What's for dinner?

[MountainDon]

They pulled my son in for a special checkout -- don't know why.

Sometimes it's totally random. Sometimes where you're coming from. I've been given special treatment a number of times; having a bag wiped and then the wipe placed in some machine... drugs? explosives? Another time, years back, coming from Jamaica they drilled holes in the bottom of a couple pieces of statuary ans seemed disappointed they didn't find anything. Couple of times for that. Another two times my name rang a bell and I was quizzed about places I'd been, lived.?? They don't have to tell you why. I didn't ask. Probably some drug smuggler with the same name.

Then there was the time I attempted to smuggle Cuban cigars in from Canada...    It was only 18 cigars and I "dumbed" my way through with the cigars intact.

Or the time they confiscated my lunch sandwich because it was beef and they were having a Mad Cow Day (driving across the border). Government dogs have sniffed my Jeep a few times as well when crossing back this way.

[benevolance]

I made wholewheat bread sweetened with molasses and I baked a Sirloin roast with onion, Pepper, Carrots and Potatoes... Picked some Lemons off the trees and made fresh squeezed lemonade

Not a bad meal... simple but we love it...Roast day is my favorite I think We had corned beef and potatoes the night before

[Sassy]

sounds really good, Peter!  I've got to start making bread again - I used to make it on a regular basis - once you get in the habit of making it doesn't seem like such a big deal... & it is always soooo good  

[benevolance]

sassy it just takes so damned long and you have to babysit it... if i am working in the house painting or whatever as I was doing today I can watch it rise and look after it.... Otherwise I have a hard time making bread.... My wife and I both love it and she bugs me to make it all the time

Once you get used  to fresh homemade bread you do not want to go back to store bought bread ever again

[glenn-k]

My home mad bread secret -- Bridgeford frozen dough.  I'm not that picky and it does make a pretty good loaf like homemade bread without the work.  Microwave thaw for quick or with time - grease a pan up - drop it in --let it thaw and rise and bake.

You can make your beerocks - cinnamon rolls etc out of it too after it has thawed -- just let it rise again after you have made what you want.

[Sassy]

MtnDon, you mentioned that you & your wife drink Silk soymilk - I've read a lot of articles on soymilk that says it's not the health food most people think it is, besides most of the soybeans are genetically modified anymore...  

Here's a link http://www.mercola.com/2004/jan/21/soy.htm  I can find info from other sources, also, if you would like - there are lots of them.  

[MountainDon]

Thanks for the concern and info Sassy. We were aware of some of the possible problems including the women's estrogen thing. I have a mild lactose problem which led me to first try Silk. At least half the time I prefer my Cheerios dry with a cup of blueberries. I know, go figure.

Silk, uses organically grown soybeans that are NOT genetically engineered. So it's probably one of the better soy choices.  :-/

[benevolance]

i cringe at anything other than right from the cow... and I do not mean a genetically altered cow being fed steroids or hormones...

Growing up working on the farm in the summertime we would dip the gallon pitcher into the milk tank at meal time... before it was pasteurized... real milk...

everything else in my mind is crap

[Sassy]

MtnDon, glad to know that the Silk brand isn't the GM type.   I like dry cereal, myself  

Benevolance, when I lived in Washington state there was a dairy close by that I could go to & get raw milk - I used to skim the cream off the top & make butter.  Never realized until the past few years what they are doing to commercially processed milk & all the additives - yuk - and now I'm reading that even some of the Organic brands aren't really organic...  what do you expect when the FDA & big pharmacy are in bed with each other  

[glenn-k]

i cringe at anything other than right from the cow...

Peter, be careful she doesn't step on you or kick you in the face when you're drinking.  You can make a hobble from rope.



Goats are probably much safer.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Got my suitcase late last night.  Lot of good that did.  We're home now.  Stopped after we got off the plane for Korean food.  Service was terrible, but food was good.  Except luggage and delayed flights, it was a good trip.

[glenn-k]

Great to hear you made it back OK.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

  Thanks... everything is better after a decent night's sleep.  Looks like the move is getting more and more positive.  Waiting for the written offer now.  Got to eat at my favorite Mexican place while we were there... seems like it is still as popular with the locals as ever... We went to my aunt's house on Friday night  for a potluck dinner with the whole family.  Nothing like 9 little girls all under the age of 7 screaming through the house and having a ball together.  My kids have really missed their cousins.  My aunt made a roast and some spaghetti, and most of the others brought everything else... there were salads and fruit dishes and homemade breads and so forth... it was great.  Someone even made pumpkin pie, so I feel like we almost had Thanksgiving dinner already.  

The first night we were there we went out to dinner with the hiring committee.  The fellow in charge seemed like he was really trying to butter me up for my husband to take the job, and I kept getting tickled during dinner thinking, "Look, you really don't need to convince us... we want to be here!"  It was a very pleasant dinner and they were good company.  The older of one of the professors thought it was funny when I ordered my food at a "5" on a scale of 1-5 of hot... he asked if the baby could handle that kind of heat and sat there shaking his head when I was eating it like it was going out of style.  (Supposedly "spicy" food up here is never spicy enough for me... I know if I ask for it there, they can do it.)  Anyway, the youngest professor kept us in the lobby of the hotel talking until after 10:30 at night (thank goodness that my mom was upstairs with the kids and got them ready for bed and everything!)  He was trying to tell my husband how to go about getting tenure and so forth, and trying to encourage him to take the job, too, it seems.  So, we'll see how it goes.  In the mean time, I'm packing up the house and finishing all the projects we've started around here!  Hopefully the house will sell quickly and we can camp out at my cousin's house near the school  (which he just put on the market and expects it to take a while to sell.)  From there, we'll get serious about looking at properties...  there are a lot of them that look far more interesting to me than the ones I looked at (although I admit the first one along the river was really tempting in a lot of ways.)

Looks like the cold is about to kill my garden off, so I guess today I'll go salvage what I can and we'll have that and some baked chicken for dinner... maybe some pumpkin bread, too.  We also have an acorn squash and two other little squash that need to be eaten....  maybe some fried green tomatoes or a green tomato and cheese pie (good stuff if you've never tried it.)

[glenn-k]

Sounds like a great get together.  They are fun.

Hope everything works out the way you want it to.

Fried green tomatoes are really great and soon we may have to make some too.  Tomatoes are growing but not ripening fast here now.

[MountainDon]

Work Weekend in the mountains.   Dinners up there on a work weekend more often than not don't take much preparation effort.

Saturday: Uncle Ben's 90 seconds microwave rice in a bag; "Vegetable Harvest" (brown rice, barley, lentils, carrots, peppers, some other stuff). A meatloaf from the local deli, microwave 4 minutes. Jolly Green Giant microwavable broccoli and cheese. Quick, easy, virtually no dishes.  

Sunday: store brand "kraft dinner"   mac 'n' cheese, left over meatloaf, raw baby carrots.

[glenn-k]

Do you carry a microwave with you Don, or have one at the site?  I used to carry one in a couple of my trucks.

[MountainDon]

The RV's been up there since the end of May and I don't plan on driving it back. All the comforts of home, except internet access.    

I've been firing up the Yamaha generator to power it for the past month or so. Since one of the old batteries dropped a cell, not enough ooomph to run the big inverter for the microwave and still have enough power left for the furnace overnight ( RV furnace blowers are power hogs... seems I use more electricity than propane) without running the gen to recharge anyways.... I know I need new batteries. IF I believed the forecasters saying we'll likely NOT have any great amount of snow this winter I'd buy new ones right now... but I hate to leave new ones sit idle over their first winter IF it snows too much, like last year, when we couldn't get up there after the end of November.  What to do? Decisions, decisions...

I affixed some 2x4's to the RV ceiling, and have cut some 4x4's to fit under them with plywood pads to spread the floor load out for internal roof bracing just in case in does snow a bunch.    They're easily removed with a whack or two with a big hammer when we're up there and easy to replace before leaving.

[glenn-k]

About all you could do is get one of the little solar panels to keep the batteries up while you are gone - with a small regulator to keep from overcharging.

All winter dead with no charge would destroy new batteries.

[MountainDon]

All winter dead with no charge would destroy new batteries.

Yep, that's a fer sure.  

Parked under the trees small solar would be iffy enough that I won't play that game with new batteries.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Just threw dinner in the crockpot and hopefully it'll be done by the time we get back from the doctor's office this evening.  It's a chicken with corn on the cob, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, some salt, basil, and a little balsamic vinegar on the chicken.  It smells good already.  I figure we'll be back late as the appointment isn't until 4:40 and it's a 45 minute drive to the doctor anyway.  I usually make something that one of my friends in college, a guy from Pakistan, used to call "chicken something-something" when I use the crockpot, but didn't have all the stuff today.  He would marinate the chicken in plain yogurt and then add tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, chilies of whatever sort he could find, and garlic.  He'd just throw it all in the oven and it always came out so delicious.  Sometimes he also added potatoes.  Oh, and always some cumin and turmeric.  It is goooood stuff.  

[MountainDon]

Yours and his both sound good.    

[MountainDon]

Parked under the trees small solar would be iffy enough that I won't play that game with new batteries.

Hmmm. Maybe I should play the game with the old batteries?  :-/

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

The chicken something-something would've been better, but this one was pretty good too, even though it wasn't done when we got in from the doc and we had to toss in in a stock pot and crank up the heat.  We also tried some stuff I bought at the grocery store the other day that looked interesting.  It was like a cross between dill pickles and sauerkraut with cukes, carrots, cabbage, and onions... it said "Polish style vegetable salad" on the label.  Not bad.  

Don, are the trees bare in winter, or is it all evergreens?  

[MountainDon]

Don, are the trees bare in winter, or is it all evergreens?  

Depends.        

Here at home (5400 ft. elevation) in the front the Pinon Pine, Colorado Blue Spruce and cactii remain green all year. No grass. In the backyard it's 50-50. Three Japanese Pines, several Boxwood shrubs, a couple of Mugo Pines and two large shrubs, name forgotten, all remain green. The Honey Locust tree, Crab Apple and Dwarf McIntosh Apple trees have changed colors and are well into the process of leaf dropping. The grass stays green; "Astro" type of turf.

Up in our mountains (8800 ft.) our trees are predominantly Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir, and CO Blue Spruce. Those of course stay green. We have a few Aspen and fewer Bur and Gambel Oaks that have all changed color and have mostly dropped their leaves. Grasses are all yellow/brown now. On the drive up there are a great many Aspens and Cottonwoods, now turning and dropping. Lots of Pinon Pines and Junipers until the elevation increases to about 6500 ft. That's where the aforementioned Ponderosas, Doug Firs and Spruces proliferate.

There ya' go.  

[MountainDon]

Dinner. For one, tonight.    An emergency of sorts with my wife Karen's Mom took her across town.

Fried Rice: pre-cooked rice (steamed brown), chopped red onion, left over grilled chicken breast, a few sugar snap peas, broccoli florets, slivered baby carrots, all sauteed in Olive Oil. One fresh egg added, fried and stirred in with lite soy sauce at the end.