First, let me announce that Lucille is going to be fine. We are all so thankful and are looking forward to having her at the dinner table again. (Seriously, sneaking food into the hospital is probably not something we can continue to do forever!) Thanks to everyone who called, brought flowers, and sent well wishes!
Tonight was a late night at work for me. Jerry ended up making dinner and had it ready and on the table when I walked through the door. It was a welcomed sight! We had a ham bone left over from our New Year's Day meal that I had thrown, with a lot of meat on it, into the freezer. He used this to make "Red Bean Soup" and served it with an incredible salad called "Commander's Salad." After all the rich food we have been eating, it was a great change of pace.
This morning when I was blogging about last night's meal, I realized that we have been eating too much new food. We needed a break and the meal tonight really provided that respite.
The Red Bean Soup was made with pinto beans (our favorite) and were perfectly seasoned. The recipe called for a pound of either smoked ham or andouille sausage. Because the ham bone had so much meat left on it, Jerry decided to just use that and the andouille sausage awaits another meal.
The Commander's Salad is a homemade dressing, but it is more than that. The recipe specifies mixed salad greens, crumbled crisp bacon, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and croutons. The dressing was good. It was pink. That was strange and cool at the same time. It wasn't nearly as tangy as the bleu cheese dressing from last night, but is was great all the same. In many ways, I actually preferred tonight's dressing. Maybe it is all the talk of clogged arteries, cardiac diets, and such that have me thinking healthy, but it made me feel a bit better to eat something that didn't just scream, "I am going to absolutely make your circulatory shut down." Sort of gave me a warm fuzzy, ya know? The fact that we had absolutely no dessert was a testament to the fact that (1) I wasn't home to help cook, and (2) we are going to have to change our ways.
I am pretty proud of the fact that I had a tiny salad and some tuna fish for lunch and then a bowl of bean soup and a salad for dinner. Jerry even recounted that he didn't use any butter or cream in the making of this meal. We haven't been able to say that in a while. Oh, and the red wine we sipped with our dinner helped flush out whatever may have been lurking. This may be sort of gross, but when my father-in-law tried to convince me that they had found a glob of either butter or garlic in Lucille's heart, I knew, deep down, that things needed to change. It has been fun, but we are going to have to cook a bit healthier.
This is going to be a challenge and I am certainly up for that. (Just don't expect me to ever give up that Chocolate Molten Souffle...it was the BEST!!!!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Confessions from the Sous-chef. The reason the dressing was pink was because I used 3 tbsp of red onion instead of white onion. The recipe called for white onion, but I prefer red onion on my salad. Might I say that I was so surprised when Jillian and I hit the blender start button and our dressing turned pink. Who would have thought?
ReplyDeleteSecond, I forgot that we used a tbsp of butter to saute the celery, onions and bell pepper for the red bean soup. You just cant go cold turkey on butter usage. The fact that I didn't use a pound shows that we are trying to be good.