August, 2019 ~ What's HOT in the kitchen?

I don't know I've ever considered using a green pepper to make a sandwich. Actually, cooked green peppers don't like me so it's not one I'd try. But I can imagine it brought back a century of memories for you, Jimmy.

No cooking here today. Neighbor Jeanie went on a road trip to Orlando with me today. Lyn is still in Ohio and I needed laundry detergent from Costco (which was ON SALE ~ Woo Hoo!!!). We went to Costco, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, the Asian Market and out to lunch. She had a BALL! I got more than I really needed but it was so much fun. She had never been to any of the stores so it was fascinating for her. I was afraid she'd be bored with my stopping at so many grocery stores but they're all different and carry things we don't see around here. She especially liked the Trader Joe's, as anyone would. LOL The prepared foods and seafood department at Whole Foods was like a Wonderland for her. She kept commenting on how beautifully displayed everything was, even the produce was pretty.

We went to lunch at the Hash House a go go, a Midwestern chain restaurant, but very different than anything here. She loved what she ordered and was awed by the size of the servings. I had warned her that she shouldn't be surprised if it was too large to eat.

All in all it was a wonderful day to Get-Outta-Dodge. We'll be doing more road trips now that she has the opportunity to be gone for more than an hour at a time (since Kermit passed she doesn't have to care for him 24/7). She's still adjusting to being alone but is slowly getting a routine down with doing things around the neighborhood (back golfing with the girls) and her volunteer days at the humane society taking care of the animals.

Yesterday Joe and I took a trip to an outlet mall and Williams Sonoma in another beautiful outdoor mall. I had no idea it was there. The trip took a little more than an hour. On the way home we saw a Bob's Big Boy. Nostalgia kicked in, so we stopped. Joe had a Big Boy burger and I ordered a chocolate shake. I was disappointed because they had changed there shakes from something like a chocolate soft serve to a regular shake. We then stopped at Tommy's Burgers and bought a half gallon of their chili. The stuff is like paste, so I used a disher and scooped out balls of chili and froze them on a baking sheet. This morning I threw the balls into a Foodsaver bag and sealed them up tight.

Tonight was black bean and corn enchiladas. Grabbed the recipe from Betty Crocker and tweaked it. I used Amalia's enchilada sauce and corn tortillas. The recipe used flour tortillas. YUCK POO! Never use flour tortillas for enchiladas. They turn to revolting slime and it isn't authentic Mexican. We glommed sour cream, chopped tomatoes, avocado and green onions on top. It was really good. I served a can of Rosarita refried beans with a ton of Jack cheese melted on top to go with it. There were no leftovers.

Dane got an email alert that one of the local steakhouses has a steak/lobster special tonight for $18.

Give you ONE guess who's NOT cooking tonight.

LOL

Feet, don't fail me now!

I had cream of celery soup and croutons. ( Canned Soup )
Fighting a sore throat and a cold.....
I've been out of it all day .....sleeping and taking Mucinex .....

Poor Jimmy, hope you feel better soon.

You know, of course, you should be sipping chicken soup and stay away from cream soups that will add to your congestion.......

Of course you know that.

Seriously, feel better.

bethk wrote:Poor Jimmy, hope you feel better soon.  

You know, of course, you should be sipping chicken soup and stay away from cream soups that will add to your congestion.......

Of course you know that.

Seriously, feel better.  

Thanks Beth!.... BTW....I found out, I put a little vodka in a spray bottle, and it kills the pain and numbs the throat. Alcohol kills germs too!
Hick! ......huck!..... Hick!..... Huck

UNCLE JIMMY wrote:

Thanks Beth!.... BTW....I found out, I put a little vodka in a spray bottle, and it kills the pain and numbs the throat. Alcohol kills germs too!
Hick! ......huck!..... Hick!..... Huck

Yup ~ an old fashioned 'cure-all' !

(I like to mix mine with some lemon(ade) or cranberry juice.....) Hahahahaha!

I didn't have a clue what to fix for supper. We went out last night.

I knew I wanted to put some of the baby bok choy on the grill but I don't want rice. I looked in the freezer, expecting to pull out some chicken breast but there was one of the (really) inexpensive porterhouse thin cut steaks on top so I took that out instead.

Then I started looking for inspiration on allrecipes.com ~ saw a recipe for grilled steak tips. Hey, I could cut the steak up and put it on skewers and grill it. OK, so now I had a plan in my head. I think the marinade sounds crazy but, hey, it wouldn't be the first time I cooked something that sounded awful and then had it turn out really good. Well, actually, the only time that happened was with Bev's 3-dry mix crock pot roast recipe. But that one is really good so I'm hedging my bets and going for it.

I've got the steak cut into chunks in the marinade now. And we'll see how it turns out after it's grilled.

Here's the recipe:

Equal parts (I'm using 1/2 cup each) ketchup, Italian dressing & Coca Cola.

That's it.

If you never hear from me again you'll know I poisoned both of us ~ and so, JUST IN CASE, "Thanks for all the fun times my friends!"




(Just kidding ~ you can't get rid of me that easily!)

Katie got sick. I fed all of us enchiladas and she had it coming out of both ends in the middle of the night. I don't think I poisoned her 'cause we weren't sick and everything was fresh out of a can or frozen. She has been having bouts of this lately. Makes me think she has a bacteria in her gut she picked up somewhere or perhaps it was something she ate a week ago when she got bit by the dog. Maybe something from her dogs. IDK.
It is time to do a raid on Katie's room: all of my cereal bowls are missing. I am sure they all have whiskers and speak. I refuse to wash them in that condition. She has to do them. Totally grosses me out.

Thanks so much for sharing, Bugs.......

I heard that some BBQ smokers use margarine and at first I wondered why but then I looked up the smoke point for butter and margarine and found that butter smoke point is really low and could burn over a grill but you can get a similar flavor with margarine and it has a really high smoke point.

That makes sense, Norm.  Isn't margarine just oil & water & some other stuff.  The dill pickle soup recipe I make calls for margarine, not butter.  I'm pretty sure that's because it was a 'depression' type recipe, though.  I grew up eating and cooking with Imperial Margarine ~ we just called it 'butter' ~ but I don't think Mom EVER spent the money on real butter.  Of course she also bought 'Minute Rice' exclusively which I found out, much later in life, was NOT interchangeable in recipes that called for 'rice'.  

Supper came out pretty good, only complaint I have is it started to drizzle and mist and lightly rain as I was standing at the grill.  Dane, OF COURSE, had to come out and snap a picture to text to Andrea and Robin.  Robin answered with a 'LOL' and Andrea exclaimed, "She's MELTING !!!".  Funny guy.  I hope I don't remember how funny he is in the middle of the night and elbow him in the ribs!

The marinade on the meat was surprisingly good.  As I think about it, the ketchup would give it a sweet tomato base and some thickness, the Italian dressing (I used Kraft Zesty Italian bottled dressing) had seasonings and oil and the Coca Cola added sweetness and, had I let it marinate overnight, tenderizing to the beef.  I boiled down the marinade after I made the kebobs and let it simmer until it was thickened in case I wanted to brush a bit on as the meat cooked, which I did a couple times.

The bok choy got marinated in a light Asian sauce ~ 1 t. brown sugar, 1 1/2 t. Soy Sauce, 1 T. Rice Vinegar, 1/2 t. Chili Paste (Sambal Oleck), 2 t. Oil (Grapeseed), 1/2 t. Sesame Oil & a splash of Fish Sauce.  After I washed and dried the bok choy I sliced it in half and poured on the marinade and turned it a few times to coat.  I grilled it on one of the grill mats ~ makes life SO MUCH EASIER!

I cannot get the pics to insert right now....this has happened before & I'm not sure why.  I'll try to edit my post later and see if it works.

[quote="bethk"]Thanks so much for sharing, Bugs.......[/quote

You no like? LOL

Yeah Beth, Margarine is hydrogenated oil mostly. Hydrogenation is what makes it not liquid at room temperature.  It is also what make it bad for us.

UNCLE JIMMY wrote:I had cream of celery soup and croutons. ( Canned Soup )
Fighting a sore throat and a cold.....
I've been out of it all day .....sleeping and taking Mucinex .....

That's a shame, Jimmy. I hope you feel better by now.

I love cream of celery soup and used to make it all the time years ago. One time I made it and used my chinois to strain it really well so I could serve it cold at a summer get-together in my mom's backyard after we were grown. My late Uncle just couldn't get OVER having a cold soup for the first time.

But it's a good recipe, especially if I can find celeriac. When I first made this soup over 50 years ago, I had never seen celery root in the store -- EVER -- just in a cooking magazine! But I tried the recipe anyway, increasing the amount of fresh celery used, abut figured one day I'd see some celeriac available in the grocery! Now I try to grab it whenever I see it just so I can make this soup.

When you think about it, there's so many cool ingredients available today without traipsing all over town like you used to when I was young. Goodness, my father was a champ about hunting down whatever was a real "exotic" ingredient back then for something I was making. He loved to eat plus I realize he really did love going to all those really neat stores to procure the goodies -- like to an old Italian grocery, Puglia's, that was on the edge of the French Quarter for years (long closed now of course). They made their own Italian sausage and were known for some other specialties too -- like their own ground meat from the better beef cuts than regular hamburger was then made from, but the old people back then called it "chop meat" (I know it was "chopped" meat but they actually called it "CHOP meat" -- no lie!) What I couldn't find locally, there were even food catalogs with hard-to-find ingredients back then. But you had to send for their catalogs, of course. Some catalogs were free, some cost $.25 -- believe it or not, I'd tape a quarter to a postage-paid postcard my father supplied me with to send for catalogs. I liked getting mail as a kid so besides writing letters to my grandmother and her sister, I'd send for catalogs!

Funny what you think of so many years later giving yourself a couple of minutes to go there...

I use to LOVE getting the catalogs in the mail!

Harry & David, the Swiss (something?), Hickory Farms, the speciality stores.....can't think of all the different ones I use to get. One had some Fine Basalmic Vinegar from Italy and that was the only thing I ever ordered from them. They spent more in sending me catalogs than I was worth. LOL

then there was Lillian Vernon and the speciality women's clothing, that outdoors place in Maine....use to order moccacin slippers for Dane from them......and who can forget Frederick's of Hollywood? I have no idea how they got my mailing address (other than sharing from other sites) because I never ordered from them. LOL

I get a lot of catalogs too. Places I have never heard of. One looked normal until I got in the middle of it and it had sex toys. Thank heavens I never got another! Vermont Country Store is interesting. It is full of stuff that I thought had disappeared 40 years ago.

"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die"

50 years today was the Woodstock Festival

What an amazing piece of history.

I really hate to go out and shop. Almost everything in this house came via mail order -- no lie! When you buy a lot online from various vendors, your name tends to get on many "preferred lists" -- so I get tons of beautiful catalogs that many don't seem to get. (I also get several gift cards a year from one or two vendors that I deal with (read "buy from") regularly -- not a "save 20% if you spend $100" but actual gift cards I can spend on their merchandise. )

The lady who cleans for me adores all my catalogs so I save all my magazines and catalogs once I've finished with them for Lynn. She LOVES them and looks forward to lugging a stack home every other week! She told me SHE passes them on to a friend or neighbor of hers whenever sh'e finished using them!

I knew I wanted to bake the kabocha squash I picked up at the Oriental Market so it was easy to choose pork steak and Brussels sprouts to go with it. The kabocha is a deep orange flesh squash, similar in taste to a butternut but sweeter and a finer texture. It reminds me a lot of the canned baby food I gave my girls so many years ago. The Brusssels sprouts were browned in bacon fat, then I added a small chopped onion, some halved red grapes and the cooked bacon ~ added a lid and let them simmer until tender and the liquid from the grapes was concentrated and soaked into the sprouts. When they're completely cooked down like that you don't even realize the grapes are there, they just take any bitterness away. That's a cooking hint I remembered from Barb so long ago. I think she also added some toasted walnuts, but I didn't go that far.

Darn it....I still can't get my pics to insert here. When I attempt to insert it just has a bunch of code and no pic.....wish I knew how to fix it. ((sigh))

I can't get my pics on either.

Joe and i took a trip to buy a car for him. It was 85 miles away and took 2hours to get there. 3.5 hours to get home. My rear end was aching so bad I wasn't sure I could make it home. Hard seats and no rear padding make for a bad combination.
No dinner tonight. Baloney sandwiches.