Sunday, January 27, 2008

27 January 2008




It's the day after my birthday. Last night, we went into Atlanta for dinner and a movie. We saw "There Will Be Blood" with Daniel Day Lewis, and both he and the film were amazing. It is a must see. We had dinner at Soto Soto, and it was great. Tonight, we are watching the Screen Actors Guild awards. We love a good awards show! For dinner, I made homemade pizzas and a simple green salad. There will be rice krispy treats of course...

The Menu:

- Homemade Pizza - Six Cheese and Sausage

- Simple Green Salad

Sunday, January 20, 2008

20 January 2008




I made a pot of homemade vegetable soup yesterday. We were prepared to be "snowed in," but the dramatic winter event did not materialize. My mother always made "snow soup" when it snowed, but sometimes she would cook it to try and make it snow! It was basically a vegetable soup with ground beef. My snow soup was a version of mom's recipe but more of a vegetable soup with ground turkey. We were invited to dinner with some of our neighbors last night, so we are having the soup tonight. In addition, I made some pan fried cornbread fritters to go with the soup. This is a simple southern recipe and was often used when other ingredients, such as buttermilk and eggs, were not available. This version is simply made with cornmeal and boiling water. The fritters are shaped into balls and fried in a cast iron skillet of hot oil - yum! You can also make flour fritters (fried bread) in the same manner. They are really good with butter! For desert, we had our favorite again – rice krispy treats! Jim provided the table florals. Today he trimmed the Narcisus blooms but left the stems and bulbs in the vase. Very cool looking. Maybe Jim's a florist but doesn't know it...

Happy MLK day to everyone tomorrow.

The Menu:

- Scratch-Made Turkey Vegetable (Snow) Soup

- Fried Cornbread Fritters

- Gourmet Rice Crispy Treats

Sunday, January 13, 2008

13 January 2008




This is the first Sunday supper I have cooked in 2008! The holidays came and went very quickly. We went to Seattle over Christmas to see Jim's new grand niece, Tatum. What a doll! While in Seattle, we dined at Tom Douglas's new pizza restaurant, Serious Pie. It was divine, so thanks to Tim and Jill for the recommendation! We celebrated the holidays with my family before we left. My niece, Lori, and her two kids, Drew and Kenneth-Ney, and my other niece, Kelly, came down on Friday, December 21 and spent the night. We ate at El Caporal, our favorite Mexican restaurant in Canton. Afterwards, we came home, and the kids taught me how to do the "Soulja Boy" dance, or something similar (after a few margaritas, I can't quite recall...all I recall is the SUPREMAN move which I totally killed)! The rest of the family came down on Saturday afternoon. We exchanged gifts and then went to the Downtown Kitchen for dinner. It was good, and even though we were all sad about spending our first Christmas without Franny Betty, we managed to have a lot of fun.

Jim and I flew back via Las Vegas for new years. We stayed at the Four Seasons and had two memorable meals. One night we dined at the bar of the newly-opened Bradley Ogden. It was excellent show food and tasty too! New Years Eve we dined at Charlie Palmer steak. Even though they seated us in the back behind a huge column (Jim is convinced it was because we were gay), the meal was excellent. After dinner, we went up to our room which overlooked the Strip. We watched the fireworks at midnight, and they were awesome!

So just getting back into a somewhat normal schedule here. Of course, comfort food is the essence of life, so tonight I am preparing a butterflied high-roast chicken. I roast it over a pan filled with potatoes, so they absorb all of the chicken fat and juices - YUM! I sauteed some cabbage on the side and picked up a key lime pie from Whole Foods. I prepared this dish for Franny Betty when she visited one time, and she loved it. Let me know if you want the recipe, and you can thank me later!

The menu:

- High-roast butterflied organic chicken with compound butter
- Potatoes roasted in pan juices
- Sauteed organic cabbage
- Key lime pie

By the way, here is a new photo of Tatum. Isn't she the cutest thing ever?