Sylvia's Scenario

One last zucchini recipe before summer ends and then I promise I will done with zucchini.  I got this recipe from my neighbor, Karen, who likes to entertain with parties at her house.  I've written about her parties before  here ,  here  and  here  just to list a few.  This month she had a Hawaiian-themed barbecue for seven of us neighbors with a wonderful dinner of barbecued ribs, chicken, pork, potatoes, Caesar salad, macaroni salad along with shrimp skewer appetizers and dessert of  pineapple upside-down cake .  Our cocktails for the party were Lava Flows, one of my favorite Hawaiian drinks.  They are like a pina colada only with strawberry swirled throughout. Yum! We had a beautiful day for the party and it was a great success.  I even brought my ukulele and played some Hawaiian music for some background music which quickly put everyone in the mood.  They all loved that unexpected bit of entertainment.   I know su...

We are in the midst of zucchini season and trying hard to eat up our zucchini from the garden. I've already made our popular pizza stuffed zucchini boats a few times using up several zucchini and we got our pizza fix at the same time. But this zucchini turkey skillet dish is really my favorite.  It's sort of take on shakshuka, the Middle Eastern egg and tomato dish.  I think you could make this zucchini skillet dish for a brunch, as well as for any dinner.  This is a recipe from Hannah Freese, RD and we make it a lot, even when it's not zucchini season because it's so easy and quick to make.   It's a good one-dish meal where you will get a good helping of vegetables and fiber without even trying.  The recipe says it will serve 4 but honestly, Bruce will eat half of this recipe.  I like it leftover for breakfast when I cook the eggs into the sauce.  You can make it for dinner with or without the eggs, depending on how hardy of a meal you want.  I...

We harvested our tomatoes the other day and I decided to try this recipe.  I wanted to make it while our guests were here but then we picked blackberries and I decided to use my time to make blackberry bread, crisp and coffee cake. (Our guests were happy about that decision if I judge by how fast it was all  eaten).  So, my tomatoes were piling up.  They gave me a new cookbook as a gift for hosting them and I was eager to try some recipes from it.  I spotted this one immediately.  The cookbook is entitled  Cheers to the Publican, Repast and Present Recipes and Ramblings from an American Beer Hall  by Paul Kahan, Chef Cosmo Goss and Rachel Holtzman.   The Publican is a popular restaurant in Chicago where our guests live.  It's described as a big American beer hall with massive communal tables.  I love those kind of restaurants.  There are lots of stories with the recipes in the book which makes the cookbook fun to read. The stor...

How is everyone's vegetable garden's doing right now?  We've been eating a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden lately.  Last night, we had this new dish with our dinner when we invited some of Bruce's golf buddies over for dinner after their day of golf.  One of the wives brought this French Tian dish that went perfectly with our main dish of barbecued teriyaki flank steak ; a family favorite at our house.  Tian is made with eggplant, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, and lots of olive oil to make the most delicious juice from the veggies.  She also brought some crusty French bread to soak up those juices.  Frankly, I could have just eaten this alone as my whole dinner with bread dunked in the juices.  It was so addicting.   It's like a summer version of  ratatouille  that I like in the fall with all the garden veggies.  I am eager to make this Tian now. The recipe is from Dori Greenspan from her cookbook Everyday Dorie ....

We are getting our hot weather now - welcome summer!  We actually have no rain in the forecast for the coming 10 days.  Really?  After that, everything will get back to our Seattle normal.  In the meantime, I am going to enjoy our summer weather.  I am posting this new recipe from  Hannah Freese, RD  that is my new favorite summer salad recipe.  I made it last weekend and it actually tasted better during the week after it sat for awhile when all the flavors had time to blend together.  So, be sure and make the whole recipe because it tastes really good leftover.  I've been eating beans everyday as part of Hannah's eating program and now this recipe is my new go-to bean dish.  Before, I was eating homemade refried beans everyday.  I buy the pinto beans in bulk and put a cup or two in salted water on the stove to cook in the morning. I use enough water to cover the beans to about 2-3 inches.  They cook about 3 hours until so...

Summer has finally arrived in Seattle and we've been enjoying lots of my summer salad recipes.  This is a new one I made last night and I will definitely be making it again.  It is a whole meal in itself, made with chicken breast and lots of chopped veggies.  Bruce and I both loved it.  It is from  Hannah Freese, RD  who continues to send us recipes every month since I am an alumni member of her eating program.   I joined her program during my knee replacemen t rehab because my first knee replacement was a brutal experience so I decided to change my diet to a more "anti- inflammatory diet".  Her plan did wonders for me and I noticed changes right away.  I also like that she is a dietitian, just like me so I can relate to her.  She is up on all the latest research and I totally trust everything that she says. Since I am retired now, she is my little connection to the world of nutrition and she is a very good connection. Most of my recipe...

 The grand finale of our July celebrations in our family was Lauren's birthday yesterday.  We celebrated  at our house out on the deck and had a very fun and  deliciously  good time. It's been non-stop around here since  Father's Day  when we had our first relatively large gathering at our house since the pandemic by inviting some friends over to celebrate with us. The rest of the celebrations have just been immediate family but it's been one-after-the other in July; Fourth of July, Nick's birthday, my birthday, our anniversary and now Lauren's birthday .  Last year, I made Lauren's favorite cake, the  Lemon Curd and White Chocolate Truffle Cake .  (The grandkids loved it!) I've made this a few times for Lauren's birthday, as well as for Easter, but this year I told Lauren I wanted to try a new recipe, an ice cream cake.  We've been having endless warm weather this summer so it was a perfect summer to try an ice cream cake so Tripl...