What's for dinner?

[kenhill]

Number 2 son graduated from High School and number 1 son is home from Colorado for a semester break.  Celebrating graduation with a potlock.  BBQ Brisket and chicken, good friends, neighbors, and classmates.  Some Alaskan Amber for the over 21 crowd.  Slight breeze and 43 degrees.

Proud of what my 2 boys and what they have accomplished.  Developing into wonderful young men.

[glenn kangiser]

Always great to see the kids make progress, Ken.  Enjoy the celebration.

I'm getting to the point in this pregnancy that I'm hating food.  Lunch was a few bites of cucumbers with some plain (oh, so plain) yogurt, and a handful of nuts.  Breakfast was a handful of nuts.  Supper will most likely be some kind of meat (maybe chicken?) with green veggies.  I might be generous and make some potatoes or rice for the family, even though I can't partake.  Four more weeks until he can be born  with no worries that he's too early....  It is dreary and cool today.   What I'd give for a cup of coffee!!

I'll have one for you in the morning, Homey.... ummm .... a cup of coffee that is...

[MountainDon]

Potato soup, home made. Russet potatoes, a little bacon, celery, chicken stock (from home roasted chicken) and rice milk. Yeah we, can both eat all that stuff. It was good, would have been better with cheddar cheese and or sour cream, but.......  Oh, corn tortillas and refried beans as a side. Cucumber slices.


Tomorrow, MTL at the cabin, chicken thighs in a trial rice molk sauce seasoned with paprika and rice noodles. Broccoli, steamed.

[Redoverfarm]

Nice to see you are getting to some "regular" food. 

[glenn kangiser]

Looks like artichokes and barbecued beef sandwiches for dinner for me tonight.  I'll cook all 5 tonight then we will have them ready with little trouble.  Boiling them with salt, a few tablespoons of vinegar per an old recipe and added a bit of olive oil per a newer one.   






I like to dip the leaves and heart slices in Miracle Whip.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Yum, Glenn, those look so good!  I got seed to grow artichokes this year, but didn't get around to trying them.   Guess I'll have to make do with ones out of jars for now.  I crave them like nobody's business when I'm pregnant....
We had a good supper tonight... Peanutty chicken, broccoli slaw with nuts and homemade sesame dressing, and long green beans.  It hit the spot, and my blood sugar was good afterwards, so that is a good thing.

[glenn kangiser]

Yup Homey, they were good.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Yesterday we had leftovers from my daughter's second birthday party yesterday afternoon... smoked turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes (i only had a taste), salad, etc.  Tonight, it'll probably be some reconfiguration of said leftovers.

[Native_NM]

Leftover green chile elk stew.  Those of you from NM might be familiar with it.

[glenn kangiser]

OK - so I'm on the road and have this bad habit of ferreting out the good food places in the area.  A great mom and pop Chinese food place across the street that feeds you enough in one meal for two nights so I had the second half tonight. Salt and Pepper fish , vegetable fried rice and Broccoli Beef ... but I wanted dessert so checked out the deli across the street form the motel.

Funny writing on the wall... Farsi...  It turned out to be Iranian and I met Shirin, the owner.  

I had to ask her about the different foods because they were all different.  The Iranian people, in my experience, are some of the nicest I have ever met.  We talked about different teas for our middle east and Asian guests as well as another type for guests from India.  We discussed desserts which of course brought us to the Ice Cream freezer.

She explained a couple types they had and said the 12 ounce container could be eaten half tonight and half tomorrow night - (fridge in the motel)..... She doesn't know how I eat Ice Cream.  

It was like I ate a bouquet of roses.  It was like a very rich vanilla with rose water in it... She said it has rose water.. I said "What?"  Rose water.. and she showed me the bottle... Yup - it was roses alright.  It left the essence of roses lingering long after swallowing the last bite.

A very interesting flavor, and of course... I ate the whole thing... .... along with a handful of Persian Almond Pastries.

Tired of regular street food, it looks like we will eat a couple meals at her deli tomorrow. It is right across the street from our motel and the jobsite.   Maybe I'll take a pix.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The icecream sounds very interesting Glenn.  I found some Turkish Delight a while back and the girls asked to try it after reading The Chronicles of Narnia  (OK, so we were all dying to know what it tasted like!)  They were all lemon and rose flavored.  My husband said he felt like he'd been eating flowers afterward (and he kinda smelled like it too, lol.)  Even though I can't have the sugar, I had to sample just a tad.   They were really good.  The consensus was that everyone liked the rose ones best.

[glenn kangiser]

Hey Homey, tonight is my last night here in Sunnyvale this week, so I had Shirin pick out some good things from her country to take home for Sassy to enjoy.  While they are from Iran, Turkish Delights was one of the things she chose and apparently they like them in Iran too.  I also got some Asian and Middle Eastern Teas for our foreign guests.  Nearly all of them want tea rather than coffee.

So I had been welding galvanized metal much of the day today, and thought I had not breathed that much but walking across the street from the motel to Shirin's Deli, I got massive chills and locking muscles from the zinc fumes.  I went in and  asked Shirin if she sold milk as I had chills from the galvanized welding and milk would stop it.  

I could hardly believe what she did next.  She said, no but I will go get you some.  She reached into her till and grabbed a few bucks, left her store and was out the door before I knew what happened.  In about 5 minutes she returned from wherever she went to get it.  She got me a tall glass and within about 20 minutes the chills went away.

I told her I wanted dinner but not too much as I was not real hungry with the welding and all,  and I would like something with beef .  She said she had lamb or Fillet Mignon.  Hmm .... I said the Fillet would be great.  She treats all of her customers like they were family as far as I can see.

It's fun to listen to their colorful conversations in Farsi while eating.  They get rather animated when speaking.  

So all of this is leading up to......

.... what's for dinner?

1/2 gallon of milk, Special Delivery, Fillet Mignon and Salad with a middle eastern Vinegar and Oil dressing.




Thanks for the special service, Shirin.  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Yum!  That looks absolutely delicious!!  Sounds like a neat place to eat.  Made me think of a little mom and pop Mexican place we stopped a while back.  It shared a building with a gas station and a Uhaul rental place.  When they asked the girls what they wanted to drink, Cori asked them what they had... the lady took the girls next door to the coolers at the gas station and had them pick out a pop.  They came back with cream soda and a chocolate soldier.  The guy who ran the gas station was Pakistani, and the folks with the restaurant were Mexican, but they had some kind of a deal worked out between them where he provided the drinks for their restaurant (other than stuff like iced tea.) 
Still trying to figure out what caused my sugar to be high last night.... We had grilled chops, salad, pickled beets, and celery sticks.  My bet is on the two little slices of pickled beets I had.  I had some Sunday, and my sugar was fine afterward, though.  Maybe it was the combination of that and the milk I drank with it?  Be glad when this little one gets here and I don't have to be so cotton-pickin' careful.

[glenn kangiser]

It was great... maybe one more chance to try something else there in a week or so when I finish the last of the job.

Beets could be a likely suspect.  Some of them are pretty sugary.

Having kids... you make me tired just thinking about it and I was not the one who did all of the work... you can bet on that...

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I am so sick of food.... nothing sounds good these days, and it is too hot to eat anyway.    Last  night, supper consisted of three radishes and a slice of lunch meat.  My blood sugar was still a little out of range. 

[glenn kangiser]

Poor baby...



Last night Sassy made fried catfish and I made me some Mormon Potatoes (Instant mashed potatoes -Potato Pearls) with butter.  It was good.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Fried catfish sounds heavenly!  When I was a kid, pretty much every Friday all summer we had fried catfish (sometimes in the fall or winter, too, but it was more likely in summer.)  For the past three or four weeks I've been dying to go fishing but at the same time I'm so big and hot and miserable I know I wouldn't last long enough to catch much. 

Maybe after the baby gets here we can go, and maybe by then the flood waters will have gone down a bit at the local lakes.

[glenn kangiser]

Back in Sunnyvale working across the street from the Persian food again, Sooooo.......






Last night it was a Cornish Hen Kabob dinner with Saffron Rice and a Salad.  I have been drinking a lemonade  or orangeade with real juice to go along with it usually.  Tonight it was a Chicken Kabob sandwich and lunch today was a Lamb Kabob and Beef Kabob with rice, lavosh bread and assorted good stuff special for me...

I usually get to visit with the whole family and many of their regular Persian customers.  Always an interesting experience.

I wonder if I will lose any weight from working so hard....

[glenn kangiser]

After eating all of this Iranian food, I wanted to let Sassy try it too, so I brought a whole bunch of goodies home from the deli.

Iranian Basmati Rice and Iranian Saffron, the worlds most expensive spice.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron

Fortunately just a pinch of it goes a long way.  

Amir (Shirin's son) instructed me in the preparation of the saffron for the saffron rice - crush a pinch of the threads (stigmas) in a folded paper with a spoon and steep the resulting powder in a bit of hot water for about 20 minutes.  That is mixed with some of the rice and put over the top of the white  rice.

So what I am saying is, I cooked dinner.  Not a very common happening around here.

We had 3 young eggplants in the garden and I read that they were less bitter if eaten small.  I hadn't planned on planting them but they looked so nice at the feed store that I thought I would try them out.

We looked on the net and agreed that the Fried Eggplant- Southern Style sounded great.  It really was if I do say so myself. [ouch]

So here it is .... Fried Eggplant Southern Style and Saffron Rice cooked by a troglodyte.



The eggplant was very mild with no bitter taste at all.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

looks great, Glenn!!  I like fried eggplant.

[glenn kangiser]

Checked the garden when I got home last night, Homey.  More on the way.

[glenn kangiser]

Found out I am addicted to Saffron Rice.... Sassy's gone to work - .... had to cook it myself....

[glenn kangiser]

Hmmm ... funny .... 2 more bowls of fresh Saffron Rice tonight.  Ice Cream earlier in the day.  Cooking for myself again..... [ouch]

Oh ... btw... tried out some new saffron from a place in SF.  Seems decent and is imported direct from Iran.  I noticed that the California Basmati rice does not elongate.. to me that does not make it real but maybe it has the nutty flavor.

I like to eat it with butter, Real Salt (from Utah with genuine rocks in it)  and sugar.  Tastes a bit like kettle corn... yum.

Breakfast is the same, except I add quite a bit of ground cinnamon to it also.

[OlJarhead]

Last nights dinner

OK we added Rib Eye Steak and Bush Beans (the green verity out of our garden that day) to augment our bread

Home milled wheat with store bought (yuck) rye flour, molasses, sorghum, water, salt and yeast (pretty much) makes this rather hearty and awesome Dark Rye bread

First time attempting the 'round loaf' and realized I didn't have the room to do two side by side (or so I thought) so just made one 3lb loaf...next time I'll try two side by side and see how it works out.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

that looks good.  My girls made homemade rye the other day that was really tasty.