Mostly Food…Plus

As I wrote this post for my blog site, I glanced at the calendar and noted that Laurie and I had been in self-isolation with minimal outside contact or store visits for 269 days!  We miss the days of exploration that included museums, historic properties and towns, etc.  Those posts required research and more effort but we truly enjoyed the actual experience and I thrive on the research.

Such is life in the Covid-19 era…and in the challenging year that has been 2020!  The vaccine and 2021 can’t get here soon enough… Yes, masks will still be a part of life for a while to minimize the spread to the non-vaccinated, but we’ll live with it, no complaints!

So…this post is all about food and a bit of local miscellany. 

Neighbors are great to have!  This beautiful hunk of coffee cake was actually baked by our neighbor Mike.  He told us that he’d eaten the other half…and he didn’t want to keep this around or he’d devour it too!  It was excellent and just in time for our usual late breakfast.  This was my portion...

Laurie and I took several photos one recent foggy morning.  Fog is not uncommon around where we live given the nearby Tennessee River, its tributaries and three major reservoirs/lakes.  

I have a favorite…  Which photo do you like best? 

Our friend Larry, aka Big Dude at http://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/, gave me the idea in one of his recent posts.  When we make waffles, sometimes we make too much batter and then I overeat because I don’t want it to go to waste. 

As Larry had pointed out, he just freezes the extra waffles.  Duh!  Why didn’t I think of that?  Frozen waffles have been around for years… So finally I caught on and was able to enjoy a nice leftover waffle with blueberries and whipped cream for breakfast one morning.  I didn't do a good job of artistically applying the whipped cream though...

While I finished off my waffle, Laurie finished the last of the crumpets we’d ordered on-line.  She toasted them, then added butter and cinnamon sugar with a little whipped cream on the side. 

To refresh your memory, a crumpet is a small griddle cake made from an unsweetened batter consisting of water or milk, flour and yeast.  Crumpets are popularly eaten in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Of course, bacon and eggs sided with a few fried potatoes and a couple slices of toast is a favorite in our home!  Laurie loves bacon!  I usually fry a few extra slices which we use to perk up salads, sandwiches and other dishes.

Laurie is the queen of grilled cheese sandwiches.  She melts unsalted butter in the frying pan and then she puts the bread in, building the sandwich in the pan.  In this case she used Tillamook Extra Sharp thick sliced cheese that we’d purchased at Ingles supermarket. 

We sided our grilled cheese sandwiches with a nice salad with iceberg lettuce, more cheese, celery, and artichoke hearts.  As usual, Laurie’s grilled cheese sandwiches were better than anyone else’s!  The Tillamook cheese did give them a bit more ‘flavor status’ too…   

On subsequent evening, Laurie made another one of my favorites…meatloaf!  To be clear, I generally don’t like restaurant or other people’s meatloaves.  Laurie’s is special…using spicy sausage with the ground beef and with a parmesan crust on top. (We would never include a vegetable in the meatloaf mix or put a red sauce on top!) In this case, we had some leftover mashed potatoes and gravy which went well as a side.  The spiral frozen zucchini didn’t work too well though as they were just too soggy after microwaving.

Speaking of Larry, aka. Big Dude… His ladies were down in Florida and he’d was on his own at home with the family dogs so we invited him over for dinner one night.  He had been as isolated and careful as we’d been so he made a great guest.  Someone else to talk to in person these days is a really good thing!  Laurie snapped this photo of Larry and me.  

Comfort food was served… Pot roast, roasted potatoes and carrots, triple succotash, bakery bread, gravy and a bit of beer and wine just to wash it all down…

Laurie took this photo of a lone dove sitting on our deck railing… It appeared that he or she had lost their mate.  I thought that it was quite vulnerable in that position as we do have an occasional hawk in the area looking for prey.  In any case, nothing bad happened and Laurie is convinced that a new mate was found by this loner.

Recently we’d been out for a drive in one of our local neighborhoods, mostly just to do something but also to check out new home construction, (It’s everywhere!), and looking for deer as a bonus.  This very young fawn was the only deer we spotted.  It was pretty late in the year to see such a youngster.  Is it my imagination or is the deer sticking its tongue out at us?!  That reflector that appears to be protruding from the deer is just behind it…no worries.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave