Beef Marsala Stew

This is easily the best gravy in the world and a delicious stew.  It has earned a place on our "menu", our list of dishes we would serve at our restaurant (if we ever had a restaurant).

The slow cooker turns cubed-then-well-browned chuck roast into tender bites.  Red Marsala wine, cipollini (chip-oh-LEE-nee) onions, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, thyme, and tomato paste are among the ingredients that turn this into a masterpiece of flavor.

Using a pressure cooker is a much quicker alternative, but having this aroma waft through the house for an entire afternoon is just wonderful.  

Chef Elaine deserves a gold medal!

https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/beef-marsala-stew

Blackout Drapes

Our east-facing bedrooms are not the easiest place to sleep in, particularly on the long summer days when sunrise retreats to 6:00 am.  We complimented the wooden blinds with blackout drapes which will keep our guests in the dark (pun intended) and keep the house a bit cooler during those 90 degree summer days.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NYW5MHT

Turtle Wax Spray

The headlights on our Jeep get a foggy coating as shown in the top picture below.  After clearing that with a combination of baking soda and water, the coating starts coming back immediately.  It figured that something was needed to keep the plastic and air apart and the solution (pun intended) was to spray on some Turtle Wax wax and let it dry without any wiping.  The bottom picture shows a remarkable improvement. 

https://www.turtlewax.com/products/ice-spray-wax-20fl-oz

Rotating Surface Cleaner

I can't wait to try this attachment.  I spend a good hour and a half pressure washing our patio every summer, meticulously moving the wand back and forth, inch by inch, row by row, and getting soaked in the process.  This device includes a pair of rotating jets that clean a path over a foot wide and the housing keeps the water from going everywhere.  The only part I'll have to do with a regular nozzle are the corners.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Briggs-Stratton-14-in-Surface-Cleaner-Rotating-Surface-Cleaner/1000460207

Stuffed Shells

Who says Fridays in Lent mean you have to eat boxed fish sticks or grilled cheese sandwiches?  Chef Elaine piped a mix of ricotta, Romano, parsley, basil, egg, and Parmesan into the half-cooked large shells, and her Sous Chef (aka me) arranged them seam down on a layer of sauce.  That gets topped with more sauce, mozzarella, and more Parmesan, then baked into the masterpiece shown in the bottom picture below.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/stuffed-shells-2720632

Jackson Browne

A few days after we bought tickets to The Devon Allman Project at the Fraze on June 10th, the Rose Music Center announced that Jackson Browne was performing June 11th.  We scored some nice seats and will have a full-bore music weekend.  🙏   for the best weather of the summer those two days.

https://rosemusiccenter.com/events-tickets/event-list/event.html?event_id=248&event_name=an_evening_with_jackson_browne

The Devon Allman Project

We scored front row seats for this concert at the Fraze Pavillion, so that not only puts us close to the band but even better we won't have anyone standing in front of us or have to navigate between knees and seats to get to our chairs.  Devon Allman is the son of Gregg Allman of the iconic Allman Brothers Band.  If the music is anywhere near that caliber, we're in for a real good time.

https://fraze.com/the-devon-allman-project

Sheltered Clematis

Late last fall we brought this Clematis plant into the garage and at the time it was just a bunch of brown sticks and leaves.  Over a month ago it began to turn green, develop leaves, and now buds.  It's had no water, the very limited light that gets into the garage, and nothing else.  Furthermore, it's way healthier than the three Clematis that are planted on the west side of the house.  Go figure.

Insert Special Characters

Every so often I need to include some funky character into a Google Doc and before this tip I would go searching for a keyboard combo or cut-and-paste from somewhere.  The easy way is to click on Insert ... Special Characters, as shown on the left below, to bring up a large selection of options.  You can even attempt to draw the character using your mouse and have Google try to figure it out.  For the emoji people, you'll find them here.

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3371015

Henckels 1895 Collection 15-Piece Knife Block Set

It's a dangerous moment when you decide to replace an aging, dull, set of knives with new blades.  While it's true that dull knives hurt more people than sharp ones, it takes a little while to reorient oneself to the difference.  Since we like the Henckels pans we bought last month so much, and on the advice of a friend, getting the block-full of knives shown below was a no-brainer.

Big shout out to Karen B. for this sharp assist!

https://www.costco.com/henckels-international-refined-15-piece-knife-block-set.product.100806898.html