Norm Matthews

Thanks to @Dejah for the Chicken Breast Neptune and @Shelby for the green bean salad ideas. Both were delicious and are keepers.

I've read somewhere that lemon-lime carbonated beverages can help tenderize meats in marinades and boost ingredients in baking mixes. I have used club soda instead of water in tempura. It helps the lightness of the batter.

https://www.food.com/recipe/7-up-biscuits-496614 Here is a link to a recipe. It uses 2 Cups baking mix (Jiffy or Bisquick) 1/2C. sour cream, 1/2C. Sprite or 7-Up 1/4 C. melted butter. Sour cream is cut into the baking mix. Stir in the Sprite. Dump dough on board with a little added Jiffy and knead two or three times, adding as little more mix as possible to have a soft dough that you can handle. Pat dough out to about 1-inch thick. Melt butter and put in baking pan. (I used a skillet to melt the butter then added the biscuits to it and baked them in it.) Cut the biscuits into rounds (about 9) Bake 450º oven for 12-15 minutes.

I was going to cook strip steak for supper but we actually had these for lunch with stuffed potatoes. Steak wasn't very flavorful. Supper was just some biscuits made with Jiffy baking mix, Sprite, sour cream, & butter with some milk gravy. You could use 7-Up and Bisquick instead.

We had Alton Brown's recipe for Buffalo Wings. Every time I have made it, Charlie says it is perfect so I have not had the nerve to try the Cook's Country recipe someone on here said was good too.

I made chimichurri and empanadas tonight. Even though there is a Mexican grocery close by, I have never been able to find the commercial wrappers and make them myself. I am not very patient at trying to make them look good and they don't. They aren't pretty but i made 14 and by the time I got around to taking the picture, this was all that was left.

Feel free to use the recipe and good luck with the cook-off.

Your dinner looks yummy! We loved the shrimp.

On the first day of 2013, (note the bad luck number 13) I decided it was time to stop following moms New Year meal which always included black eyed peas for luck and served Shrimp cocktail instead. The first thing the next day as I was taking out the trash, I fell on a patch of ice and broke every bone in my ankle. They kept me on pain killers at the hospital for three days before the surgeon could get to me. The first thing i saw on facebook this morning was a note from them and a picture showing that very dinner of nine years ago. I've been reluctant to quit including those ingredient since then but because it is really hard to find decent ham hocks any more, and because Charlie is getting tired of plain old black eyed peas, I decided to find another way to use the traditional ingredients in my Mom's Southern New Year day dinner. I deleted ham hock and collard greens and substituted pork sausage and spinach in a soup. I used corn chips for corn bread and then made some corn bread any way. I made black eyed peas and cheese into dip for the corn chips instead of cooking them with the ham and collard greens. The rest of the stuff was just added to round out the meal a little more. The shrimp is a recipe that got made because @Steve Irby and @Kim Shook recently endorsed it so I wanted to try it. There was a pineapple and mango salsa that I forgot to put on the table until after I took these pictures. Charlie invited a couple friends over and we all had a good time.

At Charlie's request (again) we had a repeat of Thanksgiving turkey dinner for Christmas. These are friends who are staying with us for a while. They are Kalven and Ariyana. Ari requested tamales for Christmas and we had some for breakfast this morning along with some Mexican style rice that I made. Through one of Charlies car club members we were able to find a place that has some good tamales. It was a small mom & pop store that also sold food, but they only sold tamales on Friday this week. We pre-ordered got two dozen. They were very good and we still have some for later. I cooked the turkey yesterday. cut the breasts and dark meat off in whole pieces, vacuum packed them and reheated it in the sous vide. The back of the turkey was cooked in some homemade chicken stock I had frozen and that gave me enough stock for all the other dishes that used stock. It made some very good gravy. I made a paste with butter and flour and added enough to stock to make the gravy, then added salt and pepper and a little cream, rosemary, sage and chives. Charlie said it was the best gravy he'd ever had. I had enough time to make some bread. It was the same bread I most often make but without any sourdough flavoring. It is just water, salt, sugar, yeast and enough flour to make a soft but not sticky dough. Dressing was Pepperidge Farm country style with some turkey bits mixed in with the broth. There were some bits in the gravy too. Not pictured (besides the tamales) is an apple crisp like I made for Thanksgiving and a store bought pecan pie. Merry Christmas.

Tonight we had bone-in baked ham. The glaze was made from apricot preserves with some brown sugar, spicybrown mustard, ground cloves and maple syrup mixed in. I also made some cookies.

We had chili tonight

We had breaded chicken breasts with fettuccini and Parmigiano melted into a béchamel sauce. As far as I can tell it was the same Martini chicken I have made dozens of times but he said it tasted different.

No. I can tell that he does not eat it as often as before. He declined any at dinner. He also seldom ever eats left overs or the same thing two days in a row. I have probably spoiled him.

I think he is just tired of it.

After several months, I have started making sourdough bread again. I started with commercial rapid rise yeast and fed it for a few days. Yeast is like hybrid plants whose seeds will not bloom as the hybrid but as it originally was. Yeast will revert to its natural wild state in a few days. It seems to be the one everyone really likes-except Charlie. He seems to be getting tired of it. We had steak with it.

It was warm enough to grill outside. Not the prettiest picture but it was good. I made Pollo Asado and a salad with dried cherries, apples and walnuts

I used up the last of the turkey and made tetrazzini with green beans, deviled eggs, dinner rolls. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures.

Now that we've given thanks for what we have, it's time to start making our lists for what we want. 🙂 We had Thanksgiving with my nephew and his family. We rotate where we will have it each year but I usually make one just for us the next day for "leftovers" but Charlie has had a couple staying with us for the last few days, so as soon as I got back home, I started making dinner for us to have with them. Actually I had been making stuff days ahead to finish up all at once. I only had time to take a picture of the turkey and some chicken wings I made yesterday. They were an Hawaiian recipe.

I didn't post yesterday's dinner. It was a Goulash and today it was a casserole made with hamburger, egg noodles, tomatoes, sour cream and four cheeses.

At the end of this recipe for standing rib roast is a recipe for gravy that might work for you. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/prime_rib/

@NadyaDuke I have never made a gravy for rib roast. Seems to me that an Au Jus or even a steak sauce would be a more likely fit. That demi-glace would make a nice base for a gravy if that it what you want though.

Several years ago, we started rotating who cooks the family's Thanksgiving meal. This year it is my nephew's family that will be hosting it because last year was his turn and it was cancelled. I always make a small second Thanksgiving meal the next day for the two of us just so we have some "left overs" I was asked to bring a pumpkin pie, one other pie of my choice to the dinner at Ryans. Besides the pumpkin pie I found some Oregon tart cherries at the store. They have been hard to find since I have been back in Kansas City and they are my favorite, so I'll make a cherry pie and an apple crisp to take over for them. For our dinner the next day, already have a turkey in the freezer and have made some cranberry sauce. I have made a cranberry chutney for years but last year I tried a new cranberry sauce and we both really liked it (and it is easier to make too). I picked up some stuff to make dressing at the store today. I plan to make the cornbread and yellow cake mixed together for one of the breads. I found a recipe for gravy that I made back in 1984 and it was a hit. I expect to make that again to see if it is still as good as I remember. The rest of the menu is still pending.

I made rice yesterday with the intention of making pork bulgogi to go with it but Charlie told me that he and some friends had made plans to go to the Whataburger that opened a few days ago. They figured the lines were down enough now that there would not be too long a wait. Whataburger is Patrick Mahomes favorite hamburger restaurant and an investment group he belongs to is bringing a string of them from here to Wichita and this is the first one. So the rice went in the refrigerator and got turned into fried rice today.

I made a chicken enchilada soup in the slow cooker today. It was a good cold day meal. Charlie had his with tortillas and I had mine with corn chips.