h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, TC

I have 70 or 80 recipes cached in files in my hard drive. Some call for a lot of canned stuff, while others have few cans if any. Smoked Pork Collins, for instance, uses potato, cabbage, pork or ham, carrots, and kidney beans. Only the beans are canned. My bean soups call for dried beans which are soaked for hours and simmered a long time, with tomatoes the only canned ingredients.

Sunday supper is a good ol' basic one. A roast chicken, my home-made bread stuffing, mashed spuds, gravy from the bird broths, carrots and turnip simmered to tender then buttered, and a little jar of an orange brandy imbued cranberry sauce. As per usual, just the 2 of us but enough for 5. Ya know, in case any stops in unexpected ... And if not, great left-overs for later in the week.

Dinner last night at the senior get together, Corned Beef for St. Patrick's day, a light succotash of green beans and shelled white sweet corn liberally seasoned with fresh minced red onions in a balsamic vinaigrette sauce, potato salad in a mustard sauce, a choice of two kinds of rye and sour dough bread, a variety of desserts including cheesecake, chocolate cake and apple strudel.

Almost makes me want to be a senior ... but not quite.

Tonight's supper was Tuscan soup, consisting of turkey meatballs, macaroni, cannellini, green beans, tomatoes, kale, and grated cheese.

Alright, what do various folks do up for an Easter dinner? Here, for only the two of us:

- 3 sorts of cheeses, sliced, and with green seedless grapes
- a tray of cooked large shrimps with a very zingy seafood cocktail sauce
- Caesar salad with added white mushrooms sliced a-top
- perhaps 10 or so nicely seasoned and roasted common mushrooms
- about 6 lb of cured ham with bone joint, baked in ginger ale, mashed spuds, carrots and turnip - lightly buttered after simmer to firm but tender, large soft bread rolls
- dessert usually missed entirely, though fresh berries of about 5 sorts can be had

An obvious error there - the spuds will NOT be mashers, they will be scalloped - with cream and a few sorts of cheese grated in, perhaps even some fresh leeks

6 pounds of ham for two people?

That's three pounds per person. Did you eat the whole 3 pounds, or were there leftovers?

I always cook main meals for 4 to 6 people - in case someone arrives unexpectedly. And as they usually don't, then we have lunch or supper for following days.

And the above is for Sunday. Today, baked Atlantic salmon and a simple mushroom rice with a small measure of Caesar salad.

Open faced pizza sandwiches, toasted whole wheat and rye bread slices, thin spread of marinara sauce, liberal sprinkling of white Monterrey jack cheese, sausage, olives and mushrooms, light sprinkling of sharp yellow cheddar.

Usually make an Easter egg salad if I'm having guests, one chopped red cabbage, steamed in a minimum of water til tender, half a dozen small hens eggs, boiled and peeled, half of them pickled overnight in dill pickle juice or vinegar, half unpickled, eggs dried on their surfaces, buried in the steamed red cabbage, but not in contact with one another, a choice of saland dressings on the side.

Pickled eggs turn pink to red, unpickled eggs turn baby blue.

Similar and complementary color changes occur in the chopped red cabbage, blue in contact with unpickled egg, pink or red in contact with pickled egg.

Gourmet duck or quail eggs can be substituted.

Tonight I'm going to turn leftovers from a chef's salad into minestrone.

I have enough really sweet and tender baked ham for about 11 people, creamy cheesy scalloped potatoes for 8, and after PaulH has his - enough deviled eggs for only 2 or 3 others ...

I can't think of a single detail of the 5 courses that could have been improved on

Fantastic!

here... tonight,,, wild salmon, probably grilled with oniosn and sliced red pepper, and maybe some mushrooms, and we've some left over cooked new potatos to go with it, probably reheated or thrown under the grill too too reheat/cook up... maybe salad or some brocolli to go with it I thinks (missing not having an oven or hob that works properly now....)

I am trying to entice summer to arrive. Variations of snow for 5 of the last 8 days is just annoying. So a garden salad, a potato salad, simple hot-dogs ...

And yes, Paul, deviled eggs.

Sounds really good!

plus

Roast beef hash, cheese and minced onion burritos on 14 inch wheat flour tortillas with hot chili sauce.

Tonight I'll be making paella.

Unless I receive adverse advice from anywhere, Sunday will be a meat-loaf experiment.

About a pound of lean ground beef, mixed with a pair of de-skinned honey & garlic pork sausages (say 8" long, 1" diameter). An egg, some fine minced bread crumbs ... Simple