BF tried a new crockpot recipe with chicken, potatoes, carrots, butter, garlic, lemon, and herbs. Really good but needed a lot more time than the recipe stated:

Fishcakes again. Pollock and smoked salmon. Parsley sauce left from Thursday plus yet more purple sprouting. Oranges for dessert.

That's twice now, so sprouting purple must mean something... I just have no idea what! floral_uk, what is the "purple" that you have sprouting?

Purple sprouting broccoli. A delicious seasonal winter vegetable far tastier than those fat green 'trees'.

I bought a kilo last week and we've had it almost every day. My own was a failure on the allotment. Eaten by snails while we were away.

Tonight we had beetroot tarte tatin .... and purple sprouting.

The broccoli loses that lovely colour once cooked. All the broccoli in my pix in this thread is purple sprouting.

It’s pretty when purple!

Just good old meatballs. I don't like adding eggs and bread to the meat, so I use ground rice for a binder. I grind it to a powder in my spice grinder. The meatballs never disintegrate and come out very soft, having spent 2 hours in a low oven.

ETA: Learned it from a Claudia Roden recipe. It's 1 heaping TBS to 1 pound ground meat.

Thanks wintercat, I don’t add eggs and bread either and they do hold together but I will try your tip of the rice flour.

Chicken leg, roasted with bns, onions, garlic and potatoes. Marmalade and white wine sauce. Spinach. Oranges for dessert

Just this last week, I started noticing that it is c o l d. We’re having the wet, bone-cold PacNW weather that always takes me by surprise around this time, when the accumulated dark, damp, and chill of the past couple months reaches a certain level and bursts my personal levee. To make matters worse, I’ve been half sick all week. It started on Monday when I ate some leftover stuffed mushrooms without registering that they had been in the refrigerator since . . . Thanksgiving. That kicked off a few days of moderate digestive distress. Then, weakened by the poison fungus, I had a few days of something else that I think was me fighting off something worse. And then it started with the 37F rain.

Food is medicine, I believe, although perhaps not as literally as our next Health & Human Srvcs director - I’m not thinking that a nice beef stew is a substitute for, say, the polio vaccine - but anyway I think that nice beef stew is healing and restorative for the winter blahs with which I’ve diagnosed myself.

It started as a boeuf bourguignon, and then I got bored and started throwing stuff in. There is the red wine, a 2003 that was opened recently and found old and “flat”, very unfortunately. But there is also the Catavica Stout beer, my winter elixir of choice. There is some just-roasted coffee. Mushrooms, red pepper flakes, and mushroom powder complete the alterations. Oh, diced up cauliflower stem, just so as not to waste it.

The side is mashed cauliflower with plenty of butter, heavy cream, and gruyere.

P.S. It turned out quite good. Coffee adds a smoky fullness to beef dishes, but ground coffee has to be cooked for an hour or more to remove the bitterness. I’ve never tried espresso or drip coffee, but will someday.

Breakfast (in bed!) was “cloud eggs”. DS made these.

You whip egg whites, put dollops on a greased pan, 350F for 5 min, then make a hole for the egg yolk, and bake some more until the yolk is just soft cooked. Cheese, jelly, etc can be hidden under the yolk, and the egg whites can be spiced up.

Sunday night. Pot roast beef to be served with carrots. The black dots are barberries, not rat droppings. 🥴

My BF winged a mushroom curry and rice, and I made a cucumber raita as a side.

I'm in a slump and don't know what I want to make these days. I had French toast for breakfast.

I took out some chicken pieces and remembered how much I like Lidia Bastanovich onions and peppers. It doesn't look very appealing but it's delicious. With a baked potato and frozen veg.

Good to see your cooking Jasdip and it does look very appealing. PM your boyfriends curry and rice with your raita looks great. Very spicy?? Love a pot roast floral. Don’t think I’ve ever had barberries and certainly don’t see them here.

I’ve been busy baby minding all 3 grandsons ( not all at the same time ) while parents are busy winding up their work and businesses for the holidays. DH has been keeping us going with plain but nutritious meals.

The following was crumbed chicken fillet with chips, steamed carrot and zucchini... squeezed lemon wedges.

I first had barberries in Iran. Then I found some growing in a hedge here and dried a supply of my own. They add a little tart note.

Yes, the curry was spicy and very good! made with tomatoes, hot peppers, and green coriander seeds from my garden. I regret all the years I didn’t know how wonderful those green seeds are!

I love curry and I used to make Thai curries often. It’s probably time for me to make more batches of green and panang curry paste.

In the past week:

Chinese potstickers

Northern New England Honest Fish Chowder (not the Massachusetts flour paste thick spoon standup chowder). LOTS of fresh, wholesome white flakey fish. Simple, elegant, honest and delicious.

Round roast beef sandwich. Sliced medium-rare roast beef, whole wheat bread, romaine, mustard, pepper.

Potstickers is a term I had to look up when I first read it on here. I don't think I have the patience to make those little packets and the filling. I bet they're delicious.

The tiny bit of last night's left over pot roast beef acquired a can of haricot beans to bulk it out and became a sort of cottage pie with potato and swede mash topping. Spinach. Oranges.

floral, that looks good. I like you pot.

I didn’t make the Chinese ravioli dumplings/potstickers, although I have made them in the past — a lot of work. We buy these frozen from a Chinese market. There is one particular brand that is excellent. These have scallop, shrimp and pork in them. Others have a vegan mix of mushroom and cabbage. It is easy to warm up/cook frozen ones in a pan. Easy directions. We serve them for appetizers at get togethers.

Floral, that purple broccoli is interesting. I plant some beans like that, they grow purple and just turn green when they are cooked. I was disappointed the first time when I realized they just turned green, but they were still good. The smaller kids in the family used to call them "Aunt Annie's Magic Beans", they loved to watch them turn color in the hot water. I had to snicker at the "rat droppings, I've never had barberry either, I think it was a candle scent at Christmas when I was a kid.

Jasdip, I like breakfast for supper. Sometimes the heavier breakfast foods like French Toast are just too much in the morning, but just right for supper. I've got eggs and I've got bread, maybe tomorrow.

John, I've seen those cloud eggs, and have been "meaning to" make them. Now you've reminded me.

PM, those pot pies look good and I'm glad you got the fridge fixed!

We picked up the processed beef and haven't even eaten any yet, LOL. I've been making fudge and baking cookies. We've had pizza in the new pizza oven and tonight it was chili dogs. A couple of days ago we had smoked pork chops, chickpea orzo with butternut squash and some garlic bread left over from Madison's birthday party.

After that we had salad with some tuna and croutons made from rye bread. Odd combination, but it was good.

Tomorrow I'm making more cookies for the freezer, my family Christmas won't be until January 4, Ashley's ex has the girls for Christmas break and she can't see them until then. The youngest one wants a "farting yoga goat". Yeah, had to look that one up, it's an actual thing! A robotic goat that does yoga and "toots". Go figure. I have one ordered, it's supposed to be here before December 24. It's OK, I have time.

Annie

DS has been in a cooking mood, so tonight he made ratatouille.

Which of course got us in the mood for more French food and now the plan is to make confit de canard, if I can pick up a duck. There are frozen duck in the Asian stores. Maybe we should get two and have Beijing duck for Christmas. That - Christmas food - is a thread we should have. I’ll start it.

DS said he’ll make the ratatouille again for Christmas, but I’m going to show him the labor-saving options of mandolin and Robot Coupe with the side chute.

That looks like a fantastic ratatouille… I’m wondering how long was it cooked as the vegetables have kept their form and colour.

Annie you certainly love cooking cookies…. great stuff.

Lamb chops, nuked potato and carrot salad for us… very easy

I will ask DS.

He made breakfast this morning

We now want to buy a can of spinach, as he’s asking what the whole Popeye thing tastes like.

Pot roast and roast potatoes. You can't smell it, but the potatoes are slightly muttony, having been rubbed with sheep tallow prior to getting into the oven. I seem to have run out of beef tallow. Will I do it again? I don't know :) Possibly yes.

Trying the "so much butter" recipe tonight.

Results are in.

Very disappointing. Extremely bland.

@neely DS says 350F, 45 min

I only know ratatouille as a dish made on the stove top rather than in the oven. It comes out as a veg stew.

Thank you, floral!! we tried that recipe ages ago and both thought it was horrible. We didn’t even eat it, and I try very hard to never waste food!

John, your DS is making wonderful-looking things!

BF has been injured and very ill since July, and I’m thrilled that he finally feels like cooking again! he most recently attempted a recreation of ”goulash” from his youth. It didn’t come out as goulash because he overused the Italian herbs, but it was good. :)

I first had ratatouille on a French exchange long, long ago. It was definitely a stove top stew and was delicious. In those days aubergines, peppers and courgettes were rarely seen in the UK. I make it myself now. It's very quick and easy and is even better the next day. I don't use a recipe. I'm wondering what went wrong to make yours horrible.

I was referring to the sauce recipe with butter.

PartyMusic, I hope your BF continues to feel better.

Neely, those chops look yummy. I love lamb. Are you able to start a post now? How about you, floraluk?

Annie, if you keep this up, I swear I’m moving in. What smoker device do you or Ellery use? My electric smoker is not working. I loved smoked whatever.

Jasdip, I too like breakfast for supper. If you do that, you can sleep late ;)

Cookies? Here is a fun, delicious and easy to make cookie, ”Italian anise cookies” from Bowl of Mush blogger:

➡️ http://bowlofmush.blogspot.com/2009/12/italian-anise-cookies.html

Forgot to ask. Annie, that rye bread looks good. Do you make your own? Do you or anyone here have a good recipe?

Thank you, petalique -- I hope so too!

Ah. I get your meaning now, Party.

Tonight: vegetable fritatta. (Including purple sprouting, of course. 😉)

I think we should all go live with Annie!

John, your DS sure made a beautiful ratatouille. Like others, mine is more of a stew and isn't pretty, but it tastes much better than it looks. I may have to try DS' version when the garden is bursting. His breakfast is beautiful too, you need to keep him in that "mood", LOL.

PM, I'm glad your BF is feeling better and up to cooking.

Petalique, I do make my own rye bread, I mostly use this recipe from King Arthur Flour. The Easiest Rye Bread Ever Recipe | King Arthur Baking . I don't use a mixer, I use a Danish Dough Whisk to mix it. I use dark pumpernickel flour and I don't add the "rye seasoning" they list as optional. I like it because I can get it done ahead and bake it within the next day or so. My favorite, though, is this one, with cocoa and coffee: Dark Pumpernickel Rye Bread - Red Star® Yeast.

Elery's current smoker is a Z-Grill pellet grill with a smoker tube he bought on Amazon, about $12 for the tube, I think. I just bought him a Ninja WoodFired Pizza Oven for Christmas and it can also be used as a smoker, but we haven't tried it for that yet, so I can't tell you how well it works. The pellet grill/smoker tube combo works pretty well. We had a Masterbilt electric smoker which caught fire in the pole barn and caused some excitement, and Elery wanted a pellet grill anyway, so it was the perfect excuse to buy that! Come and visit, any time, we'll feed you!

Wintercat, I would never have thought of rubbing potatoes with sheep/lamb fat, I think Elery would like that a lot. We live on a very overgrown Christmas Tree farm and every year a neighboring farmer comes and gets a very big Christmas tree for some outdoor party he has. We have always just given him a tree and in return he brings a jar of honey or something produced on his farm. This year he wanted three trees and we told him to help himself. In return he brought a quite large piece of meat that is labelled "leg of sheep". He says it's lamb, but it's pretty big for a lamb leg. I'll bet I could get enough fat from that when I cook it to add to Elery's potatoes.

Neely, I do enjoy the Christmas baking, although it's not as much fun now that the kids are mostly grown and I don't have decorating help. (sigh) Maybe eventually I'll have great grandkids...

Floral, good for you for trying that. I just didn't think it sounded very good,so I'm glad you stepped up and tried it so I don't have to!

So, what's for dinner? Last night I marinated a piece of venison round steak. I baked the last two of those white sweet potatoes that Elery likes so well and roasted some romanesco:

Elery sliced a baguette and had a sandwich with mustard and cheese for supper tonight, I had leftover beef barley soup.

Before that I made a creamy chickpea recipe, added a couple of handfuls of spinach that was languishing in the fridge, turned some slightly stale ciabatta into garlic bread and with eggs, it was supper. This was Elery's, as you can tell by the drizzle of hot sauce, LOL.

Mine was less spicy and I make my eggs a bit softer:

Today I put 7 dozen peanut butter cookies into the freezer, I may make one more batch, then start on Chex Mix.

My Aunt Ronni passed away yesterday, she was Mother's younger sister, and she died exactly two years after Mother. She also had the same type of dementia that Mother suffered from, genetics are a difficult thing to overcome, I guess. I now have one remaining aunt from that generation. Aunt Ronni will be missed, she took me to see my first movie at the theater. We usually went to the drive in, not the theater, it was cheaper. I still remember, I was 8 and we saw Kissin' Cousins because Aunt Ronnie just loved Elvis Presley. More recently she moved on to Russell Crowe. (grin) She and Mother would watch movies and drink Cold Duck and argue whether Elvis or Pat Boone was the more handsome. Grandma would settle it by telling them that they were both "OK, but no Clark Gable".

I wonder if they even still make Cold Duck, it was cheap and made in Michigan. At least theirs was!

Annie

Annie, I never though of rubbing potatoes with sheep fat until I upped and did it :)

You're so lucky to live on a farm. I wish I could as well.

Tonight's dinner: yolk-only shakshouka. In my ideal world breastless eight-legged chickens would lay yolk-only eggs.

Annie, we all need your address and the nearest airport. We'll bring our own bedding and forks.

Tonight: fresh sea bass, crushed potatoes, spinach.

Friday night: oxtail stew, purple sprouting (which stayed purple), oranges.

John, there are many little local airports but the nearest "real" one is in Grand Rapids. You might want to wait a week or so, though, tomorrow is forecast to be a high of 19F and a low of 2F, with snow. Bring your warm socks, LOL. By New Year's Eve it will be back in the 40s, the weather is strange...

Floral, the purple broccoli adds a nice color to the plate, but the fish is what really looks good to me.

Wintercat, I'm still smiling at the 8 legged breastless chicken, LOL. If they got out, I'd never be able to run them down!

Here it's cold, so I made bean soup:

Last night we had roast chicken with only two legs. (grin) I don't care for chicken skin, so my plate looks kind of pale, as my roasted potatoes didn't get all that brown either! We had the last of the leftover chickpea orzo with butternut squash as a side.

The chicken skin did get a little brown, though. And hour and a half at 375F, I should have roasted at 425F I think.

I brined the chicken overnight so it was nicely juicy and flavorful, even without crispy skin.

Annie

Thanks, Annie. Sorry about your aunt Ronni.

It’s cold here and soup sounded good for lunch so I made cream of celery for something different. Very good!

I felt like legumes so I cooked up some lentils, pearl barley, onions and carrots, black beans and corn. Tossed in some brown rice. Added tomato paste and Gojochang paste(sp). With avocado and a sausage

O

Of course it grows so I have 2 containers in the freezer.

Dinner for eight tonight so I just did a huge dish of mixed roasted vegetables and sausages. Chocolate mousse* for dessert. Lots of wine.

* Nigel Slater recipe. Dead easy. Ultra chocolaty.

Fishy Christmas Eve dinner in honour of Italian family visitors. Cooked by son in law and daughter in law.

Scallops

Smoked salmon en croûte, samphire, parsnip mash.

Ignore hairy arm. That's DS, who, I believe, is probably a werewolf.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas Day tomorrow.

Merry Christmas to everyone from my home to yours.

Excellent Christmas Eve meal floral and a beautiful Christmas dinner and pudding. This for me is the traditional meal which I love and have tried to achieve other years in my own home albeit with warm temperatures. This year we visited one of my sons home and had a younger persons version of of the occasion. Very informal, bowls of prawns/ shrimp on the table with the sliced turkey, roast potatoes and salads.

I enjoyed the day very much particularly with my grandchildren but foodwise… give me tradition everytime.

By the way, perhaps someone could start a new thread. I am still unable to due to my Houzz issues.

Oh, I’m impressed at all your Christmas dinner cooking!

Mine ended up very simple. SMWBO vetoed all my ambition, and we had the customary C Eve crab feed. I bought twelve live Dungeness crab, who enjoyed a restful day in the bathtub, with salt and anti-stress solution - since DS is an aquarist, he decided to treat the crabs nicely during their last day on earth - before being divided into two groups, one to be boiled with onion, sweet potato, celery, salt, and milk, and the other steamed. We did a taste test and truthfully no-one preferred boiled or steamed, so I have decided future crab feeds will be steamed. The meat is a little softer, no hint of rubberyness, tastes the same, and steaming is way less hassle than boiling - and boiling over and cleaning the flood off the burners.

Here is the lucky steaming cohort.

I have researched how to humanely kill crabs, but it doesn’t sound all that kind. You are to stick a ice pick into the rear of its shell and wave it around until some unseen nerve bundle is severed, then stick the ice pick through its face and do the same. Brrrr. I think I’ll just steam them alive and explain myself to St Peter if given the chance.

The leg on the left is steamed, the right is boiled.

Of course, boiling allows for aggressive flavoring, Louisiana crab boil style. I’m wondering if there is a way to flavor crab that is to be steamed. Can you marinate live crab? And would that be inhumane?

Merry Christmas, everyone!