For the record, this stuffing substitute^* is fabulous, and really can be a meal on its own. My only differences were the addition of a large, minced clove of garlic and french thyme instead of sage. Also, next time, I might try toasting the nuts and throwing them on after cooking or putting them on top at the end of baking time. I think I’d like the crunch over chewy.

*Scroll to the bottom of the page

Ada’s Mermaid Cake
2 tomatoes
1 broccoli
11 scoops of frosting
6 scoops of white flour
1 piece of candy (so there isn’t too much sugar, I guess besides the frosting)
1 little piece of bread (so I’ll be okay to eat it, despite the 6 scoops of white flour)
2 eggs
2 scoops cinnamon
1 raisin
12 bottles of baking soda
17 mermaids–for the surface only
6 mermaid candles

Serve with 1 big bowl of apple juice. And 17 cups. Birthday ones.

She left no cooking instructions or which mixing method to use for this cake. I have enough experience with baking to know that it is warranted given the list and proportion of ingredients.

ETA: She also told me to take note that we need 17 napkins, 17 birthday hats and 17 presents.

Curried Ground Turkey With Potatoes.

My differences: coconut oil instead of vegetable oil, sweet potato instead of yukon gold, and at the advice of Lydia, way more volume of spices than listed. I added some curry powder in there as well as the others listed. I basically spiced, tasted, spiced, tasted and so forth. Curry makes the kitchen smell so good. The only person who picked at it was Jay, who surprisingly picked out and ate all his peas, but scowled at the rest. He’s a picky eater, but I did get him to eat a few bites.

Ada was really excited to make us dinner last night, and help with this curry dish, that I’m going to let her make something once a week. I’ll let her handle the salad to go with the kefta and tzatziki.

I also have an abundance of mint that I need to use. The tzatziki will not use it all. Hmmm…

2 lbs. pork ribs
8 cups water
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sazon goya with azafran or color
2 whole scallions
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup hogao
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme

1. Place a pot over medium-high heat. Add the water, salt, pepper, whole scallions, cumin, sazon Goya and pork ribs, bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for about 35 to 40 minutes. Discard the scallions. Yeah, really, get a large spoon and fish them out. I also skimmed the top of the water to get out the floating pork stuff. The meat was still on the bones.

2. Add potato, thyme and hogao, cover and cook for 25 minutes more or until the pork is cooked. Throw in the hominy if using. I didn’t have fresh thyme, so I used dried french thyme.

3. Add the cilantro and serve.

The only thing you have to be careful about is bones from the ribs. I just peeled off the meat as I served the soup. You still have to keep an eye on the small bones. I suspect this will be good with my beloved winter squash instead of potatoes as well. I cooked this on low in my porcelain enameled cast iron stock pot for about 1 hour before we ate it.

I picked up the sazon goya at Checker’s in Lawrence. It is a mixture of salt, garlic, cumin, annatto, mexican saffron, turmeric, and the much dreaded, by some, MSG. If you’re one of those people, now you now how to assemble the spice mixture.

Hogao
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped scallions, white and green
2 cups fresh chopped tomatoes
2 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro — I used a generously heaping 1/4 cup
a good sized pinch chopped saffron threads
salt and ground pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the tomatoes, scallions, garlic, ground cumin and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring until softened.

2. Reduce the heat to low, add the saffron, salt, pepper and cilantro, cook for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally until the sauce has thickened. Check and adjust the seasoning.

3. If you don’t want to pay for saffron–it is expensive–leave it out.

I found that this tasted better if you let it sit in the fridge for a day before you used it. I also liked this in my scrambled eggs warm, and found that scrambling first and adding a heaping spoonful of this at the end of cooking worked best. You could heap it on cold too, I suppose, like people do with salsa.

I, personally, would avoid piling in more cumin. The small hint of cumin gives it that unique taste over salsa without it tasting like chili or tacos.

*And because my ability to make an omelette without obliterating it is weak.

Ada and I made a late night grocery trip^*. My fridge is now full of yellow onions, shallots, scallions, spinach, kale, carrots, celery, corn, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, broccoli, lemons, limes, cherries, mango and strawberries. And there are avocados and bananas on the counter. And I refilled my missing yogurt, block of Parmesan cheese, eggs and the two empty bottles of Iwig milk^**. And popcorn for our movie night treat. I’ve always been a fan of pretty plain popcorn–not too much salt and never soaked in butter. I hate movie popcorn. However, I discovered putting one of these Penzey’s seasoning on my popcorn: Brady Cheese Street Sprinkle, Mural of Flavor, or Florida Seasoned Pepper. It’s really yummy, and now I want popcorn more often than I used to.

Ada and I got home after 10:00. I washed dried and cut veges and placed them in their green bags, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and then I mixed together this egg casserole for breakfast this morning. My differences, I cut up a few scallions–including the green part–and a clove of garlic. I left out the bread and bulked it up a bit with more squash. I cooked the onions in about a teaspoon of butter until they were soft, then I added the garlic and cooked until I could smell it. Then I threw the shredded squash into the pan and tossed it around until it was all coated and mixed. Then I turned off the heat and let it cool a little while I mixed the eggs and cheese. Then I mixed it all together.

I also used canned tomatoes because I don’t do grocery store tomatoes if I don’t have to. They are flavorless. I’ll be full of farmer’s market tomatoes soon enough. I wish I had canning equipment. And skills. Because I’d get a bunch of glass and can my farmer’s market tomatoes for later use.

The casserole was good. I’d make it again, but she isn’t kidding when she says squeeze all the water you can out of the tomatoes. I think it is what contributed to the slightly watery texture, even though I did squeeze them.

Not food related, I mowed the yard today. It took me about four hours. Why? Because it is 105 outside, and my fever came back and is over 100, and I took a lot of breaks because I’d get overly hot and dizzy. I came inside a lot to sit in front of a fan and cool off. Ada even filled a washcloth with ice and gave it to me to help keep me cool. I did not need to add heat exhaustion to my list of ills, but the yard needed mowed, so I did it. Now it is done with.

The viral infection, and fever to go along with it, can last 3 – 7 days, so I’m told. It first struck around 3:00am last Saturday. That means it had better be gone tomorrow. I’m the type where if you took my temperature during random parts of the day, it is rarely even 98.6. I usually hover around 98. These last almost 7 days of having my temperature constantly be 99.5 – 101.9 has been strange. It is strange to be so hot inside my own house all the time.

*Ada is out of school this week on break. She can sleep in, and thus, stay up late. I was thinking out plans for things for us to do the week before. I was even contemplating taking the kids on the road trip to Colorado so they can see mountains. Mountains! Guess what they did. Entertain themselves in the house why I tried to not die. Suckiest vacation ever for not being a member of the Griswold family.

**The Iwig farm got enough investors to keep doing business. Thank goodness! Now I don’t have to go to KC for Shatto.

First, this note: I have to go to get groceries today, and I hope that it isn’t the last time that I get to buy Iwig milk. I’d hate to go to Kansas City for milk.

This is another one without a recipe, except for the syrup. It is a really easy fruit salad. And the only big effort is cutting strawberries. The syrup has to be made ahead of time, so if you do this the day before, making the salad is even easier.

For syrup
This makes a lot. You won’t use it all for the salad. Keep it for other uses. I hear that people exist that like tea, even sweet tea. This would be great in such a drink with a little mint added. I suspect.

2 cups of water
1 – 1 1/2 cups of sugar
5 inch piece of unpeeled ginger, thinly sliced

Bring the sugar, water and ginger to a boil in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let steep 20 minutes. Pour ginger syrup through a sieve into a bowl, discarding ginger. Chill, covered, for at least 2 hours.

For salad
About 4 cups of mixed berries^*
A big handful of chopped mint, maybe about 4 Tbsp
Juice from 1 lime

Mix the berries in a bowl with the lime juice and mint. Stir and let sit in the fridge about 30 minutes. Then right before serving mix in some of the ginger syrup.

I used blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries when I made this last.

Also imagine spooning some of this fruit salad over homemade vanilla ice cream. Or with some greek yogurt and nuts. Yeah.

Okay, back to non-sweets tomorrow. I have at least a few more regularly made salads left.

*I’m making that up. I filled a large bowl. I don’t know. A lot of berries, but I was feeding a lot of people. Adjust the mint to your taste according to the amount of fruit, and don’t let the berries swim in lime juice.

Then one day while we were out eating, my SIL ordered a chopped salad, and something strange happened. I wanted one. I mean, I really wanted to eat it. The one part that I do like about iceberg lettuce is the crunchy, and when I eat it with my Ameri-Mexican dishes, it is chopped into small pieces or shredded.

So, I looked around at various recipes and made this chopped salad for a family get together. This is in better recipe format since I based it off of a couple of already written ones.

For vinaigrette
1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus additional as needed
2 teaspoons coarsely ground fresh black pepper, plus additional as needed
(I never measure out my salt and pepper. I add to taste. This was how this vinaigrette was written)
1/2 to 1 cup grapeseed oil

For salad
1 large head iceburg lettuce, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, 6 to 8 cups. I removed some of the limpy outside leaves because I wanted just the crunchy parts.
1 cup bell peppers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, something other than green since the rest of this salad is green. Or green, if you want your salad to be just green.
1/4 cup capers
1 cup fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, removed from stem
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh dill, large stems removed. Or more dill. Lots of dill.

In a small bowl, combine the onions, water, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. Add 1/2 cup of the oil to the vinegar mixture. Add additional oil to taste.

In a large bowl, combine the salad ingredients. Toss with enough dressing to coat, and season to taste with additional salt and pepper. Serve any remaining dressing on the side or just save it for another salad later.

Imagine that with a grilled steak. Actually, I am right now.

Ada wanted to make the salad for Mac’s birthday party, however, she went to the lake during the day with her Aunt Hilary, so I made the salad. I made it up to her tonight by letting her experiment with her own salad. She wanted me to write down the recipe, so we came up with a name and I’m recording it here. I felt it needed to be shared. I’m mostly transcribing as she lists ingredients.

Ada’s Cold Summer Salad
Cottage cheese
Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
Prosciutto
Grapes
Carrot sticks
1 raspberry, because 1 is enough in a salad. You don’t want to ruin the salad with too many raspberries.
Water

1. Get a really big bowl.
2. Put in cottage cheese
3. Then add the 1 raspberry.
4. Then add the shredded cheese and grapes
5. Then add carrots
6. Then add water. Lots of water! Make sure it is the cold water from the fridge.
7. Then get more water.
8. Then add a little more water.
9. Then stir it. It is a good thing to do. Stir it just a little bit. Add more stuff if you want it. The same stuff that you already put in.

A photo of this creation has been added to Facebook.

I believe a friend and I experimented making our own summer drink when I was in 1st grade. It smelled terrible. We poured it out into the yard, and it killed the grass.

For vinaigrette
This makes more than I eat on my salad. I make extra salmon and eat it again the next day.
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup blood orange vinegar^*
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (the smooth kind)
Handful of diced, crystallized ginger, or some fresh grated ginger
A little Agave if you taste it and feel you need a little sweetness
salt, to taste

I either whisk it together in a bowl or put it on a glass jar with a screw top lid that won’t leak and shake the bejeezus out of it. The jar method is nice for making extra because I just store the rest in the fridge in the jar.

For salmon
1 cedar wood plant
1 piece of salmon, I usually eat one about the size of my hand, skin removed
salt/pepper

Soak the wood plank on cold water for about 1-hour before placing on the grill. I pre-heat the grill on the highest flame that I can. Then I season the salmon, turn the burners on low and cook it on the plank for a bit. Then I turn the burner underneath the plank off and continue to cook using indirect heat.

For goat cheese
About 1/4 cup of minced hazelnuts
Package of goat cheese

This really depends on how much cheese you want. What I do is form the goat cheese into small disks, press both sides into a bowl of minced hazelnuts, and then toast it in a pan until the goat cheese starts getting soft and the hazelnuts are toasted, turning once. You can save the leftover hazelnuts for another salad the next day or some other use or toast them and toss them in the salad.

Assemble salad
Put a pile of mixed greens on a plate, place the salmon on top and set a couple of hazelnut toasted goat cheese beside it. Then drizzle with the blood orange vinaigrette, depending on how much you want. The cheese and the salmon should be warm when you serve it.

I’m trying to keep myself busy with work-related activities everyday. Today, I’ve started programming. I’m not doing a difficult project, but I’m doing it in multiple languages and frameworks. It’s purpose is a refresher and learning. My online jabbering may slow down a little.

I was going to mow today, but with the heat-index expected to reach 110-degrees, I decided to pass. I voted to do laundry instead. I’ll mow tomorrow early morning. Sorry neighbors if you don’t like hearing a lawn mower at 7:00am, but I don’t like heat stroke, and I do have to push mow the lawn. Just be glad that I’m not mowing at 3:00am, which is tempting since it is a cool lower 80s and not sunny then.

*I use this vinegar.