Ouch; that is terrible about your knees! I'm so sorry that happened!

The hottest male body I've ever seen was a 33" waist in a pair of Arizona jeans. He wasn't large boned at all; and probably right at around 6' tall. (not less than; but not much more than either). The jeans weren't too tight; but they weren't loose either.

Oh; on the soups = yeah; Progresso soups made with broth are fantastic; but their attempts at creamed soups all seem to be a big fail. I think maybe it is because they aren't condensed? Idk, but I won't even touch their Manhattan Clam Chowder; Cream of Potato; Cream of Chicken; Cream of Mushroom; etc; etc; etc. Now = their Lentil Soup is AWESOME!

A glass of water and Pizza Rolls.

I underwent extensive medical testing yesterday. It lasted all morning, followed by an hour break, then more testing. At break time, I was offered the option of a snack within the clinic or eating at the hospital cafeteria. As I had not eaten since supper the day before, I opted for the cafeteria, remember that it offers a decent if expensive salad bar. A mistake. I forgot that, like most eateries, lunch isn't served until 1100. I was left to choose from the breakfast offerings. Bleak they were. No eggs of any sort. Slimy looking hash-browns. Bacon strips. Patty sausage. To be fair, they offered oatmeal. But it didn't look fit to eat, and there was nothing to mix with it. I settled for a decent looking biscuit covered in sausage gravy, and, against my better judgement, a strip of bacon. The biscuit with gravy was okay for what it was. It had been so long since I last ate bacon I had forgotten how bad it can taste, and the gross aftertaste it leaves in your month. I still haven't gotten rid of that aftertaste!

An irony is that post-lunch testing took no time at all. Had I known, I'd likely have forgone eating at the hospital all together and enjoyed a slightly delayed lunch at home.

You don't like the taste of bacon? GAAAAAH! That is un-natural!!!!

Well, in your defense = if you ate it in any hospital cafeteria; it wasn't really bacon anyway. They only serve "turkey bacon" = which actually does leave a terrible after-taste.

The only bacon I like is the smoked one, and I can't get it anymore here.

My favorite is the sugar cured. (or even better = brown sugar cured!!! )

Well, I certainly didn't like that bacon. Maybe it was a BSO? (Bacon Shaped Object) Regardless, its taste was far from savory.

I goofed during this week's grocery run. Forgot to buy tomatoes, though they appeared on the List. Piecing things together later on, I reconstructed what must have happened. 'Most' produce is added to my cart near the end of the run. (Apples & bananas are the exception, being the first two items added.) The normal course of events, once in the produce section, is onion first, then tomatoes, then red bell pepper, and so on. Onions are bought loose, and need a bag. The bag dispenser near them was empty. I looked around and saw a dispenser right above the bell peppers. I remember thinking I would grab the onion, then bag it while bagging the pepper. Me being me, I then walked straight to the bell pepper section without stopping to grab tomatoes.

I bypassed shrooms this week. They were in stock, but looked 'iffy'.

The run ended on an odd note. Not a single (or married) manned checkout register was open! That's a first. I of course ended up using a self-checkout machine. I reluctantly began using them for small, simple purchases some time ago. But never before for a full grocery haul. I'd likely have been okay had my cart contained so much produce, some of which lacked barcodes. The self-checkout section overseer kindly showed me how to use item lookup. Sadly, this turned out not to help, as the C19 protective groves I wear during grocery runs couldn't trigger a response from the screen lookup icon. (No way was I going to touch that screen without protection.) In the end, the overseer scanned most of my produce, both those without barcode and several with barcodes that didn't scan due to wrinkling. I hope this isn't the new norm. Not so much because I prefer a manned register for complex purchased (which I do) but because I don't like seeing jobs lost, especially 'working class' jobs.

Just my morning coffee and a couple of sausage, egg and cheese biscuits for breakfast .

How British!

This Monday, for the first time since right after the pandemic set in, my Walmart stocked cans of Progresso Traditional Broccoli Cheese soup on its shelves. I bought two cans. Had the first of them at lunch today. For a canned soup, it's rather decent, with a definite cheesy flavor. I add a generous amount of black pepper, as is my custom with most soups. Buttered 100% whole wheat bread on the side.

I've added chopped peach slides to my morning oatmeal/fruit breakfast. I use bagged frozen sliced peaches rather than fresh, as fresh peaches slice unpredictably, especially when on the mushy side. It takes only three chopped slices per breakfast to add a definite peachy flavor. One bag lasts me not quite two weeks. I do without those days rather than buy extra bags.

I added Baby Lima Beans to my salad-suppers. Makes them far more tasty. The downside? They make my stools slimy, cleanup messy.

For the past some months I bought mushrooms only when they looked fresh and crunchy. I discovered that, during those weeks I do without, I don't miss them. As of this week I am dispensing with them all together.

Decrepit, sounds like some creative and healthy 'culinaries' you've got going there. Tell me more about salading with baby limas - are they canned, fresh, frozen/thawed?

Hmmm...

I eat salads for supper most days of the year. Since going on full retirement, I eat salad suppers every day except those days I don't/can't eat a full supper for whatever reason. Composition of said salad has changed over time. At the moment it consists of:

Four or so NatureSweet Constellation tomatoes, slided. These are small, varied-colore tomatoes, each color having a unique flavor. Not as good as Wild Wonders, which they resemble and replace, but not bad by any means. Easily preferable to slicing tomatoes.

A smallish number of red onion slices.

A smallish number of red bell pepper slices. Rather bland, a minuscule bit more flavorful that green bells imo.

A decent amount of carrot slices.

Some finely chopped Jalapeño.

Iceberg Lettuce.

A decent amount of Baby Limas. My newest addition.

Tuna.

A liberal amount of Black Pepper.

A less liberal amount of Mrs Dash Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning.

Dressing, Thousand Island at present.

(One hard-boiled egg sprinkled with Paprika on the side.)

(Half a Fuji apple for dessert).

This concoction can be a bit of the bland side, The Jalapeño help correct that. Small as I chop 'em, they are never overpowering, but add a nice warm pepper flavor. Lima's help too, adding a distinct robust flavor that complements the other ingredients. For now I'm using thawed/frozen Limas. A bag normally lasts me most of a week or more, and being frozen there's no worry over spoilage.

I've wanted to expand beyond Thousand Islands for years. But the very few other dressings I like either disappear from store shelves or prove to be migraine triggers.

Not the most flavorful of salads, but it's fairly healthy (minus the dressing) and fits within my limited budget.

I've been following your evolving salad for years, lol. I was asking specifically about the baby limas: are they fresh? frozen? canned? I generally see them either canned or frozen.

I've got a salad-supper groupie? As mentioned, for now I rely on thawed/frozen Limas. At some point I'll likely research which form is best for my situation; based on cost, storage longevity, and preparation convenience.

Dirty rice!

MMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!

I've got you all beat. Everything I prepare is 'dirty', as anyone who has seen my kitchen will attest.

On a sad note, this Monday I happened to arrive at Walmart's deli-area kiosk as freshly made sammiches were being added. I gabbed the worker while waiting for him to finish. He told me store-made sammiches are being discontinued. They'll instead carry sammiches assembled elsewhere and shipped in. He pointed out several sammich varieties in the kiosk that are already being shipped in. If they taste anything like they look, I want nothing to do with them. Too bad. Those kiosk sammiches have been my sole source of 'splurge meals' since the onset of the pandemic. Monday's sammich, having gotten it absolutely fresh, was quite yummy. Best I've had in some time.

Imperial Mulled Wine

I just finished making a small batch of this out of some Oak Leaf white wine I bought a while back. Gonna have some shreaded pork 'n rice with it.

Ooo did you put it in that neat decanter?!

Yep! Everytime I make one of these I have a Decanter ready to store it it cause. I mean. Why not? I've got two others:

Water of Life

Skooma

Skooma and the Water of Life are both Vodka with infusions. Skooma is a _load_ of sugar (I used pure cane sugar), some cardamom, a lil vanilla extract, and diced apricots. Where as the Waters of Life is an infusion of a lot of earthy ingredients. Its got toasted fennel seeds and caraway seeds. Along with Dill and dried Juniper berries. Its hard but tasty, smells like a pine wood forest.

Those are cool! Are they something you’ve had for a while or did you go find them specifically for your creations?

Specifically for the creations. I'm still trying to think what I'm going to do for the meads when I start 'em. Thought baout just using a couple of the Dansk bottles I have. But that'll only work for a couple.

These are Awesome!

When I bottled my failed mead, I put them in regular ol’ 750ml bottles with cork stoppers. Both bottles and corks thoroughly sanitized, of course.

No Wowbutter at the store today. Not even a space/tag for it. This bodes ill. Wowbutter has been a staple of my diet for some years now. I eat Wowbutter sammiches for lunch several days a week. My current jar might last the rest of this week. Not sure what I'll replace it with. Soup selection has been poor since the pandemic set in. I can't afford anything fancy.

Also, no jalapeños this week. Temporary in this case, thank goodness. I 'should' have enough to last the week if I'm careful. <crosses fingers>

I'm growing tired of Fuji's. That something I never thought I'd say. Then again, I never thought Fuji's would become so consistently blasé. They rarely rate middle-tier these days, and are more often than not sub-par. Were they as good as of old, I'd have no complaints. Those extremely rare times I get my hands on a top-tier Fuji its every bit as yummy as ever.

Only thing I had this morning was coffee. I'm fighting the urge to make chicken nuggets till this afternoon.

Reprieved!

Miffed about Wowbutter's seeming permanent disappearance from Walmart shelves, this Monday, prior to departing for my weekly grocery run, I checked for it at Kroger online. It was listed. For over a dollar more than Walmart's price. Plus, it was out of stock. Checking a few more Kroger prices convinced me to stick with WallyWorld. I checked there online too. Surprisingly, Wowbutter remains listed. No amount on-hand was stated. Nor was it designated as either in or out of stock. Cut to the chase, I found jars of it at Walmart. Crisis avoided, for the short-term in least.

I'm eating some mini potatoes and drinking a glass of water. I have to be careful drinking sodas, oh I can drink a glass or two but no more then that cause for some reason I can't handle them as much as I use too .

I'm having a slice of pumpkin pie and cup of coffee. I smile as I imagine friend Grits enjoying the same morning-after-Thanksgiving fare.

I ate a lussekatt today!

I raise my coffee cup to Acadian, we are indeed enjoying the same traditional day-after meal.

I am going to be eating fried chicken and broasted potatoes, because I have a coupon for it at my local chicken joint that is buy one get one free, and it is only good for today.

I had the traditional turkey sandwich for lunch, even though I didn't have turkey yesterday.

And home-made cheesecake. the sandwich was just an excuse for having dessert.

Mrs. Treydog and I pushed our "meal" out to today. On Thursday, had boiled/grilled chicken and a baked potato.

Today- smoked turkey, honey-cured ham, escalloped potatoes (yes, we are both Irish, why do you ask?), cornbread dressing (with onions and celery in), cinnamon rolls for dessert and a pecan kringle for additional dessert.

ETA- And yes, eating the "main course" is ALWAYS just to justify eating the dessert(s)...

A potential momentous occasion. As of today I plan to buy no more Bell Peppers for my daily salad-suppers. (Nor do I plan to grow, steal or beg for any.) I can't recall when I first begin adding them. Years ago. Greens at first. Reds later. Greens added no worthwhile taste the salad. Reds were little better, not enough so to justify their continued existence on my plate. Enough remains of my current Red Bell to see me through much of the week. We'll see if my decision stands firm afterward.

Decent tasting apples are becoming a rarity at my grocery-of-choice. (Meaning prices are good, and it's the closest to me, nothing more.) No Fuji's for three weeks now. My backup apple has been AWOL at least twice that long. I've not seen what was my backup apple back-in-the-day for a very long time. Pink Ladies don't cut it. Nor do Autumns. Another I tried several weeks back, whose name escapes me, fared no better. I've never liked Red Delicious or any of the green varieties. Galas are so-so, and don't keep well in my experience. Some apple varieties are above my budget so remain unknowns. And so on.

On a positive note, I bought "Wickles Spicy Red Sandwich Spread" on a whim yesterday, due to Jalapeño being its primary ingredient, and its nutritional values being not bad at all for this sort of thing. Tried it on a Walmart Deli ham & cheese half-sammich at lunch. Mixed a bit in with my Thousand Island Dressing during supper. The verdict thus far is positive, surprisingly more so as a blend with Thousand Island than as a sammich topper. (But it's not bad at that either.) My only disappoint: it looks like something that might burn out your innards, but is in fact rather mild. Mild in a good way, thank goodness. As little as I use per application, expense isn't prohibitive.

I cook with a lot of green bell peppers but I’m not overly fond of them raw.

My girlfriend bought some Cosmic Crisp apples the other day. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it was really tasty and the texture was quite crisp and not mealy at all.

Cosmic Crisp? I've not heard of those either. I researched online, but found mostly obvious promos. Definitely a new apply variety, crossbreed of Honeycrisp and Enterprise, according to one article. (Never heard of Enterprise either.) Pretty much every article that conducted taste tests rated Cosmic Crisp highly. Looks to be out of my price bracket, sad to say. That's true of most any 'new' apple. Maybe I'll get to try them some day/year.

Oh sorry, I wasn’t there when she bought them so I had no idea what the price point was.

Not to worry. They aren't 'all' that expensive. Just more than I normally pay for apples. Gotta keep that monthly food budget under $200US. Speaking of which, I came in $298.02US under budget for food in 2020!

Oh congrats!

I had two salads and cookies and milk.

Again mixed a little Wickles Spicy Red Sandwich Spread with Thousand Island Dressing atop my salad-supper. Again found it a welcome addition.

Added a little Wickles to yesterday's Hormel Turkey Chili lunch. It made a normally blasé meal more enjoyable. Used sparingly, Wickles seems to complement food while not masking it's original basic flavor(s). I like it, in other words.

As mentioned elsewhere, I remembered to grab a tub of "NatureSweet Cherubs" tomatoes at Walmart yesterday on my way home from my local CPAP equipment supplier of choice. I tried a tub of grape tomatoes several weeks ago, when they were the only non-full-size tomatoes in stock. No thanks. To the plus, they at least have flavor.

I have now had exactly six (6) semlas whereas two were had yesterday at work

I have tentatively settled on a new lunch regimen that will hopefully, in the long term, let me drop the unwanted pounds gained between mid 2019 and late that year (or early 2020). Not much to it. Every other day, I now consume six Triscuit Original 100% Whole Grain Wheat crackers (Whole Grain Wheat, Canola Oil, Sea Salt), a apple half, glass of water. The remaining days I continue eating WowButter & Sugar Free Jam/Jelly sammiches, half apples and milk. Breakfast and Supper are unchanged. Eating only six crackers every other day makes the switch very economical! Not in the least exciting, sad to say.

A worry was that I'd find the crackers addictive. Thankfully, that's not the case...so far. Whether this works or not remains to be seen. It's not a super big change calorie wise. I don't think a major diet change is in order. Heck, I've never been sure why I gained those extra 20lbs in the first place.

Had waffles today. They were good but now I don't want them again for another year

Pulled out my wallet upon entering Walmart this morning, to discover I'd left my grocery list at home. First time in ages I did that. Miraculously, arriving back home afterward I found that I'd remembered the list perfectly. Who would've guessed? No Sugar-Free Blackberry Jam in stock, sad to say. (I bought strawberry instead.)

Can't tell for sure if my month (or so) old diet change is doing any good. I weighed myself prior to breakfast this morning, au naturel. 155lbs. Problem is, I then realized I've not taken an au naturel pre breakfast weight reading in ever so long, so have no ready means of comparison.

Am pleased to report that last month's food expenditure totaled $165US, not bad at all considering March was a five-Monday (grocery day) mouth this year.

Had me some fish styx and fillets for lunch.

No supper for poor decrepit me tonight. Needed to help my brother with a project. Took us from early afternoon until two-and-a-half hours past my normal supper time to wrap things up. No biggie. Does me no harm to do without on occasion. As to the project, I suspect nothing will come of it, sad to say. Still, there's a slim chance of success. <crosses fingers>

A bowl of Tuna Fish and a Dr. Pepper.

For lunch it was BBQ covered chimichangas with ranch dipping sauce and a bottle of water.