Poppy takes a header...

Remember I wrote a few days ago about what a great weekend we were going to have...dinner at Iluna and walking around North Beach Friday night, shopping on Saturday and roller skating on Sunday? Well, Thursday night Popppy-The-Adventurer and I had a work function. When we returned to the truck afterwards, instead of taking the asphalt path, Poppy-The-Adventurer wanted to take a "shortcut" down the hill...in the pitch black. Mmmm hmmm, Poppy went boom-boom and landed somehow on her bad knee and has been limping ever since. We cancelled our dinner reservation and will be laying low this weekend.

Say, let's check in with A DAY IN THE LIFE OF DAD! I was at work yesterday and went to visit Seester in her cube. Dad called while I was there and said he'd been up all night with a toothache. This is the same tooth that the crown came off while he was staying with us last month. So, Seester had to go in search of a dentist. She found one and he can see Dad at 12:15. Seester had just taken Wednesday off to take Dad to his doctor's appointment so she asked if I could take him to the dentist. Off I went to pick him up.

Now, before all of our turning of life's events last year, Dad had been in the process of having a bunch of his teeth removed to ready him for dentures, I guess. On the ride to the dentist, Dad said he wanted the tooth extracted. This will leave him pretty well toothless on one side of his mouth.

Okay, we arrive at the dental office. It's very nice and clean. The receptionists is also very nice...and clean. I fill out all the paperwork and I tell her that Dad is hard of hearing and vision impaired so folks will have to speak up so he can hear. She tells me I can come back with him. Of course I'll do this, but part of me just wants to pass out cause I hate all things dentist.

The assistant came out to fetch us and we go back to the xray area. Lucky for me, this is an open floor plan dental office so you can see each and every patient getting worked on. Just writing this, I'd like to pass out!





Enough about me...The dental assistant took some xrays and then mentioned that since Dad is on the Cumadin (blood thinner) they might not be able to do anything because they'll usually have the patient go off the Cumadin for the procedure. We then met with Mr. Dentist. I wish I could pronounce his name, but I can't. Not like you can hear me anyway. Mr. Dentist took a look and told Dad that he'd love to take the tooth for him, but because of the Cumadin Dad will have to see the oral surgeon. The tooth is also infected, by the way.

So Mr. Dentist sent us away with a referral to the oral surgeon and prescriptions for Vicodine and Amoxicillin. Yay!

Last night, we still wanted to go have some fun, so we went to dinner at La Playa in Pacifica. We'd been hearing some good things about it. We had a great time! Very local hangout and the food was darn NOM!

I had the Steak Rancheros:



Poppy had the Chicken Espawhatever:



That's it. See ya!

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon...

Last night we fried up some of the INFINITY NOM bacon that Poppy cured and smoked. I tried to take a couple of pictures so you could see it...





Perhaps she needs a name change: Jax-The-Bacon-Connesewer!

Okay, so what do you do with the last of the leftovers? Thought I'd make mashed potato pancakes. I drizzled a little of the gravy on top then served them with the bacon, some greens and a wee bit of the cranberry sauce. NOM!!



I really have no idea why Fatass and LuvBacon need to buy fat pants!

Well, that'll do it for Thanksgiving, but I could still eat more turkey!

Bye Bye!

Good to the last drop!

I feel like I'm in the middle of a Maxwell House Commercial...



Not much to report on today. Things have been pretty quiet since the Thanksgiving holiday ended.

I did take this last night. Fire in the sky!



This is just the best time of the year! I just loves the cold weather! Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer does not.



Speaking of the little dog, The Mama's get a weekend off. Action-Jaxshun will be spending the weekend with Seester-Kathy et. al. so Poppy and I will be footloose and fancy free. Mind you, we've not had a weekend where we do nothing but play since we moved in July. Don't get me wrong, I love our little house and all the neato things we've done, but for two urban-warriors such as ourselves, we've not seen any action in months.

So, for starters on Friday night, Poppy and I have a dinna reservation at Iluna Basque in North Beach. We have a 50% off coupon so that makes it even better! For those of you who watch Top Chef, the Chef at Iluna is that weird dude, Mattin:



His menu is mostly tapas and a few entrees. Looking forward to it, but mostly looking forward to being out and about!

Saturday, Fatass and LuvBacon will be going fat-pants shopping with a little holiday shopping thrown in. Mind you Fatass and LuvBacon aren't getting fatter, things are just shifting and they're old pants seem to have shrunk in the wash. Really.

Sunday, weather permitting, we're getting back on our roller skates. You might recall last year sometime, we both skated to work at different times and both took headers on the way and haven't been on our skates since. My right cheek still hurts!! Note to self: take wallet out of back pocket before attempting to roller skate.

So there you go...I'm sure I'll have much more to report during the weekend.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Another Fun Sunday At Kasa Kecky's...

After spending Saturday recovering from Thanksgiving and having to work on Friday, Sunday was our day to cook. Poppy's project was to smoke bacon that she'd been curing for a week in the fridge. More on that later, though. My project was making turkey stock and then soup.

So I started by roasting the turkey carcasses with the aromatics:





Then simmered it for a couple of hours. Learned a new secret from Poppy too, she adds some of the leftover stuffing to the pot. I think it added an incredible amount of flavor. Best stock I've ever made!



After straining and defatting the stock, time to make the soup. Poppy wanted dumplings with the soup so I got out Mom's old Betty Crocker Cookbook and made the Parsley Dumplings:





And the finished product:



But wait, time for lunch first...Poppy makes, by far, the best turkey sandwiches in the whole-NOMMY-wide world! So simple too: bread, mayo, turkey...then you slice Claussen Pickles and put them on top. Has to be Claussen's though! A little salt-n-pepper and that's it!



Okay, let's check in with Poppy on the Makin' of the bakin'. Poppy started curing the pork belly last weekend. It's a maple-brown sugar cure. The wood she'll use to smoke the bacon is a Jack Daniel's Bourbon-soaked Barrel Wood.

Here's The Bradley Smoker where all the magic happens:



Here's the cured bacon before heading to The Bradley:



And a very happy Poppy-Bakin'-Makin':





The final product:





Living at Kasa Kecky is always fun and exciting!!!

Happy Monday!

It's all about Thanksgiving...

Today's writing will be devoted to Thanksgiving. We had Seester Kathy, Bro-in-Law-Darryll, Dad, Nephew-Lucas, Niece-Ashely, Bro-in-Law's Brother, Dennis and wife, Sandra. Oh, and Dexter McLovin and the newest addition to the family, Sierra. Sierra is Niece-Ashley and her BF-Adam's new puppy. She is the sweetest thing ever...with really sharp little teeth!



Okay, let's get started...Friday evening was devoted to prep and making a few dishes. Here's how it looked before I started:




Now, we all know I'm no baker but I wanted to make dinner rolls. So after a Food 911 text to Friend and Cooking-Sensei-Jeanette, she gave me the courage needed to go forward. Check this out:

Kneading the dough:



The dough actually rose, which has never happened before:



Here's the table that Poppy set...Yeah, yeah, I'll finish the room sometime soon!



My cheese plate and pickle tray:



If you're wondering what the cocktail napkins says "Opps, I spent the grocery money on shoes." Friend-Drea gave those to me. I guess I have a rep about buying so many shoes-glorious-shoes!



Don't you just love the tray that the pickles are on? When I was a kid, my Mom somehow ended up with a bunch of these trays and we would use them for dinner every once in a while. I'm not sure what happened to those trays so when I saw this in the Goodwill Store, I had to have it!

Nephew-Lucas is very tired...



Depression-Era-Poppy is very happy. We decided to do two turkeys. One spit roasted:





And the other on Poppy's big rig:



They were both fabulous!!



The aftermath:

This is my Thanksgiving Dinner file. It has my menu and recipes inside...and lots of notes on the front. It's a keeper!



This picture is what was left before we went to bed.



I'm starving!!

Pickin's are slim at Kasa Kecky's...

Trying not to buy a bunch of food to keep the fridge pretty empty. Unfortunately, doesn't leave me with many dinner choices. With that leftover pasta sauce I had, I made some quiona elbow pasta to go with. I had planned on taking that for lunch yesterday, but since we didn't have anything for dinner, that's what we had. Served it with some sauteed cabbage, fennel and green onions. Not bad. Poppy didn't care for the veg. liked it. Think we'll have it again tonight! Heh heh heh.

Mr. Oven-Guy came yesterday. He was very Russian. Said the oven burner was obstructed...big job to clean. He cleaned it alright. My oven was at 475 degrees within 17 minutes!

Got an email from Pal-Crin. Here's what she woke up too:



Thanksgiving is almost here. Hope y'all have a very relaxing time with friends and family; I know Roger-The-Escape-Cat will!

Another Busy Sunday...

Let's start with last night's dinner. I had a bag of pasta sauce in the freezer so decided on spaghetti. Also, had some leftover Ciabatta bread. We had dinner at Friend-Nancy's house last week. She and Girlfriend-Sous-Chef-Teila made stuffed chicken breast, salad and bread that had spinach and cheese on it. It was really good, so I decided that's what I wanted to do with my leftover Ciabatta.

I sauteed some spinach and tomatoes with some garlic, onion powder (I was out of onions/garlic) and salt-n-pepper. I cut the bread in half and put the spinach mixture on both sides. Put a foil tent over it and heated it. Once heated, I put grated mozzarella cheese on top and into the broiler went. NOM!



Had some of that bread leftover so we had it for breakfast with one of Friend-Scot's fresh eggs. Even more NOM! One of life's little luxuries is a freshly laid egg from a very happy chicken.



I got up at 7:00am this morning to get to the grocery store. Wanted to beat the Thanksgiving crowds. I make my Mom's stuffing recipe every year and that calls for unseasoned bread cubes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find unseasoned bread cubes? It gets harder every year! It's clear that some folks like an "instant" Thanksgiving! I'm afraid this year, I have to make my own bread cubes!



I'm sure some of you know the story about my Mom's stuffing recipe, but some don't and I love a good story...

My Mom was a pretty good cook and she had this stuffing recipe that makes my mouth water every time I think about it. I like it even better than Kraft-Macaroni-and-Cheese-Family-Style-Deluxe! You all know how much I like my mac-n-cheese; so much so that I can only have it on my birthday.

Okay, so my Mom never really wrote down recipes and it was rare we were allowed in the kitchen when she was cooking. One of the times we were allowed in the kitchen was to test the stuffing. So NOM!!!

The Thanksgiving after my Mom died, Seester Kathy and I wanted to do our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Neither one of us really cooked but we figured we could handle the turkey, the mashed potatoes (gravy from a jar), the jellied cranberry sauce in the shape of the tin can; when it came to the stuffing, we were lost. We knew it was unseasoned bread cubes, onion, celery and Bell's Poultry seasoning. We tried to recreate it, but it wasn't going well, we ended up putting eggs in it, sugar and who knows what else. Should have seen Dad's face when he ate it. Priceless! For years, we kept trying. It wasn't until a few years ago, I went to buy the bread cubes and was looking at the back of the package...there was Mom's stuffing recipe!!! Since you can't find seasoned bread cubes anymore, here is her recipe for you:

Mom’s Stuffing

1 ½ C chopped celery
3 C chopped onion
3C chicken broth
3 sticks melted butter
4 ½ tsp poultry seasoning (start gradually)
salt
pepper
4 bags of bread cubes

Preheat oven to 325.

Saute onion and celery in butter until soft. Pour mixture over bread. Gradually add poultry seasoning while mixing. Taste for seasoning.

Can't wait to make it!

Okay, on with the day. The last time the oven guy came out to fix our oven, he told us that if we soaked the burners in hot soapy water for a few hours and dried them off, we probably wouldn't need a match to light the burners. Since another oven guy is coming tomorrow, I decided to give my baby a once over.

Here she is all neked:



Here are the burners getting their first bath:



So after I got the baby all back together, you still need to light a match to get the burner running. Oh well!

Poppy spent the better part of this morning/afternoon getting plane tickets to fly to Wichita for Christmas. Poppy's Aunt-Katie and Uncle-Suresh live there so the family will be heading to their place for the Holiday. Gotta tell you, the airlines are not making it easy for us either. Why is it, that folks on a budget have to suffer to fly? We've got two stops, one in Lost Wages and one in Denver. I'd rather drive...and it would probably take less time!

Here's the best part of the day though, after Poppy made travel arrangements, it was time to start curing the pork belly for the bacon that we'll smoke next weekend. She's going to do a Jimmy Dean bourbon some on the bacon. This is gonna be good!



Time for a slight retraction...turns out that Depression-Era-Poppy is not trying to relive the old days of Grandma Carpenter's house. Evidently, Grandma Carpenter's house didn't have these kinds of light switches; Depression-Era-Poppy just likes old stuff. Never mind...

Have a good week!