I think Dryad's suggestions sound about right to me TOM. Good luck and let us know if you come up with something that works out.

I thought I'd pop in here and mention that I discovered The Pioneer Woman's recipe for enchiladas, and they are awesome.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree- ... cipe0.html
I love Ree Drummond. She is my favorite celebrity chef. Everything I've made of hers has been quite really, really good.

I like Ree Drummond's blog! The other day I saw a recipe of hers for an apple skillet cake that I really want to try.

Yesterday I made bread pudding. I'd never eaten it before, much less made it, but we had some cinnamon swirl bread in the freezer leftover from Christmas and there was about a third of a jug of milk that was out of date, and bread pudding seemed like the logical conclusion. I used this recipe, although I skipped the raisins, cut the butter back to one tablespoon, and used 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup erythritol, and a few drops of liquid stevia in the place of the 3/4 cup of sugar. (I like combining sweeteners because I feel like it results in a better taste.)

The results were so good! I wish I'd gotten a picture of it before it was devoured, but it didn't last long in my kitchen on a cold day. Ever since I've been thinking about other flavor combinations for the same basic recipe, like chocolate chip or blueberry, or maybe even one made from leftover doughnuts. Ahh, what have I done.

The Rose-Tree Dryad, that sounds really delicious. Without tasting it, I think that adding chocolate is always a wonderful thing and would surely taste yummy. I am not sure if I ever have eaten bread pudding before (or at least now like the picture depicts), but I've always thought it sounded rather delightful. Of course, chocolate chips would be a nice addition if I ever tried to make it....

Has anyone heard of Dinah Bucholz's The Unofficial Narnia Cookbook?
I've only had two of the recipes, but I'd love to have more. So many sounds quite delicious, though I think that partly has to do with some of the names.

I made the Biscuit Porridge (from the end of fifth chapter in the Last Battle). As no one would actually want to eat hard biscuits with salt and water, the author took some liberties and made it a sort of cookie with a milk based "porridge". The biscuits are fat cookies with chocolate chips. I overbaked a few (they're supposed to look a bit under done), but they were still good, even when hard. I only made the milk sauce once. It was fine, but the cookies were quite delicious on their own. I'm not very experienced in cooking, so I like easier recipes such as this. They didn't take too long (an hour or so, because I'm slow at making things), so I made a couple of batches to give out to people at Christmas time.

My mom made Sweet and Creamy Hot Vanilla, which was inspired by Edmond's meeting with the White Witch, when she gives him something hot to drink. It's milk based (of course) with heavy cream, sugar, and cornstarch. And of course, vanilla, with the option of sprinkling nutmeg on top. It was a bit frothy, rather sweet, and quite delicious.

Ditto on the chocolate chips, Summer! I'm already building a double chocolate bread pudding recipe in my mind for next time I make some.

That recipe book sounds so cool! I'd love to get my hands on a copy. It seems that it's out of print and all of the listings on Amazon are really expensive, but it looks like you can get The Official Narnia Cookbook (authored by Douglas Gresham!) for eight dollars as a Kindle ebook. I'll have to pick that up sometime; the recipes look really neat. Not sure I'll be making eel stew, though.

Your Biscuit Porridge recipe sounds so interesting and fun! I feel like the author had a pretty good excuse to make the biscuits into something cookie-like, since biscuit is a word that's often used for cookie in the UK. (That's something that this biscuits-and-gravy Southern girl has always found a bit puzzling. ) What a cool, Narnia-themed Christmas present to give people! I love that gift idea!

Mmmm @the Sweet and Creamy Hot Vanilla... that sounds so good! Being a fan of white chocolate, I like vanilla-flavored, milk-based hot drinks as well. So yummy.

Well, I've given up rehabilitating canned sweet potatoes into French fries. They're just too soggy.

They do tolerate my roast-potato fix, though. Cut up some potatoes into fork-sized pieces. Mix 1/2 cup oil with a packet of onion soup mix. Toss potatoes in oil/mix. Roast about 400 degrees. Turn after 30 minutes or when browned enough on top, whichever is first. Roast another 30 minutes or until browned and done.

Sweet potatoes have a higher sugar content and will burn, so I roasted at 300-325 degrees for a longer time. Being canned, these never really got crispy, but at least they weren't orange vegetable pudding anymore either.

Mmm, that sounds like a good recipe, TOM! I love roasted potatoes. Being a sweet potato-holic, I've been looking up recipes that use them lately and I ran across African Sweet Potato & Peanut Soup. It looks so interesting! I'd never thought of combining sweet potatoes and peanut butter before, but it sounds really good.

Today I attempted a recipe I've been wanting to try for a while: macaroni and cheese made with cauliflower. Most recipes involve baking it in the oven, but I made mine on top of the stove by cooking a pound of cauliflower in one pan and making about one cup's worth of bechamel sauce in another. I then added a small amount of very sharp cheddar cheese to the bechamel and folded the cauliflower into the sauce when the cheese was done melting. It was delicious! I love recipes that have tons of vegetables in them and this one was really tasty and satisfying.

You'll have to let me know how it turns out (delicious, I'm sure). It is? I didn't know that! It's technically the library's, so I had hoped on getting my own copy one day (provided the rest of the recipes turn out as good). Ah, well...
Though if they have an official version, maybe I could try that too. Perhaps not; I'm not in much of a hurry to make eel stew either.

Yes! I'm certainly glad she took it in that direction, even if it's not anything like what they had in the book.

Macaroni and cheese made with cauliflower sounds really good. At the very least, an excellent way to sneak in vegetables! Or at least that's the way I see it, not being a hugest fan of having most vegetables plain.

I've seen the Unofficial Cookbook before. My friend got it from the library and I've wanted it ever since. The cheapest ones on Amazon are around $60. I wouldn't spend that much of my hard earned money on a cookbook. I did however spend that much of gift card money on it. Once it arrives I'll have both the official and the unofficial one.

I've had the hot vanilla. It's pretty good but I can only take it in small doses. I think I also made the marmalade roll in that book.

I've been going on a couple of new food-related adventures lately!

One was with Vietnamese egg coffee; I haven't tried the all-yolk version yet, but I did try one with a whole egg inspired by a recipe that I saw on a primal diet website. The whole egg version is a little tricky to make because you want to make sure that the coffee is hot enough to kill any potential bacteria without being so hot that you end up with scrambled eggs floating in your coffee cup, but so far I've found it to be really good! A pinch of salt and some sweetener really sets it off. Some say that Vietnamese egg coffee is like liquid tiramisu, and based on my whole egg version, I'm inclined to agree.

I've also been experimenting with making my own kefir, which is a cultured drink from the Caucasus Mountains that supposedly makes people live to be about a million years old. I bought some powdered kefir starter a few months ago on a whim and only recently used it to make kefir out of goat milk. (I'm using goat milk partly because a) it's the only kind I have that isn't pasteurized with very high heat, which makes culturing kefir more difficult, and b) I've been avoiding the kind of casein found in cow milk for a while now because of mystery allergies.)

I tasted it today and it's delicious! Nice and tart with a little bit of carbonated kick. I'm hoping to get proper kefir grains soon and try making kefir with those; they have more complex stains of bacteria in them compared to the powdered, laboratory-created starter. They also can be used indefinitely to make new batches of kefir. (As you can see, I've been reading a lot about this sort of thing recently. )

And lastly, I'm also planning on trying to "catch" my own sourdough starter soon! Sourdough is supposed to be a super-digestible and healthy way to eat bread, so I've been wanting to try to make my own for a while now. It's so neat to dabble in food preparation/preservation techniques that humans have literally been using for thousands of years.

(Hmm, I think the cold weather has made me want to go crazy in the kitchen since I can't go crazy running around outside. )

The marmalade roll sounds delicious. Is it anything like a jelly roll? I've made those before, they're one of my favorite desserts.
Today I spent all morning making Cinnamon Swirl bread with vanilla icing drizzled on the top. It turned out to be very good.

Pi(e) Day has started to become a tradition in my house. Hey, it's a great excuse to make a pie! LOL
Yesterday we made Chicken Pot Pie and Blueberry Pie. The irony is that I had a bachelorette party to go to last night so I didn't get to eat either one until about 10pm. LOL I'll make up for it today.

First time posting here about food. My wife just fried up some asparagus, and chicken with coconut oil, and honey for supper tonight. With Acorn SquashHMMMMMMM
Meanwhile I have to prepare for a Christian Sportsmen's Retreat next weekend. They have an annual wild game feed, and the Offspring, and I will be donating some squirrel. I need to boil, and de-bone them in advance, but it will be worth it. Just so long as they don't overdo the onions, and peppers when they cook them up.

Rose, I read the post about the egg coffee before seeing who wrote it and immediately knew that it was you. I'm not a huge egg person at all, but I'm sort of tempted to try it tonight while I'm home for spring break (and while I have access to a kitchen and eggs).

Speaking of spring break, I'm finally home and eating normal food instead of cafeteria food. I've missed having the ability to cook/bake so much over these past few months and have done quite a bit of it this week as a result. My mom and I experimented last night and made banh mi sandwiches on toasted ciabatta rolls with pickled carrots and radishes for dinner. They were delicious, but definitely could have used a little more spiciness. Next time we're thinking about putting mayonnaise on the rolls before toasting them since they were a bit dry as well, but as a whole it was pretty good! Not looking forward to heading back up to school tomorrow morning and losing my kitchen at all...

Melian_Maia, what goes into a banh mi sandwich? I don't think I've ever heard of it before. I'm glad you got to do a lot of cooking and baking over spring break!

I managed to fit in two baking projects this weekend: waffles on Friday night, and a lamb cake for our church potluck lunch today. Waffles were for a small gathering Summer and I had in "honour" of the Swedish Waffle Day (I really just wanted to make waffles and thought it a good excuse ); I made a regular batch of waffles and a batch of Liege Belgian waffles. The latter were a huge hit, though there were only enough for about one each (next time will have to double the recipe!) and they made quite a mess of the iron.
The lamb cake is my traditional Easter project. It's not hard (cake batter into a lamb form cake, and then decorate it after baking) and it's not really that pretty (...I haven't mastered putting buttercream frosting on chocolate cake without catching some crumbs), but it tasted fine and people at church always like seeing it every year. I used large chocolate chips for the eyes, a regular chocolate chip for the nose, and a split cranberry for the mouth. I'm pretty sure I saw my mom slice off the face for my brother-in-law...

My mom and I experimented last night and made banh mi sandwiches on toasted ciabatta rolls with pickled carrots and radishes for dinner. They were delicious, but definitely could have used a little more spiciness.

I've had them twice, once in NYC and once where I live now. Both were quite authentic as the owners of both places could barely speak English. But on the spiciness note, my cousin warned me away from the spice in NYC but I forgot about it the second time I had it. Raw jalapeno slices can kind of burn you out if you're not expecting it. I had to pull the rest of the jalapenos off the sandwich.

Valia, a bahn mi is a French/Vietnam hybrid sandwich. Just like our hoagie-type sandwiches can mix and match toppings here, bahn mi sandwiches can too, and some have some very erm, interesting toppings that you wouldn't normally eat here in the States. Here's one example i found a picture of online.