kayb

I am commencing to crave choucroute garnie. Which is assuredly NOT a spring dish, but....the mouth wants what it wants. Tonight we're having tornado memorial shepherd's pie. So named because I made it shortly before the tornado hit Saturday, and never baked it.

Two major reasons for Premium saltines. The other two being cracker crumbs and eating with tamales covered with chili. And they must be Premium or Zesta saltines. A lot of stuff is fine with cheap knockoffs. Saltines are not. A favorite steakhouse in Hot Springs, which burned to the ground just before I moved there 😒, brought a huge basket of Saltines and a large cup of its housemade French dressing to the table as an amuse bouche. I could regularly ruin my appetite with 'em. Never mastered the art of their house--made French, either.

Hot damn.

Wine. Plenty of potatoes, to be prepared in a myriad of ways. Lots of cheese. Dry beans. Variety of smoked and fresh sausages.

Down here, barbecue pizza is a big thing. Tomato-based barbecue sauce instead of regular tomato sauce, pulled pork barbecue, mozzarella. I add a sprinkle of barbecue rub to mine. Served with slaw on the side. Not half bad. Key is to be sparing with both sauce and cheese.

I had my choice of a number of different semi-decent meals for dinner tonight. I had wine and a Twinkie. Pot ain't got nothing on this quarantine for encouraging junk food.

I wish my KA flour would come in. They warned me they were behind on shipping. But I'm ready to make bread, even if I can't eat it.

I have never strained mine. I will note that I don't have near enough of it now that I limit my bacon cooking to when the kid is gone, since the smell is a migraine trigger for her. I'm thinking the Paragon on the back porch may be the answer to that.

Aaaaaaand, we have internet again! The aforementioned quiche and salad: And how close the tornado came to me.

The shepherds pie from leftover meat loaf wound up being three small pies. I had just delivered one to my elderly friend from church when I got a frantic call from my daughter: "Come home NOW! There's a tornado coming!" You may have seen on the news it are a swath through Jonesboro; in fact, a half mile from my house. Had the mall and several restaurants that were demolished not been closed due to COVID, it would have been much worse. As it was, we had no damage, have no internet but did not lose power. So I made quiche and Waldorf salad for lunch today. As I have no internet, I can't load pics. As some internet wag noted, my 3-month trial of 2020 is almost over. I think I'll return it.

In the interest of using up leftovers, I made three small shepherd's pies today, using leftover meat loaf. I figure shepherd's pie uses browned ground beef, so why shouldn't I use crumbled meat loaf, no matter it's half beef and half pork? I stirred in some leftover English peas, diced and boiled two or three carrots, and stirred that all together with (forgive me, cooking gods) a can of cream of mushroom soup. In all fairness, if I had had beef stock, I'd have made a beef gravy. On next week's agenda: beef stock. Mashed the potatoes, stirred in a cup or so of grated cheese (I know it's not traditional, but I like it), and assembled three small six-inch pies. One is in the freezer; one will be dinner tonight; the third I'll deliver to my elderly lady I'm checking on regularly. Tomorrow I'm using leftover ham to make a quiche.

Oooohhh. Cantaloupe jam. As much as I love good ripe cantaloupe, this prospect fascinates me. Details?

Owwwww! That hurts just to look at it. I have not maimed myself recently. I'm probably due.

If push came to shove, we could eat for a month or six weeks on what I have here, between freezers and pantry. Might require some adjustments, but we'd not go hungry.

Assholes. The only thing I like from Burger King is the French toast sticks. I'll get mine, the few times I splurge on something with gluten, from Sonic. I have returned from Kroger. They had everything I needed. I noticed soup shelves were low, but not empty. Ditto flour. Plenty of bread. (This was a midafternoon trip, btw.) My Kroger has a cheese section that purports to be part of Murray's, which I doubt, but perhaps it is curated by them, or something; I got lots of good cheese and a log of summer sausage. With that and apples, of which I have a bunch, I could survive the apocalypse. Very few people in the store. LONG line of cars at the pickup door. I also went for a long drive in the country. It's a gorgeous day here, and I opened the sunroof and rolled down the windows and just cruised. Did wonders for my disposition. I would note our governor's daily briefing, to which I listened on the radio while I was driving, cheered me. His administration has turned loose a significant chunk of change to immediately give a $1,000 a month raise to every health care worker involved in direct patient care, and $2,000 if they're working in a facility that has diagnosed cases of COVID. These will go on for the duration of the current emergency situation. He is, btw, a Republican. Came home prepared to cook, but Children A and C (who has semi-moved in since I am keeping her son so she can work while his school is closed) wanted pizza. I tipped the pizza delivery kid heavily. I appreciate the hell out of him.

Never cared for tostones. Let 'em get ripe and fry up maduros, and I'll eat as long as you bring 'em to me!

Yep, that's pretty close to lemon icebox pie. I do mine with a graham cracker or vanilla wafer crust, which is pretty close to biscotti....

I've tried frying them. They want to come apart. Here's a good recipe to use them.

I am about to take my life in my hands and venture out to the grocery, seeing that the first available pickup date is next week, and the first available delivery date is after that, and I have only one Diet Coke in the fridge. Poor planning on my part. I am now in the throes of the "what else do I need?" frenzy. I know I'm out of carrots. But I am relatively certain there is something critical that I am down to the last dregs in the container, and I CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT IT IS..... Meanwhile, an abcessed tooth has my lip puffed out. Thankfully, my doc called in amoxycillin and did not make me come to the office. I had an appointment to get it pulled, but...guess what? The dentists are all closed but for emergency surgery! Does anyone know if COVID-19 brings on dementia? If so, I think I may have it.

Thanks for this. I'd checked the box for them to notify me, but they hadn't done so. I needed wheat flour, sprouted wheat flour, harvest grains blend and everything bread topping. Guess what I'm gonna make?

Tonight is Take Out Tuesday, an effort organized locally to support the suffering restaurant industry. So we're ordering pizza and salads from the local mom-and-pop pizza joint. Should be here shortly.

Woke up this morning with a notion to make cookies. A friend had posted a recipe for "Laura Bush Cowboy Cookies," I presume from one of those First Lady cookbook collections. Oatmeal, chocolate chips, coconut, pecans. I subbed GF flour for the all purpose and it worked quite well (Bob's Red Mill Baking Mix). Recipe here. I halved the recipe, as I had no need for five dozen BIG cookies. Next time, I might up the coconut and pecans, and leave out the chocolate chips.

The specialty of the one in Hot Springs was the small bologna chubs, about 2 1/2 inch diameter and maybe a pound total, that they would smoke. Pretty wonderful.

I love a woman who keeps three kinds of barbecue in her refrigerator's freezer. I think we may be kin.

Happy anniversary, @Kim Shook and Mr. Kim! Parking lot picnics are also underappreciated. Many happy returns!