Raise your hand if you are sick of winter...Or, how delish are these leftovers?

photo by Amanda Glaus from MN

This is what the weather looks like where I live right now, and this is good compared to what it was like down in the country where we live. It was Girls Night tonight, but got pushed to Girls Afternoon due to the impending weather. I get together with my friends C and M, whom I used to work with at the Bank. We get together not as often as we would like, but usually every other month or so. We all make food then sit and eat said food and talk about what is new in each of our lives. Today, our food was awesome like always! C made turkey meatballs with a glaze of Cocktail sauce and grape jelly and some mustard and her famous guac, M brought veggies and dip and a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars and I made popcorn salad and made a loaf of cheesy bread (which I will share this upcoming week). I also brought a bottle of Rose Regale for them to try-it was a 10 on everyones list.

My plate of food this afternoon

Last night Dude and I were going to have date night and decided to ask Drama Queen to come since we were going out for Prime Rib-and she hadn't had any for a long, long time. We went to Wiederholt's in Miesville, MN. It is an old fashioned supper club that has been owned by the same family for maybe 60 years. It is old school. Dark paneling, red curtains and carpeting, old fashioned chandeliers with the orange bulbs. They serve you a tray of crudities with dip and ice sprinkled over the veggies to keep cold, an assortment of crackers and fresh buns, a stick of REAL butter, salads and your main course. It is always busy on the weekends, so a nice man offered DQ and me his chairs and we all enjoyed a cocktail while we waited-DQ had a Shirley Temple only (she was our sober cab-I must say it is quite handy!) We all ordered the Prime Rib-Dude and I had the 24 ounce cut will Boo had the 16 ounce. We knew we would have enough to bring home and enjoy this evening. I made some baked potatoes, warmed the meat in au jus and reheated the remaining cheesy bread from this afternoon. It was delightful. Just enough for a small supper after watching an awesome Daytona 500. We are not big sports buffs in our house, but we love us some racing! We have a local track only 16 miles from our house, so we like to get to at least one race each year.

So, while the weather is awful (I don't even want to think about us having to drive in this crap-thankfully DQ is off due to the holiday) we had our fair share of wonderful food this weekend. Can't remember the last time we had a dinner bill of $114......darn Cosmos!

Country Style Ribs

The supermarket had country style ribs on sale for $1.48 a pound in the value trays so I picked up a large pack for about $3.50. There were enough ribs in there for two meals, so I grabbed the slow cooker, seasoned up the ribs with salt, pepper, chipolte pepper, paprika, cumin and a little onion and garlic powder. Dropped them in the crock, poured in a couple tablespoons of water, set them on low and went to lunch with my neighbor Pat. When I got home, I pulled half of them out, poured on some BBQ sauce and let them simmer on low for another hour. We had them with some bread sticks and baked beans. Nothing fancy, but I think he was just glad I cooked.

I morphed the leftover ribs into dinner for tonight. I will post that later in the week.

Here are some new photos of Tofu:

Hey Tofu, look up here

Now look this way......

Ummm, hey, the room is starting to spin.......

Pantry Challenge update

The pantry challenge has been going pretty well. I had spent about $12 last week on milk, bread and some fresh veggies. This week I have spent about $25 dollars on milk, cheese, potatoes, lettuce, oranges, limes, lemons, sour cream and a loaf of fresh bread. I so wanted to buy lunch meat for sandwiches, but I held firm and repeated to myself that leftovers are fine for work night lunches.

This a box mix of Au Gratin potatoes that I gussied up with some cream, nutmeg and a little extra fresh cheese


Here is a pork butt roast that I fixed in the Easy Bake oven (NuWave oven). Sprinkled it with pork chop seasoning and a mixed spice blend with onion, garlic, cumin, celery salt, paprika and pepper. We had it one night with the Au Gratins and the next night Dude had the left overs and I made a teriyaki chicken breast and made mashed spuds and gravy.


Tonight I made meatloaf with a pound of hamburger, pound of ground pork, some chicken stuffing mix softened in water and milk, an egg, some Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce. I also make twice baked potatoes and split a bottle of Robert Mondovi White Zinfandel.

Since I was gone all weekend then I have worked Monday and Tuesday, I will spend tomorrow working on the menu plan some more. I had Physical Therapy today and told my therapist about the Brie and Kahlua appy. She wrote down the recipe as she is doing a cocktail party soon and thought it sound good. I told her my sister almost licked the plate.

Stopped and picked up a couple books from the library today-The French Laundry cookbook (which I'm sure I'll read like a novel and not cook from as I hear his recipes are quite involved) and Fearless Baking by Elinor Klivans. I'm off to run a bath and read about food and call it a night since I had to wake up in the middle of the morning for my appointment. I'm sure it isn't the wine that made me sleepy.....