Category: Food

Some Good Apple Cider Chicken Cooking

Posted on by Markman

Watched a documentary about the Sara Lawrence College Cult on Hulu last night. That was some crazy stuff. Just so mind boggling that people can control others in such a way. It’s three episodes long at the 1st one takes a little while to get interesting but then it’s quite the ride.

I wanted to try out a recipe I saw in a magazine that seemed pretty easy so tonight I gave it a shot. It’s basically a chicken with apples mix so nothing too earth shattering. As usual we had to replace an ingredient or two with something else because we were out of a particular item at this time but the replacements worked fine.

A Beautiful Bristol Birthday Lunch Day for the Ages

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We took an afternoon trip down to beautiful Bristol RI and I got to have a nice lunch by the water. We saw some herons and egrets too. I ended up getting a Del’s Lemonade Cucumber Spritz with Vodka and a nice Seafood Linguine. I would recommend this place called the Beach House. I found my dish to be super delicious.

The before heading back we took a detour to stop by Like No Udder down in Providence to get some ice cream and slush goodies.

I also got some cool books, and a neat bamboo cutting board that includes different mats for cutting different types of foods on top of it, which will replace the current cutting board I’ve been using for a long time now.

A Busy but Relaxing Weekend

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Gateway to Nauset

Been kind of a busy and yet relaxing weekend. We had some folks over on Saturday and I got to ride in their new electric luxury BMW. That thing was pretty crazy with the way the instrument panel is and all the geeky electronic stuff. Sunday was a day of relaxing, grilling and using the firepit to read by.

Enjoy another pic of Nauset Light! It’s National Lighthouse Day afterall!

Kitchen Cooking and Free Pizza

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I finally got to use the new kitchen and cook my first meal since it’s been over a month. Been trying to keep the countertops clear of things and everything nice and neat. Just did a simple shrimp and rice dish. I’ll be cooking up a ricotta stuffed meatloaf dish tonight. Get to break in some new kitchen pots and pans and baking sheets, etc. Hopefully I haven’t been making too much of a mess and horrifying LD – lol). I shot a new video of the finished kitchen but I’m not sure if I’ll just leave it in production for our personal use.

I did hit the center of town late this afternoon for the National Night Out, where you get to meet the local police and all. I ate two slices of pizza and got the see the newest recruit to the force, a puppy named Sally. I knew a lot of the officers there since I work along side them these days. Looked like a very nice time. (Confession: It’s true, I mostly went for the free pizza).

I noticed the mourning doves next door must have had their babies. I saw one hanging with it’s mother in the nest, although by this point it looks about half the size of the parent and is fully formed and all that. Coloring looks like the juveniles we saw before. I’m not sure if these birds use the same nest over and over but it appears that this couple does.

Currently reading: The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul.

Water Shoes and Wellfleet and Sunset Slivers

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Forgot to mention my new water shoes! I purchased them back last September but finally had a chance to try them out at the beach yesterday. They are amazing! Anyways if you’re interested, search amazon for the Zhuanglin Men’s Quick Drying Aqua Water Shoes.

Today was a little more low key. Mostly just a trip out to Wellfleet for lunch and then back here for pool time. I overdid it a little bit at the beach yesterday but then again, it WAS one of the best days of my life EVER. I do feel somewhat drained however.

After the pool we headed to Crosby for a sunset (or what was left of it that we could see – just a sliver through the clouds). Wrap up with a trip to the Sparrow for my go to Nectar of the Gods drink, the hot choc with soy milk. I did p[ick up a book from a little library there but I don’t know if I’ll read it. Basically a bunch of short moral stories. I’ll list the title here later as it’s in the car right now and I don’t remember the title offhand.

Update: The title is The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories and it’s over 800 pages, although the stories themselves only appear to be a page or two generally.

One of Our Best Days on the Cape

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Did you ever have a few days were there was so much packed in you couldn’t describe it all successfully?

That’s pretty much what I’m feeling right now. I did head back to Earth-1 on Monday Night to do my work shift on Tuesday morning but by the afternoon I was back. I grilled some burgers with the charcoal grill, we swam and swam. Harding’s Beach on Wednesday afternoon was particularly awesome. The water was warm, the waves were high, and I was having a blast. I think we all ended up staying there from like 1:30 to 6:30.

And of Course by the end of the day you have to check out the sunsets.

Although the sunsets so far have been a bit on the cloudy side, minus those amazing shots I got from Rock Harbor earlier in the week. The weather down here has simply been spectacular this week. I think it’s the best it’s ever been for us.

This morning I walked around some conservation land.

They had a pretty cool layout there and included this very Zen looking area. There’s just too much for me to process right now so here’s just a few pics from today.

I’ll Remember Every Moment, These Endless Summer Nights

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Endless Summer Nights

“Seaweed just went up my nose!” is a quote I overheard today from some kid playing in the seaweed at West Dennis Beach. I can honestly say that that is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say that, so me being me, I had to make a mental note of it and share that with you all. So to recap today we slept in, then pretty much headed down to the beach and spent a good chunk of time there. I finally got to try out the Beau Jarden cart we got last fall and it worked flawlessly. So much easier to cart all our stuff around in. Anyways, I went in the water, LD went in a couple of times, and then I dried out in the sun and it pretty much wiped me out when we were done. I was so tired. But I rallied after some time to rest up and then we headed out to see a sunset. We chose Rock Harbor and this is one of the shots that I took tonight. This time I decided to walk further down along the marshy area then I have in the past. I covered myself up appropriately so that I wouldn’t get eaten by any bugs too badly and that was a smart move by me. This isn’t my first rodeo! What’s really cool about this pic is how the sun’s reflection kind of forms the shape of a heart! Then we went for ice cream and I got a burger. Now I’m uploading this to the website and going to chill the rest of the night.

I also wanted to mentioned that I learned today of some sad news. One of our favorite goats at the Sanctuary we visit recently passed away. This goat was special in that he was the goat that had been there the longest, 16 or years, and he was always such a sweetheart to us. He loved to be brushed too. RIP Eustis. We love you.

Enjoying a Deep Tissue Massage to Work the Kinks Out

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Orange Double Tiger Lily in bloom

I had a deep tissue massage today and it was one of the best I’ve ever had. I am so totally relaxed from it. Props out to Rebecca for treating me so greatly. I went with the deep tissue this time because I felt I needed it and it had been quite a while.

Other things I managed to get around to today were: I returned some grout that I had purchased in error a few weeks back to the Home Depot and used the refund to get a Jersey Mike’s for lunch, handed a donation benefit to a visiting African pastor (long story), I mailed an RSVP letter indicating that we will be attending a ceremony later this year, I changed the air purifier filters, I purchased gas, I went to the bank, I played the Powerball, and I cleared out the basement/gameroom of most of the kitchen things. It was nice to be able to get access to the air hockey table and arcade Ms. Pac machine. I fired them both up to make sure they still worked. The Ms. Pac is the real deal from the 80s, that takes quarters, not a reproduction. Nice to see that even though I was rusty I can still score over 100,000 points. Now, except for a few minor finishing touches, the kitchen is fully functional! Yay!

While walking around the garden, I saw several double tiger lilies blooming beside the ordinary ones. That caught me off guard! I don’t recall adding those. Anyways, I had to take a picture of one!

I decided to grill tonight even though it was pretty warm out. Another night of burgers.

Thankful Third of July

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Today was the day of the BBQ that I had been hoping for since early in the year! The weather was a bit overcast but that’s alright by me, as long as it didn’t pour on us it would be fine. In fact, maybe it would even keep down the heat of the day, although it was pretty muggy out. At least the plants are all loving this kind of weather – they are growing like gangbusters. As the festivities went on though the sun came out and stayed out. It ended up being a successful outing! I was a master at grilling dogs, burgs, salmon, corn, and veggies. Did a quick fire pit, admired the garden and relaxed in the sun and for dessert….

Here are the treats we made last night for today’s BBQ. Aren’t they cute?! They are little grills with food on them! It’s actually just Little Bites for the grill, some food coloring to get the grill lines and Mike and Ike candies for the meats and vegetables. The legs are lollipop sticks. Let me tell, these were not that easy to make, but they sure were a huge hit and totally worth it!

Thanks for the share Boston.com! I didn’t even know about this until after I got out of the home improvement store with a gallon of paint and 29 kitchen knobs!

Sunday Preparations for Early Fourth Festivities

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Quite the day. Busy busy busy. It all started off with an old colleague of LD’s coming for a quick visit to consult about a few things. I didn’t really hang with them because I went to get a bunch of items for the BBQ tomorrow. Speaking of BBQ’s we got invited to a little one over at LD’s old landlady so we spent some time over there and had a late lunch. We even got to see LD’s old apartment which was currently empty so it was like a little trip down memory lane for me.

After that in the late afternoon LD got tickets to a live play in Brooklyn written by a person she knows so to support it we could watch it through a virtual stream through her phone and then we casted it to the television in real time. This play wasn’t as good as the last one I saw but still impressive in it’s own way.

Then we worked until the early hours of the night making some of tomorrow’s delights. At the conclusion of the BBQ, we’re going to surprise everyone with some delicious, adorable tiny sweets, but I won’t post images of them until then because I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I’m planning to go pick up my mom and hopefully my little sis around 11. I need to make a trip to the home improvement store before then and get some paint for the kitchen. Yes, finally a color has been decided upon!

Currently Reading: Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. It’s from the author of Sill Alice, which was another book that I read a couple of years ago. I think they even made a movie out of that one.

Of Beautiful Bike Rides and Feline Shots

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Since I was going to Earth-1 today for a visit and to help my mom bring one of her cats to the vet for his yearly physical, I figured I’d take the bike again but and check out the GLX path but this time follow it to the end. It basically ends at Lechmere but connects to North Point so getting to the Museum of Science, or TD Garden, the North End, etc. is super easy and one straight shot. Seriously, this is pretty cool. Naturally I had to get a shot of myself by the Zakim Bridge. The park actually goes underneath the bridge so it’s pretty freaky to be under something that so many cars use. (I-93) Plus the Charles River is right there. I must say that everyone involved did a really nice job tying everything together.

Anyways while I was doing that, my mom had a dr. appt but I was done and waiting for her by the time she got back. She wanted to run a couple of errands so I took her around to do those. I got some gas for my car. A bunch of little odds and end things.

The contractors demolishing the old laundry building out back are almost done it looks like. They’ve been using a backhoe to scoop up all the debris and place them into giant dumpsters. It’s all open now, which seems kind of weird being able to see the houses across the way that were blocked by the building before. It won’t last though as new buildings will go up to take it’s place.

By around 2 o’clock it was time to take Hardy to the vet. His brother Laurel will probably be going in a couple of weeks but today was Hardy’s turn. Just the usual exam, he was due for his rabies shot and got his nails cut while there. He wasn’t a happy camper while he was there but he mostly behaved himself and got a clean bill of health.

Finally after all that and he was returned to his abode I decided to take one more short bike ride over to just outside Harvard Square because I wanted to take a picture of this church that has all these really neat looking wildflowers growing out in front. So I banged that out as well.

Heading back to Earth-2 LD was kind enough to order us up some Greek food takeout, which I picked up on the way back from the ‘Ville. I did end up grilling some chicken afterwards though because it needed to be done and we can eat it tomorrow. I’m planning on having my mom and sis over for a BBQ day here on Monday so I’m getting pretty excited about that. I hope the weather will be alright.

A Happy Father’s Day

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In front of a New England classic

Today I was jonesin for a little bit of Kelly’s Roast Beef out in Revere Beach, so LD was kind enough to get us there today. I also wore my Carson sweatshirt which was a gift from last year but I wear it only on special occasions because it is so special. It’s actually a hoodie, with the face of Carson on the front and the text “Carson’s Dad” all hand stitched from a photo that LD sent to a woman in the Ukraine who made it. Truly a one of a kind! It took a long time to arrive but I’m amazed it came at all seeing as there is a war going on over there! I enjoyed my roast beef sandwich loaded with cheese and sauce, but I did switch hoodies when it came to eat on the beach because I would not want to get the Carson hoodie damaged in any way!

Revere Beach Lovin
Bringing a bit of Carson to the beach
Carson and his daddy
S’more time

The other night we had some friends over for an impromptu BBQ and fire pit night. We ended up just getting takeout from a great Greek food place in town and then did the S’mores thing. It was supposed to happen on Saturday but the weather looked to be crappy so it all got moved up to Friday night and it was wonderful. We did need all of Saturday to basically recuperate from it all though. Being social can take a lot out of a person!

LD got these cool little firefly lights for the garden that are solar powered. They’re cute, purely decorative but I’m mentioning them because they’re pretty neat and it’s fun to look out the window when it’s dark out and see them lit up.

Catching Up Time!

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Currently Reading: Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature.

Been a little busy working my shifts and all so that’s why I haven’t had much time to post lately but I still wanted to get up some shots that I had taken. My heart health must be really good now with all this exercise I’ve been getting. In the meantime I’ve taken to grilling as much as I can. Salmon, burgers, dawgs, corn, vegetables, etc. etc. I can’t wait until this kitchen remodel is done! However, I will say, it has really made us think and stretch out what we have.

Isn’t this photo pretty cool. I happened to take it on a very windy day down at Nauset Beach in Orleans, which is a part of Cape Cod, if you didn’t know. I’ve had this one sitting around for a while but finally decided to share it up. Those waves were really big that day. Probably can’t see from the photo but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were over at least 10′ tall that day if not more.

Happy Unofficial Start of Summer!

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Happy Start of Summer

Hope everyone is having a Great Memorial Day Holiday. We’ve been having quite the time. You never realize how great a kitchen sink is until you don’t have one! We’ve been making do with my grilling and sometimes some takeout though so it’s all good. Things are moving right along on that front and proceeding quickly. Working on the ceiling right now. Backsplash has been picked out – a nice blue colored hexagonal pattern that we think will look really great against the new white cabinets.

Also been sprucing up the patios with various plants that have been purchased. Looks really nice. I’m back to my daily routine of watering everything in the late afternoon. Supposed to hit the old landlady’s place for a BBQ she invited us to today, so maybe we’ll do that after checking out some more plants at the nursery.

Of Birds and Kitchen Remodeling

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I just happened to notice today a couple of mourning doves nesting over behind a basketball hoop in the neighbor’s driveway. I had never seen a mourning dove nest before, so watching this is actually pretty cool.

The kitchen remodel is moving along really quickly. Yesterday all the old cabinets and countertop and sink and so on were removed and today was some more of that along with getting some more of the flooring squared away and getting ready for the new bottom cabinets to be placed, etc.

For lunch today I decided to hit the local BK and try out that new promotion they’re having with a tie in to the Spiderman Spider verse movie. Essentially a whopper with a red and black bun. It was pretty much just a Whopper.

With a red bun.

I did like it. I just wanted to get in on the novelty.

Currently Reading: On to Book #26 of the year that I’ve read so far. Decided to take it back to the Victorian Era once again this time around. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. They were more than just names of victims, they were real people and they deserve to have their dignity. These women’s lives had value regardless of their circumstances in life and their life stories are worth being told.

It’s a Brew-Tea-Ful Day!

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Fancy Tea Time!

Reservations finally came through for a little get together at a fancy tea house to help celebrate our anniversary. The food was great! I ended up going with a white tea called the Bartlett Pear which consists of White tea, pear, apple and peach pieces, pear flavor, nutmeg, cinnamon, white cornflowers, peach flavor. I must say it was quite good, very pleased with my choice. We were seated in the cutest little room, very pink and very Marie Antoinette-ish, for my lack of a better description.

Rainy Last Sunday of April / Momma Bunny Appears

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We actually made it past midnight and got our names into the Lowes freebie which we’ll be able to pick up later in May. They did something like this a couple years back where there was a different free gardening thing every week but you had to register at midnight and the site would always be blocked up with traffic so it would be hard to get access, but this time I was able to get in no problem.

Today was spent cleaning out some of the kitchen cabinets in anticipation of the new work going to be done soon. Basically making three piles, stuff we keep, stuff to give away, and stuff to trash. We need to go get some newspaper though to store some of the glass items in for protection. Might go out and do that later today. While we were in the process of doing that, LD noticed that a mother rabbit was creating a new nest for babies over on the side deck. Not the greatest place to put one since we come in and out of that door all the time, but momma is going to do what momma wants!

We’ve taken to naming this mother bunny Katherine. I’m not sure why but LD came up with it and we’re going with it. Hopefully she’ll go along with this nest and maybe we’ll be able to see some bunny babies again soon. They are so cute!

Momma bunny in action!

Yesterday we got some pizza from Bertucci’s because we noticed we had some pretty good coupon deals that we needed to use since it was expiring today. I’m definitely loaded up on carbs this weekend, getting two large eggplant topping pizzas!

Currently Watching: Pretty Baby on Hulu, the Brooke Shields story.

Let Your Joy Burst Forth, Like Flowers in the Spring

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I’m always looking to find the beauty in everyday locations

Yard work today but instead lazy loaf in the sun. I did move a bunch of stuff out from the cellar to the shed so it wasn’t just a day of nothing, but I did end up spending a bunch of time in a chair just sitting soaking up some sun and even doing a couple of crossword puzzles. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll head down to the home improvement store and get going on some things I want to accomplish. In the meantime, enjoy this picture I took of a bench just around the Wellesley Town Hall building, which was also the former home of the doctor who first used ether to lessen pain during procedures!

I put my name into that class action lawsuit that’s going around regarding facebook. Probably will only amount to a couple of dollars when all is said and done, and the lawyers will make out huge, but it’s better than nothing I suppose.

I made some shallot fritters tonight, basically just slice the shallots thin and break them up, cover them up in a concoction of tempura mix and water, and then just fry them up in a pan with a lot of canola oil. Maybe not the healthiest, but pretty tasty.

Sunset Baby Goat Snuggles tomorrow! Stay tuned for updates!

Jonesing for a Roast Beef

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We took a quick jaunt out to Revere Beach yesterday afternoon for some roast beef sandwiches. It was a bit cool and breezy as the temperatures went back to what it should be normally for this time of year. I must admit having hit the 90s the other day was a bit too early and too hot. Getting there took a little bit of extra time though as Boston was super busy with the Celtics in a playoff game, the red Sox playing at Fenway, and everybody in town for the Marathon.

Other than that highlight, it was a pretty non descript day.

Oh, in plant news, I somehow kept the orchids we got last September alive throughout the winter, and now one of them is even starting to bud again. Major victory for my amateurish green thumb I would say.

Hyperextended Thumb

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Probably wasn’t the best idea to spend a good part of yesterday doing a bunch of yard work with a hyperextended thumb, but I really wanted to trim back some dead vegetation from the prairie area, along with a bit of the rose bushes out front, and an old butterfly bush I planted a couple years back that pretty much started taking over everything.

I was also super busy yesterday performing a ton of errands, like bank runs, office mail pickups, getting gas, dealing with some bills, etc. By the end of the day I felt pretty physically tired. I still need to buy some birdseed for the feeder out back and some more yard waste bags.

I still did find time by the end of the night though to cook up some souvlaki Greek-style chicken with a garlic-cucumber crema and lemon feta potatoes, which actually came out pretty good.

Cooking, Kitchens, and Sore Shoulders

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I’m not sure what I did to my shoulder, but last night I noticed it beginning to hurt a little. As I woke up this morning, it was difficult for me to get comfortable in the bed because it kept slightly bothering me. I’m hoping that moving around today will help it return to some degree of normality, but I believe that what it truly needs is a really good rub. However, my massage therapist is already booked for the near future, so I guess I’ll just have to put up with it. I was able to complete some yard work yesterday before it got cool and cloudy, mostly bagging up leaves from the patio areas. Could this be the reason why I hurt my shoulder a little bit? Maybe so.

Moreover, work has begun on the kitchen’s renovation. The process is proceeding quickly in that direction. We went out in the rain to a local place that deals with kitchen cabinets and things of that nature to get a feel for what we’ll be looking at, getting the concepts organized and choosing specific items, such as new cabinets, etc. To be honest, we think it truly needs an update and that it will look fantastic once it is finished. More to come as that gets going.

Speaking of kitchen things and all I had been keeping my eye on a new non-stick oven safe pan, so we simply got one. Some of the recipes I prepare state that I would benefit greatly from a pan that is also oven safe. The nonstick cookware we now have is fantastic, but it’s not intended to be used in the oven, so I’m forced to use a cast iron skillet, which is typically OK but is not nonstick, making cleanup a bit of a pain. Cast iron skillets are also a little weird to me, even with the correct maintenance. This Ninja design, in my opinion, will be effective. Plus it’s a little smaller than what I’m currently using so I imagine it will be a bit lighter to handle. The one I use now is a little on the heavy side.

The Elusive Sunday Search for a Sofa Bed

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I’ll never get tired of visiting or viewing the Nubble.
Tall, steady beacon 

Guiding ships through stormy seas

Lighthouse, steadfast friend

How did you like my little lighthouse haiku there? Not too shabby. Also this pic I took of the Nubble was from a little while back, but I still love the way it came out.

Today I started out with a trip to Wegman’s to pick up some groceries. Then later on in our travels taking care of some errands and getting out of the house to enjoy the sunny spring weather, we noticed the local school baseball team was doing a car wash so we had the ball players wash the car. The cost was whatever you wanted to donate, so that was cool. The car really needed it!

Most of the afternoon was spent taking a trip over to Jordan’s Furniture to look for a sofa bed and maybe get some other ideas for the office. Really want to find a sofa bed which they didn’t seem to have although there were some cute little loveseats, which may be a possibility. One thing we noticed while there is that apparently there’s now a Montilio’s Bakery and Pizzeria inside! We were a little thrilled to see that because we loved the food from the Quincy location. We were on the verge of buying some food there, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the wait, so we left and returned home after donating some books to some small local libraries that we had been hoarding for months. a phase of the recent spring cleaning binge.

Instead for lunch we ended up having some shrimp cocktail that we had gotten the other day so we wolfed that down instead, and afterwards I made some Tofu for LD for eating later in the week for lunches.

I guess we maybe thought we would do more today, but we ended up using the rest of the day to relax. It is Sunday after all! For dinner I did bake a three cheese butternut squash lasagna which I think I’m rather proud of!