kayb

What I MADE for lunch and what I HAD for lunch were two different things. I made this quiche: Ham, cheese and broccoli, two of those three being Christmas dinner leftovers. Then while I was out running errands, I called my daughter to see if she needed me to pick up anything; she asked for bean burritos from Taco Bell. While in the drive-up lane, I decided I'd make my once-every-five-years excursion into fake Mexican fast food, and ordered two crunchy tacos, which are the only thing on the menu I will eat. And I learned Taco Bell no longer automatically gives you taco sauce with your order. You have to ask. I did not. Think I'll have quiche for lunch today, maybe. Oh, and in recognition of the spoon rest topic, I cropped the photo a bit loosely to show mine. I love them because they pop in the dishwasher to clean up.

Munchy stuff while watching ballgames, reading, and waiting for midnight with the pooch. Beer-candied bacon, fresh baguette slices spread with cream cheese and topped with fig and olive tapenade. Because I could. Happy New Year, everyone!

Lovely lamb loin, Dave. I wish I liked lamb. I feel rather sheepish (yes, bad pun intended) admitting I do not.

I suspect it will be just my daughter and me, and possibly a toddler grandchild if I get pressed into babysitting duty (which would be fine). I will assuredly be watching bowl games, so I go with the snacky stuff for the entire holiday weekend: Beer candied bacon. Bacon on a rack in a roasting pan, brushed two or three times with a combo of beer and brown sugar while it's cooking at 400 degrees. Blinis and caviar, with mimosas, for NY Day morning while watching the parade. Also latkes, also with caviar. I intend to eat an entire two-ounce portion of caviar. Black eyed pea "cassoulet," peas cooked with tomatoes and smoked sausage, seasoned with smoked paprika, then baked with a breadcrumb topping. Cole slaw (since I don't care for cooked greens) Scalloped pineapple, mostly because I have fresh pineapple and cherries I need to use Fig and olive tapenade (which I need to go ahead and make today or tomorrow so the flavors can be blending in the fridge) Cheese, crackers, pickles, olives, etc. Must make some small baguettes to cut up and toast for crostini. That should be a gracious plenty. I have in the past made a big baked Reuben -- rye bread dough rolled relatively thin, topped with corned beef and swiss and Russian dressing, sides cut into strips and woven over the top, cut into sandwich sized chunks and served with a side of sauerkraut. Good, but lends itself to a crowd and I don't plan for one of those. I'll save that for taking to a Super Bowl potluck. A happy, happy anniversary to you and Ronnie, Shelby! Many more!

Oh, my. Believe I'd pass.

There's been a recipe floating around Facebook for baked ham and cheese sandwiches with a sweet-savory sauce. I saw a version using prepared pizza dough from the dairy case that tweaked my interest, so I made up a half-recipe of olive oil bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, let it sit in the fridge overnight, and started out. \ First step was to roll the dough out about a half-inch thick, and cover with a pound of leftover Christmas ham, sliced into strips. Then covered with sliced Swiss cheese. The whole thing rolled up and then sliced into one-inch slices. After rising for an hour, topped with a sauce of melted butter, Worcestershire, honey mustard and brown sugar. Hot from the oven. Sauce could've done with a bit less brown sugar, but very good, nevertheless.

Have heard good things about ThreeFold. Will have to give it a try next time I'm in the Rock. Little Rock is really a pretty good food town. Some excellent restaurants there.

Pao de quiejo, Brazilian cheese bread. I used a bit too much garlic (I tend to add garlic by the theory that if the recipe calls for x, x times 1.5 is generally better). Odd mouth-feel; it starts out like a regular drop biscuit texture, and then morphs into a more chewy-gluey, but not unpleasant, texture. Don't know that I'd make it often, but it was an interesting experiment.

For my money, the best cheesecake recipe out there is this one. You'd need to half the recipe, though, or make two separate cheesecakes (they freeze nicely, btw). Those look lovely.

Essentially, I agree with your technique, though I use a different glaze. I put my ham on the rack, rub it down liberally with mustard (plain old yellow ballpark mustard works fine), and then coat it with a thick layer of brown sugar patted on. Final step is an application of bourbon from a spray bottle. Agree with the low-and-slow baking -- I go 20 minutes per pound at 275-300F.

Stuffed French toast topped with apple butter, with a slice of leftover Christmas ham made a fine Boxing Day brunch. With a mimosa. OK, maybe two mimosas. Two large mimosas.

Repurposing Christmas leftovers: Took some leftover tossed salad (romaine, cucumber, grape tomatoes, feta) and added some chopped olives off the relish tray, some diced ham and diced turkey. A quite tasty chef's salad in a hurry.

I soaked it and then steamed it in the water, vs. on the rack, for 20 minutes. Not a good result. Between the soak and the steam-in-water, it took too much seasoning out of the ham (although it was tender, which I was aiming for). Next time, I will do one or the other, but not both. Also, after a 20-minute steam in water, it was falling apart when I tried to brown it. Thinking I might cut the time a bit with a steam-on-the-rack process. Expect I'lll try that over New Year's.

The IP was a fine thing when cooking Christmas dinner. First I used it to cook potatoes for the potato salad, and then to steam the country ham before browning it in a skillet. I started to use it to cook the pasta for the mac and cheese, but at that point it was getting close to dinnertime, and I didn't want to experiment with a new technique. Pasta cooks quickly enough, anyway. Still loving the IP.

Sandwich looks wonderful, but the crumbcatcher is great!

Lovely dinners, all -- @Norm Matthews those popovers are things of beauty, and @scamhi, I would have made latkes topped with caviar for breakfast this morning but for having used all the potatoes yesterday in potato salad! Gorgeous claws, too. @Shelby, the fishes look marvelous; so glad you're enjoying the oysters. We had a rather simple dinner oriented toward the three preschoolers around which the day revolved -- ham, turkey, mac and cheese, asparagus, broccoli, potato salad, deviled eggs, and a big tossed salad. I think I enjoyed it about as much as the big traditional fare. Many leftovers for today!

That's some pretty wonderful looking food. I see you use avocado a lot; I approve! Will be in your town in early Feb. What's your restaurant?

Yesterday brought things to eat in the mail. Two one-pound boxes of See's candy, and two one-pound bags of giant Georgia pecan halves. One of the bags of pecans is presently in the oven roasting in spicy sauce; the other will likely get candied via the spicy-sweet walnut recipe posted recently. Almost through Christmas treat-making. A good thing, I guess.

Add me to that list.

Along the same line, my mother (a child of the Depression, who abhorred food waste) used to keep a gallon ice cream bucket in the freezer. Dibs and dabs of leftover veggies from dinner always got scraped into the bucket. When it got full, it was time to make vegetable soup. If I had any freezer room, I'd do that. One of my resolutions, if I made New Year's resolutions any more, should be to clean out the damn freezer. There's stuff in there old enough to vote.

I would think the addition of the lemon juice would make it acidic enough; I might add some citric acid for good measure if I water-bathed it. Honestly, it's so simple to make I don't see making a large enough batch to worry about it.

Those look GOOD, @cyalexa! Need to try that next year. A friend gave me a recipe for canning green tomatoes which she said would result in slices suitable for frying, but I've never tried it. I wound up with a good-sized batch of apple butter -- nine pints and 12 half-pints, a good bit of which is being given for Christmas gifts. I think it's some of the best I've ever made. I also tried something new the other day to use up some bananas that were about to go south on me -- banana jam. All the Interwebs recipes seemed to be horribly heavy on sugar, so I wound up with: four ripe bananas, mashed; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup water; 1/2 tsp cinnamon; 1/2 tsp nutmeg; 1/4 tsp cloves; 1 tbsp lemon juice. Boiled the water with the sugar and spices and lemon until sugar dissolved; added the bananas, cooked and reduced over emdium low heat for maybe 30 minutes. This is Good Stuff on a peanut butter sandwich! I did not water-bath process it since there was so little of it, but for a larger batch, I see no reason why it wouldn't work. One caveat: The color of the finished product is...not attractive. Those of you who have changed a dirty diaper will understand.

@sartoric, let me add my congrats to you on the pork belly; a lovely thing. I've never attempted to cook pork belly; this may encourage me to do so. @David Ross, if I could have those crab cakes for Christmas dinner, I'd be a happy woman.

Brunch is my favorite meal for a crowd. Love the gravy in the IP idea.

You people all obviously pay more attention than I do to cleaning.