Mom in law's meatballs

We are about to go on a trip, and I had some vegetables and fresh bread, and I was wondering what to make...and I thought, meatball heroes!!!!  My Mother -in-law recently told me about her luscious meatball recipe, and I thought, THAT'S what I'll make!!!!!
I ran to the supermarket and got some ground sirloin, an onion, and some Italian dressing; then I came back and worked the magic!  I would tell you more of the ingredients, but then that would be giving away the secret!!!
I had some bake-at-home bread from Trader Joe's and threw that in the oven when I could tell the meatballs were almost ready. 
When the bread was done, I cut it open, steaming, and scooped the meatballs -in-sauce into them; pure sweet heaven!

I will be making these again!

Eggs Benedict - Part Deux

I promised to reveal what I learned about the poaching process for eggs; I read in my Taste of the South magazine, that you should pour 3 tablespoons of vinegar in the water that you boil the eggs in.  We did this, and I think it adds a saltiness to the eggs.
We had another breakfast of eggs benedict; but my husband proposed we have three each, and I did not need to be begged.

By the way - that's parsley and cayenne pepper sprinkled on top to provide some extra color.

New England Clam Chowda

This is another recipe from Good Housekeeping; I wasn't crazy about this, it was a little thin, so I only took one photo.

Gotta love some of those Good Housekeeping recipes

This last issue of Good Housekeeping has a whole bunch of recipes I wanted to try, so I flagged some, and set myself the goal of making a few of them.  This is the chicken pot pie; I was intrigued because it called for phyllo dough as the top crust*, and I happened to have some phyllo dough in the house.  It also called for parsnips, which I had never worked with before.

The parsnips were not a powerhouse of flavor; they were kind of like albino carrots.  I thought they functioned mostly as a filler, as potatoes sometimes do.

I loved this pie; it made a lot - will certainly make again!

*I usually prefer to have a bottom crust as well, but the recipe didn't call for it, and as this was my first time with this recipe, I didn't want to experiment.

Comfort food - beef pot roast and peas

Have to love pot roast and peas - one of my favorite meals....the only way it can be improved for me, is with some Yorkshire Pudding.  But I agreed to have this meal with noodles, which is my sister's preferred carb.  This was a celebratory pot roast.

Question - why was this pan constructed like this?

Just a question to anyone out there - why was this double range skillet constructed with a well around it?  This skillet, and I confess I ordered it online, has a "well" or "moat" running around the perimeter, that is supposed to catch fats and juices.  It sounded like a good idea....but when frying omelets, guess what happens to the eggs?
This is an attempt at an omelet with some vegetarian sausage patties next to it. 
The pan is otherwise new and sturdy; I guess I will just wait until the non-stick coating starts to chip, then I will quickly, oh yes very quickly, get a different model.

Eggs benedict with salmon

On or about February 12th, my husband got a hankering for eggs benedict - the ol' brunch go to.  But he wanted it with a twist; with smoked salmon on it, instead of the more common canadian bacon.
Well, we bought the salmon, also known as Nova Scotia Lox, at the supermarket in the deli section, and set about constructing our eggs benedict.
We poached the eggs - and later found out a trick for poaching them with some flavor, which I will get to in a future post - and prepared the Hollandaise sauce.
It was more a matter of timing and constructing the lovely layered stacks, and we were rather pleased and surprised when there they stood - why don't we make this more often?