Norm Matthews

Dinner was simply steak and hash browns tonight.

@ElsieD here is a picture of the bottle. It came in a 4 pack. Charlie ate all four, then asked for more and this one was left over. The only time I tasted the peaches was in the cobbler so I don't know how they taste alone but the cobbler was good.

LOL. I was hoping the ice cream would melt into the cobbler before I got around to eating it.

Our dinner tonight was beef enchiladas, potato nachos and peach cobbler. Charlie asked for some peaches from Costco a while back and one jar didn't get eaten, so I made the cobbler. The potato nachos is one of those recipes that you have to decide if you want to make it again and if so, what changes need to be made.

New Years day dinner was the same as always, sort of. The store had pork shanks. A brand I have had before. It was mostly bone with just a bite or two of pork. Pork not ham. So I got a nice sliced ham and cut the meaty small end off. You know the end that is never sliced and hard to get at the meat. I have a butchers bone saw that I used to cut the bone. I cooked it with the black eyed peas and the meat just fell off the bone and tasted just like ham shanks or ham hocks, plus there was a lot more meat for future meals. We also had collards and cornbread. I cooked the collards like spinach- in a skillet with just a tiny bit of water instead of boiling it for a couple of hours, then added onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and the ham and some bean water. I think I will do it that way in the future. I hope everyone had a great NYE and will have a great new year

I saw a recipe on line today and decided to make it. It is Italian style chicken breasts with a cream sauce, parm cheese, sun dried tomatoes and spinach. I added spaghetti and corn to try to round out the meal but in the end neither of us ate any of the corn.

I was not sure where to post this. I guess this is as good a place as any. Sister gave us some Omaha steaks so I went to the store to get something to go with it and saw this. It made me laugh, so I got some.

@heidih They were Seneca brand Granny Smith Apple chips. I suppose they were made like potato chips. The recipe said to use potato chips but I thought I'd try apple chips instead.

We had Christmas eve dinner today a short time ago. Tomorrow we will be at my sister's. We had smoked salmon appetizers with sour cream on apple chips. Rib roast, salad, potatoes, Brussels sprout hash, sour dough bread and chocolate cake. I made the cake and bread yesterday. My initial plan was to make a flourless chocolate cake but better sense took over and I just got a Duncan Hines cake mix instead. Why is it that when you watch someone frost a cake, it looks so much easier? Also why do they never put enough icing in those store bought tubs and too much in two? I put cream cheese icing on top and the middle and chocolate around the side. Charlie cut some before I took the picture of it. A friend told me that Yorkshire pudding is normally served with gravy so I made some beef gravy and put a dash of Irish Cream in it. Some of the oil in the popover pan must have spilled out in the oven because it started smoking a lot and I took them out early. They were still good and had a creamier texture in the middle that they didn't have when I made them before. That is probably because I took them out early but I liked them better that way.

I was remembering when I first started cooking and learned the hard way that you can't cook a brisket like a rib roast. Thank goodness they were cheap cuts back then. Then I discovered braising brisket with beer and how that was almost as good as the kind mom made when I was little and she would put one on low in a covered skillet in the morning before church and how good it was by dinner time. I don't think slow cookers were on the market by then. Anyway, I got the slow cooker from the basement and a bottle of beer and cooked it with a package of dry Lipton onion soup. We liked it but mom still made them better.

Did a stir-fry for dinner with shrimp, snow peas, mushrooms and cellophane noodles.

I cooked some navy beans with ham shanks then added them to polish sausage and some other stuff.

My son also loved cafeteria Salisbury steak and I give it a try once in a while. Have not yet quite nailed it either.

I made pork schnitzel tonight. Charlie specifically asked for mashed potatoes and chicken gravy and I had a can of corn I wanted to use up.

We had Chilies Rellenos with a sauce and tortillas.

It was the first time I'd tried it and basically it was a chocolate pie with a lot of pecans in it. Everyone said it was good though. Another chocolate pecan pie that was a fad this year was one made with bourbon. I passed on making that one because there were some very small kids there.

I don't bake very often (except bread) but I am taking a chocolate pecan pie to take to my sisters for Thanksgiving tomorrow. This is how it turned out. Next year will be my turn to host the whole family.

Not an especially attractive picture, but it was dinner: Chicken Cacciatore.

Dinner was variations on Martini Chicken and Alfredo sauce. Egg noodles were store bought.

I made egg noodles, Swedish meatballs and stuffed mushrooms tonight.

We also had snow... and pot roast.

Our dinner tonight was chili, onion rings and watermelon. I could not find any Mexican chroizo to add with the hamburger but did find some Spanish style so used it. I think I liked it better. The watermelon was not great but it was OK, I guess. I like to use my Santa Fe railroad dining car plates when I have chili.

Dinner tonight was meatloaf.

Last night was Fricasseed Chicken finished with biscuit dumplings. I would describe the cake as a thick cake like crust with a thin cheese cake pie topping, both using pineapple juice as the liquid, then after baking, topped with some pineapple and cherry.

Charlie loves Chile Relleno but they are messy and time consuming. This looked like a good and easier use of poblanos. We both thought they were good. It was poblanos stuffed with cheeses and shrimp and baked then served atop a red bell pepper sauce.