Saturday Six

M

melissa-dallas

Well-known member
I made old-fashioned apple butter in the oven. The house smells heavenly. I let it cool to put through a sieve so stuck it in the fridge. Will reheat it & can it in the morning.

My Kitchenaid was not very happy with grinding apples. i was going to make an extra big batch of the butter, but I quit when I got a half gallon of pulp. Had enough apples yet to make apple pie, so tossed with the stuff & froze in foil in a pie pan to make a crust for later. The apples had been soaked in salty water for the butter, so it may be an interesting pie.

Had a lot of tree work done today. My tree guy found a big hole in the roof where the stupid squirrels have once again besieged my house. Lord, how I hate the little suckers.

I've wanted to take a quilting class forever & finally started Monday. I finished my second block today. I'm so excited.

Found out Wednesday that a lifelong friend died of gruesome complications of alcoholism Monday. While I had struggled with our friendship, I did still love her in my way. What a terrible waste of what was a beautiful & brilliant girl. She had a sixteen year old son too.

Could someone please bring me a big bowl of some kind of Asian Noodle Soup & some cookies? I'm really tired.

 
Ooh, I love apple butter. You're lucky you can find some good apples in your area - I haven't

found any that have any taste in awhile.

Sorry about your friend. So sad. Wish I could send you the "Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies" I just made.

 
Thanks. Sprouts still has lots. I think I used five different varieties.

I kind of messed up. You're spposed to cook it for a while before you add the sugar & spices but I was on the phome & distracted...I just had to watch it carefully & keep it stirred. It is very nice. It would definitely merit some homemade biscuits.

 
Weekend Six

I woke up Saturday with a craving for quiche, so I made mini-quiches with feta cheese, leftover bacon, and spinach. Twenty-five minutes later, DH and I had a good breakfast with those, grilled garlic bread, strong coffee, and a clementine.

I found ridiculously low-priced artichoke cream cheese so I bought a few tubs of it and am making Dawn_MO's chicken enchiladas with cilantro rice for dinner tonight. Artichokes not included, I know, I know, but I think it will be good ;o)

Yesterday was the Shamrock Run in Syracuse yesterday. DH participated, but I just provided the cocoa at the end. Brrr...

After watching Katie Brown's show last night that included Tuscan polenta, 'going to have to make these soon. Link below. The apple and pear wine cooler sounded good too.

We went to the CNY garden show Friday. Spring is less than 3 weeks away! 'Sick of this cold weather.

Friend coming over to make cards this afternoon. Good thing I have a roll of frozen almond-oat cookies in the freezer. 'Better get to it though!

http://katiebrownhomeworkshop.com/recipes/polenta-bites/

 
Weekend Six

Last night was St Pats night for a very old group of friends and it was my turn to host:

1/ Buckwheat bilinis with salmon mousse -- thank you Meryl
2/ Corned Beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots from Saveur and some grilled chicken for the guest who doesn't like corned beef!!
3/ horseradish sauce (mustard was from a jar smileys/frown.gif )
4/ Irish Soda Bread from Ina Garten
5/ chocolate thumbprint cookies with mint filling
6/ chocolate cupcakes with oatmeal stout, chocolate whiskey filling and a baileys cream frosting, Oh My!!!
7/ Appletinis

Guests brought some additions and wines. A good time was had by all!!!

I still get incredibly nervous when I am the one hosting a dinner. Don't know how DH puts up with me on the day of such events. I have gotten lots better and that is mostly thanks to the support, encouragement and great folks here!! So, I thank you all smileys/smile.gif

 
So sorry about your friend...

I thought I was going to get to my weekend six and post my list, but really the main thing happening this weekend was hoeing the explosion of spring weeds and the ensuing ice pack for my shoulder.

Also, a 4 hour (4!) documentary on PBS* so nothing much in the food dept happened this weekend

(Saving The Bay - really well done and big thumbs up.)

 
great dinner menu! how did you fill the thumbprint cookies? I'm picturing a few junior mints

 
Weekend Six

For breakfast Saturday I cooked these bratwurst I thawed - they are HUGE! They barely fit in my 12" skillet and were so fat around I had a hard time moving them around with tongs. Delicious though.

I'm on a kick to eat out of the pantry until the next payday - it's one of those months where the end of month paycheck was so tiny it scared me! Hate February! But my pantry is quite abundant so Saturday's dinner was a 2+ pound beef filet which I cooked perfectly to medium rare! I had a pound of morels from a friend's foray and made a veal and port sauce for the meat. My friend made these Indian tortilla like things - sorry, I forgot the name - they puff up when you fry them, delicious! There's an Indian market near my house in the Fillmore jazz district that sells them in the fridge case.

Earlier on Saturday my friend and I went to a picnic of parents from her son's school - nice mix of English and Japanese speaking people, therefore the picnic was interesting too. Deb made onigri and said the secret was to use very hot rice, therefore she burned the heck out of one hand in sacrifice for a great snack. Sadly I couldn't eat them because she used regular mayo with the tuna filling and I can't have that because of the egg. I comforted myself with a slice (or three) of pizza made with Indian toppings - fantastic! Zante's if you live in SF is amazing - my favorite was the chicken Tikka Masala pizza.

Sunday I had the other brat for lunch, and I didn't even want dinner.

Had a scary night though, I was awakened at 1:30 am by the smell of smoke, then I heard faintly the sound of a smoke alarm. I threw on some pants and went next door to my neighbor with whom I share a common wall to his kitchen. It wasn't his place, but he smelled the smoke too and leaped downstairs to the 4th floor and found it was the neighbor under me. She said everything was okay and we all went back to our places but that alarm went off for another hour intermittently and my apartment got filled with smoke. I opened 2 windows and wrapped up and tried to not worry about the fire spreading or her being wrong it was out or anything like that and stayed fully dressed with my bag and good jewelry in it. Truly one of my worst fears to be trapped or lose my home due to someone else's stupidity. Whew....

Today I'm chugging coffee because me and 3 hours of sleep doesn't really cut it. I'm seeing the surgeon this afternoon for my 9 month checkup so it will be good to go home and go to bed super early. Can't believe it's been 9 months since my ankle surgery, and 9 months since I had to put my cat down. (sniff sniff)

 
Melissa, sorry about your friend. I have a younger sis who may wind up just like that. apple ??

question about the grinding of the apples---was wondering why the need to grind. was that the raw apples? they cook up and fall apart if you leave them in chunks so don't know why the recipe had you grind them. that's a lot of wear and tear on the machine indeed. I cook up the apples to the applesauce stage, zap them with the immersion blender and then cook down further for the apple butter.

 
Yikes! Scary!!! Is it a full moon or something? I had a bit of a scare this morning too...

Went to make tea and saw a police car out front, which is weird on my quiet little street, then saw another in front of the driveway...went outside and found officers lined up on foot every 10 feet or so on the sidewalks/lawns/porches/my driveway and the swat team had my street blocked off. Walking into that was very surreal. When I went to find out what was what, (ummm, is there something I should know?) was ordered back in the house and was on lock-down for several hours. Seems burglars broke into a house with someone in it on the next block*, then fled to another house where they kicked in the door, where one guy was caught and 2 others fled/were hiding someplace. They brought in dogs, more cops, and went house-to-house with guns drawn. The dogs finally got them - seems these were considered real bad guys. Gang from the other side of town, one of the cops told me they'd really wanted these guys and brought in pretty much the entire police force to catch them.

*They wore orange vests to look like officials, went door to door, knocked and when she didn't answer came around and kicked in the patio slider - it was a 16 yro girl...lord she must've been scared to death.

Anyhoo, Monday is back to normal now, but breathing a sigh of relief - so glad it turned out ok for you. Fire is very scary and sitting on top of it not knowing would be awful! (((Hope you can get some rest tonight.)))

 
OMG Maria, that is so scary!

It's Mercury retrograde, if you believe in that sort of thing, I don't but sometimes I wonder.

Yeah, I went to bed early last night, almost fell asleep while eating my roast chicken.

I really appreciate feeling safe in my home, even if it is just an apartment. Next time I'm calling the SFFD just in case, as a friend scolded me to do yesterday. I guess you don't really think clearly during emergencies.

 
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