Happy 4th of July!

sissy, that steak and mushrooms looks delicious, and I just had beef yesterday, yummy. The burger looks good too, I must be hungry.

dcarch, You just made me glad I has squash in the freezer. It's already cooked and mashed, so it's not pretty, but it's really good, and leftover from my bumper crop of butternut squash last year.

In the meantime, I grilled, something which seldom happens. Yesterday we had a 4th of July picnic, Ashley and Amanda both had to work today, so we had an early party. Mother brought some pre-cooked ribs and I just put them on the girll and sauced them. I marinated some sirloin tip in teriyaki for shiskabob, made potato salad, Amanda made baked beans without even calling me for instructions! The rolls are whole wheat butterflake rolls that were in the freezer, I just thawed them and didn't bake them fresh:

Ashley made fresh lemonade with fresh Michigan strawberries, it was really good:

The guys drank beer and I made blueberry crisp and homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert. The real hit, though, was these sugar cookies with red/white/blue frosting:

OK, I'll admit, I thought it was icky, the guys were walking around with beer in one hand and a cookie in the other. That can't be good....

Annie

Annie, I posted to your 4th of July thread. But I'll post again here. I really enjoy your family parties. Everyone always looks like they are having an amazing time and no one ever goes a way hungry. Ashley's lemonade looks so good. Great idea to add strawberries.

Thanks Sissy. Not much cooking going on here the last few days. I suffered through the long weekend with an abscess tooth. Finally got to see my dentist today. I'm just waiting for the antibiotic to really kick in.

I did something very simple on the grill tonight. Fresh halibut finished off with a black olive and tomato salsa.

Ann

I haven't had anything to contribute for awhile. There's been this 1,200 cal/day diet, and an electrical project consuming my attention. But I made something tonight and here it is. This is the fitful fruit of my ''learn Indian cooking'' project, which was almost stillborn but apparently has yet just a bit of life left. Blurry pictures, sorry.

Mustard greens and spinach, with red onions, garlic, ginger, jalape�o peppers, cherry tomatoes. I scratched my earlobe while prepping the peppers and that earlobe hurt, I really mean hurt, for 10 minutes, but my fingers were unaffected. Weird.

Chicken, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardoman, garam marsala, cayenne pepper, tumeric, onion, garlic, ginger, tomato, tomato paste, anchovy paste. Simmered for an hour, then chicken added to cook and coat. I'm no expert on Indian food, but anyway it smells like curry - all through the house . . .

Also some couscous for this go on, as I seem to be out of basmati rice and haven't learned to make naan yet.

Lou, your lasagne looks delicious.
Sissyz, your burger could be a magazine illustration. Now I am craving one.
Ann, did you get that new grill? I hope your tooth is better today.
Dcarch, another masterful presentation, as usual.
Annie, Amanda's baked beans look as good as yours. I'm glad you didn't have to do all the cooking and overwork your knee.
John, how's your family faring on your diet? I can almost smell that chicken.
Alexa, that is one fantastic looking paella. The crab legs really add to the visual appeal of the dish.

We've been grilling too. Rob's post reminded me that we hadn't had chicken livers for a while so one night we grilled some on skewers with mushrooms and squares of bacon and onions.

The only time I used the oven last week was to make short ribs braised in a sauce starring star anise. That's a cold salad of black beans, tomato, avocado, etc. in the dish.

Still trying different combos of fruit and proteins. This one was poached salmon, langostinos and oranges with and orange-ginger-sesame dressing.

Grilled bone-in chicken thighs and Greek-style salad another night. I put sliced garlic, shish taouk seasoning and strips of lemon peel under the skin and they were very flavorful.

Yum, Ruthanna, that fish looks delicious. So does Ann's halibut, I think halibut is my favorite fish.

But Alexa's paella.....sigh.

I've got to make some fish.

Annie

The family is bearing up bravely under my diet. They don't much care if I eat or how much. My fourth gaunt week without bread, pasta, rice, or pork belly leaves them unbowed and reaching for another baguette. Such troopers! I'm so proud of them. Their disconcern for the household help is so, well, grand.

Ruthanna, I'd love a helping of your short ribs.
I did buy that grill. So far I'm really happy with it.

Annie, I feel the same way about Alexa's paella. I some how missed her photo. Loaded with all that crab. What's not to like.

Last night we had homemade Italian sausage with pasta.

Dessert was Rhubarb Pie.

I had picked too much rhubarb so this morning I made six jars of Rhubarb and Orange Jam. Since I don't do jam, Moe and our neighbours will share.

Made Moe scones for breakfast so he could use up some of the jam.

Ann_t...how can you not "do" jam?? I will "do" it. Give it to me. It looks fabulous!

ruthanna, may I ask, what are shish taouk strips? That chicken looks gorgeous!

Sissy, if you were my neighbour I would be happy to give it too you. Even as a kid, I never liked jam. Doesn't matter what the flavour, I just don't like it. But I don't mind making it.

Ann

Sissy, I agree, I also "do" jam. I like it on toast or pancakes or hot biscuits or scones or in thumbprint cookies or....well, I like it. (grin)

Dad used to eat it with a spoon. Probably why he was diabetic and died in his early 70s. (sigh) Just because it has fruit, doesn't make it health food, I suppose.

I still like it, and I need to make strawberry rhubarb. Ann T, yours has a nice consistency, almost like a fruit butter. Did you puree the rhubarb or just cook it down?

Annie

John, I'm picturinging you stranded on a Diet Island with carb sharks circling in the waters. Stay tough out there. :)

Sissyz, your daughter's birthday is perfectly timed for a beautiful fruit tart.

I get the shish taouk (chicken kebab) seasoning pre-mixed at a Lebanese/Syrian market. Ingredients on the label are: white pepper, sweet pepper, laurel leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and coriander. I loosened the skin and sprinked the thighs with it, added strips of lemon peel and sliced garlic, and tightened the skin back up before grilling.

Not much cooking going on this week since I've been working at our PA Dutch folk festival. I've been taking advantage of the takeout possibilities like this one:

Ruthanna, I would be taking advantage of that opportunity too. Problem is I would want everything on that menu.

Sissy, your daughters birthday tart looks spectacular. All that beautiful fresh fruit. Wow.

If you are looking for another Shish Taouk recipe I can recommend one I found last year on another blog. I love the garlic sauce that is served with the kabob.

Shish Taouk with Toum (Garlic Sauce)

Ingredients (around 15 skewers):
1.5 kg chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 cup olive oil
3 tbsp dijon or mild mustard
3/4 cup lemon juice
10 crushed garlic cloves
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp white (or black) pepper
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tbsp finely chopped thyme
mushrooms, (optional but highly recommended)
1 red and/or 1 green pepper (optional but highly recommended)

Emulsify the mustard with the olive oil. This is done by whisking a little bit of olive oil into the mustard and continuing to do so until all the olive oil is incorporated.

Add and whisk the lemon juice, salt, pepper, tomato paste, garlic and thyme until well mixed
Marinate the chicken in the sauce overnight in the fridge.

Skewer the chicken along with pieces of mushroom and red/green pepper and barbecue or grill until done. Don't over cook otherwise the chicken would dry out.

Toum (Garlic Sauce)

Ingredients:
5 cloves of garlic
1 egg white
1 cup of neutral oil (sunflower is fine)
Juice of 1 lemon
a good pinch of salt
1 cup of iced water of which you will use around 2 tbsp

Put the garlic cloves along with salt and 1/4 of the lemon juice in the blender. Blend on medium and scrape the sides down when the garlic goes flying everywhere. Add the egg white and blend on medium.
Add half the oil in bit by bit. A thin stream is not necessary, but don't go crazy. A reasonable, fine, steady pour is good.

At this stage, the emulsification should have taken place. If it hasn't and the sauce looks like it has split, then something has gone wrong. You may need to remove half the amount, add another egg white, whiz away and re-pour what had already split. But if you take it slow without pouring the oil too quickly, it should be fine.

Switch to a slow blend, and add the rest of the lemon juice in slowly too.
Add the rest of the oil in the same fashion.
Add 1 or 2 tbsp of water. You will see the consistency change into something wonderfully creamy and light.

Ok, I don't know if I would ever try something that seems like it would go wrong so easily...but trust me on this one, if I were your neighbor, ann_t, I would be SSSOOOOO happy!!!

Dinner last night was homemade meatballs glazed with a barbecue sauce, fresh corn on the cob, and sliced German Johnson tomatoes, the first corn and tomatoes of the season!

Tonight was Greek Chicken and Potatoes - chicken thighs, new white potatoes, chicken broth, garlic, fresh thyme, crumbled oregano, olive oil and lemon juice. Also, a fresh squash casserole with cheddar cheeeeese, of course. Pretty good if I do say so myself!

Teresa

Thanks, Annie. That sounds exactly like the type of dish we would really like.

Theresa, it must have been a treat to open up corn and tomato season.

I didn't get a chance to go to any of the makets this past weekend so dinner tonight was going to be whatever I could make out of four slices of bacon.

We ended up with grilled bacon-wrapped potatoes and mushrooms, Maryland tomatoes that only whetted our appetite for garden fresh ones due in the next week or two, and slightly overcooked fresh broccoli.

It wasn't the greatest meal but it was What's For Dinner on 7/11.

Ruthanna, that menu sure looks good, and so does your dinner.

Here mine wasn't all that exciting either, it was leftovers.

Last night we had sole with fresh herbs from the herb garden. Elery cooked it on the grill and I made the season's first green beans from the local farm market. Unfortunately, I got distracted and scorched them, but managed to save just enough for supper for the two of us. I didn't take pictures of the beans, LOL, they were scorched....um......caramelized. Yeah.

Saturday night we had eggs, tomato/basil ciabatta and fresh new potatoes, fried with onions:

It was a fast supper because we went to Nelson's and picked sweet cherries. 44 pounds of them, because his son and DIL wanted some and one of the guys he works with wanted some and mother wanted some. I put 25 pounds in the freezer. they were so ripe they were black and soft enough that a few got stuck in the cherry pitter and had to be removed. Sweet and good, I still have this bowl in my refrigerator for snacks.

Annie

Annie, when you mention the quantities of food you put in your freezers......700 Cannelonis and now 25 lb of cherries, not to mention your meats etc etc. HOW many freezers do you have and how big are they? Curious minds (mine) want to know. :-)

jasdip, I have two freezers and Amanda has another one. The canneloni is mostly gone, remember, tht was wedding food.

Anyway, I have one 19 cf large chest type freezer, I can put half a beef and a whole pork in there. I have another smaller chest freezer, 7 cf, I put fruits and vegetables in there and use it for the other "incidentals" like bread, pesto, etc. My refrigerator in the house also has a top freezer, so that's where the ice cream, butter, ice cubes, etc. are.

Amanda has a big 20 cf upright, and she can also fit a half of a beef and a whole pig in hers, with just a little room left for blueberries and such. Her kitchen freezer above the fridge keeps her ice cream, bread, etc.

That's why I can so much, by the time I put meat in the freezer there's no room for things like tomatoes or salsa or freezer jam. That all has to be canned.

Even those cherries will be taken out when it's cooler and there's not as much to do outside, and I'll make jam then. It'll definitely have to be done before fall, when we slaughter beef. Strawberries too, because I have some that I tried to seal with the Food Saver and of course they all came unsealed. Grrrr. I'll make jam from those too, but not now, it's been in the high 80s/low 90s. It's much nicer to stand over a jam pot in January than it is in July, LOL.

However, when we slaughter beef in the fall, I'm going to give Ashley and Kevin the smaller freezer because we're going to share half a beef with them. Amanda, David and the kids can eat half a beef, but Ashley and Kevin can't and neither can Elery and I, so we'll split it. With only a quarter of a beef instead of a half, I'll have room for fruits and berries in my big freezer.

Annie

You could do it Sissy. That recipe really isn't difficult.

Ruthanna, I've never thought of doing bacon wrapped mushrooms or potatoes on skewers. That really sounds good. Of course what isn't good wrapped in bacon.

Annie, Moe would be very happy with both of those meals. And with that big bowl of cherries. I can't imagine pitting 25 pounds. Local BC cherries are now in season. Guess I had better buy some.

Before leaving for work on Sunday morning I cooked up a pot of rice, just so I could make chicken fried rice for dinner.

And my favourite breakfast this week was a savory french toast. I've always eaten my french toast with just salt, pepper and butter. But this time I add lots of pepper to the egg mixture and I added chives. This was so good. The flavour made me think of potato pancakes. I think next time I might serve it with a side of sour cream.

Another breakfast

Last night's dinner was spaghetti with a meat sauce. Very similar to what Coconut made. I used ground pork, onions, garlic, basil, fresh rosemary and fresh chopped tomatoes. A little chicken broth and then simmered for about an hour. Finished with lots of fresh chopped basil.

Ann, the savory french toast looks so good. I'm going to try that soon. I really prefer savory breakfast items like your potato pancakes. When I was a kid, my mom would heat up leftovers for my breakfast, or fix me eggs and some sort of meat cutlet.

I should note that last week I made your "Taco Bell" meat recipe for homemade taco salads. It came out really good, and I especially liked the soft texture achieved by the slow simmer. It was salt free but still very tasty. In fact, my husband said it was so good, I could serve it to him every day. It's always heartening to find a salt free recipe or method that makes him happy. Thanks!

Annie, your cherries look so good. Do you make anything with the frozen ones besides jam?
Ann, your photo prompted me to make French toast for breakfast yesterday. I'd love that hot chicken sandwich but since our house isn't air conditioned, I rarely use my oven in the midst of the summer to roast a chicken or anything else.

A couple of hot weather meals this week:

Grilled chicken hearts and shrimp

Portabella mushroom ravioli in broth, corn and zucchini salad with buttermilk mustard dressing

Oh yes, I make Jo's summer torte, I make Black Forest syrup (which is supposed to be jam but it never ever sets up and I like it better as syrup on ice cream and that summer torte anyway), I make black cherry ice cream with chunks of dark chocolate in it, and I make filling for homemade pop tarts. Oh, and sometimes I just thaw them and add them to fruit salad and sometimes I eat them frozen, all by themselves.

so what was for dinner? I'm at elery's, he's still at work. Cooper and I made the 3 hour drive and I stopped at Dairy Queen and got a strawberry shake. That was what was for supper.

tomorrow we're taking a trip into Ann Arbor to shop at the Asian Market that Nancy found and told us about, at Trader Joe's, maybe Whole Foods. We haven't decided about lunch yet.

Annie

Annie

Ann, I have made the Savory Bacon and Cheese Bread Pudding recipe from Harvest to Heat that is baked, chilled and then sauteed in butter (yeah, I know LOL) and it was excellent with just a small change. I prefered it with a blend of cheddar and gruyere rather than the mild farmers cheese that the original recipe called for. I bet you might like it since it is similar to your savory French Toast - which looks wonderful.

Ruthanna, that shrimp looks amazing, but I 'm not sure about the chicken hearts LOL! I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to organ meats. However, your portabella mushroom ravioli in the soup looks absolutely delish.

Annie - 44 LBS of cherries????? Oh. My. Word. That is cherry heaven! And I need to ask about tomatoes, I found a local farm that sells #2 for $0.50/lb, is that a good price in your opinion for making salsa or "catsup"? I can get a 25 lb box for about $12 - $13, so I am back on the "catsup" track.

Sissy - that berry pie looks delightful......

So here is dinner tonight, I'm not even sure if I am going to cut them. I may just lean over the sink and eat them "as is" LOLOLOL!

Wow. Look at those tomatoes! One of those looks like a Black Krim, an heirloom variety from Russia. You are in for such a great dinner!

Alexa, I can't wait until local tomatoes are available. Beautiful.

Ruthanna, Your shrimp on skewers looks great. I don't do hearts but I would love chicken livers done the same way. I'd love a bowl of your soup.

I roasted the chicken on the grill. Although the way our summer as been, heating the oven actually is a good idea. Our evenings are cool and our day temps are mostly in the 60's. We are still waiting for summer.

We had a roast turkey dinner last night. The turkey was presalted for two days. I made the stuffing/dressing before leaving for work yesterday and Moe put the turkey in the oven about 30 minutes before I got home. At 500°F the little 10 pound turkey didn't take long to roast.

Ann

Alexa, I don't know if that's a good price for tomatoes or not, it wouldn't be here. I can get half a bushel, which is about 26 pounds, for $7, but I'll bet prices are higher in your area.

Ann T, like you, I prefer french toast savory, with just butter, maybe black pepper. Yum, it looks delicious.

It's been way too hot here to cook. Elery and I made that trip to the Asian market and I finally found the dark and thick Indonesian soy sauce for nasi goreng that Sherry and I had in Kalamazoo. We also bought spicy pickled radish, quail eggs, some black rice. When it cools off here I'll cook something, but it's been in the 90s and my kitchen is about 20 degrees hotter than that.

Tonight I had cucumbers from my back yard and these tomatoes, not as big as Alexa's, but sweet and good:

We'd gone to Whole foods while we were in Ann Arbor and they had fresh figs:

They were very bland and not sweet, and seedy, I think figs don't ripen well off the tree. Ah well.

Elery grilled some sole with fresh herbs and I'd stopped at MagicLand on the way to his house and bought the first local corn, the first local tomatoes, some fresh green beans. the bread was excellent, from Zingerman's Deli. the corn and tomatoes, however, were just as I anticipated. The first and "early" varieties just don't have the flavor of the later traditional ones, so although the tomatoes were much better than the ones I get at the store, they still were not at their peak and the corn was pretty bland too.

I think tomorrow night the kids are coming over to swim and I'll just order pizza for them.

Annie

Annie, I can't believe how cheap tomatoes are for you and for Alexa.

Tomatoes at our farmers markets run between $3.50 and $4.50 per pound. Nothing is cheap at our farmers markets.

I paid $5.78 yesterday for two heirloom tomatoes.

Today's breakfast.

Bacon, Cheddar and Chive Muffins.

Ann, have you posted that muffin recipe before? It looks like something my husband would really like. Would you mind posting it again?

Thanks,

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Bacon Cheddar and Chive Muffins

Sue, if your husband is anything like mine, he will love them. The recipe only makes six. Next time I'm doubling the recipe.

Ann

OMG, Ann these muffins look fabulous. I must make these. I'm not able to copy the recipe?

Here is a link that might be useful: Bacon Cheddar and Chive Muffins

Here it is:

Bacon, Cheddar and Chive Muffins

Source:
Hot Potato Adventures in Baking

BBC Good Food Sept. '08 Issue
Reader Recipe/Claire Whapshot

4 strips bacon, cut into small pieces
2 ounces cheddar
6 ounces flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon english mustard
2 eggs
3 ounces butter, melted
7 ounces milk
1 tablespoon parsley (I used chives)

Oven 350F. Spray muffin tin with nonstick spray. Cook bacon until crispy and drain on paper towels. Cut 2/3 cheese into small pieces, grate remaining 1/3. Sift flour, baking powder , pepper and 1/2 ts salt together. Mix eggs, milk, mustard and butter together in measuring cup, add to the dry ingredients and mix very lightly. Batter will be runny and lumpy. Add in the cheese, bacon and parsley/chives and mix gently. Divide batter between 6-7 muffins cups, they will be very full. Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and golden.

you are always so generous. I rarely bake, but these muffins are calling my name!
Speaking of my name, last weekend I saw a boat on our lake with "my" screen name. I felt like a little part of "me" had been stolen! My reaction surprised me, I'm not posessive by nature.

Ann, your turkey looks so tempting, I will have to get half a turkey breast and grill it on Sunday.

Alexa, is that one in the center a pineapple tomato with a red center when you cut it open?

Annie, I'll be waiting to see your creations with the ingredients from the Asian market.

It seems as if the gardens in our neighborhood co-op all started producing at once this week. No corn yet but lots of tomatoes.

I marinated the some with cukes, onions and green peppers and had them for Tuesday's dinner, along with wax beans with whole grain mustard and three colors of beets, all from the gardens. Not in the picture was asiago cheese bread and black cherry iced tea.

DH and I have been working nearly every day getting set up for our Friends of the Library book sale so between that and the heat, pool visitors, and a relative in the hospital, some dinners have been like last night's - cold cantaloupe soup and make-your-own hoagies.

What's for dinner this week? Fresh corn and tomato sandwiches......that's about it. Oh, and one night was sausages, scrambled egg and toast.

Teresa

Ann, thank you for the recipe. I've got to get some more AP flour, but as soon as I do, I'm going to make the muffins. I think I will double it too. I like to have an assortment of low sodium breakfast goodies in the freezer for my husband's breakfasts. He's usually up earlier than I am. I know he'll love these. If I use low sodium bacon, omit the salt, and use sodium-free baking powder, these will fit into his diet quite well. I like the idea of using chives rather than parsley. I've got some growing in a pot outside.

Thanks, again.

Sue

Haven't had time to read much less post on this thread for quite some time! So many wonderful and inspiring meals to drool over!

Ann, we just bought that exact same grill except ours is a "Rebel" as opposed to your "Broilmate". Other than the name, exactly the same grill. So far we like it, too.

I've been cooking some, but this extreme heat we have been having has hampered my cooking spirit a bit! Whew it's been hot and humid!

I'll try to be better and post some meals in the near future!

Linda

Teresa, can't go wrong with fresh tomatoes and corn. Or breakfast for dinner.

Sue you are welcome. I hope you both enjoy that muffin as much as we did.

Linda, It does look like the same grill. Made by the same company. Does the Huntington have the same rear burner and rotisserie as the Broil-Mate? The rotisserie is actually wasted on me. I find that roasting over indirect heat is just as good as roasting on a rotisserie.

The heat wave seems to have stopped on the east side of the Rockies. It is down right chilly here.

We are having dinner with Clif and Barb tonight. I picked up fresh halibut and we will have roasted potatoes on the side.

Ann

Ann, ours has an option to add a rotisserie, but like you, it's not something I would probably ever use so we did not buy one. Only other differnce I see in yours is the doors on the front for access to the tank. Ours is accessed from the rear and it's a tad inconvenient. Wish we would have gotten a front access.

Heading to the grocery. Tonight's dinner will be something with shrimp. Either Scampi or Cindy Mac's Louisiana BBQ Shrimp. Tomorrow night Chicken with Tarragon Cream Sauce.

After more than aa week of stifling heat we are getting a little break, it's nice and cool right now. Hoping that it will stay that way so I can do some baking this afternoon.

Linda

Stayed in today where it's nice and cool. Felt like cooking/baking so I made 2 loaves Honey Wheat Bread, and my summer pie.

It's a graham-wafer pie made with ice cream, orange juice and jello. The liquid isn't the pie melting, it's a bit of liquid from the mandarin oranges. When you slice it, it's in firm slices.

All that Asian shopping, and then yesterday Elery and I went to the Mediterranean Market and next door to Russo's Wine Warehouse, a brother of Ann T's favorite grocer, GB Russo's. Little hole in the wall that has a little of everything, and right in the same shopping plaza as the Mediterranean place. So Elery bought some wine and Calamata olives and I got tahini and a date filled cookie and some pita bread. Oh, and Elery bought a package of goat meat which will become tacos or something this week.

When I came home we stopped at a local farm and picked up a dozen eggs, she said they were "big this week". Well, I guess. The one on the left is one of this week's eggs, the one on the right is one I bought last week and it was a pretty large egg:

It's nearly as wide as my thumb and as tall as my index finger, I was sure it would be a double yolker but we had it for breakfast and it wasn't:

My little backyard garden is going great guns, yesterday we had roasted chicken made with Lars' Algerian chicken recipe, and put it into those pita pockets with some chopped romaine, fresh cucumbers from my fines and fresh sliced tomatoes from Magicland's hoop houses. I'll have my own in another couple of weeks:

Friday night Elery got here late, he had to take Pancho to the vet. Poor Pancho had been on heart meds and lasix and then he tore the tendon in his back leg. The heart condition made surgery impossible and the pain meds mess up his stomach, and Elery had to make the sad but inevitable decision to help him by allowing the vet to euthanize him. So he wasn't in much of a mood to eat and we just had some flaxseed chips from Trader Joe's with some hummus made with edamame in lieu of the garbanzo beans. I thought it was a bit bland, so I added cumin, it was really very good.

Tonight Elery grilled some maple glazed salmon while I made a brown rice and lentil pilaf that I'd picked up at Whole Foods and picked a couple of zucchini from the backyard which was stirfried with red and yellow peppers and a sweet onion with a bit of olive oil and Penzey's Northwoods seasoning, along with a grilled pita bread.

It's still in the 90s here, so not much other cooking going on. Poor Elery is used to his air conditioned house, it's a bad time to have a couple of weeks off to spend with me!

Annie

Annie~so sorry to hear about Pancho. Hopefully, spending a couple weeks with you will bring peace to Elery's heart.

Thank you, sissy. Pancho was nearly 14 and had been with Elery through some very bad times, so although Elery doesn't say it ('cuz he's a guy, you know, too tough), he misses him a lot. Cooper has spent time looking for Pancho too, he can't figure out why Elery came and Pancho didn't, so he misses his little crabby buddy as well. I even miss fighting for the blankets with him, it seems strange to not have to get up at night and let him out and I still look for him when I get home. He was sick and in a lot of pain, though, and it was definitely the right decision.

Annie

I haven't been using the oven, much, but trying to make use of the food coming out of the garden!
Cucumber in Sour Cream

Annie, sorry about Pancho.

Sissy, Your Thai Noodle Salad looks amazing. And so does your potato salad. Great photos.

Ann

Thank you, Ann T. Since the Dead Cat hasn't come back from her escape on July 3, I'm figuring she's probably gone permanently too. I called te police department, Animal Control, the local Humane Society. I put fliers at the grocery store/gas station/hardware store, I talked to all the neighbors. No crabby old black cat either, so it appears that Cooper has become an Only Dog.

Sissy, I also like the look of those cucumbers, I have a fridge full of them and can't eat them as fast as I am picking them.

Annie

Oh Annie, I am so sad. And sorry. Hugs to you and Elery.

I am still eating pulled pork. Still. Tonight, I will likely add some to my grilled cheese. I'm still not tired of it.

:)