THANKSGIVING WEEK

I had bought some Meyer Lemons the other week and wanted to use them in something.  I found a recipe for a Meyer Lemon Curd Tort.  The recipe sounded simple.  Before I continue however you should know that I am not a baker.  If I have trouble with recipes it is usually when baking.  You mix the lemon juice, lemon rind, eggs and sugar until consistent.  Then you heat it on medium until thickened.  Well, I thought it was thick enough but when I put it in the shell it did not bake to a result I thought it should be.  I did not use a regular pie crust but had a graham cracker crust on hand and thought that I would use that.  Now you also have to understand that in the middle of the baking I got a call that there were about 17 Sandhill cranes on the #2 fairway, just across the water from us.  Well I have to tell you that took priority over the tort.  When it was not done in the 15 minutes it was supposed to take, I left it in the hands of my husband and took off to look at the cranes.  I am including pictures of the cranes that a friend of mine took.  As you can see, this could be the problem with my baking efforts.  Other things come first.

The tort turned out better than I thought.  It really is quite good.  I am including a picture.  Monday we had spaghetti and there was enough for two nights.  Last night I made corn beef hash with baked

eggs.  It is a dish that I grew up with.  I use canned corn beef hash and make wells in the hash and then put in a whole egg into each well.  Depending on how well you like the eggs cooked, it takes between 20 and 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  This year I sprinkled a bit of cayenne pepper into the mix as well as a smidge of black pepper.  It definitely spiced it up.

Today is Thanksgiving and since it is the kids turn to spend the day with the other parents we were invited over to a friend's house for the dinner.  I used a new recipe to make brussel sprouts.  You crisp up 5 slices of bacon and set aside.  You then wash, halve and brown the brussel sprouts in some remaining bacon grease.  You then add brown sugar and the recipe called for water but someone suggested using chicken stock adding that it will not evaporate as quickly as water.  Once the brown sugar has dissolved in the pan you cook it for about 6-8 minutes.  You can add liquid as needed.  The finishing touch is balsamic vinegar.  It is a really good dish.  The brussel sprouts reduced greatly in size so I panicked and made an additional vegetable.  It was simply green beans, tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.  I usually add yellow wax beans but........I did not have any.  It was a good thing

that I made the extra vegetable as there were three more guests.

MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER

Once again we ate out multiple times and had leftovers one night.  However, I did make a meatloaf and served it with mashed potatoes and a small salad.  I made a big meatloaf so that we could have cold meatloaf sandwiches during the week, yum!.  Friday night I made an Italian soup.  It is very similar to a Sausage and Tortellini soup that I make.  This had Italian sausage (I use mild) and that is cooked with onions.  Then chicken stock, sliced carrots, chopped celery, garlic, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and the sausage onion mix.  I used an Italian seasoning instead of individual seasoning.  This simmers for at least two hours and then orzo is added and cooks for 1/2 hour.  Parmesan cheese can be sprinkled over the soup.  It was really good.  I baked Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits to serve with it. Since it is a broth based soup, I am going to freeze some for later and there is still some for lunch either today or tomorrow.  I also made some pumpkin muffins for breakfast and a cranberry biscotti for dipping in our morning coffee.  The biscotti was from a Pillsbury Cranberry Bread mix. The directions are on the side of the box and I have been eyeing it for several years.  They turned out well and have a fantastic taste.  A friend has a recipe for a chocolate chip biscotti and I think that I will try that next.  All in all it was a good week for having tried and true comfort foods and trying new recipes.

BIRTHDAY WEEK

The week began with my hubby's birthday.  We meet the kids halfway for lunch at a Bob Evans.  I had the fried corn meal mush.  I grew up eating mush and Bob Evans is the only restaurant I know of that has it on the menu.  We had a great time visiting with them and of course there was lots of laughter.  That night I (we) hosted a dinner for 3 couples.  Initially I was going to serve a chicken cordon bleu from Gordon's Food Service but they have discontinued the item.  We had a pork loin frozen so started thawing that on Friday.  It was rubbed with a grey sea salt mixture that included rosemary, pepper and dried tomatoes.  A small amount of Worcester was then rubbed on.  It was baked in a 325 oven for about 2 hours and 15 minutes or until the internal temperature reached 145. My husband had purchased a potato au gratin and a cranberry stuffing from Costco and those were the sides.  I made a caesar salad again.  We served a smoked cheddar cheese with beef sausage with drinks.  Dessert was a spice cake with a maple frosting and a small dollop of vanilla ice cream.  I am including pictures of the table, cake and my mantle with my collection of pilgrims and Native Americans.

The rest of week was odd.  We had hot pork sandwiches with mashed potatoes and sliced tomatoes one night.  We were out Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Tuesday night we were at a Lebanese restaurant and we only ever have starters.  Granted, lots of starters.  The gamut runs from Grape Leaves, Hommus, Baba Ghanouj, Ara-yes to Fatoosh, Kibbi and Kousa.  Somehow it all goes together and tastes great.  It is only Sunday and for the life of me, I cannot remember what we ate Wednesday night.  It could have been terrific, I just do not remember.  Well that is all for this week.

BEGINNING OF NOVEMBER

Sunday night we were not sure if we would be going out but no such luck - no invite.  So we had pork chops and we heated up left over spaghetti with left over salad from Saturday night.  Nothing to go into more detail about.

Monday I made soup. I found the recipe in "Cooking from Quilt Country" by Marcia Adams.  It is a chicken corn soup.  You cook onions and celery in melted butter for about 3 minutes.  Stir in 6 tablespoons of flour and cook about 5-6 minutes but mine turned golden in much less time.  I added one can of chicken broth and whisked until smooth while slightly increasing the heat.  It then called for 3/4 C milk and 3/4 C half and half, a couple of tablespoons of shredded carrots, 1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg and black pepper.  I do not have any regular milk in the house only Almond Milk so I used that.  You cook everything for about 3 minutes and add 1 1/2 cups of shredded chicken.  I used 2 cans of shredded chicken breast from Costco.  You want the soup to stand long enough to hear up the chicken.  Once I ladled it into pasta bowls, I sprinkled a small amount of shredded cheddar cheese and floated 3 slices of 2 day old baguette.  It was really delicious.  I have included a picture of the finished product.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were out for dinner and Thursday we had pizza.  I had several crusts on hand - one in the refrigerator and one flat bread.  I used the flat bread crust mainly to get the big box it came in off the counter.  It has a sauce included and I added diced ham, black olives and mushrooms with an Italian blend of cheeses.  It only takes 10 minutes to cook and is so much better than delivery.  Most of the time I use Jimmy Dean precooked crumbled turkey sausage but I was out of that.

We are out for the next several nights.

LAST WEEK IN OCTOBER

This week we ate out Sunday (at someone's home to celebrate a 69th birthday), Tuesday and Wednesday.  We did eat at home Monday night.  The local grocery store had a sale on some meats.  I bought a sirloin steak for $5 + and we split it 2/3 to 1/3.  We put Chicago Steak seasoning on it and grilled it.  It really was good and we had not grilled a steak in a very long time.  We added baked potatoes and a salad.  The salad had romaine lettuce, diced tomato, a combo of cherries,cranberries and toasted pecans with a blue cheese dressing.  It was sort of a retro meal (meat and potatoes) with an updated salad.  I actually have 4 slices of steak in the refrigerator to be used some other time.  I loved the steak but I just do not always eat a lot of just meat.  Thursday night we had angel hair pasta with the 2 remaining sweet Italian sausages.  I had some left over spaghetti sauce from the shells and 1/2 box of the pasta plus the sausages so decided to use those up.  A small salad accompanied it all.  No bread.  Friday was mish-mash of food so not notable.  Saturday night we hosted our euchre group.  I cheated and bought a chicken fettuccine alfredo from Costco.  The container looked small so I bought 2. MISTAKE!  One serves 8.  So today I will be freezing the other one in small size containers to have throughout the fall/winter.  I had a caesar salad.  A friend showed me this and it works well and everyone always raves about it and yet it is soooo simple.  It is simply romaine lettuce, a light creamy caesar salad dressing (I had trouble at my one store finding light so I bought fat-free), shaved parmesan and normally croutons.  However my dear spouse had purchased (at Costco) a very large bag of New York Texas Toast Snack Strips.  As a snack I find them useless but when broken up they are perfect as small croutons.  This is a simple salad but really good.  A nice baguette rounded out the meal.  For dessert I made a Caramel Spice cupcake (from a mix with icing included).  It was one of those speciality mixes sold seasonally.  Again, everyone thought they were great and the good news was it only made 12 and we had 8 for dinner so only 4 left. That rounds out the last week of October.