Norm Matthews

It was warm enough to grill outside and I was not motivated to be ambitious so I grilled (KC) strip steaks, baked some potatoes and made a salad.

Haha. Cassie said essentially the same thing about "too rich" not being a problem for her. It did seem less rich but it might have been because the torte had raspberry jam and the cake had whipped cream. Also I always made the torte with Dutch Cocoa and the cake was made with melted chocolate chips and that made it seem (to me anyway) less "chocolatey" if that is a word. I think next year I'll go back to the torte. "Rich" has its merits.

Everyone's sweets looks delicious. . For the past 5 or 6 years, around mid February, I have made a Chocolate Raspberry Torte (last years effort shown last picture) but it was really really rich so I thought I'd try this Chocolate Cloud Cake this year. Both are flourless cakes.

Not a great picture but it's chicken slow cooked in seasoned milk and a recipe called Potatoes Romanoff. We also had gravy made with mushrooms and the liquid from the chicken and a salad with dressing made with pineapple balsamic vinegar, tamarind glaze, homemade mustard, salt and olive oil.

Online a few months ago, I noticed a place called Krizman's on a Best of Kansas City list as a meat market that had the best sausages. I also noticed that it was just down the street from where I grew up on Strawberry Hill. They had great reviews, especially for their brats and Polish sausage. I went there today and got some Brats, kraut and Povitica bread. I asked what else was popular and the guy said that if I like to BBQ, they have BBQ rolls. Arthur Bryant's BBQ restaurants get theirs from them. I got some of that too. It was all very good indeed. The BBQ rolls were raw and needed smoking. The Brats were precooked and shriveled but plumped up when simmered with the kraut in a covered skillet. I also added onion, garlic, paprika and caraway seeds.

I have probably made more than a dozen loaves of sourdough French bread so far this winter and I noticed the last one is going slowly so after I saw liamsaunt and ElanaA's pizzas, I decided to make the next batch of sourdough with Focaiccia herbs and cheeses added. I divided it into two sections and baked one straight focaccia and then stretched the other one out on a pizza pan and topped it with pizza stuff.

I made some lasagna yesterday. Here is a slice of it. I couldn't post pictures yesterday.

Getting ready for a fondue party to which I'm not invited. Son told me that Cassie wanted him to make her a romantic fondue dinner. He got a little nonplussed when he discovered that he can't toss a hunk of cheese in a saucepan and wait for it to melt. The store didn't have any fondue in a bag that we could find so I mixed up some grated emmentaler and gruyere and all the other dry ingredients in a plastic bag and the right amount of wine in a mason jar so he can make it with the least amount of effort. He's got the oil and the chocolate fondue under control, I think. I may have a quarter pounder with fries and diet coke for my dinner.

Shirley Corriher said in her book CookWise that flour mills round off the protein percentage in a way that makes that statement rather meaningless. In general there are Southern All Purpose flours that are low protein. A couple of them are White Lily and Martha White. When I can get those, I prefer to use those for biscuits and pie crusts. National brand mills usually blend bleached All Purpose flours at a lower protein percentage than their unbleached All Purpose flours because they suppose that the unbleached flour will most likely used with yeast. I use unbleached all purpose flour for general use like gravy and to keep my sourdough starter fed because it's cheaper than King Arthur Bread flour which I prefer to use just for bread. Self rising flour is also lower in protein than regular flour. If you want to lower the protein content of flour, add about 1 part cake flour or 'instant' flour to 3 parts of regular all purpose flour.

For dinner tonight, I made a stewed pork. It's a lot like Posole, but without the hominy. We had it with flour tortillas, salsa, cilantro, onions and rice.

I tried a Jaques Pepin recipe for cheesy mashed potatoes and topped it with a Swiss steak. I am pretty sure I have made Swiss steak before but I can't remember when. This one was a slow cooker recipe. It was half eaten before I remembered to take a picture.

I couldn't get out to shop for dinner today because it was too icy. I tried but barely made it around the block to get back home. Cassie called from work asking if she could get anything from the store on her way home. I told her what I wanted but the store didn't have everything, so took what she brought and winged it. It was some chicken breasts and pasta with a vodka sauce, vinegar and cherry peppers added. We also had some sourdough bread that came out of the oven the other day. The cat liked it too. She got a little bit later.

I have heard about people stealing bottles of ketchup from counters during the depression so as to make soup later and that is the root reason of why some restaurants still today refuse to serve ketchup on sandwiches and such. That was before those little free packets were available. I had not heard of anyone doing it recently though, but maybe it why it's so hard to get ketchup to go at McDonalds. As for making your own tea from hot water, I am not much of a tea drinker but I can tell after just a sip whether it's instant. Most restaurants around here do use instant tea and I cared enough, I'd rather bring a tea bag if I had to have tea.

I have been making sourdough French bread several times this winter. These came out of the oven a few minutes ago.

We had Pork Bulgogi for dinner tonight and cooked it at the table.

Three years ago I didn't make our usual good luck black eyed peas on New Years Day and broke three bones the next day so i've made sure to have them on NYD since then. Today, though, i tried a different recipe and cooked them with chicken stock, onions, ham and bacon in a crock pot. About half way through, I added about a dozen Collard leaves that had been deveined and chopped. Son who isn't a fan of black eyed peas like I usually make them, had three or four helpings of this version. It will probably be the new New Years meal.

Ihave been under the weather since Christmas but felt up to making dinner for tonight. Here it is out of the oven and here is is ready to serve later tonight. It's meatloaf and potatoes.

I don't doubt the kids like it. It sounds to me like candied chicken cooked in soy syrup.

I have already used it three times and only had it two days. It's very nice.

Thanks Okanagancook. This was my first time using the popover pans too. I got them yesterday along with a Breville Smart oven as presents to myself. I found a lot of useful information about Yorkshire pudding here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/food-lab-yorkshire-pudding-popover-best-method-science.html I used a teaspoon of roast drippings in the pan then filled them about 1/3 full of batter. The article says you get your best rise if the batter sits in the fridge overnight. I didn't get the pans hot like I should have though. The article said it wasn't as important with thin pans like these but it is with heavy cast iron pans that you could also use.

We had our Christmas meal at lunch time. It was a rib roast, salad, scalloped potatoes, shrimp cocktail, popovers, and some sauces and a relish. Dessert will be later: Cherries Jubilee but without the jubilee. (no brandy).Picture didn't turn out very well. Sorry.

RE the phone: When we moved here, we decided not to have land line phone but I put up the one we had before to cover the phone jack. The cornbread mold is Wagner pat. July 6, 1920. Here are my daughter-in-law and her niece making tamales. She had intentions of making more than one kind, but it was 2:30 am when this batch finished. She said something about making some more tomorrow.

My DIL, Cassie, her sister, aunt, and I don"t know who else, are all coming over this afternoon to keep their family tradition of making tamales for Christmas.

Shelby, Thank you. My son has always been good at art and his wife (who helped) was an art major for a time when she was in college are both very artistically inclined. It sort of runs in the family. I have high expectations for their kids. They are both good cooks too.

I made chili while son was decorating the outside. Actually he spent several days drawing and painting the grinch. The leg lamp poster just came in the mail.