What Ya' Got Cookin' 2015

Let's continue here from:http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1372851/#new

Joyanna and I were at the Y tonight for swim lessons (hers; I had an aqua-exercise class earlier in the day), so Jim made spaghetti for us using homemade, frozen sauce. We make sauce in the 18 quart Nesco, because it's only a bit more prep to make enough for several months. Yes, spaghetti sauce has its own shelf in our freezer!

We do use canned tomatoes, but we use fresh/frozen herbs for a big flavor boost. And lots of garlic! And some red wine. Jim will also make a special trip out to the butcher in Mt. Airy for really good local ground beef. The other trick I use for more intense flavor and a thicker sauce is cooking down the minced onions together with the juice from the red peppers (also minced in the food processor).

Yum!

Those sauces sound good Jill. I think I quit making any of my own about the time Prego came out. Since we like Primavera you can't tell the difference by the time I'm done with it, and some of the types are so good, like the Florentine spinach.
I found a new food store today called Discount Groceries Bargain Store.Once in the store you could be in an Aldi, except they do have bags. Some of the prices were unbelievable. Such as Johnsonville brats and sausages $0.97. They had nice looking produce also with good prices.
I only picked up a few things to make a real hi-tech meal tonight, chili dogs!

stouffers chicken and rice dinner, sauteed purple cauliflower, applesauce. The purple cauliflower is pretty and really keeps its purple/lavender color. If they don't market that for Ravens season, they are missing the boat marketing wise. We had an orange cauliflower last week. That orange hue reminds me of powdered cheese sauce from cheap mac and cheese dinner. Tastes fine but I kept thinking 'fake cheese' esp since the color is only on the surface of the florets, just as if it was dipped.

Anybody bought Chips Ahoy cookies lately? I swear, they are making the cookies much smaller these days. Saving money with the same number cookies but less dough. Sheesh.

Just like smaller and smaller ice cream cartons. All pasta used to be 1#, now many are 12oz. That really messed with my head the first few times, till I caught it. Rather than just raise the price the manufactures just reduce the size. They can ship more units for the near/same cost and hope no one notices the size rather than tick everyone off at a 25% price increase. I've even seen meat packaged in much the same manner.
Sorry, just venting.

Maybe they think we just won't notice it. Vent away!!!!

Tomorrow will be a birthday tea party bunch for Clara who will turn 8. I saw a fruit platter in the shape of a bunny face, so we'll try that. Wonder if Luke and Henry will appreciate the tea party. Hmmm......not likely. Hehehe.

Veni Vendi Venting!

Newspapers went to smaller print on smaller pages. More ads less paper.

Making it a Mexican night here. Con queso and multi-grain Scoops for an appetizer. Chorizo, black beans and rice with peppers and chilies. Sorry, No fried ice cream for dessert.

Yum! Tex-Mex is always a hit around here, too. I found some new (to me anyway) multigrain scoops at Wegman's and really like them. They have something - rice maybe - in them that makes them extra crisp. For some dishes, like turkey mole', we use scoops to eat the main course.

Jan, your tea party sounds delightful! I found some tiny "toasts" about the size of a quarter recently.. probably supposed to be used with caviar or something... Joyanna & Sarah & I had fun coming up with different dabs of this & that to try on top of them for a fancy tea party. :-)

Boys like tea parties once they find out how much sugar they can get away with spooning into their cups.

Yum!!

Tea party birthday brunch a hit. None of the kids chose tea when they could have hot chocolate!! 7/12 of the grandies were here. Then they played outside for awhile in the snow flurries.

Mexican was a hit. It was spicy enough that by the end of the meal your lips were tingling. The chili power, Sriracha sauce, chopped red chilies, and cayenne did the trick. The other spices I used were oregano (I don't like cilantro, it taste like soap), ground fresh cumin and fresh ground pepper. We never got to the Con queso, because Holly ate all the chips.LOL

Holly went with 2 of the grands and Jen for a NYC weekend, so it's a bachelors menu for the weekend. Anyone ever heard of a banana, peanut butter, and bacon sandwich? Or a mustard sardine, and cream cheese bagel?

Love peanut butter and banana. Never tried it with bacon though. Sounds like a winner.

I do like sardines in mustard.

We had Josh and Cort over tonight for Turkey, 5 bean chili and cards. The cards were undercooked for sure. LOL

haha
chili here last night too.

JR was here this AM for waffles, of coarse. He is also sleeping over, so we will see what this AM brings.

Ric, just reading up there ^^ about your peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwich. The first thing that came to mind was Elvis. Wasn't that his favorite sandwich? LOL

Soft tacos were on the menu for last night, and for tonight it'll be chicken breast subs and mac n' cheese and salad. =)

Everything at Muddys was delicious! Part of my logic in going on the creek walk was using up some of the blood sugar raging through my veins..

My sweet tea uses four quart size tea bags (or twelve regular) and 1 1/4 cup sugar per gallon. When I was checking recipes yesterday, many called for 2 cups sugar per gallon! Egads I think (hope) mine is sweet enough.

My coleslaw uses one cup sugar and 1/2 c plus 2 TB vinegar in a big bowl. With our healthy diet son around, I felt weird using that much (real pure) sugar in one day. But I sure enjoyed everything at SWAP!

Robin, thanks for the extra brownies! They loved em and mine is waiting for me today. I was ''this close'' to having it for breakfast.

Sally, that's pretty much what I do for my tea, a dozen tea bags, I use both black and green, 3 brimming 1/3 cup scoops of sugar, probably 1&1/4 cups LOL, I also like to add 3-4 stems of spearmint crushed in wax paper with a rolling pin.

My pasta salad is usually a box or # of vegetable rotinti (I cook mine with evoo, basil and oregano), an 8 oz. jar of oil soaked sun dried tomatoes. I add about 1 &1/2#s of pitted and halved oil cured olives. Once mixed well fold in 8 ozs. of roughly crumbled feta, finishing with Gazebo Room Greek salad dressing. Mangia! Mangia! Farsi Grosso!

For those interested it is "eat,eat,and grow big"

Sally, I was telling coleup at the swap that your sweet tea has just the perfect level of sweetness.

I had some Lipton sweet tea yesterday, which was so cloyingly sweet compared to yours. I don't know why manufacturers feel the need to over-sweeten bottled drinks. I like Honest Teas -- I think their ad line might be "just a tad sweet."

Thanks! I cannot imagine it with 2 cups. That's like Koolaid.

Thanks to Gita's leftover potato salad, and my extra coleslaw, my mothers day dinner was half made. Turkey burgers.

Today is a PM shift, I will try some way of putting chicken drumsticks in a slow cooker.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/slow_cooker_honey_orange_chicken_drumsticks.html

This was really good!

Sounds good. Need to have that on Sat along with burgers.

We just returned from the York Garden Club luncheon. All the ladies in their spring hats, and flowered prints, tons of jewelry, sitting stiffly and eating overprice too small portions for all the speeches, reports, and installation of officers, yada, yada, yada, for 4 hours. OMG glad they had a cash bar. LOL The food was delish, but tiny portions.
So tonight I'm planning on sausage, aspergras, and homefries with onion of course, seconds will be an option.

Had our son and DIL over for dinner without the kids. First time since they had kids. Need to do that more often. Discussed the cross-country trip to family reunion in Oregon. Served pork tenderloin, sweets, asparagus and cold cauliflower salad. Chocolate espresso cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. Yum!

Awww Ric, you should have livened up the event by showing up in a spring hat and flowered prints yourself lol. I wish I could eat those small portions and feel full, but after a meal like that I usually swing by McDs and get a cheeseburger to fill the void. And I wonder why I am not slim and trim...

poor Ric...
Yum Jan!!

Oh yeah, forgot to chime in yum Jan too, well except for the cauliflower lol...

Agree with aspen that Ric should have dolled up too!! Hehehehe

It looked like potato salad, but was cauliflower instead. OOHHH, I bet it would be good like the hot potato salad I make with bacon. Something to try.

Me three, would love to see Ric in a lovely Spring bonnet and flower-print dress... and heals! =) Oh, with white lace gloves, too! Cute little matching handbag in one hand, Big-Old sausage-on-a-bun in the other (gloved) hand, that would really have 'em talkin!

Sally, that orange chicken leg recipe looks so good I saved the recipe for myself. I bet that would be really nice with some rice pilaff on the side, and steamed broccoli. Yum!

Jan, that cold cauliflower salad sounds really yummy too.

Tonight will be Chicken Marsala, smashed taters and salad. Last night was simple tacos. Well, regular tacos for DH, one soft veggie-filled "taco" for me. :)

Taco night or taco salad, Yum. With con-quesa of coarse.

What? Showing up in my Woven White Stetson, and Aloha shirt wasn't enough?
I guess I could have cut a plume of Pink Pampas Grass for my hat.

Si, Señor, I never go without cheese! =)

Ooooh, or maybe a peacock feather in your hat! ~< =D

RIc, you rock the Aloha shirts and Stetson!

There is a huge batch of our chicken curry in the slow cooker (8 boneless breasts cut up) for Mark and his 7 poker guests, plus 2 lb of Basmati brown rice, and big pan of cauliflower. Mark made his signature scratch pound cake for dessert. After cooking and cleaning, with Mark, most of the day, I am going to spend until dark out in the yard. I like the guys, but love the yard...

You are spoiling those men Sally, they're gonna start coming over for poker 5 times a week if you keep that up! < =D

Tonight is "winner winner chicken dinner" night, but what I'm excited about is the biscuits I plan to make for breakfast this morning. I've never had luck with biscuits *not* turning out like hockey pucks, so I'm really looking forward to a "new to me" recipe from King Arthur flour. Ever since some wonderful person here turned me on to King Arthur flour I've been HOOKED, bad!! It's nearly as bad as the plant addiction! Thanks to KA, I have finally been able to bake wonderfully light and properly risen bread, lots of different breads, even whole wheat bread! This morning I found a couple recipes that I want to try for biscuits (well, just 1 recipe today, another one next time). Then I'll make sausage/egg/cheese breakfast sammiches with them and hash browns. Hungry just thinking about it! =)

speedie, my mom made great from scratch pie crust, and puck biscuits. (Sorry Mom!) Those two are very similar really, the difference is moisture. Milk in the biscuit dough. Keep the biscuit dough as soft and moist as possible so it can rise from the steam. Place them touching in the pan.

I like to get KA flour too when I can, good quality product and good company policies.

I still am floored at how Mark makes a PERFECT pound cake every time.

Tonight, pork tenderloin loin some way, garden asparagus, garden lettuce, garden spinach...

I'm sensing a theme here Sally. ;) Will y'all sit out in the garden to eat? =)

Re: biscuits. My mom would always comment about the biscuits at Cracker Barrel. She said they made them too thick. She would say 'I need to go back there and show them how.' Hehehe. I never got the tutorial...or else I wasn't paying attention.

Let's see. We have been hosting Jane, the missionary that I and a group helped in Ivory Coast last August, since Friday evening. So far we have had boneless BBQ pork ribs, the rice quinoa salad with almonds and craisins, garden salad, Bubba burgers, fried potatoes, a ladies luncheon, tonight a covered dish at church with ice cream sundaes. Tomorrow night Jane and I will have dinner with the other girl who was on our work team. Then Tuesday night a dinner at another of the team's house. Thinking I will be able to roll down the street.

Wednesday night a credit union dinner then Thursday night I leave to drive to Florida with a friend to attend a credit union convention for a week.

Oh my goodness, that is not only a lot of great fellowship, but a lot of wonderful eating as well!! Mmmmm, I remember that rice quinoa salad with almonds and craisins very fondly! =)

I use King Aurthur flour products all the time, esp the whole wheat. I do stray when it comes to corn meal, it's gotta be Indian Head. I just might have to try a pie crust, a little coleup gave me some nice lard at the swap and that makes the best.