Sylvia's Scenario

I finally have a new recipe that isn't a salad.  Imagine that.  We've had this recipe twice in one week because it's so good (from Hannah Freese, RD ).   Last night, we barbecued the chicken and earlier in the week, we baked it.  Both were superb.  Here's what the baked version looks like: You get lots of juice with the baked version so if you have rice, mashed potatoes or some other side dish that you want to drizzle the juice on, then this version is perfect.  The marinade has lots of citrus in it so this makes for a very addictive sauce and the want for more, more, more...thus I made it twice this week. As it was marinating yesterday, my neighbor, Ginny, texted me to see if I wanted to go walking later on so I texted back and said yes but asked if she wanted to come over and try my new recipe for dinner.  So, she came over and the three of us had a really nice dinner of Cuban Mojo Chicken Thighs out on the deck on a beautiful summer evening and...

  Today, the fall weather really kicked in and it was a curry-kind-of-a-day.  This is another recipe from  Hannah Freese, RD  that we had tonight and it really hit the spot.  I've been enjoying the walks around the neighborhood that I take with my neighbor and I always end up taking many photos.   We always walk down this street and the sun was just starting to set the other day and it was gorgeous outside.  It was funny, too, because we were just talking about how neither one of us have the urge to travel or even go anywhere during this pandemic and how lucky we are that we aren't restless like so many folks.  Then she says, "Well, here's why!  Just take a look...we have all this right before us.  Seriously, why would you want to leave this? !"   We had to stop and laugh at ourselves for the timing of our conversation.  Of course, not everybody has gorgeous views like this and we both do feel fortunate to live where we do. ...

Before After Before After  We had smokey skies here in Seattle for the past week from the wildfires in Washington and Oregon but this morning, after a rainstorm and westerly winds chased out the smoke, we woke up to clear skies.  I cannot even tell you how happy we were today to know that it is safe to breathe again.  The above photos are what we could see from our house.  My neighbor immediately called me up and we went out for our Saturday neighborhood walk and it felt so good.   I wanted to take photos of everything because it all looked so beautiful after a week of smoke.  Our little friend, Jeb, was even out of his pen grazing in the vacant lot next door from his corral. We unexpectedly ran into Jeb during one of our walks when we decided to take this shortcut to see where it went.  And lo and behold, a little pony was living at a house there.  Who would guess in the middle of a city?  This is why we love our neighborhood.  What a c...

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free.  But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one.  My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations  and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends.  We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop.  She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots.  We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.)   The views are always quite lovely, too.  Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception.  I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, t...

This year, Valentine's Day was extra special to us because we had Bruce's twin sister from Great Falls, Montana visiting for the first time since we moved back to Seattle. I made a special Valentine's Day dinner and Lauren also came over.  We had everyone's favorite Teriyaki Flank Steak , rice, red and golden beets and Show the Love Salad . For dessert, I made the gluten-free chocolate cake that I made for Lauren's birthday  here only I made them in little heart-shape cake tins.  These are always fun to make and decorate for Valentine's Day.   I used some of Nick and Lauren's childhood handmade Valentine's for table decorations. And, of course, I made our traditional Valentine cookies . Our dinner table looked quite festive with party favors at each place setting with colorful confetti inside. Lauren enjoyed popping her's open and dotting the table with more colorful glitter.   Our Valentine's dinner was the h...