Norm Matthews

We shared a Cornish hen with a sauce made with orange juice, honey, soy sauce and sesame oil. We had a salad and rice to go with it.

We had crab boil last night. A local store has them at a reasonable price all the time now.

We're having chili while watching the game today,

New Years Day dinner was Standing Rib roast, Blackeyed pea chip dip, Potatoes Dauphinoise, green beans, collards, and creamed onions

After the ham dinner on Christmas eve, I used leftover ham to make ham and egg salad. By the time I remembered to take a picture, it was almost gone. Early this morning Charlie asked if I would make a tuna casserole. While I was trying to remember if I had ever made one before, he explained that he had first had one when someone I was dating in the early 1990's made it for us. He was surprised that he liked it. Then his cousin's wife had made it a few years ago when he was visiting. He described what was in it and I found a recipe that covered those ingredients. It was topped with potato chips. He said it was good.

@Shelby I did a search and found the recipe for those potatoes after reading a discussion you had on here with some others about some kind of roasted potatoes... 😊

Christmas Eve dinner was Ham, Southern Green Beans, Mexican Street Corn and Melting Roasted Potatoes. The potatoes burned more than browning. I probably used too much butter.

@rotuts"The object bring more than the sum it's parts" When I was an art teacher I used that term once in a conversation with a science teacher. He said that was impossible. I asked him if he had ever had a root beer float. He just looked at me and didn't say anything.

Every once in a while, mom would put a piece of brisket in a covered skillet on the back of the stove just before we went to church in the morning and by suppertime we had my favorite Sunday dinner. I have never been able to match the delicious flavor of that brisket. I still try from time to time but still fall short. I tried one today in the slow cooker. It was good but not up to what mom made. I had scalloped potatoes with them and carrots and turnips as well. I needed one turnip a while back and the store only had a bag of small ones so these needed cooking and today was as good a time as any to use them.

I had just put new burners in my grill and the store had these two steaks in one package for $10.00. Too good an opportunity to pass up. We had salad and twice baked potato too.

Charlie requested Swedish Meatballs a couple days ago. I also made egg noodles to go with them. Today I made chili but didn't take a picture.

Yes. I'll post it here too. It says it is a Mexican street food. Sorry I didn't see this until now. Street Corn Pudding serves 8-10 Ingredients Yield 8-10 servings Nonstick cooking spray or butter or pan 1 large or 2 med. jalapeños 1 (8.5 oz) box cornbread or corn muffin mix 1 (14.75 oz) can creamed corn, not drained 1 (14.75 oz) can whole kernel corn, rinsed 1/2 C. salted butter, melted, cooled 2 T. sugar 2 large eggs, breaten 1 C. sour cream 1/4 C. milk Crema, Tajim and crumbeld queso fresca for serving Preparation Heat oven to 350 º. Coat 8-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Roast the Jalapeños, about 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut stems off, discard seeds. Dice. Mix together the cornbread mix, creamed corn, corn kernels, butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, milk and diced jalapeños until combined. Don’t over-mix. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish. Bake until golden brown and gently set in the center, 55-65 minutes. Top with the crema, Tajín and queso fresco. Serve hot.

It isn't until next year before it's my turn to cook for the family. I will be taking some Cranberry Chutney, some Cranberry butter and a pumpkin pie or two depending on how much pumpkin I get from the two pie pumpkins I got for it. I also tried a turkey recipe to see if I want to do that way next year. The turkey was spatchcocked with the breast pushed down flat and cooked until the centermost part of the breast cooks to 157º. After letting it rest out of the oven the temp. rose to 165. The dark meat was around 190 and surprisingly it all was good tasting, not a Kodak moment for pictures though.

Our dinner was a couple of grilled steaks and some Street Corn Pudding with some Crema on the side

Tonight dinner was meatballs with bucatini and a Sicilian style tomato sauce from our favorite local Italian restaurant.

This is probably the last time I'll use the smoker this year. I did baby back ribs.

This bucatini has become Charlies new favorite pasta. I had not ever heard of it until last month and was surprised to find it on the shelf at the grocery store. It is a really fat spaghetti type pasta that is hollow in the middle.

I regret getting rid of my charcoal grill. I am thinking about getting another one.

I keep telling myself that I should try some different ways to do turkey better but never get around to it and don't have the nerve to try something different on The Day. I wondered about butterfly cooking a turkey and about cutting the bird apart and cooking them separately. Then I got an email from ThermoWorks on How to Cook Spatchcock Turkey. I tried it today and it turned out very well. I made broth with the spine and neck, used some for stuffing and the rest along with pan drippings to make gravy. The link is on youtube

I cooked steak outside today. Luckily it turned out to be a really nice day to be outside. I didn't know or didn't pay attention if Charlie told me before but when I put these on the table he said scalloped potatoes were his favorite and this recipe was the best one yet. I cut the recipe down and only used one potato so we wouldn't have leftovers. PS I just edited the blog to explain how I changed the potatoes recipe to make it in a smaller amount.

Charlie asked me to make a recipe I hadn't made in a long time and in looking for it, I found one that looked a lot better. It is for Pepperoni pizza rolls. I made it and he loved it but I forgot to add Italian seasoning and garlic powder. He loved it so I made it again with the ingredients I forgot to add a few days ago. He and a guest who had the other ones both agreed it was better this way. I also saw a pasta recipe in todays news paper that looked good and made it too. We will have the rest of the pizza rolls as snacks for the next few days. The recipes for the pizza rolls and Bucatini all'Amatriciana are at my blog listed at the bottom of the page

By reading this, I am just now finding out that you can use any oil in an air fryer. I got mine when Bed Bath & etc announced they were closing their brick and mortar stores and everything was on sale. I have not used it much but I haven't used it with any oil at all. I don't recall the instruction book mentioning using oil either. I am glad to find out that you can because it sounds liked the food will cook a lot better that way.

I learned about them and made some in the early 1970s. I later learned that a Mexican-American restaurant owner in Texas created chips he called fritos and it inspired the Frito company to produce them commercially starting in the 1930's. The earliest ones and also the ones I made today were with an egg, salt, a cup of water and enough Masa to make a soft dough. I put it in a pastry bag with a ribbon tip and pipe it into hot oil. If I ever decide to try it again, I think I'll add some seasoning like taco seasoning or chili pepper. It is a lot easier to just tear open a bag and start munching.😋

I found out that my son likes pan fried okra a lot more than I thought. So before it goes out of season and the farmers markets close, I thought I'd make it one more time. I saw a Country Style Ribs that looked better that usual. It was one big thick slab of meat with bones. Charlie has been doing some remodeling,,, mostly in the basement where I have a pottery studio. He built some shelves which are lighted. He also added some lighting under the cabinets so the kitchen counters are lit. While I was looking through an old cookbook that I kept before I had a computer, I came across home made corn chips and thought I'd try them again and see how the would compare to todays store bought ones. They are OK but the taste is not as developed as they have become after all those years. Finally Povitica bread is BOGO this time of the year and we had some of that too.

I cooked some okra and green beans from the farmers market and used left over chili with some added corn and taco seasoning in a corn bread topped casserole. I added some cheese to the corn bread.