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I cooked a corned beef yesterday and cut the slice sizes I want. I used my panini press (yes) on a sandwich comprising the corned beef and slices of gouda and havarti (no Swiss cheese in the house, and I don't like it anyway). The bread is a special bread I've been hoarding in the freezer from a recent California trip. Mayo and mustard on the inside slices; butter for grilling; generous amounts of sauerkraut added after the grilling. Definitely better than what I bought and showed a few days ago (top photo in this post). There's still room for improvement. This bread, as much as I like it, was missing some sort of kick that the sandwich needed: rye bread, or sourdough bread would have been better. This corned beef wasn't as good as I'd expected either, but that's my fault for keeping it (in its original package) unfrozen well past its best-by date. Still. I've started scratching that itch!

This chicken recipe said Ina Garten liked to make this when she was too tired to cook. Well I felt too lazy to cook so I tried the it. She peels back the skin, brushes it with olive oil, salts and peppers it, spreads goat cheese on, tops it with a fresh basil leaf, replaces the skin and bakes it at 375º for 30-40 minutes. Then she covers it with foil to rest 10 minutes. She said her kids were not crazy about goat cheese but they liked it in this dish. I kinda feel the same way about goat cheese. It was good. Charlie said he liked it too even though he also was skeptical at first. The mushrooms were cooked in sesame oil with some salt and pepper. The tomato was halved, salted, dotted with butter and topped with bread crumbs and broiled until it was browned and bubbly on top. Corn was cooked on the cob and cut off. The broccoli was from a frozen package.

Tomato pesto galette with burrata and arugula.

fun fact: 😘

I hope you'll share details of your harvest with us!!! 🙂 I start peas from seed, they tend to be pretty easy to grow here on Vancouver Island as it's not usually very hot.

Correct, I have some nasturtiums in there too. I will probably move a couple of them to the backyard where they will have more space to spread out! I do not know the variety of cherry tomatoes. This was from Walter Anderson, a local nursery, and it was the only one they had (although they had dozens of varieties of regular and heirloom tomatoes). It’s my first time ever growing tomatoes so you can imagine how excited I am! I looked for snap peas when I was there but they didn’t have any. Probably a good thing as my space is very limited! i just harvested some chard, parsley, and sorrel for my lunch. It’s so nice to have all these fresh greens available.

It will be so pretty as it fills in! Looks like some nasturtiums in there also? What variety of cherry tomato, do you know? I have "Husky Cherry Red", a few "Sweet 100", "Sugary" grape tomato, and several "Sweet Million" cherry plants. I would have had more of the "Sweet Millions" but some of the ones I started from seed didn't fare very well. So I'm glad that I bought a few plants at the nursery when they were on sale. I picked the first strawberries yesterday. I just have two hanging baskets with plants but they have quite a bit of fruit for their size. Not enough ripen together to do a full dessert usually but enough to enhance a fruit salad or have with a bit of yogurt. I have some snap peas too but lost some as I discovered that my cat likes to munch on pea shoots. And not just dainty little nibbles either, ha. 🙂

Dream fridge for sure - especially around the holidays. My husband call our fridge door shelves "condiment hell." He can never find things but I can - and I consider the fridge my territory.

I got a raised planter which I am having fun with. I started in February with various herbs, plus arugula and chard. I made a few small salads and sandwiches with the arugula (it was fun to harvest it for my lunches). The chard produced more leaves over the weeks but has not grown taller for some reason (I suspect overly compacted soil). Here it was shortly after planting everything in February: The arugula is gone now (I got rid of it after it bolted and stopped producing new leaves). I planted a cherry tomato with a variety of basil last weekend, together with more herbs (an assortment of basil varieties, summer savory, more parsley). The cilantro from February bolted and I planted its seeds; fingers crossed that I will get a second generation. It's been fun and gives me an occasion to spend more time outside enjoying nature and listening to the birds. It's usually the first thing I do in the morning and it brings me a lot of joy!

Probably one of favorite summer meals. Catfish, potato salad and coleslaw. I fried about four servings of fish which turned out to be three portions for me and one for my wife😋. Served with a quick dill pickle tartar sauce and lemon.

That is a fine, fine article. Thanks for the link!

I made fluffy sourdough by over proofing it. Then she cut it up and smeared with butter that had a load of garlic in it. Freeze in bags. reheat/toast in a airfryer for about 7 mins.

That's the name I couldn't remember.

Toasted Tots in the Toaster Oven

I'm putting that fridge on my dream list. I LOVE the amount of space. Ronnie said I'd have it full of jars of "crap" that would sit in there until the end of time. He's prolly right 🤣

I was heavily influenced by Jeb Clampett!

It's often called a cake bell.

That's a really excellent beer from Maine!

Nice fog machine!!!! That's hilarious!

Burgers and fries for breakfast.

It said devils on the menu. I know that’s not the usual filling haha. I have been there, but not for years. It’s pretty rare that we go out for breakfast. We all typically eat just toast, fruit, and/or yogurt in the morning. It was on the daily specials drink menu, which I did not look at, so not sure, sorry. Not disagreeing, but you could say that about a lot of weird alcohol mixers, right? Do we really need all those flavored rums floating out there in the world? Cucumber or chili pepper infused vodka? Or more traditionally, even a worm in a bottle of mezcal? Probably not, but maybe a marketing tool. I know there is still a bottle of rum in my liquor cabinet that my husband and I bought on our honeymoon. We did not buy it for the excellent flavor, we bought it because it was in a bottle shaped like a policeman and we thought it was cool looking at the time. It’s never actually been opened. It’s a Thermidor. Here’s the inside. Nothing in the freezer but ice cream and ice cubes. I brought the ice cube trays from home in case the house did not have any. I did not realize that there was this huge ice maker! And the fridge. Nothing in there either except some yogurt, fruit, my nephew’s loaf of bread, and stuff to make coffee. There’s also beer and wine for my husband and nephew (most of which will get hauled back home), and spindrift seltzer and Diet Coke for me (just the right amount for the time we have left here, because I am a planner like that). So after saying we never go out to breakfast, we went out to breakfast in town yesterday, at the Captain’s Table. Nephew had pancakes And husband and I both got a bowl with scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar and home fries The day was pretty foggy and windy, so no scenic pictures. Nephew wanted sushi for dinner, so we went to Bluefins in town. Nephew had a whiskey sour (I think?), and husband had a sake martini We were restricted as to what we could order by my nephew’s shellfish allergy, but they did a great job being careful about the order and customizing stuff as needed. It took a little longer, but he was really happy with everything he got to try. Left to right, there’s a spicy scallop roll, a bluefin roll, a mixed salmon, yellowtail and tuna roll, some crazy thing with spicy tuna and tobiko (he thought this was too sweet), and a toro roll. He also wanted to order the Oreo sushi roll for dessert This basically tasted like a mint Girl Scout cookie. One slice was enough though! One thing I have discovered about staying in this house is that the lighthouse next door plays trumpet music each day at 8am and 8pm through a loudspeaker. It always starts with the calvary charge, which was a bit jarring this morning!

Fage plain Greek yogurt, drizzle of local honey, black figs, sliced/toasted almonds.

Well, I live in Dumplingland, They are as un-exceptional as the sun rising in the morning. But I love most of them.

Gawwwd I need some dumplings

Definitely on a menu (or as, as I don't see it on their menu now)...https://punchdrink.com/recipes/shuck-n-jive/ To me, a waste of perfectly good sherry and vermouth, and as far as the vodka goes, who cares? You know, it gets to the point where some of this shit is just silly.