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Hurricane Winds Strike

You may have heard about our windy few days experienced here in the upper Midwest.  On Tuesday and Wednesday we had wind gusts strong enough to be classified as a category 3 “Land Hurricane.”  Minnesota experienced a record low barometric pressure creating this incredible “storm.”

But I’m going to start this story with last week…

We had kind of a windy Wednesday (Oct. 20).  Knowing that our golfing days are limited this time of year, Barry and I decided to take the afternoon off to play golf, stupidly thinking it would be the best day that week.  It wasn’t.  Tuesday would have been better.  Anyway, it was probably the windiest conditions that I’ve golfed in.  You had to take the wind into account even while putting!  Barry actually played pretty well, considering….

So what’s the point?  We came home from golf that day to see a large oak lying across the backyard woods, victim of the high winds.  It had a twin that had already lost it’s top, and I guess the combination of wind, dry October and rotted base finally conspired to bring it down.

 

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Spicy Shrimp Noodle Bowl

 

5 points

Yield: 4 servings
serve with Cucumber Salad
Reviewers added more broth to make it soupier

1 pound tail-on peeled and deveined medium shrimp
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice
2 (1/4-inch-thick) slices peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon olive oil
3/4 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper
1/4 cup thinly sliced yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup sugar snap peas
2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 ounces uncooked rice sticks
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
Lime wedges

1. Remove shrimp tails; set aside. Combine shrimp tails, water, broth, clam juice, and ginger in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes. Strain broth mixture through a sieve into a bowl; discard solids.

2. Heat olive oil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper, yellow onion, and garlic; sauté 3 minutes. Add reserved broth; bring to a simmer. Add shrimp, peas, chili garlic sauce, salt, and noodles; cook 5 minutes or until noodles are done. Ladle 1 1/4 cups soup into each of 4 bowls; top each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.


CALORIES 236 ; FAT 3.6g (sat 0.7g,mono 1.3g,poly 1g); CHOLESTEROL 174mg; CALCIUM 84mg; CARBOHYDRATE 25.4g; SODIUM 506mg; PROTEIN 26.5g; FIBER 1.9g; IRON 3.7mg

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Spiked Peach Limeade Granita

Ingredients
4 cups water
3 cups peach slices (about 3 medium)
1 1/3 cups sugar
6 mint leaves
1 1/3 cups fresh lime juice
3/4 cup rum
Peach slices (optional)
Fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Preparation
1. Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer for 5 minutes. Cool, and discard mint.
2. Place half of peach mixture in a blender; process until smooth. Pour pureed peach mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish. Combine remaining peach mixture, juice, and rum in blender; process until smooth. Add to baking dish.
3. Freeze 8 hours or until firm. Remove mixture from freezer; scrape entire mixture with a fork until fluffy. Serve immediately. Garnish with peach slices and mint sprigs, if desired.

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 cup)

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Seared Lamb with Balsamic Sauce*

6 points

Yield:  4 servings (serving size: 2 chops and about 2 1/2 tablespoons sauce)

2 teaspoons olive oil
8 (4-ounce) lamb loin chops, trimmed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup finely chopped red onion
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/3 cup fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle lamb loin chops with salt and pepper. Add lamb to pan, and cook 3 minutes or until browned. Turn lamb over, and cook 4 minutes or until desired degree of doneness. Remove lamb from pan; keep warm. Add chopped onion and garlic to pan; cook 3 minutes or until onion is tender. Add wine; bring to a boil. Cook 3 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Stir in broth and balsamic vinegar; bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes or until reduced to about 2/3 cup. Serve sauce with lamb.

CALORIES 253 ; FAT 11.6g (sat 3.7g,mono 5.7g,poly 0.9g); CHOLESTEROL 90mg; CALCIUM 34mg; CARBOHYDRATE 5.9g; SODIUM 357mg; PROTEIN 29.4g; FIBER 0.8g; IRON 2.2mg

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The New Family Room

From the moment we bought the house in 1990, I have loathed the family room.  For some ungodly reason, the original owners had put stucco on the walls with fake beams and dark wood on the walls.  At one point, I painted the dark wood to make it blend in with the walls, but it was still ugly.  A few years ago, we bought a lovely new modern TV stand and shelving unit, and I was so disappointed when we set it up in the room, because this great clean modern piece looked out of place.  Now we have a space we love, and our more modern furniture looks and feels great.

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Mata Hari

So there I was, browsing this new site I had just discovered in the spring of 1999. It was called “eBay”. It occurred to me that it might be fun to search for pinball machines — surely somebody somewhere was selling one, right? I can still remember bumming nickels from my mother to play during her weekly bowling league circa 1965 when I was all of six years old. I loved playing pinball as a kid and later in college, and I had harbored hopes then (long since forgotten in 1999) of having a machine of my very own one day. Lo and behold, eBay was chock full of pinball machines. I selected Mata Hari from a seller in North Carolina. I remembered playing Mata Hari during my freshman year of college in 1978. Made by Bally in that same year, Mata Hari was one of the first generation of solid-state machines. (For aficionados, my backglass has the writing on the dagger.)

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Banana Pancakes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped ripe banana
  • 3 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
  • Cinnamon-Rum Syrup

Preparation

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir well. Combine buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg in a small bowl; stir well. Add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth. Fold in banana.

Spoon about 1/3 cup batter for each pancake onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Serve with Cinnamon-Rum Syrup, and sprinkle

Yield: 9 pancakes (serving size: 3 pancakes, 1 tablespoon pecans, and 4 teaspoons syrup) with pecans.

Nutritional Information

Amount per serving
  • Calories: 433
  • Calories from fat: 31%
  • Fat: 13.7g
  • Protein: 11.6g
  • Carbohydrate: 67.4g
  • Fiber: 3.8g
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Slow Cooker Roasted Shoulder of Lamb with Garlic and Rosemary+

Ingredients:

  • shoulder of lamb – 3 lb.
  • rosemary – a few sprigs
  • 3-5 large garlic cloves, peeled and halved
  • 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, peeled and quartered
  • 3-4 large carrots, peeled, halved and quartered
  • 4-5 medium potatoes, peeled and halved
  • 1 pint beef stock
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:

  1. Make several incisions in the lamb, stuffing them with the half cloves of garlic and rosemary sprigs.  Season as desired.
  2. Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat. Add the shoulder of lamb and brown well on all sides.
  3. Pour hot stock into the slow cooker with carrots, onion, potatoes, remaining rosemary and garlic.
  4. Place lamb on top of veggis and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours.
  5. About 1-2 hours before the end of the cooking time, ladle out most of the juices from the slow cooker into a jug, so the veggies are just covered, and leave to cool.
  6. (Optional) – at the end of the cooking time, take the meat out and place on a wire rack on a roasting trya and roast in a pre-heated oven – 180 degrees – for 20-30 minutes.
  7. Leave the veggies in the slow cookier on the warm setting until ready to serve.
  8. To make the gravy, take the reserved liquid and remove any fat from the surface.  Pour the rest into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
  9. Mix the cornstarch with 3 Tbsp cold water, add it to the gravy and reduce until the desired consistency.
  10. Remove the lamb from the oven, rest in a warm place for 10 minutes before serving.