Split pea soup? Yum! I'll be there, even if it is snowing. Son is supposed to be with my ex this weekend, but he delivers pizzas on the weekend, so I get the boy for superbowl, yay! I sure wouldn't want to deliver on this Sunday, but I bet he makes some good tips.

This weekend is the monthly grocery shopping. So after cleaning out what little tidbits are left, and seeing the new, I'll decide what to cook. I think I'll cook the pork roast sitting in the fridge on Sunday night and use up the last of the sausage and cornbread in the freezer by stuffing it in the roast. See? Old and new together.

Hate to say it, but we're to be in the 60s. I'll take it! I'm not trying to rub it in, believe me, just glad for warmth. Especially since a pipe burst yesterday and I spent the last half of the day sucking water and drying floors. ugh. I'll have to put away the boxes and bikes when I get home this evening. The only thing that got damp were boxes I'd kept inside so they wouldn't be in "wet storage" and I was right, all the stuff outside got wet. Luckily, they were in plastic bins, shut tight. Except the wrapping paper, but even then, luckily, I only lost a small amount, because... I keep meaning to take the extra in the house and putting it outside. Whew. Glad I procastinated.

Today is payday/Friday, my favorite combination! Woohoo! The only thing better than that is grocery shopping weekend because everything is totally restocked. Cabinets and closets. I feel truly blessed.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

It's Super Bowl in NY, and Chinese New Year.

Other than a couple of parties, not sure what else cooking-wise.

dcarch

Pea soup and ham sounds good, but I've been eating a lot of soup lately, as I have been under the weather since Wednesday of last week, which is why I did not post under TGIF last week. I'm much better now, probably at 95%, but I will still take it easy this week-end. It's gotten cool here (mid 60s) and I think we may have had rain last night, which might happen again this week-end, which would be wonderful.

If I'm up to it, I will make tamales. I found corn husks at Sprout's, but they cost $5, which I found to be expensive. Last Saturday (when I should have stayed home), we went to what I thought was a Von's close to our house, but it is now a dollar (or 99 cent) store, and I guess corn husks are too expensive for them to carry! Before that we went to a grocery/liquor store that is even closer to our house, and its doors had been chained, as it is going through a change of ownership. The large recycling center in its parking lot was still open, however, but that was all that was going on. Kevin said that he had seen people who collect bottles and cans get vouchers for what they had collected and then used those vouchers to buy lottery tickets! I think they should have given them food stamps instead. There are too many dollar stores now, I think. The fruit and vegetable market that we used to go to is also now a dollar store. I will say that the dollar store that used to be a Von's is much cleaner than the Von's was, and I did not shop at the Von's because it was not very nice. It would be nice if a dollar store would reopen as a vegetable market.

Maybe I'll make pizzas this week-end and put some of my Roma tomatoes on them. I've been mostly avoiding cheese while I was sick, as I think it makes congestion worse. I think I'll be fully recovered by tomorrow. I want to make something besides soup. I did make some very good cabbage soup while I was sick, and it was quick and easy and much better than I expected, although it did not have much of a cabbage flavor. I had Kimchee flavored soup yesterday.

I turn the TV off whenever anything Superbowl comes on - it's just a lot of annoying noise as far as I'm concerned.

Stay well, everyone and have a great week-end!

Lars

TGIF, all. Diane, you're a good friend. Rob...60's...pfffhhhhlllt! And I hope you're 100% soon, Lars.

I have a three day weekend. We finally got a little snow to cover the ice and the sun's out. Nice after weeks of gray days. The ice has been so bad I couldn't even walk on it with ice cleats. The dog and I are both looking forward to some walks.

I'm in POOF & POOP mode...cleaning out the pantry and reorganizing the freezers. Need to figure out what to do with all the odd ingredients I'm finding.

Today I'll make a batch of cookies for the neighbors, who put a load of sand and two boys with shovels in the back of their truck and sanded my steep ice cube of a driveway.

I don't know about the rest of the weekend. DH wants to run to Costco, but I'd be happy spending three days hiding out.

Have a good weekend everyone. Spring's coming...the days are getting longer. I'll clink with a cocoa and peppermint schnapps after my walk.

Happy Friday from eastern PA, where the big excitement around here this weekend is Groundhog Day. Our township's ceremony will be at a chilly 7 A.M. Sunday, when the Grundsau Lodge #16's groundhogs Yahdee and Lee will be predicting the remainder of the winter weather.

Here's my favorite groundhog lodge mascot:

Female groundhogs aren't used for predictions. They just sit home and wait for the guys to come back into their burrows.

I just returned from the farmers' market with my shopping bags loaded with "irregular" vegetables and citrus fruits and a big bone-in sirloin steak I'll be using for a sort of beef Stroganoff with extra roasted garlic Super Bowl dip and a beef and vegetable stir-fry early next week.

Here's hoping everyone has a good weekend.

The guys are going ice fishing tomorrow - the big pot of venison chili is done and the beer is already cold.

Sunday, we won't be going anywhere near the Super Bowl traffic, and as far as Groundhog Day...

"Groundhog Day", the movie, has become a yearly tradition for us! So dang funny.

Today I made baked chimichangas from leftover chicken fajitas. Yum vote, from the fam.

Tomorrow I'm trying Ann_T's recipe for baguettes. I have the biga in the fridge for the baking tomorrow with DD. I'm making a double batch, so that we'll have enough for a loaf to the neighbors (and our own), flatbread in lunches and maybe pizza!

I have a baking steel in my Amazon cart, but am waffling on the purchase. Will I keep making bread? Will I give up on awesome pizza from our oven? I hate to pay $50 for something that we won't use after my infatuation with dough is over.

I got an email from Pleasant Grain and my fancy mixer is delayed for the third time. The little Bosch I bought my mom from Craigslist (and have been testing, you know, to see if it works) is looking mighty fine, right now. Dang that thing is a workhorse (hence my infatuation with dough).
He's going to mix up meatballs for Superbowl Sunday. I'm unreasonably excited for this. I hate mixing ground meat with my hands!

Diane, you're a good friend. Your soup sounds delicious.

Robin, I'd feel badly for you if you hadn't said 60F. (grin)

Lars, my friend, I sure hope you are completely recovered soon. Like you, I think there are just getting to be too many dollar stores, they are everywhere. We have TWO here in White Cloud. One gas station, no fast food other than Subway, one traffic light, 800 residents. TWO dollar stores. Go figure.

KatieC, I've also been POOFing and POOPing, trying to clean freezers and use up odd pantry items. Some of my meals have been.......creative. (grin) And, like you, I don't think the sun has shone in weeks, until today. It was nice to see it again.

Ruthanna, that female groundhog looks like she might be the one we have here in Michigan, just staying the heck inside!

Malna, I haven't been ice fishing at all this year. The sub zero temperatures kept some people off the ice, but it was the 30 MPH winds that kept me off. I need a far more substantial fish shanty than I have for that!

TGIF indeed. It made 30F here and the sun actually shone for a couple of hours. Enough to make the ice dam on my roof start to melt, which caused a drip in my kitchen. So, I spent some quality time on the roof with Elery handing me buckets of ice melt from the ladder.

The morning was spent at the farm, of course, hauling water to fill stock tanks, setting hay, feeding pigs. The chickens are starting to lay again, I got 3 eggs, I was unreasonably excited, LOL. We're supposed to get 4-6 inches of wet snow tomorrow, so we got everything caught up and it won't take as long tomorrow. Bud and Makayla are coming back home with us and spending the night, so we'll probably even be making pizza.

I've got some soup bones to go into the roaster so I can make and can beef stock, I'm still trying to clean the freezer as pigs will be ready to become freezer residents in another 3 or 4 weeks.

Then, another arctic blast for next week. The groundhog has officially frozen.

Annie

I've never seen a groundhog, but I just found out that they are related to marmots, and I did see one of those at Kings Canyon National Park (just north of Sequoia). I was climbing up a cliff next to a large waterfall with some friends for lunch when I saw a marmot come out of nowhere, apparently interested in our sandwiches. It startled me so much that I yelled "Run for your lives" - thinking it was actually a badger or something fierce, and everyone scrambled off the rocks, fearing for their lives. A few hours later, someone from our camping group asked me, "Did you hear about the person who was attacked by a wild animal and had to be rescued by helicopter?" As it turned out, I was that person and did not have to be rescued. Our group was not very good at keeping the gossip straight.

We had 1/10" of rain yesterday, which is the normal amount, but it does not look like it will continue.

I was not well enough to make tamales, but I did make a couple of whole wheat pizzas and used my Roma tomatoes on one of them. The other one I undercooked slightly so that we can heat it up later. I also used chilies from my yard on the pizzas plus some mild chilies that we got at the store for cheap. I did not have the energy to saute mushrooms, or else I might have added those. I did use fresh oregano from the garden, however. Too bad I don't like rosemary, as I have tons of that right now, and it is making beautiful blue flowers. As the cilantro starts to bloom, I cut the stems with flowers and put them in a vase with water. That way I have cilantro right at hand and don't have to go outside to cut it.

Thanks for the festive groundhog photos!!!

Lars

P.S. I love peppermint with hot cocoa - did you add the Schnapps to the cocoa?

This post was edited by publickman on Mon, Feb 3, 14 at 17:42