Sylvia's Scenario

Here is another spring-like recipe that I've made a couple times lately, including for our Easter dinner.  It's an easy side dish that you can add to any meal and everyone will love it.                      It's a recipe from my  Hannah Freese, RD  collection that I've been following since September.  It makes life so much easier following her plan because I'm not thinking about if something is "healthy" or not.  Sure, I still make desserts occasionally for special occasions but for daily life, her plan is right on.  I feel so much better physically and I definitely have more energy now that our weather is getting nice.  I've pulled out my summer clothes and many are baggy on me now.  I'm not planning to shop for more, though, because next month I'm having my other knee replacement surgery, so I will be rehabilitating again for most of the summer.  I won't be going anywhere soon.  I'...

I made several "new" recipes for Christmas dinner this year and after taking a poll, this was people's favorite item of the whole dinner! I know they don't look like much but these potatoes were amazing. They were like Twice Baked Potatoes only no skin. I wanted a potato dish that was flavorful enough that you could eat them plain with no gravy or anything on them and BINGO, these were it. And I wanted some that I could make ahead of time.  That was the theme of my Christmas dinner - Make Ahead.  On Christmas, you don't want to be spending all your time in the kitchen when you're hosting a Christmas party.  I want to be able to join in the fun!  We had ten people here for Christmas which is a small number for my family so thus, I felt like experimenting a bit.  We had our usual Mustard Crusted Beef Tenderloin   along with horseradish and mustard sauces, another new recipe for peas that was a hit, a green salad with pears and apple and pomegranate dress...

Last night we hosted some of Bruce's work associates who were in town for the International Speciality Coffee Expo - one of our favorite conventions of the year.  I've blogged about it twice before,  here  and  here .  For dinner, I planned a similar dinner menu that I learned worked real well last year; I kept the carbs low in the meal (no potatoes and no bread or rolls) so everyone would enjoy the dessert more. Lower carbs in a meal means a less full, bloated feeling after eating. In other words, a feeling that you can still eat more...(and since I like to plan my meal around the dessert, this is a good thing.)  This year, I made my  Chocolate-Raspberry Cake  and like last year, it was the star of the show.   Last year, I made our favorite  Lemon Curd and White Chocolate Truffle Cake  that ended up being in my top three most popular recipes of 2017.  This recipe is just as good in my opinion.  I'd f...

Tonight, we had a family dinner of game hens, broccolini,  dill bread , wild rice casserole and pecan pie for dessert before we opened presents from Japan from Nick and Sachiyo.  They leave December 9th so we are having our Christmas early while they are here.   I know this doesn't sound like a Christmas dinner but Nick is putting in requests of what he'd like to eat while he's home and I am doing my best to accommodate him - pecan pie, roast beef and gravy, Great Harvest cinnamon rolls - to name a few favorites.  I almost forgot to take a photo of my plate, most of my broccolini is gone...and you can see that I like a little butter on my dill bread. I love wild rice but it can be hard to prepare because it is so tough.  It isn't a rice at all but a type of grass and it can be quite expensive.  We got this wild rice from Bruce's nephew and wife who live in Minnesota where wild rice is a native plant.  I use to make this re...