May 26, 2011 - What's For Dinner?



"What are you having for dinner?" asks Zentmrs. She's having a delicious sounding Layered Chicken Cordon Bleu.

My answer.....

"We're having Italian sausage, sliced, browned and then simmered in marinara sauce (made from home canned tomato sauce, 2010 garden) and served over spaghetti. I have onions, parsley, oregano and some green garlic and shallots pulled from the garden today to add to the sauce, with dried basil from last year. I also harvested a big basket of spinach, so I'll steam that and serve it with butter and salt & pepper. Two heads of Austrian Red Butterhead lettuce are crisping up in the fridge for a salad. That's a lot of greens, but when we have a glut of them it's a necessary evil! I also have a fresh loaf of bread rising, so it will come out of the oven just in time for dinner."


I stuck to that menu, with the exception of the Italian sausage. Rather than slice it, I decided to remove it from the casings and then brown it for the sauce.


Mr. Granny is finally eating garden lettuce, rather than insisting on grocery store Iceberg. Of course, it has to be a wilted lettuce salad, with a sweet and sour hot bacon dressing on it, and lots of crisp bacon bits. We easily eat two small heads of butterhead or red leaf lettuce in one sitting when it's fixed this way. The green tops of the onions were also used in the salad, while the bulbs were diced up into the spaghetti sauce. Mr. G was also impressed with that sauce, which was made entirely with either fresh, canned or dried produce from the garden...not counting the sausage, of course. He had two huge helpings! I must say, the bread was exceptionally good tonight. It was light, with a finer crumb than I get when I use the bread machine. This loaf was mixed up in the food processor.


You can tell what my favorite part of the meal is. I usually eat my dinner on a salad plate, as half helpings are just plenty for my appetite. My salad is always larger than my entree.


Alicyn, my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter, came to visit today. She spent the afternoon entertaining me.



Piano for sale. Cheap. ;-)

41 comments:

  1. Oh Granny!

    I am so hungry. Not to mention I am having a "procedure" done tomorrow, so the instructions say not to eat nuts, seeds, corn, or salad!

    :(

    After this thing is over I want to get myself a big, juicy cheeseburger. I thought somewhere on the instructions it said that I can't do that, but looking at the paper now, I can't seem to find it, so..."cheeseburger, here I come"!

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  2. Dinner looks great, and your granddaughter is so cute!

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  3. That video was fabulous! And I am assuming my dinner invitation got lost the mail? Dinner looked very yummy.

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  4. That video was so cute! And dinner looked amazing. Yum!

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  5. That's some good looking spaghetti!!

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  6. ZZ, I think I know what your "procedure" is. I don't envy you.

    I made hamburger buns the other day, and we pigged out on cheeseburgers topped with fried onions. Mmmmm!

    ********
    Thank you, Kris!

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    Nartaya, you didn't get that invitation? I know I sent it....post office must have messed up again ;-)

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    Deb, it was exceptionally good. It's not often I have all the ingredients fresh at hand all at once. I did kind of rush the garlic, but it wouldn't have been as good without it.

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  7. Dinner AND entertainment? What do I need to do to get an invite? How about some peach geranium cuttings?
    :)

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  8. Yea---I could comment!! Yea!!!

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  9. Alicyn is one fine pianist! Great dinner Granny!!

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  10. I had tears in my eyes laughing, I know that feeling! They are so darn cute though we just grin and bear it, LOL!

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  11. It is so satisfying to put out a meal that is from our own labor of love, and fruit of the garden. Strange to me how what was a necessity in years gone by, is the exception today. Dinner looks lovely, as does the grandchild.

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  12. Yum. I was eating spaghetti sauce last week. But the peppers and onions weren't from the garden. At least the tomato sauce was. This week was I was using the grill. I haven't had a grill in so long that I've been using it a lot. Yesterday was grilled pizza. Yum. And yes the pizza sauce was from the garden. Even the dried basil was. But not the oregano. I keep willing that oregano to grow so I can have enough to dry.

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  13. Granny, you're making me so hungry!!!

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  14. Annie's Granny's diner is now open! :D It all looks so good. I had breakfast before I sat down to read this but now I am hungry again?! Alicyn is just darling.

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  15. Your dinner sure looked great. We had grilled Italian Sausage with sauerkraut made from cabbage last year. Also macaroni salad which had onions from last years garden also.

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  16. Looks like a lovely dinner! I planted my garden last weekend, better late than never! But I put in plenty of butter crunch after watching the beautiful heads you got from your garden!

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  17. Sue, you have a deal! I love those peach geraniums. I usually put geraniums in the big containers in the front, but this time I ran out of room in the garden and so I out my last three pepper plants in them!

    I had no problems leaving comments on both of your blogs yesterday, but I haven't yet looked to see if they published.

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    Thanks, Robin. Get used to it. She's marrying your little garden helper, and they're moving in with you. I'm giving them the piano as a wedding gift.

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    Erin, that video was for you. When she started "singing" and "playing", I grabbed my camera and told Mr. Granny "Oh boy, Erin's gonna get it!"

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    Thanks, Cindy. It's really just the same-old-same-old, I never get fancy with the cooking. I just like to incorporate all I can from the garden, so they become my "garden dinners".

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    David, in Grandma's day, even the sausage was home raised. I remember my grandmother's meals as being exceptionally good, with lots and lots of food, but she seldom went to the grocery store. I remember being five years old, and going to town with the grandparents. It was a real big occasion, Grandma got all dressed up! And we bought bananas!

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    Daphne, I swear I'm going to try pizza on the grill. I hear such great things about it....David P., are you reading this? I need a pizza grilling lesson ;-) I still have about three jars of pizza sauce left from last year.

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    Toni, good to see you again! Are you getting that garden planted?

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    Kitsap, come on over, I have leftovers! LOL

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    Wilderness, it seems most days I have something from the garden, even if it's only pickles or ketchup! We had butternut squash night before last, and it's our very favorite thing from the freezer.

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  18. grocery store Iceberg ?? what the heck is wrong with Mr. G.? good heavens. my lettuce has just started producing, and i am in heaven.

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  19. MommyAmy, where have you been? You haven't blogged in like forever, girl. I've wondered how you and the family are getting along....seems like not too well the last I heard from you.

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  20. You've made me really hungry for dinner - and it's only breakfast time as I'm reading this!
    :-)

    I've never had a wilted salad before. That dressing sounds delicious, I'll have to see if I can find it online.

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  21. Donna, our youngest son is just like him. They don't like "floppy" lettuce! At least Mr. G likes the wilted lettuce salads.....LOL, and wilting the lettuce makes it even "floppier"!

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  22. - Granny -

    Yes, I don't envy myself either.

    :(

    You have your garden just like I wish I had one. Where you could almost live off the land if you wanted to. Excpet for the meat of course. I can't remember if I read this before or not, but do you have chickens?

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  23. Denise, the recipe is here

    http://tinyurl.com/4xotcju

    For a regular big bowl, not quite as large as the recipe, it's easy to remember 4-3-2-1. That's 4 slices bacon, 3 T. vinegar, 2 T. sugar and 1 T. water. I only use half of the drained, crumbled bacon for the first salad, then make it the next day with the remaining bacon and 1/4 cup of salad oil instead of the bacon grease.

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    ZZ, no chickens. I want them, Mr. Granny says absolutely not. I want more garden space, too. Mr. Granny says absolutely not. Poop on Mr. Granny ;-)

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  24. That dinner looks delicious! My salad usually ends up being much bigger than the rest of my dinner, too.

    As for the entertainment, that is exactly why we got rid of our piano. Don't feel too sorry for my kids, they have found so many other ways to annoy me, they don't even miss it. :o)

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  25. Langela, I'd love to give that piano to Alicyn's mother! We bought it for her about thirty years ago! I've had thirty years of kids and grandkids banging on it, I'd say it's her turn now.

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  26. Looks delicious!! I just love homemade bread. It's one of my very favorite things.

    And you sure have a darlig entertainer!

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  27. It's a Deal Granny! Now if you'd direct me to the pizza sauce recipe, ton the agenda for canning this year!

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  28. If that's the case...maybe I will chip in for some lessons!!

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  29. Thanks,Zentmrs. And thanks for giving me a blog subject yesterday!

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    David, the recipe is really easy. First you buy a packet of Mrs. Wages pizza sauce mix, then you follow the instructions on the back of said packet!

    http://www.mrswages.com/

    I do let it drip through a coffee filter before I use it, it is a bit too watery otherwise.

    I also use Mrs. Wages ketchup mix, it's excellent! I've tried several recipes, but they are all either too sweet, too spicy or too bland.

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    Sounds like a deal to me, Robin ;-)

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  30. Love your greens! But I'm salivating for your fresh baked bread:)

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  31. Random, that bread was so good, I'm using the recipe again. Mr. Granny will only eat white bread, and that one is actually soft enough that it's great on sandwiches. I used the recipe for Moomie's Beautiful Burger Buns, but cut the sugar to 2 T., mixed it in the food processor (takes about 5 minutes total time), put the dough in a greased plastic gallon sized ZipLoc bag to rise, punched it down and shaped it into a loaf, covered and let rise then baked it at 350F for 30 minutes.

    Moomie's Beautiful Burger Buns
    http://tinyurl.com/3oldtyr

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  32. Dinner looked great. That salad sounds pretty darn good, we like to do a spinach or arugula type salad with hard boiled eggs and warm sweet & sour dressing. I bet that wilted stuff is just as addicting.

    I enjoyed the piano player, she has that bit down! ;)

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  33. Kelly, I use the same hot dressing on spinach. Sometimes I mix spinach and lettuce in the same salad.

    I was impressed with Alicyn's singing and song writing abilities...."A-R-D, A-R-D, A-R-D" LOL!

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  34. sounds (and looks) delicious!! Thanks for the well wishes !
    That was really scary to look up and see all the debris around and over me.. I really think those tomatoes saved me!! lol

    Today was busy with adjusters and roofing companies and tree removal 'specialists'.. who knew removing trees was SO expensive!?!?!

    I'll be back gardening soon I hope. Just gotta heal up a bit. I'm hoping to rescue whatever tomato seedlings I can from what's left of the porch tomorrow. Wish me luck!

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  35. Wendy, I sure do wish you luck in your healing and in your house repair. I think it cost close to $2000 to have those "specialists" remove our maple tree when it blew down. Of course, only part of it came down, they had to go up and bring the rest of it down, cut it up, haul it off and grind out the stump. It took forever to settle with the insurance company too, and I still think we got the short end of the stick :-(

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  36. Dinner looks delish and your grandaughter is adorable.

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  37. That's too bad about no chickens Granny!

    It would be cute! Cookie and the Chicken! They could be roomates.

    ;P

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  38. ZZ, Cookie is a house rabbit. I refuse to raise chickens in my house. No. I will NOT! LOL

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  39. Thanks for the recipe! I can't wait to try it. :-)

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