What's for dinner?

[glenn kangiser]

Speaking of men's health...

I made fresh stewed tomatoes a couple weeks ago when Harry was over.

He mentioned that tomatoes were good for prostate health.

I told him I had a hard time walking with tomatoes down there. :-/

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

What is OMMV?

Glenn, that's sick.

The tiramisu was a hit with everyone but the youngest who thought it tasted like really strong really sweet coffee.

[Sassy]

Was it a lot of work?  I had the tiramisu from Costco once it was pretty rich...

[MountainDon]

What is OMMV?

Here's the origin. I've just been spreading it around.  

http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1193516399/8#8

That should come up at the top of the screen

[MountainDon]

Beef Stir Fry. Thin sliced beef marinated in a balsamic vinegar, Italian salad dressing, red wine marinade. Broccoli, sugar snap peas, julienned carrots, sliced red onion, chopped green onion, jalapeño pepper. Served over rice.

Did anyone notice I/we seldom do desserts at dinner? Most nights a couple hours after dinner we have some yogurt with blueberries or some other fruit, but usually blueberries. Blueberries are chock full of antioxidants. Also great with Cheerios for breakfast. With soy milk, Silk Lite. Wish we could grow blueberries here.

I have a big crock pot of a split green pea and lentil soup slowly cooking for lunches.

[Sassy]

We're coming over for dinner, MtnDon!  I'm steaming some butternut squash & then will put a little butter & brown sugar & broil it.  We had french toast this am with the Ezekial bread & some turkey bacon that doesn't have all the nitrites, nitrates & growth hormones - it was pretty good - 97% fat free - I guess it is ok once in awhile - I still like real bacon...  :-/  

Even though I work as a nurse, study nutrition & try to eat healthy - we still like our desserts fairly often - if no dessert, Glenn will eat ice cream - I eat ice cream about once a week or less.   I am buying more organic or at least looking for things that don't have a lot of additives, preservatives or artificial coloring.  I hardly ever drink soda but buy the Hansens natural soda when I do.  Glenn likes soda when he's working so rather than him buying the bad stuff at least I know this is the lesser of 2 evils.  

I love soups - just about any type - the split green pea & lentil soup sounds good, maybe I'll cook some of that.

So who does the most cooking in your families?  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The tiramisu was really easy, though I had to go buy everything but the maple syrup as it is made of stuff we usually don't eat.  You line the bottom of a pan (8" by 8") with lady finger cookies or store-bought pound cake.  Then you soak them with a mix of 2/3 c. really strong coffee and 1/3 c. maple syrup.  In a big bowl, you mix 1/2 c. sour cream, 3 oz. cream cheese, and some more maple syrup.  After you mix them up well, fold in about 12 oz. whip cream.  Spread that concoction on top of the coffee soaked cookies and refrigerate.  Right before serving, sprinkle unsweetened cocoa on top (2 T. approx.)  Here's my suggestions as to how to make it better:
1.  Make a few alternating layers with the cream mix and the coffee soaked cookies...
2. Way less whipped cream or eliminate it entirely.  Sour cream, cream cheese, and maple syrup were sufficient.
3.  Add a little cinnamon... don't know if it is supposed to have it or not, but it tastes better.
4.  Wash it all down with a big glass of milk.

It was really rich, but it was really good.  DH loves sweets, and he wolfed it down exclaiming, "Mmmm!" with each bite.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Gosh Don, that does sound mighty tasty.  In our house, I do almost all the cooking.  My husband will occasionally grill, if I get everything marinated and prepared.  He will do eggs and bacon on a Saturday morning every now and then, or biscuits if I buy him ones in cans... good biscuits are so easy to make that I don't understand why he doesn't want to make them himself.  

[MountainDon]

So who does the most cooking in your families?  

C'est moi!  

I really don't know how we ended up not observing dessert time.  :-/ My Mom always had desserts, always home made; pies, cakes, home canned fruits, etc. Karen grew up with dessert as the final course as well. She is my chocolate chip cookie monster.   After I gave up Oreo cookies and milk many many years ago desserts disappeared. Maybe that's because I'm more of a main course cook and not a baker. Mind you if we kept ice cream in the freezer it would be hard to resist.

In the sweets department our big weakness is dark chocolate.  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

We don't do dessert on a regular basis, either.  I don't like to make desserts because then someone has to eat them, and it certainly doesn't need to be me... and I sometimes wonder if my husband has blood sugar issues because of the way high-carb food makes him feel.  So for us, it's a once-in-a-while thing... BUT I do make pumpkin bread regularly because it is no problem to eat   and because it's got a lot of good stuff in it.  I usually make it with whole wheat flour, and I cut a lot of the sugar out and it still tastes good.  We hired a babysitter here a while back and went out to a cute little Italian place... I think real Italian food is so heavy it just doesn't do much for me... I'm probably better off with lighter fare... but we ordered dessert anyway afterwards and shared a piece of tiramisu and it was so good, I really wanted to learn to make it myself.  Probably won't make it again until there's a potluck or something.

Don, I'm with you on the dark chocolate... good stuff.  I try not to keep it around.  

[Sassy]

I like the dark chocolate, too!  The tiramisu sounds good - probably a lot better than Costco's.  We used to get the Tres Leches cake for dessert when we'd go down to Mexico to work in the clinic.  It was really good - but I've tasted Costco's, yuk & I've ordered it somewhere else for dessert - nothing like what they served in Mexico.

Guess I'll have to find a recipe & try it.  I like pumpkin, carrot, zucchini, banana bread - you can replace a lot of the sugar & fat with applesauce.  There's a bakery in Fresno that makes wonderful pound cake - they use no sugar or fat - just applesauce - you can't taste the applesauce but the pound cake is delicious.

That's why I don't bake so much anymore - I like to eat the stuff too much & we both don't need it really.   :-/

[StinkerBell]

Just reading the last few post on this thread I gained 5 pounds......

[Sassy]

Well, this just might make you lose your appetite...

Cloned meat/dairy make it to the dinner table...  http://www.examiner.com/a-1015939~Cloned_meat__dairy_make_way_to_the_table.html

[glenn kangiser]

Glenn, that's sick.

Sorry, Homegrown --- it must have been one of my -- out of touch with reality ---moments.

[benevolance]

Don I have planted several blueberry bushes here in SC... They are growing well highbush not like what you see in Maine and the berries are large...Like marbles... My wife stripped them bare...She is a blueberry junkie... We both like them... But growing up working in a blueberry processing plant as a teen ager I lost all desire to gorge on berries...

I used to like them in homemade ice cream.... mmmmmmm

[benevolance]

Don the blueberry bushes would grow great in New Mexico... but they would need a little shade...So if there is a garden spot at your place get them into some shade and make sure they get some water... the frost will not bother them nor will snow in the winter... keep em wet and shaded in the summer and you will have mounds of berries

[Sassy]

I planted a couple blueberry bushes this past spring.  Had a lot blooms but I'd read that the 1st year you are supposed to remove all the blooms.  I left a few - nice, large blueberries.  They're one of my favorites, too.
Peter, I packed peaches for 3 summers but I still like peaches - but only freshly picked - the ones you get at the stores aren't too good.

[benevolance]

sassy

I agree fresh Peaches are amazing... I like Blueberries but not like I did as a child I was nuts for them then....

i was shopping for groceries today and for the heck of it I stopped to smell the limes and there was no smell to them at all... very sad :'(

i picked apples a good many days for extra money as a younger lad... easy to make $100 a day picking apples at least it was when I was 18-20 years old...cash money under the table... worked out great for me.

I am still insanely in love with apples...great orchards in North Carolina... though very few of them have my favorite apple: Cortlands

[benevolance]

fresh apple cider lightly spiced on site at the orchard when there is a little chill on in October and you can see you breath in the autumn afternoon air... and the cider is hot.....

To drink it down and have the warmth and spice go through you... the taste does not stop at the tongue... Sort of like that warming feeling  inside when my wife first grabbed my hand so many years ago.... pretty much unbeatable

every time I take a deep breath of fresh air in the fall I long for the time in the orchard drinking hot cider..... soooo amazing

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I grew up on a fruit farm (there you go, Glenn, I just gave you that one.)  We had apples, peaches, apricots, pears and plums.  To this day, my favorite apples are jonathans and winesaps, and that's one of the best things about living where we do now.  There are a lot of orchards up here with a wide variety of apples.  We also grew watermelons, cantaloupes, grapes, tomatoes, okra, and cukes for market.  I never eat peaches these days unless I buy them in cans or frozen because they're nowhere near as good.  Last summer, we went to AL on vacation and stopped at a farm stand to buy peaches.  I think we ate half a bushel of them in half an hour.  Of course, we were miserable from it later, but it was worth it... the kids were sticky from head to toe, so we just threw them in the gulf to wash off when we got there.  One of the first and only sunburns I ever got was when I was in 6th grade picking the vineyards.  I usually wore overalls, but that day I had on a boat-neck blouse and jeans.  I'd forgotten my hat, so I picked all day with my back to the sun (switched sides of the rows after lunch) until dark, which in summer is pretty doggone late.  We'd started at 6 in the morning, and had filled up two truckloads by night for the only local (at that time, anyway) who made wine because he'd bought out one of the vineyards for that harvest.  When I got back to the house, I had these two painful and red triangles on either side of my shoulders with a light stripe down the middle where my braid had been!  It hurt like a big dog!  I didn't even know that I could sunburn until that day!  Grapes are another thing I hardly ever buy now at the grocery store... nothing compares to the tart, tangy, rich flavor of seeded grapes... the seedless varieties in the store are so sweet and bland by comparison, and shipped from goodness only knows where (Chile, Brazil, Columbia.)

[Sassy]

Your stories remind me of when I lived in Ohio.  What I remember most is the smell of those fresh apples.  The farmer had a huge warehouse where he stored the apples & the fragrance was outrageous!  He'd take us kids & my mom on a trailer behind the tractor, through the orchards so we could pick apples.  Great memories.

Seems most of the apples in the stores around here are last year's - Glenn drilled a water well in a Fuji apple orchard a few years ago - the owner told him to help himself to all the apples he wanted.  He brought home a few boxes of apples - they were so good!  I think I lived on them.  The owner mentioned that most of the new crop apples are shipped out & what you get are last season's apples.   :'(

MtnDon, I ended up making split pea soup last night - turned out pretty yummy    I added onion, garlic, about 3 slices of bacon, some chopped, fresh green pepper & 3 diced tomatoes from the garden, salt & pepper.  We also had the butternut squash - I sliced that in half, steamed until fairly tender, put some butter & brown sugar on it & broiled for a few minutes - that was dessert, even though we ate that 1st because the soup wasn't finished yet  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Here you can get the new crop apples at the grocery store in certain varieties... I know for sure they had new crop pink ladies and jonagolds last time I was there.  However, we usually go straight to the orchard.  There's one nearby that has over 100 varieties, and they have a big treehouse for the kids to play in.  Sure it's sort of touristy, but the apples are great and the owners of the orchard and really nice folks, especially to people who buy large quantities each year for preserving... she always remembers us because most of the locals buy a peck at most, but when we go, I get bushels of their culls (which usually have nothing more than a slight blemish) and either dry them or make apple butter out of them.  I always buy some winesaps for some pies, and a few jonathans for myself to eat, and then get something like honeycrisp for hubby to take in his lunches.  (He's a wimp when it comes to sour food.)  I love the smell of the apples, too.  It's the one place that I've found since living here that feels like home, but then I don't think they'd like it too much if I just pitched a tent and moved into their orchards!

[benevolance]

when my wife and I go to the orchard I usually eat a dozen apples while we pick...I can barely move by time we get out of there...*LOL*

at my dads place as a kid we had 2 massive cortland apple trees...they were old as dirt and the apples were the size of softballs my dad and I could not join hands and wrap our arms around the trunk of either apple tree..

we used to pick the apples for aunts and my grandmother and they used to send us a couple pies every fall for picking the apples...a good trade off in my opinion... my grandmother makes amazing apple pie.

but as kids we would eat apples until we were stuffed...I never got stomach cramps or anything like that.... made my mom mad a bunch when I would not eat supper because I gorged on apples... ... you know just normal kid stuff

in college 4 buddies of mine and I went picking in the orchard one fall... we had an apple eating contest in the orchard... they were  lightweights.... I remember eating another ten apples after they all stopped...*LOL* and they did not even eat the cores... which I love

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Grilled fish and shrimp, broccoli, couscous.  Not bad.

[MountainDon]

Pizza. Homemade, sort of. Store bought refrigerated pizza dough (Kroeger, store brand). Sauce; Ragu regular Pizza Sauce. Spread out dough on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and spread the sauce. Sprinkle with grated parmesan. Add chopped onion. Spread thinly sliced zucchini. Add thinly sliced tomato. Spread thin layer of grated mozzarella. Spread finely chopped spinach. (I used frozen). Add another thin layer of grated cheese (mozzarella or whatever you might like... colby & cheddar for example). Sprinkle with Italian seasoning. Bake for another 10 min. Enjoy.