CAKate thanks... this adding cream or butter as your daughter did is new to me but others may have tried it before.

All good healthy meals Annie, it it’s the beef and red cabbage that has got my attention.

Found some local mussels, farmed in the bay very close to our home, small and sweet, so made my version of Moules Mariniere.only $5.00 a kilo (2.2 lbs ) I keep it very simple as this was the way I first had them in France. I saute finely chopped white onion in butter, add white wine, splash of water, thyme, pepper and salt and the cleaned and bearded mussels. Boil and shake allowing mussels to steam open and release their juices. And that’s it. Serve piled in a bowl with a sprinkle of parsley so we can fork out the mussels. The sauce/soup that’s left is good.

How it started above and below how it finished.

Soo many flight delays yesterday! I knew we were going to be hungry on the flight, so asked hubby to go get something to snack on. He came back with 2 huge bags of fritos!. Ended up making a frito/chili pie tonight! Enough junk for me! I think I'm going to have salad the next couple of days!

Saturday lunch Tagliatelli with left over ragu.

The red drink is an Italian bitters non alcoholic drink which tastes a bit like Campari. It comes in darling little 100mls bottles.

Edited to add photo of bottles of bitters

Annie, I am sad to hear that your mother died. My sincere condolences to you and your family. You are a wonderful and most thoughtful and respectful daughter. Your dear mom was blessed to live with you and your family.

I haven’t visited these pages for a while. All of you are such good cooks and make the most delicious looking and creative entrées.

Neely, I want you to make your photos larger because I want a better look at your plates.

I’ve been experimenting with shrimp egg foo young (yong?)

I didn’t want it ”fried” or oily. I wanted more fresh veg and shrimp, not too eggy.

I liked the flavor.

Petalique good to get that feed back about photo size, I wondered how they appeared size wise other than on my phone. Your egg fu yong looks great, as you say not ”oily” and with crispy bean sprouts.

Had a really easy and very good dinner last night. Decided to make myself a "sampler plate" of purchased bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, frozen mozzarella sticks, and frozen Alexia onion rings, all cooked in the air fryer. Served with very small bowls of Frank's hot sauce, Srirachia ketchup, Vidalia onion dressing, and blue cheese dressing. It was all so good. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was so different for me. Meant to take a picture but forgot to do so.

Thank you, Petalique, I appreciate the kind words. Mother was a force to be reckoned with, that's certain. She loved the garden and helping me do things like help me start the seedlings and repot tomato plants, so she's on my mind frequently.

Annie

Sleeve, do you have the HU-XXXXXX disease now too?

Take heart, recovery can be long but eventually you will get your identity back!

No food pics - we’re painting some rooms, sink is being used to soak brushes, the opposite of yummy. Dinner was a kale salad with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and salt dressing. Tastes great but alas raw kale makes me bloat up like a blimp. I am going to have to start cooking it.

Love the sound of your sampler plate Walnut. Love a good kale salad.

We seem to on an Italian theme at the moment. That’s Chinotto in the glass, accompanying 2 little lamb cutlets with bread crumbed eggplant.

Sleeve, do you have the HU-XXXXXX disease now too?...

Yup. Ignoring it for now. New laptop and phone. Both are 'locked'. Need to visit the 'genius' bar.

At the moment using Mr. Sleeves computer.

We are seafood rich at the moment after a recent WildFork order.

Fisherman's stew. Leek, fennel, celery miropoix. Butter, white wine.

Dashi broth, two inches of tomato paste from a tube. The rich red is a heaping tBsp of mild chili crisp.

Swordfish, cod, shrimp, clams. Sticky rice balls.

Wild Fork i have mentioned before. First ordered before the holidays. Deep flash freezing technology has improved the past dozen years.

We need fast easy meals. But good without much fuss. All seafood is small portions and thick cryovac'd.

Salmon, tuna, swordfish, cod. Mussels, clams. Rack of lamb...best we have ever had.

Smoked duck breast. Two meals from one. 7ounce, 8$

Ramen bowl

then duck tacos

It is fully cooked so no fussing. Not at all overly smoked. Just a low and slow 250ºF in the oven, cross hatch and rubbed with miso and chili crisp but turned on the broiler for a . minute but walked away, oops.

Next day tacos.

Hope I remember to take a picture tonight. Plan is to cook a ribeye steak that I did not feel up to cooking this past Sunday. The ribeye along with roasted baby gold potatoes, nice green salad + a dressing I will make, and some Garlic Bread. Of course, I will be able to eat maybe 1/2 of it or less. Needless to say, I forgot to take pictures. And it was so, so good.

Fisherma’s stew looks so good. Walnut Walnut, your dinner sounds very good.

Up at our country cabin, DH made pork and beans soup/stew.

Nice soup. Just did similar.

Made a Dashi stock/broth last weekend using chicken necks, a frozen frame, beef necks and Sundays chicken frame.

Found a pint of ham slices with rice and broth in the freezer. (NewYears day ham).

Used a pint of Dashi. Added some frozen peas.

Lamb and hatch chili tamales again. Quick meal. 30 minute steam from frozen. Made a quick blender green sauce. --1/4 cup yogurt, fresh lime, jalapeno, cilantro stems, carrot tops.

DH requests this salad/slaw all-the-time. Red cabbage, beets, (i prefer golden beets), fennel, celery, yellow pepper, shredded lacinato kale...anything goes from the crisper.

Plenty for a couple days.

The salad looks delicious.

Saturday baking. Sometimes I buy frozen shortcrust pastry but made my own this time. It is better.

Spinach and cheese quiche

Tomato tart with onions and garlic

Moules marinières tonight, one of my all time favourite meals.

Nb A tip for extracting the meat from the shells .... rather than fiddling with a fork use an empty mussel as a pair of tweezers. It’s much quicker. And less messy.

Yum. Quiche and a tomato tart. Fisherman's stew on the menu for tonight. We like that extraction method as well.

24 hours of continuous chilly rain and counting. Broths and stews.

Ramen bowl.

Parmesan crusted grilled cheese. Havarti/gruyere/pesto. Chicken/vegetable/tomato soup. Way too much food. Had cups of soup, the other half of the grilled cheese and the avocados for lunch.

It's been rainy since Friday and lasting till Thursday. I made chicken parm on the weekend.

Also pork chops with a olive oil, soy sauce, balsamic garlic and brown sugar glaze. Baked potato.

For tonight I just finished making a quinoa tabouleh that I'll have with leftover chicken breast.

All looks good Jasdip, particularly the glaze on the pork chop.

I’ve been cooking a few things like belly pork slices in foil in the oven. This meal was a tougher cut of lamb cooked in foil with onion, garlic and rosemary. It ended up fall off the bone tender.

Green chicken curry with spinach and broccoli on the side.

A little wattle is blooming around our holiday home. I thought you might like to see a photo of the Australian bush and noting that it is different to your own fine and varied landscapes.

A hearty soup with gnocchi and unpeeled fava beans.

DH cooked us a ‘full‘ English breakfast so I couldn’t resist setting up and taking the following photo. Sort of tongue in cheek but respectful and for my instagram countryhometownhome to celebrate the crowning of King Charles III

Looks like I’m the only one cooking dinner atm.

I mentioned this dinner in the Chilli Crisp post.

Made chicken and leek pie... enough left for seconds as lunch tomorrow. The very ordinary steamed cabbage, carrot and celery was improved by a scant teaspoon of Crispy Chilli condiment. Also a chunk of Cheddar chese to go with he pie.

This was the Sunday before last. A rainy weekend. A favorite...rack of lamb. A half rack.

And a shaved fennel salad.

Not everything i make is covered in chili crisp. : )

Spring weather i've been making various fresh green sauces/salsas. Getting lots of fruits...mangos, pears, grapefruit, even the first baby watermelon. And lots of fresh jalapenos cheap.

No heat. Just a quick fresh blender sauce. For tacos, tamales, and salads.

Mango salad

Missing my smoked tomatillo salsa i make every Fall and freeze, i'm smoking a pork loin and some chicken thighs this weekend. I can't wait until September...my local international market has tomatillos year round. I'll smoke a big batch. I have lots of garlic.

Wow look at those tomatillos and garlic, you are a wonder Sleevendog.

What’s for breakfast follows...

Continuing with my renewed Chilli crisp interest I made the ubiquitous egg on avocado toast with, what else but Laoganma’s Chilli crisp.

I'm in a rotation of 6 avocados. Every three weeks. Does seem like we have them daily but often a week or two off while they ripen. Like now. Firm on the counter.

Chili crisp has many uses. Not a one trick pony. Such a nice condiment and a background flavor boost.

I made a spagetti al vongole e carciofi. Pasta, clams, roasted artichokes. Pasta tossd in, hello, chili crisp. But lots of veg white miro poix. White wine, yada, yada.

That spaghetti, clams and artichokes looks delicious.

As a quick little Sat lunch and because I had the oven on I cooked what we call Spring Rolls. I made a tiny stir fry with spinach, green onions and bean sprouts with a simple sauce of just soy sauce, pinch of sugar, cornstarch and water to have with them.

Ready made and from frozen these mini rolls cook in about 10-15 in a very hot oven and are are great little snack/ appertiser/ little lunch.

I am interested to hear if you have them in your neck of the woods.

They contain, bean sprouts, carrot, cabbage, onion etc. This is how they are bought. Good value as well. I mean a whole little filled crispy roll for 10 cents... not bad.

Costco has similar.

A favorite Thai restaurant brings a big appetizerpile of them to share along with a bowl of lettuce leaves, basil, cilantro and mint to roll them up in. Various dipping sauces. Freshspring rolls are larger and just cut in half.

Costco has a variety of small bites.

Had the other half of the rack of lamb last night. From the freezer. Full rack is way too much food. Perfect med-rare on the rare side. Another shaved salad. Made extra for tonights ramen bowl.

Couple of meals this weekend. Pasta Puttanesca and ribs.

Very delious looking pasta and then the ribs Jasdip.

Thanks for that information Sleevedog... I just wondered who and where they were available.

Yet another foil wrapped long slow cook of short ribs. Roasted everything else, at appropriate intervals, as well.

Ribs are on the menu plan having a holiday next week. Frost warnings last night not fun. I had to . scramble and cover a few things.

Salmon croquettes with a smoked chipotle creole remoulade sauce. Nice salad.

I picked rhubarb this morning.

And lots in the frig for more desserts.

Dinner was marinated chicken breast then air-fried and put in a pita. Topped with baby spinach, tomatoes, sliced onions and some reserved yogurt marinade.

Oh, Jasdip, that pie looks perfect. I have rhubarb ready to pick and haven't gotten to it yet.

Neely thanks for the picture of the "bush". And what is wattle? Oh, and the chicken and leek pie looks delicious!

Sleevendog, I ordered some of those lamb and hatch chili tamales from Misfits and hadn't made them yet. Elery loved them, which is good because they are all his, LOL. They were WAY too spicy for wussy me!

So much good food I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I've been spending most of my time gardening, planting flowers and watering hoop houses and generally playing in the dirt. Still, we have to eat. Elery has been making eggs most mornings and they all kind of look the same, and we don't usually have lunch, so supper is the only meal left to post!

Elery is getting his other hip replaced, probably in July, it's been 7 years since he had the first one done I think. So, he's wanting to lose some weight again, it makes rehab easier, and so I've been making lots of salads with leaves from the hoop houses. This one was

with steak and some hard boiled eggs.

This meal was the "original", from which the steak for the above salad was used. So, the first meal was steak, corn from last year's garden from a freezer clean out and a garbanzo bean salad with a yogurt dressing.

I made some red lentil pasta with that internet famous feta/cherry tomato sauce. It was....OK. I'd make it again when we have bushels of cherry tomatoes from the garden, but I didn't really care for all the little bits of tomato peel in the sauce.

I did make some 7 layer bars for the election workers and there were none of those left.

Elery and I went to Grand Rapids on our anniversary and made a stop at the Mediterranean Island where I bought this unknown-to-me piece of fruit. It's a Pipino melon, tastes a little like honeydew and has the texture of a cucumber.

I also bought a Yazi pear but I haven't tried that yet. Amanda came over last week and we made "freezer food" including meatballs using the recipe from Rocco DiSpirito, his "Mama's Meatballs".

We also made cabbage rolls for the freezer, so instead of freezing them all, we had some for supper. Pan braised asparagus was the first of the season from the backyard patch, and the braised cabbage was the middle of the head after we removed the outside leaves for the rolls.

The very kind chef across the street sent some leftover pasta with her homemade sauce, a couple of their guests cancelled and she said she was not going to eat that much pasta, LOL. It was good with fresh basil and happened to go nicely with the meatballs and a side of brussels sprouts.

Elery was overdue for his weekly bean fix, so I cooked a "mess" of our homegrown cranberry beans in the crockpot and made some "Greek Egg Salad" from a recipe I got from Cuisine at Home. Eggs, of course, and cucumber, red pepper, feta cheese, olives, garlic, mustard, lemon zest. I didn't have a cup of parsley so I used lovage from my front herb garden, I got that started years ago after a gift from Nancy/wizardnm. Elery liked it a LOT and it used up a dozen eggs from the fridge, double bonus there!

OK, I think I'm caught up. Tomorrow I'm going to turn the meat chickens outside, it's getting pretty warm here and going to be in the 80s next week. Too warm for Michigan so early, but weather does what it does. Elery will be tilling the garden so I can plant next week and I'm trying to prune a grapevine and set up a trellis, we'll see if I'm successful.

I've already planted onions, potatoes and peas in the garden and mixed greens and celery in the hoop houses, so on to squash, corn, beans, melons, cucumbers, zucchini and everything else!

Annie

Lovely lot of rhubarb there Jasdip. I recently moved our rhubarb as it wasn’t doing any good ... too much shade. I separated the old root into three clumps and they are each growing well.

Dinner was pork cubes braised in soy sauce and various spices garlic etc then stir fried with snow peas, bean sprouts, coriander and tomato. I know tomato doesn’t really go in this dish but I like it.

Had some leftover pork tenderloin. Kinda tired of hash for leftovers. What to use pork for? Had a dream of split pea soup! So that's what we're having even though it really isn't soup season! Still have enough for a small hash in a couple of days.

I just harvested my first rhubarb. Then ran across a new book about rhubarb--the sweet and the savory. Lost track of the article. One recipe he simmered chunks briefly in lightly sugared water and added to a potato salad. Odd.

I like rhubarb juice with ginger, lemon and mint. I also make a rhubarb bbq sauce--not sweet. Nice in a summer salsa. Making tacos tonight. Adding it to my green sauce.

Always looking for new recipes having so much in my garden.

Very good for you.

Still having lots of noodle bowls. This one was shrimp and dumplings.

Last night was pizza. The usual except for the added eggs. Shared side salad.

-sleeve, : )

I’m sure Annie’s post wasn’t there when I last posted about Jasdip’s rhubarb but now it’s there.

Anyway, to answer Annie, wattle is the name we give to our yellow flowering native trees of which there are dozens of varieties like you have lots of varieties of say, maples. Usually they are a small tree but the photo I put on was of a very small (waist high ) variety with pale yellow flowers which I quite like. We call areas in the country of native plants ‘the bush’ as opposed to suburbia. This was the only photo I could find of the more typical ’wattle’ tree.

What’s for dinner’? Salmon with broccolini and salad.

I missed Annie's post. It must have been on a Houzz 'delay'. Like happens. I've been a planting lunatic. Early crops, succesion planting peas and greens and summer/winter squach. One moment of scary below 32º last week freaked me out after perfect Spring weather for eons.

Thankfully nothing suffered.

Leftover green sauce from taco night on lamb tamales---now always in my freezer for a quick meal. 25 minutes steam from frozen .

i made an arugula pesto for the weekend using the 'down time' while steaming the tamales. Nice change from the floral basil usual.

* I was sent a massive 2 pounds of arugula by mistake i did not pay for. No waste here. i froze a couple 1/2 pints for summer pasta salads. And nice for this weekends pasta salad i'll make tomorrow morning.

Made an easy meal of bison burgers. Wanted to try the arugula pesto before committing to a large batch. Good. Just needs some fresh veg like arugula, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil tossed in. A chilled summer pasta salad.

Some Sundays it’s either a roast or a curry.

DH made us a beef vindaloo curry practically from sratch and it was delicious.

What a treat to be cooked for. DH likes to help out and prep/chop. Always welcome.

First signs of summer, lobster rolls.

-sleeve

That vegetable salad was a biggie, and I finished the rest of it with a breaded pork chop and air-fried potatoes.

Yummy salad with both sausage and pork chop Jasdip. I believe you are the gorgeous lady in the green top... amirite?

Dinners...

soup, a minestrone variation with shaved parmesan

Fish cakes made from a local fish called Whiting. I usually make them Thai style but I didn’t have any lemon grass (in a tube) or fish sauce. Sriracha on top. ’Leaves’ from the garden. Lots of cilantro at this cooler time of the year. We don’t get frosts here in the city by the bay, but get heavy frosts inland at our country cabin.

We have this a lot in the cooler months, Shepherds Pie. We say ’shepherds’ pie even if it’s made with beef. Tradition. I guess it’s quite bland tasting but again that’s how we grew up with it. A little worchestershire sauce in the mixture does wonders.

What is the saying ... when life gives you avocados make avocado mousse. I’ve seen this recipe around on the net and thought I’d try, so easy and quite good, very rich. Only 3 ingredients, avocado, raw cacao and maple syrup whizzed up with a stick blender till silky smooth.

We would like that desert. I've come across recipes but forget when we have ripe avocadoes.

We have had so many good meals recently.

Cod cakes with a creole remoulade. Shaved salad--fennel, celery, white carrots. Over arugula and flagolet beans.

-sleeve