Junetieth, or so. Also Father's Day

This post is a bit skim, so upfront I apologize for no pictures associated with the post.

Also, this post is late for two reasons: I won't even pretend that we had this meal on Juneteenth, which is commemorated on June 19. June 19th was a Friday night. I don't cook full meal deals on weeknights and especially not on Friday nights when I have worked a hard week and am tired. We had pizza that night at a cool little restaurant in our neighborhood. The other reason it is late is that after we had the meal on June 21st, I was busy and didn't have a chance to post it.

Actually, June 21 was a busy day. I also had a 'We'll let you eat cake' mid-day gathering at my house. My feeling is that cake is the perfect holiday dessert for just about every meal. So I've been making and tasting a lot of cake lately (good thing I am also training for a few triathlons this summer, or I'm not sure I would have any clothes that fit by now). More on that in another post.

June 21 also being Father's Day, this meal served a double celebratory purpose. Since we'd already had dessert earlier in the day, there is none associated with this menu. If I were going to make a cake for Juneteenth, it might be something with peaches. If I were going to make something specifically for Father's Day, I'd have to go with one of Andy's favorites: either a pineapple cake or coconut cake (both from the Paul Prudhomme family cookbook).

I did go with a southern theme. My good friend, Mrs. T suggested cheese grits and shrimp and almond honey fried chicken. My mouth watered at the thought of it and immediately I was decided that I would make that. With a few minor modifications. So our Father's Day/Junetieth commemoration meal consisted of:

Cheese grits

Oven fried honey-mustard chicken

Spinach salad

White wine sangria/Sparkling lemonade

What, no bread? No, no bread. We'd already had a lot of dessert earlier in the day so this was a somewhat skim meal. Too, folks in my house have somewhat small appetites. Chive biscuits with lots of butter), but I knew that it would be over the top for our stomachs and wouldn't be appreciated.

What happened to the shrimp? Good question. It may be the mystery of the ages who took the shrimp out of the refrigerator and dumped them in the garbage. No one remembers doing it (there are three of us in the house and we are all sticking to our stories). I checked the refrigerator 5 times and checked my car one time before I remembered the awful stink that was the garbage just before the cake party. The garbage went out in a mostly empty bag to get that smell out of the house and so it was easy to confirm that the culprit was my once beautiful and never cooked/tasted shrimp. And they had been beauties. And expensive. Needless to say, the meal went forward without them.

So a modest meal. I guess better modest but good, than contaminated or with some silly last minute substitute.

Oh, yeah, here is an appropriate photo choice. Happy Father's Day Andy! Thanks for letting us double it up as Junetieth and for the Cake eating event!

Cook's note: There are no recipes attached or links provided. I know. I did all of these using a tried and true grandma method - guestimating. I can give you details if you ask....

What's cooking this month?

We'll be celebrating Juneteenth on June 19th. Juneteenth is a liberation celebration. It commemorates the day that slaves in Texas finally learned that they were free. Well after the Emancipation Proclamation and even after the end of the Civil War.

Not sure what's for dinner that night. Maybe some modernized 'southern' favorites. I am not from the South, so this isn't my cuisine, but I like smothered food as much as the next gal, so I'll cobble something together. And try to make it look good (Lord knows it should taste good) and try to make it vaguely healthy (which may turn the whole tasty thing on its head.)

Also, I am hosting a 'cake' party mid-month. No real reason other than that I've been making a lot of cakes lately. I've decided that cakes are the perfect holiday dessert in most cases. For instance, tradition dictates pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but you could make a pumpkin cake in its place!

There are a number of cakes I have made over the last few holidays. I'll be repeating a few of those and adding a few new creations. I am particularly proud to have pieced together an ice cream cake. I worked during college at Baskin-Robbins and was a scooper extraordinaire, but never earned my stripes as cake-maker. Well, I have now corrected that deficiency in my training. It is actually pretty straightforward to make an ice cream cake.

Anyway, just giving an update because it will be at least another week before you see food here this month and I wanted to let you know what to look forward to.