Christmas feast

We had some folks over for a Christmas feast -- a good day for cooking. In advance we made pumpkin pie and cookies: lemon cloud, chocolate crinkles, and oatmeal chocolate chip.

Experimented making orange jello from scratch for a spiced peach mold (recipe from Betty Crocker).

Probably rosemary oven roasted red potatoes.
On the day we baked Fresh yams baked in orange sauce which were well received, roasted red potatoes with garlic and rosemary, sourdough rolls, and a peach pie.

Better than Store Bought Cookies

Here is a rather detailed account of my adaptation of the "Good as Store Bought Cookie" recipe from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion cookbook that Sharon calls "Better than Store Bought Cookies".

Pork chops and Apple sauce

Now that we have quite a supply of pork chops in the freezer, I suspect there will be a lot of experimenting with pork chops in my future. We had some applesauce that I used in the sauce with a reduction from the juices from cooking the chops.

I used the Easy Pork Chop recipe from The Best Recipe. At least I started with that recipe. To the reduced sauce I added some fresh bread crumbs, which made the sauce too thick. This gave me the idea to add a little hot apple sauce, and then a little more until it seemed about right.

I served the pan sauce on top of the chops and put a little of the hot apple sauce on the side for good measure.

Update: I made these again, but added some steamed mixed vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots) to the sauce. Seemed like a good addition.

Sausage Potato Casserole

I had some pork sausage and some potatoes that I wanted to cook. So after a little googling, I found an interesting looking recipe for Sausage Potato Casserole.

I mostly followed the recipe, except I used cream of potato soup rather than cream of mushroom. And I added some spices: ginger, galangal, grains of paradise, long pepper, and cubebs. I used a little more potato and pork than the recipe called for so it ended up being three layers rather than two. I thought about using a larger dish, but I like the added thickness.

7 Gauge Steel Griddle

Who else could go for some flap jacks? 

I was unhappy with my old non-stick griddle which  wasn't thick enough and I felt like I need to be so delicate with the finish. Not the relationship I wanted to have with my griddle. So I decided to spring for a Chef King Griddle made out of 7 gauge "Unbreakable High Quality Steel". I bought mine at Rose's Restaurant Equipment.

After some initial seasoning I gave some pancakes a whirl.