New Year's Eve Baked Seafood Fettucine

Watch this space. Recipe soon and photos to be organized!

Scalloped Creamy Corny Potatoes

After all that rich, buttery, creamy food at Christmas and on New Year's Eve and Day, what better way to go than to continue that diet for one more day?

We invited our friends George and Marjorie for a long-overdue visit and dinner. Baked ham was on the menu, so naturally I had to make scalloped potatoes to go with it. After reading a few recipes on the internet and imagining the flavour I wanted to create, I came up with this:

6 medium potatoes - peeled and thinly sliced - I used a mix of Russets and Yukon Gold

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

1 tsp salt

3/4 tsp ground Chipolte Pepper

fresh ground black pepper

2 1/2 c milk (or cream!)

1 finely-chopped small onion

1 clove minced garlic

1 1/2 c frozen corn

1 c grated cheese

Preheat oven to 325 deg. F

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat; blend in flour, garlic and spices; stir until smooth then gradually blend in the milk or cream and boil and stir for about a minute.

Arrange 1/3 of the potatoes in a greased skillet; add 1/3 of the onions, corn and sauce. Repeat two more times. Sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Cover and bake until the potatoes are tender - about one hour. Remove the cover and broil the cheese until crispy, cheesy, bubby! Let it stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Experimental Garlicky Rosemary-y Lemony Potatoes

I wanted some potatoes to go with some sausages we bought at the Meat Market in Duncan. "Mild Italian with Fennel" so ... here is my experiment:

Preheat oven to 350 F

Peel 3 or 4 russet (baking) potatoes and dice into 3/4 inch cubes

Coarsely chop a large onion

Some fresh fennel bulb sliced or chopped into chunks - centre core removed - reserve some of the leafy feathers

Maybe you could peel and slice in half lengthwise some garlic cloves - not too many - about 15 - 20 will do - but not too much garlic ...

About 1/4 cup of really oily olive oil

Fresh snipped rosemary from your herb garden and reserved leftover fennel feathers

Lemon pepper

Salt (sea ..., smoked ... pick one)

Chop everything choppable, but keep the rosemary and fennel feathers aside. Put the veggies on a roasting pan and sprinkle with the olive oil, lemon pepper and salt. Drop sliced garlic all over and stir so everything is coated with olive oil.

Put pan in preheated oven. Roast, pausing to stir and turn every 15 minutes or so for about an hour and a half or two. Potatoes and onions should be golden brown with black speckles from the pepper ... when they look good and the potatoes are cooked, take them out of the oven, sprinkle with chopped rosemary and the fennel feathers (or lemon thyme?) and serve.

Next time I will add a little more salt and keep an eye out for over-cooking, and instead of lemon pepper, I will sprinkle the potatoes with fresh lemon juice ... and some thyme or oregano ...

When you snip herbs from your herb garden (even if you are only trimming them back), remember to inhale the wonderful aroma. Nothing smells as wonderful as a bundle of fresh herbs.

Sprinkle your herb trimmings on some fresh tomatoes or add them to your salad.

Honey/Mustard Sauce for Chicken

Made this up today - since the other recipes I found for honey/mustard sauce all called for honey and I didn't have any - except for an unopened jar of "chili honey" that I got for Christmas. It's spicy, warm, and sweet. So, here goes:

Mix all ingredients together:

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup chili honey

2 heaping tablespoons (or to taste) EACH of:

Orange chipotle mustard

Sweet grainy mustard (has maple syrup in it)

Cheap, regular French's mustard

2 cloves of crushed garlic

While chicken is cooking, baste it with the sauce every 10 - 15 minutes or so.

Of course, I have not yet actually COOKED the chicken - but the sauce sure tastes good in the bowl! You could probably do without the butter, but why?

UPDATE: As good as it was in the bowl, some of the flavour got lost in the cooking process. Original recipe called for one tablespoon of each mustard - not mustardy enough when cooked so I upped the mustards and added the garlic because garlic equals extra mustard in this particular instance.