Happy Friday, Darlings! I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Here in Atlanta the sun is shining and the temp is a brisk 44F (Uggs weather!)

And although this week’s posts might lead you to believe I have not been cooking this week, I have. It just seemed like each meal was not very exciting by itself. But as a week’s worth of food – that would be much better. Let me share what’s been happening in my kitchen the week of November 9-13, 2009.

Monday – We are still craving comfort food, so tonight it was meatloaf, green beans and mashed sweet potatoes. In our house, Eric has come up with a cool way for the meatloaf to stay moist while baking. After forming the loaf and placing it in the pan, we take a can of green beans (or two) and pour the whole thing (liquid and all) over the meatloaf. Not only does the meatloaf stay tender, but the green beans taste much better as well. Try it next time and see what the family thinks. I also whipped up some bread dough from the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes. Here’s a site that gives you all the details. The dough is sitting in my fridge and I bet I will get around to baking some up this weekend. It is the handiest recipe ever. Now for photos of Monday’s offerings:

Dough Waiting to Become Bread

Cozy Meatloaf Supper

Tuesday – If you are in the Atlanta area, you will know that Tuesday brought torrential rains and many areas were flooded. Not the day for going anywhere. Even Karen came back immediately after jumping the fence. What’s for supper? More comfort food, of course! I stood gazing into my fridge, trying to decide what to cook.  I had a big bunch of chicken breasts, so I poached them and used the two biggest for chicken and yellow rice and the others for dilled chicken salad for lunches. The leftover chicken and rice will be used later in the weekend for fried rice. I also used this rainy day to organize my pantry. I picked up these cool containers on sale at Target that would keep potential mice from making a meal out of the staples in my pantry come winter (sorry little mice!) All the laundry got done, too.  A successful day for housework.

Yellow Rice Goodness!

Wednesday was Veterans Day and that means a day off for the state, which means a day off for both Crystal and Teague, who were total sweeties and invited Eric and me for supper. No cooking for me tonight! Whoo hoo! What a wonderful feast she and Teague prepared for us.  Teague made his fabulous apple, roquefort, bacon pie – as a side dish! I wish I could serve you a slice from the computer – it truly is amazing.  Crystal was making kitchen magic with a perfectly prepared pork tenderloin (a huge pork tenderloin, I might add), roasted with parsnips and sweet potatoes, accompanied by pan fried cabbage (Teague is the Cabbage King, after all…).  I baked up some blondies for dessert.  Ohhhh, we all ate well.  And Crystal set a beautiful Autumn table, also! And Crystal’s gift to me was homemade pork fat (I am going to have Crystal explain the technique in an upcoming post) and a giant chunk of the tenderloin, which I will slice super thin and use on cuban sandwiches this weekend. Golly, I love a cuban sandwich.

Teague's Fancy Schmancy Yummy Pie

The Prettiest Table Setting - Martha Should Be Worried...

Nom, Nom, Pork!

Thursday was bittersweet. I got the greatest news that Morgan, the niece of my very bff, Vickie, would be stopping in this weekend on her way back from Tennessee with a carload of her buddies and having dinner here with us. I can’t wait! It was also Miss DeVore’s night. Miss DeVore has had a weird week, after being bit by her dog, Lenerd, and saying goodbye to CNN. I went into super comfort food mode for this night. Burritos made with the leftover meatloaf and fresh made guacamole, along with the most beautiful Cinammon Bread gleaned from a recipe posted by the most talented Kate at Framed. Go check out her blog – everything looks so good! I loved this cake recipe because it tastes like cinammon rolls (a serious weakness of mine) and it goes together in no time flat. Special note if you decide to make this pan of deliciousness – DO NOT PREHEAT THE OVEN. IT GOES INTO A COLD OVEN. I wasn’t paying attention and had to turn off the oven and let it cool down before I could put the cake in and start all over. But let me tell you, this is going into my permanent recipe file. We gobbled it up like…yes, you guessed it – wild, hungry badgers. Go to Kate’s post to see how it should look and I’ll show you how mine looked.

Entire Cake Before Demolishing

One Perfect Piece of Cinammon Heaven

Burrito Before Rolling Up

There’s my wrap up for the week, Darlings. Today brings some fun culinary treats that I look forward to sharing with you tomorrow.

Use this weekend to pay it forward. The kindness will return to you threefold.

xoxo, Patti