We cooked a ham earlier in the week, and still have a lot of it left. I decided to use some of it in jambalaya; I use pentane's recipe as a starting point. That calls for chorizo sausage, which is easily obtained around here -- however, I have a considerable amount of ground pork, so I opted to make my own, using this recipe: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1649,149160-233202,00.html
I discovered that I do not have cumin, but I DO have coriander, and a mortar and pestle, so used that. I'm also going to toss in some cooked chicken (dark meat) and some shrimp towards the end.

I prefer chicken breasts but have not bought any in a while, instead we have a supply of whole chickens from a local farm -- so, tonight we prepped one for the crock pot. We didn't have any whole lemons unfortunately, so we're soaking an onion in lemon juice, and will put that in the cavity (most crockpot recipes suggest stuffing the chicken with half a lemon and an onion). Obviously we salted the cavity, and seasoned the skin. It will get tossed into the crockpot before we go to bed tonight, to cook through the night (along with some potatoes). I think I'll add some coriander to that too. We'll carve it up, and leave the drippings in the pot with the bones and trimmings and make broth in the pot -- I've not done it that way before, but it seems to me it should work fine. I may add some carrots and parsnips (they are starting to sprout) to the broth as well. I know we'll eat the white meat, and some but not all of the dark, so I figure some of the latter can get added to the jambalaya, and I'll probably use some of the broth in the jambalaya as well.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!

I enjoyed mine :) even though as usual it was too short.

sisca_mainacier and I drove, so we arrived the Sat evening
before Thanksgiving, and left after lunch the Saturday after. With the way
the week worked out, I had a wonderful visit with my mother, but she is
actually the only one I felt I got a good visit with. My father was in Las
Vegas (with my brother) until Wednesday night; my brother and his crew
didn't arrive until noon Thursday; and even though my sister kethry70 lives in the area, she had to work, so I didn't see a lot of her
and my nephew. Luckily Kethry and her husband had come to visit just a few
weeks ago, so I had had a recent visit with them (albeit sans nephew).

My mother, Sisca and I went to the Atlanta Historical Society, which was
quite interesting, getting a tour of an old farmhouse and its associated
buildings, as well as a quite extravagant home built in the 1920s. We
didn't make it through all the different inside exhibits, so I have reason
to go back. Seeing how the homes were built and furnished, and all the
different cooking and craftwork implements, was intriguing. Even in a
Georgian summer a root cellar maintains a temperature of 55 and below we
learned. I found myself wishing I had one now, to store all the root
vegetables I've not used up from our CSA boxes.

In retirement my mother has resumed painting, taking several classes, and
there were a number of her paintings scattered about the house. She is
really quite good! We took back with us a small painting she had done of
Stargazer Lilies -- they were the primary flower in my bridal bouquet, and
the dark green background will work well in our bedroom. She fussed a bit,
as she had intended to rework one of the petals, and there wasn't time to do
so before the week was out, but she decided she could live with it as she
wouldn't be seeing it regularly :o

Like Nhinx before me, I spent time on my vacation doing things I rarely do
at home -- namely cook! As posted earlier, I did a lot of the cooking last
week. Mostly cooking entrees we had previously made up and frozen, but also
several vegetable dishes. I found repeat-worthy recipes for beets, parsnips
and kale. I also made bread and helped with the stuffing for Thanksgiving.
My mother does the gravy, my sole contribution there was reminding her to
add red wine -- the addition of Marsala made it sublime!

I also spent time on my crocheting, but I'll post on that separately, once I
get some photos taken.

sisca_mainacier and I arrived at my parents' house Saturday night. My father is in Las Vegas with my brother until Wednesday. We brought with us some of our entrees from Dinner by Design, as well as our most recent box of produce from our CSA. So, yesterday we cooked. Dinner was 'Harvest Pork Tenderloin'. It was absolutely scrumptious, and very easy: In a plastic bag -- one pork tenderloin; 1 cup apple slices (peeled); 1 cup fresh cranberries; 2 cups orange juice; a cup or so of brown sugar; and a teaspoon or so each of ground allsplice, ginger, cloves. Marinate in bag. Bake uncovered for about an hour at 375-400 (depending on oven) target temp is 160 at center.

We accompanied it with an interesting side dish: saute in oil 1 cup each sliced onions (we used shallots)and sliced parsnips (looks like yellow carrots) for about 5 minutes; add 2 tb minced (fresh) ginger and one 1 cup water; simmer ~5 minutes, covered; add 1 cup kale -- deveined and cut into bite sized pieces -- and simmer ~5 covered. It too was surprisingly good.

Today I made us hot cocoa -- about 1.5 tb each cocoa and sugar in milk, heated to steaming. A little too sweet, and the cocoa didn't break up enough, I'll need to do a better job of premixing the sugar and cocoa next time.

It's coolish and raining, so we have no ambition for anything more involved then reading and Sudoku.

Tonight my sister is coming over, and we're going to Houston's for dinner so I can get my ribs fix. In the meantime though, I'm going to make ice cream bread for her, as she is allergic to yeast. (2 cups ice cream, any flavor; 1 cup self-rising flour; bake in bread pan at 350 about 40 minutes)

/ETA We used Cherry Vanilla ice cream; it made a very tasty albeit slightly sweet bread, with lovely melted bits of cherry. It was good both with and without a bit of butter, and there's just enough left for my sister to try it :o

I've posted this in a few other threads. This cake is very rich. If made as the layer cake the directions call for, make sure you make very small slices. I've been known to make it in brownie pans instead, making it easier to cut small squares. Portion control is a must!

( Chocolate Fudge Cake )