Preparing for Dinner in my Studio

A couple of years ago I moved my studio out of what was once upon a time a master bedroom in our house and into the living and dining rooms.  Hubs was tired of my being holed up in my studio 8-12 hours a day and never seeing me.  Now he sees me all of the time.

Dilemma.  We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, but we no longer have a dining room.  So enters in brilliant and creative idea to host a dinner party in my studio.  I find the idea both exciting and terrifying at the same time.  Tomorrow we will move our old dining room table, a Duncan Phyfe that seats 16, from it's hiding place in my sewing studio and put it back into the dining room where my drafting table currently resides.

The wonderful part is we are doing more purging and deep cleaning so the house is looking better every single day.

Angel got a bath today, she had me worried for awhile as she was shivering and like crazy afterwards but that all stopped after she ate some warm hamburger.   We will be taking her to the vet, hopefully tomorrow, to see what needs to be done next, I'm not ready to send her over the bridge yet, but, she's lost a dreadful amount of weight and which has me really worried.  She made it to 15 which I hear is quite the accomplishment for a Sheltie.

Day Three Morning Three - Don't Eat the Cat!

Thomas just got Oliver on the nose and real good!  Ollie yelped and backed off.  Round one of don't eat the cat is over.

Oliver - Yesterday morning in his crate. 

This morning he didn't want to go back into his crate, can't say that I blame him, and he refused to eat his food in his crate, again can't say that I blame him.  So we brought his food bowl into the kitchen and John gave him a handful of food to show Ollie what it was, ok lets stop here.  I've NEVER had a dog before that didn't care if it ate it's food or not.  Most of our dogs have been of the variety, weimeraner, that inhaled their food and so fast it was blinding!  

The good news is Morning Three his obnoxiousness is down a whole fifty percent, he's jumped on me only once this morning.  We are still working on coordinating potty breaks, and his need to push Angel (fifteen year old twelve pound sheltie) down onto the floor, I'm so afraid he's going to break her back.

I'm sore all over from his sheer strenght and size, and from walking him.  So overall this was a good decision.  Hubs and I are taking turns walking him and are building up for one long walk a day, in addition to his three to five short walks.

Smoked Turkey

John smoked the turkey on the grill today, it took about eight hours for a 17 pound bird. It's cooling on the stove, the juice will soon be poured off and the fat removed for tomorrows gravvy, the bird cut up, deboned, and ready for tomorrows dinner and for a large batch of turkey and noodles!

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I made homemade spagetti sauce and meatballs, known as "gravy" if you are italian, for dinner all because I had an eggplant to use up, which I turned into eggplant parmesean.

The recipe for the sauce and meatballs is posted a few posts back.

What's left of the eggplant parmesean.  I baked the breaded eggplant this time, instead of cooking it in the skillet with oil first, and WOW the taste was so much better, I can't recommend baking it first enough!  I also left off the mozzerella cheese this time, and my best friend Brenda brought me some organic parmesean cheese to use, the taste was out of this world heavenly!

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Cuban Black Beans and Rice served with Lime Roasted Pork Loin and Roasted Hatch Chili Pepper and Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.

Roasted Lime Pork Loin Roast - seasoned, after searing, with cumin, salt, pepper, and 2 limes.  Roasted in a dutch oven for two hours.

Lime Sauce from the roast.

Roasted Hatch Chili Pepper and Roasted Red Pepper salsa that also has cilantro, sauted onion, garlic and my home canned tomatoes.

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Thinly sliced hot roast beef on a bun with some Maull's BBQ Sauce and fresh homemade cole slaw.

Roast Beef for Sandwiches

Black Eyed Peas with Greens Soup

We had this last night, and tonight, served with pumpernickle bread.  Yummy and very satisfying during this cold snap.

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Dinner: florence potatoes (named after a woman named florence) home canned green beans, pickled beets, and honey orange marmalade ginger glazed smoked ham.  Here's the ham sitting atop my 1952 kenmore stove, even though we baked it out on the grill.

Dinner

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonights Dinner Menu

Sauerkraut with Ribs

Sweet Tea

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonights Dinner Menu

Beef Hot Dogs
Sauerkraut
Baked Beans

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonight's Dinner Menu

Garlic Burgers - too busy for any sides~!

Today's Dinner Menu

Today's Menu

Macaroni and Cheese with

Tuna and Peas

Mustard Greens

Cranberry Sauce (home made of course)

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonights Menu

Seasoned Pork Roast with onions and carrots
Mashed potatoes
Roast juice thickened with potato starch
Cranberry Sauce - homemade of course!
Mustard Greens

Tonight's Menu

I made a lot of food, side dishes, for a group event today and have a healthy amount of left overs so tonights menus is:

Cole slaw (with vinegar dressing not mayo)
Cucumber Salad (with red vinegar and black pepper)
Baked Beans
Homemade whole wheat bread from freshly ground wheat
Fried Chicken
Autumn Harvest Pasta Salad

Everything either came out of the garden or out of food storage!

Rutabaga Dinner - Done

Presto Pressure Cooker

My stove is in serious need of cleaning but won't happen for a few more weeks, it's just a wreck during canning season.

Rutabaga Dinner - In Progress

Rhutabaga Dinner - this is out of my husband's old old (1940's) presto cookbook and I'm going on memory here.

Two pork steaks, six potatoes, and two large rutabaga's

Layer chopped (one inch pieces) peeled baking potatoes on the bottomof the cooker

Add layer of peeled chopped (one inch pieces) rutabaga's on top ofpotatoes Salt and Pepper at this point.

Add pork steaks (cut into thirds) Salt and pepper meat

Add an inch of water

Cover and bring to pressure then pressure cook for 20 - 25 minutes.

Remove heat source and let cool down naturally. Serve with worthchestershire sauce (mispelled I know)

I think the pressure cooker is set permamently to 10 pounds.

Note you know your doing it right because it smells like wet dog about half way through the cooking process.