Anna N

Cauliflower cheese always struck me as a silly name for the dish. And I wouldn’t dream of trying to persuade you to like it regardless of its name. As for macaroni and cheese…. Have never seen the point. Rubber and glue truly describes it. But I didn’t grow up with the blue box or any other version for that matter. My kids and grandkids still eat the stuff.

Home made baguette slices brushed with olive oil and pan grilled before being scrubbed with tomato and piled with prosciutto.

Cauliflower with cheese sauce and a dusting of smoked paprika.

Thanks. I think there is enough leftover bread in this house that I would not need to buy it. But perhaps I’m missing something.

Bon voyage.

Thank you so much, @ninagluck Such an interesting use of cheese and leftover bread.

@ninagluck Your soup looks very inviting. Can you please say more about the fried bread dumplings? When you say mountain cheese do you mean something like Gruyere?

Back in the day Melissa Clark’s recipe for roasted broccoli and shrimp seemed to be on everybody’s radar. Long before we were talking about sheet pan suppers, this one-dish fast and easy meal won many fans. But when I went on a hunt for it today I discovered not everybody loved it Click. Still I was prepared to give it a chance. There’s no doubt it was very easy and with very little clean up but I, too, found it less than earth shattering. Perhaps it was just overhyped. I will still keep it in my back pocket. In the background you can spot a broccoli stem salad. Nothing but peeled broccoli stems sliced and tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Just a selection of the batch of cookies I made today. Thank heaven I opted to make only half the recipe. I don’t expect these will get kudos from my usual audience. They are a little too plain and probably not nearly sweet enough. They came about because @Kerry Beal returned from her trip to Belgium with a jar of speculaas spice for me. I knew I needed to put it to good use. Googling suggested that I really needed a special mold (springerle) to make these cookies but that was not going to happen. And having had a look at these molds online I don’t think this dough would have worked very well with them. There was too much spreading and expansion that would obliterate any fine lines. Still I wish I had at least had a windmill cutter. These are really my kind of cookies to enjoy with a cup of coffee.

What a lovely, lovely story. Thank you so much for sharing.

A somewhat different take on bacon and egg. In a little book that Kerry Beal thrust into my hands yesterday, Posh Toast, I spotted a recipe for bacon soldiers and soft boiled egg. Basically it is little more than crispy bacon mixed with butter and used as a spread. I felt compelled to guild the lily just a little and added some smoked paprika to the butter and bacon mixture. I am also a complete wuss with soft boiled eggs. So here is my interpretation — a poached egg on toast that has been spread with bacon and butter. It is not going to take the food world by storm but it did keep me amused this morning and was very tasty.

Kerry is about to fly away once more and leave me to my own devices. We managed to squeeze in a lunch today. We found a new place in Oakville called Celadon House. It advertises itself as serving Asian comfort food Kerry enjoyed some roasted corn tea. I thought the water was a whole lot tastier. Spicy calamari with an interesting vinegar and garlic dipping sauce. Celadon Chicken Adobo Asian Spice Pork Chop.

Yup. They can! Which is not to say they are but it’s surprising how many recipes turn out food that would be inedible to most of us but still garner stars on the Internet.

That definitely makes sense to me. I would certainly never choose chicken breast as an ideal protein to be cooked in the Instant Pot.

And surely fun is what it is all about! Life is much too short to think otherwise.

Thank you. No they were seasoned with salt and pepper but that is all and they were cooked in olive oil as per the recipe. I used an enameled cast iron griddle pan.

I positively had to try the green beans in the instant pot cooked for zero minutes. I was quite positive they would be overcooked but, au contraire, they remained a little too toothsome for my taste. Will try one minute next time.

Ditto.

I was also taken aback by the use of beef sausage but to each their own. I find beef sausage to be on the dry side. If one is prepared to use commercial pastry, sausage rolls are one of the fastest and easiest ways to serve something “en croute”. This is my fallback recipe.

Many thanks.

I think there are a lot of variables at play here and that what works for one person and one type (and age) of mushroom may not work so well for another. I shall be very limited in what mushrooms are available to me but I have it in my heart that I will give all these methods a shot and decide what works best for me and the mushrooms that I have on hand.

From David Tanis’ new book Market Cooking — seared cauliflower with anchovy, lemon, and capers.

That is a gift of cultured butter on the muffin made using the Spinzall. Delicious.

But it might perhaps be a bit challenging for a sous chef.

Simple but oh so good. A friend dropped by this afternoon carrying gifts of foodstuffs. Too many choices faced me but it seemed only right to attack each one according to its likely longevity. The green beans won. I sliced up a shallot and made some crispy shallot rings. I steamed some of the green beans, crisped up two slices of prosciutto, sauteed some mushrooms in garlic oil and then tossed everything together and sprinkled the crispy shallots on the top.