Recipes

  • Miscellaneous Monday

    Lest you worry about my whereabouts, I decided to post something today. But what? How about some randomness? I noticed the sign above on one of my morning walks recently. In the unlikely event that you’re unfamiliar with the Monty Python skit, you can watch it here. This is my favorite tulip tree in our area. This house has a much bigger one in the front yard, with darker colored blossoms, but this one charms me. I love the way they keep it shaped. One of our local public art pieces, nicknamed ‘Fountain Head’ was taken away for restoration the other day. Not my picture, I saw it on our…

  • Salad with Avocado and Pickled Onions

    I was scrolling through Facebook the other day, and Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for a salad that looked really good. I decided I wanted to give it a try, so I made it for dinner last night. I made a few changes. I used romaine hearts instead of iceberg, I used feta cheese instead of cotija, and I used more pickled onions because I love pickled onions. I served it with a roasted chicken for Ted and myself, and with fake chicken for Maya. Delicious. You can find the recipe and her beautiful photos, here. Smitten Kitchen’s Baby Wedge Salad with Avocados and Pickled Onions Pickle your onions: Combine…

  • Blustery Weather – Crab, Grapefruit, and Avocado Salad

    California was recently walloped by some fierce weather, especially down south. Our neighborhood got some rain, and some gale force winds. The winds knocked down some trees in our neighborhood, which always makes me sad for a life cut short. In better news, the wind also knocked a bunch of grapefruit down from a tree on one of my morning walks, and I grabbed as many firm ones as I could carry (3). I still had some leftover crab in the fridge, but not enough to make crab cakes*, so I decided to make a first course for our dinner instead. The result was a delicious and refreshing dish, above,…

  • Dinners Last Week

    I have some catching up to do around here, mostly on books that I’ve been reading, which is why I am late to my Monday post, and why I haven’t been to many blogs to comment lately. Hoping to come around more this week and catch up at your place. In the meantime, if you’re looking for meal inspiration, here is what we had for dinner last week, and some thoughts on what we will have this week. Monday – Black Bean Chili – This is an old favorite around here, I’ve been making it for decades, since I received the Greens cookbook back in the early 90s. It’s tasty,…

  • Dinners Last Week

    I’m sure you missed my ‘Dinners Last Week’ posts during NaBloPoMo, so here I am back at it. Maybe I can give you an idea for something to cook, because THAT is the hard part for me. Figuring out what to cook. And like the meme, above, sometimes I have ideas earlier in the week, or even earlier in the day, and then when it’s time to cook, I think, “Couldn’t we just eat cheese and crackers? What about eggs?” I generally stick with my plan, because I have the ingredients. I like cooking, it’s just that by 5:00 when I get off of work, I’ve lost my verve. I…

  • F is for French Toast

    First, a thought…I have seen some of the participants in NaBloPoMo posting About Me stuff, since we are meeting new people. Accordingly, I have resurrected and updated my About Me page, if anyone is interested. I’ve added it to my sidebar, above my blogroll. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Since yesterday’s post was a repeat recipe, why not continue? Longtime readers are perhaps thinking, wow, J sure is stretching the parameters of this NaBloPoMo thing, posting repeats like this. But these are tasty, and it makes me sad to think you might be missing out. The story on this recipe is that it was a work in progress…

  • E is for Eggs

    Do you have thoughts on eggs? I do. I love eggs. Most of the time when I have eggs, I have them scrambled. I’m picky though, I like them scrambled soft so they are still a little wet. Add in some chives and I’m in heaven. I like them over medium (runny yolks, set whites), especially with bacon. I like them poached, though no matter how many times people say it’s not difficult, it’s difficult enough that I don’t enjoy doing it. I like them soft boiled, especially in a salad or something like that. Ditto hard boiled. The only way I don’t really like eggs is when they are…

  • Dinners Last Week

    Last week, we saw a drop in temperature. Monday and Tuesday were not hot, no a/c needed, but they were warm enough that I didn’t want to turn on the oven if I could help it. Wednesday cooled off enough for soup weather. Yay! Soup weather!

  • Dinners Last Week

    When it comes to cooking dinners, I am not a big planner. Since I work from home, I generally go to the store every day. The connection there, if you’re looking for one, is that I like getting out of the house and seeing people. I pretend I’m European, though I can’t walk to the shops, and we don’t have the lovely variety that we found in France (cheese shop, wine shop, produce shop, bread shop, etc.) Suzanne often posts her plans for meals for the upcoming week, which I enjoy because sometimes it gives me ideas. Here, instead, is the meals I cooked last week. Maybe you’ll see something…

  • Peach Salsa

    Trying to figure out what to make for dinner is a never-ending problem, right? Yesterday was hot, mid-90s, so I didn’t want to use the oven. I didn’t really feel like grilling either, and thought that crab cakes would be a perfect solution. There is a local store here that sells pretty good crab cakes, all you have to do is take them home and cook them. Usually when I make crab cakes, I serve them with green salad, but sometimes a person gets tired of green salad. I knew that I didn’t want coleslaw either, so I did an internet search on ‘what to serve with crab cakes’, and…

  • Miscellaneous Monday

    My company extended our 4 day workweek through 2023, so Fridays are my ‘me’ days. My Friday morning walks are more relaxed and meandering than the other weekdays, since I don’t have to be back and at my desk by 8:00. I enjoy them, but not as much as I did when I had Mulder to accompany me in exploring our town. Le Sigh. This last Friday, I had an appointment at 11:00, after which I took myself to lunch, where I enjoyed a lovely grilled asparagus salad with a delicious biscuit and a glass of Sancerre. I finished up my chapters of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for Engee’s…

  • Friday Randomness – Catching Up

    First off, Happy (belated) Birthday to my wonderful husband, Ted! I shared this picture last year too, but I like it, so I’m sharing it again. His birthday was Wednesday, and he and Maya both took the day off from work. I worked, but knocked off a little early. Maya took Ted out for breakfast, and then they went bookstore shopping, which is something we all love doing. They came home and watched Dune, which they both enjoyed. Ted had seen it when it came out, but Maya hadn’t. I worked for the first hour, so I came in too late and didn’t really pay attention. We went out for…

  • Catching Up

    It looks like I took a little blog break there. I’m back today, and have a few minor tidbits to share. First off, this is the same beautiful magnolia/tulip tree that I shared with you a couple of weeks ago. It’s downtown, and likely the next time I walk around the area, it will be bare. We’re having rain again, after a very dry period, which is welcome, but I imagine will knock down most of these blooms. Saturday morning, Maya had an appointment to get her hair done. I dropped her off and then walked around our little downtown for awhile. I like to explore, and went down a…

  • Salad Bar

    Do you really need a recipe for salad with chicken? Probably not. But anyway, here is how I sometimes serve chicken and salad, and I call it a salad bar. This way, we can all have just what we want, and nothing we don’t. I like my salad fully dressed, so I take my portion and put it in a mixing bowl, toss it with dressing, and then put it on my plate. Ted and Maya aren’t as picky as I am, so they just put some dressing on top of their salad and call it done. Here’s a list of the options we had this time. What am I…

  • Miscellaneous Monday

    I don’t know what to write about today, so I’m going to just throw a bunch of stuff at you. Here goes. Regarding the meme above, this is how I felt when we were in France last year. The names of the towns we stayed in were pronounced completely differently than they looked to my American eyes. Mougins is pronounced ‘MOO-jan‘ with a soft j, short a, and a soft n. Click the link to hear. Vincennes is a little closer to how it looks, VA-sen, with a short A. One of the stops on our train ride between Paris and Vincennes is Nation, pronounced NA-si-on, with all short vowels.…