What's for Dinner, Tues., May 12, 2015

[NJCher]

Chicken meatballs with mango sauce.



Cher

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. scraped another pkg of chicken out of the freezer

so I'll be grabbing another jar of jam to make the black raspberry chicken tonight, with white cheddar mashed potatoes on the side.

Lots of nice blossoms on the raspberries and a lot of hot weather, so we're probably looking at another bumper crop of raspberries this year. Going to can some of the jelly in real time this year, rather than freeze all of the berries first.

[NJCher]

2. sounds delish

Re raspberries, how far south are you? It seems like everyone is ahead of me. Aerows, you, NRaleigh Liberal. This will be the second year for my raspberry bushes.

One thing you might consider for your frozen fruit is smoothies. Personally, I make mine from fresh, but people tell me that frozen works very well.



Cher

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. I'm actually up north, in southwest Ohio.

But my patch was established from wild black raspberries I found growing in the woods a decade and a half back, and they seem to be a lot more vigorous than many of the commercially bred variants. A lot of folks had a weather-related poor harvest last year around here, but ours was as fruitful as ever. I've got a small plot of Autumn gold raspberries as well, and they don't do nearly as well as the black raspberries. We mainly freeze simply so that we're not slaving away over the stove when it's 80 degrees out, and instead do our canning when it's freezing out to warm the house as a side effect.

[pinto]

6. We've got wild berries lining the banks of the creek through town.

Deep red, not black. The drought's taken a toll but they still bear a pretty good crop every year. In season, I usually carry a plastic bag on my walks and snag enough for pancakes, waffles, sauces, curries, cocktails or out-of-hand snacks, etc.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. Nice :)

That's how I started out, going into the woods over and over for a few summers to pick the wild ones there until I bought a house and had a yard, at which point I took a bunch of the berries and planted them and crossed my fingers. Some few actually grew, and it took about 5-6 years before I had a decent-sized patch. We didn't really start canning much until about 10 years in, up to that point we just made kuchen or used them in fruit salads. Now, after 15, I've probably got 5-6 times as many canes as I did at that point. I'm guessing we'll come in at about 50-60 8 oz jars of jelly this year, which would have been 100-120 jars of jam, since you lose about half the bulk de-seeding and de-pulping. The parts of the strawberry patch I got weeded are looking decent, too, so we'll probably get a couple dozen jars of strawberry jam too.

[grasswire]

4. sharp cheddar souffle and a big romaine salad

Busy, busy, busy day. Cool and cloudy here aside the river. Nothing as exciting as yesterday, when two sailboats ran afoul of a sand spit they should have known was there. I heard a LOT of cussing! Yesterday I buried our magnificent big tabby cat Koko under the picture window, and will be looking for a beautiful lavender plant for him to nourish. The circle of life.

[japple]

11. So sorry about your cat, grasswire. It's hard to say goodbye to their furry

presence in our daily lives, but you know that he had a wonderful life with you. Bless you in this time of grieving for Koko and may you find comfort in memories of happy times together.

[grasswire]

12. thank you, friend

He sure gave us plenty of funny memories. I keep telling the family member he was closest to that time will help just as it did when we lost other pets.

[fizzgig]

13. i am so sorry for the loss of your friend

[Galileo126]

5. Grilled lamb chops

with a mushroom risotto. Not sure about the veggies, yet. But when in doubt, broccoli.

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. Turkey breast again.

Rice. Green beans.

[pinto]

9. Boiled potato, broccoli, red bell pepper, leeks with a ginger butter sauce.

We'll see how it works on the plate.

[littlewolf]

10. left over meatloaf and a nice salad with chicken and berries and apples tossing on some walnuts

and Pecans nt

[fizzgig]

14. grilled cheese

husband demolished all the grazing food and was conked out on the couch when i got home. i'm wiped out today and didn't feel much like cooking, so that's what i came up with.

[Aerows]

15. Leftover Red Beans and Rice

And there are people in GD attempting to tell people how to cook red beans (they are toxic in their non-soaked and boiled version), and somebody is going to get a bad stomach ache from that.

Here is that discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026661133#post20

I'm from New Orleans for crying out loud, you would think knowledge of how to cook Red Beans and Rice would be taken seriously since I cook them every Monday, but apparently, we have people that want to be constipated and feel like crap for a couple of days to spare the soaking period.

I advised them not to do it. I did the best I could. When the bathroom blows up on them (and it will if you don't cook red beans properly), don't say I didn't warn them.

[cbayer]

16. I am at my daughters and made stuffed butternut squash.

I stuffed it with a combo of rice, chorizo and cheese. Came out great. Daughter made a really good cuke and tomato salad on the side.