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I used to keep recipes in a green spiral notebook. In 1988 I computerized it, printed it, and gave copies to family. I updated it in 2003. The "Green Book" is now 155 pages. One of my grand-nephews just finished high school and will be going to culinary school. His mother asked guests to his party (Saturday) to bring a favorite recipe. I decided to give him a copy of the Green Book. As I picked one section from the printer the top page had "Tuna on a Shoestring."

I immediately decided to make it, and that is what we had for dinner last night. It brought back fond memories for both Pat and Barb. Barb couldn't remember having it since she was a teenager. Nostalgia is a good seasoning! This is a Betty Crocker recipe from 1965, which is about when I started making it. Betty has updated the recipe several times and lots of versions are on the web. The version I make is at website Food, and you can see it by searching for Tuna On A Shoestring Salad, if you are interested.

I served Caprese Salad with it, having just read the recipe in a murder mystery.

Tonight I served fish (hake) with mango sauce, fresh mange chunks, dried cherries, and slivered sweet pepper. I microwaved acorn squash, and roasted asparagus. It was a nicely color-coordinated plate, with good flavors.

I've been drinking a lot of pomegranate juice lately. It is very high-card so I mix it 1 part pom to 2 parts diet tonic water or soda. Very refreshing.
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Carne Asada tacos, enchiladas and Spanish rice from Colimas restaurant. Yummy.
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Kazzaa – I remember when I was about 9 or 10 years old. My older sisters (age 16 and 18) would go to school in decent covering clothing. But in their large purse, they had their skimpy clothes – in which they would change when they got to school. My 2 younger nieces did the same. But, I’ve also seen the teenage girls in skimpy clothes with their parents at the mall.

Sis cooked the pork chops for lunch. It was typical style - salt/pepper - only... and a bit hard. But I loved the taste. She got it just right.

So, I made dinner - again with the left over chops. I over-compensated from the last time. I put too much salt. This time, I threw in the onions halfway through - just so that the meat gets flavored with it. I don't care to eat soft onions. It needs to be crunchy. Then, I fried the rice. It was a struggle. FYI, there IS a difference in making fried rice straight from the fridge (cold) vs. a hot rice. The longer I fried it, the more clumpy it got. My poor arms were hurting. Sis got her rice before I threw in the onions. I love onions in my fried rice, in my meat, in my hot sauce.... By the way, my chops came out sooooo tender. Now that's how I like it. Next goal with chops: go back to a pinch of salt, lots of black pepper, and try oregano and thyme.
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a little bit of oregano goes a long way , book .
im going back to my wood cutting today . really just killing time till the customer starts building his stone house this fall and winter .
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dinner . prob'ly be some more boiled chicken . its just no thrill cooking for one person . whatever stops the belly from growling is usually good enough .
kaz , if you have seafood on holiday make sure it isnt from the inchon bay in korea . its a polluted bay full of the runoff of human excrement ..
america gets guff for having a lot of chemicals in our food but the river cleanup efforts in this country in the last 40 years are highly commendable . we build the worlds cleanest burning cars by far too . were not slouchers in clean energy . west central indiana has miles of wind turbines as far as one can see . i think theyre a beautiful sight , others ' may have different opinions ..
we just fired up the worlds largest solar farm on the mojave desert . europe makes a lot of noise about renewable energy but its BS . theyre burning wood pellets from louisiana and calling it biomass . how freaking ecologically responsible is it to haul wood pellets across the pond ? it isnt , its a farce ..
ive just put in a hard day and being difficult , lol .. have a blast on your holiday . dont put too much effort into suntanning , its the white spots that guys are interested in..
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Leftover chicken and potato cheese perogies. Last night went out for a rare treat. My neighbor took us to a nice Italian restaurant. I had Seafood pescatori and it was wonderful :)
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I was going to say im having prawns but Captain has made me wonder now!!!!!!
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sallie i have no idea what you had for dinner last night but sounds lovely! i bet you miss cadburys chocolate?? i didnt think much of hersheys when i was there! I heard hersheys may have bought out cadburys nooooooooooooooooo! If you ever want i can send you some!
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Ok dont know where my prawns are from so.......... its chicken piri piri with green beans drenched in garlic and red chilli butter!

tomorrow night its tapas and sangria cant wait!!
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Oh i dont care about tanning im 47 and i look 32 and a half because i never put my face in the sun of course my brother disagrees he says you look young cause you aint never had a kid OR a mortgage!!!!! maybe hes right!!
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I got a giggle out of "... 32 and a half ..." What I wanna know is how ya came up with the half a year?
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kaz , you had my interest at 47 . a 32 yr old would probably watch reality tv shows while a guy was trying to pry her out of her 3 sizes too small jeans ..
blew my fantasy all to hell . guess ill go read aljazeera and see how texan truckers are going to start popping caps at illegal immigrants if they dont head back south ..
boo hoo , the kids are escaping violent gangs -- by bringing them here ..
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Spicy Italian from subway - I am talking about a sandwich not an actual Italian - that would be much better.
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big deal today. my customer is ready to start his new house . hes an absolute genius with upscale stone design . ill debate with him all day long but in the end i follow his judgement -- hes that sharp .
i think ill actually go buy a few groceries today . probably chicken livers , beaks and claws but groceries nonetheless ..
been burning my canned cherries up making single serving pastries . bummer . hope the peaches and apples come on pretty soon .
gotta do my laundry todat too . the idiot upstairs just cant seem to comprehend washing them , drying them , and cramming them in the basket . i dont have any more patience where shes concerned ..
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well the store didnt have beaks and claws but i got me some 69 cent per pound leg quarters , plenty of livers and a pretty appreciable amount of other things for only 29 bucks . looks like ive got at least one apple tree getting it on pretty strongly so ill be canning soon enough . i think an apple cake with walnuts is about as good as a cake gets ..
id jump on ike and go back to see the grandkids again at the drop of a hat . it just doesnt cost that much on the bike . ive offered to take the ex with me . we hate each other from a distance but she still needs to see the grandkids and her husband dont understand anything but fried food . lol i think she got the husband she deserves but its still painful to watch ..
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So my daughter and boyfriend decided to get burgers and chicken and some salads for a b,b,q. Diggin not having to cook again. Lucky me :)
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I was planning to not cook today, but on the way to the family party I was rear-ended and now I'm at home with a damaged car. I'll eat leftovers and be just fine. (No one injured.)

Yesterday's dinner was a new recipe I found in a murder mystery. It is Fettucine a la Fresca and the sauce is fresh tomatoes, wine, basil, mint, and onion, topped with roasted walnuts. I told my mother about it when I visited at the NH, and she made a face and said that sounded awful. :) It does sound a little strange, but it was awesome. Will definitely be making it again. I'll use more basil next time. If you are curious, the recipe from the book is also on the plantingcabbages site. Search for Fettucine a la Fresca. Wish I had some of that leftover. Alas, the recipe serves 3 nicely (along with garlic bread, olives, and pie!)

By the way, the author of the culinary mystery is Leslie Budewitz and her first book is called "Death Al Dente." Murder Mystery is my favorite genre, and I like to sprinkle in with a food connection once in a while!

Off to forage in the fridge ...
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Oh, rats, Jeanne. I hate it when that happens. You are so calm about it. I wouldn't even be hungry.
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Jeanne, when I was a teenager, I used to read these Harlequin romance books. Some others actually put the recipe of what the female character made. I remember wishing that I could try those recipes. I think I ran into that author's books. For now, I'm into supernatural mysteries. I once bought a series of knitting mystery series and most times the topic of knitting went right over my head. I tried different cooking mystery series but...

Real quick question. I have several frozen real meat in the freezer dated as of March2014 that looks like the local meat dept. cut, sliced and packed it with styrofoam bottom and wrapped in clingy plastic. Is this still good? Or should I throw it out because it's expired?
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Oldest sis says it's okay to still cook and eat it.
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Book it has not expired if it has been frozen. Expiration dates are for fresh food. So listen to elder sis and enjoy
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jeannie sorry about the rear ending but at least the other driver's insurance will have to pay for it. Got hit by a cyclist once clearly not my fault and my insurance paid but I still had to pay the deductible.
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harlequin romance never had enough pics for a young boy, the intimacy was over my head . all i had was women underwear models in the montgomery wards catalogue . my how the world has changed . now caves in jordan and gaza have streaming donkey porn .. freakin ethiopians are sexting each other on i phones .
not tonight zebra girl , ive a 4 month old headache ..
something has got to give, it aint like im going to stop running chainsaws or ( gasp ) put mufflers on my bike ..
ill bet kazzaa is sitting in a pub in spain tonight telling people shes a double agent for the kgb .. best buds with angie merkel .. been hiding snowden from the cia ..
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Thanks Veronica. Then, we have more 2 more packages of sirloin assorted chops.

Breakfast was, of course, fried rice (sis made sure to cook a lot yesterday so that we have leftovers for fried rice today), hot sausages and eggs. Last time, I only added onions to the fried rice. This time, I wanted to add eggs and sausage. Lastnight, I asked sis how to do it. So, I cooked each one individually at a time: onions, eggs and then sausage, - all separated. Then when I was done with the fried rice, I threw it all in and just mixed it.

Lesson learned: When you include sausages into the fried rice, there is NO need to cook more - on the side. And 2 pieces of scrambled eggs are not enough to go in the fried rice.

I don't feel like cooking dinner. I will cook rice and hopefully oldest sis will cook???
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Book, meat expiration dates are often the date by which the item should be consumed or frozen -- it just shouldn't be continuing to age in the fridge. And sometimes they are the "sell by" date, and there is a little leeway after that for consuming it. And sometimes they are the "packed on" date, which I don't find helpful at all. The kind of date it is should be identified.

If you buy a frozen dinner with an expiration of 6/13/15 that means if it is properly stored in the freezer it should retain good quality until June of 2015. A food sold frozen has a date that tells how long it can remain frozen with good quality.

Raw meat dates only apply to when they are fresh, not frozen. Once you freeze them that extends their life greatly. (That is the purpose of freezing them.) Freezing them prevents them from spoiling, but the quality does start to deteriorate. You should be able to find lots of charts that show a recommended freezer limit for maximum quality.

I didn't know there was a culinary sub-genre in Romance novels! Many of the culinary mysteries I read have recipes and I seldom bother to try them. But this particular book had recipes that sounded worth a try.

I recently read one set in a cupcake shop. When I got to the part where the owner is teaching a class to make buttercream frosting and has a whisk set out for each couple I through up my hands. Buttercream is made by CREAMING the sugar and butter. That is how it gets its name. No whisk allowed! I could just imagine trying to mix butter and powdered sugar with a whisk. I won't be reading any more of that series. :)
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Yeah, Jessie, I hate when mechanical things break down or malfunction or get busted. It is so tedious to set things straight. And in this case I was on the way to a family party I was really looking forward to, so I am disappointed.

The guy who hit me turned out to be a neighbor that I hadn't met. We got to talking and he was expressing his regret. I said that my husband died a year and half ago and he had dementia for 10 years before that, and my perspective has changed a lot. Just a car is something to take in stride. It turns out he is a caregiver in a memory care unit, and is in school to become a nurse! So we talked for quite a while.

Insurance has set me up for repairs, without running around getting estimates, and has authorized a rental. I'm going in for cataract removal before the crack of dawn on Monday so there will be a little delay in getting everything started. But it is just a car.
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Cap, I hope you get to spend more time at that farm that has you in 7th heavens over their machinery.
Jeanne - I'm glad that the air bag didn't inflate (since you didn't mention it.) What a coincidence, isn't it? You and the other driver are neighbors and his line of work. That can always be your common thread of discussions on future meetings (at grocery store, etc...)
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On my way to Mickey D's - it was a really long day.
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lol jeanne.
" just a car " . thats an attitude that only a former caregiver would exhibit . its interesting how we learn to discern what we can or cant control and what really matters in the grand scheme of things .
i need to reconnect with my aunt but poa and aps are squaring off for a date with a judge and a court appointed conservator and poa isnt going to cooperate with me in any capacity or even communicate with me right now . poa's ass is in a jam and of course its eveybodys fault but hers .. delicate terrain for me at the moment .. i dont want to be in anyones business -- just hang out with my aunt ..i wouldnt be financial poa for someone if i were ordered to . numbers aint my thing . i get a different number every time i count my nads ..
looks like ambien for dinner for me this am .
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Freshly made pineapple upside down cake. That's all the calories I could afford .... but it was WORTH it.
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