If it’s Monday …

It must be food! (Thanks to everyone for NOT pointing out that last Monday’s food pics were a bit on the, erm, lite? side. Long story short – no comment.)

So I tried something a little different this past week, I planned a bit ahead in the meals department. I normally do, but this time I took it one step further and did some of the cooking and prep work ahead of time on Friday.

It worked out pretty well, allowing me more time to be relaxed in the short space that is our weekends.

And a beautiful weekend it was, frosty nights and fairly warm, very sunny days, just the way I like them.

Saturday morning Hubster arrived after stopping downtown to pick up bagels for our breakfast. He and I had ours toasted with my homemade roasted garlic hummus, Swiss, tomatoes, arugala and red onion. Boy Wonder had both of his toasted, one with cream cheese blended with chopped jalapenos and black olives and the other with just the chopped black olives and jalapenos, tomatoes and Swiss.

Boy Wonder worked until nine PM so Hubster and I had a late lunch. Me; leftover carrot, potato, ginger cream soup and Hubster had some skinless chicken thighs that I grilled and seasoned along with the boneless chicken breasts I grilled for the chicken pot pie. They are seasoned quite simply with a drizzle of olive oil, kosher salt, cracked pepper and curry powder. Simple and tasty.

I usually load up the whole grill to have it on hand in the fridge for snacks, sandwiches and to put on salads.

After we were shocked by the appearance of Charlie Parker who had been MIA for three weeks, (he ate and then slept for three hours!) we had chicken potpie when Boy Wonder returned from work and watched the movie, Thank You for Smoking, terribly politically incorrect and VERY funny.

I start by following the recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook and tweak it to my liking. My mother always added a small jar of pimentos so I added some chopped bits of the yellow, red and orange peepers I had roasted as well as some roasted garlic. Because what doesn’t taste better with roasted garlic? I made BW his own smaller pie because he likes his with broccoli and chicken only and the Hubster and I had the traditional, carrots and baby peas in ours.

We skipped dessert because it was so late and we were so full but that turned out okay as we had Saturday’s dessert for Sunday breakfast! I had made a bread and butter pudding on Friday from a recipe that I got from, The Take Home Chef, ‘s website.

It was made using croissants, which I bought from Dunkin Donuts, and I tweaked the custard by adding cinnamon, nutmeg and orange extract. I also used dried cranberries instead of raisins. I knew as I was following his recipe that there was way too much custard in comparison to the bread and ended up with baking a dish of plain custard in the oven alongside the bread pudding --- but who’s going cry over extra custard? Um, NOT me.

The bread pudding was topped with a rich brandy sauce to which I added fresh ground nutmeg and it tasted quite like this elusive sauce my Great grandmother use to serve on her apple dumplings. Thanks Grandma Nelson!

This bread pudding should come with a health warning. (Or as William H. Macy would prefer; a skull and crossbones! See that movie.) It uses nine whole eggs and nine additional egg yolks along with 3 cups of heavy cream and three cups of whole milk.

The brandy sauce only used four egg yolks.

But just in case we were not taxing our arteries and heart enough, I cooked up a pound of bacon to go with it!


To counter the effects of breakfast, at least psychologically, BW and I had salads with feta, and tuna. Hubster ran efficiently on nothing but bread pudding until dinnertime.

Dinner was the New England Pot-Roast I made on Friday and it hit all the right comfort zones on the way down. Betty Crocker got that one right and needs no further tweaking at all. If you haven’t made a pot-roast which includes rubbing the roast with an entire jar of good horseradish after browning it and before roasting --- you must try it.


After dinner we watched some television and found the most amazing thing by accident. On HBO they were broadcasting a boxing match that had been fought earlier in the day in Manchester England. Joe Calzaghe vs. Sakio Bika.

I haven’t had this much fun watching boxing in forever. We were shouting, laughing and the twelve rounds just flew by.

Calzaghe is a ballsy, showman with hands like lightning. As BW says, American boxing right now is like watching junior high kids slow dance. Lots of hugging and rocking that never leads anywhere. Bika was a bit of a dirty fighter but it just added to the excitement and Calzaghe took it in stride and adjusted his fight instead of going for the sympathy and whining we often see.

Calzaghe has been fighting for nine years and at 35, holds a record of 42 wins, (31 by KO) no losses and the World Super Middleweight Championship Belt.

He is looking to fight Bernard Hopkins who is currently retired but considering fighting again. He said he would gladly travel to the states for the fight and we would gladly cheer him on. BW and I will be following closely and if that fight happens we are so there!


2006 Dawn Marie Kelly all rights reserved