February 2020

Your chicken looks really crispy ~ the best way to have fried chicken for sure!

I bought an inexpensive version of the butter bell but unfortunately the butter is not soft at room temp. I guess it is too cold in the house.

Didn't have burgers but had pizza dip with a garlic baguette.

Jimmy, I could make a meal out of those potato pancakes! Now you have me wanting them!

bethk wrote:Barb had a spinach salad that we all agreed 'won' for presentation:

All the dishes looked good but this was indeed very pretty!

Beth, I can't pass up short ribs in the grocery either unless they're really outrageously priced! Every time I make braised short ribs, Brian says the smell is over the moon. He once pointed out how people passing our house kept looking in (we're a "stoop house" so our house is right near the sidewalk) and he swore it was 'cause they were smelling the short ribs!

Last night I made a new recipe for fajitas I found, Chili Lime Steak Fajitas. I made them with skirt steak and they were delicious. The predominantly lime marinade with cilantro was DELICIOUS! Leftovers tonight... I forgot to take a picture but they were really pretty. I used red, orange and yellow bell peppers and the finished dish was really attractive so I wish I would've taken a pic!

Gad! I am so limited in my tastes for food. I guess I am very picky. I was looking at the recipe index from a Detroit pie cookbook. I didn't see one pie I would make or eat. Cardamom tahini squash pie, Sweet corn nectarine streusel pie, Sweet beet pie. They all sound icky and I sound like a two year old. LOL.

Bugster2 wrote:Gad! I am so limited in my tastes for food. I guess I am very picky. I was looking at the recipe index from a Detroit pie cookbook. I didn't see one pie I would make or eat. Cardamom tahini squash pie, Sweet corn nectarine streusel pie, Sweet beet pie. They all sound icky and I sound like a two year old. LOL.

Debbie, I eat just about everything and none of those pies sound good to me either!

I am willing to give just about everything a taste except for raw meat and seafood, insects and really stinky cheese.

I would have thought the cheese would have clogged the radiator.

Maybe she said radiator, not knowing it was something else? There are a lot of places that are hotter and would have made the cheese stinkier. The exhaust manifold gets pretty hot. A few times when I was out in the field in my jeep, I heated C-rations on it.

Talking about stinky cheese and radiators, my father told me that his brother got sick into one of the floor heater vents. He said every winter the whole house smelled awful. Yah think???

NormM wrote:Maybe she said radiator, not knowing it was something else? There are a lot of places that are hotter and would have made the cheese stinkier. The exhaust manifold gets pretty hot.  A few times when I was out in the field in my jeep, I heated C-rations on it.

It was in the time when the radiators in cars were thick, and had big top tanks.
Anti-freeze was Methanol and water mix. Before permanent antifreeze .
I remember her ( The cheese lady ), explaining how she opened the top, and stuffed the cheese into the top where as she said "you put the water in the radiator!"

I even remember her name... Peggy LaGrange . Why?  Because she worked part time at the Krispy Kreme doughnut Bakery, and she gave mom bags of broken peanut stick doughnuts she got for free. My favorite was the Peanut sticks, and she told us what they used to make the peanut crumbs with. They mixed the dried out plain stale doughnut, mixed into crumbs and baked; with the peanut chips. OMG, they were so good.
They stopped making the peanut topped doughnuts, due to peanut allergies some people were allergic to.

I heard they, ( scientists ) are testing a vaccine to eliminate peanut allergies.
I hope so!

I used to heat my lunch on the engine of my van. Wrapped in foil. And warmed my bagel too!

UNCLE JIMMY wrote:

Bugster2 wrote:I am willing to give just about everything a taste except for raw meat and seafood, insects and really stinky cheese.

Thinking of stinky cheese, long long ago, there was a woman, Peggy that worked with my mom, that always scrambled with her most of the time drunken husband, put Limburger cheese in his car radiator; just for the fun of it. ( Get Back at him.)......She said, he never found out why the car smelled so bad.

That's just a terrible waste of one of my favourite cheeses! But yes, it would smell terrible. The other thing that just is beyond me is how can something that is as delicious as shrimp, can have their shells smell so bad just a few hours later? LOL

I'm leaving in the morning for Miami, and then a cruise for a week. Don't know if I'll be able to check in here, so behave yourselves, everyone! LOL My first cruise. My children organized a friends and family cruise. There are 16 of us. Should be fun!

Yesterday was a late lunch with Dane's golf group ~ and then we were working on the house non-stop to get ready for more work to be done today.  He's been doing wall repair to the drywall because I didn't like the way the 'professional' did the work.  But Dane knows what I want done and he hates to hear me whine about the crappy job that was done.  So, he takes care of it for me.

Fortunately for us Patrick and his crew installed the new patio doors today instead of working inside on the bathroom.  That means Dane has tomorrow & Sunday to get all the rest of the painting done.

Tonight I made a roast chicken, baked squash, peas & the WalMart Sweet Kale Salad we like so much.  I had planned to pick up a rotisserie chicken but decided at the last minute to just roast a chicken since I wanted a baked squash.

And since I was making a 'real' meal I called neighbor Jim and let him know there would be good food to eat and he joined us.....and, of course, that means I was busy getting everything to the table and forgot to pick up my phone to take a pic.  But you've seen it all before.

I hate them too Jimmy.

I went to Ladies' Lunch today so I'm not interested in supper in the least. Dane's having leftover short ribs/noodles and peas from the roast chicken dinner. Love reheating in my new microwave!

I posted a recipe for French Onion Soup about 8 years ago and someone tried it and posted this review.

I made Norm's French onion soup last weekend for guests and it was delicous! I even broke down and bought a bottle of sherry. I was confused in the store wether to get the cream sherry or plain sherry so I went with the cream. I mean what can go wrong with anything that has cream in it's name? LOL I didn't have beef bones and 6 hours to make my own stock. I found beef stock at the grocery but it was $3.25 for what looked like less than a quart! No way am I going to pay that much for stock, plus I recalled I have a small jar of demi glace from France in my cupboard I had indulged in but never opened yet. So I used regular canned beef broth and demi glace to taste. The recipe says it takes about an hour to cook the onions. I think I had my temp too low because it took me closer to 2 hours and I had to turn up the heat toward the end to get the brown carmel color. No problem though... I had plenty of kitchen chores to do and just needed to stir the onions ever so often. I toasted rustic bread slices on one side, buttered and sprinkled granular garlic on the other side, then toasted that side. I floated those on top of the soup and grated over some Edam cheese. The market I had been shopping in had their guyere cheese over priced in my opinion (6oz for $7.65!!!) so I substituted Edam. I hate shopping a regular grocery when imported or gourmet ingredients are on my list!!! Sams club is great for reasonable imported cheeses but I didn't have time to run by there. Edam cheese is a great melting cheese so it turned out fine. The soup was a hit. My dinner menu was French onion soup, my open face gyro type sandwich, and hot blueberry cobbler for dessert. I swear I have bruises on my back from all the complements I got for that dinner. The rich soup was nicely balanced by the fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, and garlicky yogurt of the gyro sandwich. And the sweet warm cobbler can't be beat on a winter night. Thanks again Norm for your delicous recipe and inspiration!

I thought a nice red wine would taste great in the soup too. I almost added some but I do try to stick to the recipe if it's the first time I'm trying it. I also thought a touch of soy sauce would have expanded the flavor levels too. Next time I'll get a bit bolder and try some variations. The thing I most liked about the soup was it's layers of flavors. The broth is so exotic tasting I just loved it, and Sunday morning when I woke up all I could think about was the leftover soup in the fridge. Ate the rest for breakfast!!!

Great praise Norm for a soup that was changed from the original. LOL. Edam??? YUCK! I hate Edam cheese. You recipe looks very similar to mine.

Anyone know of a cheap source for soup and beef bones, shank, chuck?

How nice you got to read a review of your 8 year old recipe. That's mighty high praise!

If it had been MY recipe I probably wouldn't have recognized it ~ I seldom make something the same every time I make it, with the exception of a couple of Grandma's cake/pie recipes that are 'perfect' IMO and childhood favorites.