Norm Matthews

I got a couple of the Christmas Omaha Steak pork chops out of the freezer and made them using Korean style ingredients and served it with some baby bok choy. I thought I made some rice but when I opened the cooker, I realized I forgot to add water! We didn't really miss it though. I also put out some kimchi but we didn't eat any of that either.

Charlie seldom ever makes any suggestions for dinner so I was sure to make one when he asked. He said it's a Soul Food recipe called Smothered Chicken. We had it with rice and he had already helped himself before I remembered to take a picture.

Last nights dinner will go unmentioned. Tonight we had a one skillet dish with rice on the side. It was Cuban Beef Picadillo.

I have a good friend from Australia who lives in Seattle. She gave me this recipe from a Scotsman who prior to making this recipe, said she didn't have a clue as to what meatloaf really was. My friend has made it several times and vouched for it. We agree that is it different and good, but along with converting it from metric to US, I made some changes that I think are relatively minor. We had it with leftover green beans, potatoes cooked with the meatloaf and Amigo Joe's corn relish which is spicy with cumin.

New Years Day lunch: Black eyed peas, pork shanks, collard greens, corn bread sticks and Povitica bread.

Thank you. Those taters were really good. They looked prettier in the recipe picture than mine turned out but they were still good. The recipe is a keeper. It is posted on the blog listed at the bottom of the post.

Our New Years Day dinner is always the same: Collards, black eyed peas and ham hocks or shanks. That is tomorrow. I skipped that good luck dinner once and broke my leg the next day so I always make it now. We will have some povitica bread with it which was a tradition on Strawberry Hill in Kansas City where I grew up. Today we had an early dinner of rib roast, scalloped potatoes with a garlic cream sauce, green beans and from the Cheesecake Factory, a Dulce de Leche Caramel cheesecake.

It was Alfredo.

The chicken I got a few days ago got used for stock, tandoori and the last of it was the breasts which got breaded, pan fried and served with pasta, sauce and vegetables.

Charlie gave me a chicken cookbook for Christmas. He thought it must have some good recipes in it because it was on the NYT best seller list. After we looked through it, we realized that it was not the recipes that made it a best seller. The name of the book is 50 Shades of Chicken. One of the recipes uses Tandoori seasoning and since Charlie really likes chicken from a local Indian restaurant, I made it for supper tonight. It was good but not a lot like the one from the restaurant. Charlie said he'd like to have it again. I cooked it in the steam oven and we had caramel apple tarts from Omaha Steaks with ice cream for dessert.

Our dinner was an Asian str-fry beef from the NYT.

We had a buffet at my sisters today. I took some raw veggies and a couple dips plus stuffed mushrooms. I made mini sausage meatballs with leftover filling. Sorry about the blurry picture of the mushrooms.

My sister sent us a package from Omaha Steaks. We cooked two of them for dinner tonight. My son wanted scrambled eggs with his so this is his plate with a twice baked potato. One of the things he gave was me a cast iron press which I used on the steaks to get good grill marks.

The Instant Pot made our pot roast tonight. It had parsnips and Brussels sprouts. I eat Brussels sprouts from time to time. I like them OK, but not a great fan. However it is my opinion that cooking them with a pot roast was a mistake.

We had breaded pork chops with spinach and mushrooms tonight.

We had a spicy sausage, white bean soup and collard green soup. I had mine with a cold cut sandwich and egg nog.

Those baked apples look delicious.

We have been making sandwiches by the light of a lantern for almost a week. Something happened to a switch in the dining room and it took out the kitchen lights, microwave and a couple more outlets. On top of that the garbage disposer switch wore out too. It was not all of a sudden and I put it off until it was too late. It's interesting how late it is before the sun lights up the kitchen and how early it gets dark. By the time everything got fixed today and I ran errands, I was feeling like I needed an easy meal so it was steak and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight.

LOL. The girl that was the inspiration for that image was Evelyn Nesbit, a super model at the turn of the last century. Not knowing who she was, Lucy Montgomery, said a picture of her in a magazine was her inspiration for how Anne of Green Gables should look. We live on Prince Edward Island St. and in order to get here, you have to go on or cross streets named Charlottetown Rd., Green Gables and Lucy Montgomery Way. I thought it an apt picture for this address.

I lost everything in a fire in the 70's. Most of the items but not the sentiments were replaced thanks to antique stores and later, ebay. The kitchen treasures now are fairly new, being gifts, mainly from my son. One item I enjoy is this knife forged in pre WWII France. A non kitchen treasure is this hat from my son. When he was 5 or 6, we were in a dept. store. He saw this hat and said I had to get it. Why? Because people who are famous wear this kind of hat. He got up on a chair and put it on my head, adjusted it and said, "Say 'Here's lookin at you, Kid' "

https://www.darto.org/us/ This just in my mail box. Free shipping world wide an all Darto pans.

I made some bread and Charlie made sandwiches with it and yesterday's leftover steak. I cut one end off the picture of the sandwich because i took a couple bites out of the other end before I remembered to take a picture.

Late last night, the garage door opened and Charlie walked in with bags from the grocery store. He got cookies, ice cream, chips, dip and two great big steaks. We had the steaks today with oven fries and cookies for dessert. The oven got it's first use of the convection feature with the potatoes. There is a lot of steak leftover. Charlie mentioned cheesesteak sandwiches, I wondered if they made Bahn Mi sandwiches with beef and he said that was a good idea. We will probably have some kind of sandwiches tomorrow.

So true Shelby. FYI, here is the countertop in one of it's incarnations before the present.

Thanks for letting me know about the wooden magnetic knife blocks. I ordered one and installed it yesterday. Let me tell you about our recent saga involving knife strips. A few months ago, my son complained about how cluttered our counter tops had become and how hard it was to keep them clean. He threatened to reorganize the kitchen. In order to prevent having to look in vain for stuff when he did that, I did it myself. I mentioned in another thread how I replaced a huge rubber cutting board and am using another smaller one that is not kept on the counter. I got a knife block from Bed, Bath and B. It didn't look all that great but it worked. It was cluttered looking with all the knives on it as well. I got a knife holder for a drawer for steak knives and for knives that were too long for the magnets. We decided two magnet knife blocks would be better and Charlie wanted the ones from Ikea. We put up one and the knives didn't hang straight for some reason. We put up one knife block above the other to fix that problem. The one from BB&B is barely seen by the window. I stuck it there for no real reason except I didn't want to waste it and until we can think of a better use for it, it stays there. Meantime I saw this thread and decided the it would be nice for the second one. It is now up too. I thought the M.O.C. ones looked best. It is working well but the hangers and directions that came with it were lacking. The instructions for hanging it were written by a liability lawyer and were not helpful. It just told me about the dangers of hanging it in stupid places for obvious reasons. The anchors broke and had to be chiseled off to be flush with the wall and then I used a Command sticky strip to keep it from being wobbly. Here are some pictures of our knives. I know I have too many. I seldom use most of them. It is the same with most things in my life. I get what I think I need then get distracted by new, shiner objects and soon I have a houseful.