My Saturday Six (can't believe I'm first!)

A

amanda_pennsylvania

Well-known member
1. Let's start with last night. I caved and got a cheeseburger from Wendy's with fries. Mea culpa...

2. My favorite breakfast: poached egg on *very* buttery toast. Constant Comment tea. Yay!

3. Went to the grocery store for eggs. Came home with $20 worth of Swiss chocolate. How did that happen?

4. Planned to make Chicken Alfredo for dinner...DH calls and asks if I want to eat at the firehall (he's a volunteer firefigher). I've heard amazing things about the dinners there, so I'm all over that.

5. Happiness is a fully ripe avocado. Spread that with goat's cheese on french bread. Yum.

6. Grilled steaks for dinner tomorrow, then a banjo concert. I'm a happy girl.

 
Round II of "Opening the Closet to Pie Fear": Blackberry/blueberry in the oven

That's #1, because I just got Season II DVD of "Pushing Daisies" and found it UNBEARABLE to watch The Pie Hole diner scenes in Episodes #1 & #2 without pie.

So I'm rectifying that problem.

#2. Last night I made an apple pie with Irish cheddar for Episode #3 & 4. Thanks to wigs and lots of other folks' help (I'll post their names as soon as I finish this) my crust was about 1000 times better than the quiche a few weeks ago. Chilled the lard, used a hand pastry blender, chilled that mix, frizzled-frazzled the crust (hand-smooshing technique), froze the finished pie-shaped dough again before baking. Precooked apples to reduce shrinkage. Ate it slightly warm. Man, we were happy.

#3: We've had this spinach salad 5 times since last weekend. I shall soon start channeling Popeye.

Makes two large dinner plates:
5 oz of fresh organic spinach leaves
one fresh apple, cubed (like Jazz or Braeburn)
3 slices of crispy bacon, crumbled
1/3 C dried cranberries
1 oz Wensleydale with dried cranberries, crumbled
1/4 C toasted walnuts or pecans
Seneca "Granny Smith" dried apple slices.

Citrus Dressing (guesstimate amounts)
2 Tbl frozen orange concentrate
1 Tbl fresh lemon juice
about 1/2 tsp lemon zest
1-2 Tbl honey (taste at the end and adjust)
1 tsp citrus vinegar (or white)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Whisk in:
3 Tbl oil (I use a blend of walnut and olive)

Orange should be the predominate flavor followed closely by honey/lemon.

I dressed the washed greens, diced apples and cranberries with some of the dressing, portioned it out, then crumbled the bacon, the cheese and the walnuts on the top. Drizzled a bit more dressing. Then "large crumbled" a few slices of tangy "dried Granny Smith apple" slices.

On one version I threw in some poppyseeds. Didn't make that much of a difference in taste and I was flossing them out forever. Won't be doing that again any time soon.

#4 Richard's Cilanto Noodles. I had Larry mix them up a few days ago and since we were just using 3 ribbon's worth of soba noodles (how much is in a ribbon's batch?) I told him to only used a portion of the dressing. We tasted it yesterday and while it was tasty, it had turned dry (like pad thai gets). I was going to add more dressing but saw this teriyaki sauce (Soy Vey Very Very Teriyaki Sauce {link}) Larry picked up at World Market (HOW did I not know about that place??? I always thought it was a furniture store!) It's has lots of ginger and sesame seeds and moistened the noodles to perfection.

Which was serendipitous because PD Episode #5 is set in a dim sum restaurant and Emerson Cod goes next door to a .....NOODLE HOUSE! Thank you Richard, for saving our culinary taste bud's butts.

http://www.soyvay.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=23&chapter=0

 
Hey! Funny, I had just finished up a wedge of soft cheese, and found

it's no longer available, at least the couple places that I tried. It's Wensleydale with dried cranberries in it! It sat in the refrigerator for months before I decided to open it and try it, and once I did, it didn't last 24 hours.

I've never heard of Westphalian cheese - could they be the same? I thought it was a region in Germany. I ask because if it is the same, maybe I could find that, locally. No, I think mine is from the UK.

 
Yikes...that's the right name. I've corrected it above. Thanks Dawn. It is tasty, huh. With

a warm baguette, wine and fruit.

 
My "Weekend 6"

included picking blueberries at a local grove/farm. It's still early in the season, so they are nice and juicy and tart. Had a handful each on the way home, but there are still lots to spare.

I had a light/late supper (oh ok, dinner) because kids are going in 10 different directions today and I'm pooped. I opened a container of "organic, blended, lowfat, plain" yogurt only to find that it contained fish oil and tilapia gelatin. It's on it's way to the trash, mainly because of the sugar content in it that I didn't know about, and anything that's going to count as sugar in my world is not going to contain tilapia gelatin (whatever that is).

On the way home from picking the berries, we stopped by a yard sale where I found a cute little salt(?) shaker (really large holes) with some gold-lettered old number markings and the word "Germany" stamped on the bottom. Anyone konw anything about antique salt shakers? I'd love to know its history/worth. It was in the "25 cent" bin, so I think I found a treasure. Will probably use it for powdered sugar - holes are too big for salt or any other spice.

I found out my cat likes babagoonish. No garlic, so it's okay.

Gotta find more fresh corn! That last bunch was one of the best I've ever eaten.

Mowing over the herb garden tomorrow. It's Survival of the Fittest at this point, and we'll go from there. Many chives and mint, the rest is all intermingled and grassy, and choked out my 99% of my strawberries this year.

https://recipeswap.org/fun/wp-content/uploads/Finer_Kitchens/DawnNYS/shkrbot.jpg

 
Heheh, yes, it is. Tastes like cream cheese to me.

Where did you buy yours? Maybe I can find it here, if it's a local chain?

 
World Market - it's great! Imported beer, imported chocolates....

great spices and even spice blends cheap, and all sorts of imported foods we like.

Great cookware - their price on a seasoned Lodge cast iron skillet was the lowest I found back at Christmas and they just have all sorts of fun and unique glasses, bowls, containers.

Unfortunately I have to drive across town or to M'boro to go to one so I don't go as often as I want.

PS - their ginger cookies are the bomb - thin like Anna's but CHEAP - huge tins at Christmas were uner $10 then I got them on clearance for $4.

 
I am betting that it's a hat pin holder

they look like salt shakers but the holes are larger. I have one - don't see way to many of them.

 
It's sooooo good.

I usually soften the goat's cheese a little in the microwave to make it spreadable. Spread it on the bread, mix the avocado and spread it on the bread, add some sliced sweet onion and tomatoes. Best.Lunch.Ever.

 
Every Sunday morning I find the Sat. 6! So officially it is still Sat. somewhere in the States ...

MY Saturday was really just a clean up from
FRiday night dinner. I ate all day long - turkey
and all the works with leftover tiramisu and the leftover stuff in one ofthe birthday cake pan.

Finally, I worked on the menu for next Friday lunch - a party for my husband's male friends.
They meet every Friday at 1 for lunch in a restaurant and in honor of DH's birthday (75) I
invited them all here since they are always jealous when I do one for the ladies!

Menu so far:

First course

Kielbasa salad
gazpacho
mushroom pate
baguettes

Main

Brisket Cacciatore
Chicken with Barley and Pecans (nlb recipe I think)
Scalloped potatoes
green beans
lettuce salad

Desserts
Lemon Mousse
Coconut cake
Pecan tartlets
chocolate cake - I think.

These guys eat a lot so this should fill them up.

 
Saturday Six!

Got up really early to water my poor hot, dry roses. they are all in pots and so miserable right now. I should haul them out back under the pecan tree (which will give nothing this year because of the drought)

Drained, rinsed and resoaked the little red beans I put out last night to make stuffed red sweet peppers. I'm going to chop some jalapeño sausage, mix it with the beans and brown rice and top the whole thing with some rotel and cheese. That is for tomorrow.

Trip to Costco today resulted in some artichoke ravioli I sauced with Pomi tomatoes lightly sautéed with basil. Not too thrilled with the raviolis. Sigh. Sauce was good, though! Spinach salad (thanks, Marilyn!!) was delish!

Returned the jazz shoes I bought for my ZUMBA! class. My good old gym shoes with insoles work so much better. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say! Love the ZUMBA workout -- the best cardio I've done in a long time.

Had coffee with a good friend and co-member of our book club. We talked about how different small towns are today (thinking about Dawn/MO's thread above), but how much we appreciate our little historic town of Bastrop. We were sitting in a garden coffee shop on Main Street, looking out at our old iron bridge. We are hoping, as the new Best Buy is opening, Pet Smart and other big boxes, that it doesn't grow too much.

And oh yes! I bought a whole bunch of bing cherries at Costco for about $1.66/lb. I'm going to pit and freeze them. I think I'll just have to go and get a few right now and add them to my lime-flavored seltzer! YUM!

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top