Sylvia's Scenario

I mentioned before about a new cookbook I received from our guests who came this summer from Chicago called   Cheers to the Publican, Repast and Present .   I'm still making recipes out of it and this is one of them.  Although, I've changed it a lot and now I'm only using the salad dressing recipe with my own version of the salad.  The original recipe was for an asparagus salad but it was too large with too many unusual ingredients that got lost in the final product.  Bruce and Nick both said they couldn't taste the this or couldn't taste the that so I knew I needed to make some adjustments.  But it looked  gorgeous. I thought it would be a great spring recipe for Easter with the asparagus and I don't have many asparagus recipes so I do plan to keep it and play around with it.  In the meantime, the dressing is FABULOUS.  I kept it in a jar and used it up immediately.   I made this Asian-themed green salad twice with the dressing a...

I've been making peach pies a long time but now I think I finally found my best recipe. We had a dinner with a couple of Nick's friends last night so once again, I was thinking of something special to make.   Nick requested we do Korean barbecue so we bought the ribs already marinated which made it very easy for me and super tasty.  He also requested his favorite  macaroni salad  which was also a favorite of his friends.  I can't believe I haven't made that all summer...anyway, it turned out to be a great dinner with a few other sides of green salad, fruit salad, and rice.    But the peach pie was the star.  The recipe was in the Seattle Times the day before so that's how I thought of it, plus it's peak peach season right now. The author is  Danie Baker  who regularly writes for the Times and has lots of good recipes.  This peach pie has a secret ingredient; cayenne pepper.  The cayenne pepper added some zing to the peach pie ...

Soup season seems to last longer than we'd like to admit.  But, yes, it's still soup season.  We're having spring fever around here and, yes, the weather is getting warmer, sunnier, and overall just very nice and pleasant outside.  But I'm still craving the warmth of a hot soup.  We had this minestrone soup recently and everyone loved it.  My sister made it at her house but she's not sure where she got the recipe so I'll just give her all the credit. Her preparation of this dinner was a job well done! She and her husband live in Washington D.C. and they were also having spring-like weather but a dinner of hot soup still tasted really good to all of us.  We planned this trip to see Nick who spent a week there for work.  We jumped at the opportunity to go see him since it's a lot closer than going to Spain.   Plus, my sister lives there and she and her husband are a lot of fun and it's so nice to get caught up with each other's lives.  We saw N...

Yes, they take selfies in Spain, too.  These are Nick's next door neighbors in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain.  We met them while we were visiting last month when Imma and Luis invited us over for coffee. Our little coffee hour turned into about a three hour BFF event.  And we don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English so go figure that one out...Nick was the middle man.   Nick had been practicing his Spanish for about three months and visits a tutor twice a week since he moved to Spain so he is getting pretty good.  "What did he say, Nick?"  "What did she say, Nick?"  Nick, tell her that.....".  Nick, Nick, Nick....Poor Nick but it was really good practice for him and we all actually seemed to understand each other.  We all had translators on our smart phones so we would try that but honestly, it was just easier to communicate via Nick and that's what we mainly did.   Imma served us some pudding cake that was quite yummy with our...