This is such an easy dinner. Season bone-in chicken thighs with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. I gently pull up the skin and sprinkle spices underneath and replace the skin. I brush a bit of olive oil over them and then place them on top of halved potatoes and zucchini, also brushed with a bit of olive oil. Roast at 375 degrees.
Pear Crisp is delicious. It is my basic Apple Crisp recipe (here), added some walnuts and yum!
This starts out as a braise then continues with a sauté. Start the sausages, potatoes, and onions in a big pan with a cup of water or stock. Add a sprig of thyme and rosemary, cook with a cover until the potatoes are close to done. Remove the cover until the water has boiled off then add a little olive oil and continue until the food browns a bit.
I finally thawed that duck we bought circa Christmas last year. We have plenty of duck fat so a confit was a no-brainer:
The 6 inch deep hotel pan was just about perfect for this…
This is after 3 or 4 hours at 250. I grabbed a bone with tongs and it slipped right out. Had to have been a thigh bone because the two leg bones were still there.
I had the notion that I could crisp the skin under the broiler of my toaster oven but I think a pre-heated 500 degree oven would have been the better call. The skin wanted to brown under the broiler but I could see that it was going to burn the high spots. I pulled the skillet because the veggies were done and needed to be served.
We went with Brussels sprouts and teeny potatoes with prosciutto, sauteed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
The blueberry sauce was a reduction of red wine, balsamic vinegar, and the last of our blueberry syrup, with a dash of allspice and cinnamon.
The rice is my favorite box mix, Zatarain’s Long Grain and Wild Rice.
Don’t let anyone talk you into undercooking the beans when you make this, it’s not a stir fry.
The cornbread has chopped jalapenos and shredded cheddar and it works for me as an accompaniment for the beans.
I’ll call these bruschetta for lack of a better word. Some leftover awesome sauce spread on slices of that sourdough with Parmesan topping. Toasted in the oven. Hmm… might be pizza bread? Tasted good whatever its name.
This was the big holiday dinner. We did the rib roast sous vide and set the temp to 130, holding it there overnight. It was in the water bath for 12 hours or more. I roasted three kinds of potatoes in olive oil and honey – fingerling (white), sweet potato, and purple potato. In the little dish is a horseradish sauce for the beef. Also plated is a cranberry relish and a scoop of dressing leftover from the turkey day dinner.
I had the oven cranked to 550 for finishing the roast. Pat it dry then pop it into that smoking hot oven for 15 minutes or so. Here it is just out, resting while everything else was made ready. I cut the ribs off and tied them back on with string before sealing the bag , they make a nice rack.
Mrs J claimed the roast was delicious even though the rare finish was just barely within her comfort zone. I may do the next one to 135 or so. I can eat it medium, no problem!
Breakfast for dinner! That sausage was made locally, it was so good I decided to make a batch of sausage myself. More on that, later.
I did a sweet and sour pork dish for dinner today. The sauce was ketchup, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, juice from those pineapple chunks, brown sugar, and sesame oil. The pork tenderloin was browned a bit on both sides and then diced and tossed with the sauce and the pineapple bits.
Pretty good stuff! 
Post needz moar kittehs!
These are cooked for a long time over low heat – that’s what the “Southern Style” is all about. This dish today was cooked with a cured ham hock, one of those we travel an hour or so north to get from a meat processor there.
This is part of one, it’s been simmering in water and stock with an onion for a couple of hours. I didn’t see any of these out on display the last trip and asked for a couple. They brought out two humongous hocks and my eyes nearly bugged out. The guy asked, helpfully, if I wanted them cut up some? I nodded yes and he took them to the saw and cut them each into three parts.
You have to make cornbread to eat with these beans – It Is Written. To cook these it’s not so much a recipe as much as a method. I start the hock early, then set it out to cool and add the beans to the water and chicken stock it simmered in. Bring them to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for a couple of hours. After the hock cools, remove the bones and skin and cut it up to add back, add potatoes a little later. Those little baby potatoes I used take about 45 minutes to cook at a simmer. I used salt, fresh ground black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper and granulated garlic to season these.
That cauliflower soup was really bland. Even Mrs J said it was too bland. Bland even with sour cream and cheese. I fix! I fix by dumping half the remaining soup and adding 2 potatoes boiled in chicken stock. These I blended in thoroughly with a stick blender. Then I added crisp bacon crumbles. This one didn’t need sour cream but I did go with the Creole seasoning again because I like that stuff.
Post needs moar kitteh!
Here’s Homer resting on an old picnic table. Gabe is busy in the background picking through bird seed for the peanuts.
I say it’s an old picnic table because it is old, for a picnic table. I made that thing in a flurry of busy about 30 years ago and it’s been sitting out in the weather since then. I’m kind of amazed that it has held up as well as it has. I did replace one of the seat boards when we moved it a bit closer to the house a few weeks ago.
