 We are once again celebrating a day of love around the world with candy, flowers, and romantic meals with those who are most special to us. Did you know this tradition goes back to the early 1700’s in America? According to History, “it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology.” Valentine’s Day comes in second only to Christmas for the number of greetings cards sent each year.
I am lucky that every day is Valentine’s Day as I have a great partner in life. Whether you choose to observe this one day with family, friends or a special someone, just remember our world could use a lot of love right now. This is so important specially to support those who may not feel this day is anything but a Hallmark holiday. Love one another, sing a song, dance a dance, be grateful and be kind!
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 The winter weather has given me time to stop and catch up on my reading. I am struck yet again by the numbers of ads addressing obesity and exercise. I realize these folks are capitalizing still on New Year’s Resolutions, but not too long ago I would have been feeling pressure to improve myself.
My mom was constantly worried about her weight. She did it all from counting calories to doing a liquid diet only to double back her weight gain. The irony is once my mom retired, she naturally lost over one hundred pounds from stopping the stress eating associated with an intense job. The same thing is happening to me in my retirement. I never weighed as much as my mom, but between walking my Doodle and cooking fresh meals, I too am losing weight naturally. I was always taught you needed to focus on your food and exercise, but now I am feeling the need to tell you to be kind to yourself. Take it one day at a time and forgive yourself a difficult day. It also helps to have a staunch support network. My biggest ally is the Big Guy who loves me just as I am. Lucky me!  I wrote not too long ago that I have been rediscovering breakfast foods of my childhood. I really cannot say when I stopped eating cereal assuming you discount my annual baking of Chex mix.
It seemed the older I got the more I thought I should only be eating yogurt in the morning. It was fast and I could eat it while getting ready for work. I obviously fell into the trap that fast was good and taking time to eat a real breakfast was bad. Retirement has taught me many things including getting back to the foods I love in the morning. I still start my day with coffee and a few newspapers, but then around mid-morning I will go look for a light breakfast which lately has been cereal. I guess once I am ready to try another food of my childhood you will find me further down the cereal aisle looking at the Pop Tarts.  “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” Believe it or not, considering we are in the throes of winter, our garden is still producing. With the recent storm, I decided it was time to make my rosemary bread again. I trampled out to the garden to see if my rosemary was still among the living. Low and behold, it was indeed. So, fresh from the garden and many store-bought products later, I have rosemary bread. You cannot beat the smell of baking bread on a cold wintery day!
   Dolly Parton is at it again. The woman has the Midas touch and yet stays true to her southern roots.
As I type this blog, Duncan Hines has announced that Dolly is partnering with them to promote a new limited edition baking collection line. They had me at Southern Style Banana cake mix! I was ready to run to the store and buy it. BUT WAIT! The boxes are already sold out due to the high demand. Sigh! All I can say is “sorrow’s tearing down the house,” but “I’ll always love you!”  I was at my local grocery store, and they featured acorn squash as a “deal” of the day. I remembered with great fondness making my stuffed acorn squash in the Fall, so I was spontaneously buying the ingredients to recreate the meal. As you can surmise, I didn’t have the recipe handy, so I was improvising with the items I wanted to put into the stuffing. I grabbed peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions. I perused the sausage aisle and opted for an Italian package. I was mentally going through my mind any other items I may need and decided I had it all at home. If this sounds brave to you, I suggest you check out Sam Sifton’s No-Recipe Recipes. The photography is stunning, and the recipes are, as the title suggests, only a list of ingredients. As he noted in the front of the book, he has been writing about no-recipe recipes since 2015 for The New York Times to encourage people to improvise in the kitchen. Well, Sam, challenge accepted! Off to make my stuffed acorn squash with NO recipe!     Big Guy and I will always stop and look at the cooking section of any store we visit just to see what new gadgets are on the market. One of our favorite haunts was Kitchen Store - Cookware, Cutlery, Dinnerware, Bakeware | Sur La Table in Frontenac. It was so much fun to look around and if you were lucky, you could get a great deal from linens to Dutch Ovens.
While the store is now closed, their online presence is still around, and I get daily emails. One day a 12-inch braiser, with a glass lid, was featured as the deal of the day. I didn’t have one of those and I felt the need to splurge as it was half off, and I had a coupon. Once I got it, I tried to do a few “all in one” meals in it. It was great, but then the pan got relegated to a top shelf. My “aha” moment came when I decided to make the stuffed acorn squash again. The recipe said to cut the squash in half and coat them with oil olive. Place them on a baking sheet and cover with foil. WAIT! I grabbed my braiser and it was perfect for baking my squash. The clean up was very easy and I didn’t mess up the oven. YEAH!  Have you ever had bread right out of the oven? It is an experience unlike anything else. The aroma…the first bite…the moment of utter bliss! We have been buying baguettes from Parker’s Table and the joke is we get one loaf for dinner and one loaf for the ride home. Yes, it is that good! When the weather got crazy, I decided to try and make a loaf of bread at home. The good news is there are many quality products out there if you wish to make it from a “box.” In fact, we used to buy bread mixes from Soulard Market. All you needed was a bottle of beer and the mix. Easy and very satisfying. I discovered the ease of making bread with my dough hook on my Kitchen Aid. Now, I cannot wait for my rosemary to come in this summer so I can get back to making rosemary bread. I am also thinking about scones and bagels. I think I may be digging into my cookbooks again!
 I realize many of my posts are related to real comfort food, but I promise Big Guy and I are eating in moderation. We also eat a lot of salads and try to have vegetables with most meals. The exception to the rule is pasta. I just love a fresh pasta with fresh sauce. Since we had canned marinara and made pesto, we opted for a basil-based pasta. I admit we grabbed a cream sauce off the shelf at the grocery store because, at times, it is easier and almost as good as my own. As we opted to stir in pesto, we figured it would balance itself out. In this case, we were correct. The creaminess of the sauce was perfect and was complimented with a bottle of Pinot Noir. I think the next time I’ll skip the side salad and put the vegetables into the pasta sauce. Kill two birds with one stone…so to speak!   I admit I tend to favor appetizer food. If you add cheese to it, I’ll probably be there.
We have been enjoying the fresh foods from Rosalito’s lately when we wish to have a nachos and cheese night. We also enjoy the frozen pretzels you can pull out of the freezer for a quick snack. One night, we decided to have our pretzels and noticed we still had a queso in the refrigerator. Instead of grabbing our favorite beer mustard from Larder and Cupboard, we pulled out the queso cheese. After all, many fine eating establishments serve their pretzels with cheese, right? It was the right choice on a cold night as it was fulfilling and full of flavor. |
AuthorJust a super cool old couple who love to cook and eat and drink in their Carondelet Kitchen in South Saint Louis, Missouri! Archives
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