Roasted beet salad with arugula and balsamic dressing and goat cheese. . . a whole meal for me..........

Since I don't have to worry about allergies or sensitivities (although of course I WOULD have. . . like, could I eat corn every night or pot roast every night or a dinner of pasta, bread and cheese? Of course not. THEN big-time sensitivities. Or sugar? Even some, a couple/three times a day every day? No way.) As few commercially prepared things as possible. No canned soup. I make my own taco seasoning, enchilada sauce, salad dressings; love to make hollandaise sauce, love to mix herbs to make rubs and seasonings. Am I 100% natural, no. But once I get GDW to making bread with organic ingredients, we'll be that much better. I am getting increasingly more aware of good ingredients, but must say, I have all my life done better than most folks. And it has been a looooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnngggg life. :) Maybe because I've been cooking from "scratch" all my life and avoiding soda pop and fake goodies and commercially prepared stuff is WHY I don't have any food allergies. Hmmm. (It wasn't because I was a purist, so much, as that I was poor, and figured out it was cheaper to make stuff from pure ingredients than from hamburger helpers. I have never tasted a hamburger helper. Potato chips were fattening and expensive. Yeah, no, I've always avoided convenient foods......... or commercially prepared fillers.)

I absolutely adore good-tasting food. Whether it be fattening German sausages, an exquisitely broiled pork belly stack served with an exquisite roast beet salad with a fine balsamic dressing and goat cheese, or perfect Cobb salad with the best blue cheese dressing ever. I guess I'm blessed that I can eat anything. One perfect spring roll is to die for. But why would I eat a candy bar or potato chip or canned cream of chicken soup when I can eat great foods....................

You guys...................... you high-jacked my thread about delicious foods into healthy foods for those with allergies!!!! LOLOLOL. I wanna get back to foods to die for. Not to only the foods you can have to be healthy for!!! Okay, I honor and love y'all. I DO understand. But as I went on and on, I became more depressed. LOL Your allergies aren't mine. I'm all about WAY delicious recipes (but nutritious ones). Love lobster with butter. Love a tender steak. Loved that pork belly dish and beet salad dish; love a good Cobb salad; love love love liver and onions; love fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn; love grilled cheese; love chili; love spring rolls; love sweet/sour pork or chicken with rice; love so so many things. I adore good-tasting food. Thank God I can discern the difference between good food and junk. That's all there is to it for me. And I am so thankful I can eat anything, and I'm so sorry many of you cannot!!!!

I am glad you can too. And yes we did hijack your thread lol.

I eat many of the same types of food with slight alterations. Like carnitas pulled pork with cilantro lime and tortillas hamburger steak with rich gravy over mashed white stuff (cauliflower not potatoes) herb roasted roots with baked chicken or pot roast. Then there's always massive quantities of bacon and fried apples and plantains for breakfast. :)

They really do need a LAUGH response button here, Kim!! Love ya!!

We don't eat healthy because of any allergies---we eat healthy to try to stay healthy. (grin)

The whole thing with going mostly grain-free and sugar-free has more to do with the inflammatory effects of grains and sugar on human bodies, and the growing links being found between that sort of inflammation and dementia, Alzheimer's Disease and many autoimmune disorders. If I am diagnosed with dementia someday, it won't be because I didn't try to eat in an healthy manner to fend it off. After watching what my dad went through with a very prolonged period of Alzheimer's (about 15 years), I'd do about anything to avoid putting myself and my family through that.

Tim and I can eat anything we want. It is just we are trying to make healthier choices---and, no, that doesn't mean we always eat healthy. We still like fried chicken too! If we eat healthy 80-90% of the time, that's good enough for me, and I have found the best way to eat healthy is to grow our own food and also to not bring junk food into our home. If the junk food isn't here, we can't eat it.

We had Lunch at Hapa today. I had udon noodle soup. I don't know what the broth was made from, my gosh it was good! I think there was miso in it, but it was darker than typical miso soup. Udon noodles are thick round chewy (flour, sorry) noodles. The online recipes put in a lot of veggies, mushrooms and sometimes meat/chicken. Mine today had imitation crab in it, but the broth was the big draw.

And sometimes nothing will do but an egg salad sandwich. :) I admit it would be better on homemade whole wheat bread, George.

I had to google it, Amy. It sounds yummy from your description. Every time I check on the main home threads and see Cornbread Salad, it makes me happy. But I can't make it yet, because grocery store tomatoes taste like cardboard tomatoes. So just have to wait for summer to get here. I'm focusing on greens and lettuces this spring. I've never done greens before, except spinach, and I just have to find delicious ways to fix them.

BTW, Kim, those food you mentioned shortly above all sound positively delicious.

Did you see the post I did on FB for Eileen a while back, asian greens, ginger, garlic turmeric stir fried with coconut milk?

NO! I can DO this. . .

Ha, if I can do it any one can!

Shepherd's pie with leftover roast lamb. It really hit the spot tonight for a comfort meal! Since my renewed interest in herbs, I've been piling the herbs into dishes--and everything is suddenly tastier. I even made sure to throw some chives, thyme and smushed up garlic as well as lots of pepper (and salt of course) into the mashed potatoes.

Starting sourdough tomorrow and Garry can start his bread.

Did Garry eat the lamb?

Yep, he did. He pronounced that the dinner was very tasty. I kinda used a recipe of Ann Burnell's. She soaked the lamb to death with stock by simmering it for an hour, and as it reduced, she kept adding more stock. It really mellowed the lamb when I did the same, and I added so many herbs that helped, too.

I believe that lamb (or even mutton) is the best meat I know, bar none.

I thought I was a lamb meat fanatic, George. But since I've had it half a dozen times in the past six months, I've found myself getting very picky about it! AGGHH. If it doesn't taste exactly like I think it should, not crazy about it. Actually we've gotten that way about beef and pork, too. We're tired of getting rib eyes that are tough, pork that is dry. I KNOW how to fix pork and beef, beef steaks. About every third time we have a ribeye, they'll be incredibly tough--like a bad sirloin. About every 3rd or so pork loin roast, same thing. Hard to find good meat in the grocery stores.

Thanks, Amy. You're turning me into a regular gad-about up there in Broken Arrow. I'm so glad they opened another one! Can hardly wait. We did find some extra lean at Aldi. It was just fine. GDW thought extra lean was THE thing to have so I spotted some extra lean at Aldi, brought it home and made a meatloaf. Dinner was great. But afterward, Garry said, "Uh, if you don't mind, you don't need to buy extra lean anymore. It's so DENSE." LOL. (It WAS dense.) I (happily) acquiesced. I used to get whole loins fro Meats 'n More down here (which are better than the grocery stores, but have even gotten a few stinkers from them.) And I brought them home, froze slightly, then cut chops and roasts from them. One would make us four meals easily--more if I cut them up for say, green chile verde or sweet/sour pork. Yep, I'll buy an assortment--steaks, a little hamburger, stew meat, chuck roast. Maybe liver! LOL Jacob's driving me nuts with his "liver" posts! And pork AND lamb chops, if they have any.

I haven't fixed my kale yet--but remembered our talk about lentils earlier here and thought, "Isn't there a kale/lentil/sausage soup?" Was thinking I'd heard of that, and googled it. SO. That's the meal for Sunday.

It DID sound like a commercial! LOL. But you explained Perry's to me when we visited, so I trust Ron and you, and your opinions on such things.

AND, GDW and I didn't get our respective breads made. AGHH. So now won't until next Wed or Thursday. I tell ya, this being retired is hard work, so many things to DO. lol

Whoa! I opened up the forum and the first thing I see is Cornbread Salad and Lisa! You are more than welcome. That was a recipe I would have never tried without eating it first. It sounds so weird! What do you call Creole Sauce? We host an authentic (mostly) Haitian luncheon every year as a fundraiser. We had Creole Sauce with chicken one year. It is big favorite with one of the women who goes to Haiti every year. We did introduce our Haitian chef extraordinaire to a VitaMix. She is in love! I have been craving pikliz lately, but I haven't made it yet. Think of a hot spicy coleslaw used as a condiment. I have been begging my friend for a recipe, but I don't have hers yet.

:) I now have two recipes--yours and one other one. Both look delicious. Haha, that's funny. My Creole sauce came from kind of combining a couple different Cajun styles. I think one was Emeril, and the other one Paul Prudhomme. No sweet to it (I'm guessing the Haitian one did have? If not, might be similar to the one I made.)

But it had a ton of my herbs, and with my new interest, loved that! Among the herbs: onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, bay leaves, parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, lemon zest (and hey, well as long as I was at it, threw in a bit of fennel, a lot of black pepper. Worcestershire. A bit of Tabasco sauce.) It was surprisingly milder than I thought it would be and was just really tasty.

I'll have to look up pikliz now. :)

Nancy, Perry's is truly wonderful meat, but you'll have to save some of the budget for Siegi's meat market too. They sell a lot more than just sausages, and it's very good meat too. I haven't liked Aldi meat. I usually split the difference between Sprouts and Reasors. I like that I can get smaller packages at Sprouts.

Nancy, I thought I might have stashed a recipe somewhere, but apparently not! I have searched my computer high and low. This recipe *hyperlinked* is probably somewhat close. Epis (a liquid seasoning mix with parsley, garlic, onion, chicken bouillon, and several other items I can't recall) is used in just about every dish. There's a photo essay on the lunch if you want to go look on my FB page. It will be the 2015 Haiti Luncheon or Orphan Care luncheon, I can't remember what I called it.

Rebecca, oh yeah, Siegl's is a no-brainer for the sausage, and will be interesting to see their other stuff, too. I am CRAZY about fun and wonderful food. So with the good recommendations from you, Amy and Ron, I will get to Perry's.

Ahhhh, Lisa! It's cloves that is the secret ingredient!! Fun. Any other common "baking" spices or brown sugar?

I don't recall there being any sugar in it, but it has been 2.5 years! The epis is also the secret ingredient to all their food. They literally use it in everything.

Aha!

INGREDIENTS

1. • 1 small onion, coarsely chopped

• 1/2 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 6 scallions, coarsely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup coarsely chopped parsley leaves with tender stems
• 1/2 cup olive or canola oil
• 6 basil leaves
• What do you think? Close? Certainly nothing"sweet" in that! :)

Does it have a tomato base in it? (this is creole sauce)

http://loveforhaitianfood.com/sos-haitian-sauce-gravy-2/

The epis I have had didn't have basil in it. I recall mostly parsley, but I see cilantro also in a lot of the on line recipes. The color of the one we make is bright fresh green. Otherwise it is probably fairly close. They use it as a marinade and a seasoning ingredient.

The creole sauce---Yes, tomatoes. Tomato paste and tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. . . (I only use San Marzano. :) (Hope to use my own from now on.) Actually, their epis is a lot like what I've been throwing into all kinds of things with my herb bingeing.

Thank you for sharing the creole sauce recipes. I will have to try to make creole sauce when the gardening season is in full swing. Tried to google for some place that I can eat it at, but I don't think there's any in the Tulsa area.

I was watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, and got really inspired to bake a bread because they had a whole episode on that. Baked my first bread ever this morning using Ron's no knead bread recipe. Thank you for posting the recipe, Amy. I am so happy it turned out great because I'm terrible at baking. (Can't seem to get all the measurements & steps right half the time.)

Hope everyone's having a great Saturday.

It is beautiful, Eileen!! A work of art! Don't have time to write more but later. XOXO.

Perry's has Schwab hams. They have them year round, but near the holidays the run out.

Eileen, I'm glad that recipe worked for you! I will ask my kids if there are any Creole restaurants in town. A google shows Nola's Creole and cocktails. NOLA is New Orleans LA.(this is on Cherry Street. Maybe I can hit it after a Cherry Street market day. Lasalle's New Orleans Deli, and Flavors of Louisiana. I have never been to any of them.

Interesting sauces. Seems the doctor told DH he needs to loose some weight. Guess we will be looking for healthier options. Really, we need to add more veggies and salads and have smaller portions of meat and carbs. He needs to lay off candy, and pie. I need to avoid cookies and tortilla chips. So if y'all have recipes for salads and veggie sides, let's see them.

So that's what NOLA stands for! I was looking at Nola's Creole too. They will open in late March. Just messaged them on Facebook to ask. Couldn't find a review on Yelp, and was wondering if they were open for business.

Also, I need help figuring out how to order creole sauce on their menus. I hope I'm not being too ditzy. Would these sauces be similar?

Nola's Premium Sauces

CREAMY CREOLE
A chunky tomato based vegetable sauce made creamy with garlic, parmesan and heavy cream&

ROBAN
A Cajun-spiced cream sauce with garlic and green onions

Maybe the following sounds closer to it?

Flavors of Louisiana
Shrimp Creole: A spicy tomato based sauce with onion, garlic, bell pepper & plenty of shrimp

Might be time for me to try Crawfish Étouffée too since Nancy piqued my interest in that.

I really like the Shrimp Po Boy at Lasalle's New Orleans Deli. DH isn't as interested in seafood sandwiches, so it is difficult to convince him to go again.

As for veggie recipes, what I usually do is I look for different vegetables to try at the Asian supermarket (I go to Asian Mart) and get different Asian greens to stir-fry. Small Bok Choys, Bean Sprouts, Chinese Cabbage, Shen Choy (Amaranth Greens), Taiwanese Spinach, Yam Leaves, Gai Choy (Chinese mustard greens), watercress.

I recently tried to stir fry cucumbers too. Thought it was pretty good. Well, it depends on your taste buds. Haha I'm chinese, so I love most stir-fries.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/05/stir-fried-cucumber-spicy-ground-pork-easy-dinner-recipe.html

Salad salad salad. (I know we share an issue. LOL That's why I'm going to grow lots of buttercrunch and other kinds this year.) I love sauteed asparagus with hollandaise sauce; green bean casserole my way (sauteed mushrooms, white sauce, maybe cheese, maybe those "french fried onions" ); I use the "holy trinity" or mirapoix as often as I can in a base of soups or sauces; I basically throw in as many vegetables as I can into any casserole-type dish, within reason. wilted spinach salad; coleslaw; braised cabbage, hearty soup with tons of veggies in it; cream of broccoli soup; broccoli salad; pickled cucumbers and onions; creamed cucumbers and onions. ham and beans. . . .

Shrimp creole--that sounds a lot like the sauce I made, Eileen. I fixed wilted spinach salad tonight--a favorite of mine. Have any of you eaten it down here? I think it's my favorite way to eat spinach. Fried bacon broken in pieces. Then spinach, chopped (about 3 cups) hard-boiled egg or two, chopped, chunky chopped onions--toss those together. Use leftover bacon grease (3 T) and combine with 1/4 c vinegar, 2 T sugar, 2 T water, 1/2 t salt, 1/4 t pepper. Mix together in skillet with bacon grease, bring to a boil, then toss gently with the spinach mixture. Yum.

Nancy my ex monster in law used to make that. Back when I could still eat eggs and it was my favorite. She was PA dutch through and through and she could cook circles around anyone.

LOL, Kim! That might have been my laugh for the day--although the day has just begun.

She also made something I have never seen or heard of anywhere.

On a serving plate layer thick slices of tomatoes thin slices of onions crumbled boiled egg and sprinkle with salt and pepper and vinegar. Everyone raved about this simple "dish" especially my mom and dad.

That sounds amazingly tasty! So simple--wow! That's going on MY list, for sure.

I never ate it. I have not enjoyed raw tomatoes since I was little. But I was amazed at the weird combo and simplicity.

One of our favorite ways to eat tomatoes is sliced, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with basil. I suppose you could put salt and pepper on it, but I don't.

Nancy, I don't think I have tried that salad dressing before. I'll have to make it some day. :) What kind of vinegar should I use? Apple cider, white, or it doesn't matter?

Kim, that recipe is so simple! Haha, will have to try it when my garden starts producing tomatoes. DH loves raw tomatoes. (He hates it when I cook sliced tomatoes in my stir-fries.)

Also, has anyone watched Ugly Delicious on Netflix? I thought it is pretty fun to see how the different food cultures create the same dish in each episode. Disclaimer: think it's a either-you-love-it-or-hate-it kind of show, and there's some cussing in it.

Haven't watched it, Eileen, but I can imagine. I'll watch an episode. I just use apple cider vinegar in the dressing

Favorite marinade for grilled veg: 2 Tbsp each olive oil and melted butter, generous Tbsp Dijon, smashed garlic, red wine vinegar to taste, salt and pepper. Mix bite size veg or choice, let sit for at least an hour, grill or roast in oven. Just doing onion like this is great on burgers, too.

Also, like to mix diced fresh tomato, chopped red onion, crumbled feta, sprinkle with a little olive oil and red wine/white wine/champagne vinegar. Let sit and eat on fresh pita chips.

I love it, madabttomatoes! Thank you. Yes, everything's betta with a little feta!

New recipe last night

slaw

1 red cabbage, 2 onion small, 1 apple, carrots, all shreddedd

Mix. 2/3 cup oil, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 honey, salt and herbs to taste (I used mint and dill)

Let it sit and enjoy. Good with crumbled bacon on top too.

I like the touch of honey!

Oh and I used avocado oil. It has no taste so doesn't take away from the honey and vinegar

Recently, I upgraded my kitchen, and now I'm also experimenting with cooking. So, drop here some simple recipes.