Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm feeling well enough this weekend (not to be confused with feeling well...  I was just feeling well enough) to cook a larger than average meal today so we're having corned beef and cabbage today, St Patrick's Day. I put the corned beef in the oven about an hour ago and it will be in the oven almost all afternoon.  The house is already smelling delicious! Most recipes call for simmering corned beef on the stove but I'm not much a fan of boiled meats.  Back awhile ago, I tried a Dutch oven...  that was better than boiling but it still was lacking.  Besides, neither one of us likes cleaning the Dutch oven either! Then I decided to slow cook the corned beef in the oven, covered, with spices and fresh onions and garlic.  I add a bit of liquid to this too (beef stock, watered down to cut the salt a bit) and then seal it up in foil.  It slow cooks for at least an hour per pound. This is the same way I slow cook pork so I don't know why I didn't always cook my corne

A lthough we are stuck in COVID isolation and missing out on all the Christmas festivities this week, Sheila and I still managed to make our usual Christmas dinner for Christmas Eve.  We have plenty of leftovers for dinner on Christmas night too.   I was feeling well enough to do some cooking so we chose to celebrate Christmas with a nice quiet dinner together.  There is no one else I would rather be with in this situation or any situation so being stuck with her in isolation is no problem whatsoever.  Fortunately, we enjoy each other's company! I'm still feeling a bit lousy however I am feeling a bit better than yesterday so that is good.   My fever has broken and my O2 saturation levels are still in a good place in the upper 90s.  My throat still hurts even with all the cold medications I am taking and I just don't feel "right".  I suspect the cold medications are helping to keep my fever down as well as dampening some of the throat soreness. I think that if I h

After spending much of the day shopping and going out for a late lunch, we came home and spent the evening in the backyard with Lukey, Kenzie and Pop.  Pop joined us just as we were starting on dinner.   Earlier in the evening, we played quite a few games of Giant Jenga.  I had already written about that here .  There wasn't a whole lot of down time spent sitting around the fire.  We did do some of that but it was really only between games.  This was our first evening out in the backyard for the season so there were a lot of games we wanted to play.  It was fun but it definitely wore me out!  (Being so busy in the backyard also caused me to forget a dose of medications.  This caused significant problems for my health the following morning.) Although this photo, below, appears as though this is a perfect example of poorly applied makeup, this is really the result of eating cherries...   Before we headed out to do our shopping in the morning, I prepared dinner...  Shish-Ka-Bob.  When

Last week, we had dinner at Sarducci's in Montpelier for Lukey and Kenzie's birthday.  Sheila and I have not been going out to restaurants all that often but we do enjoy our occasional meals at Sarducci's.  Sarducci's is near the halfway point between Liza and John's house and our house so we chose Sarducci's for Lukey and Kenzie's birthday dinner again this year.   Kenzie and Lukey opened their birthday presents at the table before dinner... Kenzie is running a 5K again this year in June with Gee so she has been running regularly after school.  She wanted a fitness tracker to keep track of her running and, I suppose, to keep her motivated to run.  She video chats with Gee almost every evening and they compare notes on their running that day... I almost always order the chicken parmesan at Sarducci's and I did this night too.  It was very good, as usual... Sheila and Lukey had the grilled salmon... Here are two comparison images...  above, what the camer

A s expected, we ate too much corned beef and cabbage last night.  That was good!  We always eat so much corned beef that we run out of meat long before running out of potatoes, cabbage and carrots.  In the future, perhaps I should make about four pounds of corned beef whenever I make this meal.  We finished dinner completely stuffed...  over-stuffed. Now that was a good meal.

S heila and I had a very nice and quiet Christmas Eve dinner here at home as we usually do each year.  Most of the horrendous weather is behind us and the power is back on in our house.  We do have branches down all around the house but we fared very well compared to others especially those who are still without power.  We only lost power for an hour and a half.   Today was a nice Christmas Eve spent at home ending with a nice dinner.  Well...  I may have something for dessert.... As I usually do, I made a rib roast for dinner.  We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, fresh green beans with chopped garlic in oil, au jus, and dinner rolls.  It was pretty good food but the dinner with Sheila was very nice, as always.  It is always nice to make something special for dinner for special occasions and tonight was one of those occasions. Tomorrow we have another rather quiet day filled with prep for our Christmas celebration with all the grandkids the following day.  Although it will be quiet her

We've skipped a few years of celebrations due to the pandemic.   Although, I have to be honest, we did recently discuss the wisdom of celebrating this year considering how many people are now sick with the virus, the flu and other viruses.  We took a chance and headed to Stowe for our annual Christmas celebration anyway.   We started the afternoon at Idletyme Brewing.  Frank and Christine met us there.  We had some wings, a big pretzel, and a few delicious beers.   I started with Zog's Pale Ale.  Sheila started with a Stowespresso which is made with Green Mountain Vanilla Vodka, Kahlua, Baileys and cold brew espresso.  We both tasted a unique Stout sporting notes of chocolate and coffee as well as a unique Vanilla Porter.  Personally, I preferred the Zog's Pale Ale and stuck with that.   Here is a photo of Sheila's Stowespresso... Here is a photo of the big pretzel with beer cheese dipping sauce as well as a spicy mustard dipping sauce.  This was "okay".  We&#