leder legends

The coldest morning since 2017.  12 below!  

  I think leftovers are something no one loves. But I am trying something new tonight. This is an idea from venisonfordinner.com   She loads her leftovers on lined cookie sheets and pops it all in the oven and serves food from there. I preheated the oven to 475 degrees F ( because you know 500 is just too high , right? Lol), lined a cookie sheet with foil and layered on the leftovers from Sunday’s dinner and popped in the oven for 12 minutes. Everything was hot, nothing was mushy etc.  It worked and I plan on doing it again because everyone can eat at the same time...no waiting on the microwave!

 Happy Valentine’s Day  Happy Hallmark Day  OR Happy Single Awareness Day In any case we have been through a few! This May it will be 49 years!  Last year Arie gave me roses and cooked dinner. This year I cooked him a meal that he loves.  Witlof  (Belgian endive), potatoes, pot roast with an amazing gravy. Give a Dutchman some really great gravy with his potatoes and he’s in heaven!  Since I am not a fan of witlof, I also made a cauliflower dish.  So,so good but a fair amount of work.  Cake (an almost far, far better cake) for dessert and some red wine.  It was good!                                                        This was my plate! Next time it needs a side that has more color! Spicy Roasted Cauliflower with sun-dried tomatoes from MILK STREET.  

  I am baking a cake tonight.  I been a longtime fan of Alton Brown from Good Eats. He has a wonderful and entertaining way of explaining things. That show has been off the air for many years but has been reshaped and revived as Good Eats Reloaded. He takes old shows and the featured recipes are made "better". A Far Far Better Cake was a recent reload.  I have been planning on baking this cake ever since because I want to make a decent cake. One that is far, far better than I have ever made before.  I shopped for the one ingredient that I didn't have : cake flour.   Tonight, I finally had the time and the occasion for which to bake: It's Valentine's Day tomorrow.  I carefully did all according to directions including sifting the dry ingredients. I am usually too lazy to do that.  Haha-- perhaps that is why my cakes have not pleased me in the past.  The batter looked great! As I reread the entire process one last time and discovered ...

We woke up to a white landscape and it has been come down  at intervals all day.  It is also very cold and getting colder. Real nothing to complain about because it is only the first heavy snowfall this winter. It's warm and cozy inside. We have power and heat and water and FOOD! The omelet we had on Tuesday was a great dinner tonight.  Thursday we had Wednesday leftovers.   To top it all off, the house is still clean.   The trash was brought up from the basement clean up, the baskets went to new2you so now I just need to decide where to store the stuff I want to keep. I did my volunteer hours at new2you this afternoon.  The roads were slick but okay if you were not in a hurry.  The store was dead so I cleaned up the linen section shelves.  It was nice to have time to clean up a section that no one had time for before. What is the  plan for Saturday??

 Secrets...under the basement stairs!  That is probably a bit of an exaggeration but I did "find" lots of hidden away treasures under the stairs...on hangers, on the shelf and mostly in boxes and baskets!  It was fun.  The trashcan is also filled to overflowing!  Down memory lane: lots of pictures, old report cards, cards, vintage toys- Barbies and He-man, vintage Dutch lace curtains, clothes that were so popular in their day now just too small :).  Household:  5 bed pillows, 5 blankets, 4 hammocks.  The cupboard/closet is now emptied and cleaned/vacuumed. It is a lovely place to store things that will turn into "secrets" after a few years. 

 Dinner with friends at our house! Friends of ours became grandparents for the first time last week so we had them over to celebrate!  Dinner and wine !  It was fun to do this again after so long! I cleaned... at least  cleaned up so that the house looked great! I must admit I did really clean the bathroom! Appetizers: veggies with a homemade spinach dip,  pan-seared shrimp with three dipping sauces.  Main: cauliflower and leek mash, asparagus, grilled pork tenderloin (it was cold but the hubby did fire up the grill) , grilled flank steak.  Dessert: a crust less cheesecake. Good food, good wine and very good company.  Of course I forgot to take food pictures but we did raise our glasses to the new family far away!  LEFTOVERS: ANOTHER GOOD THING