ElsieD

I'm really enjoying this. To me, it's like a whole other world. Thank you so much for such an interesting travelogue.

Tonight we had Pork Chops which became schnitzel. Served with Corn, twice baked Potatoes and mushroom sauce. I think that's the last of the chops although it's hard to know for sure as the freezer is still pretty full. I need to do an inventory. The one thing I do know is that there is several years' worth of squash in there.

I pulled out Chicken Thighs today and had them as a Korean dish. Not a single thing that started with a C or a T went into the dish so no bragging rights here. I thought it was the last package of thighs but then I found another bag that has maybe 6 meal size portions in it.

Thank you to the enablers. I just downloaded 7 cookbooks.

Way back when we used to go to a place called the Alexandria, or Alex for short as they always had green beer. This was at noon, and we would go with a few people and they would all sit and drink green beer. I don't know what I had but I do know it wouldn't have been beer, green or otherwise as at that time, I didn't like beer and secondly, my job was such that I was face to face with the public all afternoon. I didn't think they'd appreciate my beer breath. The Alex was torn down a long time ago and I don't know if green beer is served anywhere in this city anymore.

Every year I give thanks that Ottawa or Bytown as it was then known, was largely settled by the Irish.

I just twigged to this and am now happily reading along. Very interesting!

750 gm russets, cut into 1" pieces 45 gm butter 200 ml 2% milk salt to taste melt butter, roll spuds around in it, add milk, cook hp 7 minutes, quick release, mash. Works like a charm. credit to Anna N

I recently cooked potatoes à la Anna and had a perfect result. Nothing watery about those spuds.

Tonight we had Fish, specifically haddock with a vadouvan/lime sauce. With it we had oven French Fries and asparagus. Not shown is TJ's mango ginger chutney.

We had this Pork Tenderloin for dinner. I made a Peach, apple cider vinegar, mustard and maple syrup glaze for the pork. A bit thin on the Ps or Ts, I'll admit. I promise to do better.

Hmmm. Maybe I'll pass.

Is Cumbrae's really that good? If it is, I'll have to stop in there next time we are down that way.

I took out some ham croquettes today that were made from the Christmas ham. As you can see, the H and/or C is sorely lacking. So maybe that is worth half a point? Or does the H in H&P sauce that John had with it count for something? Or my Roasted Pineapple and Habenero Sauce which is my preferred go-with? Or maybe I am in a minus position because 3 packages of jumbo chicken wings went into the freezer with a fourth to come later today? On the other hand, I have a pork tenderloin thawing for dinner tonight.

@Shelby. That is gorgeous!

Chicken wings aren't a health food? Shocking!!! We have a WF right here in Ottawa. We are probably going there this afternoon.

Thanks, Anna, for chiming in. That was my second thought - to get a portable induction unit. I have a good quality stove top pressure cooker (it's made by WMF) that would work just fine as the pot. I have spent some time looking at the ones on offer but I keep dithering about that as well. One thing for sure is that it would take up less room.

I'm going to Whole Foods here this weekend so let me know if you want me to check on anything. They have marinated chicken wings on for $9.99 per kilo and depending on the kind they have, I may get some.

@rotuts thanks for the link but that is not the one. This is the one I am looking at. https://www.amazon.ca/Breville-BREBEW800XL-Hot-Wok-Pro/dp/B00BTZIPH0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486149068&sr=8-1&keywords=Breville+hot+wok+pro @rotuts

Strange. I wasn't able to find it on Amazon.com. I'll have to have another look. I did ask if anyone had done any deep frying in it and I got a reply to say they had and they were pleased with the result.

We go on grocery shopping expeditions. Ogdensburg is about an hour from here and they have Aldi and Price Chopper. We have also been known to go to Syracuse (3 to 3 1/2 hours) where we amble around Trader Joe's and Wegman's. We try to stick to stuff we can't get here, including Rotel tomatoes in the 10oz. tin. For some reason, I really like them. Normally when we go to Syracuse we spend the night at my niece's, but we have been known to make it a day trip. Oh, and TJ's peanut butter pretzel things are likely my husband's favorite snack food. We can get something similar here but the shells are thicker so they don't have the same sort of snap.

I am thinking of buying one of these. This particular model has an 1800 watt heating element and according to the reviews on Amazon.ca, gets really hot. It also got good reviews there, 24 people gave it 5 stars, 2 gave it 4 stars. There were no other ratings. One of the reasons I would like one is that I can use it on my balcony to deep fry stuff. While I do occasionally deep fry in a pot on the stove, I don't like living with the smell of cooking oil afterwards. Does anyone have this particular model?

Indeed. But at least I didn't buy the jumbo chicken wings which you so seldom see. Not yet, anyway.

Today I grabbed some ground Pork out of the freezer. There were two packages so I decided to turn it into chili con carne. The meat was browned, Peppers and onions sautéed, garlic added, then ancho chili powder, chili con carne spice mix, cumin and oregano. That was followed by 3 cans of my very precious Rotel tomatoes (precious because we can't get them here) salt and pepper. We let that simmer for a bit and then tasted it to adjust the seasoning. Bleech! It tasted of old meat. Very old meat. It was trashed. This time I looked in the freezer to see what we had that was already prepared as it was now 7:00. Found some stuffed peppers and they are currently heating up in the oven. So no points for me today but on the other hand, three more items have been removed from the freezer. Almost, but not quite, makes up for the 4 packages of pork back ribs that went in this afternoon.

The BAE spoon by itself is not available, so says the web site. I checked out the shipping costs for the spoon set to have it shipped to my niece in NY state and it would cost $14.15. When I do a conversion to Canadian dollars for the spoons plus shipping, it amounts to around $60 and that assumes no duty charges. So, no spoons for me.