Cheesy macs with railway tracks

The plan had been for a barbecue, maybe even a campfire so we could cook hot dogs on sticks. But once again, it was too darn cold – yet another night for making supper in the oven.
The dogs were a given, a pack of New Orleans smokeys. The mac part was another story, as we’re down to mostly exotic sorts of cheeses.

There was a bag of big fat ‘cut ziti’ so noodles weren’t a problem. But all there was in the way of cheesy sauce was a jar of mushroom Alfredo.

I grated down some nubs of Parmesan for sprinkling over top, then stirred the chunks that were too small for grating into the noodles and sauce.
The smokeys? Split in half and laid side-by-side they made a cozy topping. And leaving the oven door open while we ate meant that all that leftover heat could make The Rattler cozy too.

Easy Sattahday Night Supper

Because I hate to throw away good food, tonight’s supper was a casserole that only had to be heated up.

Last night, I’d combined the leftover pasta salad with the previous night’s ‘green pasta’ dish. I’d also sliced up the two leftover sausages and added them into the mix. When we didn’t finish all the vegies I’d sliced to top the burgers (tomato and green pepper), those made a nice topper for the casserole.

While the pasta dish heated in the microwave, a little pot of broccoli steamed on the stove. With a bowl of green salad, we were set.

Yet another wild combo-nation

Now that we're here in the midst of lake perch country, what do we eat but ocean perch. That's the fish that conveniently happened to be in the freezer, and with the weather being blustery and winterish, I knew that this was an oven night -- yet again.

Because the range of my spices is quite limited, I had to think hard about how to season the fish. Lemon juice and butter made a good start, but for more flavour, I dug around and found something called a 'chicken rub'. Not a feathery massage, but a combo of ginger and basil. A sprinkling of this and the fish were ready for baking.

My little casserole dish filled with packaged scalloped potatoes fit right alongside the pan with the fish. For colour and fun, I tossed a few of those little carrots in with the potatoes. Because they're so small, they kept perfect time, cooking right along with the taters.

My extravagance? A spinach 'souffle', one that -- by the time we ate -- had absolutely no puff to it at all. But still, it was rich and delicious.

And the salad's single concession to all this weirdness was the last of the pickled beets chopped into it.

Hard to classify such a strange meal as this. Still, it kept the cold out, and left us hoping the change of calendar page tomorrow will bring some warmer days.

Cozy comfort

Note:
This post is a bit of a cheat, as there's been a big interruption in postings. Disasters of the technological variety. Still, thanks to the date stamp on photos and crazy notes I often keep, it should work. And thanks to being able to fiddle with post dates, well, it's sort of a "Back to the Future" feeling...

I'm not sure what we did in our past lives, but cold weather continues to travel with us. Still, we know how to stay warm.

Our main was a surprisingly good mac-and-cheese (one of those upgraded versions of the classic KD). I often add tomatoes, but since I didn't have any, frozen peas went in with chopped onion. A salad on the side and -- I'll admit I am puzzled -- some sort of mystery dish on the side.

Feels good to be back on the blogging trail. Normal and even kind of cozy.

Plain and good

For stay-at-home Saturday night comfort food, it's hard to beat macaroni and cheese, especially when it's complete with tomatoes and onions. The mixed colours of the pasta almost make it look festive.

With broccoli and a green salad, I'm set for a relaxing night.

Use it up!

Tonight's supper isn't so much a matter of using leftovers, as of using up the butts of things that shouldn't spend much more time in the fridge.

There was the corner of a ham and a few red potatoes (okay, they would have been fine a while longer), so an easy conclusion to come to was scalloped potatoes with ham. For part of the milk portion, I used the last of a container of cottage cheese. Not something I'd tried before, but I figured Why not?

Tomorrow's the day for going out to stock up on produce, so the last third of a pepper, a final chunk of purple onion and the non-bruised part of an apple went in with the lettuce for the salad.

A few tired green beans steamed up just fine for a spot of green.

Amazing

Lots of amazing aspects to today, including the freezing cold temps and gusty winds. Even more amazing was that the bravest roofers in town managed to work on top of our house, in spite of the weather (without getting blown away!).

Lucky us, we were invited out for an amazing supper -- a lasagna-y casserole with whole wheat pasta, and so many fillings -- salsa, red pepper, cottage cheese, pork -- topped with Monterey Jack, one of the most amazing melting cheeses ever.

Part of the treat? The finale of one of our favourite reality shows, the one that starts with the word Amazing.

What a treat!

After spending the day in Vancouver at a workshop, the last thing I'd have wanted to do was figure out something for supper. Happily, I didn't have to.

The D.M. greeted me with news that he'd just filled the bath and that by the time I was cleaned up and relaxed, supper would be served.

He took a page from my book and started with one of our reliably-good packages of au gratin style potatoes. He then added another variety of the mushrooms we'd found the other day (this time, a bolete) to the mix and topped the dish with a few of those delicious sausages (bockwurst) that he'd made with our friend John back in September. Along with a salad filled with chunks of pepper and onion, it made for a beautiful meal.

Must admit, I do love being pampered.

Warm and cozy

It was a dark and stormy night... er, day.

Just about everything cooked in the oven, including a big pan of apple crisp that made the house smell even cozier when the troops arrived for Sunday family dinner.

Scalloped potatoes, another squash from Trauma Farm, green beans, corn, and great big hunk of ham. I'll confess one of the reasons I bought the ham was to get some bones I can put in the freezer for making soups over the coming rainy season.

Welcome home surprise

One of the best parts of going away is coming back home. And lucky me, to come home to not one, but two great surprises.

A hot bath was waiting and . . . supper was in the oven.

The DM had assembled a wonderfully exotic casserole built from leftovers of all he'd been eating over the weekend. There was everything from chicken to Chinese noodles, with a lot of assorted vegies and flavours in the mix.

Even a salad, with a few grapes tossed in as an extra surprise.

Thankful for all that's around

I'm not a gardener. If a plant comes up on its own and survives, I'm thrilled. Beyond that, nothing stands much of a chance.

Still, I'm grateful that we have a few remaining clingers-on in what passes for the garden here, especially as I decided to celebrate our thankfulness by staying away from the shops and making do with what we had on hand.

There was one Cornish hen waiting in the freezer for just such an occasion as Thanksgiving, so she became tonight's main dish.

On the weekend we did a fair bit of foraging and came up with some windfall apples and Asian pears. Today I combined a few of those apples with some straggler berries still hanging on to the blackberry bushes out back. There were even two last-gasp raspberries out by the fence. Because they too went into the mix, I think I can get away with calling the resulting dish a fruit compote, one that serves as a nice substitute for the traditional cranberry sauce.

Since we found so many mushrooms yesterday, the stuffing for the little bird was abundant with chanterelles and corals. A red rice casserole baked in the oven at the same time as the bird. It too was full of mushrooms, mainly big chunks of chanterelles.

One stunted squash worked well as first veg; a panful of sauteed lobster mushrooms did an admirable job of backup.

The salad was a bigger challenge, as there were only a few little tomatoes left on the vines outside. I added some onion, a bit of parsley from the garden and sliced up the last of the lettuce (the bits we didn't use in our sandwiches yesterday). The butt of a chunk of blue cheese played a role in making the salad both filling and festive. A few walnuts from the pantry were the holiday topper.

Although I felt less successful with the drink I tried to make from rose hips (we pruned a gigantic bush like crazy today) and the very last quince, the combo turned out to be more than just scent for the kitchen. A drizzle of it over top of the Cornish hen added exactly the right smoky flavour, as well as a bit of colour.

Even the bouquet on the table was part of the day's found bounty. A good day to give thanks.

Thinking about yet another birthday

The date was actually last Tuesday, but today’s the day I’m honouring Betty, the person whose butter tart recipe I still use every Christmas.

Besides sharing that secret formula, she also taught me how to make the best macaroni and cheese. In fact, she sometimes signs her cards “Mac ‘n Cheese Betty”.

Because I didn’t have any green onions, I used some finely chopped purple onion and chives from the garden. The ingredient that makes this recipe so delicious is lots of chunked-up fresh tomatoes. Luckily, I had three beautifully red and juicy ones.

Sometimese I add onions and tomatoes to the dish everyone knows (and secretly loves), the brand-name boxed version. Yep, it takes it up quite a few notches!

Even if she lives too far away to join us, broccoli and a salad make this a supper worthy of a wonderful birthday gal.


For the record, we even had the last of the traditional birthday-celebrating cake (made by another person named B) for dessert.

Thursday night bonus

What an easy week of cooking it's been -- leftovers, restaurant food, and tonight, an invitation out.

Today was cool again, so I'd been dreaming about chili, but what we got was even better. A layered casserole of white corn tortillas, alternated with a combination of beans and corn and refried beans and topped with Monterey Jack cheese. Fresh local corn was juicy and sweet. The green salad was full of surprises -- bits of broccoli and a special vinaigrette.

We had to rest before we were ready for the dessert, a spectacular berry pie. The layer of pastry was filled with custard, then topped with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. Really, how much better can summer treats be.

Hot food for a cold night

There's no other term for it, today is shockingly cold. Instead of having the leftover Greek food (so much of it is cool stuff), I went traditional and made us a mac and cheese. Because I had so much of that tomato salad left from last night, I piled it over top of the casserole.

And because my visiting sister's never had it before, I made the always-comforting Scalloped Salmon dish from the recipe book both she and I remember from when we were kids.

Double comfort zone.

Mac 'n moose

The best comfort food ever, macaroni and cheese. In company of moose steak and salads, supremo. And this is supposed to be camping?

Saturday night, scallopy goodness

Not the ocean-dwelling scallops (I’m waaay allergic), but cozy-up-comfortable scalloped potatoes. They were creamy as could be and were served with their traditional accompaniment, thickly sliced ham. I did my usual interfering with things, taking mustard for the ham and sprinkling grated cheese on the potatoes. Of course, there were vegies and fresh bread, as well as the usual array of salad fixings.

Dessert was assorted fruit and a platter of what looked big doughnut holes (sorry, no photo, but I think it's easy enough to picture what they looked like). The sign near them said ‘Lost and Found Doughnuts’ and some of us wondered what this meant. Turns out they’d lost the recipe for a while, but luckily, found it again.

Holiday Monday, sweet 'n sour

Or maybe, sour 'n sweet. Who determined the order of that pairing anyway? Do you suppose it's just a sound thing -- along the lines of Hardy & Laurel?

And though it probably has something to do with the fact that it's a long holiday weekend (Victoria Day), supplies in the kitchen seem to be dwindling. No matter how I searched (or asked) today, I couldn't come up with an apple. Still, there are plenty of other fruits available, so I guess I should shut up and stop being so picky.

As always, our faithful staff came up with a tidy meal for us tonight. A nicely herbed broccoli and cauliflower casserole, plus steamed rice and a pan of nice big meatballs -- complete with the aforementioned sweet 'n sour sauce. As usual, I arranged my salad on the side.

You'll see that I embellished my meal by adding salad bar bits (peppers and carrots) to the main course. I also dug out the old hot sauce and drizzled that over top.

Thankfully, the food is wonderful here. Still, that touch of spice tonight made me lonesome for home.

Last supper?

Well, that's maybe a little drastic. Still, this is the last supper I'll be having at home for a while.

I'm off to a retreat -- a place where someone else does the cooking. I'm not sure yet how reliable (un-?) online access might be, so who knows whether I'll be able to do postings. Tomorrow we'll know.

Tonight it's a barbie -- with the Dear Man cooking lamb chops and eggplant. I made a cheese sauce earlier and poured it over last night's leftover noodles. I saved a bit of the sauce for over top of some steamed cauliflower. Salad and black-bean homous (because there weren't any chick peas in the pantry) make it complete!

Early early, quicky quicky

Even though there's a group eating here tonight, I can't be part of that meal because I'm off into Van again.

My share towards the supper is a casserole, mac 'n cheese. I'm having a quick little tester bowl before I have to catch the bus into the big smoke.

A little crazy, but then, what else is new?

Bit of this, bit of that

Some leftover cheese sauce from Sunday served as the inspiration for this not-very-inspired supper. Macaroni and cheese, the most basic of comfort foods.

Some green beans and a salad at least give it a bit of balance.