Monica Kochelee

My hubby was looking at my car a few days ago and declared that we need to take it to an auto body shop to have the roof repaired.  He said that they were going to have to remove the windshield and cut away part of the roof due to rusting.  He has done a lot of auto body work himself, and said he was not comfortable doing this himself; he wanted to let the experts handle this job.  We’ll be looking for one of the Collision Repair Experts companies to do the work; we’ve heard that they are the best in the business.

Modern Bedroom Furniture is what my niece says she wants for her new apartment.  She is moving out of her parents’ house for the first time in a few months, and she is looking for modern furniture for her new place.  She came over yesterday to rummage around my basement and see if I had any “hand me down” furniture items she could have.  She says her biggest hope for her Modern Bedroom Furniture is to have a really great Modern Platform Bed.

She says she has been looking at furniture from the eroomservice.com website and has found several different platform beds that she likes a lot.  She hasn’t yet made up her mind which one she wants, but has narrowed it down to four favorites.  She said that the website sells some really nice bedroom sets and that she is trying to decide whether to buy the complete set, or just the bed and then try to do some mix and match with the rest of the bedroom furniture. 

She found a couple of modern lamps in my basement that she liked that I wasn’t using - my house isn’t decorated in the modern style, and these lamps were given to me by a friend.  I told her she was welcome to take them, and she was thrilled.

My kids have been telling me that they found a website that converts audio and video files from one format to another.  They said it is a new program that is quick and easy to use, and that the company is offering a free trial download of the program.  They lost me when they started talking about video encoding.  I’m embarrassed to say I don’t even know what video encoding is!  I feel so old!

On my way home from work I had a flat tire.  I was glad it was on the way home from work, and not on the way TO work, as it would have made me late for work and the office has a pretty tough “tardy” policy.  (Note to self - look for a new job, these people are not very nice!)

I was very glad that I have AAA insurance for just this kind of thing, I used my cell phone to call them and they sent a truck out with a guy to change my tire.  I’m really glad my spare was good!  So tomorrow I have to take my old tire to the tire shop and see if it can be repaired, or if I will need a new one.  The guy who changed my tire seemed to think I was going to need a new one, and I suspect he’s right.  If it isn’t one thing, it’s another!  Money doesn’t seem to sit in my bank account very long!

The word is out that there is a Great American Seafood Cook off happening in New Orleans. The cook off is supposed to be using domestic sustainable seafood recipes.   This cook off is one of the most prestigious contests.  The winning chef will win the title of King of American Seafood.  I went onto the Internet to find out what I could about the contest.

I’m very excited about the event because it is featuring local, fresh food instead of something foreign, frozen or canned.  I think that promoting local seafood is important.   I’d love to be able to enter my Aunt Johnnie’s baked seafood recipe in a seafood cooking contest!

This is her recipe:

Aunt Johnnie’s baked seafood casserole

1 pound of fish (suggests scallops, shrimp, or crab)

2 T butter (or oleo)

2 T flour

1 c chicken broth

1/8 t nutmeg

salt & pepper

Parmesan cheese

Bread crumbs

To make veloute sauce:  In a saucepan, melt butter, stir in flour, slowly add broth.  Return to heat, stirring constantly until thick & smooth.  Blend in salt & pepper & nutmeg.  In a separate frying pan saute fish in butter for approximately five minutes.  Combine the fish with the veloute sauce and put all in a shallow baking dish.  Sprinkle top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese and brown it quickly under the broiler.

This recipe does not specify what KIND of bread crumbs to use, whether to buy the canned seasoned bread crumbs, or crumbs made from fresh bread.  So I’ve tried it both ways and I think I like the the fresh bread crumbs version the best.

If you’d like to share your favorite recipe with me, I’d love to hear from you!  Feel free to leave a comment with your recipe in it!