Sylvia's Scenario

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 ....

This is sort of a random recipe that I wasn't planning to post but my family all loved it so much that I knew it was a keeper.  I got the recipe from  Sally's Baking Addiction  at the spur of the moment when my 4-year-old grandson decided at the last minute he wanted a banana cake for his birthday. The only difference between my recipe and the original recipe is that I made my cake into a layered cake instead of putting it in a 9” X 13" pan...you know, to get that traditional birthday cake look and to get that birthday cake look that's decorated by a 6-year-old and 4-year-old. I also made  Beatty's Chocolate Cake  for Lauren, the same cake I made to celebrate all five of the July birthdays last year.    This year, we all got individual celebrations and cakes.  How lucky is that?                                      You can safely say that we all got...

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...

I'm still not putting up any new "summer" recipes yet because we're still waiting for summer weather to arrive.  Sorry to say, but by the end of May, we'd only had six hours of temperatures over 70 degree this year.  Yes, I said hours .  Our average temperature in May was 52.6 degrees.  I mean, it's almost laughable.  This is Seattle, after all.  I'm not complaining, just stating the facts.  It all means that we are still eating soups and comfort foods like this Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie.  And I love my comfort foods and soups that rain brings along with it.  There is a reason why I've moved away from Seattle four times in my life and then moved back four different times.  Do I really love the rain that much or is it really about the comforting food we get to eat when it rains.  Actually, I think it's both. I call our weather "natural air-conditioning".  We have managed to squeeze in barbecues here and there, like for Memori...

I have a new recipe to get my chocolate-fix which I can add along with my  macadamia nut clusters  recipe.  This new recipe uses seeds that are high in nutrition and high in anti-inflammatory properties which is why this recipe is called "super".  Or you can use chopped nuts of your choice, too.  I use macadamia nuts since I always have them on hand but I chop them up in my food processor to make smaller bits.   I also process pumpkin seeds to make them smaller, too.   There are lots of variations of this recipe depending on what you like.  I got this recipe from  Hannah Freese, RD  and will post the recipe as she has it but I will add notes the way I've been making it so you can see some options.  I am still using my favorite dark chocolate from Trader Joe's - Pound Plus.  I wrote how to find the best dark chocolate  here.   You want to avoid the dark chocolate that is high in cadmium that is a toxic heavy metal like...