Chicken noodle plus a ham salad sammich. The soup has some shrimp and veggies from the chow mein we had the other day.

I had a fleeting urge to make this into a bacon & egg sammich but I had already doused it with syrup. It would have been messy.

Bitsy climbed into a corkscrew willow and took her time unclimbing it. Some angry jay birds helped her make up her mind to leave.

This is done hot mess style using a russet instead of a sweet potato. Much else remains the same. This one uses sour cream instead of my secret sauce but Mrs J says that I should have gone with the secret sauce. I think I may go with a Yukon Gold next time I have some big enough.

Also known as a Hot Mess. It’s hit and miss at Kroger on finding nice sweet potatoes, but we hit them just right with these dandy specimens. This has secret sauce, butter, smoked pork, minced ham, a cheddar sauce, and some feta just because I had a little. They baked at 375 for an hour after a rub with oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt. The skin can be left on for service but I think it’s better with it removed.

I tried to replicate my recent successful go at crispy pork belly but didn’t get what I was looking for so I made do with this. Most of the recipes out there for sticky pork belly start with uncooked pork that is par-boiled for a bit but I started with my latest not-so-crispy effort. This is an easy recipe, just mix together a few ingredients and add them to chunks of pork in a pan. Reduce the sauce until it coats the pieces well and serve. My sauce included mirin, light soy, dark soy, black vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, oyster sauce, sesame oil, lots of minced garlic, ginger shavings, red pepper flakes, black pepper and a splash of water. Brown sugar works well in this but I had plenty of sweet with several of the other parts of the sauce so I didn’t add any. I did add some corn starch to hasten the thickening.

Left to right: Bea, Bitsy, and Homer. February 2013