Choice Morsels

The Mama Kat prompt I'm doing today is, "Share your favorite local restaurant." We have a couple favorite local restaurants, but I'm only going to share one today: The Aegean Restaurant. This one is located in Shalimar, Florida, across the the street from the county administrative building, around 10 -12 miles from where we live. Distance here is kind of relative, since the Air Force base is the center  of everything and the towns are spread out on either side of it, so getting from one to another involves driving around the base; Shalimar is on the West side of the base and we live on the East side. It's Greek and the family that owns and runs it are Greek as well, so it's authentic. Here's an inside view: All the food on the menu is delicious and they have a good mix of Greek specialties as well as entrees, pastas, salads for those who rather have something more ordinary. One thing I like that they serve, if I'm in the mood for

Today's recipe is my own skillet dinner creation I make for myself and Hubby. I call it, "Quick BBQ  Kielbasa Dinner," but it's actually mix of Kielbasa, sliced onions & either sliced apples or drained pineapple chunks topped with your favorite barbecue sauce and served over rice.  Our favorite BBQ sauce is Heinz Hawaii Sweet & Smokey. It's good, no corn syrup. They make several flavors. (Pictured is with pineapple chunks, but I often use apples.) For just the 2 of us, I only use half a kielbasa, but I've written the recipe for a whole one, which should serve 4. Quick BBQ Kielbasa Dinner 1 Hillshire Farms Kielbasa, sliced & slices halved 1 medium onion, sliced 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil 2 apples, cored & sliced and slices cut in half OR 1 can drained pineapple chunks BBQ Sauce  Rice  (have it cooked and ready or use Minute Rice cups you can microwave) Directions: In skillet over medium high heat add olive oil a

Columbus weekend means the annual Pirate of the High Seas Fest in Panama City Beach, Florida! It's held at Pier Park which is an extensive shopping/restaurant area running strung business 98 to the North and Beach 98 to the South. In the middle it has a new skywheel ride and also a smattering of other amusement rides, plus a Dave & Busters and a movie theater. For the festival, the road running through is closed off from traffic from the center to Beach 98 for a stage and entertainment. (This is a shot of the skywheel behind the sound stage.) We dressed up in our Pirate best and headed down to catch our favorite Pirate Band from Nashville, Tennessee: Tom Mason & the Blue Buccaneers and enjoy the pirate ambiance and other festivities! Tons of people dress up for this event, sometimes whole families in costumes ranging from full pirate ensembles to just a red or black bandannas on their heads.  We go to see the band, the parade of floats that throw shiny

Today is new roof day!  Roofers arrived on time, which was early and I hear them up there, scraping around, removing everything. Today and tomorrow, then done and once done, our roof will be up to current hurricane code. Modern dimensional shingles.  I went out for a photo and saw they consciously covered all my landscape close to the house with protective plastic tarps. Nice. The 4 O'clocks were looking beautiful at 7:48 this morning: The Romaine lettuce seed never did sprouted, which isn't a surprise, since I knew it was over 2 years old---but you never know. Fortunately the weather was cooled down and peas like cool weather, so I planted sweet container peas instead.

Last week wasn't a good week. I was generally discouraged, completely stressed out over some paperwork the roofing company sent us as to how important it was to get done or not done before that started work this week and to top it off---last Thursday night, groggy and not fully awake in the bathroom, instead of grabbing my dry-eye eyedrops from the tray on the sink counter, I grabbed a small bottle of something else that definitely  shouldn't go in your eye and dumped that right on my left eye! I snapped totally awake then and spent a good amount of time washing it out at the kitchen sink.  Even so, it stung the snot out of my eyelid and mucus membranes around that eye, leaving it thoroughly irritated. I looked like Rocky Balboa.  I didn't do anything last Thursday except sleep through movies in the living room and keep my eye moist with eye ointment. Needless to say, looking at the computer was completely out.  So last week wasn't a happy week. On the up side,

T he blog writing prompt I'm doing today for Mama Kat is one from the general list of October prompts. It asks the question, "Have I ever visited a farm?" When I was a little girl of about 10 , while we were visiting Grandma & Grandpa in Minnesota, I remember visiting a farm. It may have been the farm our Grandpa owned that he leased. Or maybe relatives. I don't remember, though I do recall our whole family driving there in the car. With the Grands, too, I think.  It was a working farm with cows and horses and fields. There was the farm house and, nearby, a large barn with a rail fence partially enclosing a barnyard area that was empty, though the ground had the bare and straw-spattered look of having been used at some point. I remember the farm family had a couple young daughters around our age and they guided us through the barn and through the empty barnyard off someplace to show us something. What I remember most vividly, however, is the return tri

I have things I've gotten in the mail that need planting today, several bulbs and two Hosta's---but while getting the bulbs in, which had green growth showing, it started raining, so that's it for today.  It's called Portuguese Squill and should should bloom like as pictured. Kind of exotic looking I think. Their description included all my favorite words:  blue-purple blooms, drought tolerant, full sun and readily self-seeding. It's suited only to zones 7 - 10 though, it's a flower southern regions. It's also short: 6 to 10 inches. One bag of 5 bulbs: 3 I planted out between the Coneflowers in the naturalized area by the mailbox and 2 in blank area in front of my Julia Child rose.  (photo from Michigan Bulb)  Today's Garden Pic is planted last fall that is having it's first bloom right now! It's called a "Wood's Pink Aster."   It's perennial with a small habit, about 8 to 10 inches high. I expect to see more and

For today's Good Eating Tuesday, I've done a phote sete of making my Greek yogurt cups for Hubby to grab in the mornings he eats breakfast at home. We have this nice raw honey from our neighbor bee-keeper and I decided this was a healthier option for Hubby then commercial pre-flavored brands. Ingredients: A large container of plain Greek yogurt, raw honey and small Glad storage cups. Then I add about two healthy spoonfuls of honey to the bottom of Glad cup: Then I fill the cup with Greek Yogurt. (Side shot so you can see the honey on the bottom.) Then I tap the cup on the table to level it. (Top view) Put a lid on and put it in the fridge. I generally make 3 cups at a time, more if Hubby goes through them. One large container of yogurt will usually fill 6 to 7.

This past weekend, while grocery shopping, I picked out another P.F. Chang frozen entree to try and review:    P. F. Chang's Beef & Broccoli! This is what it looked like in the skillet right out of the bag: Large pieces of frozen beef and lots of broccoli florets. \ Here is it is on my plate over Minute Rice Brown &Wild Rice: It has a rich brown sauce that isn't spicy and tastes very similar to Panda Express Beef & Broccoli---but with lots more beef. If you follow the cooking directions, the broccoli still has a nice fresh crispness when you bite it. One entree serves 2 people; perfect for us. I can tell already P.F.Chang's frozen Beef & Broccoli is my favorite and if I want convenient Chinese in the freezer, this will be it.

The Mama Kat prompt I chose today is, "Share a new recipe I recently tried." This is the Pinterest recipe I tried this week: "4 Ingredient Slower Cooker Chicken in Stuffing." The recipe is fairly good--the chicken breasts come out is fall-apart moist and tender, but the stuffing----after all the soup and broth mixed in with it, it doesn't have enough flavor.  The recipe calls for one box Stove Top stuffing combined with 1 cup broth, 1 can cream of mushroom soup and 1/2 cup water, then poured over the chicken breasts already in the bottom of the slow cooker. It looks like this.  (photo is mine) Cook on Low 7 hours. The stuffing drys out over the top of the chicken, forming a nice stuffing crust, so it still looks like this picture---but cooked. The tricky thing is getting the chicken OUT of the slow cooker and onto a plate without losing the nice stuffing topping, which slides off pretty easily. Arranging the chicken breasts in the slow cooker

Today I was planting my "fall container garden" in these clay pots set into the ground. There are 3, though one isn't in view.  They were out in-ground next to the veggie bed in back, but we'll be re-working that space with raised garden frames later when weather is cooler, so I moved them here, where they'll be easy to take care of. The first one has Red Veined Sorrel planted in it; the second has Spinach and the third has Romaine---though the Romaine seed is older and I'm not sure it will come up. We'll see. I also planted radish seed in the ground around the front edge of each clay pot. I figured why not? Those seeds aren't doing anything else. The  container with the leafy greenery is a pot blueberry that's busy new branches for next years fruit.  This is what Red Veined Sorrel looks like. Young leaves can be used in salads and older leaves in stir-fries, soups, etc. But aside from it's food value, I thought it's just

I've been trying some recipes, but results are so-so. The last really great recipe I tried was that French Coconut Pie! I'm going to try it again this week with a slight adjustment to sugar-to-coconut ratio. In the meantime, I've  decided I'd review frozen meals we try. We were at the commissary this past weekend and purchased a P.F. Chang's Mongolian Style  Beef meal to have something easy to make for dinner. It was perfect for us since it serves just two really. This is the picture on the bag. Just put in skillet and heat and it makes it's own sauce. No need to add water or anything. (You provide the rice.) This is the meal on the plate. (I added some frozen peas) It's a little saucier then pictured, but otherwise very close. (photo is mine) * The quantity of beef pieces in this meal was generous and they were good size. Plenty of meat for two people. * It had lots of uncut green beans and red bell pepper chunks.