Monday

Discovery of the day: Menu Recap

Well, it could have gone worse. Just to refresh, we volunteered to take Easter dinner to a friend who had surgery a few days ago. The request was for ham and a few veggie side dishes. Easy, right? Yeah, you'd think. I sure did, but somehow I still ended up spending almost the entire day in the kitchen!

The big-ass ham was marvelous. My SO glazed it with 1/2 c maple syrup and 1/2 c orange juice, reduced on the stove and finished with 2 T coarse dijon mustard.

Glazed carrots w/orange & ginger: Well, something weird happened to the ginger and it ended up being way more HOT than gingery. Of the half we kept for our dinner, we ate a small portion and did not save the leftovers. I actually emailed my friend's daughter and apologized for them. And it was a Mark Bittman recipe, too! Very disappointing.

Napa cabbage salad/slaw: This came out pretty well. I used only one apple for the amount of cabbage I had. Since we weren't sure of our friends' feelings about the blue cheese, we served it on the side. We decided the dish was a little sour without the cheese, but with the cheese it was very nice. Might use a different dressing next time, something with rice wine vinegar. Not sure it was worth buying a whole pint of cream for the two tablespoons called out in the recipe.

Molasses whipped sweet potatoes: I can sum this up easily: Too Much Cumin, and I am a big cumin fan. Maybe because I used fresh-ground seeds instead of jarred? Also, not sure I fully appreciated the three different sweeteners. That said, I can't stop eating it!

Roasted potatoes & asparagus: Great idea, and they looked wonderful coming out of the oven, but then I remembered they were destined to be reheated at their destination. Not a good dish for that. Our half tasted great but lost the just-out-of-the-oven roasted goodness after being stored and reheated.

Fruit crisp: My SO made this, his standard from The New Best Recipe. Even though we didn't get any of it (hard to split a dish of crisp without it looking ravaged) I could tell it rocked, because it always does.

My SO gets a gold star for his dishes. I think I probably get a B-, and that's generous. That'll teach me to compose a dinner I'm delivering to friends out of new-to-me dishes.

Oh, you want to know about the Hot Cross Buns? Check back tomorrow.
;)