Crab Cakes

Saturday 27 December
Or goyishe latkes. Barbara had bought Holt a prezzie of a bag of panko, the upscale Japanese bread crumbs, and we have admit they did make for a light and fluffy crumby coating. Served them over a dressed salad of baby spinach (from the Nice People in Findlay Market) and arugula (from the Nice Barbara in the Back Yard) with a little pan sauce, deglazed with wine and lime juice.

Chicken in Champagne Sauce

Friday December 26
We happened to have most of the ingredients, for the family classic.
The half roll of sage sausage from yesterday, a quarter pound of scrappy bacon, carrots from St. Catharines meet neeps from Cincinnati. We lacked a chicken (definitely sine qua NON), but a drive out to the supermarket on Boxing Day clears your head, at least a bit.

The Christmas Ham, and All the Trimmings

Thursday December 25
The glory of Cincinnati is Schad's ham, and it's the perfect thing to serve for Christmas. It's so delicious, it doesn't need a glaze, and it bakes up in just over an hour. This time, we only got a half ham, as last year we couldn't fit a whole one into the oven, and nine pounds of ham is still plenty. As we were keeping it simple, we just had sweet potatoes (nuked in their jackets), and roasted asparagus for vedge. But even if you're not having turkey, dressing is essential - so Holt made his wonderful cornbread as for stuffin' muffins, but this time using a pan of fried-up diced onions and celery, a half roll of crumbled sage sausage, and fresh sage as flavoring, and letting the whole thing bake up in a large pyrex dish, without bothering to re-crumble it. It was moist and flavorful, and can be interpreted as either dressing or cornbread.
Holt made the pumpkin clafouti again for dessert, but the pumpkin he got from a Findlay Market farmer was not as sweet as the one from a St. Catharines' Market farmer. So we dusted it with powdered sugar, and will Canadianize the rest by pouring smuggled Canadian maple syrup over it. Come to think of it, that worked for the sweet potatoes too.

Posole

Wednesday December 24
A New Mexican New Year's tradition, which is bound to be served when Holt and the Parker family get together in wintry weather.
The "Anaheims" (New Mexico Long Greens, to you!) we bought at Kroger's turned out to have quite a bite; Harold, at least, found the posole a touch hot in both senses (¡picante y caliente!). But we drained some yogurt to serve as crema, which cooled it off - again in both senses.

Braised Radicchio and Chicken

Monday December 22
One amazing day last week, the rain fell and the temperature skyrocketed up to sixty degrees. So Barbara took off her coat and spent the day in the garden, raking leaves, pruning roses, and picking the astounding remains of greenstuff: perfectly good fresh arugula, parsley, and nicely-reddened radicchio.
Today we used nature's bounty: we trimmed the lovely radicchio, nicely reddened with the cold; sautéed it with diced pancetta, and braised it with frozen veal stock, while reheating the legs of Thursday's chicken on top. The combination was delicious: bitter but bright radicchio, salty pancetta, and chicken to soak up the unctuous and delicious flavors.

Portobellos Trifolati with Penne

Portobellos Trifolati with Penne
Tuesday December 23
As here, but with penne rather than spiral pasta. The temperature has fallen to 5 degrees (Fahrenheit!), so nobody was going out to pick thyme, and we used the dried stuff; luckily we still had some fresh parsley that we picked two days ago, when it was 55 degrees warmer.

Chanukah Latkes and Lox

Sunday December 21
Claudia Roden's classic recipe: a pound of potatoes, grated, soaked in water, drained, and squeezed dry (we use a potato ricer); one egg; salt and pepper; traditionally fried in oil. Topped with drained yogurt and slices of lox. Next time, we should make a half more, using either two small or one jumbo egg, because we went on to have Graeter's ice cream and egg nog for dessert.