The Grindstone Recommences - But What a Fabulous Sunday!

Sunday was such a great day, and I'll be thinking back on it as I work a six-day week while Chickie is out in Seattle visiting relatives. I always miss her when she's gone. We work really well together and I have to work a lot harder and cover way more people when it's just me and Jim in the store. But that's the way it is. She deserves her vacation and I hope she has a really good time.

Happy Vacation, Chickie! Have a wonderful time with your cousin, your
grandfather, and the rest of your relatives and enjoy Seattle, one of
my favorite cities. 

That said, my Sunday was so fun. DH went out first thing in the morning and brought back a variety of fresh bagels to eat while we were watching Le Tour de France. Of course I cut my finger on the bread knife as I got distracted by something, but that aside, the bagels were very nummy and we had lots of schmear for them.

Our local bagel shop is just a half-mile down the road, so fresh bagels
hot out of the oven is a distinct possibility. They were SO good! 

After watching Le Tour, I settled down to defrost the lobster tails for dinner. I have no idea why I wasn't smart enough to put them from the freezer into the fridge the night before, but since I hadn't exercised my brain cells (what few of them remain), I use the cold water bath method to defrost them. I was a bit nervous about cooking them, but had researched it on recipes.com and You Tube and felt pretty confident. Late in the afternoon, I was ready to go.

DH had purchased four lobster tails on sale. I'd never cooked lobster
tails before, so I hit my computer up for research and found some good
hints and good You Tube videos. They turned out to be really good! 

I had my indoor grill set up, I had two pans working, one for sauteed mushrooms and onions, the other for clarified butter, and I had the microwave ready for beans and potatoes. I had cut the shells and prepared the lobsters for grilling, turned on the grill, got the beginnings of heat, and ... the breaker tripped. Suddenly I had no heat.

I've owned a Faberware indoor grill and rotisserie for many years
and I love it. I bought it when I was really poor - saved up for
several months to afford it. It's really been a good item in my kitchen.
My version is a bit older than this one, but the premise is the same. 

I pulled the grill off the stovetop and moved it to another plug, but it was on the same circuit and didn't work. By this time the steaks were being cooked on the charcoal grill outdoors by DH and the lobsters were supposed to be part of the same meal, not half an hour later. I glanced over at the stovetop and realized a third burner was suddenly on. I hadn't turned it on, and when I tried to turn it off, it wouldn't go off.

My cooktop is similar to this. I was using the two lefthand burners and
the righthand back burner turned itself on. Very unnerving! 

I went down and told DH to leave the coals on, that I would do the lobster on them and that I was having problems with the stove. He came up with the steaks, took a look, and said that he would turn the stove off at the breaker when I was finished cooking. After we let it cool down he would turn it on again and see if we had the same problem.

I was rather delighted with how easy these were to cook. I would
absolutely do this again if they go on sale. 

I dashed down with the lobster (and a timer) and put them onto the grill. I was pretty careful with my time and although they could possibly have used another 30-60 seconds on the heat, they turned out to be fantastic. So good! We had a really nice surf and turf dinner. I would buy lobster tails again if they were on sale. It was a rare treat and a lot easier to cook than I thought it would be.

The stove, when we turned it back on later in the evening, seemed fine again, so I guess we have gremlins in our circuits once more. We'll have to keep a sharp eye on it.

As you can tell, this stage is hilly, but relatively mild. The sprinters
will be happy, the ride, although long, isn't the up and down that
yesterday's stage was. 

Today is Day 3 of Le Tour de France. It just won't be the same tour without Mark Cavendish trying for the sprints, but he was badly injured on the first day and had to pull out of the race. The second day was quite unexpected with the hills of Yorkshire really testing the boys. Today will be a bit easier as they pull into London this afternoon for the final day of their time in England. Have a great Monday, I'll be back tomorrow.