Pasta Bolognese

Bev has been on a pasta kick lately, which is fine with me, and had stated that she wants Bolognese for the next time, which was also fine with me.  I’ve been trying to make Sunday our pasta day and I just happened to have saved Tricia’s recipe for “Rigatoni Bolognese” from her “Saving Room For Dessert” blog.  It had to be tried when she described it as “An Italian classic sauce that's rich, thick with a complex flavor you won't soon forget. While it takes a little time to make it right, the directions are simple and easy to follow.”  This is a shot of Tricia’s.

Our First Charcuterie Board and Honey Taste Test

While we have made up several antipastos over the years, we have never done a charcuterie until now.  We bought a nice looking 15"x22” walnut board from a vendor at the Lenoir City Crafts Fair for $85, which seemed like a good price. 

Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls

In a recent post, I wrote about our side dishes that needed more pizzazz, one of which was fried cabbage, and Bev did a magnificent job of fixing it.  I’ve often said that I am a recipe follower but she is the real cook in the family.  My plan was to just reheat the cabbage as a leftover but her plan was to turn it into something very different.

Meat Salads, Breakfast, and Pressure Washer

Beverly came up with a great idea for our Friday get-together on a summer day – meat salads on a bed of lettuce. So, she bought some Food City chicken salad with grapes and made ham salad and tuna salad – she never uses a recipe but just adds some onion and celery then other ingredients to taste.  To make mine look a little fancier, I molded the salads in a small bowl then flipped onto my plate.

Pan Seared Rockfish With Lemon Caper Sauce And Two Side Dishes

Cindy has a friend who regularly goes fishing in Alaska and catches more than he can eat so he often gives her a plastic grocery bag full and this time it contained Halibut and Pacific Rockfish.  As it turns out, I had recently saved a recipe for “Pan Seared Rockfish With Lemon Caper Sauce” from his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog and since it contains a different recipe for one of our favorites for fish – lemon caper sauce – I suggested Cindy might want to make it and we can compare his sauce to our usual.  I just love it when a plan comes together.  Since she had more fish than the recipe called for, I increased the sauce ingredients - click on the link above for the original recipe.

Dock Opening 2022

While we managed to get in a closing party in Oct 2021, I can’t recall when we last had an opening party – I went back thru 2016 and found no blog posts.  We would normally have it earlier in the year, but I needed to do hip replacement recovery until later so we opted for May 29 so as not to interfere with others Memorial Day plans – remember, we’re retired and every day can be a holiday and pets are always welcome.

Braised Pork Shank Slices

A pork shank is basically the front leg of the hog and when I saw a dish on TV using the whole shank and I wanted to replicate it but the only shank I could find had already been sliced into soup bones, as they called them.