Good Friday, Grilled Veggies, Instant Pot, Notre Dame Donations, Movie,

So our day was enlivened by the visit of my friend ladydog whom we haven't seen since January. It was nice to hear of her adventures in Florida. I am sorry we can't do that any more. We then went to the Red Lobster for lunch. I had Lobster in Paradise which is fairly new and delicious. The other two choices were Fish and Chips and Yucatan Tilapia and Shrimp - Matt's favourite. I also bought two Chocolate Wave Cakes to come home and have for our Easter Dinner.

A lot of the recipes I see in my emails show grilled vegetables. I find grilling green veg in particular doesn't do anything for them and they lose their green succulence. I would NEVER ruin asparagus by grilling it. I will pass on recipes that I find, but I myself will never commit such sacrilege. I have tried grilled broccoli and although it is OK, I much prefer it steamed or boiled. Cauliflower is another which is always being grilled these days. Not even tried that. I have seen several grilled asparagus recipes in the last day or two, sorry, not for me. I am too much of an asparagus aficionado to spoil it that way. A friend told me she served roasted asparagus for Easter Sunday. As she said, different tastes.

I have posted recipes for Kedgeree made with smoked haddock. Today I tried making it in my Instant Pot. It was OK, but I think I should have cooked the fish before, perhaps. The frozen fish I get is somewhat dried and in the recipe from my father it is cooked in milk, think that softens it somewhat. One thing I did do was hard boil my eggs in the Instant Pot. Boy is that ever easy. They don't peel like some videos I have seen, but that too is quite easy none-the-less. No more water boiling over, either for the eggs or for rice.  Who knew? I meant to research - and have now found out one can soft boil eggs in the IP as well. What a lot of messes can be avoided.

Just came across an article about foods you can cook in your coffee pot. Interesting selection. In an emergency it is worth knowing but, unfortunately, my coffee pot has always got coffee in it - at least I hope it has - and am unlikely to use it for anything else. I guess if this is all you have, it would be useful to know.

I hang my head in shame. I was so impressed with all the donations to help the restoration of Notre Dame, I didn't see the wood for the trees. As my friend, ladydog, pointed out, (others have said the same), the Catholic Church is not short of a buck or two, but all that donated money would have helped the poor and needy around the world. Can you imagine the relief that could be achieved if used in that way.

Just watched Easter Parade. Nothing much else on TV for us. I wasn't all that smitten with this film either, never really like Judy Garland, not sure why. It's not a bad movie though. Think I may have seen it many, many years ago, not sure.

We had our Easter Dinner on Saturday, and ate lamb chops which weren't bad, came from my grocery store instead of Costco where I normally buy them. I can no longer get to the meat department in Costco, it is too far for me to walk otherwise a leg of lamb would have been my choice. However, I then felt green peas were appropriate but just plain ol' peas sitting on the plate didn't seem right so, I Googled. This is what I ended up making. The original recipe was for Cod plus the peas so there was only a picture with the cod. However, it looked something like this. Tasted pretty good. Didn't have any shallots so used sweet onions. Of course, we finished off with our Chocolate Wave Cakes.

Herbed Pea Relish

1 cup thawed frozen green peas
1 1/2 Tbs chopped fresh oregano
2 Tbs chopped shallots
2 Tbs capers
2 Tbs lime juice
2 Tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Allow peas to thaw at room temperature. Mix everything together and warm slightly in a saucepan.

Source: Cooking Light

Have a great day