The "It's Memorial Day", edition.

Good morning!  Today is Memorial Day. Today we remember the people who died serving the United States in the armed forces. When I was younger, my mom and grandmother and I would go to Elmwood cemetery to place flowers at the grave of my mom's first husband. This continued until we stayed a little too long at Elmwood cemetery and got locked in. Lol. We're waving our arms through the fence calling for help. A car passed by, slowed down, looked at us then sped off!  We think he thought he'd seen ghosts!  Finally some kids came by. Mom gave them our phone number. They called our house and grandpa called the fire department who got us out. Grandpa pondered whether or not he should call McFall Brothers Funeral Home . He said if they can get you in the cemetery, surely they can get you out!   Lol.

As a kid, we'd spend the Memorial Day holiday  at our cottage at Shay Lake. It was the official start of summer. It seems to me that most of the Memorial Day weekends were cool and quite a few were rainy.  Mom would grill. She'd dash outside in a coat or rainwear to check on the meat and run inside. The food was always good anyway. 

I planned our Memorial dinner, patterned sort of after those Shay Lake dinners.  The menu I initially planned was ribs, chicken, baked beans, crushed red potatoes and slaw.  That didn't seem like enough choices and the menu changed. The potatoes went away and I added the cucumber salad and rolls. Brian added grilled beef brisket. Watching to much Pit Masters!  Lol. I wasn't grilling. Kinda difficult in the condo. I mean there is a grill, but it would require us to gather everything together, go down the elevator and walk across the yard to cook. Dad said he and Mom had to do many trips to cook and decided it wasn't worth it. I wasn't willing to do that this weekend. 

I'd never made bake beans from scratch.  So I had to do a test run. I used Great Northern Beans. I soaked them overnight.  The next day, I  made the sauce and cooked the beans in the crockpot. It was a disaster. The beans never got soft. Brian suggested that we probably needed to cook the beans before we attempted the slow cooker. I decided not to go that route. The next time I got cans of pinto beans. Cooked bacon. Sautéed an onion and green pepper. Made a sauce with brown sugar, molasses, dijon, catsup, tomato paste and vegetable broth. Mixed everything together. It tasted just ok. Then I baked it for 1.5 hours. It's like magic happened in the oven!  The beans tasted great!  

We got the meat from John Mull's Meats - Road Kill Grill. Yeah, I found out about it watching Guy Fieri's Drive-ins, Diners and Dives. I gotta say, the meat is good. I ordered 2 slabs of ribs and 2 chickens, cooked. Brian wanted beef brisket, so I ordered that also. Heh. We had more than enough with the ribs and chicken.  And the brisket cost just as much, if not more than the ribs and chicken combined. But it's what my sweetie wanted! <3. Needless to say, even after sending our guests home with leftovers, we have quite a bit of brisket left over. Anyway. The meat was just great. Smoky with a poke of heat on the backside and tender fall of the bone meat for the chicken and ribs.  And the brisket was moist and tasty!   And that's with out sauce!  

Our guests enjoyed themselves. Dad, Brian and I really enjoy hosting these dinners. Next up is the Fourth of July. Potato salad time!  Need some ideas for a menu. 

On the dialysis front. Nothing. That's good, eh?  We changed my off day from Saturday to Sunday because we were serving dinner Sunday. Good idea because we were tired after the dinner on Sunday. It works out. Brian and I cooked, served and out the food away. Dad served the champaign to his friends, put ice and water in the dinner glassss and cleaned up the kitchen afterwards. Oh yeah. My labs are still good, except for the darn hemoglobin. I just can't eat more protein!  How many hamburgers, steak, chicken, turkey, shrimp and fish can a woman eat!  Seven servings a day?  Ridiculous! 

Finally.. What are our plans for today?  Well. We'll go swimming, fool around in the hot tub, start packing. We're heading to Illinois on Wednesday. I'll go over our logistics and see how it worked in the next blog. A whole lot of planning so I can continue my hemodialysis while traveling without visiting dialysis centers. I'll tell you this. Since I started sticking myself. I'm not trusting anyone else sticking a needle in me!  

Have a great Memorial Day!