Ann_T

Tonight's dinner - Steak and Frites. Picked up two more of the Sterling Silver Top Sirloin cap steaks. The flavour is so good and the steaks very tender. Cooked on the grill and served with a wine sauce with twice fried "shoestring French fries".

I decided to bake something I haven't baked in probably 6 or 7 years - my Caramelized Onion and Poppy Seed baguettes. Started the dough with one of the small sourdough starters with the addition of yeast, for a same day bake. The initial mix After the 1st stretch and fold. Dough had three more stretch and folds before being left on the counter in a covered container for a room temperature bulk fermentation. Last batard was out of the oven by 3:30. After dinner tonight, Moe had a slice buttered.

Baked four smaller baguettes with poppy seeds yesterday morning. I normally don't eat breakfast, but I sliced one of the small baguettes horizontally, toasted and topped with fried ham and tomato. Moe had toasted sourdough, with fried ham and buttered basted eggs for his breakfast.

Moe's breakfast. Grilled top sirloin cap (Picanha) steak with scrambled eggs and toasted sourdough.

First dinner of 2026. Lamb shanks with polenta.

Thanks Nancy. But I should tell you that they really aren't difficult to make. Just a little time consuming. But you can also cut down on the time if you make larger bagels. I just happen to really like the cocktail size. If you are interested I have posted the recipe often on the blog, including this post with a pictorial. I updated it a while ago with metric measurements. https://thibeaultstable.com/2009/07/07/pictorial-how-to-make-bagels/

@Duvel HAPPY NEW YEAR!!. What a way to bring in the New Year with that amazing feast. At some point will you please share your recipe the for the Karaage. We kept it simple with just the smoked salmon with homemade bagels. Served with a bottle of a 2022 Blanc de Blanc Brut from Fort Berens Estate Winery.

@sartoric I reposted the recipe on my blog. You can find it here: https://thibeaultstable.com/2025/12/30/freds-italian-chicken/

Decided that tonight we were going to keep it simple. So I decided I would bake bagels, mostly cocktail size and Moe and I would have smoked salmon and cream cheese, with the typical garnishes for New Year's Eve. Most were topped with poppy seeds, because that is what I prefer and Moe and Matt are good with whatever I top them. But I also did some bigger size with dried onions, poppy seeds and sesame seeds per a request from Matt. I've been making this bagel recipe since 1981. Today's bake was a sourdough version. They freeze well.

Baked a couple of sourdough batards this morning and sliced one for breakfast. I still had a chicken breast leftover from last night's dinner so I made Moe a toasted chicken sandwich for breakfast. The best reason to bake bread is for toast.

@weinoo, your roasted potatoes look amazing. I had a nice big chicken ready to roast for dinner. I gave Moe a choice between a traditional chicken dinner with all the sides or Fred's Italian chicken. Both are favourites. His choice was Fred's. When we lived in Sault Ste. Marie, we use to go to a restaurant called the New Marconi and the owner was a man named Fred. Fred liked to sing and he entertained his customers by singing old classics from Dean Martin, Sinatra, etc... On the menu was an Italian chicken dish served with pasta that we both really enjoyed. After we moved away from the Sault, I recreated this dish and have served it often over the 28 years we have been gone from there. Spatchcocked the Chicken and Served tonight with Spaghetti Aglio e Olio.

@PatrickT, Your English muffins look great. Thank you for sharing the link to the recipe. Every time I see English Muffins posted here, reminds me that I really want to try making them. I fed my "mother and daughter" sourdough starters yesterday. First time I have fed them since September. Had to pour off the hooch. Thankfully both these starters always bounce back with just one feed. The mother is always fed with organic rye and the daughter I spun off and always feed it with my commercial bread flour. They were both neglected because I have been using the "scrapings in the bottom on the jar" since February. Started two dough's yesterday using two of the mini starters and refed what was left in the jar. Both had doubled and went into the fridge. The Mother and the daughter were slower since it had been a while so I left them on the counter overnight and they went back into the fridge this morning. Will try and feed them more regularly, if for no other reason than I have 7 years invested in them and I don't want them to die. Both doughs went into the fridge yesterday morning and I took one out last night and left it on the counter until just before 3:00 AM and baked two batards.

I baked an extra Tourtiere so that I could freeze slices. Moe loves it for breakfast and makes a quick dinner on a work night. Sliced the extra pie into 8 pieces and I still had 3 leftover pieces from the Christmas Eve pie and put them into the vacuum bags and froze them prior to vacuum processing. If you process them before freezing the vacuum will squish the pie. But if you wait until they are frozen, this doesn't happen. He now has 11 slices in the freezer.

One of Moe's favourite breakfasts whenever we have left over roast beef. In this case it was beef tenderloin leftover from the Chateaubriand served with scrambled eggs and gravy.

We wanted something simple for dinner last night so I made a quick tomato, garlic, basil sauce with Kalamata olives and grilled Italian sausages.

Christmas Dinner - Chateaubriand for Two, served with a wine sauce. Sides were Parisienne potatoes, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, sautéed mushrooms and glazed carrots for Moe. Served with a lovely British Columbia wine, a 2022 Cabernet Franc from Fort Berens, decanted for 90 minutes.

Christmas Eve dinner. Baked two Tourtiere this year so I would have some to freeze. I froze slices last year and Moe liked having them in the freezer for breakfast or dinner. Served tonight with mashed potatoes with pork gravy, broccoli and Moe had his with the Chile Sauce I made last week.

I roasted a small rack of pork for dinner last night, just because I wanted pork gravy to serve tonight with our Christmas Eve Tourtiere . Nothing better than rich pork gravy.

Baked two pizzas early this morning. Moe's breakfast and I'm working today so will take the same for lunch. One topped with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, mushrooms and green olives. The second one was the same minus the pepperoni. I had a dough that had been in the fridge for 6 days and decided rather than bake bread I would bake pizza.

Moe's breakfast. He scrambled eggs with grilled Italian sausage and chile sauce.

@Shelby I really love your catchup posts. Everything looks delicious. Although I don't have the same wish as you when it comes to wanting cold weather. Been loving our extended fall with just rain and temperatures in the double digits. Unfortunately the temperature is starting to drop and there is a possibility of some snow. After always living in and around the Great Lakes and don't miss real winters one bit. Praying for a green Christmas. I don't usually care for cacciatore with tomatoes, but I saw a recipe in Matty Matheson's cookbook and decided to make it. Didn't have a "Sunday Gravy" so I made just a tomato sauce. I love sauces with mushrooms and olives.

Moe's breakfast. He put in a request last night for scrambled eggs with my Chile sauce. I think he was dreaming about it. I make it to serve with our Christmas Eve Tourtiere, but he will eat it year around on eggs, ham, hot dogs, etc.

It is just a cooked chile type chutney so I don't see why you couldn't freeze it. I expect to net about 8 or 9 500ml bottles of it when I can today.

I started to just freeze leftover slices of our tourtiere. Once the slices are frozen, I vacuum package and will pull one out for Moe, often for breakfast. I also like to make small turnovers with the tourtiere filling and freeze.

Thank you so much for your kindness. If you are looking for the chile sauce recipe, it is on a blog post I made a couple of years ago. The recipe was from a friend in Toronto and she makes the original recipe to can in the summer using fresh tomatoes. She use to send Moe a jar of her sauce. So when I adapted the recipe to using canned tomatoes and reduced it in size, I knew what it should taste like. It reminds of a chile sauce that my grandmother made and would have little bowls of it on the table as a condiment to go whatever someone wanted to use it on. https://thibeaultstable.com/2023/12/21/homemade-chile-sauce/