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Dinner from 'Cradle of Flavor' Malaccan beef and vegetable stew (Semur daging lembu): Basically a European stew with Malaysian flavors like shallot paste, star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, black soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Red onion, carrots, sliced green beans (sub for peas), and potatoes cooked separately and added just before serving. Jasmine rice to go with. Very popular, no leftovers Sweet-sour cucumber and carrot pickle with turmeric (Acar kuning): Salt matchsticks of cucumber and carrot with sliced shallots and red Fresno peppers and let sit for a couple of hours. Meanwhile make a flavoring paste of shallots, garlic, macadamia nuts (sub for candlenuts), ginger, dried red chiles, and turmeric. Saute the paste and simmer with rice vinegar and sugar. Rinse and dry the quick-pickled vegetables and mix with the sauce. First time making this but it won't be the last. Javanese sambal (sambal bajak / ulek): Shallots, garlic, red Fresno peppers, palm sugar, and a fried disc of dried shrimp paste, all blended "to the consistency of cooked oatmeal." Fry until reduced, darkened, and the oil begins to separate. Good stuff, will make again. I owe Fresno peppers an apology. International market usually carries red Holland chiles, and I was very disappointed to find them out of stock. I reluctantly substituted Fresno chiles, which are often bland. Not this batch!

Making up some pot pies, but not the usual crust. I'm thinking of cutting a piece of commercial puff pastry (starts frozen) and draping it over the top of the pie. No inner pastry. The contents will be cooked lamb and cooked beans and some cooked vegetables. Do I pre-bake the pie for some little time before freezing it? And method?

Not a snowflakes chance in hell of a white Christmas here, forecast is for 33°C. It will just be “he who must be fed” and me this year, our friends are all going away. On Christmas Eve I think we’ll have lobster tails with garlic butter and a schmicked up potato salad. There might be a mango margarita on Chrissy morning, followed by a lunch of confit duck leg with roasted carrots salad and something green. A neighbour at our old place gave me some Davidson Plum preserve which I will trick into being a sauce. My brother recently visited from Madrid and brought fruit and nut filled marzipan. That’s dessert.

Good friends of ours who live aboout 15 minutes away called this morning and said "hey - I know it's late notice but we finally got our tree up and we're going to load up the fireplace with logs - want to come over for a cocktail or coffee tonight?" I said sure, what can I bring? She said "oh, just a it of your lovely baking would be grand." Prolem is, I don't have any "lovely" baking. I've been baking for bake sales and a quadruple batch of biscotti for my daughter's ER team. I do however, almost have a package of puff pastry at the ready this time of year so within about 20 minutes of receiving the invitation, I had two trays of palmiers in the oven. So, so simple but people are always impressed. I just made the standard sugar one, but can also whip up savoury ones in a tick with sun-dried tomatoes and olive tapenade. Life saver at this time of year! All were packaged up before I thought of taking a picture, but you know what they look like. I use Ina's recipe.

Some upcoming 2026 releases: The Nonalcoholic Bar: Classic and Creative Cocktails for Everyone (deBary) January The Bartender's Collection: Good drinking in more than 300 recipes (Madrusan) April Dryads: Spirits of the Trees (Hoefling) rescheduled to May The Classic Cocktail Sessions: A Bartender's New-Fashioned Approach to the World's Most Beloved Recipes (Maloney, Janzen) June

It was Saturday night with the Carolines. Here is some Gorgonzola with pear, vintage cheddar, pickles and a spicy garlic jalapeno dip. With a Moscow mule to wash it all down.

Gee those ham and beans look delicious 🤤

I have been cooking Christmas cookies all day and part of yesterday too. Dinner was a humble Southern comfort food that mom used to make whenever we had a leftover ham bone. Instead of Navy beans, though, I used Mayocoba beans. I had not seen them on shelves for quite a while but remembered how good they are and decided to use them with the ham bone i had in the freezer. The cookies were some brownies made in a skillet, some spicy oatmeal cookies that nearly everyone would not know they were oatmeal cookies and some eggnog flavored cookies.

Typical breakfast for us although bacon is involved only about twice a month. This breakfast was cooked by my husband.

@Shelby I have been AWOL from here for a while and I thought I just posted a reply here but I don't see it now. I'll try again. I did probably did say that about Kansas sunsets. I remember saying somewhere a while back that Dod didn't put mountains in Kansas because He knew they"d block the view (of our Sunsets) )

@Shelby I have been AWOL from this site for a few days and didn't see your quote until now. I probably did say that about Kansas sunsets. I know I once said" God didn't put mountains here because He knew it they would block the view of our sunsets

https://www.bettycrocker.com/how-to/tipslibrary/tools-equipment/best-ever-slow-cooker-cheese-hash-brown-casserole I do it the day before I need them and just reheat and add more cheese on top early enough so it melts, but close enough to serving. It's not fancy but my crew loves it. I do add more salt and pepper and I omit the onion because we have an onion hater lol. Probably they wouldn't even know it was in there but I aim to please sigh.

@Shelby, how do you make cheesy hash browns in a crockpot?

I like it. Plus it doesn't scream Christmas--you'll get more use out of it all year round IMO. OMG I have SO many hankies. TONS. Maybe I should start a new topic. Some of mine are so great. But they live drawers. A long time ago I made a "valance" over my kitchen window out of them. I'm one that loves vintage stuff so whatever my Grammy wanted to give me, I took and kept. To a fault lol.

Yeah, I used to get oxtails so cheap and we love them. I'm not paying the ridiculous price that they are at now. We went to the big city to Sam's, Dillons and the liquor store to get stocked up for Christmas Eve when I have the kids over. OMG the grocery store was a nightmare. And it was only like 10 am. We had to drive around and wait for someone to leave to get a parking place. AND NO frozen hash browns--except for 3 bags of a brand called Mr. Dell's that comes in a 64 oz bag. Never heard of it. Hope they don't suck. The kids love the cheesy hash browns in the crockpot. Apparently everyone does lol.

Hmmm. I routinely do leftovers at 265ºF in the Anova steam oven. . . . and now I've cancelled my order ☹️

Correct. They are freezer and microwave safe. I use them routinely to reheat leftovers in the CSO at 275°F but they are absolutely NOT baking dishes.

We get the salmon from our fishmonger. He brings a truck to the farm stand near my house on Tuesdays and Fridays. They go to the fish pier in Boston every morning and just bring what looks the best to various markets around. They email a list of what they are anticipating being able to bring two days before the truck comes. You can request items that are not on that list as well, and he will bring them if he can find them. That was my mistake with the cod. He did not have it on the list, and did not buy any to sell from the truck, but picked up the pieces I asked for. Next time I will just ask for “best available.” Last night we had rice and bean bowls with guacamole, salsa, peppers and onions, cabbage slaw, low fat cheddar cheese, etc. That white line behind the bowl is the veining in the black soapstone counters I have in the smaller kitchen off my dining room. My nephew is home from grad school for the winter break and is staying in the room where I usually pop the dinner plates for photos, so the lighting will be wonky on my plates for the next couple of weeks.

it's a national disaster. Nay, international. The place I mentioned just over a week ago with the Chinese burrito has gone. Disappeared. It was there Thursday. Friday gone. Clearly, I didn't buy enough of them!

Sadly these containers can't go in the oven. According to Duralex's AI bot, only the glassware from the OVENCHEF® collection can be put in the oven. And the vessels from the OVENCHEF® collection don't have any lids. ☹️

@Maison Rustique, I'll take pix and DM you; most likely after Christmas, though. Meanwhile, here is my table with my new tablecloth on it. It's less formal in a manner that is certainly my style, however I expected the color to be browner/greener, and less . . . creamsicle. Its paleness makes the chairs seem much less neutral, and more like part of a whole pastel palette, which is kinda weird. I don't hate it, but I don't love it as much I expected to.

This is the surprisingly good pasta with beets, brown butter and poppy seeds from Six Seasons of Pasta: Previous beet pastas I’ve tried have been notable primarily for their shocking pink color but this one brings a lot of flavor to the party, too. As the recipe suggests, browning the butter without burning is key and tricky to monitor with the beets and poppy seeds in the pan. I kept the heat low and did other things in the kitchen, waiting for that nutty, toasty aroma. It took a while but I didn’t have to hover. I picked out this bunch of beets at the farmers market because of the beautiful greens and chose this recipe to include them. I thought the greens added a lot and would add another green if I didn’t have them. I used goat cheese for the garnish because I love its tangy flavor with beets and didn’t have the specified whipped ricotta on hand. It was an excellent choice.

One would think after 15 years of part and full-time living in Mexico that I'd have learned not to panic and instead invoke the mantra, "usually everything in Mexico works out....eventually" I started shopping for oxtails (cola de res) early this week to be sure to have them since 2 chain MXN carnicerias departed our village a few years ago and the smaller shops can be hit or miss on pretty much any item. None found Tuesday thru Friday at either of 2 village shops. Staff saying "mañana" but with a question mark after it. Found a bounty of them today. Will pop in freezer until I instant pot them on Xmas Day. fyi, to price compare, they cost equivalent of USD $4.50 per pound; when I purchased in Tucson last winter I paid $12.99 a pound.

It seems like it's been a bad year all around for panettone. We've been checking the bakery in our local supermarket for weeks and no panettone. Finally today we ask a cashier why they didn't have any and they have had it. It's been displayed with the Christmas ornaments. But they were out. So we went to the high priced store and they had some imported panettone. It's almost twice the price of our little grocery store panettone and not as good but at least we'll have some. The one on the left is tiramisu and the one on the right is caramel and chocolate. Maybe not as good but Beggars can't be choosers.

Duralex USA is having a 50% off sale on their glass storage containers until Jan 1. Some items are out of stock and shipping is on the high side unless you hit the free shipping target of $120 but I thought I’d mention it here in case anyone is interested. I’m a big fan of the little 4 3/8”, 10 oz square glass bowls. I use them for everything from mis en place to bringing dips to parties. The lids snap on very securely and they’re attractive enough to put on the table. One of the items in that Duralex sale is a “Baby” set with 4 of my 10 oz square bowls, 4 smaller 5 oz square bowls and 2 larger 13 oz rectangular containers for $25. For comparison, Amazon has a set of 6 of the 10 oz size for $73 They also have some larger 2 qt square bowls @ $40 for a set of 4 but unfortunately nothing in the 2 cup - 1 qt range. Here’s the $25 “Baby” set: