Darienne

Thanks for the photos, @minas6907. I've missed seeing your wonderful confections. I'll never forget the photos of those twirly golden lollies. In fact, I still have the photo saved.

My memories of pecans are the ones a friend sent me from Georgia which were extraordinary and the ones we bought in New Mexico which were the same. I guess by the time the pecans get to Canada they are less than perfect...or maybe we just don't get the best ones sent up here...sort of like how the very best olive oil apparently never leaves Italy and Greece. Not quite so wonderful in taste and texture, but so wonderful in terms of experience, were the pecans we picked off the tree outside our favorite second-hand store in Moab, Wabi Sabi.

You're right to say poor Ed. Because I can no longer do the grocery shopping, or even accompany him, he is quite often after ingredients he has never heard of and isn't sure why I want. And he has to ask someone for help...not something your average male seems to like to do...not to mention the regular impossibility of finding someone to ask.

So the polenta was purchased, a shelf stable one...apparently the only one available... but the next part is a bit confusing. The best buy date is June 2023...OK... but once it's opened, it's good for only 4 days in the fridge and it's not to be frozen. I just don't get it. And why can't it be frozen?

Beautiful pastries but my heart goes out to you. The hardest thing in the world I think is to lose a beloved spouse to dementia.

An oldie, but a goodie. Really liked that sitcom.

Good thing I quit eating cantaloupe a while ago after a massive passion for the stuff. I found the melons were getting less and less tasty with the passage of time. Now I'm on a fresh pineapple kick...and delighted to announce that my endless go round of leg cramps has suddenly stopped. Must be the bromelain.

One of my very favorite soups and a recipe which caught my attention in a magazine many years ago because it called for lentils, chickpeas and brown rice. Mine has no carrots. And I always put a lot of meat in mine because that's how Ed likes it.

Hard to believe what I have just gone through to find some polenta. Neither of the two largest bulk food stores carries Polenta in any format. Of the main grocery stores in Peterborough only FreshCo carries any form of Polenta and they carry only the preformed tube variety. So that's where it's at for this city apparently. Ed will buy me some Polenta at FreshCo today.

No instant pot. I can't even use my air fryer at this point. I think I am past my person sell by date.

Good one. Yes we have vegan milk substitutes. In fact, Ed drinks a combination of cashew milk and real milk. And I've done stuff with vegan milk. But no ricotta. I'll find a vegan lasagna. Thanks for the idea. Carolyn talks about vegan cheeses...we've never tried them. I had enough troubles trying to find a decent gluten free bread when I was following a naturalist's orders. (Before I finally decided that I was neither gluten nor dairy intolerant after two years off both.) I can't imagine what non-dairy cheese could taste like.

I've never made polenta. In fact, I've never tasted polenta. I think it's way past time I did. I'll get some next week, either premade or make it from scratch, and try it out. Thanks, @Alex.

Sorry, @heidih, the conversation thing is theoretically a good idea...but not with our daughter. She's an extreme vegan and will eat what I make that is vegan, but it's not what she normally eats which has nutritional yeast and seaweed and flax seed and aquafaba and other things which we don't even consider eating. And a long lecture to accompany each ingredient on the healthiness of how she eats. Sorry. I love her dearly but... So I'm just looking for vegan casseroles which she will accept and I can freeze. (As for the recipe posted...sorry, Ed hates Brussels Sprouts.)

I'd like to restart this thread. Our daughter has become a vegan and has also started visiting us regularly for the first time in decades. And so I am now trying to find vegan casserole type dishes...not soups or salads...those we already have covered well enough...not brilliantly, but satisfactorily...but it's mains I am in search of. Preferably something I can make ahead of time at my leisure and freeze in portions. These days I simply can't guarantee being able to cook to serve the food the first time around and so what I make must be able to be done and stored before it is served. Thanks to @Dante for his posts. I'm about to make a dish found in one of the vegan cooking websites he posted, Bad Manners.

I'm a Canadian and have never asked anyone to remove their shoes in any house we have lived in. And I can't recall ever having to take off my shoes in anyone's house. And now we live on a farm and all the rugs are commercial quality so they clean easily. I ask folks to leave their shoes on if they start to take them off. And I wear shoes in the house almost all the time...slippers the other times. And would never ever cook in bare feet. But then I am the safety inspector in my house.

Now hear this: do not ever buy enoki mushrooms!!! (I guess....)

That's simple. Make lemonade.

I am winnowing. The books are all, so far, going to our local library and they'll either keep what they want and discard the others in the sale items. For me it was time. A factor perhaps of age. And also I find myself finding the occasional new and interesting recipe online. Plus I suppose we have pretty much settled down to a comfortable repetition of favorites.

Oh yes!!! and while our imported Poblanos in darkest Ontario are never huge, meaty and gorgeous, I do happen to have rather a large amount of recently gifted Poblanos from Toronto friends roasted into Rajas sitting in my freezer.

The 'whomp rolls'. I like that.

I've never bought enoki mushrooms...and I'm never going to either.

Reading Smithy's testing of various ready-to-bake rolls, I am sorely tempted to get Ed to buy a few different ones. They sound like fun with some useful possibilities. Thanks for the posts, @Smithy.

Soup has no season with the McAuleys either. Soup is our every second night supper pretty much. And that's supper=soup and maybe a piece of bread and butter. And all the soups are homemade.

Lucky you if you have decent tomatoes. Our tomato season is long gone.

Made the Bean and Bacon soup again today. Without the bacon. Dumped a large spoonful of bacon fat into the soup for taste and at the end, after pureeing half the soup, I added chopped shredded pork. Very nice. On the other hand, the shredded pork was basically under-spiced (lazy!!!), unlike my usual Puerco Pibil shredded pork. I think I prefer the bits of bacon to the bits of pork, but in true Canadian sense I will soldier on and eat the soup with pork in it.