Does first thing "cooked" in new kitchen count? I was starving, cranky with a capital C and really needed two eggs overeasy (my comfort food) which I hadn't had in over two months! :-) The gas/plumming man hadn't even left the property yet! LOL

Cjc123, I don't know if your post counts, you haven't got your counters yet! Can't blame you for trying at cooking that egg, and trying to slide this post on through.
;)

We had a lovely, celebratory meal. I did not cook it! We have a wonderful person who works for us Mon-Thurs from 3-9. We hired her to help with the kids, babysit when we have evening commitments, and cook. She is what you might get if you crossed Mary Poppins with Jamie Oliver, only even nicer and a better cook. : )

Our first meal started with a salad with pistachio and grapefruit. Then we had veal stew and lemon thyme polenta. Not all the kids like polenta so she also had a mac n cheese made with pureed white beans for extra protein.

Wow, mtn...!

cj - I respectfully disagree with enduring: that egg so counts!

Because ... I am finding there still hasn't been a "first" meal!!! I'm not really sure what that would look like, but I think it would have to involve an absence of electrical mish-mash everywhere, and the last bits of tile would need to be sealed and the ram board off the floor in the DR and the protective covering ... etc. One of my big surprises is how there's been no drum-roll roll-out for us at least. Never-ending smeary drips and drabs in...

Excitement. Maybe that's what defines "first". So then cj's definitely counts. And it's why those exhausted get-me-something-even-cheerios-before-I-perish don't really count meals. There should be celebration, relaxation, good smells and fellowship. For us, that's still hard to achieve. In some sense I feel we've still never had a "first" meal - at least it's still been curtailed.

So, Breezy -- you're still in the running ;)

First Meal for us was frozen pizza cooked to perfection in our GE Monogram convection oven. Second Meal was hot dogs & macaroni & cheese. What can I say? In those first few days to weeks of moving in (especially without a range hood), it all comes down to quick & easy. I did feel a little guilty having spent all that money on these beautiful appliances to turn around and not make a spectacular 4 course meal though.

Stew. I was so glad to have the stove hooked up and running water!!

My first meal will be a whopper: Thanksgiving dinner!
cjc123, I'm with you on the eggs. After 3 months with no kichen and no eggs, I noticed that our barbeque grill had a gas burner on the side! I cooked fried eggs for a week straight.

We had a "grand opening" party for about 25 people on 11-11-11 and it was a lot of fun! We had a tapas-style party with a bountiful cheese board, grapes, olives, figs. Mac & Cheese bites, chicken cheese steak sliders, flat bread pizzas with eggplant & roasted garlic & onion jam (*my fave), crab in mini quiches, portabello wraps, mini potatoes with sour cream and chives. Desert was old-fashioned graham cracker cake, brownie bites and homemade cookies. Lots of laughter, wine and drinks flowing, followed by a very funny game of catch-phrase. A great night!
The prep all flowed as we always hoped it would, there was a spot for all the serving dishes, and we even discovered some new places for staging that we hadn't thought of before!
To top it all off, the clean up was awesome! Everything now has a home, so putting it all away was a BREEZE, something new to us!
It was a great way to share our journey with our friends & family, and to "show it off" by cooking for them in our new kitchen.

Friday we finally had the gas company do their thing so the new propane tanks are hooked up to the house and I have a cooktop.
So far, we had beet salad, with a spinach kugel (spinach potato grated cheese and eggs, baked) cole slaw, apple crisp (with Cherry Garcia) no knead bread, and tonight it's spaghetti with chicken sausage and mushrooms from the farm market in garlic olive oil.
Aside from finally eating good food after 6 weeks of microwave and take out, the best part is the cleanup. There is actually a place for everything. Nothing falls or gets left on the counter. I love it.

Two recipes please...
Mellie: the flatbread pizza w eggplant sounds terrific

Sixtyohno: I havent; had kugel in a million years!

Kugel's easy: anything at all as long as it includes a stick of butter. And some egg noodles, maybe. ;) The butter is the point. Kugel == vehicle-for-butter.

To my butter I add a lot of cinnamon and an egg or two, sometimes cottage cheese or some other dairy product, and I grudgingly throw in a package of cooked egg noddles. Raisins. You gotta grease the pan too because, you know, there might not be enough butter in the mixture. ;)

Mtn: Have to confess, I didn't make the jam! It is Roasted Garlic Onion Jam from Stonewall Kitchens. I found it at a little boutique in a beach town nearby, but I think you can get it online too. It really did make the dish and was the hit of the night. The morning of the party, I sliced up some white eggplant very thinly on a mandolin, and then sauteed it in some garlic oil. Layed it in paper towels, put it in a plastic container and then left it out on counter till party time. Spread some of the jam on the flat bread, lay the eggplant on top, bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Stonewall kitchens

Mtnrdredux: Aliris is right for a noodle kugel. A kugel is anything thrown together with eggs and assorted other stuff and baked.
for a spinach kugel:
mix together 2 lb bag frozen chopped spinach,(from BJs) boiled for just a minute and drained and the water pressed out,
4 red potatoes diced and cooked
4 eggs
about 3/4 lb grated cheese-usually a hard cheese like sharp cheddar and some feta cheese
salt and pepper
I put the cheese in the Cuisinart with the steel blade and and pulse till it falls apart, add the eggs and pulse, then the potatoes. I keep it coarse, not totally smooth.
Put it in a bowl with the spinach, mix and put it in an ungreased baking dish. I've been using a large deep dish pie pan. Bake at 350 till it starts to brown just a bit on top.
It can be a main dish or a side dish. It's so good.

If you don't have an oven/cook top yet, do something in the crock pot! A roast, potatoes and carrots, chili, chicken... it's still home cookin' even if not out of the oven!

sixtyohno -- do you get a new cuisinart every time you make spinach kugel? ;) (...with the steel blade and and pulse till it falls apart...)

I wonder what "kugel" means, I'm sure someone here knows... my dictionary says yiddish for "ball" which is no help at all ... I'm just wondering why such different dishes encompass the same name. I bet it just means, essentially, "casserole". That is casserole-with-butter. Though 60's doesn't seem to have any ... can that be right?? ;)

Aliris- Another brain dead day in my life. Your right. The cheese doesn't exactly grate with the steel blade. It kind of separates into little chunky bits. I don't want my kugel to be all smooth. I want it to have texture. Can you think of the word I need?
Laura

The mom of my best friend growing up used to make a spinach kugel that I loved. I haven't thought about it in a long time but my kids love spinach and I think they'd love kugel. Sounds like I have pretty free range! Thanks.

Mellie - so no cheese on that recipe? I could see a little bit of something interesting ... not mozz.

Aliris- It's all right. No butter in my spinach kugel, but lots of cheese. Another good kugel is a spaghetti kugel. Cooked pasta, cheese, eggs and a good spaghetti sauce, with or without chopped meat. Noodle kugels can be sweet with cottage cheese, eggs, noodles, cinnamon sugar and raisins or not with just cottage cheese, butter, eggs and noodles. Try sour cream on top.
I know the word kugel is a Yiddish word, but I don't know any other meaning for it.
Laura

Funny, what I made tonight was essentially that spinach kugel, only in parts. I made a "poor man's spinach souffle", as we call it, with chopped greens and spinach and a couple eggs and ricotta, s/p & nutmeg mashed together and baked. no butter ;) And then I boiled some potatoes so it occurred to me, mixing them together on my plate, that this is essentially the same thing. Minus the cuisinart.

It wasn't the wording I was poking fun of but, um -- I'm not an English major, something about the agreement or modifiers in the sentence -- anyway, it reads as if the cuisinart falls apart! Here: I put the cheese in the Cuisinart with the steel blade and and pulse till it falls apart, add the eggs and pulse, then the potatoes. I keep it coarse, not totally smooth. -- the sentence just sounded as if you tossed that stuff in the cuisinart and then the cuisinart fell apart! I knew what you meant of course, just did a literary double-take.

Does it drive you crazy cleaning a cuisinart? Or do you get used to it? Until this kitchen, I've never had space to de-box my cuisinart (which was given to me in 1979!), so use it very rarely indeed. I could, I suppose, leave it set up now but ... never having used it regularly I don't feel the urgency. It seems as if it would be a royal p-i-a to keep clean, but ignorance is bliss. thoughts?

We take turns with our neighbors hosting international supper nights, every other month. We always host on st patty's day (since dh was born in Belfast). The day after our kitchen was finished we made our traditional Irish stew. I had so much fun testing out my new GE Cafe oven (same oven as cjc!!) The stew was awesome, and it was a very memorable night, celebrating our new kitchen with my neighbors. (quite a few hang overs the next day lol)

In my old kitchen it was Paula Deen's Mexican Stuffed Peppers! Not too fancy, but one of my faves!

Jillsee~My dh is from Dublin & I would love your recipe for your stew!!

Thanks,
Katie

mtn: We opted not to do the cheese because so many other dishes had it. I think Asiago would be a great flavor mix tho!