[Mark Fotherington (Shar)]

You know, this thing is handy for plotting out menus...

We're going to friends for tomorrow's lunch, so I'm only cooking for tonight, I'm thinking:

Breads 'n spreads
Squash soup
'Beef' roll-up with Smartground instead of beef because SOMEbody in my life is vegetarian
Carrots-greenbeans-walnuts salad

Maybe cookies for dessert? I'm in the mood for something crunchy. But I'm not in the mood fo rthe time required for cookie-baking.

Anyhow, this week is simple and non-experimental at all, unless someone can give me advice on the two eggplants I was suckered into buying by a cute face and two big eyes and a little voice wanting to know how purple vegetables taste. I'm not making pie, since I've already got the 'beef' roll-up, which is a tomato-based crust and a meat or 'meat' filling rolled up and baked. Pie would be too much of a good thing.

[Hugo Fotherington (Vikki)]

Um... drawing a blank on the eggplant recipes I'm afraid. I tend to toss it into stir-fries or add it to burritos because something in me refuses to make a meal without some kind of vegetable in it.

As for me, I'm learning just how tedious and finicky darning fine-weave cotton is. I have a new-found respect for 1940s housewives.

[Victor Kincaide (Emily)]

Roast the eggplants? Slice and grill them on a barbeque with a little olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, perhaps, and some black pepper?

[Harriet Fforde (Shar)]

Ok, continuing to use this as my private cooking-plans thread (how did that happen, and where's everyone else?!)...

This week

Fri. night

Breads 'n Spreads (making fresh this week since we have guests and are almost done with the loaves in the freezer)
Moroccan chickpea and vegetables stew
Apple pie (experimental recipe)

Sat. lunch

Breads 'n Spreads
Sushi (California rolls with mock crab)
Lentil soup
Blintz loaf
Carrots/Greenbeans/Walnuts salad
Apple pie

*looks that over*
Yep. Should do.
Just hope the pie's not a disaster, cause I really don't have a backup dessert.

[Hugo Fotherington (Vikki)]

I made salmon encroute this week, with dill sauce and spinach inside. It was yummy, although the parcels turned out HUGE. No kidding. It was practically a meal in itself. Will have to fix that next time, since I imagine it'll be a repeat recipe.

Still haven't decided on next needlework project, though, mostly because I have spent this week sewing ribbons and elastics to a veritable mountain of new pointes (ok, I lie... one pair of pointes, one of soft pointes) and contemplating if it's worth darning the ends, and continuing with a monumental delicate repair job of an item of great sentimental value to my other half. My fingers are needled out.

[Geoffrey Stapleton (Shar)]

Another weekend... This time we've got a vegetarian weekend guest who eats fish.

Tonight:
Breads and Spreads
Spinach soup
Stuffed flounder
Polenta with sauteed onions and garlic and black beans
Apple pie? (Slightly modified version,a s last week's crust was both too complicated and too rich--I'll just used a bought pie crust this week, much though it pains me. I have one int he freezer...)

Tomorrow:
Tonight's leftovers
Crockpot lentil soup

Also I might make chocolate pudding because the milk I bought THREE DAYS AGO has spoiled!

[Stephen Brydges (Emily)]

I have sworn to make an apple crumble (some might call it an apple crisp, some might debate the actual differences between the two, but in my head they're interchangeable,) so I'll be doing that tonight. Got some whipping cream to go with it, because, really, there's no other way to have it properly. (Ice cream, in a pinch, is not bad, but...eh. Sits too heavy on the crisp, for me.)

ETA:

Success!

[Arthur Dalrymple (Vikki)]

No no no. Custard is the only thing to have with a fruit crumble.

BTW Emily, do you make yours with rolled oats in the topping? It looks sort of... flatter and flakier than mine, somehow, and reminds me of flapjacks or something. My crumble is just plain butter, flour and sugar. Yummy. Might make one on Sunday actually.

And once again I want to be at Shar's house for dinner this weekend

Here's what I'm making for my dance teachers for Christmas gifts:





They're very simple so shouldn't take me very long at all. I can't find the picture of the one I really really WANT to do though. It was gorgeous.

[Stephen Brydges (Emily)]

I have a complicated relationship with custard...we did not meet under the best of circumstances. Custard is the Darcy to my Lizzy, if you will; and I do not yet think well of custard. Also, it's not a prevalent foodstuff in the godless colonial wilds, here... XD

Yeah, I use equal parts rolled oats, butter, flour and brown sugar. Though it turned out as a pretty fine mixture this time, and I'm not sure why. Usually it's crumblier/oatier, in a way.

[Stephen Brydges (Emily)]

Don't know if it counts as a craft, but I finally got 'round to experimenting with time-lapse video. Please excuse the filthy window.