Saturday, November 30, 2019

Cooking in my Kitchen


In my kitchen in November, it's been very quiet. It's a new season, and the prolific fruit and vegetable harvests of the early autumn are over. I've been making salads with vegetables from far away, enjoying the colorful tomatoes, lettuce, avocados, and bell peppers that aren't growing around us, now that the cold has set in: we did have a real cold snap with deep snow in mid-November. The biggest November kitchen event is Thanksgiving, but we are spending this holiday with our family in Virginia, as very thoroughly reflected in a series of blog posts on Thursday!

Although no new kitchen items appeared this month, I still wanted to participate in Sherry's blog party, so I'm sharing some pictures of what we have eaten this month, beginning with some very plain salads -- one is shown at the top of this post. For more exciting kitchen news, check the blog
where many bloggers post their kitchen news. Sherry herself lives in Australia, along with many of the other participants, so you'll find lots of wonderful spring foods, fresh berries, apricots coming into season, and more in their kitchen posts. Fun to read from here, so far and so cold! This post and all the photos are copyright © 2019 by this blog: maefood dot blogspot dot com. If you see this elsewhere, your are reading a pirated edition.

Oven-roasted potatoes and onions, a side dish with roast chicken.
Pork chops with braised red cabbage.
The leftovers were in the salad below.
Salad of lettuce, tomato, and the leftover pork and red cabbage.
I made sure that each bite-sized piece of meat had some good mustard on it.
Really good mustard!
Lettuce, tomato, red pepper, and tuna salad made with mayo, celery, and pickle relish.
Savory pancakes from sourdough starter discard.
Served with salsa, sour cream, and fried onions.
Smoked salmon and hard-boiled eggs with capers, lemon, mayo, and vegetables.

As I say, November was a very quiet month at home. Besides the books I reviewed on the blog, I also read two books that I didn't write anything about (at least not yet) --
  • Amos Oz, Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land, first published a year ago at the time of the author's death.
  • Edmund Wilson, Axel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930, which was published in 1931, but first made available on Kindle this month. It's been on my list for a very long time!
And we subscribed to HBO, for at least as long as we find things to watch. What we have watched but I haven't written about:
  • The first episodes of "His Dark Materials," based on the Philip Pullman books, which is being released on a week-by-week basis. So far it's watchable but not fantastic, and I don't have much to say about it.
  • Len watched the 10-episode series "Our Boys," a recently-released Israeli police drama about real events that took place in 2014. I listened to some of it.
  • Finally -- we watched the film Crazy Rich Asians, which I've been wanting to see.  Its food scenes are wondrous, especially those in the markets of Singapore. I didn't write about this film because at the time of the release virtually every food magazine on- and off-line had detailed articles about how these scenes were staged and filmed and what they signified.
December will be busier, but like November, maybe will not involve my kitchen very much.

7 comments:

Sherry's Pickings said...

hi Mae
thanks once again for joining in IMK. i can hardly believe it is the end of the IMK year! we are just putting up our tree atm, and we have the air con on as it is so hot and sweaty today. maybe a storm later... have a fab december. and see you in 2020! cheers sherry xx

Debra Eliotseats said...

I am always ready for a new mustard recommendation! Your food looks so comforting! The savory pancakes fascinate me. Alas, the summer fruits are gone but I am getting into those warming roast-able veggies. (Digging that potato-onion side!) Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Jeanie said...

It's always looking good at Mae's Kitchen! That salad and those roasted potatoes and onions are especially calling me this morning. And the mustard. Probably can't find it here but you never know. A girl can hope!

Tandy | Lavender and Lime (http://tandysinclair.com) said...

That really is really good mustard - I have a few different flavours at home. Hope you enjoyed your travels :)

Liz said...

You have some wonderful meals there. It's soup season for us but those tomatoes are amazing. The ones in the store are very light colored and sad right now. That's my favorite mustard as well. Have a wonderful holiday.

dreams of sourdough said...

I've recently fallen in love with mustard and found that it goes crazy well with grilled cheese on toast! Always nice to see sourdough pancakes :)

Kim Bultman said...

Mae, your salad ideas were welcome during this potentially indulgent time of year (smoked salmon ANY time o' year! :) and whether we're ready or not, the holidays are upon us. You've shown it's possible to "eat healthy" without overdoing it or sacrificing flavor -- LOVE that mustard! I also enjoyed your book and TV watching recommendations. Hunker down and enjoy! Wishing you the merriest Christmas and a very Happy New Year, xo.