Today's pre-sunset was the same yummy soup with high quality boughten spinach tortelloni. The tortelloni absorbed the broth nicely.

Inspired by Lars’ fritatta thread, I made quiche Lorraine from the recipe linked by Islay.

I was surprised by what a minimalist recipe it was. https://thegreedyfrog.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/the-real-quiche-lorraine-warning-no-cheese-or-onions-allowed/

Subbed sour cream for creme fraiche which is not always available here, and couldn’t help garnishing with shiitake mushrooms and using one extra egg.

The texture was almost exactly like flan - creamy, smooth, just firm enough to hold together. I think a metal dish would have been better, for the crust. I made the crust in the Robocoupe, and instead of water, added small ice cubes for the Robocoupe to chop into cold bits. I don’t that affectation accomplished anything but it was fun.

SWMBO said it was worth waiting 35+ years for me to finally make her a quiche :-)

In fact she sent me this text

“That really was the best quiche ever. You need to make it more often.”

Yes I AM proud.

Congratulations!

Flan is custard. ;)

I think she is glad she chose me, after all . . .

" I was surprised by what a minimalist recipe it was." Classics often are. Good ingredients in a tried and tested combination.

John, good job!

plllog, I’ve tried three times to post a photo of snow and drifting but houzz keeps dropping it on the floor. This is just to see if it’s letting me post at all….

eta — apparently houzz doesn’t allow photos of snow. lol!

No one can post photos on the 'funnies' thread on KT either.

Nicely done, John! Yes, you should be proud!👍🏻

Thanks for letting us know, Olychick. I wasn’t aware there were posting problems.

I have to make it again as DD was overcome with some mysterious explusion-from-both-ends illness yesterday and couldn’t eat anything but broth, then accused me of trying to poison her by daring to add spices and heat to the broth. She complained loudly until SWMBO came home from her pottery studio with ginger ale and Campbells soup. Apparently I am a bad nursemaid :-(

Ugh that sounds like the norovirus that rampaged through here in December and January. My sister and mother ended up hospitalized. Keep her hydrated and give your DD some tylenol. It really helps!!!

Last night we made chicken and 40 cloves of garlic. Haven’t made it in ages and it was wonderful!!

plllog, now I can explain a snowdrift: this was my eye view on 2/19 of BF’s driveway after about 22” of snow, with strong wind. The lump on the right is my car and the lump on the left is the snowdrift into the driveway off the lawn. I have to move those snowdrifts to clear out the driveway.

Thanks, PM! It's still unfathomable, and definitely looks like a ton of work. But Nature is trying to convince us of precipitation: It's supposed to rain until the weekend, as if it actually does rain here.

WOW!!!😳

That day it took me more than 7 hours to clear out the driveway. with a good snowblower and a shovel. It was so deep in the drifts that I could only move the snowblower about 6" at a time and the end of the driveway had about 5' of very heavy stuff that the road plows had dumped. ugh. That was a rough day.

But you're missing out on the chicken and 40 cloves of garlic!!! :) It's SOOOOO good!

Sweet potato and spinach dhal again.

We've not had any snow this year and when we do it's very little and is gone quickly. Spring is well under way. I'd have trouble surviving the hard winters some of you get.

I am very impressed with anyone who has energy for home cooking after dealing with all that snow!

John, the really difficult snow-moving days were the ones where I made whatever food I was craving and they were generally quick / easy meals! But I am an energizer bunny. :)

PM, your 7 hours to clear the driveway boggles the mind. I suppose it would be the same here to clear mudfloe debris, but I choose to live where the chance of that is tiny. It seems like while there might be places there with less created by snowplows, the consquence would be more snow in the road? So there's really no getting away from it? I've seen glaciers, and old snow on the ground. I even saw a dozen snowflakes in the air when I was 10. I still can't imagine shifting what sounds like a glacier's depth of snow in its solid (if not compacted) form. All admiration for energizer you!

Yesterday was a running around day, capped by an evening zoom meeting, Plenty of nutritious food had been consumed, with no plans for supper. I left the meeting peckish, however, and tried to think of something to eat. A whole salad would be too much, and too much work, and cold. I'd already checked off the basics that day: protein, complex carbs, fats, fiber, simple carbs, and a whiny voice in my head said I didn't want vegetable soup. But there wasn't really anything else that didn't require cooking. I zapped half a bowl of the vegetable soup, and it was delicious and exactly what was needed. I didn't take a picture,

Sadly I am on the BRAT diet. Bananas, rice, applesauce, toast. This is because I got DD’s presumed norovirus except without the explosive you-know-whats, just the body aches, chills, severe tiredness, and some warning tummy discomfort. Therefore she and I are both BRATing. Breakfast this morning was rice and applesauce, and I guess dinner will be a banana on toast. I will not take photos.

Feel better!! Both of you.

John, You have my sympathy. I just got over five days of that bug. No explosions here, just painful stomach ache, extreme tiredness, headache and chills with no fever. I just could not get warm without layers of blankets. I didn't care much about food, but DH made my requested Lipton boxed chicken noodle soup which I think is mostly salty broth with a few spaghetti like noodles and applesauce. Hope you are feeling better soon!

Thank you. I’m feeling quite a lot better, and plan to go to work tomorrow ( it’s just me in the office, so no worries about exposing others ).

DD is pretty much fully recovered and made a big pot of butternut squash and sausage soup, which SWMBO brought to some friends.

It is a weird time. One of our friends will die from cancer soon; another has finally been diagnosed with fast-progressing ALS; a third is fighting brain cancer and so far winning. SWMBO has been running around taking care of all these people. So my little illness received rather more scoffing and eyerolls than you’d otherwise expect.

John, I’m glad you’re feeling better — it is a fast-moving kind of bug. And I’m so sorry to learn about your friends.

It's lovely that Ms. JL is so good at errands of mercy!

Today we got a jump on the Pesach cleaning. Pre-Sunset (destined more for breakfasts but it was just sitting there all proud of itself, and a couple slices out did no harm) was egg bake (or crustless quiche, if you prefer, but not fancy), served with mixed vegetables. The pie was broccolini with a couple of scallions, but the milk wasn't right (I usually split the measure between rich milk and cream), so I figured this was a good way to use up some onion-dip flavored leban. It made a very nice custard, but none of its flavor was apparent. I didn't add other seasoning because straight it's very salty and oniony. The custard isn't bland. It's just not onion-dippy, which is a good thing. The broccolini was very fresh and tender, but came with some flowers. I saved them for the top, but we had too much to do to fuss with putting them on at the right time, so I just let them sink into the cheese (very smoked, mozz or jack (I forget but am leaning toward mozz on texture)). Anyway, it was good. The custard doesn't show up well in the picture, but I promise it's a nice eggy fluffy custard.

I’m way behind in comments. Glad to hear you’re on the mend JL. & daughter.

DH has been cooking again. This time a sort of chicken ’ragu’ to have with pappadelle. I love this pasta, so silky. Alas I do not like the way DH cuts and cooks this chicken fillet. Being fillet it doesn’t take long to cook yet it is dry but then the onions are not meltingly tender. Maybe I’m getting fussy in my old age but I could hardly eat this and did the old push around the plate.

plllog, your pie looks nice and browned. Anytime food is well browned, that’s a good sign! neely, coach DH to put the chicken in when the onions are pretty much done, but give him a pat on the head anyway.

yes, anytime SWMBO gets her death doula training books out for a refresh reread, it’s a bad sign. I saw the book out last night.

LOL! It is good. The smoked cheese gets very brown, and it does taste good, but there's no art to it. You stick it in the oven and it gets brown. It does look a lot darker in the picture. The filling is nice and fluffy, and the veg is tender. But, then, I use this basic formula regularly. It' s homey food, not a showpiece (i.e., with compromises to be more salubrious), but very tasty.

Take care of yourself, John.

A night off cooking.

Plus chocolate raspberry pudding cake made this afternoon.

Chocolate raspberry pudding cake sounds and looks delightful floral. By the way I just finished watching last year’s Great British Bake Off. I love that show and I thought the bakers were of a high standard this last year. I was pleased the Welsh woman won and also that the young fellow Dylan, had found a place at a Michelin starred restaurant.

This dinner was an improvement on the previous. Crumbed chicken with a salad that included fresh basil and peas Simple but tasty for us both.

I have to confess I have only seen a couple of Bake Off episodes and that was years ago. The BBC sold it off and I haven't seen it since.

The pudding cake is very easy, but ridiculously unhealthy. A rare bake. It's supposed to have fresh raspberries but I used frozen from my allotment. So it comes outside soggier I imagine but none the worse for that imo.

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/chocolate-raspberry-pudding-cake

DD and DS are away this weekend, and I am taking care of the ratties. I decided to make them a breakfast scramble. Eggs, ham, kale. Not actually good for them to eat regularly - ham is too salty - but they don’t.

Massive lasagne for 6 tonight. Salad. Purple sprouting. More chocolate raspberry pudding cake.

John I'm glad you are feeling better but sad about your friends. Your wife is a very good person to guide and help them and their loved ones through the next few weeks/months. It must be difficult for her too, so I'm impressed with her strength.

I'm glad you are at least cooking for the ratties, though, I'm sure they appreciate it.

Lizbeth, that's funny, you are the ONLY person besides me that wants that salty fake noodle soup as comfort food when I'm sick. That and ginger ale...

PM, our snow has mostly melted the last couple of days, now today we have winds of 30-40 MPH, it blew the calf hut halfway across the barnyard and the darned thing weighs a couple hundred pounds. We retrieved it, set it back where it belonged and filled it with fresh bedding. All three calves went right inside, happy to have their "crib" back. I'm going up in about an hour to make sure it's still upright, the winds are to be lesser by then. And then, of course, it's going to snow tomorrow, LOL.

Plllog, I usually do an "egg bake" instead of a more complicated egg dish, and I don't even like pie crust, so a quiche usually just has a hash brown crust. I also like vegetables in mine so I'd like yours.

Neely, I'm with you, I don't like chicken when it gets dry or stringy, which happens easily. Your second plate looks very fresh and "spring like", though.

Floral, the take out looks interesting, Elery would love it if a place nearby would have lamb, but that cake, it looks delicious. I quite like Nigella, so I'll look that up.

I've been cooking regularly but spending my spare time planting seeds and checking fence and talking to the new calves. For pi day, I did make a pie, in the form of pizza. Neopolitan style crust that sits on the counter for 24 hours and then in the refrigerator until I need it, baked at 700F in the Ninja for 3 minutes. Topped with home canned pizza sauce, fresh onions and peppers, some Italian sausage and slices of fresh mozzarella, with a kale salad on the side:

We had taco salad today, and red beans with rice and cornbread one day last week:

Another meal was corned venison hash with cole slaw, a meal I like better than the original meat:

And, of course, the original corned venison:

as well as the required Reuben sandwich:

I'm sure there was more, but I can't remember and didn't take a picture!

Annie

Sunday night is roast night. Forgot to take a picture until we'd eaten it! Roast leg of goat for 6.

Iced lemon soufflé in a chocolate case for dessert.

Have a great St Patrick’s Day everyone. I haven’t had a Guinness for years but I hope to remedy that soon.

We had a traditional Irish stew. Lamb, potatoes, onions, a few carrots and parsnips and plenty of pepper and salt. So easy, apart from browning the lamb everything else is simmered albeit adding at different times.

Like your roast dinner floral and the dessert is amazing.

Annie, cooking up a tasty storm as usual, love the look of that Reuben.

Lunch was finger-licking the bowl from the béchamel, 2 Advil and a can of hop water. The Advil were the best part.

Neely, I miss my mother's "Mulligan Stew"! A bit different from yours, but a variation on the theme. It looks delicious.

Floral, the soufflé in a chocolate casing is something I've never seen before. It's very interesting looking!

Annie, is that cole slaw in your Reuben? It looks like it. I love that! I hate traditional sauerkraut, but love a cole slaw Reuben!

So, a number of months ago, I made some of Leite's pumpkin pasta dough intending to try the KA pasta roller I'd bought on clearance. I got sick. The dough went in the compost. Then, just now when one of the minions was helping me in the kitchen, we roasted the fairytale pumpkin. I've been trying to finish up the Winter squash before the Vernal Equinox. It was a very juicy pumpkin, even after sitting for months in a warm kitchen. That actually made it perfect for the pasta because my note on the recipe is "needs more water". So, I made a double batch of the pasta dough at the end of last week, draining the pumpkin rather than adding that water. Great texture. But it got late, and I put it in the fridge.

I was going to make it into lasagna the following day, then the next day, but there were business things to do and one day was so cold I couldn't move (I have lizard blood in me). So then there was a truly lovely, sunny day, but just as I was cleaning the last of the pie pumpkins and a butternut for roasting, the Mexican lime tree that was a promised gift years ago appeared in the arms of the giver's landscaper, who also fixed my fire table. I tried to push through, though, and get it made.

At first, I was thrilled with the KA pasta roller. It actually works easier than it does on TV cooking shows, though I had to lock the stove, and put the mixer on a silicone mat on it to get the correct angle. The problem was that this recipe really doesn't want to be run through a machine. It does say to roll it by hand. I've only made pappardelle with this recipe before. Laid in a sheet pan on semolina, it got goopy and floppy and sticky and resigned from the rolled out pasta club. So I put it back in the fridge and got out my handled rolling pin. I figured the best thing would be to stack the pan as I rolled, so I grated all the cheese, and tore up the sausage, but when I got to the béchamel, my back (muscles) started to hurt. By the time it was finished, every back muscle hurt. Just the thought of not finishing gave me the boost I needed to wrap everything up and put it in the fridge.

Yesterday I cleaned up the sink and all the hand wash things, and my back started to hurt, and I quit Today started nice, too, and, bonus, a minion could be counted on to clean up after me! So, I mixed up the ricotta-egg stuff, and got all the ingredients assembled, including some of the wet pumpkin for the "sauce" on the bottom, and one of the pie pumpkins for the filling, rolling the pasta was easy, and it all layered up fine, though I had too much cheese prepared Partly it's because I added the (hot Italian chicken) sausage (previously, I've made the pumpkin lasagna vegetarian). I think it's that some of it is that the amount left over just looks more impressive in a double batch. It's also a bit different because an invasive plant in my herb garden ate the tarragon, and the stuff from the store tastes of anise. It should be good in the ricotta mix, though.

My back didn't start hurting until I was cleaning up.

Anyway, it's cooked and cooling. Dinner is more likely to be a salad. It'll be better after setting overnight in the fridge, anyway. I'll cut it into 2-portion pieces to be frozen in containers. But it'll be dinner(s) sometime, and that's what's for.

Birthday dinner we made for a friend.

Started with skewered tiger prawns, cherries, and a chimmichurri DD made with lots of stuff including mint, cherry balsamic, etc.

Also - this is out of order - a spaghetti carbonara that SWMBO makes

Moules mariniere by DD

Prime rib, we had a choice of red wine reduction and shiitake mushroom beef au jus.

I do not know how to make the classic syrupy red wine reduction. It never works out, is too bitter. I think the red wines I have may be too dry. Instead, I boil the wine with mushrooms, shallots, garlic, herbs then add beef stock or the meat juice drained from the sous vide bags, reduce it all down to about 1/5th original volume, and start adding butter, sugar, and splashes of fresh wine until I get the desired slightly sweet, rich, wine and beef and butter flavor.

Moules marinières would be my choice of last meal on earth. That does seem to be a huge amount of food for one meal. Any of the courses would fill me up. Did everyone have everything?

We just had a stew made from leftover goat from Sunday. The new potatoes are beginning to come in from the Mediterranean area. Ours will be later.

It wasn’t a light meal! The prawns were just an appetizer, each person got one. Moules first course, small bowl, then spaghetti, also a smallish portion - all this is unless the person wanted more - and steak. I thought the steaks would be way too big at about 11 oz uncooked each, but at the end there wasn’t too much unfinished.

There was also this banana bread buttercream coconut cake. I don’t usually eat cake but made an exception.

flora, I have seldom had goat, but would like to try more. Goat meat is hard to get where I live. It always makes me think of the Rolling Stones.

plllog how come your back hurts when cooking? Counters, shoes, floor, or? That’s a lot of perseverance on the dish.

Sorry, JL. I just splorted it all out because I thought Advil for lunch was funny, and I have never had such immediate relief as that gave me. But I was just trying to be funny. Cause was just over-exertion, and I tend to feel that in my back first. Getting back to normal after last year's injuries and diseases has actually been going well. I'd rather be slinging cast iron pots and huge lasagnas than boring manufactured weights at a smelly ol' gym. ;) My kitchen, when smelly, is delicious. :D

Ah so. I am thinking of trying some Crox as house shoes. I hear they are helpful for fatigue when standing a lot.

My reply disappeard! Maybe I forgot the submit button, though.

Everybody is different, so do try. I like fleecy Crocs (real—haven't tried knock-offs) as rain shoes, or for walking around, like doing errands. Fleecy so the uppers don't give me blisters. In the kitchen, I find that when I'm tired, both Crocs and my GelPro mats are too squishy and make me achy and more tired. Bare feet on the tile is much better. I think this is because of micro corrections. Great for engaging your muscles, but when one is already exhausted and can't stop or sit (like mid lasagna or company dinner) dealing with that is even more tiring. But YMMV.

I'm such a lazy cook I don't stand in the kitchen long enough for my feet or back to hurt. Have you tried a tall stool for some tasks?

As for dinner, we're back on our semi vegetarian, nutritious diet after a few days with family where desserts, cake and sausage rolls were on the menu. Mushroom stroganoff with brown rice last night.

Thanks, Floral. I prefer standing, in general. My mother used to sit at the sink on the kitchen stool, but I can't work that way. I'll take fiddly tasks and sit at the table with them, but most things are just easier standing up.. A lot of my usual cooking is labor intensive. I'm learning new things with minimal prep, like the soup I mentioned up topic. Whomped, not nicely cut. ;)

Mushroom stroganoff sounds interesting. Is it a recipe?

There are lots of recipes for mushroom stroganoff but I just do it off the top of my head these days.

I would be a happy camper with mushroom stroganoff.👍🏻😃