Susan in FL

Thanks for the info so far. I'm doing some planning and prep cooking now for tonight's dinner. Stuffing and poaching the bitter melon sounds interesting. I'll look that up for possibly another time. Maybe I'll do a Thai-style stir-fry with the Chinese broccoli. Without doing a search, I can't help you with a raw prawn recipe, but interestingly I'm making a variation of this recipe tonight. We're going to grill it. Don't know how similar this is to what you want... I've made a Thai melon soup (this one has no bitter melon in it ) that is chilling now. The first taste test was good!

We're having Asian two nights in a row, and I'll be back to post both last night's and tonight's, but in the meantime, I need your help in identifying a couple of the things I bought yesterday, when I made a good haul at the Asian market. This photo was just the green stuff! I was thrilled with how stocked she was with fresh items. On the left is what looks like broccoli rabe, and I think it is extremely close to that. The yard long beans are obvious, and we had them last night (very, very good). The small bok choy, same, and we're using that tonight. What I am not sure about is the thing in the middle... a sponge gourd, perhaps? And what might I do with it? She said that it would be good in a soup. I looked into a book of mine that has some pictures, and that is what it looks closest to. I'm also not sure about the green on the right... she said it is very similar to the broccoli-whatever. She told me what all three of these vegetables in question are, but she has a heavy accent and I couldn't understand her. After already asking her to repeat what she said twice, I thought it too awkward to ask the third time. Thanks!

To go buy a hand-dipped ice cream cone, I support the local. However, when I want a half gallon of my favorite store-bought ice cream, no. It's Breyer's for me. Today I subjected myself to Food Lion for some good sales, including half gallons of Breyer's for $1.99 each. Limit was four, but budget said only two. It took me forever to decide. Varieties were abundant. I went for an old favorite, Butter Almond and a new one, Brownie Mud Pie (chocolate with a caramel swirl, brownie pieces, and chocolate covered almonds). As soon as we get cleaned up from dinner, one or both of those is my reward.

Welcome, Musable! Thanks for your input, and hope to see more of your contribution to what's good in JAX. (I'm assuming from your post that you're in the area, or visit often... )

That simple potato gratin looks so good, and how easy -- perfect for a quick "appropriate starch" accompaniment. Will do soon!

It was Russ's turn tonight. When we grill chicken, we don't often have gooey BBQ sauce, but tonight we did. With it, potatoes and a salad... Very good.

Disagree... at least it's not the case here, unless we cooked them to death. And like Wendy, grilled is among the ways we like to eat them.

Love it!

Anticuchos (Grilled Beef Heart), a Mexican-style salad of barley & black beans, baked beet, sauteed yellow squash, and Syrah.

Marcia, they are good. I recently discovered a new produce market where their tomatoes are exceptionally good. And, they sell pickling cucumbers! During the months they are available, they are the only cucumbers I use, so that made me happy, too. Michael, I don't know... In the photos to me they looked like regular timbales or scoops of rice. However, that in itself is a good idea for an addition to a plated salad! I love rice salads in general.

Yeah. Last night I was craving hot dogs, and those things are so calorie-laden for such a little bit of food, and I can't eat just one... But it was my turn to plan dinner and that's what we had.

Duh. Finally, it occured to me that for the past two to three weeks, the salad kick we have been on is a composed salad. We've had this probably four or five times recently. We slice tomatoes and dribble some malt vinegar on them and then a little EVOO. Then we sprinkle generously with coarse kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and some chopped or shredded scallions. That goes on top of whatever salad greens we have on hand, and is surrounded by whatever else is on hand -- tonight avocado, cucumber, and sweet onion rings. Then we set it in the fridge until it's time for dinner. The tomatoes simply dressed with malt vinegar and olive oil is what we've been wanting over and over. It's really good. ...I've participated several times in this Cook-Off and didn't even realize it.

Percy, as usual, you are breakfast-brilliant. Beautiful! And everyone else's is, too. I didn't photograph this morning, but we did eat over-easy eggs which turned out picture perfect, along with left-over new red potatoes lightly fried with onions. Today at the store I bought some grapes for tomorrow's "breakfast."

Needless to say, but I will... I am loving this blog, too. And, Rachel, you just described one of the ways I'm living my dream, since moving to Florida.

Nice looking, Marcia!

Actually, I don't eat breakfast often, unless a cup of coffee early and a piece of fruit or a very small portion of something later is called breakfast. My main reason is saving calories... seems no matter how hard I try to change the pattern, the more I eat at breakfast time, the more I eat throughout the entire rest of the day. I've been working on portion control lately, and what is working is very small snack-size portions of something at breakfast time, and then at lunch time, and increasing my exercise routine, and then I am able to be satisfied with smaller amounts of food at dinner. We've even been eating less breakfasts on weekends... pretty much Sundays only. Anyway, I still drool from the photos here, and oh how I wish that I could calorically afford to eat three meals a day!! Alinka, absolutely beautiful bliny.

If you have time for an ice cream stop in central Florida, you can taste a local favorite of my home town, Ritter's, which is two or three miles from the interstate. Directions: In the area of the Daytona beaches exits, take Exit 256 off of I-95, and go east. Go under I-95 and stay to the left. Turn left off of Dunlawton Ave, on to Clyde Morris Blvd. This is not far. Ritter's is on your right, in maybe a mile or two... 4629 Clyde Morris Blvd., Port Orange.

Welcome to Florida! I'm looking forward to the blog.

Please accept my condolences, as well. In case you wish to make tribute to your grandmother in a culinary way, I'll let you know about this source that I found a couple of months ago when I was desperately looking for fresh hearts of palm. I found this site. I haven't yet gotten around to inquirying about ordering some; but nevertheless, thought I would let you know. Take care.

The mango ice cream was much better tonight!

Thanks tryska, nice compliment! Right now that blizzard is a cold, frozen nightmare. Lounging by the pool has erased that pain for now . I've been lurking mostly.... pim kind if intimidated me with her comments about my interpretation of larb. Not to worry... I'm still larbing and experimenting and cooking away. I was intmidated... but not offended. I'll just call my attempts Thai-inspired from now on . Hubby had oral surgery a few weeks ago and larb was one of the things he actually requested . Susan, lovely pictures as always. I'm revived! Hope to post something good soon. ← I am so glad you are back, and glad to hear you are still cooking Thai, or Thai style, or Thai inspired. You've been missed. I'm looking forward to more posts.

We had corn soup and homemade ice cream, too ...Chilled corn and buttermilk soup. I used no chicken stock this time and instead used corn stock. It was left from what I made for the corn and pea risotto another night, and gave it a better, much more intense corn flavor. We grilled chicken legs that I had marinated in fresh squeezed OJ, orange blossum honey, soy sauce, melted butter, ginger, and garlic. It was really, really good. Steamed broccoli went with it. The tomatoes in the salad plate on the side were dressed with malt vinegar and EVOO: very good also. Good dinner all around! The ice cream was left-over from last night (not so runny tonight).

Here's a thread you might enjoy. Dining out alone is one of my favorite things to do.

I posted it in RecipeGullet. Thanks for asking. I didn't want to forget what I did, so that was the nudge I needed.

I have thought of this thread several times when planning and fixing our dinners recently, especially last night. It was a nice dinner, full of flavors, and not too expensive. ...Asian food. Except for sushi, when we have Asian, it's usually Thai or Vietnamese. Here's what we had. Out of last night's dinner, the most pricey (overpriced) food was the mixed baby greens. The cut of beef was very inexpensive. The rest of the salady stuff was standard. The herbs for salad were from our garden, as was the lemongrass for the beef. Rice noodles are cheap, and so are bottles of great-tasting fish sauce when you buy it from an Asian market. I could eat rice noodles with good fish sauce on it, or could dip sticky rice balls in fish sauce really frequently and not get tired of that. I love it. You might want to take a look at the Thai Cooking at Home thread for some ideas. Most Thai dishes, including Larb that so many of us are crazy about, don't have big portions of meat in them, which can cut expenses.