June, 2017 ~ What's for dinner?

NormM wrote:I'll agree with Jimmy that pellet smokers work very well but compared to a wood burning smoker, they don't do as good a job in the smoking end.  They are good, just not not as good.

Brian and I are in that number, too, Debbie. I've read and heard from other smokeheads that they work well but the flavor is never as good as the other forms of smokers.

Niagara Visitor wrote:I have not been liking what I have been seeing in my mirror the last couple of years, so I buckled down in February, and have lost 32 lbs. since then.  Portion control has been my downfall for a long time, and it was really, really tempting to eat the rest of that liver today. I think the strawberries and yogurt were better for me.  

Wow, Lore, I remember when you were last around here your saying you were going to try to lose some weight. I think you said your sister was going to try to drop some weight as well. Congratulations on your success! Are you pleased with where you are now, or do you plan to lose more weight? It does indeed get easier once you get used to eating less but it's never a cakewalk, that's for sure -- no pun intended!

Yeah, I had a problem for a while with portion control years ago and my weight, as did Brian's, creeped up over a period of years. My problem was trying to eat as much as Brian did -- not smart when he's 6'4". It's funny now and we laughed about it the other say. We're both just about the same exact weights we were when we met many years ago.

I also eat much faster than I should. My mom, if still alive, would be howling as I was always the last one at the table. Not only was I a chatter (I'm sure you guys would've NEVER guessed that, right?!) but I ate slowly. She would let others leave the table but she would always sit there with me until I finished, however long it took. Perhaps that's why we were always so close -- who knows?! I do know that helping her in the kitchen was how I got my start cooking.

I'd had many conversations with Brian, since we didn't have kids and always ate our dinner rather late, say 8 p.m. when we were younger. We'd come home from work, have a cocktail or two, and watch the news while discussing what we were going to make or have for dinner. I used to tell him how in retrospect, I was amazed that my Mom, who went back to work as a registered nurse when I started first grade, who got home around 5:30 p.m., would usually have dinner on the table for the five of us by 5:30 p.m. (that's two adults & 3 kids, not 5 kids!). And we didn't have frozen dinners or frozen food of any type. In fact, we used to beg for some of the frozen TV dinners our friends were eating. She would use canned vegetables back then but never just right out of the can -- always doctored up with bacon, onions, garlic and the like. Now remember, I'm 63 so I was a kid in the '50s and early '60s.

One day I came home after a long day outside of the house and Brian told me my mom had phoned. He said she was in a chatty mood and that he'd spoken to her for about an hour. We lived in the same city and saw each other regularly and I remember thanking him and apologizing for my mom keeping him on the phone so long. He said no, he'd enjoyed it and told me they'd had a very enlightening conversation and that he'd learned a lot. Of course, I was intrigued and pressed him for details. He said they got into talking about cooking and with no mention or prompting by him, my mom told him how much she relied on me as a child (I was the youngest) and how I always helped her make supper (not only on Sundays when I'd hang around in the kitchen and we'd do the NY Times crossword puzzle together while she cooked and I perhaps chopped some things or stripped green beans or something like that), but during the week too. She told him how she could have never even thought of getting a nice dinner on the table early enough for kids if it wasn't for me, as by the time she got home, I had the garlic peeled, the onions chopped, etc. and basically had done a mis en place for her when she got home. She told Brian I was barely 9 when I started doing things like browning the meat we were having prior to her arrival so she could just throw everything together and get it cooking once she walked in the door. He was sitting there grinning while he told me this. He said NOW we both knew how my mom actually did what impressed me so much. I was so tickled pink that I sat there crying my eyes out, as I'd never even thought of that! I mean I knew I helped her but I never realized how much help it really was -- I just looked at it as being really lucky that my mom trusted me to do the things she let me do, even when she wasn't there to supervise me while I did it. It was a real eye opener for me and I was so grateful that she'd talked to him that day about that, as it became a bigger and better memory than it had always been for me....
And I guess another reason why I still love cooking!

UNCLE JIMMY wrote:

Crybaby wrote:I’m having BIG computer problems today.  The laptop keeps closing the programs on its own.  First, the cursor was blinking erratically when I turned on the computer.  So I started the computer again by using Restart and that stopped.  THEN (and now), the cursor keeps going up to the top right corner and closing any program I have open, including this one.  

So I’m typing my messages or responses in Word, then opening up this forum and hurriedly pasting in my message before it closes again!  Just FYI if you get a partial message from me…

Oh No! .... My cousin had that with a brand new computer.
Sent it back to Best Buy for repair 3 times, plus then back to manufacturer twice.  Its what they call jumping cursor.
It's in the program software somewhere. Hers only does it once in a while now, but it still happens.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jumping+cursor+while+typing&oq=jumping+cursor&aqs=chrome.5.69i57j0l5.15756j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The last chick who worked on it worked on it for 3 hours! They're supposed to be "researching" the issue and will call me back today at 10 a.m. to let me know what they're going to do. I googled the problem of programs closing themselves online and found some "fixes" in Windows but they were WAYYYY beyond my pay grade and I never could've even attempted to do the long list of things they recommended. If they play dumb when they call me back today, I'll share what I've learned from you guys and online. For the last 30 minutes or so I've been on here, while I am reading messages, I am keeping my finger on the touchpad and am busy making circles with the cursor on the left side of the screen while I read. It helps as the cursor isn't jumping as often as it was doing while I've been keeping it busy. And it does let me type a bit more in this program than it does in other programs. But it doesn't happen when I'm not online -- say in Word. I can have programs open online and have Word opened too and when I jump back to Word, it NEVER happens. Strange, no?

Thanks for the advice everyone! I hope they can fix this as it's making me crazy (well, crazier than I normally am!!!).

You are right Imelda, it has been cold out here in sunny CA. We had May grey and now June gloom. 62 degrees out and overcast.

Beth wrote:The party at Lyn's was a rousing success.....good planning and a little hard work always pays off!

Here are some of the pics I took.....didn't get a chance before some had eaten because as soon as I got some of the plates filled and out on the buffet there were people ready to eat!

Looked fantastic, Beth! I'm not surprised people started digging in the minute you put the plates out.

One thing I was amazed by is that Lyn sure has a lot of pieces/trays/things to use as display servers! Boy, she must be used to hosting large parties, as I was amazed at not only the number of serving pieces, but the size of some of them. We used to entertain a lot years ago but not to parties over say 20, unless it was family and then we hosted more. But I would've had to beg, borrow and rent to have all that stuff. It looked super, too, and I'm not surprised at all how long the planning took even if you and she didn't make most of the food. You both really did a fantastic job, and she's one lucky lady to have you as a friend to help her out like you did. You definitely make a good team so I'm not surprised you're such close friends!

Bugster2 wrote:Crybaby, how old is your husband?

He turns 70 this month, Debbie. But you wouldn't know it by looking at him, as he sure looks much younger, and most people seem really surprised when they find out how old Brian is.

He saw his oncologist on Wednesday and he finally told me today that his doctor told him how much better he looked than two weeks ago. The doctor said he was really worried about him (he'll keep things like that from me), what with the wait loss and just how he looked and how he had no appetite. But Brian told him he thinks it's due to reduced pain and I agree.

He's been struggling for months, I think I told you guys, with what the orthopedist thought might be a pinched nerve -- the pain started in his cervical spine area and his shoulder. Then it radiated into his arm and hand and then, believe it or not, his fingers. He LOOKED like he was in pain and if you've ever suffered from pain that really doesn't let up or go away, it kind of affects everything about you. Well, he hasn't gone for the 3rd MRI the ortho wants and the recommended doctor for the nerve conduction study (a terribly painful procedure if you're ever had one; not many people endure the whole test) only had a June 28th appointment available. I called that doctor and got all the coding for the NCS but Brian told me to hold off trying to find another doc to do it sooner, as he really thought his pain was starting to ease up a bit.

He was right and is feeling much, much better. In fact, today he cancelled that 6/28 NCS. I've been watching him like a hawk and keep reminding him not to pick up anything over a couple of pounds with his right hand (it's hard to not do so if it's not hurting as badly, you know?). I'm encouraging him to lift things with his left hand and let his right hand only assist, which he's really been doing -- a miracle in itself! I'm trying to do any lifting that has to be done when he's not looking 'cause of course with my back problems, he doesn't want me to lift anything at all. We sound like a real pair, no?!

But yep -- he turns 70 on June 22nd -- so I will officially have known him for 40 years, as I met him when he was 30 and I was 23! Not only seems like ages ago but some days we just can't believe 40 years have gone by...

Beth,

Congrats on your good checkup at the doctor. Funny, as shots never bothered me and still don't. In fact, I hate swallowing pills and would gladly take a shot every day than take a couple of pills.

And your pork/cabbage/sauerkraut dish looked good, too!

Imelda HL wrote:
Now, a question.. I'm planning to cook pork chops for Father's Day next weekend, what is your favorite way in cooking your pork chops, I saw some recipes, pork chops in slow cooker, seared pork chops or baked pork chops.. I'm wondering if there is any difference with the tenderness of the chops by the ways we cook them, we cook them slow and long in slow cooker and we cook them fast when we sear or bake them? Any input? thank you

I prefer pork steak more so than pork chops but I do like a good bone-in pork chop on occasion. If I'm not grilling them (my preferred method) then I'll usually do them like my grandma did....season well with s&p, dredge in flour and brown in bacon fat in a cast iron skillet. Then add some chicken stock (she most likely used water) and add a lid, lower the heat and let them simmer over a low heat and braise until tender. I usually add more stock if it evaporates before the pork is tender. At the end of the cooking I remove the lid and allow the chicken stock to cook off. The end result is tender, moist pork with that yummy 'fond' from the pan (the chicken stock cooking down).

This is the same basic method as Jimmy's Tina does with her potatoes & onions.....which would make a wonderful side dish, I might add!

HP computer people reset my computer and Windows re-loaded this morning to see if it would fix the problem. Just to make sure you understand, my cursor stopped blinking the minute I restarted the computer using "restart." But that's when the programs started closing on their own.

It's still doing it but not as often. Right now, it's giving me plenty of time to cancel or close the window which appears and ask me if I want to close this tab or all the tabs. But I think as the computer is used for a while, the problem seems to pick up speed.

This morning when I typed stuff to you guys and read your messages, I kept the cursor twirling around in a circle on the left side of the screen to try to keep it busy. Like I said, seemed to work for a while until I used the computer for about 15 minutes.

I don't think it could be a hardware problem (I think that's what they'll assume now that resetting the computer didn't work) just because the problem doesn't surface unless I am online. If I'm on say Word, it doesn't try to close Word -- or it hasn't so far!

Crybaby wrote:

One thing I was amazed by is that Lyn sure has a lot of pieces/trays/things to use as display servers!  Boy, she must be used to hosting large parties, as I was amazed at not only the number of serving pieces, but the size of some of them.  We used to entertain a lot years ago but not to parties over say 20, unless it was family and then we hosted more.  But I would've had to beg, borrow and rent to have all that stuff.  It looked super, too, and I'm not surprised at all how long the planning took even if you and she didn't make most of the food.  You both really did a fantastic job, and she's one lucky lady to have you as a friend to help her out like you did.  You definitely make a good team so I'm not surprised you're such close friends!

Lyn has a lot of lovely pieces and doesn't hesitate to pick up something we see that might be useful when we go to a Home Goods or Bed, Bath & Beyond. She has a huge storage area in her garage (attached to the house) with big, deep shelves to store stuff. She was use to hosting a lot of parties, especially around the holidays for years, whether her large family (they couldn't go away for the holidays because Karen usually ended up having a seizure every time) so she invited all her family to her house for Thanksgiving & Christmas. And every year Bill would invite all his international doctorate students over for a holiday pot-luck where they all brought a dish from their homeland. And, yes, I helped out with those parties, too. So, over the years Lyn has amassed a lot of serving pieces.

When we get started on our party planning we just empty her china cabinet and put everything out on her dining room table and pick & choose what we need for each dish. Then, when everything we need is marked with a 'post-it' note, the excess goes back into the cabinet.

Dane had a dental appointment today and since I was pretty sure he'd come home 'numb', I planned on a soft meal....I used boxed chicken stock, some bones/meat left over from the grilled breast the other night and a few chopped veg to make a nice soup.  Ended up making the same drop noodles I made the night before last for the the pork and sauerkraut.  The pork dish was one of Dane's childhood family favorites and the first time I tasted it I remarked the 'spetzlof' was the very same as MY grandma's noodles for chicken soup.  Every region had a drop noodle, just called by different names!



And if anyone wants to make them.....tonight I used one whole egg and one egg yolk, mixed it well with s&p and added enough flour to make a runny batter. The batter gets dumped on a small plate and held over the pot of boiling broth / water and cut into slivers to be dropped immediately into the boiling broth. They cook in a matter of a minute or so.....easy peasey and oh, so good!

bethk wrote:Lyn has a lot of lovely pieces and doesn't hesitate to pick up something we see that might be useful when we go to a Home Goods or Bed, Bath & Beyond.  She has a huge storage area in her garage (attached to the house) with big, deep shelves to store stuff.  She was use to hosting a lot of parties, especially around the holidays for years, whether her large family (they couldn't go away for the holidays because Karen usually ended up having a seizure every time) so she invited all her family to her house for Thanksgiving & Christmas.  And every year Bill would invite all his international doctorate students over for a holiday pot-luck where they all brought a dish from their homeland.  And, yes, I helped out with those parties, too.  So, over the years Lyn has amassed a lot of serving pieces.

That's what you have to do -- buy it when you see it!

bethk wrote:When we get started on our party planning we just empty her china cabinet and put everything out on her dining room table and pick & choose what we need for each dish.  Then, when everything we need is marked with a 'post-it' note, the excess goes back into the cabinet.  

I do the exact same thing when I'm having people over, Beth! Post-its are the best little things every invented -- too bad that guy was working for 3M or he'd be sitting pretty today! Seriously, though, it's a great way to get organized -- when I didn't do it, I'd end up using the wrong dish for the wrong thing and it would get me all frazzled!

I've never been to a Home Goods store but always wanted to! A couple of months ago I searched to see if there even is one in N.O. There's one, but it's in Harahan, which is a suburb I don't normally drive to so I don't know my way around there too well.

I've learned not to take Brian with me on trips like that 'cause he MAKES ME CRAZY when I do. I asked him to go with me to the tile store the other day and we weren't in the huge store for 5 minutes before I realized what a mistake THAT was! He gets aggravated too quickly and also, the second we walk in, he wants to go outside and have a cigarette, which also makes me crazy, since he smoked one in the car on the drive over. It really was an aggravating store but he didn't even wait until they deserved it to get ticked off! And I wasn't dragging him around looking either, just told him to sit down in front of the store while I looked for the 3 types of tile I saw online. Then since the store was so huge, I decided to ask for help. That took about 30 minutes. I was supposed to go back today to purchase the ones I took home to look at on the floor but I was tied up for hours again on the computer with remote help. He asked me if I wanted him to go and before the words were out of his mouth, I was shouting, NOOOOOOOO!!!!! He laughed and said, "Thank God!" and we both laughed!

It's been a while since you've made pizza, hasn't it, Jimmy? I can remember when you must have made them and posted pics every other day or so......I loved to drool over your pics!

bethk wrote:It's been a while since you've made pizza, hasn't it, Jimmy?  I can remember when you must have made them and posted pics every other day or so......I loved to drool over your pics!

Thanks Beth...

We had pizza for Jimmy Jr's birthday May 10th.
The rest of the pizza times, were with the crust from the pillsbury blue pizza crust.
Tina gets pizza wishy's at the spare of the moment, and it was easy to make it for her in an instant.

I want pizza....wish a certain Mr. Amazing would agree.

But I want mine made MY way.....deep dish with fresh dough, cheese layer, topped with sliced green olives & chopped Vidalia onion, then 'splotches' of sauce (just a bit) and finally a sprinkling of Romano, freshly grated.

I'm not a fan of a lot of sauce on my pizza and I only want mozzarella ~ no cheddar, no colby....just mozzarella ~ oh, and the freshly grated Romano, for the saltiness.

But I'd force myself to eat a couple slices of YOURS, Jimmy. I wouldn't even complain............LOL

*************

I pulled out three chicken thighs this morning. When they were close to being thawed I took the bone out and tossed the scraps in my freezer stock bag. Left the skin on and seasoned with s&p and let 'em sit to draw out some of the moisture. Then on the grill in a foil pan to render off the fat, finished on the grill grates and a slather of an Asian type bbq sauce I threw together.

Had the chicken with a bagged Asian cabbage salad and made a big pan of 'vegetable spaghetti' (onion, carrot, zucchini & summer squash).

And that was supper.

I’m typing this in Word and will try and paste it in a message here before my computer closes Cooking Friends. I have never had a problem of this nature, and this serious, since I began using computers in 1987.
After the woman from HP worked on the computer for 5 hours, of course, it wouldn’t work. Plus, Word – the only program that I could go in without it closing (it’s trying to close Word now just not as often as it does with other programs) – had disappeared along with tons of other icons. There was an icon showing the names of the apps that were no longer there but I don’t have enough knowledge to know what to do with that document or how to access them. So I decided to call Word to try to get them to reload it on my computer.
When I bought this computer, it came loaded and had that Outlook 365 or whatever they call it, and I was asked to renew it for an annual fee. I didn’t use most of those programs so I didn’t want to pay an annual fee for all of them, nor did I want to pay annually for Word. I phoned the number I could finally find on the “ad” for renewal and asked if I could just BUY a copy of Word like you used to be able to do. They said yes but I wouldn’t get updates; I said that was fine as when it got really outdated, I could just buy the most current program again. So I paid for it – I think it was about $65 or so – and I downloaded it. I couldn’t find my receipt for it while my computer let me in my email account, where my folder is showing all the online receipts I have, so I figured they would have a record of it and they did. I explained to the lady why it “disappeared” and she said she would have a look at my computer remotely and see what she could do. She worked on it for well over an hour and my home phone died once and disconnected us, and then my cell phone dropped the line but I could still see her little box where she was remotely on my computer. So she continued to work and when she was finished, she phoned my cell. She said she thought she found the problem, and noted that on the little Windows icon on the lower left of the screen, a left click would do absolutely nothing. In order to access this icon, you would have to right click. (I really don’t think this was the case when this problem first occurred, as I think I would’ve noticed it, as I had to click on that thing a bunch of times when I was being walked through “repair” on the phone with HP.)
At any rate, she set up a phone session for a supervisor to call me today at 12 noon CST and said he would fix it. I am hoping against hope that this is indeed the problem and that I can get it to stop closing everything. If that is the case, I figure I will first ask the supervisor (from Microsoft) if he can get back all my icons on the screen so I can access them and again use my computer fully. If he isn’t willing to do this (remember, this is all free, as I just called to get a copy of Word again, which I now have), I will call HP back, tell them their fix didn’t work but Microsoft fixed it, and ask them to complete the process by getting me set up again. My contract with HP (which I forgot I had but found while I was looking for receipt for Word) expired this past
April so I had to pay $99.99 for them to help me and this help is good for only 30 days. They told me it was “guaranteed” so I’m going to bug them for all 30 days until I get this thing fixed.
I’m at such a loss as to who to take this thing to if these people can’t get it fixed and operational again. The nice thing about all this is all the help is remote, but the bad thing about all this is that all the help is remote! I have to sit in front of the computer for hours on end while they work. When the woman was on it for five hours, I was sitting propped up in bed for my back like I usually do to minimize the pain and that’s pretty difficult for me to do for 5 hours! I had the laptop on my lap and the television on, and after a while, I fell asleep. I work up and she was trying to get my attention in the little remote box, since she didn’t bother calling back after our second disconnection but just continued working. I think she must’ve made the computer make that little “ding” noise it will make which woke me up. She told me to try to “check in” every 15 minutes and I had to laugh – in other words, wake up every 15 minutes if I fell asleep again. By then, I was in a lot of pain from trying to maintain that position for that long – something I’m pretty much unable to do because of pain. So even though I haven’t had to take the computer someplace for repair, it has indeed been a painful trip to “tend” to it while they remotely work on it.
Am hoping I can get this message off to you guys so you know my “status.” Sure hope I can get back to “talking your ears off” real soon!
Norm, I really enjoyed your long message about the guy that made your smoker. I usually click on “new messages since you last logged in” or whatever that little message is on this forum, which is how I read all the new messages. Of course, NOW I am only in for a second and the program won’t give me a second opportunity to see what I haven’t seen. I knew there was a lot of messages in different areas I missed so I started looking for June 2017 dates in all of the different topic categories to see what I’d missed. That’s how I found your cool pics of the flowers that finally bloomed and your other message about the smoker. I was surprised that that couple who went into the restaurant business with OK Joe didn’t finally sue him, all things considered. I think it’s so cool that their restaurant is still so highly rated and highly thought of. It was a very interesting story and I wanted to thank you for taking the time to tell it!
Okay, I’m going to go in and try to post this. Then it’s a mix medicine day so I’ve got to go downstairs where my caretaker (Brian!) is all set to mix. Hope to be back soon, as I miss you guys already!

It sounds like (and this comes from a techie moron) that you might have to have all of your software removed and reloaded. You lose a lot but you might lose the bugs too.

Michelle, Thanks for letting me know that you got to read the post about OK Joe. Incidentally, I just noticed that Joe Davidson's site is now named "Joe's Barbecue Group, inc".  It sounds like he is still trying to associate with Joe's Kansas City Barbecue. In his career highlights, he says he is the founder of Oklahoma Joe's Kansas City.

PS you can see for yourself how much he is trying to associate with the Kansas City restaurants if you want. His site is

http://www.joedavidson.com/history

(Knock ~ Knock ~ Knock) ~ That's ME knocking on wood and thanking my lucky stars that I haven't had any of the computer problems you've had, Michelle. I sure hope they are able to resolve your problems without you resorting to pulling out your hair! Good luck!

I was moving stuff around in the freezer and came across a zip bag with trimmed pork tenderloins....well, that'd do for supper.

I cut a bunch of herbs and made a mix ~ chives, thyme, tarragon & rosemary, held it in place with some olive oil smushed around on my s&p'd tenderloin. Just a simple grill to about 135° and then a 10 minute rest before slicing.

Served with a baked sweet potato, microwave steamed broccoli and grilled peach halves.....the pork with a bit of the peach was really tasty.