[Sca-cooks] Adamantius' Christmas Diner

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius commented:

<<< Again, I had gone crazy with the
knife work, cutting large russet potatoes into little tourn? shapes
(imagine a football-shaped, faceted gemstone and you come pretty
close), plus parsnips, white turnips, carrots, celery and onions. I
lightly sauteed the potatoes in a little olive oil until slightly
browned, and in a separate pan, slowly cooked the other vegetables
until half done, then raised the heat and added a big pinch of sugar
(yes, I cheated) to encourage a slightly caramelized/glazed coating.
On Monday we put them all, with the potatoes, in the pan with the
lamb for the last half-hour or so, so there wasn't too much heavy
caramelization at the bottom of the meat pan >>>

Interesting idea. Depending upon how i peel my potatoes and in how  
much haste I'm in, my potatoes may not be smooth, but have a  
multitude of facets, not very symmetric, though. So doing this  
intentionally sounds like an interesting presentation. Did you serve  
these as mostly rounded whole potatoes? Or did you perhaps cut them  
in two so they sat flat on one side?

<<< Small portions of lasagne my sister had made, and/or stuffed
mushrooms as a starter (both my wife and the Evil Spawn had allergy
issues with different components of the lasagne) >>>

Admittedly, most of the lasagna I've cooked started out frozen, but  
what were the allergy issues with it? Nothing occurs to me, but I'd  
like to know what to keep in mind.

<<< Leek and potato soup with chicken stock and just a little cream
(improvised on site when my Mom got an immersion blender as a gift)>>>

Were these some additional potatoes? Or had you peeled the potatoes  
first and then used the scrap left from cutting the facets off of the  
potatoes that were going to be roasted?

<<< MInt Sauce (made with mint, a little sugar, and sherry vinegar
instead of the usual malt)  >>>

I've never made mint sauce, although I've seen it sold in jars. The  
use of malt in this is a surprise to me. Does anyone know how far  
back mint sauce goes? Do we have any period recipes or mentions of this?

<<< Almond Macaroons (made from a sugar-free recipe for a diabetic  
family
member)  >>>

Recipe? Or was this simply a matter of substituting a sugar  
substitute for the sugar in a regular recipe? Since I'm diabetic I  
might like such cookies.  Sugar-free commercial cookies tend to be  
expensive and small. I wonder if a lot of the sugar/carb savings on  
such cookies might simply be from making the cookies small. :-(

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****