Kelly got over 100,000 likes for this tweet. Enough said.
Category: Cooking Page 1 of 6
Lorena has eaten a breakfast of 60 calorie Dave’s Killer Bread toast, a soft boiled egg, homemade no-sugar added applesauce, and a cup of coffee for years and years. We know we are getting settled into a new place when she can start doing that without too much trouble. We are almost there. As soon as the truck gets here, she can convert the apples to applesauce!
This article was taken from the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper from Feb. 27, 1963. It is about Charlie Whetham, Kelly’s and Christian’s great-great-uncle and my Grandma Chapman’s brother. You might not have guessed I came from such a classy family, but wait until you read this article! He pleaded innocent and told the judge the doctor told him take whiskey baths for his rheumatism (he said “rumatiz”). We heard he was convicted, but I am not sure what was his punishment. The best part is that he was born and raised in Nebraska and did not go out to Oregon until much later. He fought in WWI. My great aunts always said that he got gassed during the war and was pretty loopy ever since, but Grandma C (Grandpa Milo’s mom), as we called her, said he was like that before he left for the war.
Even though Tío Lynn did not make it until we ate cake back at the apartment, Tío Lauro, Grandma Conchita, Lorena, and I all made it to Tacos Sinaloense for there normal incredible tacos. The weather cooperated magnificently with 75° weather on the most spectacular February 6 evening of my lifetime. Afterward, we made our way back to the apartment to have birthday mango cake and sing both Happy Birthday to You and Las Mañanitas.
This is the view from the terrace at the apartment tonight. It really is spectacular. Lynn made a guisado (stew) tonight in the ceramic pottery bowls on the grill. It was fabulous. A calm and fun evening.
Lorena made us huevos rancheros with instant Nescafé. We are going to eat a burger at Shake Shack a little later this afternoon.
Lorena’s OXO egg timer broke shortly before we moved to Mexico. It was not just any egg timer, but one that pokes a small hole in the egg and has an adjustable timer that seems to never miss. Lorena religiously makes a breakfast every morning that consists of a piece of 60 calorie Dave’s Killer Bread toast, an egg cooked so that the yoke is still a little bit liquid to spread on the toast, the homemade applesauce that Grandma Sarah taught her to make with 2½ teaspoons of chia and 2 teaspoons of cocoa nibs, and a cup of coffee. It just does not work together as it should unless the egg is cooked perfectly. We could not find one of these egg timers in Mexico, so she was VERY happy that Christian found her one for a Christmas present. He is, by far, her favorite son.
Lorena bought tickets to a class on how to cook Chicken Pad Thai, Coconut coated shrimp with spicy mango sauce and papaya salad with cucumber. I am sure it is authentic because the instructor is from Mexico, exactly like all the Thai food chefs in America. The class sounds excellent. Everyone brings their own drinks and you can either eat the things you cook at the end of the class or you can take it home with you.
Lorena went to Carnicería Ramos with Grandma Conchita and bought 6.919 lbs. of a cut called Chuleton that Lynn says is a super-set of what gringos call ribeye. She paid a little under $38 dollars total for it which comes out to ~$5.38/lb. This is the same as what Lynn grilled up for us last Saturday night. We got a pound more this week than last week and plan to grill it all up tonight to heat up a few times over the week.
This is a little bit of a religious discussion. I always assumed that all of every kind of fruit and berry grown in the Willamette Valley in Oregon was better than its equivalent from Washington. Our experience living in Centralia demonstrated that I was clearly wrong about Washington apples which are clearly superior to those grown in Oregon. I know believe that stuff that grows on trees in Washington (with the exception of cherries–those, in my opinion are a wash) are superior to those in Oregon, but that the berries of the Willamette Valley are superior at the same category of difference as the Washington apples are superior to Oregon apples. Troy is testing that all out right now with jams we sent him as a thank you gift for my graduation events in Lincoln.
Lorena and I love the Panda Express in Granbury, Texas. It has been our experience that, while most Panda Expresses are at least “pretty good,” they are not all created equal and our experience at some of them was just not very good. We are grateful that we have one we like in our new town. We think the ones we do not enjoy might have to do with the cultures of the people who work there. The reason we like this Panda Express is that it is a fast food place that serves fairly low calorie, healthy offerings that are reasonably priced. There are two other fast food places that meet that criteria–Wendy’s (chili, salads, and baked potatoes) and Jimmy John’s (unwiches). Right now, I am at my desk all day long with little reason to leave the house. So, at least until we move, we tend to go out to eat more to get out of the house than to eat. Hopefully, that will change when we go to Mexico. This is kind of bad for my health.
The prickly pear cactus Lorena planted early this spring is starting to bloom which means we will soon have the sweet fruits from the cactus called tunas. It is amazing that not only the fruit is edible on this plant, but also the broad, oval shaped nopalitos that are effective against type II diabetes. I think I have tried the tuna fruit before, but really do not remember what they were like so I am looking forward to trying them again. As for the nopal, I really like them when they are part of a bigger salad or salsa. I am looking forward to that, too.
Lorena saw something somewhere on social media the other day and decided she needed to make butter (and buttermilk) with her KitchenAid mixer. She was highly entertained and it came out just excellent. We have been using it for the last couple of days.
Last week at HEB, we saw a kind of fruit we had never seen before called dragon fruit. A nice guy working in the department took the time to tell us when (you need to let them get a little bit soft) to eat them and how to peel them. We did not really know what to expect, but boy we were happy we tried it. Today, because it is Friday, we decided to take a special trip to Granbury to eat Kung Pao Chicken with Super Greens (only 290 calories and really good), then see if there was any dragon fruit left at HEB–it is on sale. We loaded up and even have one that is ripe enough that we are going to eat it tonight. We bought one red dragon fruit that was a good bit more expensive, but we thought we would try it anyway.
Back when we lived in Oregon, we would sometimes go to a Mexican restaurant in downtown Newberg. The restaurant was run by El Salvadorans. They served fairly good Mexican food, but they also served a side of curtido, an El Salvadoran blanched cabbage and carrot, pickled salad. It was extremely good. Lorena and I were talking about it the other day and she decided she would try to make some. Today is her first attempt, but we will not be able to try it out until tomorrow because we want it to be a little bit more vinegary by the time we eat it. AND, it is on my approved diet items list.
I am finally trying to get back on the weight/exercise/health wagon and get my program on track. To that end, Lorena cooked her first chicken shish kabobs of the season. Last week she did some bee kabobs. Shrimp makes the trifecta and I am hoping for that next week. They are a summer staple for us and are even good reheated for lunch the next day. Now, all I have to do is get back on track with my walking. The problem here in Texas is that, within a few weeks, it will be too hot to walk at lunchtime which is my ideal time to do it because it gets me away from the desk for an hour. I have a plan, though–mostly I just need to be disciplined about it.
One of our favorite things about living where we live is that we are only about 20-25 minutes from one of our very favorite restaurants of all time. Baked Bread and Pastry Co. has quite a back story, but they would be a great place to eat, even if they did not have one. The food is nothing short of spectacular. When we first got here, we were told by native Texans that Baked’s biscuits and gravy were the best they had ever eaten. We have lived in the South for over a decade, all told, and as connoisseurs and active searchers for the one true biscuits and gravy, I have to admit we were somewhat skeptical. But we were wrong to be skeptical. The thing is, if you find something that good, it is hard to try anything else, but this is one of those places where they have MANY offerings that are that good. We probably eat there two or three times per month and it is wildly worth it. It turns out that a lot of other people thing the same way about them as us. The Tripadvisor reviews are not wrong. At the time of this post, there were 13 reviews. All were all 5’s.
We went all out yesterday for Easter. When I saw “we” went all out, I mean Lorena went all out and I helped, but mostly just got in the way. We cooked a ham–Lorena made an amazing glaze from scratch, she made scalloped potatoes, asparagus, croissants, and deviled eggs. It was truly a feast. We have decided we want to do this more often. Hopefully, we will be able to do this with Kelly, Christian, Grandma Conchita, and other friends again before too long. We do feel pretty isolated now, but plans art starting to form about what to do next. Of course, we have the Mexico projects and that is a big part of it, but we also have plans to get into a smaller house on a smaller lot closer to a town. It is hard to know where to go though. Mostly, we just want to be close to the kids.
Lorena is the most amazing cook in the world. This morning we ran down to McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin breakfast after which we ran across the parking lot to HEB to get some meat and veggies for a Shish-Kabob super AND a ham and some other items for Easter dinner. Lorena boiled some eggs that she plans to paint and enjoy for awhile before she turns them into deviled eggs. We must be getting old because all of this makes us quite happy. Still keeping the fact of Jesus death and resurrection at the forefront–nothing more important than that.