Happy Valentine's Day.....

 Valentine's Day was one month ago, give or take a day.

 

Mr. Downeastdoingstuff and I celebrated last night!!

 

Now I know that in your warped minds a number of scenarios might be racing through your brains and before you start hyperventilating........we just went out to dinner. 

(We've been married almost 36 years....celebrating Valentine's Day takes on many forms. ie. 'Don't buy me a card, and I won't buy you a card.', was something I vaguely think I uttered. [I'm not paying $6 for a card and neither is he! Being a math wiz I know that adds up to $12 bucks. Ridiculous.])

So we decided to go out to dinner to a nice place. Only took a month to figure out where to go.

OK, so we're a bit slow, but we don't need to impress each other any more. Well, no, I take that back.....Mr. DEDS needs to continually impress me. (He reads this blog, so I don't want him to think he can slack off.)

So off we went to Walter's, an upscale, contemporary (for Portland, Maine) restaurant that has received excellent reviews. It was really balmy out, about 40 degrees, so it was a nice night to go out on the town.

I took some photos, but it was so dang dark in there they are not very good, but here they are...

View from our table toward the front door.

(Notice how it's still light outside!!! Yippee....good bye winter.)

I had the Salmon dish. At the top was smoked salmon and at the bottom were two hunks of roasted salmon, each in a different sauce. It was all artfully placed on top of a bed of sauteed spinach and pine nuts. As a finishing touch, it was all impaled with three pieces of wood. (?)

Mr. DEDS had the Mixed Grill. A Petite Filet Mignon, Shrimp and Scallops. Garlic mashed potatoes and some other stuff we couldn't identify.

And in honor of our Valentine's Day celebration, a huge painting of a heart was hung up, I'm sure, just for our enjoyment. What a place.

Note: Yesterday was the last day of Restaurant Week in Portland, Maine. For one week you could go to many, many participating restaurants and pay one price (it varies from $20, $30 or $40) and get a three course meal. If you do the math, which you all know that I am good at, you actually save quite a bit of money that way. 

BTW...NOT buying two Valentine's Day cards bought us a glass of wine and another alcoholic concoction called Coco-mo. Good deal if you ask me.

Love you, Birdman.

Sixty years......

Someone near and dear to us turned 60 years old on Saturday. 

60.

 All of us (yes, including me) in his generation look at each other, once it dawns on us how old we are and say,

 "Say what?"

It can't be! How can it be. Our parents and grandparents are 60, aren't they?

Age is a strange thing. It happens to you when you aren't looking. And there ain't no stopping it. 

But we celebrate it anyway. (how perverted is that?) 

And celebrate we did!!

Friday night a family dinner party with great surprises.

Saturday a huge affair.

Sunday an intimate brunch.

A whirlwind of a weekend. Great fun all around.

So sixty must mean other things, too.......so let's see what Google comes up with...

From Answers.com....

Q:What do you call someone that is sixty years old?

A: Well, I guess they're old, but you don't want to call them that so probably call them sixty year old or something like that.  (a genius at work)

King James Bible:
And if [it be] from sixty years old and above; if [it be] a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels.  

 

(WHAT??) (The Bible should be like Wikipedia. I would change that verse immediately!) 

(Notice they are called 'she'kels and not 'he'kels, btw.)

Now, this one, I agree with. I love Cary Grant. (An Affair to Remember)(Remember?)(sigh)

photo credit

A recent headline: 

Sixty-Year-Old Japanese Woman Gives Birth    (ouch) (ouch) ( double ouch)

OK, OK, actually he's 61, but sitting next to Jennifer Lopez on American Idol makes him look a lot more like.....well, I don't know what it makes him look like. 

Some pretty good company here....(love how Liza Minelli is trying to keep Dolly Parton's boobs in.)

photo credit

huh? This is a 60 year old accupuncturist doing self-accupuncture. Wonder what's wrong with him? Probably has no health insurance, thus the do-it-yourself kit. (Maybe he's just trying to remember his pin number. This way, all he has to do is count the pins when at an ATM. The long one is a decoy, in case anyone is watching him.)

So Happy Birthday, our dear Marchin. It was great fun, wasn't it? 

New painting.....

Another painting in my 'road series'. Tempera paint. 16" x 20"

Happy Birthday to my sister (in-law)........

Today is the birthday of a sweet lady. I don't know anyone else that is like her....she's the best.

So, IF I had her here for supper tonight, this is what I would serve. I tried these a couple of months ago and they were yummy.

(These are recipes from DOWNEAST Magazine. Downeast got these recipes from local restaurants.)

Ready? Here we go.....recipes and all.

First, we'll have Spicy Creole Haddock and Corn Cakes

Old Port Sea Grill, Portland Maine

Spicy Creole Haddock and Corn Cakes with Roasted Garlic and Tomato Remoulade

Ingredients:

1 ear of corn, shucked

5 tbsp olive oil

1/4 C large red onion, finely diced

1/4 C red peppers, finely dice

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced

3/4 lb fresh haddock, cut into 1" cubes

2 bay leaves

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp white black peppercorns  (HUH?) (Oxymoron?)

1 Tbsp Old Bay seasoning

2 lemons, halfed

1 egg

1/2 C mayonnaise

1 tbsp Cajun seasoning

2 C Panko (japanese bread crumbs)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (I CANNOT figure out how to type the 'degree' symbol, evah!!!)

Cut the corn off the cob, toss in 1 tbsp olive oil and roast in a small pan in the preheated oven for  30 minutes until nicely browned. (YES, I DID THIS, ALTHO I THINK IT'S STUPID)

Let the corn cool. Set aside.

Saute onion, pepper, and jalapeno in a pan with 2 tbsp of the olive oil over medium heat until tender but not browned, about 10 minutes. Set aside and let cool. (I used less jalapeno, due to the fact that Mr. Downeastdoingstuff can't hack anything spicier than water.)

In a stock pot, combine the bay leaves, salt, peppercorns, Old Bay, and lemons and fill pot 3/4 full of water. Bring the mixture to a boil. Put the diced haddock pieces into a metal stainer and lower strainer into the boiling liquid. Cook for about 5 minutes. Set haddock aside to let cool.

Combine the corn, onions, peppers, jalapeno, and haddock with one egg, mayonnaise, and Cajun seasoning in a large bowl. Add 1/2 C of the panko crumbs to the mixture and combine. If mixture does not hold when pressed together, mix in more panko crumbs 2 tbsp at a time until mixture can hold. (ha....mixture never holds....well, barely....very stressful ordeal) To dredge the cakes, place the remaining panko crumbs in a large bowl. Tightly pack a 1/4 C measure with the haddock mixture and roll into a ball in your hands. press down to form a round cake about 3/4 inch tick Dredge in panko crumbs on all sides.

Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy, large skillet over medium-high heatl Add haddock cakes and saute until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side, careful not to overcrowd the pan (you will have to do them in batches). Transfer to plates. (Put the pieces back together like a puzzle so no one will be the wiser that these cakes broke apart when turning over.) Drizzle  remoulade sauce over and serve.

Remoulade sauce? Remoulade sauce?  What's that?????

Glad you asked.....

Roasted Garlic and Tomato Remoulade

4 Roma tomatoes

8 garlic cloves

2 tbsp olive oil

3/4 C mayo

1/4 C capers

1 C parsley leaves

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven the 450 degrees. Halve the tomatoes and using a spoon or melon balller, remove seeds and discard. Peel and halve the garlic cloves, put on inside each tomato half, and drizzle with the olive oil. Roast for 30 minutes or until the tomatoes and garlic are slightly charred. Add the remaining ingredients to a food processor or blender along with the tomatoes and garlic mixture. Pulse until everything is incorporated. Finish with salt and pepper to taste.

Makes about 1 1/2 C. Can be made a day ahead and refrigerated. 

Delish.

NEXT ....

Cabernet Pouched Pears Stuffed with Cranberry Blue Cheese

Mache Bistro, Bar Harbor

Pears...

2 Bosc Pears

1/2 C Cabernet Sauvignon

1/4 C balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

3 C baby arugula

2 tbsp olive oil

Blue cheese filling.....

1/4 C chopped pecans plus 1 tbsp for garnish

1/4 C dried cranberries plus 1 tbsp for garnish

3 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)

1 tbsp mayo

1 tbsp olive oil

2 ounces blue cheese-plus 1 ounce for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Halve pears and place in a baking dish flesh side down together with wine, vinegar, brown sugar, salt and honey. Cover with foil, and bake for 1 hour. Allow pears to cool in liquid. Scoop out and discard pear cores and seeds to create a space for the filling. Reserve cooking liquid.

(this turns the pears into such a red color it's a bit alarming!)

While pears cook, in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, blend cream cheese, mayo, olive oil, 2 ounces blue cheese, 1/4 C pecans, and 1/4 C dried cranberries until well incorporated.

Divide filling into four parts and fill each pear half. Toss arugula (Can't stand the taste of arugula, so I used s spring mix of greens) with olive oil and divide among four plates. Place stuffed pear on top of arugula  and garnish with reserved pecans, cranberries, and blue cheese. Drizzle reserved cooking liquid over pear and greens.

And finally........

Roasted Pepper Shrimp Saute

Joshua's Restaurant, Wells

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound shrimp (21-25 count), peeled and de-veined (If deveining isn't the most disagreeable job there is, then I don't know what is, short of murdering and preparing your own meat/seafood from scratch...)

1 1/2 C chopped tomato, in 1 " dice

1 large roasted red pepper, thinly sliced

1/2 roasted jalapeno pepper, thinnly sliced (Less....remember Mr. Downeastdoingstuff's wimpy-ness)

2 tbsp  chopped garlic

1 C dry white wine

4 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

salt to taste

Preheat 12" saute pan. Put oil in pan, and when it is almost smoking, add shrimp, tomato, peppers, and garlic. Let cook for about 1 minute, then toss thoroughly  just once to create a caramelized flavor. After 1 more minute, when the shrimp should be about half cooked, add the wine and salt to taste. Reduce the wine by half, cooking off the alcohol, then add the butter and parsley to finish. Serve immediately. We garnish this with a few pieces of grilled baguette, perfect for soaking up the sauce.

That's it, my sweet sis. Hope you enjoy it.

Add D's Mud Pie and some alcoholic beverages and it will be a birthday to remember.

Love Ya!!!!! 

Happy Valentine's Day.....

Happy Valentines Day to the sweetest man on earth. I love you.

Birdman Bakes Bread

       The finished loaf of bread. A miracle.

I’m going to make some bread this weekend.” says Birdman, aka Mr. Downeastdoingstuff.

[pause]”........um, okay.” I said.

“What kind of bread are you making?” I inquire.

“ You know, regular bread.”

So, a million scenarios go through my head from enjoying a wonderful piece of warm bread and butter, to scrapping dough off of the ceiling.

“Hey,” I say, “why don’t you peruse that little bread book I have in the den for a recipe.”

[blink   blink   silence]

“OK then,” I say, “ when you buy the yeast, buy a strip of it that has a recipe on the back for ‘regular’ bread.” “Make sure it has a recipe, because some don’t.”

“K”

So off he goes, to Hannaford, to pick up some yeast and a couple other things on this warm(ish), sunny February morning. 

It’s now near 3:00 PM.....do I smell bread in the air? 

No.

So I say, “Aren’t you going to make bread?”

(grumble.....grumble....) I hear from his direction. I leave well enough alone.

About 20 minutes later he announces, “OK, I’m going to start the bread.”

Out comes the kitchenaid mixer and the yeast packet.

“How do I do this?” he asks.

“Read the recipe.” I instruct. 

“Where is it?”

“On the back of the yeast packet.”

“What? Oh...... [pause].......[pause]......[sigh].....[cough].....there’s no recipe on here!?”

“Didn’t you look before you bought it?”

“Yeah, I did” he replies, “but I didn’t have my glasses on.”

So he figured that if he saw a bunch of blurry lines and colors on the yeast packet, he was good to go. 

Wrong.

So I start looking up recipes for ‘regular’ bread. I went to the Fleishman’s site and found a perfectly good recipe for beginners. But now he announces he wants to make raisin bread. I tell him that’s fine, but it will be a little more complicated and slightly different.

“Why can’t I just throw raisins into the ‘regular’ dough?” he asks.

“Well” I say, “the dough might be a different dough, maybe a sweeter one.”

So we look up raisin bread on my laptop and grab the first one we get to because, frankly, I’ve got other things to do. 

Anytime there’s a cooking expedition that involves Birdman, for some reason I get involved. 

So I’m eyeballing the closest exit that I could slither into without being detected.

Fat chance.

“Where’s the flour?”

“Over there” I say pointing to the cabinet where the flour has been for 30 years. (Not the same bag....)

“What are all these things for?” (holding up the kitchenaid paddles and whips)

(they are used to paddle, whip and beat life’s small irritations, I’m thinking....)

deep breath.....

So he gets everything out, he gets everything explained (in my opinion) and he’s on his way....

....except for these questions:

1. How do I open the yeast?

2. Where’s the brown sugar?

3. How much is a tablespoon of butter?

4. Can I heat up the milk in this pan?

5. Can you scroll the computer? I have dough on my fingers.

6. And the Piece de Resistance.....”What’s a yolk?” (That one I could.not.believe. I KNOW he knows what a yolk is.....!!!!@#$%&*) 

6 1/2. How do you get the yolk out?

I did manage to escape the room and I did hear some mild cursing now and then, but the result was we had one dang, wonderful loaf of raisin bread in the end.

As they say, all’s well that ends well.

And it ended well.

As I’ve said many times before, it’s a darn good thing I like him!

Thanks, Birdman.

Further photographic evidence of bread making in Maine....

Reading directions on the laptop.

Supplying sustenance for the job...a Patriots cup of iced tea with Powers Whiskey sloshed in for good measure.

OOOPS.....Add all DRY ingredients together. Add all WET ingredients together.

So why is the DRY yeast in the WET milk concoction???

Stirring the pot.....

Iced Tea/Whiskey break.....

Rolling out to a 12"X 8" rectangle and putting on the cinnamon sugar/raisin mixture.

Put into a loaf pan. (I took it out and put it back in so that it didn't look like an old man's butt.)

And, Voila!!!!! Delicious raisin bread.

And in the spirit of Super Bowl Sunday.....1 . 2 . 3 . HIKE!

'Til the next episode of Hell's kitchen.....

Squirrel proof bird feeder.......

Look real close.....or biggify the photo. 

Yep, the squirrel proof birdfeeder I got Birdman is doing a great job. Yes, indeed.

Dam it........

I get emails from the Kim Komando Radio Show, a show about computers and web sites and stuff like that.
You can sign up for free 'Cool Sites' and you will get all kind of interesting and not so interesting web sites sent to you. You get one a day.
Today was a riot.
It's a translation site where if you type in a few sentences, it will translate what you type back and forth into other languages and then back into English.
As they say, a lot is lost in translation.

I typed in the chorus line from Don MacLean's 'American Pie' song.

Here's what I got....

Original text:

"So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie Drove my chevy to the levee But the levee was dry And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die "

...10 translations later we get:

"So, goodbye, and ordered the United States Chevrolet gave me a beautiful dam, but the dams are dry and good whiskey and rye singing students, to be drunk one day, it will be the day I die"

I think it has something to do with the day I retire from teaching. The students will be drunk, and I will have ordered my first Chevy, dam it. And since it will be the day I die, I will rethink my decision and never leave my singing students, even if the beautiful dam is dry. Dam it all.

Try it yourself......here.

New Painting.....

Here is another painting in my 'Road' series. It is Congress Street in Portland, Maine. (Intersection of Bramhall Street and Congress Street, heading out of town)

It is 17" x 22" and is in tempera paint.

Furthering my education.....

I like to think that I am always learning. A perpetual student.

One way I further my education is by studying blogs. Blogs that deal with art, food, making things, decorating, food, humor, travel and food.

Some blogs have a gazillion followers.....some don't. They're all good.

But every once in a while I come across something I don't get. It seems like those people that work in the so called 'think tanks' need something to do now and then so they think up new and cutting edge terminology that suddenly envelops the world.

Such as people saying...."Having said that......blah, blah, blah....."

As it is, it's all I can do to keep up with LOL, OMG, BFF and WTF.

Suddenly, in the more fashionable blogs, I see the terms, "after the jump". This is usually after someone's introductory paragraph for their blog entry.

Stuff like that drives me nuts, or even to drink.

WTF is 'after the jump'??? Someone.....anyone.... please tell me!

Well, I don't hear anyone answering my question, so I guess I have to do the research myself.

Here is what I found out.....

After the motorcycle jump looks like this......

After the ski jump might be.....

After the horse jump....

After the high jump....

After the jump off  the boat....

After the bungee jump....
Soooo, having said that, I still don't get it.

Anyone?

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am wishing everyone that takes the time to read my silly little blog, a very Happy and Healthy New Year on this 1/1/11!!  

And to those that take the time  to comment on my silly little blog, I wish great wealth, a diet that works in one day, cars that never break down and Johnny Depp coming to visit  as well. Oh wait, that last one was just for me. Sorry....

Nevertheless.......

 

Last night Mr. DEDS, aka Birdman, and I spent most of the evening just with each other. Earlier in the afternoon, M&D stopped over to watch a game on TV (something with a funny shaped ball and guys knocking each other down every chance they get. Don't even get me going on the value of that!)

We had munchies which included some beet and sweet potato chips which were wonderful, (Who knew?), Low fat Ranch Dip, Sunflower chips with reduced fat cheese melted on top, sweetened peanuts, carrots and probably something else.

Then later, when it was just the two of us, we had:

-Asti sparkling wine

-Beet and walnut salad

-Bacon wrapped scallops

-Filet Mignon with blue cheese and red wine sauce

-peas and pearl onions

-baked potato

-coffee ice cream with warm cherries jubilee

I did change up some of the recipes to make things easier for me, but that's a secret.

(No, I did not have someone else do the cooking.)

I hope everyone had a fun filled New Year's Eve and will have a wonderful 2011!

(just think....In November, at 11 minutes after 11, it will be 11:11 on 11/11/11. Something to look forward to!  ;-p)

Best F'ing Christmas evah!!!

Fun, Family and Friends (thanks to M,J, M, D, C, J, B, P and P)

Flaming candles and Fancy gifts

Fine Food, Full tummies (aka Fat) :-( (thanks to me and D’s cookies)

Fascinating stories (thanks to P)

Fantastic musical toast (thanks to the other P)

Frosty,Foaming beer and Fine, Fruity wine.

Plenty of Foolishness to go around.

We’re so, so Fortunate to have such Fine Family and Friends!!!

Fondly, Elenka and Birdman (my Fav!)

Merry Christmas to all....

....and to all a good night.