Spaghetti For A Cold Super Bowl Sunday & Delicious Breakfast

We hadn’t hosted a super bowl party in many years and decided we should not let this one go by, so we invited a few friends over (our normal Friday group) but for a variety of reasons, almost no one could attend so we cancelled the party. 

So, since we hadn’t seen Eliza in a while, we invited her family to come down for the afternoon and a supper of Sausage Bean Chowder, which we hadn’t made in quite some time.  But, on Friday, Wende called to advise that they all had Covid (except Eliza) so they also would not be coming over. 

So, two friends came over for a game of cards, we built a fire, and cooked spaghetti and meatballs (Bev’s from the freezer) for supper then watched the game. 

So, the whole day required way less effort and meal prep was very easy.  It would have been perfect had the other team kicked a last second field goal to win the game.

We sided the spaghetti with a salad (forgot pic) for which I made an Italian vinaigrette using a slightly amended recipe from a source I failed to write down (complete failure for a blog post).  The Italians in my home town made their vinaigrette tangy, which I like, so I omitted the honey plus I omitted the Parmesan & pepper flakes and added them directly to the salad.  I tripled the ingredients to get the recipe below and it made a full cruet.  I also I gave the herbs a spin in the spice grinder.  

Italian Viniagrette

Ingredients:

3/4 teaspoon dried basil

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

3/4 teaspoon dried parsley

3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

3/8 teaspoon dried thyme

3/16 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/8 teaspoon celery seeds

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3/8 cup red wine vinegar

12 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

3 teaspoons honey (vegans: use liquid sweetener)

3/4 teaspoon garlic powder

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

3/4 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika

3/8 teaspoon sea salt

3/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3/16 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions:

1. Place herbs in a spice grinder and blend for about 30 seconds. 

2. Add all ingredients to a salad dressing cruet and shake well.  

3. The flavor of this dressing improves over time as the oils are released from the herbs and the flavors have time to meld. 

Those of us who ate it thought it was a definite keeper recipe.

Breakfast

Bev recently found a couple of inch thick tomahawk pork chops on sale and picked them up for breakfast.  I just fried them in oil to an internal temp of 140F and sided them with cheesy scrambled eggs for a delicious breakfast.

I would have preferred thinner chops so they would have cooked a little faster but they were worth the wait.  I seasoned one side with S&P and the other with pepper and Tiger Seasoning, cooked to 140F internal temp and they were delicious.

Final Toe Update

I’m out of the boot and into a shoe and therapy ends this week so the toes are behind me and with two new hips, two new knees, and repaired toes, I’m pretty well bionic below the waist and I hope I’m forever done with surgeries.

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

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

Larry

02/12/23 meal date