Sunday was a lazy, easy, laid back day. I planned it that way.

Noon dinner was sandwich, macaroni salad and trimmings

Sunday night supper on front porch...Strawberry Pie

BBQ Chicken & foil-packed yellow potatoes with herbs. Dessert - who says Jello can't be pretty?!

AnnT's recipe

Country Biscuits

2 cups of flour
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, lard, Crisco or butter (I use butter)
1 cup of heavy cream or buttermilk if using buttermilk add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda) (can also use milk if that is all you have).

Optional. Add a little sugar if you prefer sweet rather than savory.Mix the flour with the baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter/shortening until it resembles coarse meal. Stir cream/buttermilk into flour mixture.

Tip: An easy way to cut the butter into the flour is to use a box grater. The large side of the grater makes the perfect size pieces of butter.

Mix quickly with fork just until dough starts to come together. Tip out on to lightly floured surface. (Will look shaggy) Using hands gently pat mixture to flatten. Now fold dough like an envelop. Turn and fold again. Do this at least three to four times. The dough is now ready to roll out. This whole step should only take 30 to 45 seconds. Do not over-handle. (Folding forms layers which makes for a very flaky biscuit).

Pat out to about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick on a lightly floured board. Cut with biscuit cutters and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Brush biscuits with a little milk or cream and bake for approximately 12 to 15 minutes at 450°F.

TIP: Using your thumb push a little dent into the middle of the biscuit. This helps the biscuit rise straight and prevents it from tipping over as it rises.

If making cheese biscuits add the mustard and cayenne to the dry ingredients and add the cheese after the shortening has been cut into the flour.

Other Options:

You can use any favourite cheese. Gorgonzola and other blue cheeses are wonderful with the addition of black pepper. Cheddar cheese is good with chives or green onions. Sometimes I add dry mustard and cayenne pepper. Or bacon or ham.

NOTE: If you like the tops to stay soft, dip the biscuits, top side down into melted butter.

Wow, Shirl and Eld!! Gorgeous pics and marvelous food!

I bought some gelatin at the bulk store so I can make panna cotta soon. I put strawberries on top of it.

Shirl - your sandwiches are calling to me! (So is your Fiestaware). We polished off our macaroni salad yesterday so that craving is satisfied for awhile!! Mouthwatering pie, BTW.

Jasdip, the second meal soup is what we did last night. No way is it leftovers. Looks so good!

We don't have an issue with broth in the heat. Veg is a quick to heat on the stovetop and broth is a quick heat-up as well.

We have had three open shopping carts for a few weeks now. (nice to have them finally). Eh, let it go for another week or two. So what if we have freezer odd combinations...if it sounds good to us so be it.

We like the challenge for the next meal.

We have fresh greens and miso/mirin eggs, and avocados. Anything needing to be used up is dinner. No waste right now. No way do I think a bit of a meal for next day is the dreaded 'leftover'.

Last night taso/miso/mixed bean. Avocado, roasted/spiced chick peas

I hate joining these threads late because there’s so much to comment on. I won’t ramble on but I have to say that I find Sleeve’s first bunch of pictures unbelievably gorgeous. I’d have thought those impossible to beat but then came Maci and Sage to steal the show!

Cooking has been pretty boring around here. We did have a nice dinner tonight though, halibut piccata and sous vide asparagus. Have I mentioned we love sous vide asparagus? Yes , I think I have.

All really good meals being cooked. Stand out for me is shirl’s strawberry pie. That I would eat in a blink of the eye.

We had what is becoming a favourite Chicken fillet in maple syrup and chilli flakes. I can’t believe how used to eating chilli I’ve become that a teaspoon sprinkled over the two fillets , though very spicey, is not ‘too’ hot.

Below.... more ‘leaves’ Hah.

I regard these plants as Indoor Plants but good to see them thriving in their tropical homeland.

Street in Cairns FNQ

A teaspoon of chili flakes, Neely???!! Wow, you like heat a lot more than I do! LOL. I'm going to try your recipe this weekend. Those potatoes are calling my name, too. Gorgeous photos, too.

FOAS, your sous vide asparagus looks perfect! I wouldn't have thought of doing a fish piccata.

I'll try SV asparagus next time it shows up. What is your time/temp.?

Freezer and crisper drawer challenges. As long as I have eggs, butter, oils, vinegars, citrus, cheese, garlic, shallots, beets, radish, onion, and greens, avocado, we have lots to play with. Fresh herbs on the deck. Micro greens.

Freezer BoSaam packet, steamed cabbage and giant collards for wraps. Kimchi, quick pickles...

Dinner with my Sodoku. The last of the chicken with that Asian sauce. It tasted better today, but I'm still on the fence. 5 stars of comments, but it certainly isn't worth that many points.

Crashed potatoes and 'leaves' (Annie's famous verbage) :-D

It's quite cool here (60's). We found a 3 lb. beef round roast in the freezer a few days ago. Cooked it in the pressure cooker, added carrots, celery, red potatoes, and onions. It came out very tender and made a nice gravy. Leftovers tomorrow night. Not what I thought we'd be eating in the middle of July but it worked. Might get open-faced sandwiches with it for lunch on Friday.

@neely We love FNQ, but didn't make it that far north this trip. We drove ourselves from Surfer's paradise to Arlie beach, where we took a boat to Hamilton Island. I have family in Noosa, on the sunshine coast, so we spent some time there as well. What a gorgeous place, I could seriously move there.

We are back home and so able to cook more interesting things. We came home to our first cucumber of the season, which inspired our Greek meal tonight. We had lamb souvlaki with garlic hummus and Tzatziki. We used our home grown lemon, oregano, cucumber and dill. Yum!

Annie, you are so kind the way you tailor your meals to fit your mother’s preferences. That turkey looks yum. Those tree branches are covered in tiny ferns so the all the branches look furry. Also about the chilli flakes... I don’t think this particular brand is very ‘hot’ which would explain my tolerance.

Lynda so lovely to hear you’ve been all those places that I really like as well. That’s quite a drive from Surfers to Airlie beach, lucky you have family in Noosa on the way. Your lamb souvlaki is a picture of deliciousness.

Love your food Jasdip as always. Sleeve great fresh and delicious looking food as always. Seagrass your meal and follow plan sandwiches sounds great.

I realise the following meal is carb overload but how I got to this is quite a Cooking story. I had some canned sardines that I had picked up as part of a early March grab of lots of canned goods shopping trip. . I thought I might look up some recipes for them and found this thread in Cooking from 2008

Any canned sardines recipes? ...... and found this by

jessyf

Sicilian-Style Sardine pasta with breadcrumbs

Recipe courtesy Rachel Ray

1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons of Evoo

8 cloves of garlic

11/2 cups of bread crumbs

1/2 cup flat leaf parsley

Coarse salt and coarse black pepper

2 tins of 4 oz sardines drained, boned and chopped

I teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Linguine/ spaghetti cooked al dente and salted to your taste

In a large preheated skillet place the 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add garlic... when garlic speaks by sizzling in the oil... add the bread crumbs. Stir till bread crumbs a deep golden colour. Add parsley and a liberal amount of salt and pepper. Transfer bread crumbs to a dish and reserve.

Return skillet to heat and add the further 3 tablespoons of olive oil. 3 turns of the pan. Add sardines and red pepper flakes to the pan and sauté for 2 or 3 mins.

Add hot cooked pasta to the skillet and toss with the sardines. Add breadcrumbs and toss thoroughly to combine and evenly distribute the mixture.

It was yummy and didn’t have any of that strong sardine flavour at all. Thanks jessyf all these years later.

ANNIE, had to do a sad laugh, moan when you said you cooked a chicken breast for your mom because she liked it. Then found out she 'doesn't anymore. Awwwwwww. 😥😥 (I found out you can do emoji's on the laptop).

A friend of mine has a lot of milkweed in her front yard/garden for the monarchs. So far no one has visited, and I'm thrilled for you!!

No fishy flavour in that pasta, you say, Neely?? I use anchovy paste for my pasta puttanesca, the anchovies fishies are too strong for me. I bought some sardines for the cats once but they didn't care for them. Your pasta would have been a good alternative than the green bin. Good for you for rooting through a the CF forum for a recipe ingredient! Remember the cook-a-longs, and the New Recipe Reviews?

Lynda, your souvlaki dinner looks great! I've never had lamb, no I'm wrong, I had those tiny lamb chops at a conference once. Delicious! But never a lamb roast, etc.

I remember with great fondness the cook-a-longs but I was a lurker back then and didn’t join in. It must have been great fun.

SD - I actually thought I got the temp/time from you at some point but I could be wrong. Wherever I got it, I aim for 190° around 9 minutes. I’d imagine it’s forgiving enough to just place the bag in a pan off-boil water, heat off, for those without SV.

Annie - We’ve been saving a lot by not running out for fast food so I’ll splurge once in a while. Unfortunately I only find Atlantic, which is on every “avoid” list due to contaminants, fishing practices, or both.

Neely, I didn't join in either, but they were great fun to read. Even now, looking through history, doing searches etc. Lots of great ideas on the CF over the years!

Anchovy Pasta is a DH signature dish when I'm out of town.😂

Brunch through dinner charcuterie snack platter. Sourdough from the freezer. Expected to do more of this being so easy. Kept adding to it as I found things.

Roasted cherry toms until they blistered. Nice with the mozzarella.

Beautiful, Sleeve! Good on your hubby making pasta for himself! Even if it is anchovy. LOL

Wow! So many great meals.

Lynda - we also have a greek night planned but yours clearly puts ours to shame.

All the soups and Jasdip's noodle dishes have me drooling.

Tried a new one last night: Parmesan crusted pork chops with arugula salad (and or course red wine):

We enjoyed but think it would have been better with slightly thinner chops.

@Sarahsocal That looks delicious!

All I did today was bread bread..just flour, water, salt and yeast and time.

Supper on front porch again. Hot dogs and root beer.

All the salads and pastas look so good. Cannot believe the month is half gone, the 4th was just a few days ago.

We all certainly dine well around here!

It's too hot to use the oven or stove. so I tried a new one today for the crockpot, a recipe from BH&G.

Crockpot dishes never look very pretty, so no pic, but it's mustard & maple turkey thighs with potatoes, and it turned out very tasty. We had it along with a green salad.

I'll def. make it again, and I think I'll add a little chipotle to spice it up.

@shirl that bread looks really good!

Tonight was leftover lamb and hummus with a salad. I am so excited to have "leaves" again to go with our homegrown cucumber and tomato. I normally consider this the off season for lettuce in our area, but have figured out how to start the lettuce in a sunny part of the yard and then transplant them to a shady section. So far my experiment has been a success.

LOL! Annie, I amend that: I bet your mother would like the falafel if you could trick her into eating it without prejudice. :) Such a shame about the turkey!

Lots of lovely veg in all these dishes!

Me? I've been under the weather (literally, it's the weather making me feel icky) and have all this lovely food that needs cooking. So we ordered in Chinese. :) Pix courtesy web (from the same place). There were a few other accompaniments and a lot of condiments! We ordered some extra spicy and got extra sauce instead. :) But it was very good. :D Just hope they survive the current round of closures.

ETA: While the above is the literal truth of what was for dinner, I've been told that some, especially lurkers, might not get that it was meant as a joke. An image of not cooking dinner. :)

Your Chinese dinner looks super, Plllog. Now I want kChinese! But having noodles and chicken twice this week, made into soup, courtesy of Sleeve, I'm holding off for now.

Lynda, lovely fresh salad. Great idea of transplanting the lettuce to make it last.

Shirl gorgeous bread! It's been too hot to turn on the oven, I refuse to have the oven and a/c on at the same time. I broke down and bought a loaf this week from our local bakeshop. I do prefer my own though.

Carol, I completely agree with you that no matter how good slow-cooker dishes taste, they never photograph well! I'm going to go through my sc recipes and see what I feel like doing. It's a handy appliance to use year-round, although most people use it for winter stews and chilis etc.

Shirl - the bread looks amazing but the hot dogs sucked me in!!

Pllog - have to laugh because I have already told hubby that tonight = takeout Chinese!

jc

looks fab. don't choke on the hot peppers ... they can be really HOT.

carol ... you can get just turkey thighs? For a top turkey pricing state, we can get just legs, keels [b r e a s t] or the whole thing. Or the frozen, boxed slimy pressed turkey roll things. [which can be tolerable cut up/diced after cooking and used in stuffing/dressing]

Dogs on the porch, adorable. I have some of the checkerboard wraps, 😀.

Gorgeous breads. Did you make your hotdog buns?...I have a great recipe.

Cleaning out the fridge and crisper. Down to two eggs, one onion...big delivery tomorrow.

White miso and ginger, hijiki and dried shitake mushrooms soaking.

afternoon salad snack

Gyoza miso, marinated tiny Arcana eggs.

Worry not, Dave! The sichuan peppers can be hot or mild. We asked for hot. We got mild and supersized hot sauce and hot mustard. :) just grateful they're managing to stay open... :)

Sleeve......"dogs on the porch." I had to scroll up to see the pic of 2 dogs on a porch that I missed! LOL Not thinking you were talking about Shirl's hotdogs.

I can't form hotdog rolls to save my life.....they're either too small or ginormous. Any hints?

We're having a summer meal tonight! Grilled sweet Italian sausages with peppers and onions on grinder rolls, fresh corn on the cob and sweet, cold watermelon. Need to get in the mood - still in the 60's but the heat is coming back tomorrow.

Yes I make our dog buns using KAF Beautiful Bun recipe. DH made me a dog cutter 5” x1”. His first effort was to big, great for hoagie rolls tho. Picture of rolls and cutter. Sometimes they are a little ill shape but taste so good.

The internet offers eclair cutters and a larger one measures 5” x 3/4”. Given that some thought never followed thru. Can not get a link set up so just google eclair cutters.

Sleeve I would be interested in your roll recipe if you would share.

Oh, I've made buns using that Beautiful Buns recipe Shirl.

But now I just use my regular bread recipe, form half into a loaf and half into rolls.

HatchChilis, local sausage, onions, kimchi. I intended to stuff the hatch but seemed like a chore late in the day. Something planned and stuffed I'd rather get done earlier in the day...used the stovetop griddle. Way to hot to use the grill outside.

Fabulous bread and rolls by all those shown.

We eat much less meat the last few years and generally feel better for it. But just occasionally a big steak, salad and mustard is all that is needed.

Everything looks so very, very good. The plan for tonight is to have meatloaf, beans, potatoes in some form, sliced tomatoes, green onions, and cornbread. An old fashioned, satisfying meal.

@Jasdip, your rolls looks mouthwatering. Would you mind sharing your regular bread recipe. That is another thing I have to do today - make bread. TIA.

WC here is my bread recipe.

White Bread

In a large bowl measure:

1 cup very hot water

2 tbsp white sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp fat (I use 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp bacon fat) and dissolve
well with a whisk.

Meanwhile dissolve

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp yeast

3/4 warm water. Let sit covered, 10 minutes.

Once the yeast has proofed and bubbled, add it to the large bowl of water
and fat. Rinse out the yeast container with 1/2 cup warm water and add
that as well.

5 cups flour (I sometimes use 2 cups whole wheat and 3 cups white)

Add half the flour to the liquid, stirring with a whisk. Add the rest a
bit at a time, using a wooden spoon when it gets too thick for the
whisk. You may not need all of the flour, or you might need more.
Humidity plays a big factor in the amount of flour you'll use.

Turn onto a floured surface and knead until it's smooth and elastic. Place
in an oiled bowl, turn to coat the top and let rise, covered, until
doubled.

Deflate gently, turn onto a lightly floured surface, cut in half, form and
place into 2 greased loaf pans and let rise.

Bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes.

Last night's dinner......french fries from scratch. Man they took forever! LOL I soaked them in cold water, dried thoroughly and fried them twice. They were good though. Had a hamburger with them.

I found a homemade gravy mix so that I could have beef gravy whenever I wanted it. I made some up, and then put some mozzarella chunks on the fries and the gravy, and made poutine. The gravy mix was meh, not sure if I'll keep it. It makes enough to keep in the cupboard. Beef or chicken bouillon powder (I smashed up 2 cubes, which was a pain), flour and some garlic powder and pepper. You melt butter, 2 tbsp of mix, make a roux and add water. Voila gravy, supposedly. A TOH recipe

But here are the fries cooking :-)

Shirl, I looked at the KA recipe and is is nearly identical to JaneSigal's light brioche posted in the NYTimes a number of years ago. 2 and 1/2 tBsp of sugar instead of the KA 1/4 cup. (we use one half tsp sugar). Linky, HERE

Cornbread/avocado/ sausage and hatch peppers

I cooked the extra sausage and hatch Friday night on purpose to make something last night. No eggs for a frittata. So over Marcella beans and wild rice...(fresh)...not sure why it looks so barfy and gray, 😂

"barfy and gray" Love your verbage, Sleeve!!

All the different sausages from the local farm share have been so good and very lean. And not salty!. But I might have to wrap the next one in bacon, 😜

Thanks a million for the bread recipe, Jasdip.

A new recipe for my Keeper binder. Quick and simple. Boneless breasts browned then baked with cherry/plum tomatoes. Top with cheese then melt. Delicious.

While getting my potato masher from under the stove, in the drawer I came across my new oven mitt. It looks a little different than when I bought it.....I might have visitors, but there's no other sign of any.

@jadsip Those homemade fries look yummy.

We are having oven roasted game hen tonight, but it is not yet done. What is done are my apple tarts, making the most of our small crop of apples.

it's waiting to leap onto my plate. I can almost smell it! Good Eats!!

Sleeve....thanks for the recipe tip....plan to do Wednesday

jaspid I will then try your white bread recipe Thursday.

i am such a bread eater, but I do regulate my bread consumption, I have too or I would be as round as some of those loaves.