Weekend Lounge, August 27-28, 2016

Good Morning JJ! Love the beach theme this weekend! Great way to wind down the summer as we head into fall ….. well the no-named tropical storm is still not really organized, but transitioning into the Gulf come Monday …. boatloads of rain expected, but hopefully won’t be too bad ….

Today is a ‘free’ day for me, don’t have to be anywhere/do anything …. I did promise Mr. AV I’d make him a butterscotch pie, so I’ll do that …. right now, Abby and I are watching the news and sipping our coffee …. I think we’d like to go sit out at the beach and watch the younger kitties splash around and throw the beach balls ! ….. L8R

EC, I’m making my ‘chicken pot pie casserole’, and Mr. AV’s butterscotch pie today …. it should rain all afternoon, and I love to stay in and cook on days like that! Also catching up on my ‘Walking Dead’ marathon on Netflix …. Enjoy your day everyone!

That sounds delish, AV. I’ll have to print it.

AV, that recipe sounds lovely! No wonder the kids loved it. YUM!!! How do you make your butterscotch pie? I have only had ones using the butterscotch pudding mixes, as a child. You are so kind to always share all your good recipes with us! Thanks!! KZ, glad to hear you are getting nice tomatoes from your garden. LOVE BLTs… NO garden here, sadly, but I find plenty of fresh produce at the local farms, and got some wonderful peppers and tomatoes from Sister in NJ when they visited. Think I’ve shared already that I made stewed tomatoes with them and had them over mashed potatoes. Have some leftover in the freezer for another meal too.
ECB what kind of soup did you make? I LOVE soup and can even eat it in hot weather.
Funny… I keep thinking it’s Sunday today. Wondered why I didn’t see some of my regular Sunday customers! LOL
I got a cantaloupe from the store and it was SO good and only 89 cents! Got two more today before the price goes up. Ate half of one for supper last night and froze the rest for smoothies. SO much yummy produce right now and I even got some of my favorite apples… Braeburn! YUM!! I think they are from MS’s territory. That makes three different type of apples from there in my local grocery store. One other is called EVE that’s new and I forget the first kind that I already told MS about. SO cool to see NEW ZEALAND written on the sticker and think of our lovely MS….. The local apple orchard is FULL of apples this year again! Can’t wait for Macintosh!!
WISH I could go to the beach. Favorite time to go in is September when no one else is there. I like to stand in the waves and just enjoy the smells and hear the birds, etc. LOVE it. It’s been way too many years since I’ve been there. SO far away from here… Ah… one day I’ll get there again.

BB, if you stop by today, here’s the soup I made yesterday…

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/slow-cooker-chicken-tortilla-soup/

I leave out the rotel tomatoes and add a can of drained corn. The chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (I add 2-3) really make this soup….tasty without being spicy hot. Hubby doesn’t like spicy food and he loves this soup. I’m like you…too hard to limit soup to just a cold weather food…especially in FL. :).

Morning all! Everybody is going in different directions here this morning. Avery’s mom is picking me up and we are going to a Rural King to get her new sparkly cowboy boots, and I need bird seed so I’m sure lunch out is in the agenda too, yippee!!
Had a bacon on toast sammy with my coffee this morning–left over bacon from our BLT’s last night. I am lucky I don’t get mouth sores from the acid in the tomatoes because I have been eating them like crazy. I sure will miss them when they are gone. 😥 I dug my onions the other day and have them drying. I roasted some with olive oil, little yellow potatoes, rosemary and parsley (all from my garden) and WOW were they GOOD!! 😮

That pie recipe is really intriguing, AV. I’ve always wanted to make something butterscotch without a pudding mix. I’m going to have to save it. I think inlaws would love it.

While we’re sharing I just made up a jar of a dry mix of spices I use to make Italian salad dressing. Thought someone here might enjoy it….
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/25171/italian-dressing-mix/

Once you have jar of dry stuff you can add the liquids they suggest to make several different batches of salad dressing. I play around with the liquids…usually use olive oil, not canola and add plain yogurt to make it creamy sometimes…sometimes a squirt of Dijon mustard to make it interesting. I love making my own dressings. I hated going through all the trouble of making a healthy salad then being less than confident about the healthiness of the dressing. I have a ranch, Italian, and honey mustard vinaigrette that are my main go to’s. I’m using the Italian today to make a pasta salad for lunches this week.

KZ…must be the day…I had to stock up on bird seed too!

Well, so I raced home from gym only to discover that Mr. A/C was held up at another job and we had to reschedule for Tues. pm. And then, when I tried to get hold of landlord via long distance/collect was told that number cannot be reached as not connected to Greece’s phone system. Don’t quite get it as worked last week! 🙁 It’s now o’dark thirty there so I e-mailed and kept it specific yet polite. Would do better with carrier pigeon. As in if I cannot reach him do they want me to take any decisions? Never saw myself as a bldg mgr, but seems like this has fallen into my purview. Tks ladies for info on A/C piece as helped me check out if said item is easily obtainable, should replacement be req’d. And yet, official name is evacuation vent hose duct, like $7-$10.
Whatever, it will get itself sorted out and in purrfect world srs cleaning on part of Mr. A/C will be all that’s needed.
Going to attempt destress mode now.
BB, seems that we have umpteen types of apples on offer here. But I also like local Macs. Cortland work best for my homemade cooked applesauce, not actually saucy, more like chunky, I throw in diced apples peel and all with any fruit juice, maple syrup, cinnamon and clove. Micro until it’s relatively mushy. This is srs cooking for me. 😉