My Weekly W's - Last Sunday of May

What's top of my mind:  Data centers.  Two weeks ago, there was a rumor that one of the large landowners in our county was going to sell a good portion to a corporation that is interested in building one of these monstrosities in our county.   Our county board and the townships board that the land is in held emergency meetings to discuss.  Our local board is half republican and half democratic and they all work very well together.  Who knew that was possible?  One board member explained the situation well.  Our wonderful governor Pritzger who does not like local government to have much say over their communities, snuck in a new law around three years ago that gives the state government full rights to basically do whatever the hell they want regardless of the community.  The board member explained that if the township refuses to allow a sale the state could hit them with huge fines.  The board did rule that nothing will be done for 180 days until they can investigate everything further.  I will be following this very closely.  These data centers are a huge strain on our water, electricity and so much more.

Who needs a good slap:  Just when you think someone cannot sink any lower, they do. Governor Pritzger deserves 5 throat punches  slaps, for SO many reasons!  This is not a political party rant, but a personal oppinion of mine about our governor so please don't take it there.

Where I've been:  Thursday we went to St. Louis University hospital for a test that TBG had scheduled.  It was a long morning for him, so when we finished around 12, we needed a good lunch and stopped at Drakes in Shiloh. You know I love their club sandwich.  Friday, I only worked half a day so beat the holiday weekend crowds at Kroger and picked up a couple of things.  Yesterday we went to Effingham to enjoy lunch at Firefly.  Their fried green tomatoes are SO good, along with everything else.  My birthday is tomorrow along with Memorial Day, so we wanted to enjoy a meal with just the two of us to celebrate early.

Where I'm going:  Tuesday I have an appointment to have the back tooth that I broke pulled.  I took Wednesday off too just in case I'm not feeling well.  I'm sure I'll stay home regardless.  Thursday TBG has an appointment with his cardiologist here in town.  Other than that, we have no plans and I hope no others pop up.

What I'm watching:  The garden is growing like crazy. Everything looks really good. I went out this morning to cut some of the garlic scapes.  I am going to pickle this bunch and then pick the rest in a day or two for hummus.   

What I'm eating:

Spaghetti and beef meatballs with a salad

BIG salad x 2

Chicken sausage, scalloped potatoes and asparagus

Cube steak, pesto mac and cheese with a salad.  It has probably been 20 years or more since I've made cube steaks and TBG mentioned it one day last week.  I told him they are on the list for sale at the farm we go to, so he went out and picked two up.  They were really tender and tasted good, but not a favorite of mine.

Chicken tikka masala with rice and naan.

Tonight we're having salmon with sides to be determined.

What's making me smile: This bush makes me smile every year.  Does anyone know what kind it is?  I would love to have two or three more on the other side of the back yard.

                I hope everyone is well and if you're in the US enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!!

What's for dinner?

 

With the ingredients above, can you figure out what I made for dinner?  

Hint...it's an old school classic.

Hope everyone is doing well.

My Week

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day!

The weather here was great this past week.  Cool in the mornings and perfect in the afternoons.  We had quite a bit of rain through the week which was nice.  No storms, just nice steady rain which is exactly what we've needed.  

I went to a number of stores to stock up on items we regularly use.  This should keep me out of stores for a while.  The farmers market also started so I went to see my favorite farmer.  He had gorgeous lettuce, radishes, strawberries and of course flowers.  His onions are wonderful and I've already replanted a couple of the bulbs.  You can't find onions like this in the store here.

I worked out in the yard multiple times getting everything planted in the garden and in pots.  I like to grow basil and arugula in large pots because they seem to do better.  I did pick up another lavender plant and put it in a pot until it gets a bit bigger.  Our yard is off to a good start.

While doing things around the house the last few weeks I watched a number of good documentaries.

The Twister-Caught in the Storm.  This was about the tornado that hit Joplin Missouri and it brought up a lot of emotions.  I know one of the doctors that was in the hospital that was hit by this storm.  

India-Sweets and Spices

Kidnapped-Elizabeth Smart

Sins of Our Mother

Nobody dumps my daughter

Yesterday we watched Mother's Day on Netflix.  I don't remember seeing that when it came out in 2016 and it was a pretty cute movie.

Meals this week...

Sirloin steak, baked potato and salad

BBQ chicken legs, pesto, white cheddar mac and cheese and asparagus

Chicken fajita nachos

Beef chili with cornbread

BIG salad x2

LO pan of stuffed shells and a salad

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the month of May.  I still am not quite sure how it is 5 months into the year already but here we are.

Be safe and remember to celebrate a little every day!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In My Kitchen - April 2026

Happy May!  April was a pretty full month for us, and I didn't do much new in my kitchen so this post will be a bit sparse, but I still wanted to join along with sherrys pickings for her monthly In My Kitchen.  It is always fun to see what others from all over the world are doing in their kitchens plus I didn't want to break my record of doing four months in a row. 😉

We had a lovely Easter dinner at our house with lamb T bones, garlic and rosemary potatoes, deviled eggs and asparagus.  It was delicious.  I used this recipe for the lamb, because it always comes out so well. Culinary Adventures with Lori: 52 Recipes in 52 Weeks #4 Lamb T-bones with Rosemary-Balsamic Butter Sauce  For dessert, we enjoyed banana pudding that I made with Lorna Doone cookies for something a bit different than a crust or vanilla wafers.  It turned out really well.

The next day we celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary by taking a day trip and having a wonderful lunch together at our favorite place Firefly Grill - Farm & Table in Effingham, Illinois  The weather turned out to be perfect, so the drive was gorgeous.  It was a great day with my favorite person in the world.

New items I picked up this month.

TBG loves hot tea every day, so I picked up another bag of the Berry Berry that he really enjoys, making sure he has a good variety in the cabinet to choose from.

I like to keep beef tallow on hand to occasionally cook with and also to make lotion.  This winter I made it through the cold harsh winter that we had with soft skin instead of dry and scaly. It has to be the tallow lotion that I made in the fall.  I love this stuff.

This popcorn is SO good.  It pops up beautifully and has very little of the annoying hull to deal with.  

I love Lindt chocolate and TBG picked up this bag for me which was appreciated.  This bag contained a new to me flavor of Neapolitan.  The filling was a mixture of strawberry and milk chocolate with the outer shell being white chocolate.  I'm not a big fan of white chocolate but this combination was really very good.

My curveball is a picture of my buddy Binx which is suiting since he spends a lot of time with me in the kitchen.  This picture is from this morning.  It was pretty chilly when I got up so I put a throw down by the patio window so he could warm up.  It took him a while to get the blanket exactly how he wanted it but after he did, he took a nice two-hour nap.  

Sherry, thank you for hosting because I know you have been so busy as well. I hope everyone has a wonderful May!!