October 25th Dinner Post

[livetobake]

Good Morning!

This is just a reminder that as of today it is 2 months till Christmas!! You are welcome!!!

Today will be the last mild day from our stretch of beautiful weather. My aching body is sitting outside as much as I can today and enjoying it as much as I can.

Dinner will be an apple and toast with peanut butter as I am solo.

What are you having?

[Chayote]

I didn't have my playdate with Hannah today... The whole family is sick and they don't want to infect us. Apparently there were 11 children home sick in Andrew's school grade alone; most likely a lot of children in the school are also sick. Also my new Home Help, Brooke wasn't able to work today because she's also sick. I'm amazed that John and I have been able to avoid it... touch wood!

John had poker at our community club so while he was playing, I relaxed with my knitting, a magazine and my phone and I was sitting very close to the bar for drinks and coffee. We had a nice lunch at the club. John had fish and vegetables; I had lamb's fry, bacon and onion gravy.

Julia phoned me saying someone close to the club had advertised on facebook market place that she had a bag of Build-a-Bear clothes and shoes for $30 and they all looked great. John finished playing and we went and picked them up. Lovely lady who is living in a retirement home and she seemed very lonely. She invited me inside to get the bag and to introduce me to her new 14 week old Maltese terrier... so, so cute.

We didn't bother with dinner seeing as how we'd both had a hot lunch. I had a bowl of soup at 1am and John said he will have some toast when he takes his evening medication.

[muzette7]

I put a round roast in the smoker, not sure how it will come out as I usually cook it like prime rib. Probably some salad and cheesy broccoli to go with. I have a batch of potatoes in the canner to take to the lakehouse next time we go. My life is so exciting lol.

[Vera]

Not sure what dinner will be, but I have a package of Trader Joes soup dumplings that has broth inside. Not sure what to expect but they sounded interesting. There are some leftovers so I may reheat that with the dumplings.

My excitement is cleaning my crystal chandelier. This time my husband is helping me, and he takes off and puts back the strand of crystals and I am washing the crystals carefully. I know there are sprays to clean the fixture but when I purchased the chandelier back in the 90s, my sales gal said that some sprays can eat at the metal, so I never used them. I actually have a bottle of spray and thought I might try it but chickened out and decided to do the tried-and-true method. I am having a neighborhood soup and sandwich get together after our homeowners meeting and one neighbor owns a commercial lighting business, so I don't want them to see a cloudy fixture but a rainbow of prisms. I needed something to prompt me, and this is it.

[MudderBear]

Overcast day, but still on warm side, I will walk to bank after lunch. I did put some laundry out on the line, it prob won't completely dry but at least it will still smell wonderful.
I did a pit of a stock-up shop just now, and holy moly these grocery prices are just ridiculous! A 4L bag of milk is $6.49, 10lb bag of potatoes $9.49. I just bought some ground beef and pork ribs that were on special. I was looking at the roast beef - not on sale - teeny little thing that would maybe feed 3 of us a small portion was $23. Crazy!
I took out some boneless chicken breasts from the freezer, will toss it in Shake n Bake BBQ sauce, broccoli, and either mashed potatoes or rice.

[CharleneG]

MudderBear, I can feel your pain about beef prices, YIKES! I was in Costco recently and an older man and I were staring at the beef roasts and he was shaking his head at the prices like I was. I said “You know, I’ve heard beef is bad for your heart. These prices will give you a heart attack!” He got a chuckle from that.

It’s been cold, kind of windy and wet today, but it sure beats all the smoke in the air. The critters and I have been staying comfy and warm in the house all day. I’m going to be leaving in a while to go to a handgun cleaning and handling class up in Burlington between 5 and 7 pm.

I’m going to stop someplace after the class to get something to eat, not sure what just yet, maybe a Five Guys burger since it’s really close to the shooting range.

[Chayote]

MudderBear, I can feel your pain about beef prices, YIKES! I was in Costco recently and an older man and I were staring at the beef roasts and he was shaking his head at the prices like I was. I said “You know, I’ve heard beef is bad for your heart. These prices will give you a heart attack!” He got a chuckle from that.

John is panicking about the price of beef and I wish he wouldn't. We only have beef about once a week. The rest of the time we have lamb, chicken or pork and they are still reasonably priced, especially the chicken. I've just put an order in with Woolworths and paid $9 for a tray of 4 x 100% good-sized beef burger patties, therefore four meals for him (spread over a couple of weeks). Our government released their Budget last night and announced that fresh foods will rise in price by an average of 25%... but I can't convince John that we buy very few fresh items in that he doesn't eat salads, we spend no more than $35 per week on meat and I will possibly go back to baking our bread (or not if I can't be bothered). When we move next year I'll get our gardens going again and grow enough fruit and veg for us and Julia.

We are not yet at the stage of having a cow in our backyard for future meals... *LOL*

[rosie]

I don't even look at beef anymore. I do buy chuck roast or top or bottom round when it's on sale for $5 lb. I'll buy around 25 lbs. Joe cuts it into cube steak, stew meat. We grind a combo of chuck and round into burger. I have noticed it's running on sale for $6 a lb now.
chicken is what's making me crazy now. It's crazy. We can afford it but really is sticker shock. I often think of those that don't have enough $$ and kids to feed.
I would love to have a cow in the barn yard lol with the price of feed (we feed 30 chickens) dont think it'd be worth it. I love having chickens but honestly it's cheaper to buy eggs. I did have to buy a doz and OMGOSH they were pitiful. I'm use to huge orange yolks that stand up. These things were hardly light yellow. Yuck

[Chayote]

I don't even look at beef anymore. I do buy chuck roast or top or bottom round when it's on sale for $5 lb. I'll buy around 25 lbs. Joe cuts it into cube steak, stew meat. We grind a combo of chuck and round into burger. I have noticed it's running on sale for $6 a lb now.
chicken is what's making me crazy now. It's crazy. We can afford it but really is sticker shock. I often think of those that don't have enough $$ and kids to feed.
I would love to have a cow in the barn yard lol with the price of feed (we feed 30 chickens) dont think it'd be worth it. I love having chickens but honestly it's cheaper to buy eggs. I did have to buy a doz and OMGOSH they were pitiful. I'm use to huge orange yolks that stand up. These things were hardly light yellow. Yuck

g'day, rosie...

We used to have chickens. In Australia they are mostly called "chooks". My Dad had them when I was a child and I'd go down to the backyard to collect the eggs and carry them inside in his hat. I so wish I still had that hat just for the memories. After we got married we had chooks for a while and I have to agree with you about the quality. Dad used to buy chook pellets and wheat to feed them but we only gave ours layer pellets and food scraps.

Stewing steak in Australia is around $20 per kilo which works out to about $9lb without taking account of the exchange rate. When I buy steak I choose a tray with two small pieces of eye fillet which is $70 per kilo or about $31lb but because they are only 160g each, the tray costs $22. If we were having steak at a restaurant, that amount of money would not even buy one piece so it's a luxury that we afford ourselves.

This is our steak from Woolworths. I like meat from a butcher but this is more convenient:

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