ElainaA

I think the contrasting opinions of Aldi's may reflect differences in the age of the store. And probably also in management. From the pictures, the store that @rotuts shopped at is much better lit and much bigger than my local Aldi's. Ours has been around a long time - over 20 years - so I guess it's an early model. (Inspired by this thread I did a little googling and found an article about the opening of an Aldi's in Syracuse in 1997 that referred to the fact that Cortland already had had a store for a few years.) Many of the products that people refer to are not available in Cortland. I'm going to have to explore the Ithaca store which is only about 7-8 years old - perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised.

@dcarch How many varieties of tomato are you starting? My friends think I'm crazy because I'm doing 13 kinds - this looks like more. How many plants, total? It look like you start your seeds directly in beer cups - I start (tomorrow!) in seed trays and transfer to beer cups when they have 2 sets of true leaves. Looking at your set up I'm questioning the need for the two step process. My major problem is that, like most little boys, our half-grown kitten loves playing in the dirt. We are still discussing ways to keep him away from the seed trays and,later, the plants.

Thank you! Although the pasta was good, I basically ate bruschetta and salad (and, yes, wine). My husband on the other hand..........

Last night: Bruschetta with oven roasted tomatoes, seasoned fresh ricotta, red onion, parsley, oregano and olive oil. Pasta with pancetta, onions, parsley and parmesan. The onions were cooked with the pancetta very slowly for about 45 minutes until they super creamy and sweet. Also a salad. The pasta isn't exactly exciting to look at but it tasted very good.

In Austria Aldi = Hofer. When I visited my daughter, then living in Vienna, we shopped there. It was 100% different from the US Aldi stores that I have been to - clean, well lit and the produce and meat while not exceptional were certainly acceptable.

The nearest Aldi's to me smells so bad I won't go in. Also, as @BeeZee said, very dark and depressing.

@Darienne Oh man, I can see myself doing that!

Wow! I look away from this thread for a couple of days and am over whelmed by the amazing meals. Last night was "California Chinese" from Barbara Tropp's China Moon - a book that I used to use a lot and somehow forgot about. Definately not traditional but I have liked everything I cooked from it. This was pork with peanuts, Napa cabbage, green beans, carrots, red peppers and tree ears. Over rice. I picked up some frozen dumplings at my last visit to an Asian market so we had some of those too. Saturday was a potato and cabbage gratin - recipe from the NY Times. I was disappointed with this - it was a bit watery and very under seasoned. Luckily my husband liked it just fine and finished it off for lunch the next day. The salad was beets,goat cheese,fennel, red onion and pecans over endive and romaine. The best part of the meal, in my opinion. I just took a tray of roasted tomatoes out of the oven. They'll be part of tonight's dinner. The 2 lighter ones in the middle started out bright yellow. I've noticed that my yellow tomatoes turn orange or even red when cooked. The tomato chutney I made with yellow tomatoes looked exactly like the batch made with red ones. I'm getting near the end of the tomatoes I canned last September form my garden and it's only March!

I was going to "like" this but that hardly seems the correct term - empathize with perhaps? I've experienced this - it is a real bummer. Mother Nature is a highly unpredictable lady. More so now than in the past.

This defines "food porn". I wanted to lick the screen.

I am afraid I know exactly what I would do with the red ones and it wouldn't take very long. (You know the red ones taste the best, don't you?)

Last year I made a pastiera for Easter and it was wonderful (there are pictures a year back on the baking thread). When I asked about canned wheat at the relatively-local Italian market, the proprietor, Mr. Lombardi, showed me where it was and said, very scornfully, "but the local cooks always cook their own wheat berries" and showed me where they were. I didn't find it tedious and the result was delicious. Sadly, this year due to some health and weight issues, my husband asked that I not repeat it. Because he couldn't stop eating it.

Here too. But your seedlings look great! @kayb In our zone the standard is don't put tomaotes and peppers out until Memorial Day. That was my mother's advice as well as rotuts'.

I buy a roasting chicken about once a month. Like most posters here, the first meal is simply roast chicken with potatoes and a veg or salad. I can usually get 2 more dinners - usually a pasta with chicken, mushrooms, peppers and lots of garlic, maybe a risotto, in a salad in warm weather, or shredded and mixed with lots of onions, tomato, cumin and chili and put over rice. Plus there is at least one lunch for each of us (my husband and myself). Then the bones and wing tips make stock - often frozen to use for risotto with the leftovers of the next chicken. When she was about 12 one of my nieces wrote an essay for school about how her mother (my sister - then a divorced mother of 4 children) could make one chicken feed the family for a full week starting with small portions of roast chicken and ending with "soup" - stock made from the bones with some noodles cooked in it. I think she only stretched the truth a very small bit.

@Anna N I do that all the time. I pull out the stems and the worst of the roots - but since you use the greens when they are so small there shouldn't be a lot of root material. I would use a very thin cover of fresh potting mix to cover the new seeds. I've used basically the same mix, with small additions, for up to 4 plantings. Happy gardening!

Given that it is Easter I think the photo is baccala. Franci? Unless she is too busy with her amazing cakes.

Pasta with fresh ricotta, peas, bacon and parmesan. And a salad with the last of this planting of micro greens. Why didn't I start another batch 2 weeks ago? I have no idea..... I also had some bread i baked today but I forgot to put any out. We really didn't need it.

@liamsaunt I am so jealous of your fish share! The fresh fish in our local stores is very VERY limited - cod, salmon, swai, sometimes tilapia and haddock, occasionally swordfish or tuna. I haven't been able to buy monkfish (which I really like) in years.

My camera battery died as I tried to take a picture. Dinner was chicken thighs baked with peppers (red and green), prosciutto ,onion and tomato, white wine, brandy and chicken broth. Served with rice and a salad. From a Spanish cookbook that I like very much. Edited to say: I hate it when people arrive at a dinner I have all planned out with something that does not fit in. "They just HAD to bring something.!" Do others here feel that way? edited again to say: This comment was supposed to be in a different thread - the one on casseroles.I seem to have messed this up. Sorry.

I think one issue here is do you want to be a good neighbor or a good foodie? If this a group of people that you like and would like to be part of I would say go with the group recommendations and make a casserole. And make a really good one that your neighbors will like. It's a social group not a foodie competition. If your host asks for a casserole they probably have the other courses taken care of - don't step on their toes. Edited to say: I hate it when people arrive at a dinner I have all planned out with something that does not fit in. "They just HAD to bring something.!" Do others here feel that way? Like this

I love casseroles. There are a lot of relatively light and definitely gourmet options. Several of my favorites are from an ancient article (appropriately titled "Casseroles") in the long defunct magazine Cuisine - Pork and Pepper Moussaka, Herbed Lamb with White Beans, Corn and Beef Pastel, Ham and Spinach Strata - not a bit of cheese in any of them. Then there is Baked pasta with Chicken Parmesan and Arroz con Jocoqui - those both do have cheese. There is also a (somewhat) simplified version of cassolulet in the CI cookbook - French Pork and White Bean casserole - that is very good. And I still make Solyanka from the original Moosewood Cookbook - late 70"s vegetarian gourmet - containing potatoes, cabbage, cottage cheese, sour cream and yogurt among other things. I think lasagna qualifies as a casserole, so how about a chicken and vegetable lasagna? If you would like any recipes, let me know. I think I like casseroles so much because I can assemble everything when I have time, refrigerate them and then just stick it in the oven, make a salad, pour some wine and dinner is ready.

@Deryn - I am so sorry your retirement dreams seem to have gone off the tracks. I don't know anything about Nova Scotia but I have always lived in relatively poor, rural areas, including some time in Grand Isle county Vermont (3 sides Lake Champlain, one side Canada. The border was less than a mile north of the town where I taught.) One thing I can say for sure - in areas like these it takes time and effort to be accepted as part of the community and until that happens any attempts to alter the status quo will probably be seen as interference. Part time residence makes that even more difficult. I would suggest getting to know your neighbors - maybe over tea and some really good nibbles - and doing a lot of listening. Even here in Virgil, NY - only 15 miles or so from the very sophisticated small city of Ithaca, recent transplants (especially from Ithaca!) are looked at with skepticism. (I married a native so I am border line ok). If you can find a common interest of any sort (gardens? genealogy? Downton Abbey? ) and connect with one person you may find the community opening up to you - then you can start some means of improving the food situation. Maybe a community garden? And there is the unspoken question - is this a community to which you really want to belong? If not, what are your options? Good luck, what ever steps you take...

@Shelby I feel your pain. We are having an early spring here in the northeast - crocus, snowdrops and miniture iris all in bloom - and that is very early for us. I am fighting to resist the temptation to start seeds, knowing winter could easily come back. Last year there were almost no cherries because we had a very cold spell after the trees had bloomed. My husband keeps saying "We can still get 2 feet of snow." (I respond "I do know that but please JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT." )

Tonight: Marcella Hazan's "Thin beef steaks with olives and tomatoes" with pasta with garlic,oil and parsley. And a salad, of course. This a favorite dinner for both my husband and myself. Last night: Corn, tomato and potato soup and a salad with cannellini beans, tuna, radicchio and celery with a parsley vinaigrette. This was the last of the corn that I froze last summer. Now it will be months before i have really good corn again.

Simple roasted chicken, roasted potatoes and garlic, blueberry chutney and, in my opinion, the star of the meal, a salad of carrots, fennel, celery, apple, endive and radicchio, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and a little salt.