September 25th: vegetable ranch dip, onion soup ribs and double-stuffed baked potatoes

For lunch: veggies and dip. Easy vegetable ranch dip from Epicurious, and it was delicious!

For supper, I made my easiest-to-prepare rib recipe, a favourite for many years now, from June 2005's Chatelaine: Barbecued onion soup ribs. The recipe produces a sweet and slightly spicy set of tender but crisp ribs: simmered in onion soup, barbecue sauce and Tabasco, then finished on the barbecue.

To accompany, I made green beans amandine and double-stuffed baked potatoes. The potato recipe I made up as I went along. It went something like this:


Double-stuffed baked potatoes


3 medium baking potatoes, scrubbed
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tbsps milk
125 g bacon, chopped, cooked, and drained
1-2 green onions, diced
1/2 cup shredded old Cheddar cheese
sour cream (to serve, optional)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Prick potatoes all over with a fork, and place directly on oven rack. Bake, turning once, until tender, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven (leave oven on), cut potatoes in half lengthwise, and slice up centre of potato flesh with a knife. Set aside until potatoes are just cool enough to handle.

Scrape potato flesh into a medium bowl, leaving skins intact, and add butter, milk, bacon and green onions to bowl. Mix well. Stir in cheese. Scoop potato mixture back into skins, filling to heaping. Place in a baking dish and return to hot oven. Cook just until cheese is melted and filling is piping hot, about 10 minutes.

Serve with sour cream, if desired.

Makes 3 generous servings.

November 6th: artisan bread, fries and wings

Verdict:
Try Again: artisan bread, French fries, wings

Saturday!

Lunch: Even though Cooking With My Kid proclaimed this Artisan Bread was not difficult, she admitted to having doubts ahead of time. I too had my doubts about how easy this bread would be, and I too was wrong. It was dead simple. Easy peasy. I actually followed the original recipe, but might try the whole wheat version in future, or maybe a garlic or rosemary bread, mmm. The bread came out of the oven gorgeous and delicious. I would suggest letting it brown up a bit more than I did, as my loaf was a touch doughy in the centre. When making this, my dough didn't appear to rise much. I couldn't form the ball they talk about because the dough was too runny. But it still worked out in the long run, so I have to vouch for this recipe. One thing: if you eschew plastic wrap as I do, you might want to cover the bread with wax paper or something prior to letting it sit overnight. I didn't, and it ended up with a bit of a crust on it by morning, which is not what you want.  Olivia and I had this bread for lunch with meat, cheese and fruit, and we felt very Lord of the Ringsy. Maybe she didn't. I did.

Supper: I make home fries all the time. I don't usually bother with a recipe. Tonight, however, I wanted to try one I came across on Canadian Living.com and I'm so glad I did. From June 2008's Canadian Living: Crispy French Fries with Mustard Mayonnaise. These are easily the best fries I've ever made. I made them in the oven (rather than deep fryer) and I made the suggested accompaniment of mayo dip. The two together were like heaven in my mouth. I used three baking potatoes (2 lbs) to make these and G, O and I didn't leave a fry uneaten.

I screwed up the other recipe of the night, which is too bad, as I suspect it may be a good one. I found it on the Martha Stewart website; from March 2010's Everyday Food: Sticky Chicken Wings. I was overly focussed on making the fries and wasn't paying enough attention to the oven, and alas, I burnt the wings. I hadn't cooked the wings as suggested, but rather breaded the wings, baked them, boiled up the sauce separately, and tossed the cooked (burnt) wings in the sauce. This method should have worked well, had I been more on the ball.