I forgot to post the recipe for the weekend:

1. Marinated Chicken w/flaming pineapples
2. Cuban Black Beans & Rice
3. Ensalada Cubana
4. Fried Plantain

Also, I need someone with mad photoshop skills for a “big” job involving a cat and a Bengals uniform. The innocents always suffer the most.

Bad Horse’s Filly writes:

I’m off with family, getting ready for my youngest brother’s wedding. I’ll be the one in the pretty bridesmaid dress, my 3-year-old niece and I playing princess in our matching dresses while mom and dad get hitched. But I didn’t forget you guys. I thought a fish recipe would be nice since we haven’t had one in a while. This fish is courtesy of my friend Alton Gunn.

On the board tonight:

1) Pico De Gallo Fish
2) Rice
3) Tomato-Avocado Chutney
4) Fresh Pineapple w/Ice Cream

Click on the blue highlight for recipes and shopping list.

(Enjoy your princess dress, BHF!)

Your weekly soul- and tummy-warmer, thank you Bad Horse’s Filly:

it’s always good to have a soup recipe on hand for when the cold weather returns. And there’s nothing better on a cold night than Creamy Potato Cheese Soup.

On the board tonight:

(1) Cream of Potato Cheese Soup
(2) Orange-Walnut Spinach Salad
(3) Pear and Sour Cherry Crisp

Click the blue text for recipes and shopping list. Mmm, taties & cheez!

Cold and overcast here and I am working from home, so I am making some vegetable beef soup. So far, I’ve got the beef stock cooking, and plan on adding celery, carrots, tomatoes, leeks, potatoes, green beans, and peas.

Any ideas for something unexpected or different beyond a traditional vegetable soup?

A note from Bad Horse’s Filly:

So it’s Friday and I totally forgot to send you the link for last night’s menu. It is one of my favorite recipes, Garlic, Garlic Chicken... I forgot yesterday was Thursday until I saw on my own blog this morning that it posted.

On the board tonight:
(1) Garlic, Garlic Chicken
(2) Loaf of a good crusty Artisan bread
(3) Sliced Pepper Salad
(4) Hot Apple Cider with Ginger Snaps

Click here for recipes and shopping list.

P.S. I compounded the delay by not reading John’s forwarded email sooner. My apologies to BHF, and I hope she’s been able to dig out from the Denver area’s surprise snowfall(s) without too much pain!

Because there’s a lot of frustration going around recently. Make stew, not sausage! Take it away, Bad Horse’s Filly:

In honor of the fall colors, it’s time to break out the slowcooker and make a traditional menu. How nice is it to come home from a day’s work or outdoor chores like raking leaves and have a hearty beef stew waiting for you? Add some biscuits and baked apples and you have the perfect fall dinner. On the board tonight:

1)Beef Stew
2)Wheat Biscuits
3)Baked Apples

I’ve been informed that I should post the Thursday night open thread early because all the geeks are going to rush off to watch Flash Forward. Duly noted.

Here is the Thursday Night recipe:

1. Greek Pasta w/Shrimp
2. Salad – add some black olives, feta and Greek dressing to continue the theme
3. Greek Style Green Beans
4. Honey of a Pie

Keep the dictionary entries coming.

First, some pet pics:

I swear that last dog is a photo shop job. Check out the pink nose and the almost human eyes.

Also this week, back by popular request, BHF has your weekend menu:

1. Grilled Salmon w/Orange Glaze

2. Tomato & Bell Pepper Soup

3. Hearty Bread

4. Raspberries & Blackberries w/whipping cream

Click the link for the full menu.

Also, below the fold, Redkitten has the play-by-play for her latest experience giving birth.

By request.

Anything to keep the natives happy.

I’m now addicted.

It is in no way, shape, or form, is a “mild-medium” general purpose coffee like I asked when I was soliciting advice a while back, and, in fact, I think one step up from the Peet’s French Roast is some flavored version of JP-8, but after the shock of the first sip (initial reaction: “MY GOD- MY COMMENTERS WANT ME TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK”), I can’t drink anything else.

Plus, it makes my house smell amazing.

Also, the shaking stops after about twenty minutes.

Dinner was excellent, and the mushrooms turned out great. I actually made two marinades (one with lime juice and one with balsamic) as suggested in the comments below, and then ended up using neither. I just washed them, brushed them with a little olive oil, cooked them, and then tasted one to see which marinade would be better, and decided all it needed was a little sea salt and some pepper. Very good. Summer food rules, especially since so much of it is light and healthy and I’m always trying to make it so there is less of me to love. Apparently too big to fail only works for the banks.

At any rate, not much going on at the Cole homestead tonight or this weekend. I was thinking about going home to take mom out to dinner since my father is in Reno, but when I called my mom to ask, she said “That is ok, I have lacrosse games to watch.” I wish I hadn’t already mailed her a card.

Tomorrow I am renting a rototiller and plowing up the plot I have cleared for the garden, and I suppose I need to finalize what I am going to plant. I might go see Star Trek this weekend, as well.

Finally, I have been on the receiving end of a vicious assault the entire time I have been writing this:

Also, the Pens and Caps are on, and it is about to get brutal, as Ovechkin just intentionally destroyed Gonchar’s knee, and will probably be beaten to a bloody pulp.

What is on the agenda for you all?

I need a marinade for portabella mushrooms before grill thirty tonight, preferably something that is already in most kitchens. Having grilled zucchini and yellow squash marinated in an island teriyaki sauce I have wanted to try for a while and have no idea how well it will work, a baked onion, sliced tomatoes, and grilled portabellas, but I can’t figure out what to marinade them in and want to pick something up on the way home.

BTW- if you have never had a baked onion, they are one of my favorite grilled things in the world. Just take a big sweet onion, peel the first layer and cut a cone into the top, throw some beef bouillon, fresh garlic, salt, pepper, and paprika, wrap in foil, and cook on the edges of the grill for an hour or so.

My mouth is watering thinking about the onions.

Some quick things of note but not worth entire posts:

1.) Tomorrow’s fauxtrage today- GM CEO, who ran the company into the ground the last decade, steps down before Obama administration will give auto industry more money. Expect the Santelli groupies to be screaming socialism or liberal fascism or waving Atlas Shrugged signs tomorrow.

2.) The Listserv Kaus Conundrum: Invite Mickey Kaus to your email list, and have him selectively publish private conversations whenever he wants to screw someone over and get a link from Instapundit. Or, don’t invite him, and have him publish the contents anyway. Why? Because he is an insecure jackass driven to madness that he was not a part of someone else’s email group. Also, goat sex.

3.) I can’t decide if I like Pad thai so much because it is delicious, or because it provides a vehicle for consuming more cilantro. I vote both.

4.) Capitalism!

5.) No matter what happens next weekend, a #1 seed will be in the NCAA championship. How boring. Wrong. For some reason I got it into my head that UNC was playing UCONN next weekend.

6.) The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on HBO tonight.

7.) All your base are belong to… China.

8.) World’s dumbest criminal.

9.) For whatever reason, I went back and read the Cogent Provocateur’s “Operation Snipe Hunt” post from 2003. Still one of the best blog posts ever written.

10.) Overton Window My Eye- DougJ and others yesterday approached the elevation of Paul Krugman to the role of chief Obama critic as an opportunity to shift the Overton window to the left a little bit. Others shared my belief of what would happen:

Krugman will simply weaken the actual left by giving cover for the Blue Dogs. it doesn’t matter if Krugman is attacking from the left or from the right, he gives credence to the idea that “even the left thinks Obama is wrong.”

Krugman seems more and more like an ideologue who has no clue about how politics works and doesn’t care.

when it’s perfect vs good, nobody wins.

CNN’s “Your Money” segment earlier today featured them reading two paragraphs of Krugman trashing the bank plan and then spent the next five minutes letting wingnut WSJ economist Stephen Moore trash the plan. This is working out well.

And might I point out that after we all have trashed the President from every angle, the American people aren’t going to say to themselves “the socialist black muslim guy kind of sucked, let’s give Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold a shot.” Not going to happen. Standing in the on-deck circle are Mr. Sanford, Mittens, and the Wasilla wingnut.

11.) An almost live action shot:

You are on your own. Behave.

A question- I am cooking a spaghetti squash for dinner, and I wanted to know which option I should pursue, since I will not be able to eat the entire thing. I am going to cut it in half and clear out the seeds, then place it face down in boiling water bake it to cook. Should I cook the whole thing and save the leftovers in tupperware, or would it be better to just wrap up half, uncooked, and cook it tomorrow?

*** Update ***

I really don’t know where the boiling water thing came from. I even had the oven warming up as I typed this. I think as I was typing this I just had spaghetti on the mind and blurted out boiling water.