covering completely with the wrap. They will stay in the freezer until Christmas morning when I can remove the layers to thaw. The cake pans protect the layers from getting crushed or bumped and broken in the freezer. The plastic makes it easy to remove from the pans to thaw. I think freezing helps not having so much crumbling, too.