Two Moons, Vidalia Onions, Olympics

I was all set to watch the appearance of two moons (one actually being Mars) on Wednesday and now I find it is a false rumour which has been circulating for years. Grrrr. I guess I was well and truly taken in, I hope no-one else was. I find Snopes to be a very useful website. I get a lot of emails which I am pretty sure are not true and check them out on Snopes every time. I wish more of my correspondents would do so. There are some emails which have been circulating for years and someone always gets taken in by them. I find there are more and more emails arriving, most of which get caught by my Spam filter, purporting to come from British banks or lottery corporations telling me how much money I have won. What scares me about these is that there are people out there who are gullible and can be conned into believing this stuff and end up losing money to these unscrupulous people. I am sure we have all received such emails. The sexual type of Spam worries me less, except that again, there are people who will be taken in and spend money on these products which will enlarge the male member or do similar wondrous things. Although, being female, I often wonder why they send me such stuff *g*. The only picture I could think of to go with this section would be most unsuitable. We had a very enjoyable dinner on Saturday night. We discussed all the problems of the world and how to put them right and ate roasted beef with red cabbage and barbecued Vidalia onions as well as stuffed potatoes. This was then followed with a warm cake loaded with warm blueberries and dolloped with cream which was delicious. Our dessert seemed to have more blueberries than this picture which doesn't have any cream either. This picture from Anusha Raji. I didn't know I liked blueberry cake, I had better forget I do as it is not good for either my diet or my diabetes. Talking of diet, its been a struggle, but I have now lost 18 lbs which means I can wear a couple of things I haven't been able to for a while. It is so slow these days, they say it is more difficult when you are older, I cannot imagine why that should be. I am also told medications can slow the weight loss process down too, if that is the case then I am (use any word which seems appropriate) out of luck. Some of you from further afield are going to wonder what Vidalia Onions are, right? They are a sweet onion which originated from Georgia in the States. Absolutely delicious and some people can eat them like apples. I am not far from it. The advertising slogan says that the only thing that makes you cry with a Vidalia onion is when they've gone. They can cause the odd tear or two, but nothing like most onions. Picture from sweetonion.com. I have described in a previous blog how we cut these onions almost in quarters (don't cut right through) sprinkle with salt and a knob of butter, wrap them in tin foil and cook on the barbecue til done. Probably about half an hour, its one of those things you have to experiment with, obviously it depends on the size and how much heat, etc. However, if done right, the bottom of the onion comes out caramalised and the whole thing is absolutely delicious. Of course there are dozens of recipes for Vidalias, but that's one of our favourites for the summer. Not that we have a barbecue any more. In an apartment they are strictly verboten unless you have an electric one like our friends do. We generally use an indoor/outdoor grill and manage with that, but in this case we do our onions in the regular oven. Not quite as good I must admit, but not enough difference to be worth buying an electric barbecue for. So the Summer Olympics are over for another four years. We watched the closing ceremonies. They were pretty good too. The next ones are in London in 2012. I am trying to figure out how we can be in London at that time and also, how we can get tickets and for what. Come to that I am trying to wangle something for Vancouver in 2010. I tried out a new recipe last night. I thought it was OK, Matt thought it was very good. It's certainly simple enough to do. I picked up the recipe from Recipe du Jour which is an ezine I receive regularly. We served ours over rice. We had some Chèvre left over from the weekend which we tried with crackers. Much as I love it in the potato purée, I can't say I am enamoured with it as a cheese to eat on its own.

Quick Chicken Cacciatore Picture by James Carrier Source: Recipe du Jour

1 large skinless chicken breast, cut into 1" 1/2" strips 1 green pepper, seeded and cut into strips 1 small onion or 1/2 medium onion, cut into strips 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms or small jar/can (4-oz) 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes 2 Tbs olive oil 1 tsp dried basil 1 tsp oregano 1/2 tsp garlic salt 1/2 black pepper, coarse grind Cook green pepper and onion in olive oil over medium-high heat until onion becomes translucent. Add chicken and continue cooking another 5 minutes, making sure to stir chicken so it cooks on all sides. Add remainder of ingredients and simmer about 10-12 minutes. Serve over rice or angel hair pasta.

Have a great day.