Week 17: We vote yes!

Recipes to Go: 507 340

Weeks to Go: 52 35

Recipes Made this Week
Tomato Bacon Pie

Broccoli with Mustard Sauce

Candidate's Choice Short Ribs

Roasted Onion Salad

Voter's Favorite Float

Election Day Cookies

Bean and Pork Chop Bake

Old-Fashioned Dressing

Pot Roast with Gravy

Classic Carrot Cake

Pumpkin Scones with Berry Butter

You'll have to forgive me for the lack of pictures this week. Apparently I gave up half-way through. Which, quite frankly, surprises me since every time I sit down to eat now I think, "I need to take a picture of this".

Anyway, I made the bacon pie on Sunday. It was good, but I've been having trouble recently getting my bacon to cook evenly.

When I put bacon in things, I don't want the fatty bits to be too chewy, but the meaty bits get perfect before the fatty bits do, so I had a bit of a rubbery problem in a few of my bites of this pie. That, and the greasiness of the leftovers aside, it was delicious. The Husband would, of course, argue with everything I'm saying, I'm sure, and claim it was heavenly. But that's just because the main ingredient is bacon. And he loves everything to do with bacon on principle.

To go with the bacon I made broccoli with mustard sauce. The Husband said when he tasted it, "this is exactly how I hoped it would taste." Apparently he had broccoli just like it at a fancy restaurant once and loved it. The rest of the family agreed. The Captain loved the sauce as all toddlers do with condiments. I'm pretty sure condiments are his favorite food.

Tuesday was Election Day. I hope everyone remembered to vote. I didn't get registered in VA in time, so I could not.

And just to rub it in, we did an election themed dinner featuring short ribs, floats and cookies.

The ribs were excellent. They took very little effort and were divine. So good, they made the picture fuzzy.

The salad to go with everything was good because it was based in roasted onions. I love roasted onions.

And the dressing to go with it had chili flakes in it so it had a nice kick.

I think next time I won't use a bagged

salad, though, because the radishes were just a bit much.

Why has it taken me so long to hear about this float? Seriously the easiest thing I've made, and you know I've made some easy stuff. Three ingredients: vanilla ice cream (had that leftover in the freezer), apple juice--just plan old simple breakfast drink apple juice, and a sprinkling of nutmeg on top. No carbonation, (which made me love it more) and yet so good. And apple juice is dirt cheap most of the time. I'm pretty sure I know what our leftover ice cream making experiments will be going in the future . . .

Now, to be honest, we still hadn't finished all the gingerbread cookies from Halloween, but I really wanted to make the election day cookies. So I only made half the recipe. And it was the best-tasting sugar cookie dough I've had in awhile. I didn't frost them, and they were still delicious, and we cut them out in elephant, donkey (well, horse, but who can tell?), and the continental U.S. shapes. And it only took 2 days for them to disappear. What can I say, I am a cookie monster at heart.

Remember how I said that I wasn't sure if I like pork chops? Well I adored everything about the Bean and Pork Chop Bake. The chops were amazing, and the beans were even better. That was because they had maple flavoring and apples in them, which though not traditional in baked beans were a wonderful flavor additive. It didn't even take too much effort to make. I guess this means I will have to start buying cans of baked beans since that's what made it so easy. If all pork chops tasted like this I wouldn't have trouble figuring out if I liked them.

The Old Fashioned Dressing . . . okay I'm normally not a fan of dressing. I think Stove Top is my least favorite part about Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. And there's little I don't love about it, so that says a lot. I looked long and hard for a stuffing recipe I could stand behind for my Pre-Thanksgiving Day Feast. And I found one that I want all the leftovers of. But this dressing was also delicious. And because it's made in the slow cooker, it was even better. I did use the leftover corn bread I had lying around, so that added to its yumminess. But I will make this again this winter. And it gave me the idea to use my slow cooker for my Feast to make life a little less stressful.

The pot roast was good. But then, when is a pot roast not? The only thing I will do differently next time is add carrots and potatoes to the pot. I had every intension of doing this, but just forgot when it came time to put things together. There was a lot of vinegar in the sauce for this, so it had a unique flavor that everyone seemed to enjoy. And there was plenty of gravy.

The classic carrot cake was great! I only used 3/4 the cream cheese to make the frosting and it was still the most delicious cream cheese frosting I've ever tasted. And the cake stayed moist for a week. Well, okay, it probably would have stayed moist for a week, but it didn't make it that long, of course. We only had a few to game night and I sent them home with cake. I wanted to give them half, but The Husband convinced me not to, and I must say when I ate it for breakfast all week, I was grateful.

Last recipe of the week was the Pumpkin Scones with Berry Butter. First of all, the butter. Cranberries, which I love, butter, and powdered sugar. Good idea. The scones themselves were perfect. Big, moist but not too much, wonderful flavor. I've already made them again, and because they take only 1/2 cup pumpkin, I can make batches all winter. And I plan to because The Captain, The Husband, and I couldn't get enough.

So, this week the votes were in and pretty much everything got at least two thumbs up. We were all spoiled with delicious food, and with Thanksgiving coming up soon, let's hope it continues.