Time for a shiny new thread!

Come one, come all, share your daily thoughts, conversational chit-chat, maybe a joke or two and all the little things that really don't need its own thread.

There are plenty of seats available, so don't be shy and come chat!

To see where we left off, click Here.

Happy chatting!

Good Morning Ana and everyone! Welcome to a newly refreshed Break Room. Wide Awake Double Dark brew is fresh and ready to enjoy!

Have a happy Friday!

Gerry

Great to see a new thread with new coffee.
I'll add some emergency kits with knäckebröd while we wait for the bagels.

Happy Friday everyone!

Good morning. Danish, Donuts and Bagels to start your day. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

TGIF good morning Ana Gerry Fogfighter Connie and all who follow. Shiny new threads go great with WADDB, knäckebröd and donuts. Enjoyed a wonderful walk this cool fall morning and looking forward to a quiet day.

Have a great day everyone

Good Friday morning. I see the cleaning staff was in the break room and spiffed it up! A chilly morning means the WADDB is heavenly. I do still have my window to the hummingbird porch open so I can listen to the birds at the bird feeder.

I'm not dragging hoses around to water today as we are "supposed" to get a little rain tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it - every time we are supposed to get rain, it rains everywhere but here! It is SO dusty... the farmers are combining beans and all you see is a huge cloud of dust in the fields. At least the tractors have enclosed cabs now. When my dad combined beans in the dusty fields, they were out in the open.

Like you soot, I'm looking forward to a quiet day.

Carrying on my theme of cooking from scratch and with the meat for my evening meal of today currently steam-roasting in the oven ... I will be having ..

Filleted British Neck of Lamb, smothered in sliced up strong, cooking onions .. served with carrot, potatoes and parsnip all boiled and mashed up together in butter .. along with lightly boiled garden peas. And finished up with thickened onion gravy from the cooked lamb.

Not at all exotic but very simple, nicely nourishing and inexpensive

What's anyone else having ??

That does NOT sound very simple to me, Mad! How do you do it? And how can you have all those fresh vegetables without them rotting? Are you able to purchase them in quantities small enough for just a meal or two? It seems like everything here has to be bought in huge amounts. I cannot eat mashed vegetables. Cannot handle the texture. I still have to make my Lamb Chops which I better get to today.

We're supposed to get rain storms tomorrow. I am worried what will happen if / when it gets real windy outside again. When the AT&T guy was here a few weeks back, he not only fiddled with the box on the pole but I saw him on the other side of the pole doing something with my wires to my house. Test shaking them and then doing something on the pole and test shaking them again. I have not had one loss of internet since he's been here. My brother thinks I'm nuts when I tell him this but, I often hear the wires being pulled when it is windy out. I am near where they come into the house; he is not. On another related note, AT&T will no longer have landline phone service for new customers. I can keep mine or change to their new stuff which I tried to research but didn't get too far. The thing is that I trust my landline service more than I do a cell phone or whatever else they do with phone service these days. I just don't know if they will come out and fix my problems anymore if I keep it though. And, they keep raising my rates on both, I'm sure trying to push me to their new stuff. I may have to bite the bullet this time. I am so bad with change and I just hate if they have to come into my house for some reason, and I'm sure the worker won't like it either.

Have a good Friday everyone!

Good afternoon everyone.

Mad that meal sounds wonderful.

These days my most elaborate meal is a whole chicken in a Dutch oven, with the chicken sitting on chunks of carrots, onion chunks, squash and/or yam, halved small potatoes and half a cup of broth. I just chuck the whole thing into a 375 oven for about a hour, lid on for half an hour and lid off for the second half. Really easy and comes out quite tasty, and it feeds me for four nights.

I knew I should have kept my big fat mouth shut!!! Internet just dropped out briefly!

It really IS a simple meal to make, oldbroad, and uses just one small roasting pot and a couple of small pans.
As for keeping vegetables fresh, I only have very small quantities of perishable types delivered each week - which I put straight into the fridge - so I only need to keep them for a few days before they are all used.

Chickens I mainly buy from my local butcher, hagatha, They are all “free range” and he cuts them up for me into halves, breasts, legs, drumsticks .. whatever I prefer .. and I wrap the sections separately and freeze them so I can defrost whichever portion I wish to to cook at any given time without always having to cook a whole bird.

All those years ago I found it really difficult to reduce my food shopping quantities when it came to having to cater for just myself !!
But I solved it by just using my fridges and freezers to their full potential

Mad, most of the stores here sell free -range poultry from local farms. I normally buy them from the farm market near me because they also sell a huge range of local goods like jams and granola and baked goods, even coffee and tea and locally-made ice cream. They also sell meat from their own farm but I just can't get past the cows looking so peaceful and happy in the fields.

Good Morning Fogfighter, connie, soot, Draclvr, Mad, oldbroad, gagatha and everyone. Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready.

All that talk about food! Those meals sound really tasty Mad and hagatha!

Got my Flu shot yesterday...in 2 weeks I'll get the Covid shot.

Enjoy a nice day everyone!

Gerry

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Shopping is on the agenda today. Music Bingo at the Eagles tonight. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good morning Connie, Gerry, Hagatha, Mad, OldBroad, Draclvr Fogfighter and all who follow. I ended up grocery shopping yesterday and today have recycles on the to-do list. Those meals sound awesome. We got our Flu and COVID shots this week too Gerry. Closing down hummingbird operations for the year as our little ones have departed on their annual trek south...I'll miss their chittering and buzzing around. Time for WADDB and a danish or two.

Have a wonderful day everyone

Good Saturday morning. What is that I hear? Thunder? The pitter patter of rain on the roof? Why, yes! Yes, it is! I left my truck outside hoping all the dust from down at the Ranch would get washed off. When I dropped RayLynn off at her house down there yesterday, a huge cloud of dust enveloped her and the truck. I just hope this amounts to something and it looks like it will. I am so tired of dragging hoses around!

Something different for me tonight... I'm going out to eat with three friends. Ten or fifteen years ago, we were all pretty tight, but a lot of life changes have sent us in different directions. Me, I'm pretty much of a hermit out here in the country! Anyway, we decided to resurrect The Four Musketeers and get together tonight. We are going to a local place called Sip on Main. They mostly serve mixed drinks and things like chicken wings, pizza, etc. I'm not much of a mixed drink drinker, but they had a mocktail on the menu that sounds wonderful. I'm looking forward to it!

Happy Saturday morning all!

Mad, here's the thing with veggies where we shop. They are supposed to have a "bunch" of carrots right now for .99/lb. A bunch is usually 1 lb or so in my experience. I put it on my list but they don't have that. They have packaged carrots for almost twice the money and in a 2 lb package. I had figured out 2 recipes to use the 1 lb of carrots in and would still have some left over; now I have 1 whole extra pound and half of them will probably rot. I don't even like carrots that much. I'm not really a person who can eat too much of any one veggie and I prefer most of them raw. I also had him get me some Okra. I'm going to try a stir fry with chicken breast, carrots, and okra just to get some different veggies in me.

Anyway, I hope you each have a good day!

Drac, that outing sounds real nice. I like mixed drinks but just don't know too many of them. I like when there is a menu, which it sounds like there will be one at a place called Sip on Main. I used to get together with an old group of co-workers for dinner every now and then but it's been about 7 years now. For awhile, I just couldn't go out due to stomach issues. Now I have other issues but recently put a dinner suggestion out to a different old co-worker that I used to go to dinner with about twice a year, and she skirted around it so I guess she's not interested anymore either. Oh well, it sounds like dinner out is very expensive these days anyway.

Sorry to hear about things like your carrot issues, oldbroad.
I can put “loose” veg on my food order so will just ask for how many carrots or whatever (say 6) that I think I will use.
At the mercy of my packer, of course, in that I could be sent huge carrots (for example) or very tiny ones or even damaged ones 😯 but on the whole I am sent what I would actually choose myself - so I do OK.

I’ve never tried okra - in fact I’ve only ever seen photos of it !!
But I hope you enjoy your chicken stir fry 🤞

And Draclvr, enjoy your evening out !! 😬

I recently got this nifty gadget and use it to dice onions, carrots, celery, peppers... whatever. I then put the diced veggies in small bags and freeze them. If I need to saute or toss in a soup or recipe, I just get a bag out of the freezer and no veggies thrown away!

Veggie Chopper

Don't forget. I share my brothers freezer and frozen food is just about the ONLY thing he eats so, not enough freezer space for veggies. I already have more shelf space in his freezer than he does.

How was your night out?

Good Morning Everyone! Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready!

Soot you had a busy day! I will get my Covid shot in a couple weeks. The area around my arm where i got the flu shot is still a little swollen, red and sore...but looks better this morning. Draclvr sounds like a fun time...did you enjoy? I'm like you "pretty much a hermit" out here in the country.

Hope you all have a happy day!

Gerry

So far soo good over here.
Frost during nights but thawing daytime.
I assume the garlic still grows under the surface but winter is coming.
Yesterday there was the aurora boralis. Pretty weak and gray because too far south.
Still nice to see.

Happy Sunday Gameboomers!

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. An Eagle friend and her hubby are taking me to see Lynda at Rehab today. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good morning Fogfighter Gerry OldBroad Draclvr Mad Hagatha and all who follow. Stay warm Fogfighter. Gerry, no problems with my flu shot but man o man I had a sore shoulder from my COVID shot. That veggie chopper looks pretty neat Draclvr. Oh I remember those night out days...er nights. But they're just fond memories now. It's raining this morning which is fantastic as we really need the rain. Dog sitting is on the docket today. Time for some WADDB and bagels.

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone

ps...hope everyone is mending well Lex, Linda, Lynda and our other GB members

Good Sunday morning. Haven't checked the rain gauge yet, but think we got between 2 and 3 inches of rain yesterday. Doubt it'll help with our drought status, but it's a start! It was a nice steady rain and no wind or hail. No dragging hoses today! Unfortunately, we lost power for about 7 hours - a tree fell on a power line in the woods. Luckily I have a gas range which I can light by hand, so was still able to cook hubby a quick throw-together favorite of hamburger, onions, mushroom soup and Velveeta cheese with macaroni for his supper last night. Was cooking by flashlight!

My night out with "the girls" was really fun. The food was just excellent at this Sip on Main. It's mostly hors d'oeuvre type things like wings, flat bread pizzas, egg rolls etc. I had Southwestern Egg Rolls and it was more than I could eat. We had a good time catching up after so many years. Since I'm not a huge fan of mixed drinks, I had a mocktail that was really good. Was going to have a glass of wine, but we ended up going to the American Legion and having a couple of beers after. Got home at 10 - the latest I've been out in years!