Norm Matthews

Thank you. My main concern was that the dark color would close in the kitchen and make it seem smaller.. and it is small in the first place. It probably would have been safer to match the gray on the stove but I really liked the dark navy color.

I saw an episode on the Property Brothers where they did kitchen cabinets in dark blue. I showed Charlie some kitchen like that on line. He liked them too. I have been planning new floor and counter tops but this I could do myself. The job isn't finished but it is far enough along to see how it looks. The next one was taken within a month of so after we moved in in 2012 and the last one is how it looked in April.

I recently got a couple cans of pear nectar because it's in another recipe we use, and I used the last apple in another recipe we did recently.

Yesterday when I told Charlie that I was doing a pot roast today, he asked if I could do it Koreas style. I said I would if he could find a recipe with ingredients we already had. He found one. The only substitution was to use some pear nectar instead of apple. (Imagine being out of apples but having pear nectar!) I had mine with potatoes and carrots, he had rice and kimchi He wants me to make it again next time I do a chuck roast in the slow cooker.

That used to happen with me. So the kids set up a blog and told me to post every menu and the recipes right away so that would stop happening.

So far this week I have done two dinners on the grill. One is a strip steak (Kansas City strip if you please) and some baby back ribs from a Korean recipe that is very good, spicy and makes a mess on the grill.

She does have good recipes. I have not been able to make a good cabbage kimchi. Maybe I'll look at hers if I get up the courage to try it again.

Charlie occasonally mentions his mom's fish stew that she makes when he visits. At the same time he asked me about the Korean babyback ribs, he asked me if I could make that stew sometime and I forgot until he asked me if I planned to make it. I told him I forgot and lost the recipe. He gave me this one https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/maeuntang and I made it today. The fish they sell at the Asian market are whole until you buy it and then they scale and gut it if you want. I wanted. I got a couple of striped bass. The head and tail and fins were still on it. getting those fins off were not easy. I even tried garden tools without much luck. I finally used an Asian cleaver and a wood mallet to hammer through. Charlie said it was good and tasted like it was supposed to.

Tried a different bulgogi recipe from the Korea Town cookbook. It was different in several ways but I thought it was really good. Charlie invited our back yard neighbors to join us. He is and EMT and she works for a medical research lab so they both are knowledgeable about safety in this day and age. Plus they are our closest friends in the neighborhood. I also tried a new recipe for peach cobbler and we had that for dessert.

While at the Asian market the other day, I noticed packages of bulgogi and kalbi in the freezer section. It was all ready to thaw and cook. We both were happy to find that they were both good. They will be good to keep some in the freezer for a quick meal. One package would not have been enough for the two of us though. Notice the cooking direction on the package.

Charlie showed me a recipe in the Koreatown cookbook and asked if I would make it. He said he had it once at a restaurant and it was really good. I made it and he said it was perfect so it goes on the keeper list. It is Daeji Kalbi. It has a quite a spicy marinade for baby back ribs that have been cut apart before marinating. It makes quite a mess on the grill though. I added a few slices of beef short ribs to see how that worked and it didn't. They were quite tough. I made a spicy baby eggplant to go with it and some creamed corn. A friend told me about making a potato water sourdough starter and I tried it. It was ready to use today but I didn't take as much time as I could have with it. Still it turned out OK.

I got a pretty good hunk of fresh salmon at the Asian Market today because I saw a recipe for Thai Salmon that looked good. The sauce is coconut milk with chili paste, garlic, ginger, lemon grass brown sugar, and lemon. We liked it. We had it with radish kimchi and rice.

Our dinner tonight was pork chops, spinach and cornbread.

We had tacos tonight.

I cooked the Cornish Hens that didn't get thawed in time for dinner yesterday.

I get in breakfast ruts. For a long time I only ate a poached eggs on toast with sausage. Then for a long time I only had Julia omelets with sausage and toast. Then it was scrambled eggs. Now I am trying to lose weight and skipping breakfast most of the time. But sometimes now I have some Cheerios and berries.

I was going to have game hens and cake for dinner but the hens didn't get thawed in time so we ordered take out from a Mexican restaurant. A while back Charlie was watching a show where people who had never been to the USA were given typical food from here. It was about people from Ireland tasting Southern food. He brought me the recipe for Hummingbird Cake and said it looked really good. I don't generally have the patience to stack and ice cakes, and I didn't do a photogenic job on this one but took pictures anyway. The recipe asked for three cake pans the same size. I had two the same size and one smaller so it came out sort of domed shaped. We both thought it was good but I won't make it again unless I get a request for it.

Charlie suggested dinner again. This time he asked for ribs in the smoker. I left the ribs in about an hour longer than I planned to and they were falling off the bone when I cut them. A while back, @Ann_T mentioned using rye flour for sourdough starter so I tried it. I put a cup of rye and cup of water in a stoneware jar and let it set about 4 days before it started to bubble. When it did I fed it again and the next day it was a very active starter; so I made my usual sourdough french bread with it and it turned out very well. The potato salad and coleslaw came from a deli. The butter is Irish Whiskey butter that I forgot to put on the table for St. Patrick's.

Charlie suggested today's menu. He wanted grilled chicken dark meat and Mac and Cheese. He said I could decide what vegetables. I seasoned the thighs with poultry BBQ seasoning and apple flavored BBQ sauce was added near the end.

This my be considered heresy but it works for me. When it comes out of the oven, I paint the top with butter then when it has cooled a little but still warm, I either wrap it in plastic or put it in a plastic bag. That will make the bread soggy if you take it out too soon but if you let it set overnight, the moisture will reabsorb into the the crust and leave it softer than just butter alone. .

That is interesting. My first thought was the lack or gluten in rye flour but I immediately realized that you don't need gluten to keep wild yeast alive, you just need it for raising the bread. I am currently without a sourdough batter and am thinking about starting one again. The last one was ten years old and still alive but it didn't seem to be as lively as it used to be.

I wanted to get a chuck roast but they were out of them so I got a tri-tip instead. I think it's the first time I ever cooked one but not the first time I ever ate one. Back in 2003 tri-tips not heard of in Kansas, nor I gather, much of anyplace else outside of California. At that time I was getting ready to retire and a friend asked me what I planned to do next. I said that in September when all the other teachers are back at work, I want to send them a picture of me sitting on some sunny beach with an umbrella drink in my hand. She said that she, Darrell and Joanie were going to be at Pismo Beach for several days in September and I was welcome to join them so I did. One day for lunch we stopped at a grill and we all had tri tip sandwiches. Yesterday I also made some Swedish Rye bread and we had that with the roast.

1/4 C. brown sugar 1/4 C. light molasses 1 tbsp salt 2 tbsp shortening 1 1/2 .c boiling water 1 pkg. active dry yeast 1/4 C. warm water ( 110-115º) 2 1/2 C. rye flour 2 to 3 tbsp. caraway seeds plus enough all purpose flour to make a soft dough (3 to 4 C.) It's hard to get much of a rise out of any yeast bread that does not have at least some wheat flour.

I made some Swedish Rye bread from the 1969 Farm Journal of Homemade Breads. I used to make it alot but haven't made it much lately... perhaps because it is not as easy to find rye flour anymore.

Using half a bag of noodles and cabbage leftover from previous meals, i added hickory smoked sausage for a fall back dinner we have every so often.