Yum, I also love halibut, but it's not available fresh here either. I buy it anyway.

Tonight Elery had lamb chops, fresh salad with the first ripe tomatoes and some banana peppers from the garden, and American fries. I had a chicken sandwich because I just can't learn to enjoy lamb and it's expensive enough that I don't really care to develop a taste for it anyway!

Annie

Sol, the tomato crisp looks so good. I'd love to make something like that. And FOAS, your halibut also looks great. I've been remiss about ordering Halibut from our local fishmonger. Shame on me!

I made some chili rellenos for dinner one night. Served a ranchero sauce with them. My husband really enjoys rellenos, but we can't go to restaurants because of his sodium restriction. I keep the salt content down by using fresh mozzarella cheese as the filling and salt-free diced tomatoes in the sauce. Here's a picture. I went all out on the plating, as you can see. We use our fancy dinnerware all the time now.

Shambo, Elery would love that, and he wouldn't care at all what plate it was on, LOL.

Rob, Sol lives right here in Michigan and I still haven't gotten over there for coffee with her either, one of these days I'm just going to knock on her door....

OK, supper. I have a picture, finally!

I had some egg yolks left over from last week's wedding cake, so I made a batch of Colleen's Lemon Butter, and Elery helped me make baklava for Mother's 80th birthday last week. I hate to work with Fillo/phyllo dough, so I made the nut filling and the syrup and Elery leaned on the counter and assembled it for me.

Now I just have to figure out whether to use the lemon butter in a tart, or just eat the whole pint with a spoon!

Annie

The baklava looks good. Elery certainly is multi-talented! Working with phyllo dough is almost second nature for me now. But as I said in the cake post, give me cookie dough and I go bonkers. Weird, huh?

My daughter has now become the official baklava maker in our family. Her in-laws love the stuff, so she makes it every Christmas. My husband and I get the odd ends that she doesn't pack up for her husband's family. After years & years of my mother and grandmother and then me & my mom making tray after tray of the stuff, I really don't get excited about baklava anymore. I like it but not enough to make it. So I'm glad my daughter has taken over.

Shambo, I might get lucky and weasel out of it altogether. The Monkey Princess took a bite and promptly said "Grandma, you've GOT to teach me how to make this". LOL So, she might take over soon and save poor Elery the trouble!

I kept looking at the chilies rellenos and eventually, I had to have some Mexican food. Since I have half a dozen tomatillos plants in the garden and they are prolific, I decided to make Ann T's stacked enchiladas with a side of beans and Mexican rice.

So, in the past week we've had Mexican, Italian, Indian, Greek, Asian and a couple of turkey subs. Tomorrow I think I'm making moussaka, I'll try to remember pictures.

Annie

So nice to see so many posting their wonderful meals.

Sue, I like the idea of your spinach casserole and your pulled pork sandwich.

John, you really have achieved a thin crust.

I have been meaning to thank you again for the little jar opening gadget you sent me. It is my favourite gadget and gets used often.

Annie, your steaks are always perfectly cooked. Love the pictures of your little helpers. Although I guess the Princess isn't so little any more. It is like International week at your home.

Cookncarpenter, the perfect dinner. Steak, baked potato and corn.

Sol, nice to see you posting again. Thanks for sharing Sam's wedding photo. Beautiful.

FOAS, glad you and your wife liked the halibut.

Been awhile since I posted so I'll do a couple of catch up posts.

Pan fried halibut.

Sourdough Bread

I made the moussaka, much more work than I'd do for an every day meal, but maybe for a party. The recipe came from Fine Cooking and it was very good, but labor intensive:

Tonight I made fried rice from leftover rice I served with the venison and broccoli, and a side of broccoli spears.

Saturday we had burgers, Elery had his on some jalapeno cheese bread with a side of coleslaw.

Annie

Your moussaka looks delicious. I love moussaka with layers of fried potato and eggplant. Thanks for the reminder Annie. Need to add that to the menu one day soon.

Thanks, AnnT. The weather is changing, it seems more like time to make things like moussaka. I'm leaning toward cabbage rolls pretty soon too, and maybe a pot of beef barley soup....

OK, I had to go find this on page 2, so everyone's on a diet? (grin)

Yes, I'm still picking green beans, we still haven't had a frost here, it's very strange. So we had homegrown green beans, the last spaghetti squash from the garden and a package of pork chops that I found dated 2012, still nicely sealed and delicious.

Annie

Everything looks amazing!

Salad and Apple Cake

I haven't been taking pictures, but here's one. I like making Osso Bucco using a boneless roast cut in quarters, and tied. The ingredients and recipe is the same.

Well, I've been eating and I've been cooking, and I've even taken a few pictures, I just haven't gotten around to posting them. Today we had BBQ'd ribs, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, garlic rolls and baked beans. I didn't take a picture, of course, LOL.

A few days ago we had homemade pizza. Elery made the crust, and it was so thin it was crunchy, like a cracker, I liked it a lot, he thought it needed to be a bit thicker:

We have pork chops pretty regularly, Elery loves them. I usually make one for him and one for the dog and just eat something else, but sometimes the dog and I share one. That's why I take a picture of Elery's plate, LOL. This time we had sautéed cabbage and some mashed delicata squash. It was good, but I still like butternut best.

So, I'm nearly caught up with "What's for Dinner", I keep trying to remember to take pictures...

Annie

Annie, you're so funny that you cook a pork chop for Elery and one for the dog!!!!

I tried a new recipe for pork tenderloin with a maple syrup, grainy mustard sauce. Roasted a bunch of cauliflower, brussels sprouts, butternut squash and sweet potato.

Jasdip, when we get the pork or beef packaged, we have everything packed in portions for two people. If we have company we can always take out more from the freezer, but this way we don't have to try to thaw out a big bunch of meat. So, if Elery wants pork chops and I don't, well, the dog is very happy, LOL. She eats what we eat anyway, I don't buy dog food, so it's all the same really. I cook on purpose to have leftovers to feed the dog in case Elery and I go out or eat something like salmon, and then the dog gets leftovers.

Tonight we had salmon cakes, golden beets and sautéed potatoes with leeks. The dog hates fish, so she had the rest of last night's ribs.

Annie

Annie, why do you cook the pork chop for the dog? Give it to her raw. A raw diet is optimum for dogs and cats anyway and raw bones are ideal.

Nope, the last time I gave Cooper a raw pork chop bone we ended up with a vet bill from the chunk he got stuck up in the roof of her mouth between his back teeth and I could not get it out. He about took the vet's head off when he tried and they ended up with enough anesthesia to perform the "procedure". Now the only raw bones Molly gets are those big old "knuckle" bones from the beef, those she can't get lodged in the top of her mouth!

Besides, if I'm cooking pork chops and I eat half, she eats the other half, and I want MINE cooked! She won't eat raw vegetables either, so I have to cook those too. I don't blame her for not eating raw rice, LOL. She doesn't get a special diet, she eats whatever we are eating, whether that's pizza or steak, although she does get a dish of low fat cottage cheese at night for the calcium.

Annie

Caminnc, nice looking salad.

Jasdip, Osso Bucco is one of my favourites. Looks good. Did you use beef?

Annie, you actually found a pizza to like? I'm with Elery. I like a thin crust but not a cracker like crust.

A few of our meals since I posted last:

A couple of Pizzas

Filete Al Chipotle

Oh, geez, Ann, that sundae just looks amazing, and it's way too darned late to bake. It'll have to wait.

I liked the crust a lot. The pizza was OK, it had no red sauce, lots of onions and peppers from the garden, just a tiny bit of cheese. Next time I'd leave the cheese off altogether and just make it with a drizzle of olive oil and the vegetables, but every time I "mess around" with the construction I get told that it's not pizza unless it has red sauce and enough cheese to feed the state of Wisconsin for a week and a half. (sigh) If it just has oil and vegetables, then, I'm told, it's merely flat bread. Which I do like, LOL.

Annie

Annie, I made basically a pizza last week without any sauce. Just roasted little Italian tomatoes, with mushrooms and olives. More like a cross between pizza and a focaccia.

Wow, it's been a few days since this thread has been commented on.

I made a potato dish in my little gratin dish and had them with meatloaf and sauteed green beans.

"---Wow, it's been a few days since this thread has been commented on.----"

Yes, life has been very hectic. Still cooking, but just lacking time to post. Here are a few recent ones:

dcarch

Sous Vide rosemary chicken

Last of the garden tomatoes

Mussels

Eggplant black garlic sauce

Jasdip, love potatoes. Are the potatoes just baked with a butter/oil/broth and seasoning - Onions?

A few meals from the last two weeks.

A late lunch for Moe one day.

Ann, your meals are fabulous, as always!

My potatoes were peeled and very thinly sliced. The slices arranged around my little cast iron dish with potato slices every so often. Drizzled with melted butter and oil. They were very good, we'll be having these again.

I usually don't even lurk here, it just makes me feel bad and get hungry! But for some reason, my desire to clean out the fridge motivated me to make soup and home made bread this weekend. Bread was made with a poolish made from left over potato water. Soup is poor woman's cioppino made with frozen tilapia, shrimp and canned clams. Just OK on both counts.

It is soup season and that looks good! Still nice weather in the NEast. Perfect and 65-70. Cool at sundown so soup it is.

Tonight is dogs. DH made a crock of sauerkraut, the pink one. Caramelized onions with blue cheese. Homemade mustard, spicy smoked tomatillo salsa, and i made kimchi last weekend. Last of the garden succotash.

last week was mostly soup i don't bother to photo. The comfort meal is steak, sweet potato frits or mashed potatoes. Tarragon tomatoes. Kale.

Pink, your bread and soup look terrific.

Ann I like the idea of roasting chicken pieces in cast iron. Seeing yours makes me want to do it!

Sleevendog, I tried roasting sweet potato fries once and they got mushy, I haven't tried them since. I've read that they're not easy to do. We love a sweet potato cooked with white or yellow and mashed together.

Tonite was roasted brussels sprouts with a balsamic glaze and cranberries (Pioneer Woman recipe). Hubby loves my casserole of pork chops, rice, carrots, onions and celery. I added pearl barley to the rice for added healthy goodness. :-)

Jasdip, is that an actual recipe or something you just wing. Sounds like something my dad might eat. He loves pork chops and he will eat carrots, barley and rice. How do you make it? I don't have much luck making good pork chops in general.

Pink, I brown the pork chops, remove and add chopped carrots, onions and celery to the skillet to soften slightly.

Then put the vegetables into a covered casserole, I use Corningware, or lately my cast iron enamelled braising pot. Add 1.5 cups rice and about 3.5 cups beef broth. I also add red pepper flakes. Last nite I used 1 cup rice and 1/2 cup pearl barley.

Place pork chops on top and bake in 375° oven 45 minutes until rice is done and liquid is absorbed. This is one of hubby's favourites. While the oven was on, I roasted the brussels sprouts.

Ann's Brownie Sundae description makes me want to take up smoking.

Everything always looks delicious here. Btw, Laurie (Lpink), lurk less and post more.

Thank you Cindy, AnnieB, FOAS, Rob and Ann for your kind, congratulatory comments! We're so happy to have Sam . . . I mean, 'Thumperette' (☺) 30 minutes away, as opposed to 10 hrs.

I've been busy, all the while, house and doggy sitting, and learning to cook vegan (for Sam), while she reacquaints herself with her hometown.

Rockin' Robin, we honestly thought to meet with you while in Nashville. But, between the rehearsals and the move, the whole experience turned out to be a whirlwind of emotion . . . and road construction (Dios mío).

But I'm not always this whiny. Sometimes I sleep.

Cindy and Shambo, my apologies for the delay. I hope you have access to good tomatoes. The recipe is pretty straightforward. I often use leftover, homemade bread for the crumbs. And, btw, if you don't have parsley or basil, oregano is a good substitute.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tomato Crisp

2 pounds cherry or Roma tomatoes (if using Romas, cut them into wedges)
2 cups fresh bread crumbs
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley + 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil (latter is optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan
Kosher salt & ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease a 9-inch gratin (or any baking) dish with olive oil.

Put tomatoes into prepared dish. Lightly season tomatoes with salt and pepper.

In the bowl of a F.P. put bread crumbs, garlic, Parmesan, olive oil and S & P to taste. Pulse until combined. Then add the parsley and pulse just a few more times to incorporate. Spread bread crumb mixture over tomatoes.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Set aside for about 15 minutes before serving.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used up the last of my tomatoes by making a galette. Identical to my tomato tart (on the old blog), except it was free-formed. Plus, it sounds a helluva lot better in French.

Sol

Thanks for the recipe Jasdip, I can definitely make that some time for my dad, I think he'll like it.

We are being visited this week by our second parents, which is what we call them. Shirley is the finest cook I have ever known, full stop. No-one has ever been kinder to me. She is 72 y/o, but has the energy, stamina, and flexibility of a woman 40 years younger, and is always making astonishing things, both tried and true, and new experiments. I recall a recent one, which was egg yolks, frozen, then coated with something, and deep fried.

So when they visit, we have to pause from our usual regimen of microwaved leftovers and takeout.

Last night we had some Chinese stuff.

This is stir fried chicken, wilted bok choy, baby corn, honey candied walnuts, and a sauce.

[URL=http://s800.photobucket.com/user/jylmks/media/E7DB910A-A988-42E6-8FC1-9445EE0695CD_zpsl7hbjumq.jpg.html][IMG]http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/jylmks/E7DB910A-A988-42E6-8FC1-9445EE0695CD_zpsl7hbjumq.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

This is slow cooked pork spare ribs in a black bean sauce. I'm sorry the photos are bad.

[URL=http://s800.photobucket.com/user/jylmks/media/5218759B-157D-452E-AA17-0CB65BA4BD86_zpsjkyt7xfq.jpg.html][IMG]http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/jylmks/5218759B-157D-452E-AA17-0CB65BA4BD86_zpsjkyt7xfq.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Here are steamed clams with a plop of plum sauce, unfortunately I took this photo before pouring the broth into each shell. It was prettier after.

[URL=http://s800.photobucket.com/user/jylmks/media/7877F33A-C42D-4C02-AC53-E5C9ECEF74F1_zps0skvcd7q.jpg.html][IMG]http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/jylmks/7877F33A-C42D-4C02-AC53-E5C9ECEF74F1_zps0skvcd7q.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

I also made a suan la tang, i.e. your basic hot and sour soup. It has matchsticks of pork, shiitake mushrooms, tofu, and other stuff.

[URL=http://s800.photobucket.com/user/jylmks/media/3EA77905-9E31-4D27-B591-DA72A6B96BA5_zpsnnr9dhnw.jpg.html][IMG]http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/jylmks/3EA77905-9E31-4D27-B591-DA72A6B96BA5_zpsnnr9dhnw.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

We also made steamed dumpings, with a pork and shrimp filling, and some spicy stir fried shrimp, but forgot to photograph those. There were nine at dinner and SWMBO set a festive table.

[URL=http://s800.photobucket.com/user/jylmks/media/C7209723-B372-4DAF-ADFE-2387F1D5B758_zps6oevcll0.jpg.html][IMG]http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/jylmks/C7209723-B372-4DAF-ADFE-2387F1D5B758_zps6oevcll0.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Sigh. Trying again.

Chicken

Clams

Spareribs

Soup

Table

Wow John. That's all I can say, just Wow! Hope you're having as much fun as it looks like!

That is what you call "mouth watering" ! Could you use another parent? After viewing that spread, I would consent to being adopted! And SWMBO did a beautiful job on the table.

Wow, does SWMBO ever set a beautiful table!!! Your ribs look fantastic. I'll bet you all had a great time!

I agree, SWMBO does set a beautiful table and all the food looks delicious too.

Sol, that tomato galette is a thing of beauty. I'll try to remember until next year when I have good tomatoes.

I'm way behind, I've been trying to help Ashley, take care of stepmom, Elery is nearly healed but not quite. Life is happening, LOL.

Tonight Elery made dinner. I know, we're probably crazy because we didn't have pork, having picked up this year's pig yesterday, but instead we had fish balls made of canned tuna and baked. Some butternut squash, also baked, a side of edamame and some butternut squash risotto. Elery made supper while I was doing Dave's books.

I made spaghetti one day for Elery, served with wholegrain bread and brussels sprouts.

Maci was somewhat suspicious, and told me that she didn't "eat dirt", but was convinced by her sister, LOL.

So Bud and Makayla came, um, I meant Minnie Mouse and a skeleton...

A couple of cheerleaders showed up, they look much like Madi and Maci...

Annie

Wow John. Wish I was invited. What an amazing dinner. And the table is beautiful. Did your wife make many of the bowls and plates?

Annie , Nice catch up post. Love the pictures of the kids. I still can't believe how big they are all getting. How is Ashley doing?

~Ann.

Very pretty tablescape (and food). One of these days, I'll take time to set an elegant table, as opposed to my Denny's restaurant table set-up: Fork; knife; plate. Repeat.

AnnieB., Trick-or-Treaters are supposed to be scary, not adorably-cute!

Well, I'm on the verge of tears.

Happy tears. Because I'm eagerly waiting
for my first grandchild to make his/her debut into my life. My' grammy
clock' has been ticking, since Sam got married.
Oh, she wants to have a baby, but decided to wait until she re-establishes herself here.

So,
evennntually, my grandchild and I will be making (mud) pies too, and
sharing in your piece of heaven. In the meantime, I'll just sit here and
wait for a miracle . . .

Sol

Great pictures of the grandkids Annie! Our rose is still blooming, I checked on it today.

Sol, I love your story and your picture!! Too funny.

Today I made a cream cheese pound cake. First time making it, and it's a keeper.

One of our dinners recently was a nice light one with chicken breasts with a lemon and caper sauce.

Last night we had pork chops with stuffing in between. That's a winter favourite. I forgot to take a picture.

We had popovers for breakfast. Made in the large-sized 6-cup muffin tin.

Come on, page 3?!

As usual, far too much beautiful food to comment on. Though I NEED that sundae right now. Half tempted to go out and buy TGI Fridays' Brownie Obsession for a fix.

I stumbled across this Mezcal and roasted tomato shrimp recipe yesterday and knew I had to make it. I slow-roasted the tomatoes per the comments, but aside from that and a couple other trivial changes I followed the recipe. It comes together extremely quickly and will definitely be repeated.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016724-pan-roasted-shrimp-with-mezcal-tomatoes-and-arbol-chiles

And now I can't add a pic again.

Jasdip, I love popovers, I need to make some...

Ann T, Ashley is doing pretty well. She still can't drive and will be off work long enough that she will no longer have a job, unfortunately. Her memory is still unreliable and she has some issues with her left arm, but for a stroke survivor, she's doing amazingly well. Thanks for asking.

FOAS, we were kind of thinking along the same lines. I made jambalaya with shrimp:

We had those with sautéed cabbage and pork roast. As usual, my timing was off and the squash was done far before the beets were.

I made some chicken vegetable soup and took some to an elderly friend who has had heart surgery and is now having trouble with his gall bladder. He needed something very low fat, and so I made soup and whole wheat bread.

It was so darned healthy that I had to make a batch of Biscoff fudge for dessert for us, LOL.

I have a new camera and I'm still working on the settings, so the fudge is not really as yellow as it appears. It is a big dry and crumbly, though, so I need to work on that.

Annie

What, no one is eating? Well, we are! We went to Elery's family Christmas, where we ate well. His daughter brought macaroni and cheese, youngest son brought raw vegetables and a crockpot full of loaded mashed potatoes. His middle son provided broccoli with cheese, some au gratin potatoes and a big dish full of sweet and sour meatballs. Elery and I brought a stuffed turkey roll, pork tenderloin Wellington stuffed with dried apples (yes, I've been watching Alton Brown again, LOL), and "bacon sushi", which is a bacon weave covered with a layer of seasoned grassfed ground beef and rolled with cheese in the center, then smoked. I made cookies and fudge and we took a roll of venison sausage, just in case there wasn't enough meat. (grin)

We've had some not-so-photogenic meals too, like pizza at Madi's birthday party and a bagel with cream cheese when I took stepmom for some outpatient surgery last week, but this week I'll make something better. I promise!

Annie

And so I DID make something better!

Thanks to Jasdip, I made popovers:

Which I served with salmon, roasted potatoes and creamed kale. The kale and potatoes were from this summer's garden, the popovers had chives that I picked from the back yard last week. This week, of course, everything is covered with ice from the storm a couple of days ago, but picking chives at Christmas is pretty much unheard of here.

Annie

C'mon, guys, don't make me do this all by myself!

Last night we had chili. Or my version of what I call chili. It had a pound of grassfed beef, but that was followed by onions, celery, garlic, grated beets, grated carrots, some diced butternut squash, diced purple potatoes, homecanned tomatoes, three kinds of peppers, corn, two kinds of beans. Yes, I cleaned the freezer, LOL, and everything in the pot except the celery was something I grew myself.

It was pretty good, and tonight we had it again, over baked potatoes.

Annie

I'll help out... I tried a recipe that I had marked ages ago.... Butternut Gratin. Turned out great:

http://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/recipes-cookbooks/recipes/a2846/butternut-gratin-recipe/

I had to sub gruyere for the comte and just sauteed the items in the gratin. It's a keeper.

(HB is not my usual "go to" for recipes -- just an odd happenstance)

Served with pork loin and for the vegetarian main, some fusilli wth trapanese pesto.

As you can see, the vegetarian could not wait for my photo to grab some....

I made hamburgers & veggie burgers last night and decided to try this Kale-Apple Coleslaw w/ poppy seed dressing. Loved it!!! And mine looked better than theirs. lol!

Kale-Apple Coleslaw with Poppy Seed Dressing

ETA: I used homegrown apples -- unknown variety, but they had the perfect sweet-tart flavor.

I remember when the WFD thread would fill up within a month. Those were the days! Maybe we should limit a thread to 50 posts. Might help keep things a little fresher. Just a thought.

Gooster, we've had butternut gratin from Trader Joe's. Might have to try your recipe.

I rarely take food pics anymore, but we eat every day. ;)

Christmas dinner was grilled filet mignon, Spinach Madeleine, and confetti corn.

Since the first of the year we've had Pad Thai, chicken and sausage gumbo, Thai takeout, Ina's Minestrone, Swiss chard and penne, salads made with lettuce from the garden and surprisingly Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes. First time I've had a fall tomato plant survive into January.

Old pics of current food: