Marlene

Yes, but you have to come up here to Ontario to get it.

Hello, it's been a while. Since we've been promised snow in this week's forecast, I've traded in my food bus for a sleigh. This blog doesn't actually get started until tomorrow, but I wanted to get y'all thinking some. See here's the deal. In my first foodblog, many of you came and visited with me as guests in my home. Well, now you're all more like family. So this time, you have to help me. Welcome to the interactive foodblog. I decided that if I was going to do another blog, I had to branch out. I couldn't just do the same thing I did last time and more importantly, I didn't want to replicate any of the dishes I did last time around. This I realized was going to require me to step outside my foodbox somewhat though. So I'm going to do some experimenting. I'm going to make some things I've never made before. Now I know, from reading the various threads on these forums that there's a wealth of information and advice to be had, and that's exactly what I need from y'all. I'll be doing stuff that you're going to think "how can she not know how to do that?!". Well I haven't and I don't. But, I'm willing to put my ingnorance on the line in the interests of higher learning. I'm putting myself out there folks. Don't let me fall. Not only that, but other than our big Christmas dinner, which will actually be Boxing Day (the day after Christmas for all you non Canadian and English people), I don't think there's a speck of beef on the menu. Oh the withdrawal! Note the Southern drawl? A lot of what I'll be doing are Southern dishes. I figure by the time I'm done, not only will my drawl have improved, but I'll be a card carrying Southern Mama. So sit back and relax. But don't get too comfortable. Y'all need to work with me on this one.

I've used pyrex for the last two lasagnas I've made but the all clad lasagna pan is on my christmas list. Not that I think there's any advantage to a ss lasagna pan, and the pyrex works very well, except it's a bit small.

It's -16C here with a wind chill factor making it feel like -29, and it's supposed to drop to -22 overnight. Mulled wine or hot buttered rum is coming to mind at the moment.

Killer Egg Nog 12 egg yolks 12 egg whites 1-1/2 c sugar 1 qt milk 1/2 qt heavy cream 1 qt dark rum Beat egg yolks together with 1 cup of the sugar. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites with 1/2 cup of the sugar. Mix yolks and whites together adding cream and milk. Blend until smooth. Add rum, mix well. Pour into punch bowl, sprinkle nutmeg on top. Chill before serving

No dog. People are going to think you sautéed him! Very nice though. Looking forward to seeing the sideboard. Are you sure I can't convince you to paint the kickboards red?

My son has been eating herring, crab legs and other assorted expensive foods since he was 7 or 8. But it took him until last year to start liking beef. He obviously does not take after his mom!

We have candy canes and real gingerbread men. I think that's it.

So hero, it's been a while. What progress have you made? Did you paint the sideboard, put a top on it? How is it working out? We'd like some pictures please. Well, actually, we'd like pictures of the dog, but you could include the kitchen as a background

I can attest to this. When I make mayonnaise as the base to my Ceasar salad, I find using EVOO with the beaten eggs makes it break every time. I've started using half canola and half EVOO to make the base. I also use an electic hand mixer which seems to work well for me.

Agreed! It's all his fault. My copy of this book arrived a couple of days ago. Plus the two Suzi sent me (thanks Suzi!). Add three more for me.

I agonized about the nugmeg or lack thereof all night. No you should be thanking me. Don follows my instructions very well. (except for the onion in the bag thing.)

Well since it may be food related, I guess I can. As dinner progressed, I noticed Don wasn't eating. I figured he noticed the lack of nutmeg and didn't like it. Then he got up and disappeared. I found him upstairs, dizzy and disoriented. I was ready to call the ambulance when he walked into a wall. I thought perhaps it was exhaustion. He's been working flat out and was sick for about a month. Or maybe a stroke. Or an iron deficency or something. I gave him juice and put him to bed. My friends said they'd keep an ear on their phone in case I needed them to come watch the kids. I kept an all night vigil. i woke him up every few hours to make sure he could still function. In the morning, he was better, but not 100% and he mentioned he had eaten at a fast food place earlier when he was running around and hadn't felt "quite right" since then. Maybe it was food poisioning. Or maybe it was the lack of nutmeg. In any event it was an interesting twist to a day that had gone wrong from the start.

Have you ever had one of those days where you should just stay out of the kitchen? That was more or less my day yesterday. I started off by making the salad dressing which broke three times before I managed to get it right. In the process, I used damn near every bowl in the kitchen. I moved on to bacon bits which were more or less painless except for the slicing of my finger part of the process. When I make bacon bits, I pre cut the bacon into "bits" before frying. Apparently my finger wanted to be a "bit" as well. Fortunately I had made the croutons and the walnut encrusted cheeseball the day before I'd had high hopes of getting the lasagna made well in advance, but the dressing tribulations put me way behind schedule. It was getting close to the time when our friends were going to arrive and I hadn't even made the bechmel sauce. In my haste, I managed to forget to add the nutmeg to the lasagna, and the meat sauce was way too meaty (as per Don's instructions!) so I ended up with two layers of noodles instead of three. Fortunately, no one noticed the ommission of the nutmeg except me. In addtion, I kept running out of ingredients. Fortunately my men folk were out running errands for me, so every few minutes I'd call Don with another addition to the list. "um sweetie, could you pick up some extra cheese, and oh, I don't think I have enough oil for the deep fryer. Gee I don't think your sauce is going to be meaty enough, maybe you should grab some extra sausage while you're at it. . . ." The lasagna was served with ceasar salad and garlic bread. Some with cheese and some without For dessert, a chocolate yule log from the bakery around the corner. Given the way things were going in my kitchen yesterday I was rather glad I didn't attempt this myself But the big experiement of the evening was the bloomin onion of course. Alan prepares himself for the onion ordeal (these two have been our onion guinea pigs for a long time now) by doing a side by side "blind" red wine taste test. First of course the onion had to be sliced. Using the handy dandy, WS Steakhousse onion slicer, We sliced, boiled then ice bathed the Videla Onion I picked up earlier. Well, ok Don did. This rapidly turned into Don's Onion Show. We had buttermilk and seasoned flour to dip the onion in Although Don decided to put the flour into a ziplock bag and shake the onion inside it. It looks kinda deformed here, but who am I to argue with a guy armed with a deep fryer? Deformed or not, it was ready to hit the deep fryer. And voila! An almost perfect deep fried onion. The top part didn't quite get done, but I have to say this was the best result we've ever had. I was very very pleased with the deep fryer. It heated up quickly, and recovered very quickly after the onion was put in. I now love this deep fryer so much, we made french fries tonight. The onion was served with a creamy chili dip The next time, we're going to try this with a beer batter, but for the first time we decided to follow the instructions on the box of the cutter. Don was so overwhelmed with the success of the onion that he damn near fainted half way through dinner, but that's another story.

You would be most welcome at my house anytime Susan! But no guest of mine ever cleans up. It's been an interesting afternoon in the kitchen. A real comedy. Or perhaps just a comedy of errors. I'm finally ready, and in 15 minutes our friends arrive. I'm going to find a drink. I really really need one.

Ok here's the menu. We're going to try the onion thiing. Why not! In case it doesn't work, I've made a walnut encrusted cheeseball. We'll have lasagna, ceasar salad and garlic bread.. I made the croutons today, and will make the bacon bits and dressing tomorrow. I ordered a Yule Log from the phenomenal bakery around the corner from me and I think I'm set. Pics tomorrow.

Oh! You should totally be fine with respect to the balsamella component. I probably wouldn'y try this with fresh pasta lasagne al forno, but it should work fine with dry pasta. How long do you plan to hold it? ← Probably abotu 5 hours? If I assemble it around 2 and serve it around 7?

I think I wasn't clear. I meant can I construct the entire lasagna ahead of time. I wasn't sure what that would do to the balsamella.

I may have asked this before, but I don't think so. Can I make this ahead of time? Or should the balsamella be made just before constructing and putting the lasagne in the oven? It turned out so well last time, I want to make this for guests this weekend along with a ceasar salad and some garlic bread.

This one is definately an evening with good friends. This couple have been my guinea pigs more often than I can count.

Yes, I tried this once or twice with my old deep fryer. The fryer couldn't get hot enough. I have a Waring Pro now, which gets hotter and is 1800 W, so I'm hoping maybe, just maybe it will work better this time.

I like the roasted red pepper spread idea. I'm also thinking I'm going to step completely outside of my box here. 98% of the time when I entertain, I do a roast of some sort. So..........I was thinking: I'm leaning towards a lasagna served with Ceasar Salad and garlic bread. For munchies up front, I now like the idea of the roasted red pepper spread, but also, I have this deep fryer I've never used. I'm thinking Saturday would be a great day to break it out, overcome my fear and try my hand at a "blooming onion" What do y'all think?

Susan, that was beautiful! Congrats. All this amidst the bustle of Thanksgiving, house renovations and three children. You're rapidly becoming my heroine. We've a small dinner party for friends this weekend. I'm thinking of trying the crown roast of pork again, because I want to get it right and perhaps Dave's molten potatoes or Maggie's madelaines. What I'm looking for is something different to serve as hors d'ouvres. I adore the brie in phyllo and it's rapidly becoming a favourite, but I'd like to try something new and different this time. I don't want to fuss too much, and my friends don't do "ginchy" really well, but I'm open to suggestions here. In addition, we'll be celebrating my son's and husband's birthday again since we were all away on the actual day. My son is having a friend sleep over and he's requested steak but I can probably talk him into the pork. I guess I can make a birthday cake!

Yes, that's true Neil, but the Mirage could have kept Renoir open even after their chef left. We were told that they felt it wasn't worth bringing in another chef to try to revive the restaurant.

We just got back from Vegas and stayed at the Mirage. The Mirage recently opened Onda (Italian) and closed Renoir because it was not doing as well as the other restaurants.