Eliza Comes For Steak And WVU Baseball

We hadn’t seen Eliza and family for a few weeks and I have been wanting to cook some steaks (my needed extra protein) so we invited her to bring her family and come on down for Sunday supper.  Her she is at eight with her wide blond hair.

My Posting Philosophy, Marinated Olives And Cheese, And The Snake Does The Unexpected

You may have noticed that I’m not posting as often and when I do it is often more than one topic.  The reason I don’t post as often is that I don’t have as much to write about since we don’t RV and they contain more topics because we don’t cook as many meals that are worthy of a full blog post.  Bev and I are both losing weight and to do that, we cook and eat more meagerly.  But since my blog is my journal and the home for most of our recipes, I want to keep doing it, at least for a while longer - I actually write some posts and don’t publish them to be sure I have the info.  I’ve been taking Zepbound to lose weight for three months (37 lbs so far) and after a recent doctor visit, I realized I was not getting all of the nutrition that I needed (especially protein) so I’ve opted to change things up a little and have my diet be more Mediterranean like (more beans, olives, fish), eating more meat protein, and adding a protein shake each day - not enough protein is why muscle mass is loss when taking the new weight loss drugs. 

Marinated Olives

Hot Dogs And Slaw For Memorial Day

The Memorial Day food question for us usually boils down to “will it be hamburgers or hot dogs for the meal and since we recently had burgers, we opted to go with the dawgs this time.  I’ve mentioned several times that I grew up in an area of West Virginia where hot dogs were topped only sauce (chili), mustard, and onion and slaw was not even an offered option (it is in most places now like the rest of the state).  But not being from that area, Bev and Pat like slaw dogs so the simple menu for just us was hot dogs and slaw.  While I never put slaw on my dawgs, I do like it as a side dish.  The key to a good hot dog is the sauce and we have played with many recipes over the years to have now settled on My Dad’s West Virginia Hot Dog Sauce  which came from the “Tried And True” blog.  Bev omitted the beef broth and changed the cooking method a lot to get the recipe below.  The original recipe and pics can be found by clicking on the above link.   

Takeout-Style Kung Pao Chicken And Such A Simple Shower Fix

Since everyone here but Pat is trying to lose weight, we’ve been trying to cook healthier and lower calorie and this dish seemed to fit the bill.  We rarely make stir-fry but I’ve become a fan of “Serious Eats” and decided to use their recipe for Kung Pao Chicken  and Cindy wanted to cook so she followed the recipe as shown below which we adapted a little but the original can be found by clicking on the above link.

Mashed Potato Pancakes And Oven Baked Ribs

Mashed Potato Pancakes

After our baked steak and gravy meal, we had four cups of mashed potatoes and I decided to turn them into one of my favorite things – mashed potato pancakes.  I looked around the web and found several similar recipes which I combined into the one below.  Since Cindy wanted to cook she took over and followed the recipe.

Baked Steak in Brown Gravy, German Christmas Sausage, and Mexican Out

Whether you call it baked steak, country steak, or steak and gravy, it’s beef comfort food at it’s best especially when served with mashed potatoes and it was a good meal for Pat on her first day home.  She had a knee replaced on Apr 27^th and after a few days in the hospital, she went to a step-down unit until May 8.  She has been doing very well and in much less pain than I was. 

Beef Bone Broth, Gourmet Scrambled Eggs, And Cuban Sandwiches

As in the past, when our neighbors had their beef processed, I ended up with tail pieces (ox tails) and bones which I like to use to make broth and this was the day.  I had 7½ lbs. of bones and I began by roasting them at 400F for an hour.

Then I added them to my 16 qt. pot and added water to about ¾ full.

I cooked them on very low for 21 hours to get this very rich broth.  I had planned to add onion, carrot, and celery to the pot but forgot until too late.

Then I removed the bones and meat (separated it for the dogs) and let it set until the fat hardened on top and removed it.

Finally, it was strained and water added to get enough for 8 quart plastic bags.  But as we bagged it, two of the bags had a pin hole leak we could see and a third one leaked out in the sheet pan that I was about to freeze them on.  I don’t need this frustration so I’ll be buying beef broth from now on.  Since we cook chicken regularly for the dogs, I may still bag up and freeze these small batches of chicken broth.

Gourmet Scrambled Eggs

Recently, we had Creamy Lemon Garlic Salmon & Shrimp And Creamed Asparagus and we had both of the creamed sauces leftover which I used to top scrambled eggs for a delicious breakfast on two separate mornings.

Cuban Sandwiches

Remember our recent Mojo Pork meal, well we had plenty of leftover pork and opted to invite our neighbors down for Cuban Sandwiches.  I made the sandwiches as I had done previously using my yet-to-be-patented panni press.

We served it with the mojo broth from cooking and we thought they were better than the local Cuban restaurant - the mojo pork made a big difference.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

4/25-5/2/25 event dates