Despite the forecast for scattered showers, this morning has seen a mixture of snow/sleet/hail/rain. Ugh. I do not look forward to the cold weather – except for the cold weather food. Tonight I’m doing a bigpot of mussels – a la provencal with white wine, garlic, a few tomatoes and basil. And a big loaf of peasant bread.That should take the chill out of the air!

 Last night I reheated (fresh dumplings) the chicken and dumplings from earlier in the week.  That is classic comfort food and really very easy to prepare.  Saturday’s dinner came off well, I think, without too much angst.  The pork roast was excellent – a combination of Dietrich’s pork and the basis of the recipe from Good Meat. We added dried apricots and cranberries to the prune stuffing and I added some of Julia Child’s apple sauce to the pan juices, deglazed with pork stock and reduced to make a sauce. It had tons of flavor – I was quite pleased.

We’ll do a trial run (thinking Thanksgiving) on a turkey this week.  Brined (using a wet brine with no sugar) and smoke roasted on the grill. A pan with mirapoix, porkstock and apple juice is placed over the coals with a grid on it, and the turkey set on top of the grid. The turkey juices drip into it for the sauce.  Sounds interesting and would free up one oven. Needless to say, this is going to give us a fair amount of leftover turkey to use up.  We’ve had worse problems….but that is why you’ll see some many turkey dishes below.

Also want to do a dry run on a Peach FrozenYogurt.  I’ve done the recipe before –from the book that came with the Cusinart Ice Cream Maker.  It calls for 1/3 cup sugar – which give of 24g of carbs per half cup.  I want to run a test with Splenda to see how that affects the taste. The 24 g isn’t bad, but it would be terrific to be able to cut that further and have several “ice creams” available for our 8 year old type 1 diabetic great nephew. Stay tuned!

Above is a shot of the kitchen.

Mon. AM             Chicken Vegetable Soup f/i 

Mon. PM              Moules Provencal CC II 377

                             French Bread 

Tues. AM             Open Faced Rueben Sandwiches with Home Cured TurkeyPastrami 

Tues. PM              Pork Roast Stuffed with Cognac Infused Dried Fruits

                             Pan Gravy

                             Potatoes Savoyard

                             Steamed Asparagus 

Weds. AM            Lidia’sSpicy Escarole and White Bean Soup LIAK 

Weds. PM            Dry Run Brined (no sugar) Turkey Grill Smoked

                             Pan Gravy with Drippings, Mirapoix, Stock and Apple Juice

                             Steamed Rice

                             Sautéed Green Beans 

Thurs. AM           Russian Borscht f/i 

Thurs. PM            Fish Faux Chips (Fried Cod with Oven Fried Potatoes) JWSSC

                             Fresh Tartar Sauce

                             Sautéed Zucchini with Marjoram 

Fri. AM                Escarole and White Bean Soup revisited 

Fri. PM                 Inside Out Pork Chops – PorkChops Stuffed with Country Pate

                             and Roasted on top of Bread Stuffing

                             Braised White Asparagus 

     Wine: Wolf Blass Yellow Label 2007 Shiraz

Virginia is making Xmas Cookies, shown here Santa Boots to send home at Thanksgiving. 

Sat. AM               Turkey Lo Mein AP 149 

Sat. PM                Gratin of Curried Broccoli and Turkey GM 2/88

                             Fresh Pasta with Blue Cheese Sauce 

Sun. AM              Pulled “Pork” Turkey Sandwiches BA 11/09 74 

Sun. PM               Chinese Chicken Wings CCII

                             New England Boiled Dinner CCII

                             Mustard, Horseradish Sauce