A cooking weekend

scrambled eggs with trout and scallions

Once I started flipping through my bulging file of recipes I want to try, I was committed for the weekend. I found so many, there aren’t enough meals for them all. Last night, to get beyond turkey, I roasted a ruby red trout filet. Simple directions are on my new Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog—http://www.gourmetonahotplate.blogspot.com . And I got it just right if I do say so—firm but still most and succulent. I dislike dry fish intensely.

But I wasn’t quite through with all Thanksgiving food—fixed green bean casserole. One can cut green beans (not French style) and half a can of mushroom soup makes two generous servings. And I didn’t miss the French’s fried onion rings. Just season with salt, pepper, and a dash of Worcestershire.

Today was a day of sumptuous eating. A sausage sandwich in a biscuit—my version of a McBiscuit—for breakfast. Biscuit, sausage patty, cheddar—no egg. Lunch was scrambled eggs on toast, topped with slivers of leftover trout and sliced scallions. The egg and trout flavors complement each other perfectly. I used good sourdough bread for the toast, but another time I think I’d just do the eggs and trout and green onions. The toast was hard to cut and keeping toast, eggs, and trout together on the fork was a challenge.

Skillet sausage supper

Tonight’s dinner was special—a skillet supper of sausage, onion, and apple. I made lots of adjustments to the recipe to adapt it to my hot plate. Cooked the sausage first and realized it wasn’t cooked through, so while the onion sautéed, I cut the sausage into bite-size pieces. When the onion was fairly well caramelized, I put the sausage pieces back in and added sliced Granny Smith apple. Let the whole thing cook for a while, turning frequently—the apples took longer to soften than I expected. Then I turned it off, so I could heat the leftover green bean casserole in the toaster oven (can’t use both at once). When I turned the toaster oven off, I reheated the skillet. Got to say it was a delicious dinner. One sausage (a blueberry one from Central Market), a half onion, and one apple made at least two servings. My mom used to do an apple and sausage skillet with ground sausage and I may try that, but the onions were a great addition.

And my cooking spree isn’t over. Tomorrow night my oldest son, Colin, will be here for a late supper, and I’ll fix family favorite Doris’ casserole. Since it makes great leftovers, I’ll make a double batch, so the Burtons and I can eat it all week. For breakfast the next morning, Colin gets to choose a biscuit sandwich, lox and bagels, or scrambled eggs and a sausage patty. I’m pulling for the lox though. I am not a bagel eater but when I saw Central Market had a bialy—looks like a bagel with onion slivers all over it but is baked instead of boiled as bagels are—I couldn’t resist.

And I just sent oldest daughter Megan a recipe for truffle pasta. She makes a truffle mac and cheese for holidays that everyone loves, so I thought she’d like this. Just pasta, butter, a bit of the pasta water, Parmesan, and sliced truffles—but I bet you could use truffle oil instead, cheaper by far. Don’t just lump all those ingredients together—there’s a technique, and I’ll post about it on Gourmet on a Hot Plate after I try it.  I just checked online and Central Market has an array of truffles, but it’s hard to tell which are the real thing and which are chocolate. I know nothing about buying authentic truffles and little more about truffle oil, which is expensive enough. The saving grace is probably that it doesn’t take much, either of the real thing or the oil—and I think I’ve heard that sometimes truffle oil is just flavored oil that has nothing to do with truffles. We consumers do get fooled.

Okay, now I’ve overfed and ready for a nap. ‘Night, y’all.