Cooking – Don's House of Fine Patisseries

March 27, 2024

Making Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Squares — Photos

This decadently rich and scrumptious dessert is another relatively new addition to my collection of recipes. Mom loves it!

Making the squares:

Before beginning, some cream cheese was taken out of the fridge and put on the counter to warm up to room temperature:

Cream cheese taken out before beginning in order to soften it

Parchment paper and an 8″ baking pan were taken out:

Parchment paper and baking pan taken out

A parchment paper larger than the baking pan was torn off the roll …

… and the baking pan was lined with the parchment paper, with a little bit left over the edges of the pan:

The pan was put aside for a few moments, and a countertop convection oven was set to 325F and turned on:

Graham cracker crumbs were taken out:

A cup and a half of graham cracker crumbs were measured out:

The graham cracker crumbs were transferred to a mixing bowl:

Graham cracker crumbs transferred to mixing bowl

Margarine was taken out:

Margarine was scooped out of the tub:

The margarine was placed in a bowl, previously placed on the scale and the tare set to zero:

The margarine was melted in the microwave oven, 15 seconds at a time:

Margarine being melted 15 seconds at a time in microwave oven

Once fully melted, the margarine was taken out of the microwave oven:

Melted margarine taken out of the microwave oven

The melted margarine was poured over the graham cracker crumbs in the mixing bowl:

Melted margarine poured over graham cracker crumbs

An electric blender was taken out and used to fully mix the graham cracker crumbs and the melted margarine:

Graham cracker crumbs and melted margarine mixed with electric blender

The baking pan with the parchment paper lining was brought back and the fully blended graham cracker crumbs and melted margarine were transferred to the baking pan.

Graham cracker mix transferred to baking pan

The graham cracker mix was flattened with an egg flipper:

Graham cracker mix flattened with an egg flipper

The baking pan with the graham cracker crust was placed in the pre-heated countertop oven:

A timer was set for six minutes:

While the graham cracker crust was baking, a cooling rack was taken out (and placed on my stove):

After baking for six minutes, the graham cracker crust was taken out of the oven and placed on the cooling rack:

Graham cracker crust placed on cooling rack

Another bowl was placed in the scale and the tare set to zero:

Small bowl placed on scale and scale set to zero

More margarine was taken out and measured out:

The mixing bowl had been washed while the graham cracker base was baking, and the margarine was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Margarine transferred to clean mixing bowl

Brown sugar and a measuring cup were taken out:

The brown sugar was measured out:

The brown sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the margarine:

Table sugar and a measuring spoon were taken out:

Table sugar was measured out and poured into the mixing bowl with the brown sugar and margarine:

Salt was taken out and measured out:

The salt was added to the mixing bowl with the two kinds of sugar and margarine:

Vanilla extract and a measuring spoon were taken out:

The vanilla extract was measured out and added to the mixing bowl with the two kinds of sugar, margarine, and salt:

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

The flour was measured out:

The flour was transferred to the bowl with the two kinds of sugar, margarine, salt, and vanilla extract:

Two kinds of chocolate chips were taken out:

Half a cup of milk chocolate chips were measured out:

Half a cup of milk chocolate chips measured out

… and half a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips were measured out:

Half a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips measured out

The chocolate chips were added to the mixing bowl with the other ingredients:

A hand held electric mixer was taken out and the ingredients mixed to make a powdery dough:

The cookie dough was transferred to another bowl and put aside:

Cookie dough transferred to another bowl

Cookie dough transferred to another bowl and put aside

The package of cream cheese placed on the counter earlier to warm up to room temperature was taken out and opened with a pair of scissors:

The cream cheese was transferred to the mixing bowl, the latter of which again was washed in between mixing jobs.

The table sugar was taken out again and measured out:

The table sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the cream cheese:

The electric mixer was taken out again to cream the cream cheese and table sugar together:

Eggs were taken out:

The egg was cracked into the bowl with the cream cheese and sugar:

Egg cracked in bowl with cream cheese and sugar

Vanilla extract was taken out again:

The vanilla extract was measured out and was added to the bowl with the cream cheese, sugar, and egg:

The egg and vanilla extract were mixed into the cream cheese and sugar:

Egg and vanilla extract mixed into cream cheese and sugar

The now-cooled graham cracker crumb base was taken out:

Cooled graham cracker crumb base taken out

The cream cheese mix was transferred on top of the graham cracker crumb crust:

The cream cheese mix was spread evenly over the graham cracker crumb crust:

Cream cheese mix spread evenly over base

The chocolate chip cookie dough was taken out:

A bit of the cookie dough was picked up in my hand …

… and the ball of dough was flattened between my two hands:

The flattened cookie dough was placed on top of the cream cheese mix:

Flattened cookie dough placed on top of cream cheese mix

… and repeated with more cookie dough:

Flattened cookie dough pieces placed on top of cream cheese mix

… until all the cookie dough was used and the whole surface of the cream cheese mix was covered:

Flattened cookie dough pieces fully covering cream cheese mix

The baking pan was placed in the still-hot countertop convection oven:

A timer was set for 30 minutes:

After the 30-minute baking period, the baking pan was taken out of the oven and placed on a cooling rack:

Once the dessert had cooled enough, it was removed from the baking pan using the edges of the parchment paper:

The dessert was first cut in half:

The dessert was cut into quarters:

The dessert was rotated 90 degrees, and sliced just left of centre (so that it can be cut five ways):

Dessert rotated and sliced left of centre

The slicing of dessert was completed (five slices along this axis), making twenty (20) pieces:

And a yummy piece of dessert was served!

February 2, 2024

malak.ca updates, random recipe link, recipe additions, and recipe updates

Just a little note to say that some minor updates to the malak.ca site were added this week:

there is a new (and fun, at least to me) feature to the main page at https://www.malak.ca : A random recipe link that randomly serves up a recipe (thanks to my brother!), including some of my recipes using my old format resembling a more traditional recipe card, while of course also serving up my recipes in my current, very detailed format;
a number of my recipes have been updated, ranging from minor details (such as for blondies), to correcting some spelling and grammatical errors, to adding the occasional missing instruction (such as with my bread machine white bread), to the addition of half-batch measurements (such as for my mom’s raisin bran muffins, and the plain yoghurt muffins), a result of playing with the new random recipe link on the main page;
a few recipes were added:

Enjoy!

August 13, 2023August 13, 2023

Making Stewed Rhubarb — Photos

I picked up making stewed rhubarb because my mom always liked using the rhubarb grown in her garden to make stewed rhubarb and rhubarb chutney. (Ironically, for this post, and often enough, I use rhubarb purchased from the grocery store!)

Note that this recipe effectively needs to be done over two days, or at least with a pause of several hours (roughly equivalent to a minimum of “overnight” ) between preparing the rhubarb, and beginning to stew the rhurbarb.

Note that I also am using the “packing in mason jars and heat-processing” method to preserve the stewed rhubarb, and to allow for the making of larger amounts of stewed rhubarb at once; once the heat-processed jars have cooled, the stewed rhubarb is ready to eat.

Making the Stewed Rhubarb:

Day one:

After buying some rhubarb at the grocery store, some mise-en-place was done by taking out a cutting board, a mixing bowl, a measuring cup, a kitchen knife, and a kitchen scale:

Cutting board, mixing bowl, measuring cup, kitchen knife, and kitchen scale taken out

To avoid confusion a bit later on, the tare weight of the mixing bowl was measured and noted (instead of using the tare function on the kitchen scale):

The rhubarb purchased earlier was taken out (yes, it is a bit shabby!)

The elastics and labels were removed from the rhubarb bunches:

I began to wash and rinse the rhubarb:

The rinsed rhubarb stalks were brought to the cutting board:

The rhubarb stalks were trimmed:

The trimmings were placed in a kitchen waste bucket for later disposal in a municipal composting programme:

Trimmings placed in bucket for composting

If the rhubarb isn’t completely fresh, or especially typical (in my experience) for commercial rhubarb purchased at the grocery store, sometimes there is some minor damage to the stalks to be removed:

The stalk damage was removed (and while my name can be found on my — this — website in several places, I have blacked it out from my knife, on which I had inscribed my name years ago):

The trimmed rhubarb stalks were piled up …

… and the rhubarb stalks were rinsed again to remove the last of the bits:

Some stalks were laid on the cutting board for chopping:

The rhubarb stalks were chopped using a slicing motion against the grain:

As chopped rhubarb started piling up on the chopping board, it was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Chopped rhubarb transferred to mixing bowl

The rest of the rhubarb was chopped, and transferred to the mixing bowl as it was produced:

The bowl of chopped rhubarb was placed on the kitchen scale and weighed:

The weight was noted, to be used in a moment:

A large pot and wooden mixing spoon were taken out:

The chopped rhubarb was transferred to the pot:

A calculator app was started, and the net weight of chopped rhubarb was calculated by subtracting the bowl tare weight from the weight of the bowl filled with the chopped rhubarb:

Net weight of chopped rhubarb calculated

Since my recipe is based on the Imperial system, the weight of 0.895kg (above) was converted to pounds, giving a result just barely shy of two pounds of chopped rhubarb:

Next, a multiplication factor for how many “recipe units” was calculated by dividing the weight of the chopped rhubarb by the base amount of three quarters of a pound:

The multiplication factor was multiplied by the required amount of sugar and lemon juice for per “recipe unit” of 3/4 lb of chopped rhubarb: Half a cup of sugar, and half an ounce of lemon juice, resulting in 1-1/3 cups of sugar, and 1-1/3 ounces of lemon juice:

Multiplication factor applied to sugar and lemon juice required

Sugar and a measuring cup were taken out:

Sugar was measured out:

The sugar was poured onto the chopped rhubarb:

Sugar poured into pot of chopped rhubarb

The chopped rhubarb and sugar were mixed with the wooden spoon:

Lemon juice was measured out:

Extra sugar was added to the lemon juice:

The lemon juice and extra sugar were mixed:

The lemon juice and sugar mix were added to the chopped rhubarb and sugar:

Lemon juice and sugar added to chopped rhubarb and sugar

The chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice were mixed some more:

Chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice mixed

A lid was placed on the pot of rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice:

Lid placed on pot of chopped rhubarb mix

The pot of chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice was placed in a fridge overnight:

Pot of chopped rhubarb mix placed in fridge

Day two:

Early the next morning, I checked on the pot of chopped rhubarb:

As can be sort of be seen above and better in the following photo, a good amount of liquid had been drawn by the sugar from the pieces of chopped rhubarb:

The chopped rhubarb was mixed again with a spoon:

The pot of chopped rhubarb was returned to the fridge until later that evening (after coming home from work.)

That evening, a jar wrench, a jar funnel, tongs, a ladle, and a stainless steel flipper were taken out:

Jar wrench, jar funnel, tongs, ladle, and stainless steel flipper taken out

Mason jars, a few more than I expected to need, and new lids and lid rings, were taken out, but kept aside for the moment:

A pot and trivet were taken out, to act as a boiling water bath soon:

The trivet was placed in the bottom of the pot:

The pot was filled with water:

The pot of water was placed on a burner on the stove:

The stove was turned on:

… and the lid was placed back on the pot:

Since I had placed the pot of water on a smaller burner, which proved to be a mistake, I still waited a bit before taking out the pot of chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice, and placing it on the stove:

Pot of Rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice placed on stove

After waiting a bit more, having gauged the heating up of the pot of water, the burner under the chopped rhubarb mix was turned on:

Burner under chopped rhubarb mix turned on

The lid on the pot of chopped rhubarb mix was removed:

As the rhubarb mix was heating up, I of course mixed it to avoid burning:

The rhubarb mix began to boil:

At this point, the rhubarb mix was taken off the burner, and since the water bath had not yet reached the boiling point, I brought it forward to the larger burner to bring it to a boil more quickly:

Water bath brought forward to larger burner on stove

Fortunately, it was obvious that the water bath was “hot enough” to dip the (clean) bottle funnel to sanitize it:

The bottle funnel was placed in the neck of a jar:

The ladle was dipped in the hot water to sanitize it:

I started ladling the boiled rhubarb mix into the jar until it was filled:

A lid and ring were brought to the jar, and screwed onto the jar (oops, I forgot to take a picture of this second part):

Lid brought to filled jar and screwed on

The rest of the boiled rhubarb mix was transferred into jars, and lids were screwed onto the jars:

At this point, the water in the water bath was finally starting to boil:

Using the jar wrench, the filled jars were transferred to the water bath:

Once the water had come to a rolling boil …

… a timer was set to 15 minutes …

… and the lid was placed back on the pot with the water bath and filled jars:

At this point, the water was boiling so vigorously, that water was splashing out of the pot!

Water splashing out of boiling water bath onto stovetop

After 15 minutes had elapsed, the filled jars were removed from the water bath using the jar wrench:

The now heat-processed jars were placed on the the cutting board:

Heat-processed jar placed on cutting board

Heat-processed jars placed on cutting board

Hot water collecting on the jars was soaked up with a towel:

The jars were moved apart from each other to allow for some ambient cooling for a few moments:

Jars separated to facilitate ambient cooling

Then, the still-warm jars were moved to a fridge to complete cooling.

At this point, I changed tack a bit and printed out some labels for the jars, modifying another label template I have for my pickled eggs:

Printed labels for jars of stewed rhubarb

Scissors, a hole punch, and some elastics were taken out:

Scissors, hole punch, and elastics taken out

Four labels were cut from the sheet:

A date code (in this case for 09 August, 2023, the day I filled and processed the jars) was written on the back / inside of each label:

The labels were folded over onto themselves:

I should note at this point at which the print is more legible, that I live in Montreal, where French predominates, hence the labels are in both English and French. As it happened in the picture above, the folded labels with the English showing were upside down because that’s how I inadvertently happened to flip them over. 🙂

I then picked up the labels, piled them one on another, and crimped the folds:

Labels brought together and folds crimped

A hole was punched through the labels on the end opposite to the fold:

On each individual label, the end near the hole was folded over:

Ah here, the English labels are right side up. 🙂

An elastic was threaded through the hole of a label:

The elastic was looped into itself, and loosely tightened to allow for it to at once hold the label, as well as have a loop to use to go around a jar’s neck:

… which was repeated for the other three labels:

The following morning, the cooled (and fully sealed) jars were removed from the fridge, and brought to the workspace where the labels were:

Labels were looped around the jars:

These jars will be kept to be donated to my church’s fall fair, along with a few jars of my pickled eggs! (And, Mom will receive any which don’t sell. 🙂 )

May 3, 2023May 3, 2023

Making Mashed Sweet Potato and Ground Roast Pork Casseroles — Photos

This is a relatively new addition to my collection of recipes, after having looked through an old community cookbook given to me by a neighbour. It is based on a near-identical recipe obviously (and expressly) intended to use up leftovers from a roast pork Sunday dinner; however, after trying the original recipe, which called for the use of brown sugar and apple slices, I decided to omit the sugar, which made the dish too sweet, and the apples, which didn’t suit us, and replaced them with cooked carrots.

This cooking session occurred in early April, 2023; for a variety of reasons, including the sheer number of photos to organize and prepare for this post — I went into overdrive! — it has taken a bit more than three weeks for me to build this blog post. Also, for the sake of the narrative, the photo progression presented here occasionally differs from the precise progression of when the photos were taken, either because of some mise-en-place activities, actual progression of the food preparation, photo shooting (and occasionally its impact on progression), several operations occurring concurrently, and the like.

Preparing the dish:

Firstly, a countertop convection oven was turned on:

Oven turned on and set to 350F — Countertop oven turned on

A roasting tray was taken out:

A package of (frozen) pork loin, defrosted prior to the cooking session, was taken out:

Scissors were taken out to open the vacuum pack sealing the pork:

The pork loin’s vacuum pack was cut open:

The pork loin, removed from the vacuum pack, was placed in the roasting tray:

Garlic salt was taken out:

Garlic salt was liberally shaken on top of the pork loin:

The pork loin was placed in the countertop convection oven:

Pork placed in countertop convection oven

A timer was set for an hour as a reminder for how long to cook the pork loin:

A pot was taken out for boiling carrots:

A scale was taken out to know roughly measure out the right amount of carrot:

Carrots were taken out:

About a quarter pound of carrot — in this case, a single carrot — was taken out of the bag:

The carrot was cleaned and rinsed:

The cleaned carrot was placed on a cutting board:

The carrot was trimmed:

The carrot was sliced lengthwise:

… and again sliced a few more times to make carrot spears:

Carrot sliced lengthwise to create spears

The carrot spears were chopped:

The chopped carrots were transferred to the pot:

Water was added to the pot of chopped carrots until the carrots were covered:

Salt was added to the carrots and water:

A stove burner was turned on:

The carrots were brought to a boil …

Once the carrots were boiled for about ten minutes, the boiling water was drained off:

A mixing bowl was taken out in which to transfer the carrots:

The boiled carrots were transferred to the mixing bowl:

Boiled carrots transferred to mixing bowl

The carrots were put aside for a bit.

A microwave-safe cooking vessel was taken out, ready for a few moments later when the sweet potatoes would be peeled:

A bowl was placed on the scale, and the scale set to zero:

A bit more than four pounds of sweet potatoes were measured out:

A potato peeler was taken out:

The sweet potatoes were peeled, with the peels placed in a bucket to keep for later disposal in a municipal composting programme:

Peeled sweet potatoes were placed in the microwave-safe cooking vessel:

Peeled sweet potato placed in cooking vessel

A kitchen knife was taken out:

The sweet potatoes were sliced and quartered:

… and placed back in the microwave-safe cooking vessel:

Sweet potato quarters placed in cooking vessel

Water was added to the cooking vessel …

… to about a bit below the surface of the sweet potatoes:

The vessel was covered …

… and placed in the microwave oven:

The microwave oven (1200 watts) was set to 18 minutes:

… and the microwave oven was turned on:

While the sweet potatoes were cooking, a package of dried gravy mix — turkey gravy, which is what I had on hand, and in a package that makes a cup’s worth of gravy, as called for in the recipe, was taken out:

The gravy packet was opened and its contents transferred to another pot that was taken out:

A measuring cup was taken out:

A cup of water was measured out:

The water was added to the pot:

The gravy mix and water were mixed with a spoon:

The gravy was put aside, since the time on the roast pork ran out:

A meat thermometer was taken out …

… and stuck into the pork, giving a temperature reading just right for fully cooked pork:

The pork was removed from the roasting pan:

… and the juices in the roasting pan were drained into the bowl with the cooked carrots

Pork juices drained into bowl with cooked carrots

The roast pork was sliced thickly:

The roast pork was cut into cubes:

A small blender with chopping blades was taken out …

… and the blender was plugged in:

Cubes of roast pork were placed in the blender …

… and the lid placed on top of the blender:

The pork was ground finely without creating a mush:

The chopped pork was transferred to the bowl with the cooked carrots and pork juices:

Ground pork transferred to bowl with carrots

Larger bits of pork which did not get ground finely enough were removed from the bowl, to be ground again with more pork cubes:

Larger bits of pork removed from bowl to be reground with the rest of the pork

The rest of the pork was ground and transferred to the mixing bowl.

Returning to the gravy, a burner on the stove was turned on, in this case, the smaller inner part of a larger burner which has two settings:

The gravy was constantly mixed while being heated, to avoid burning:

Once the gravy came to a boil, the timer was set to a minute …

One minute set on timer once gravy boiling

… while the burner setting was reduced to just about minimum to only allow for simmering:

Once the minute ran out, the gravy was poured over the ground pork and carrots:

Gravy poured into bowl with pork and carrots

The gravy, ground pork, and carrots were mixed with the spoon:

At this point, oven-proof dishes were taken out, for filling:

The meat mix was spooned into containers to about half full, and spread out evenly:

At this point, I came back to the sweet potatoes, which had long since finished cooking in the microwave oven:

Cooked sweet potatoes taken out of microwave oven

The sweet potatoes were checked with a fork to see if they were properly cooked through, which they were:

Cooked sweet potatoes checked for degree of cooking

The water was drained off of the sweet potatoes:

A container of margarine was taken out and opened:

A dollop of margarine was taken from the margarine container with a spoon:

Dollop of margarine taken from container

The margarine was added to the sweet potatoes:

A measuring cup and milk were taken out:

Milk was measured out:

The milk was added to the sweet potatoes and margarine:

Measuring spoons were taken out:

Salt was taken out:

Salt was measured out:

The salt was added to the sweet potatoes:

An electric mixer was taken out, to mash the sweet potatoes:

The electric mixer was plugged in:

The sweet potatoes were mashed with the electric mixer:

Mashing sweet potatoes with electric mixer

A plastic icing spreader was taken out:

Mashed sweet potatoes were picked up with the icing spreader …

Mashed sweet potato picked up with icing spreader

… and, back to the containers with the pork, gravy, and carrots mix, the mashed sweet potatoes were spread on top of the meat mix :

Mashed sweet potatoes spread on top of meat mix

Plastic bags were taken out and identified and dated:

The dishes were placed in the individual bags:

And finally, the bagged dishes were placed in the freezer:

This tasty dish is now a favourite!

March 4, 2023January 28, 2024

Making a two egg, ham and cheese omelette — Photos

I picked up making omelettes for Mom a few months ago out of the blue, because they’re easy to make, and Mom seemed to appreciate them right off the bat. As of this post’s writing, I don’t have a formal recipe written up, but I imagine I could soon; hence for the moment, this post *is* The recipe can now be found here! 🙂 (20240128)

Making the omelette:

I normally keep ground ham in the freezer, divided into serving sizes in small containers, so I took some out, about 15g to 20g (about half to three quarters of an ounce):

Should you not have ground ham on hand, here’s how I make the ground ham:

Deli-style sliced “old-fashioned smoked ham”, in this case purchased at the grocery store in the pre-packaged deli meats counter, was taken out:

… and a coffee grinder was taken out:

The package was opened up, and a couple of slices of ham were placed in the coffee grinder …

… the coffee grinder was closed …

… and the ham was coarsely ground (though not turned to mush!) a few pulses at a time:

(… and, the rest of the ham in the package was similarly ground and placed in a couple of containers, divided up into individual serving sizes, and frozen.)

The frozen ham taken out earlier was placed in the microwave oven to defrost it:

Frozen ground ham placed in microwave oven

… and the microwave oven (1100 watts) was set to about 30 seconds, just enough to mostly defrost the ham:

Microwave oven set to 30 seconds (1100 watts)

The microwave oven was turned on:

Chopped ham defrosting in microwave oven

Finally, the defrosted chopped ham was broken up with a fork:

Defrosted chopped ham broken up with fork

The chopped ham was put aside for a few moments.

Again, normally, I keep cheddar cheese sliced off the block in the fridge, so I took some out:

Container of cheddar cheese sliced off block

Should you not have sliced cheese on hand, here’s how I slice the cheese: A block of cheddar cheese and a cheese slicer in the form of a slotted lifter, where were the slot has an edge intended for slicing the likes of cheese off of a block, were taken out; normally we like mild cheddar, but you can choose any kind of cheese you like that will slice, shred, or crumble nicely:

Block of cheddar cheese with cheese slicer

The block of cheese was unwrapped:

Unwrapped block of cheddar cheese with cheese slicer

Cheese was sliced off the block:

… and as the cheese was sliced, it was placed in a container:

The cheese slices which were produced for this demonstration were put away in the fridge, while the cheese slices taken out earlier were put aside on the counter for a few moments.

Back to the omelette, a mixing bowl was taken out:

Two eggs were taken out:

Two eggs were cracked in the mixing bowl:

Milk was taken out, and about an ounce of milk was measured out:

The milk was added to the eggs:

A bit of salt was added to the eggs and milk:

The mixture was beaten with a fork:

Beating eggs and milk and salt with fork

For this amount of egg mixture, I use a 6 inch / 15 centimetre non-stick frypan:

Also, an aluminum pie plate was taken out:

The stove was turned on to a low setting, but, crucially, given that I was using a larger burner and that this burner can be set to only use a smaller, inner circle, I should have only set it to that smaller, inner circle.

Cooking oil, in this case olive oil, was taken out and added to the frypan:

The olive oil was spread over the cooking surface of the frypan:

The beaten egg mixture was poured into the frypan:

The aluminum pie plate was placed over the frypan as a means to cook the top of the egg mixture somewhat more quickly:

A few slices of the cheese was taken out of the container, about enough just to cover half the surface of the omelette, twice, with a not too thick layer of cheese, especially since there will be two layers (see below):

The aluminum pie plate was taken off the frypan, revealing that the egg mixture was cooking through:

About half the cheese slices were placed on half of the omelette (in this case, on the left hand half of the omelette!):

The ground ham was spread over the cheese on the omelette:

The rest of the cheese slices were placed on top of the ground ham:

The aluminum pie plate was again placed on top of the frypan, in order to help melt the cheese and warm the ham:

A few moments later, the pie plate was removed, and half the omelette was flipped over onto the other half:

A bit of water was drawn from a tap and into a glass …

Some water was poured into the frypan, in order to create some steam:

Water poured into the frypan to create steam

The aluminum pie plate was again placed on top of the frypan to capture the steam to continue cooking the omelette:

Aluminum pie plate placed on top of frypan

The aluminum pie plate was again removed from the frypan, and the omelette cut in two:

At this point, the two halves were quickly turned over (oops, I forgot to take a picture) and cooked for another very small moment.

Half the omelette was served on a plate for Mom to have right away, and the other half was placed in a container to place in the fridge, for Mom to have at a later time:

Ketchup was added, and the omelette was served to Mom:

To my pleasure, Mom yet again found it to be tasty!

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022

Freezer Cooking and Lunches

In mid-2006, my employer at the time was acquired by another company, and my new employers required me – rightfully so – to take some basic training that I should have taken several years earlier. The training was after work hours, two evenings a week, for a few weeks.

Normally, my eating habits were (and still are) such that a given day’s lunch was composed of leftovers from the previous evening’s supper; in fact, normally supper meal plans at the time and still to this day usually intentionally include cooking for one more serving than the meal would call for, so that I would have a lunch the following day.

The training course, however, had the effect of not only requiring me to improvise for my supper plans, such as eating fast food, but also required me to improvise for the following day’s lunch too. My memory of this period is that there was a snowball effect on much of the week’s meals, although it probably was not quite as dramatic as what my mind has woven into my memory.

One of the solutions I came up with — but never quite fully implemented at the time — was the idea of a cooking weekend, targeted at being done at the cottage. My ambition at that point was to stock the freezer with a variety, as well as a large stock, of dishes and prepared meals, including lunches, so that the above situation wouldn’t be a problem moving forward. I had notions that were fairly ambitious, both in terms of the variety of meals to be made during the weekend, as well as the sheer amount of food that I suppose I expected to make over such a hypothetical weekend.

I developed the following planning table:

The table I created with basic plans for such a cooking weekend

As can be seen, one of the goals was to make a number of dishes based on a common ingredient, my spaghetti sauce, which I had begun making in the early 1990’s.

As also can be seen, although there were a few numbers of dishes to produce, overall the list is rather vague in what I would end up with in terms of numbers. Among other things, while I did have rough ideas of how much of most of the items I would make (or at least envisioned making), for instance, I didn’t start planning out the required amounts of each of the ingredients and sub-ingredients needed to make the dishes and components.

Overall, it seemed — and still seems to this day — rather vague and all over the place, and overly ambitious to the point of being daunting. Critically, although I knew that I would be making about seven to eight quarts of my spaghetti sauce, I didn’t plan out its ingredients, determine just how many of each of the other dishes for which it would be used would be produced from the seven to eight quarts, or whether some of the “larger” dishes were to be prepared for their own sake and the freezer, or to be ultimately cooked and divided up into lunch containers. Except as an afterthought, I just about didn’t even insert the making of the spaghetti sauce into the weekend’s already ambitious cooking plans!

Before coming to this last realization, I realized that my plan would only produce two or three servings’ or meals’ worth of each, which might all be eaten in short order.

Unsurprisingly, the planned weekend was never executed, and after a few weeks, my evenings freed up, and my regular lunches returned.

Years later, I realized despite the usefulness of the intentions behind my plans for the cooking weekend, at least for me, it suffered from not only being too ambitious in its own right, but from being even more ambitious than I thought. At the same time, the overall plan suffered from being a bit too wide in its intended scope given what would be a limited amount of base (the spaghetti sauce). As such, the plan was likely to produce — should I accomplish it all in such a weekend — merely an amount of food, especially the lunches, that would be consumed far more quickly than I had hoped.

My spaghetti sauce — and what I do now for tomato sauce based dishes

My spaghetti sauce was a bit of a marathon sauce to make. Based on canned tomatoes, it also included an inordinate variety and amount of chopped vegetables for a spaghetti sauce, and — especially the end product — was not unlike my current vegetable soup recipe, which I have been making since about 2013. I had a prideful joy in making it, partly as a result of it being so chock-full of vegetables, but, to a degree than I didn’t care to admit at the time, also borne of a stubborn pride resulting from it being a showcase of all the vegetables it contained and a desire to show off a certain (naïve) cooking acumen.

My chili recipe recipe from the early 1990’s, which is essentially my spaghetti sauce with the addition of the red kidney beans and the chili powder (image scanned from my church’s cookbook, published in 1996)

However, one of the things I realized in looking at my big cooking weekend, both early on without realizing it, as well as more formally just recently, was that I just wanted to make, say, lasagna, chilli, beef rolls, pasta dishes, or my eggplant dish (as well as a few lunches not involving my sauce). The “without realizing it” part (early on) was overshadowed by the prideful notion that it made sense at the time to want to use my spaghetti sauce to then make all these other dishes.

Except … I have come to realize that the effort to make the sauce to begin with, as well as my pride in wanting to use it, was perhaps core to the difficulty in implementing the cooking weekend. While the dishes were meant to be a showcase to myself for my spaghetti sauce and as well as my cooking in general, I realized that all these dishes were about showcasing the whole dishes, and not so much meant to showcase my spaghetti sauce.

As such, for a long time now, many of the tomato sauce dishes I make call for commercially prepared tomato / spaghetti sauces, as opposed to, specifically, my home-made sauce.

(As a side thought, were to I make spaghetti sauce again, I have a few vague notions about simplifying it somewhat, as well as chopping the vegetables much more finely, to the point of grinding them, instead of the coarse chopping I favoured for the “sauce” in the 1990’s.)

How things have evolved to today:

Despite the fact that the above weekend plan never materialized, I soon took to often planning cooking weekends when I went to the cottage, especially during the off-season (it’s a family cottage, so there always have been occasional scheduling issues which haven’t always allowed me to do what I would like, when I would like. 🙂 )

However, the first thing that should be mentioned, since this post is at least partly predicated on a period of time in which having ready-made lunches handily available in the freezer was essential, but was not the case, is that … I haven’t since planned out cooking weekends dedicated to cooking ready-made lunches for the freezer, or form a cooking club with a few friends in which we fastidiously make a week’s worth (or more) of lunches and other meals every Saturday, or otherwise come up with a systematic method of stocking the freezer with ready-made lunches.

In the intervening years, the principal approach I have taken to rectify unforeseen needs for prepared lunches is to hoard lunches and leftovers in the freezer; in addition to routinely making extra food for the following day’s lunch, I would occasionally also, at random opportunities, zealously make an extra lunch to place in the freezer. As such, my supply of extra lunches at any given time ebbs and swells according to how many lunches I have managed to hoard at that point in time, versus how many I have needed to eat recently. Fortunately, some of my recipes somewhat ease mounting full lunches in the freezer by being pair-able with odds-and-ends leftovers, such as bacon wrapped chicken, meatballs, and stuffed potato skins.

What I do do is plan “big” cooking weekends many times while I am up at the cottage, including quite often during the off season in winter, incidentally without running water. This is done in conjunction with weekend afternoons in the city with similar objectives (including a cook-through-my-collection-of-recipes project I did mostly in 2021, accessible off my home page at https://www.malak.ca ). Depending on my desires and ambitions, I usually concentrate on single projects, per day anyway; during a week over Christmas to New Year’s, for instance, I usually plan for almost as many large cooking projects as there are days – to cook various large cooking projects to fill the freezer.

I had begun large, more focused, cooking weekends not too long after my above planned weekend should have taken place, continuing a certain tradition I had started years earlier of occasionally making large quantities of my recipes, from a then-limited recipe répertoire, typically focusing on large freezer quantities of one, or perhaps two, recipes from my collection.

Therefore, early on — at this point, exactly “when” being lost to the sands of time and the multiple computer upgrades over the years, during which dates of creation, or at least the last edit, have been lost several times over — I had put the following list together. I tried to write down what my aims and guidelines had become. Note that the text of the list has been slightly edited to fit the current narrative:

A dish needs to be just as easy to make several units of the recipe as one unit – if not easier, and as such not more difficult to make because it’s in quantity (barring the extra time and labour merely due to extra quantity – taking advantage of economies of scale);
A dish needs to be easy to make in large quantities, using a repetitive production line process;
A dish must be appropriate for freezing – for instance, my zucchini dish is not appropriate for freezing, although its sauce is appropriate for freezing!
A dish should be something that just needs to be defrosted and reheated / cooked in toaster oven or regular oven;
A dish should be “convenience food” — the operative notion being “convenient because it’s made in advance and ready to eat” (or brown and serve), not as in “junk food” or like industrially produced, store bought frozen lunches;
A dish should not be something at its core easy enough to make any day of the week fresh (looking back, I suppose that this is barring a notion to make multiple units of otherwise easy to make lunches to stock the freezer, were that have been a priority at the time);
A cooking project should not just be components for other dishes – ie. projects should be to make full meals, not just cooked hamburgers or burger meat, nor just cooked chicken pieces, etc.

Given that over the years, my objectives have evolved, changed, and widened, I have long since abandoned at least a part of the guideline regarding making meal components or single items, because I now regularly cook large quantities of breakfast sausages for freezing, have in the past cooked whole packages or more of bacon for my mom, and I regularly make bacon wrapped chicken, meatloaf, meatballs, stuffed potato skins, as well as cooked ground beef frozen in ice cube trays to keep in the freezer for other times calling for small amounts of cooked ground beef.

Of course, it would only be appropriate to show a recent planning table for a week’s stay at the cottage over Christmas , 2021 (regular meal planning blocked out):

Yes, there are still a lot of details missing here from this list, such as specific numbers, arguably allowing for somebody besides myself to look at both lists and wonder, beyond the more relaxed pace and the specific list of foods and ingredients to bring, what the difference between this 2021 table and the 2006 table are. However, each entry is based on, normally, the standard amounts in my various recipes, plus often slight excesses. And, according to my notes, I also made stuffed potato skins, bran muffins for my mom twice instead of once, and the chocolate buttercrunch twice, as well as, as intimated in the “bring” list, a container of cheese sliced off of the block for my mom to consume the following week.

These days, my freezers are usually full of many tasty dishes from my collection of recipes, individual servings of many foods both from and beyond my collection of recipes, and various lunches made up of leftovers, some consisting of components from multiple meals and cooking sessions. This is actually served by a certain hoarding instinct; I often fill containers with bits of leftovers from a given meal to freeze, and as possible I add to them with other little bits already in the freezer as they are produced.

And … do I run out of lunches? Usually not! However … managing the freezer is a work in progress and a continuous project, sometimes a daily project beyond simply preparing tomorrows lunch; I sometimes grab opportunities to make a second lunch or portion thereof!

September 15, 2022

Making My Mom’s Rhubarb Chutney — Photos

My mom has been making a rhubarb chutney (of the British variety, not the Indian variety) since I was young, and she has loved it as long as I remember. Every year, she would harvest the rhubarb growing in her garden and make at least one batch per season, or two, or even three, depending on the yield.

I have been saying for years that I should learn how to make the chutney for her, although it has taken until this year before I finally consulted her recipe card and notes. The recipe I present here is adapted from (and very closely tracks) the recipe on my mom’s recipe card with several years’ worth of notes. The recipe on the card, if my recollection of her stories is accurate, is apparently derived from a recipe developed by her church ladies’ group in the early 1980’s, and which was possibly assigned to her after one of their canning sessions with a request to make some at home for an upcoming fall bazaar’s preserves’ table. It also incidentally is identical in ingredients and comparable in amounts to a recipe found on the internet for a barbecue sauce … so go figure.

Mom eats it as a condiment to various dishes, such as roast pork, chicken pot pies, shepherd’s pies, and many other dishes … basically, despite its sweet nature, it is also savoury, and pairs well with a number of savoury dishes.

Making the rhubarb chutney:

First, I took out two groupings of commercially grown rhubarb, in this case, about nine stalks each:

Two groupings of nine stalks each of rhubarb

The individual stalks of rhubarb were washed:

The rhubarb stalks were trimmed of their ends, leaves, and as the case may be, torn or damaged parts:

A non-reactive stainless steel pot (yes, there are some cheap stainless steel pots which will react with acid contents!) was taken out, and put to the ready beside the cutting board:

The rhubarb was sliced into 1/4″ to 1/2″ slices:

The chopped rhubarb was transferred to the stainless steel pot as sufficient amounts accumulated on the chopping board:

Once all the rhubarb was chopped and transferred to the pot, to be sure of the amount of rhubarb I had chopped was enough for the recipe, I measured it out …

… and placed it in a bowl:

Once measured out, the rhubarb was placed back in the stainless steel pot.

Next, packed brown sugar was measured out:

The brown sugar was added to the chopped rhubarb:

All brown sugar added to chopped rhubarb

The chopped rhubarb and brown sugar were mixed with a wooden spoon:

Wooden spoon used to mix chopped rhubarb and brown sugar

Brown sugar and chopped rhubarb mixed with wooden spoon

The chopped rhubarb and brown sugar mix was covered with the stainless steel pot lid:

The stainless steel pot with the rhubarb and brown sugar mix was placed in the refrigerator overnight:

Pot of rhubarb and brown sugar in fridge

Onions were taken out:

The onions were trimmed:

The onions were sliced into half-coins:

The onions were coarsely chopped:

The onions were transferred to a measuring cup to keep track of how much onions I had:

The chopped onions were transferred to a sealable container:

Chopped onions transferred to sealable container

The container of onions was covered and placed in the fridge until the next day.

The next day, the first thing done was to fill a pot with water, for use later as a boiling water bath for the mason jars used to bottle the chutney:

A burner on the stove was turned on:

The pot of water was placed on the stove to bring it to a boil:

The pot of rhubarb and brown sugar was taken out of the fridge:

Pot of rhubarb and brown sugar taken out of fridge

Another burner on the stove was turned on:

The pot of rhubarb and brown sugar was placed on the stove:

Pot of rhubarb and brown sugar placed on stove

As the mix began heating up, it was mixed to loosen some brown sugar at the bottom of the pot:

Throughout the following process, the mix was constantly stirred in order to avoid burning at the bottom of the pot.

The chopped onions were added to the pot:

The ingredients were mixed together:

Vinegar was measured out:

The vinegar was added to the pot:

The ingredients were yet again mixed together:

Raisins were measured out:

The raisins were placed in a small blender, to coarsely chop them:

Raisins placed in small blender for chopping

The raisins were chopped:

The chopped raisins were added to the pot:

The raisins were mixed in with the rest of the ingredients.

Ground cloves were measured out:

The ground cloves were added to the pot:

Ground cinnamon was measured out:

The ground cinnamon was added to the pot; as evidenced by the rising steam, the ingredients were heating up nicely:

Ground allspice was measured out:

The ground allspice was added to the pot:

At this point, the chutney was starting to boil, and, for reference, two hours was set on the stove timer (because the original recipe called for two hours of simmering):

The stove burner was turned down to a low setting:

The ingredients were constantly stirred in order to avoid burning and sticking on the bottom of the pot:

After about half an hour of simmering …

… this is what the chutney looked like:

At this point, the pot of water for sanitizing the jars came to a boil and its burner turned off:

After about an hour of simmering …

… this is what the chutney looked like, and was at the point of being syrupy:

As such, I knew I wasn’t going to need to continue simmering the chutney for another hour.

Canning tools were taken out: a ladle, a jar funnel, tongs, a large spoon, and a jar wrench:

Mason jars, rings, and lids were taken out — and yes, I used good condition used lids for this batch, since I had no intention of giving away any of the jars:

The water for the water bath was brought back to a boil, and mason jars were placed in the boiling water:

Water brought back to a boil and mason jars placed in boiling water

The canning funnel was quickly dipped in the boiling water to sanitize it:

Unfortunately, at this point, I could not take as many photos, in order to quickly fill the jars while the chutney and jars were still hot, and create a proper seal with the lids.

The chutney was taken off the stove; a mason jar was taken out of the boiling water, and the jar was filled with chutney:

A mason jar lid and ring were dipped in the boiling water:

The lid and ring were placed on the mason jar and the ring tightened.

The process was repeated until all the chutney was bottled, in this case, filling seven jars:

The jars were placed in the fridge to cool down a little more quickly:

Jars of chutney placed in fridge to cool them down

Afterwards, labels were placed on the jars, and the jars were placed in the cupboard.

And … Mom loves it, and has even whispered “it’s better than when I make it!” … no doubt (at least) a mild exaggeration. 🙂

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022

Making Roast Potatoes — Photos

One of my mom’s perennial holiday dinner treats was her roast potatoes, something I figured it was time to learn how to make. As such, I asked her how to do it — it is fairly easy — and adjusted the basic recipe to two generous servings, which can be multiplied and adjusted according to the number of people to be served.

Note that the recipe as presented can be easily made in a countertop convection oven — as was the case in the following series of photos at the cottage — but there may be some minor variations when scaling up to larger amounts cooked in a conventional oven.

Making the roast potatoes:

First, the oven was pre-heated to 400F:

Water was poured into a pot:

Potatoes were taken out, in this case, about 400g or 3/4lb to 1lb of potatoes:

The potatoes were peeled:

Peeled potatoes were placed in the water:

Potato peels were collected, and in this case burned in the fireplace, since it was heating season:

Potato peels collected to place in the fireplace

Peeled potatoes were taken out one by one to slice:

Potatoes were sliced in half lengthwise:

… and then sliced into pieces:

The potato pieces were placed back into the water:

The rest of the potatoes were similarly cut up:

The water was drained from the potatoes:

… and fresh water was poured in the pot to rinse the potatoes:

A clean, dry towel was laid out on a cutting board:

The drained potatoes were placed on the clean dry towel:

The towel was folded over in order to pat dry the potatoes:

Towel folded over to pat dry the potatoes

Parchment paper was taken out:

An oven tray was taken out:

The parchment paper was placed on the oven tray:

Margarine was taken out:

The kitchen scale was set to zero with an empty spoon on it, and then margarine was weighed out:

A bit of margarine was picked up with my fingers:

Pat dried potato pieces were picked up one at a time and slathered with margarine and placed on the oven tray:

Potato pieces picked up and slathered with margarine

Potato pieces slathered with margarine and placed on baking tray

And as can be seen, the roughly 75g / 3oz of margarine were used up:

Onion salt was taken out:

Onion salt was shaken somewhat liberally over the margarine covered potatoes:

The timer on the oven was set to about 45 minutes:

The tray of potatoes was placed in the oven:

Here is a shot of the roasting potatoes after about 25 minutes:

The potatoes were turned over at this point:

The potatoes were taken out just before 45 minutes, ready to eat:

(Note that because of the excessive amount of parchment paper used, yes, I did have to deal with some burning parchment paper!)

Supper is served!

Yummy!

January 18, 2022

Making my mom’s stuffed butternut squash — photos

My version of my mom’s stuffed butternut squash is a new addition to my collection of recipes, although it is a dish that my dear mom has been making for years. Yummilly, it very closely tracks my mom’s version.

It is actually a fairly easy recipe, and is fairly easy to scale up to feed a larger crowd than the two to four servings to which this recipe is tailored.

Beyond being a tasty dish, Mom used to make it as a way to use up rice she’d already made earlier in a larger, more conveniently sized batch, or as a way to have rice in the fridge to use later in the week; for this post, I show the photos making rice, to have more rice for later. Conversely, I do not show the cooking of the ground beef, already having some previously cooked and frozen ground beef on hand.

Also with regard to the rice used in the photos below, I used a commercial flavoured rice I like; however, the point of the recipe lies in using any rice that suits your tastes.

Note: This post uses photos from two separate cooking sessions, as I was working out some of the required specific amounts of each ingredient and techniques. As such, in some cases, one may notice slight discrepancies between two or more photos showing the progression of steps the narrative identifies as sequential, when in fact in some cases the photos may switch between two separate sessions which may have inadvertently involved slight differences.

Making the stuffed butternut squash:

I began by taking out a commercial packet of a flavoured rice I like:

The flavouring packet was taken out of the package:

The rice in the packet was measured out, and a matching amount was measured out from a bag of plain rice, since I find the amount of flavouring in the packet too strong when the rice is made with the amount of rice as packaged:

The rice was added to a pot:

Water was measured out:

The water was added to the rice:

The contents of the flavour packet was added to the rice:

The rice, flavouring, and water were mixed with a fork:

Rice, water, and flavouring mixed with fork

Margarine was taken out:

Margarine was spooned out of the tub …

… and transferred to the pot with the rice:

The stove burner was turned on …

… and the rice was brought to a boil …

… at which point the stove was turned down to a low setting …

… and a timer set to twenty minutes:

The rice was simmered for 20 minutes:

Rice simmering for 20 minutes, partway through

While the rice was still simmering, a butternut squash of approximately 2lbs was taken out:

The squash was cut in half along its length:

The seeds were removed from the squash:

The squash halves were peeled and trimmed:

The squash halves were cut in two:

The halves without a natural hollow were hollowed out, and the extra kept:

About an inch’s worth of water was added to the microwave-safe cooking vessel:

The squash pieces, including those cut out from the solid pieces of squash, were placed in the cooking vessel:

The squash was covered and placed in the microwave oven:

The microwave oven (1200 watts) was set to 10 minutes:

The cooked squash was taken out of the microwave oven:

Cooked squash taken out of the microwave oven

The water was drained from the cooking vessel, and the pieces cut out to hollow out two of the pieces were transferred to a bowl (while the rest was put aside for the moment) …

… and the squash pieces were mashed with a fork:

The mashed squash was put aside for a few moments.

Normally, I cook ground beef and onions in advance, and freeze it in ice cube trays, which conveniently hold roughly an ounce in each well. Earlier, two and a half cubes, about two and half ounces, were taken out of the freezer, and allowed to defrost on the counter:

Cooked ground beef and onions taken out of freezer

The ground beef cubes were broken up with a fork:

The mashed squash was added to the beef:

Mashed squash added to cooked ground beef

At this point, the rice was cooked:

A cup of rice was measured out, while the rest was placed in a container to freeze and eat later:

The cooked rice was added to the cooked beef and mashed squash:

Rice added to cooked ground beef and mashed squash

The cooked ground beef, mashed squash, and rice were mixed together with a fork:

Cooked ground beef, mashed squash, and rice mixed together

The rice mixture was put aside, and a can of condensed tomato soup was taken out:

The can of condensed tomato soup was opened:

The cooked hollowed out squash pieces were taken out again:

A small amount of the condensed tomato soup was placed in the bases of each hollowed-out piece of squash:

Condensed tomato soup spooned into hollowed-out squash

The rice, cooked ground beef, and mashed squash mix was spooned into the squash:

Rice, cooked ground beef, and squash mix added to squash

The rest of the condensed tomato soup was spooned onto the top of the rice, beef, and squash mix:

Condensed tomato soup spooned onto the rice, cooked ground beef, and squash mix

The cooking vessel was covered …

… and the dish was placed in the microwave oven again:

The microwave oven (1200 watts) was set to seven minutes:

After seven minutes of cooking, the stuffed squash was ready to eat:

… and the stuffed squash was served:

It was, of course, yummy, and of course, Mom approved.

(… and, at the risk of sounding like I’m bragging, putting aside that, well, I *had* cooked it, I couldn’t tell whether I’d cooked it, or whether Mom had cooked it!)

December 26, 2021December 26, 2021

Making my mom’s turkey stuffing — Photos

This week, leading up to Christmas, and generally taking advantage of a week of holidays, I delved into my collection of recipes, and made plain white bread, as well as raisin bread (twice), lemon squares (twice), blondies, bran muffins (twice) for my mom, shortbread cookies, corned beef hash, my pepperoni pizza, and, the subject of this post, my mom’s turkey stuffing — of course, to use for family Christmas dinner, which I also made this year!

The various steps were performed over several sessions during the week (mostly cubing and drying bread), however, for the sake of narrative, the photos are listed, largely, as though it could have been done in two sessions. And, despite stating in the recipe that its cooking in a turkey is beyond the scope of the recipe, I do indeed show at the end of this post the cooking of the stuffing with the Christmas turkey, in response to a conversation with, and comment from, my brother: “If you get a trailer, you want to see it hooked up to a truck.“

Making the turkey stuffing:

Although the following picture was taken this past week as part of preparing for making the stuffing, normally, throughout the year I collect bread bits and bread crusts …

… and as I collect them I cube them and dry them, to add to a container of dried bread cubes:

This week, bread I’d just made was taken out:

The loaf of bread was sliced for freezing, and some slices were put aside:

Bread slices were sliced into spears:

The bread spears were cut into cubes and placed on a tray to dry:

Once dried, the bread cubes were placed in a container I fill over time with dried bread cubes:

Fresh bread cubes were also put aside in a freezer bag and frozen, to be used later in the week when I made the turkey stuffing:

Fresh bread cubes in a freezer bag put aside for later in the week when I made the stuffing

On the day I made the turkey stuffing, onions were taken out:

The onions were cleaned and trimmed:

The onions were cut in half:

The onion halves were sliced into half coins:

The onions were somewhat finely chopped:

The chopped onions were transferred to a microwave oven safe cooking vessel, and put aside for a few moments:

Chopped onions transferred to microwave oven safe cooking vessel

Bulk sausage meat was taken out:

… and removed from its packaging:

Bulk sausage meat removed from its packaging

The sausage meat was broken up by hand and placed in the microwave oven safe cooking vessel along with the chopped onions:

Bulk sausage meat broken up by hand and placed in microwave oven safe cooking vessel along with chopped onions

The sausage meat and onions were mixed together by hand:

Sausage meat and chopped onions mixed together

Time was set on my microwave oven:

The microwave oven safe cooking vessel was placed in the microwave oven:

Microwave oven safe cooking vessel placed in microwave oven

Microwave oven safe cooking vessel in microwave oven

Part way through cooking the sausage meat and onions, they were taken out and large pieces were broken up with a large spoon:

Sausage meat and onions broken up with large spoon

Mostly cooked sausage and onions:

The fresh and dried bread cubes were taken out:

Fresh bread cubes were measured out:

Fresh bread cubes were transferred to a large mixing vessel, in this case, my 16 litre soup pot:

Fresh bread cubes transferred to large mixing vessel

Fresh bread cubes in large mixing vessel

The cooked sausage meat and onions were added to the bread cubes

Cooked sausage meat and onions added to bread cubes

The bread cubes and the cooked sausage meat and onions were mixed with a large mixing spoon:

Ingredients mixed with large mixing spoon

Chicken soup base was taken out:

Chicken soup base was measured out:

The chicken soup base was added to a measuring cup:

Chicken soup base added to measuring cup

Water was added to an electric kettle:

The kettle was turned on:

Once boiled, boiling water was added to the measuring cup with the chicken soup base:

Boiling water added to measuring cup with chicken soup base

The chicken soup base and the boiling water were mixed together:

Chicken soup base and boiling water mixed together

The chicken soup was added to the rest of the ingredients:

Chicken soup added to rest of ingredients

The ingredients were mixed together again with the large spoon:

Savoury (spice) was taken out:

The savoury was sprinkled over the ingredients, and the ingredients were mixed again:

Dry bread cubes were measured out:

The dry bread cubes were added to the rest of the ingredients:

Dry bread cubes added to rest of ingredients

The ingredients were yet again mixed together with the large spoon:

Gauze poultry stuffing bags were taken out:

A gauze bag was filled with the stuffing:

The gauze bag was tied off:

The gauze bag was placed in a sealable freezer bag and placed in a fridge for use later, on Christmas day:

Stuffing placed in a plastic bag for later use

And in the spirit of seeing the “trailer hooked up to a truck”, here are photos from Christmas day, cooking the turkey and stuffing:

On Christmas day, the gauze bag with the stuffing was taken out of the freezer bag, and placed on a baking rack in a roasting pan:

Bacon was taken out:

Slices of bacon were placed on top of the stuffing:

Two turkey breasts, tied together with butcher’s string, were placed on top of the stuffing:

Bacon was liberally wrapped over and around the turkey and stuffing:

The Christmas turkey was placed in the oven:

After some cooking, basting, and browning, aluminum foil was placed on top of the turkey partway through cooking the turkey in order to avoid burning on the outside and drying out of the turkey, while the inside of the turkey and stuffing continued to cook (a meat thermometer was critical):