Summer Time

Hi there!

I'm happy to be here,

as I wasn't sure if the computer

would work today.

First off, thanks for all the seed

identification help on my last post.

I will be planting them next spring

to see what they become.

Since the fourth of July,

I've seen that dreaded 

Blue Screen Of Death

on my computer several times.

Rick spent his holiday 

trying to find the problem(s).

It also took up a lot of 

 our weekend as well.

Seems like we're going to be 

shopping for a new computer... soon.

It's just bad timing right now, 

what with the new roof

and windows coming up

 later this summer.

  Oh, well. 

 I'll be limping along (hopefully)

but if I should come up missing for awhile,

you'll know why. 

These lily's are a thank you gift from a friend.

They were unopened buds when B. gave them to  

me, so I wanted her to see just how beautiful

they look now that the buds have opened.

Thank You B.  I especially appreciate that 

they can be planted outdoors later,

and they're deer resistant.

Don't you love all the summer produce

available now from our gardens,

farmers market and even at the grocery stores?

Cantaloupe disappears quickly around here.

Here's a new Raleys (grocery store)

 recipe for using 

a few of my cucumbers from the garden. 

I made this yesterday.

It was good ~ actually I loved it.

But I do have to tell you that I 

think it's best eaten after it's been 

refrigerated for just an hour or two.

Otherwise the cucumbers soak up 

too much of that Sriracha hot sauce

and become little fire bombs. 

Kikkoman's Ponzu Citrus Seasoning

is new to me.  It's a lightly sweetened

 citrus flavored soy sauce.

  I think you could substitute

regular or low sodium soy sauce 

in the marinade without  making

too much of a difference in the flavor.

  I found the Ponzu Citrus Seasoning

at Raleys, which is a regular

 full service grocery store.

I was worried that Rick wouldn't 

get to taste the cucumbers before they were 

gobbled up ~ ahem, by me.

But, then I didn't serve what I had

saved for dinner, cause they 

wouldn't have gone well with

  Southwestern Salad.

~Well~

Rick never did taste the cucumbers.

He won't even know about them,

till  he reads this. 

This morning, those 

cucumber fire bombs were OK,

but not near as good as they were yesterday.

The flavors remind me of the  

lightly pickled vegetables

 we were served in Japan.  

The Southwestern Green Salad

was very good.  I didn't take a photo,

but here's the basic idea.

Use salad greens, grape tomatoes~ halved,

drained and rinsed black beans,

grilled corn pieces,

 pitted or sliced black olives,

avocado, Monterey Jack cheese cubes,

and a couple of ingredients I didn't use~

matchstick carrots and sliced red onions.

Top with Lime ~ Cilantro Dressing.

Garnish with crispy tortilla strips.

The recipe is from  

Phyllis Hoffman's Celebrate magazine.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly,

because I just wanted enough for 

the two of us rather than 

the ten servings the recipe makes. 

I thought I remembered that the recipe

had grilled chicken breast included.

So that's what I added even after 

not finding the chicken in the recipe.

What's a girl to do? 

The chicken was already thawed. 

The chicken turned this

 into a main course dish

that even Rick loved.

What made it really special though,

was the dressing. Oh goodness!

Lime ~ Cilantro Dressing

Makes 2 cups

1 1/2 cups bottled ranch dressing

(I used home made)

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

(go ahead and use a bit more)

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

In a small bowl, whisk together ranch 

dressing, lime juice, cilantro, and black

pepper.  Store, covered, in the refrigerator.

Grill the corn and chicken breast

early in the day.

Later when it's too hot to cook,

throw together your salad ingredients

and enjoy.  

We made it through that awful heatwave

last week.  It got to 116 degrees here 

with unusual humidity on top of that...

Like it wasn't hot enough.

Today, were warming up to 101 degrees

without the humidity.. thank goodness.

source: Facebook friend, who got it from somewhere...

Book recommendations for Cathy:

Cathy and I were Red Cross Volunteers 

while we were stationed in Misawa, Japan

in the early 1980's.  We were Red Cross

volunteers working in the base post office.

Gosh, I loved working there, handing

out packages at the window, sorting mail

and just plain having fun.  

I think we worked

three afternoons a week

 when the mail flights came in.

Anyway, Cathy mentioned that 

she liked books from the WWII era.

I enjoyed each of these Cathy.

The images are from Amazon. 

Thanks also to everyone who 

recommended books two posts back.

I love spending time engrossed in a good book.

Take care,  and enjoy the goodness of summer.

Hopefully, I'll be back later this week.

Let's Pretend To Love Summer

  

Our local weather man 

forecast temps up to 115 today.

 We're not exactly enjoying it.

(smile)

Last nights low temp stayed in the eighties.

It's already over 100 degrees

 and it's not even noon yet.

The good news:

We're going to have a cool spell

starting Saturday where it will get down

to 102*F.

Yahoo! Now that's something 

to look forward to.    

I recently read this.

All I can say is:

Try to eat locally grown produce,

 hopefully organic, non GMO,

and be careful of where your meat comes 

from.   Especially ground beef. 

We eat ground turkey, but who

knows if it's any cleaner or safer..

or healthier.  (I'm hopeful.)

If you do decide to have a hamburger

or eat at the world wide fast food chains

go to In & Out Burger and stay away

from the clown, the colonel, and the king.

I already felt that way anyway.

Enough said.  

I tried to wash my mind clean

 by reading this.

I loved the first book I read

  from Frances Mayes.

It was 'Under The Tuscan Sun'.

I found myself skimming certain parts

of this one that I didn't find interesting.

I thought her descriptions of some 

religious art work and her trips to see it

got rather long winded.

I also felt I needed to have a dictionary 

nearby to translate unfamiliar words,

and they weren't Italian words either. 

I kept track of them on a napkin

to look up later.

I missed reading her second book

'Bella Tuscany'.

After reading reviews on Amazon

 this morning,  I think I'll skip it.

By the way, the book images are

from Amazon's web site.

  Have you read her books?

What did you think?

I'm just starting to read

'City of Women'.

It's not lighthearted,

but then I'm not expecting it to be.

It's about women

 in Berlin during WWII.

So, what are you reading this summer?

Besides blogs? (smile)

What's on your reading list?

I purchased these books from Costco on separate shopping trips.

Turns out, they're both food related in a way. 

I haven't been reading much until recently.

 Other projects and life kept getting in the way.

I took Mennonite in a Little Black Dress ~ A memoir of Going Home

 out on the boat with us Sunday

 and had time to read most of the book.

 I finished it  the next morning, rather than get started on chores. (sigh) 

When I get to a certain point in the book where I am almost finished,

 I  get reluctant to put it down. You?

  It's a  compulsion that I just have to FINISH,

no matter what else needs to be done.  

  

 Rhoda Janzen shares recipes for what she calls Shame-Based Foods from her past.

 Warmer Kartoffelsalat (warm potato salad)

Persimmon Cookies,

Platz (yeast sweet dough baked with fruit and a streusel topping),

Cotletten ( ground meat mixture) with Onion Cream Gravy,

and Borscht.

Turns out that this kind of food from her childhood

 that  was embarrassing to her then, 

 is comfort food for her now.

 Of course the book isn't about food,

 it's about growing up, being an adult,

and returning to the family roots in time of need.

The other book Starting from Scratch  (Susan Gilbert-Collins) has a similar theme.

It too, is about going  back home  for comfort, and grief sharing.

The main character turns to cooking for her family members to help her cope with the death

of her mother. She also takes a temporary job at a Senior Center

delivering food for the Meals on Wheels program before returning to her academic life.

The author also includes recipes in her book and even these are comfort foods.

Chicken Broth from a real chicken... not the canned stuff.

Annie's Favorite Meatballs

Late Night Fried Spaghetti (uses only one pan!)

Cheddar Soup with Shredded Carrots and Potatoes.

In Starting from Scratch, 

the characters served  up fresh popped Parmesan popcorn.

Yep, I tried it and it was really good.

 I've made it twice already.

What can I say~~

occasionally we have popcorn for dinner.

Especially if we've gone out for lunch and would rather not cook dinner.

Anyway,

Cook your popcorn on the stove top,  not the microwave stuff.

Dress with melted butter and salt if desired. Use the real stuff OK.

Then  cover with sprinkles of freshly grated Parmesan,

again use the fresh stuff, not from the green can.

I use fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano

 thrown into the blender and whirled around a bit to make it a bit powdery.

It's perfect for a comfy movie night at home.

Let's just pick some happy movies though,  eh.

Take care.

Fun Book

The other day, while at Lowe's I ran across this book. 

 I've wanted this book for awhile now, just because of the title.

  I've been a long time fan of Sharon  Lovejoy's writing. 

 So, without much thought I purchased it and I'm so glad I did. 

 

Here's a peak.  I'll save the rest for you to check out  on your own. 

 If you are a  fabulous grandma or a really wonderful Mom, this book is for you and your little ones.

Sharon's site:   http://sharonlovejoy.blogspot.com/

Whatcha reading?

   http://anewscafe.com/  had an interesting question of the day.

 What's the first sentence, of the third paragraph, on page 158 of the book you are reading?

 my answer~~  "He'll know."
But that's the entire paragraph. 
I prefer the forth paragraph's first sentence.

  "Do you have email?"  She and Johnny looked at me like, what a stupid question.
From the book I'm currently reading called  ~~  The 19th Wife, by David Evershoff

Little bits of this and that.

Last night I made Cashew Chicken from a recipe in this book.  

It turned out good, but not exactly what I was expecting. 

Rick loves cashew chicken when we eat out at Chinese restaurants.  This was good, but different.

 The restaurants here just can't compete with Old Miyaki's, a Chinese restaurant  in Misawa Japan.  Not even this recipe can surpass a 25 year old memory of how it should taste.  So, on to a light dessert.

We've never tried this before.  I found it for 99 cents at our Winco grocery store.  It's OK.

This is half a serving.   It's mild and soft.  We also have a peach/mango flavor to try.  I don't think I'll be buying this again.  The pumpkin loaves are from the Libby's pumpkin bread kit I got for $1.98 at Winco.  The kits were much more expensive during the holidays.  It made two loaves with eggs, water and oil to add to the mix.  It's good.  I don't usually buy mixes as I actually like cooking from scratch.     One loaf went to work with Rick this morning.  The second loaf is going to the Senior Center with me this afternoon for Game Day.  The gals should really like it.  I'm also taking sandwich baggies so they can take it all home.

I am currently reading this, a fun and light hearted read.

Defacing my cookbooks?

 

Do you leave notes in your cookbooks?  How about notes such as when you made the dish and whether or not you liked it?  Do you write about the changes or substitutions that you made? Did you note whether or not you’d like to make it again and how you might like to change it in the future if you come back to it? Do you mark recipes that you’d like to try in the future?  Do you  write about it being a recipe for a special occasion like a birthday dinner or a holiday?  I am guilty of all the above.  So there.