Eating Out More, Great Breakfast Leftovers, And RV Cleanout

My desire to cook seems to be waning and both of us have long since pasted the desire to clean up the kitchen so we have decided to eat more meals out and we started with a Sunday visit to the Dockside Grill at Tellico Marina which is less than a 10 minute drive from home.  After a 10am BLT for breakfast, we made it to the restaurant a little before 3pm to find just a small crowd, which was perfect.  This is the view of the main dining area and the harbor from our table with lots of boats going in and out to just look around.  

Basil Pesto Chicken Pasta & Mudpuppy Restaurant

I had some basil pesto in the freezer and leftover chicken in the fridge and decided Kevin’s recipe for Basil Pesto Chicken Pasta from his “Closet Cooking” blog would work well for them.  I made several changes to the recipe but the original can be found by clicking on the link.

Low Country Boil For Eight With No Heat And Birthday Desserts

Wende and crew came down to celebrate my birthday and we did it a day late so Cindy could join us. I had considered making jambalaya but changed to low county boil to take advantage of the last of the fresh corn for the season. I used the recipe below which is designed for eight diners with some leftovers. 

Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy

I bought a whole pork loin on sale recently and couldn’t resist using part of it to make Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy using the recipe from the “Recipe BY Me” blog.  I changed the cooking method a lot a shown in the recipe below.

Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes, RV Update, A Good Laugh

I saw this recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes  on Kevin’s “Closet Cooking” blog and decided it would work well for our Friday get-together.  I especially like that it is a one pan meal and know that I always like Kevin’s recipes.  Since the recipe only made four servings, I tripled it to get the recipe below.

A Major Milestone And A Couple Of Meals This Summer

If you have been reading this blog much at all, you know that we are not “Spring Chickens” here in this family so I’ll let you do the ciphering for yourself and not disclose any numbers but SIL, Pat W, just had a very major milestone birthday (which I’ll hopefully be here to have next year).  Since we didn’t want to go out for lunch on the crowded Labor Day (her actual birthday), we waited until this day to go to her requested restaurant for lunch – Tapoco Lodge.  Since I posted about the lodge a few years ago , I won’t do that again and will confine this post to this visit.  Our neighbors Pat L and Steve joined Pat W, Bev, and I for the always adventurous drive up the 11 miles and 318 curves of The Dragon (US-129). 

Windy City Grille, David and Laurie, and Our Coach

Our ole friend, Kathy, has long enjoyed exchanging Christmas gifts with us and not knowing what to get her and not being a shopper, but knowing she likes to eat out, I came up with a solution.  For the past two years, I have been giving her five free lunches at the restaurants of her choice, which she almost never wants to pick, and I get a twofer as I’ve committed to Bev to take her out more often as well.  So, for this meal, we went to Windy City Grille where Kathy and I have both been but Bev had not.  For a variety of reasons we have been having trouble getting together with Kathy this year and I believe this was only lunch number three of five clear up here in late August.