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Last week we had our staff Christmas party at the house, but managed to not get a single picture (mainly because guests showed up early...) It's always fun playing Santa and handing out gifts to all the children of the staff, and bonuses to the staff members. We make one main and a ton of desserts, and all the other families bring a main or a side. Mrs. M made a lovely ham, miniature pumpkin pies, a blueberry topped cheesecake (and mini's of that as well), and a massive charcuterie spread. She found a bag of 1kg of frozen, cubed apples, which I turned into little apple hand-pies. My youngest daughter and I thought they reminded us of McDonald's pies, but good. Then this week was a party for a larger group of workers in the area, and being the Southern Hemisphere, it was too be a barbecue (braai, because it's South Africa), but the rain pushed us up under the canopies. Mr's M. was supposed to be bringing a pasta salad, and I was helping her chop the veggies. Curiously, she disappeared around that time and left me alone with the dish, which is how we ended up with a chili-crisp & jalapeno pasta salad. Chopped white onion (quick pickled to reduce their intensity), red & yellow bell peppers, jalapeno, cubed gouda cheese. I had just added the typical mayo and mustard and was looking for seasoning when a little voice told me to just dump chili crisp in. I obeyed. Nothing else was added. I'm not going to say it was the best pasta salad I've ever had, because that would be prideful. But it was.

Portobellos with Truffle-Spinach Filling - not really photogenic but very tasty. Portobellos are quickly pre-seared under the broiler and then filled with a mix of spinach, truffle paste, truffle butter, onion, garlic, toasted breadcrumbs, cream cheese, parmesan and sage and baked in the oven

Clams with fermented black beans and chilli. Finger food served with a baguette for juice dipping purposes.

I adore birria tacos or more specifically queso birria (these have melted and crispy cheese on the outside.) Sadly, the only place around here that did a good job of them has closed. Apparently the husband embezzled a lot of money from the business.

Road food on a cold day in Peekskill NY - pork birria tacos with jus, corn and chorizo, and Modelo Especial

That's vintage stuff, @Shelby!

I can't recall if I posted last night that I had frozen pot stickers. Lots left and I felt chilly this evening, so made a soup with broth, veggies, spices and some of the pot stickers. Turned out great and warmed me up just right. I'll do it again!

Since the only ones of us who still cook have limited time and energy this year, we've decided to have Italian. My sister and her husband host. She is going to make eggplant Parm and I'm to pick up a lasagna from a very good local restaurant here to take. I'll take bread and salad. My BIL will make some sort of dessert. He does a fantastic tiramisu (makes his own ladyfingers for it) but I don't know if that is what he'll make.

I would love to hear about this recipe. I usually use the recipe from @Ann_T. It is excellent.

As most of you know, my house is onion and garlic free because my housemate, Carlos, is deathly allergic to them. Well, he's gone to Guanacaste to visit his family for 3 days so it's time to indulge. Tonight was one of my favorites, garlic spaghetti with shrimp. I even made enough for breakfast tomorrow.

Squid ink linguine with seafood sauce. (again) … so easy to buy a handful of fresh marinara mix of seafood including mussels, salmon, white fish, shrimp, scallops, calamari rings and make a sauce sometimes tomato based and sometimes not with lemon and thyme. The squid ink gives a nice silkiness to the pasta - I’m hooked.

Lentils?

Doilies! 🙂 https://pieceworkmagazine.com/push-pull-doily/

And someone else made them for me, too! Bonus! I'm just so tired this year, I didn't even want to make my own. 😆 But I will probably still end up spending quite a bit of time on salad, side/veggie dishes and dessert. I will report back on taste/quality!

@FauxPas, please try and remember to tell us what that vegetarian tourtière tastes like. Mushrooms, potato, lentils, walnuts, sourdough bread crumbs –– what's not to like! 😋

I'll second that. Costco sells them in their usual large quantity and they freeze very well. Ask me how I know.

I went through some drawers in the dining room and pulled out a few things: Lots of lace tablecloths and a billion lace? Crocheted? Things in all shapes and sizes like this:

Not Kirkland, it's made by a Quebec company - Plaisirs Gastronomiques. It's quite big, almost 2 kg. This is the vegetarian one, from a small local place - Honey Grove bakery: I'll just put out chutneys and sauces and people can choose what they like. Edited to add: And the sun just came out and temp has climbed to 17C (63F) so it's feeling pretty mild for mid-December. 🙂

Probably should have been Gumbeaux

No no I really don't! I really appreciate the information.

Biscoff (made in Belgium) If you're ver flown Alaska or Frontier Airlines you've had the,.

Two days ago I made some xá xíu for little ones bánh mì. Of course there were leftovers*. So, today I took a huge chunk of Spiessbraten-roasted pork belly out of the fridge and started to shave off thin slices … Kewpie mayonnaise got mixed with the congealed jus**, elevated with a bit of Dijon mustard and spread generously over some toasted chiabatta*** A pile of shaved pork belly, some hefty dill pickles and I was all set**** … On a productive note: while all this happened I prepared a truita (a Catalan tortilla de patatas) for my wifes work brunch tomorrow. Her colleagues do like authentic Catalan food 🤪 —- *That’s what I tell my wife. Of course there were not leftovers of the xá xíu, but I bought 2.5 kg of pork belly and used only 600 g of it on Saturday. ** You know it must be intense if someone used jus instead of juices. Or the German word, whatever that might be. *** German chiabatta with the consistency of a sourdough rye, but made entirely from wheat and yeast (according to the lady in the bakery, telling me with a facial expression not unlike sourdough rye). **** Full disclosure: there was a Jägermeister involved. Small bottle, though …

Yeah, you can almost not water basil too much.... unless it's not getting much light, but yours looks like it's getting enough. It could always like more, but you can tell by the "internode length" which is the distance between trusses. But you're a master gardener so you would know more than I!

Thank you! I do try to keep in mind that the people receiving the food probably prefer something familiar. Even non-Cajun ethnic food usually has inauthentic seasoning, like Tony’s, added to it. We get mad when “our” food gets bastardized, but have no problem doing it to everyone else’s cuisine! Sorry for the delayed response, but I missed seeing the notification that there was a new post.

Rain is going to clean out the frigging snow, so no white Xmas. Which is fine.