Two Dinner Hits and An Injury

Nope, not an injury for me. Heck, I barely leave the bat cave here to get injured! I did go to the Microsoft Word workshop (more on that in a minute) but that was about it yesterday. My daughter, the older one, who is in cross country, is the injured one. She's wearing a boot, for some kind of injury in her leg. We're going to get a scan, I think, this week, because she's still hurting. But she has a new nickname: "Clubfoot" from Mom. She prefers "Bootleg," but I told her that makes her sound like an illegal CD. Since she's into music, she likes that one ;-).


Either way, it's no running for her for a little while. Poor kid only had one race so far. :-(


My workshop was pretty good. I was the only student there, which was REALLY good. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through eight hours of lecture directed toward a bunch of lawyers or business people learning all kinds of stuff I didn't want or need to know. Yawn. So the instructor just gave me what I needed to know. Considering I've been working with Word since Bill Gates first released it, there wasn't that much I didn't know, so we got through the stuff I needed in a half a day. We even uncovered a couple tiny bugs in Word 2007. But I learned some cool new things, like how to use the Styles (never realized what the heck those were there for...probably because Word didn't make them prevalent until this version) and they are SO easy to use in '07 and SO easy to customize. I can do everything from All Caps to Small Caps to Chapter Headings...love 'em, as my teen says.



Oh, the two dinner hits. One is an older one that I forgot to tell you all about. Nigella Lawson is my dinner goddess. I think I love everything the woman cooks. I made her Fully Festive Ham the other day and totally loved it. But I had a few tweaks to the recipe. For one, in my area, cranberry jelly does not exist. I went to the largest grocery in my town and the grocery guy looked at me like I was insane. Okay, I live in the Midwest, not in Massachusetts anymore, so cranberries aren't exactly popping out of the lakes here, but he hadn't heard of it.



So, I used Currant Jelly instead. Smucker's makes it and it was just fine. And, I didn't have the time or inclination to use BOTH apple juice and cranberry juice (and besides, they're pretty expensive, esp. for a silly ham) so I just bought the combined cocktail and used that. Just fine. And sweeter, too. And yummier. And if there was any leftover (which there wasn't), it would have been something that someone around here would have actually drank. Regular cranberry juice...not so much (though I have had the Diet Ocean Spray and I can tell you that it makes really good anything when mixed with vodka ;-).

I also didn't have any allspice berries. Who the heck has those? Couldn't find my whole cloves (might have used them all up at Christmas) so I just sprinkled clove powder into the mix. Good enough ;-). And I didn't have English mustard powder, but I did have German, and I figured the English and the Germans are getting along now, so good enough there, too.

It was AWESOME, let me tell you. And her tip about cutting off most of the fat, scoring the ham, etc., really gets the sauce in there. Next time, I'm going to make a second sauce to serve on the side. I loved it. Really yummy.


Second dinner hit:



Garlic Cauliflower

1 16-ounce bag frozen cauliflower

1 T. Olive oil
3 t. garlic (the kind that comes in a jar, already minced
1/4 cup breadcrumps
1 t. salt (I always use kosher for cooking)
1 more T olive olive oil



Microwave the cauliflower with a little water until defrosted (mine took six minutes, but yours might take longer). In a pan, heat the first tablespoon oilve oil. Cook the garlic one minute, add the breadcrumbs and stir until browned. Add the cauliflower, salt, and the remaining olive oil. Toss all together, and stir until warmed and well mixed. Done!




That was dinner accomplished on my end! Have a great day!


Shirley