Tonight we will be treated to a homemade soup of Ms. Jan’s. Beef stew cut into smaller pieces, onions, celery, sliced mushrooms, mixed vegetables, V-8 juice, salt, pepper, season-all salt, Worcestershire sauce, and Louisiana hot sauce—simmering and smelling the kitchen up. Later she will add egg noodles. I am in charge of frying the cornbread. 90% chance of rain has turned into overcast/cloudy this morning and sunny with blue skies this afternoon. There will be ice cold longnecks and chilled wine available on the back porch this afternoon and evening. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Keeping it simple today: burgers on the grill and a broccoli slaw. We are having a Zoom cocktail hour with my sibs, my son in DC, and my deceased sister's husband (my sister died over six years ago, and my BIL's girlfriend so we need a quick dinner.
I've been sprinkling Kraft Mexican blend cheese on my salads lately. First off......cheese makes everything better - kinda like bacon! But that Kraft cheese is out of this world good! I think I recall reading that you tend to use Sargento brand cheese, Bill. Is that right?
Twice baked potatoes stuffed with cheddar cheese, mushrooms, bacon bits (Whenever I cook bacon I put three slices in a plastic bag then put them in the freezer for this.), Alfredo sauce then butter. Really nice.
The kebabs were awesome. My wife made tzatziki sauce and we shared duties on tabbouleh since yesterday. Tomorrow is a pork tenderloin in a sesame teriyaki sauce with broccoli and rice. Leftover pork will be used for escarole soup on Wednesday.
I’ll be frying fresh catfish this evening. We will have our normal sides of Ms. Jan’s homemade coleslaw, cheese grits, and hush puppies made with buttermilk. Cold and windy here again today—started out @ 30* (windchill 26*)—clear skies and sunny with a predicted high of 56*. Back porch ice cold longnecks and chilled wine will probably require a long sleeve or light jacket to be comfortable. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Going to have to start the escarole soup soon as the Gator men's basketball game starts at 6:30. I had to go out and get some more parmigiano reggiano cheese. It is orders of magnitude better than that Kraft in a green can chit. That tastes like sawdust compared to the real deal.
Got down to 28 F at the Gainesville airport, but stayed above freezing in my yard. Cooking some grains for a "harvest" salad. Wild rice and farro. We have a delicata squash to use. Other "good for you" stuff in there, like kale. It is pretty good and my wife's kind of cooking and I am just in charge of preparing the grains. I prefer things with pork fat as they are always delicious. Anthony Bourdain agreed with me.
