Joan on the Road...of Life

It's been a few days. The Beef Bourguinon provided two good meals and one lunch. Jim was in heaven. It's on the weekly menu plan for once a month. My simple idea of the menu plan (I actually have 5 weeks of meals) is working really well. It is keeping me on track to make good dinners most every night and planning ahead so I have the right ingredients. I'd gotten really lazy over the last few years and just slap-dashed meals together. Now, tonight for example, we're having fish in foil packets on the grill with a putanesca type salsa. Very delicious.

Mother's Day came and went along with a box of Sherrie's Berries from Jim. So good I really didn't want to share but broke down and let Renee have one. It was a perfect day. Called my Mom and all my kids called me. What more can a Mom ask for? Renee and Tom visited and we spent time at the pool just floating around, chatting and relaxing. We've finally been taking advantage of the beautiful pool complex on these hot afternoons. Three pools and three spas and no one here!

I am winning the battle with the bunnies. My first flower planting got munched by local wabbits so we set the flower pots on risers and replanted. I now have a lovely setting of cosmos, petunias and allysum...pinks and purples. So there, wabbits!

Yesterday we met Brad at our storage and he loaded up two captains chairs from our old van and four boxes of VHS tapes to go to Renee's yard sale on Saturday. Later he messaged me and asked if he could have the chairs for gaming chairs. Absolutely, says I! Wonder how Naomi likes this new addition to her living room :)...I'm happy! One less thing to worry about.

Tomorrow Laura and Steve will be here from Montana and we will have that rare experience of having all our kids and grandkids around us for a few days. We'll be hanging at Renee and Tom's and then having a family party on Saturday. (Tom we will surely miss you).

Life goes on ....

Posted by Joan at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We needed a change of pace today so we devoted the day to cooking up Beef Bourguinon a la Julia Child. Five hours of Food Network activities. I started early because it's a warm day and I wanted to finish up early, let the MH cool down and have some time to relax so I can enjoy the results.

There are a few things unique to this "beef stew" that make it outrageously good. I think the major one is that each ingredient is browned, sauteed or braised before it is included in the stew. And, well, maybe the 2 cups of red wine make a bit of difference!

Here's the meat and veggies getting ready to be cooked up.

Oh wait! Got to cook the bacon to get some bacon fat...maybe that's the secret ingredient :)

Patting dry the beef before browning in the bacon grease gets it really nice and brown.

The onions and carrots get sauteed in the same pan drippings.

My sous chef patiently peeled 18 tiny white onions and quartered the mushrooms and patted them dry. These get added at the very end after the stew has cooked for several hours.

The sauteed mushrooms and braised onions are yummy on their own.

The carrots and onions along with red wine, beef broth and seasonings simmer bake in the oven for 2-3 hours. We used grass fed beef from Whole Foods. Delicious flavor. It's a little dicey doing all this because I'm working on a 3 burner stove and the microwave (convection and simmer button).

Here's the finished product which is mellowing out as we speak.

This was a great project for the day made much easier with the help of my sous chef...and now I get to eat Beef Bourguinon with him!

Posted by Joan at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Driving home from Irvine today we tuned into talk radio and caught a clinical psychologist talking about her book, The Defining Decade.. What caught my ear was her assertion that "twenty-somethings" have been misled about what to expect in their 20s and thus they are confused. Really. This sounds pretty passive to me. What? Are they sitting around expecting things to just happen to them?

When I was twenty (I know, spare me "when I was a kid stories") I didn't expect anything. There were expectations OF ME! I was expected to go to college, expected to get a job, expected to marry some up and coming man, expected to get a home and raise a family. It really never occurred to me or my friends to go another route. Of course there were confusions along the way: what should I major in, marry this guy or that, live here or there. But I kept moving forward and setting goals so that I could live up to the expectations of me.

When I look back, the one thing I wish I had done was to live on my own, in my own apartment. If I'd done that I might have gone down a different fork in the road. I don't know. I would have benefited from and enjoyed the independence.

I'm proud of my twenty-something grand kids who all finished high school, who hustle to get jobs, who keep plugging away to get that college degree, who are living on their own, who are married and raising a family, who are supportive of each other and who know how to have fun without going off the deep end of drugs and alcohol. That's what we expected of them.

Back to the book...it looks like it might be a valuable read for the twenty-somethings. The world today is a different place with many more opportunities and a vastly different culture. I think I was just struck by the thought that young adults are "expecting" things to happen to them, "expecting" that the world owes them a living....not so. My favorite saying..."If it is to be, it's up to me."

Posted by Joan at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, there is a new Great Grandbaby on the way! At our family party last week Naomi and Brad announced that they expect a new addition in November. Evan was not too pleased with this at first. "Please, not a sister!" "Well if you guys want another kid, I'll just go live with Grandma and Papa!" But he's moved on now to talking to the baby: 'Hey in there, I'm the big brother!" This should be fun.

We are trying to eat sugar free, low glycemic meals. This is tough, especially when you want to gain weight (Jim, not me). We've struggled with meal planning for several months. There's always the dreaded morning question..."what's for dinner?"

Finally, I realized that Renee and Naomi have the solution. Plan in advance! I got on the computer, opened up a Word document (haven't done that in a long time) and set up a 5-week "table". Then I started plugging in meals we enjoy that fit the requirements. Every week is different and fish is included once a week.

When I presented this to Jim he was delighted! Now we can buy ingredients a couple of days in advance and we can use the crockpot more because we'll have on hand what we need to get started earlier in the day. He was especially pleased that I included his all time favorite, beef bouguignon. With Jim as my sous chef and with advance planning we'll enjoy this delicious dish once a month.

I feel really good about this because I was feeling guilty for not cooking better, healthy meals every day as we try to pack weight onto Jim. Now I won't get that dreaded morning question because it will be posted on the fridge and Jim will have healthy leftovers for lunch, too.

I can see this becoming a "book" of favorite recipes. Also, when I list meatloaf for an entree I really have half a dozen different meatloaf recipes so there's lots of variety.

Click here and maybe you'll see my simple idea: Download file

Posted by Joan at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday was an awesome family day! One of the best! Several weeks ago Bryan organized a baseball outing to see the Angels play on opening weekend which happened to be Brad's birthday. So it was a combined Brad/Renee birthday gift party! The kids even had a birthday wish posted on the big Jumbotron.

Here's the family arriving at our spot. This was Evan's second major league game and he got into the cheering and booing. It was pretty hot out in our sunny seats but he was a trooper and joined in the fun 99% of the time. I just noticed there are FOUR generations in this picture! Oh...and do you notice anything different about anyone in this picture? Hmmm? Well I'll tell you more in a few days!

There were 12 of us at the game and we all headed back to Party Central (aka Renee and Tom's house) where Tom cooked up dozens of dogs, brats and burgers! Potato salad and cole slaw along with Naomi's homemade salsa rounded out the menu. Somehow the crowd grew to 25 people!! I asked Renee if people just smelled the food and then dropped in....but it turns out that it's typical of Party Central. Kids bring friends who all feel at home here.

After dinner we gathered round the firepit at the "beach" in the backyard. Little kids played flashlight tag while big kids enjoyed the flames and family time. There's always a bit of a contest to see who will build up the fire. If they let Grandpa loose on it they'd have to call out the fire department. Cowboy margaritas and steaming lattes helped us all relax and enjoy the fun.

We opened gifts around the fire and then had cake and ice cream. Wow...lots of laughs and some surprises!

Next party? Hmmmm...I think that will be May 19th!!!

Posted by Joan at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)