The meal.

The meatloaf came out really tasty.
The celery was good with the green beans too smothered with butter in a small pan.
Allspice works really well in the meatloaf.
Pickled sweet and spicy habanero beets on the mashed potatoes.

So "Winner , Winner ,Chicken dinner" is just your bog standard roast chicken dinner. It is a must every sunday, red meat we save for other days. Chicken stuffed with sausagemeat and herbs/garlic, roast potatoes (delia style) and the odd roasted sweet potato. Lots of veg, today its mini sweetcorn, brussel sprouts, steamed sweet cabbage and leeks, cauliflower and broccoli (Would do a cauliflower three cheese but been transplanting so that will have to wait.) and of course the Yorkshire pudding, cranberry sauce (not the one worth1 did, but i'll get some of that made up soon cause it sounds so delicious) and a nice gravy. The whippets will behave but their noses will not be able to ignor and they will be laying down poised for "the word" if ever it should come. Just gotta love sundays.

oh and carrots and peas....the youngs ones are not too enamoured with the green stuff so stuffing a few peas in them is about as good as it gets...

Very nice dinner [mention]Amateurinawe[/mention].

I do like very much like a Yorkshire pudding, but it’s something we never seem to make. I did make it once years ago for my wife’s niece’s husband, a big rugby playing bloke from Newcastle upon Tyne. He did declare my pudding authentic and delicious and that’s good for me as he might have and could have easily crushed me if it wasn’t up to the standard.

I like the idea of sausage stuffed bird.
Did that several times with it mixed in the stuffing.
It was a recipe from one of the Frugal Gourmet books I think.

[mention]karstopography[/mention] I spent a couple of years in Newcastle on Tyne as a wee thing (as they say) while my dad was doing a degree there, but sadly do not remember Yorkshire pudding which I probably tasted. We shared an apartment with a couple from India and my love of chapatis stems from that, and one of few things I do remember, besides toasting bread and cheese on a fork over the grate! There's a pic of me in the family album from a short trip to Edinborough with a tomato crammed in my mouth. That would be my earliest tomato connection, I guess....

[mention]Bower[/mention] I suspect that is where the love of tomatoes all stems from the Yorkshire pudding comes from further South but perhaps you might have sampled some newkie broon (only if they wanted you to sleep soundly at night and prematurely grow hairs on ya chest). Love the chapatis story, wish I had been exposed to such variety when I was a wee one. I do remember seeing a pineapple in the early seventies and wondering why it was not shaped in a hexagonal and covered in syrup.

[mention]Amateurinawe[/mention] well that explains the chest hair!...

Yorkshire pudding. Yankees call it Popovers. Love me some good fresh popovers, hot with butter and gravy and roast beef, or hot with butter and jam. Don't know why I never make them, certainly are easy and fast enough.

Worth I have not opened my Frugal Gourmet cookbook in years. There were a few recipes in there I loved. I will have to take a peek in it again sometime soon. Who knows what previously loved recipes I totally forgot about.

[mention]Amateurinawe[/mention]
I have been making the cranberry stuff for many years.
Since I was about 21 and on my own.
Was expected to bring the stuff every year and also make the giblet gravy.
One of my pineapples had a soft side so I decided to make more marmalade.
Just pineapple this time.
Well maybe.
Needed something to do while supper is warming in the oven.
Learned all this helping my mom in the kitchen.
Worthless sister wasn't interested.

[mention]Sue_CT[/mention]
I might have all his books.
My wife and I watched every episode on PBS.

Oh geeze, I went and got the cookbook and I mixed up my Gourmets, lol. The old cookbook I was remembering was the 60 Minute gourmet, by NY Times Pierre Franey, former Chef of Le Pavillon in NYC. I could have sworn I have a Frugal Gourmet Cookbook, also.

I have a bunch of those Gourmet CBs including the one from my great grandmother, written in '52. Gourmet I and II, Menu, France, Basic French, Bouquet de France, Old Vienna, and one old Italian CB. I got all those, plus all the old NYT cookbooks (and many others), at yard sales, and book sales back in college, when entire corridors would be filled with countless tables of books, often under a dollar each for brand new books! Later, I got many others at discount book stores, and now, I still get used ones online...even though I try to stop buying cookbooks!

I just used one of the Frugal Gourmet's recipe the other day - I think it was from the 3 Ancient Cuisines. I have all of his books, and like a lot of those recipes.

[mention]pepperhead212[/mention], I have all of those Frugal Gourmet books too. Last summer all of the flooring was redone and we had to move a bunch of stuff out of the house while the work was going on. It was time to sort out the tons of cookbooks and separate the wheat from the chaff! A bunch were donated to a local place that sells used stuff to raise money for local charities. But a lot of cookbooks remained here including the Frugals. I'll have to pull one out and re-read it as it's been a long time. Thanks for the reminder!

Being a cookbook junkie, through the years, I've built more bookshelves, as the last one would fill, and eventually, I'd have to pull out what I hadn't looked at for a long time, and put them upstairs, to free up more room. I'm thinking of making another, even larger one - something to keep me busy in these times, though the garden time will be here sooner than I know it!

Very few cookies baked this year, so far, since I'm not traveling around (and only one person coming here) passing out cookies, as in normal years.

Here are the pfeffernüsse that I made the dough for yesterday (National Pfeffernüsse day!). I made these so that I could give a few to some diabetic friends. I used the same recipe I make snowballs with - with 3 oz of ground nuts - and I added the spices to it, for the Pfeffernüsse. But I also used palm sugar - not great, but better than other sugars for diabetics - and barley flour and some dark bessan (chick pea flour), these flours made in the Vitamix. I also put 1 tsp xanthan gum in, for 2 1/2 c of the flours, and it gave the cookies enough body, though these aren't the types that rise much - like shortbread. I just made them in the food processor, with cold butter.
Pfeffernusse, the ones without dusting. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Pfeffernusse, dusted with 10x sugar. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Pecan snowballs, elongated, to distinguish from the pfeffernusse. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Pecan snowballs, before second dusting. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Easy poached eggs on toast. Gravlax and Smoked Salmon on cream cheese spread on toasted bagel crisps and woven wheat crackers. With Homemade pickled okra, honeycrisp apples and pomegranate.

We're having a little appetizer get together here tomorrow with a few friends, just five of us total and all stay-at-home types so we're all comfortable being around each other. I've been puttering with appies today and one of my favorites is roasted tomato bruschetta. Got the baguettes baked yesterday and made the tomatoes this afternoon. This stuff is really awesome and the house smells like an Italian restaurant right now.





It's really easy and made with canned whole tomatoes, onion, garlic and some fresh rosemary, oregano and parsley from the front porch.

Speckled Trout cooked with coconut milk, curry, various vegetables. Very tasty.

Just a normal Cajun day!!! Shrimp and oyster po-boys. I wish I had good tomatoes but it works.