Book Group: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, picked by me. Dinner will be in February at the Culinary Institute

Book Group: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, picked by Farzaneh. Dinner at Andina in January 2007.

Book Group: The March - E.L. Doctorow

The March by E.L. Doctorow, picked by Diane Coulson, dinner at Five Spices in Lake Oswego

Chicken Curry in Roasted Acorn Squash Recipe | Recipezaar

Another great recipe from Men's Health Magazine

Frozen Southern California

We had another great trip visiting Jill & Nathan. The Arctic winds were blowing in the NW and we thought, "Great, we'll go to the warm weather." Right. It was incredibly cold all weekend. We all spent Saturday in San Diego with Heather, Jason, Sidney. Took a nice walk along the waterfront and had a great lunch.

On Sunday, golf at Carmel Mountain Ranch was on the agenda. The usual teams, Red Balls and Sweet Vipers, and the usual winners. Then all you can eat Sushi...and we ate all we could eat.

We stayed Monday, too and Pat and I golfed at Menifee Lakes Country Club. It was still quite cold and very, very windy. We tied (Pat gives me strokes) until the last hole...he won.

I intended on making Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner, but had a food accident. Put the corned beef in the crock pot, turned it on and promptly unplugged it to make coffee; forgetting to plug it back in. Got home after golf to scary, uncooked meat. So the fallback plan was spaghetti.

Spent our last evening watching the Chargers - Patriot game recorded on Saturday.

Then home to 4" of snow. Took a couple hours to get home from the airport. All in all, a great time.

Team "Red Balls"



















Winning Team "Sweet Vipers"

Variation on Salad for 2

Chop some fresh spinach and use as a base for salad, substitute cucumber for tomato and add crumbled gorgonzola.

Avocado Salad for two

3+ Vine tomatoes - cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 Avocado - cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 Pear - cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1-2 Tbsp Red onion - diced fine
Creamy salad dressing of your choice.

I like 1000 Island for this salad, Pat used Ranch. It doesn't take much dressing, just a little drizzle over the salad.

Pesto Shrimp Pasta - Men's Health

We've been trying recipes from the Men's Health Magazine and last night made this yummy dish. You can use any cooked meat like chicken or if you prefer a vegetarian option, tofu. No kidding, this was the fastest dinner we've made in a long time. You do all the prep work while the penne noodles are cooking. Drain the noodles, return them to the warm pot (over low heat) and mix in the rest of the ingredients until they are hot.

Since the recipe includes quite a bit of spinach, we didn't make a salad and just served it with a thin slice of nice Italian bread.

Ingredients:
4 oz Barilla Plus penne pasta
12–14 medium-size precooked, peeled shrimp (or cooked chicken or tofu)
3 c chopped baby spinach
1 tomato, chopped
3 Tbsp ready-made pesto
3 Tbsp crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
2 Tbsp diced walnuts (pine nuts would be good instead)

Getaways & Deals

Oregonlive.com: Search
Article with some interesting weekend getaway ideas.