Ellis my dear, the folks around here are lucky these days if I make them spaghetti or open a can of soup!

If I spend a lot of time cooking something or making Cornish pasties etc, my darling girls would taste them and then say (in contemplative, sad, polite chorus): Gee thanks Mooomm, I like it but...I don't really LIKE it. (They are very sweet & honest!)

I have a friend who says when you cook for children, you should just show them the dinner and throw it out cuz that's where it's going to end up anyway!

On occasion I will make spicy Indian curried lentils because my youngest likes them & so do I - go figure! She likes bean soup too which we call 'beanie soup' (goes with 'greenie peas')!

My eldest would be pleased to live on buttered toast and cocoa, but she will eat a few other items. She likes salad, which is good, and chicken, and pasta & pizza. Not that you all wanted to know!

I have had to tell myself that what I eat has nothing to do with what the rest of them eat. DH can (& will, bless his cotton socks!) eat just about anything. Course, he does get to go out for lunch a few times a week so he doesn't have it so bad!

Mauvais, I never heard of mince & doughballs (my goodness!) but I'll bet my MIL has (she is British, just like DH, not surprisingly). I have heard of suet pudding. DH played the role of one in a school play, I think.

Lidian

Lidian, I'm the same with cooking. If DH comes home to a prepared dinner twice a week he's lucky.
Probably if I didn't receive so many darned complaints about dinner I'd make it more often.
My six year old loves broccoli. And parmesean cheese sandwiches. That's about it.
I keep a big stock of frozen perogies, Betty Crocker mashed potatoes, and chicken breasts (deboned and skinned). And pasta. I LOVE looking at recipes, but I'm just not interested enough to get it together to actually MAKE something!

Me too, Ellis! I love to collect cookbooks and read them while sitting or lying comfortably, but I'll be darned if I'm going to get up and do anything about it...

My mom was just like this too. In my younger, more ambitious days I used to think why doesn't she cook more if she likes cookbooks so much? And now I understand.

I love the Food Network too - especially Good Eats & Iron Chef!

Cutting up three heads of lettuce on Sunday just about did me in on the cooking front. But I may make pancakes this evening for the girls. Minimum effort, freeze most of them, rave reviews.

Mind you I also get rave reviews for boxed mac & cheese - oh Mom, they say, how did you make it so GOOD? Took it out of the box, sweetheart, I say modestly (looking up from Julia Child), and threw it in the nearest pot!



Lidian

Oh! What a good idea with the pancakes! Except I can't make them without burning them. I DO make a wicked crepe, though.
DH makes pancakes for the children every Sunday. Bribery before he takes them to church.

I have a wicked recipe for REAL mac and cheese, but the kids don't like it. Go figure. Only the boxed will do.

So would I be correct to assume that Yorkshire pudding isn't anything like Jello pudding?

That's correct, Tami! It is sort of like a popover, goes with roast beef usually. The British use the term pudding more loosely than we do over in North America - steamed cakey things, popovery things, sweet gloopy things - them's puddings in the UK! And they call dessert in GENERAL that too as in "what's for pudding?" (DH asks this knowing it ain't gonna be a nice British sort of pudding. It might however be Jello pudding, I can do that!)

Lidian

Tamibeep.... NO!!! It's made with flour, eggs, salt and .... what else? I forget. They are wicked little things like popovers. Brown on the outside and a little gooey on the inside. You have them with roast beef. And gravy. And roast potatoes. Maybe turnips. Carrots. "Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding" is like one word.
They were invented way back when as a "filler". They are comfort food.

Ah ha!! Thank you ellis and Lidian! I am enlightened. They sound like dumplings... big ol' gooey lumps of deliciousness that you might as well just slap right on your thighs because you gain weight just batting an eyelash at them.

I don't like Yorkshire pudding. But then I don't like roast beef either. I want lamb with little roasted potatoes!!!!

I would like to skip dinner and go straight to the (sweet) puddings! (I used to skip the plum pudding and dive right into the hard sauce). And then I would like a big glass of madeira or port and some chocolate brandy beans, in front of a lovely fireplace with you all, making great conversation!

Lidian

Sounds cozy, Lidian. Beam us up. Don't be offended if I start reading and then fall asleep. After great conversation and a great belch.

Den, YOU DON'T LIKE YORKSHIRE PUDDING?! What the heck is wrong with you, girlie!!
The lamb sounds lovely though. How do you make your potatoes? Mom par-boils them, then puts them in a cast iron pan with some oil and coats the pototoes with the oil. The turn crispy brown on the outside. Oh man... they are to die for.

Gee, Tami... I don't think Yorkshire puddings are fattening at all!

Before I too fall asleep at the fire, I may have some roast potatoes too (perhaps before the chocolate) - they sound fabulous, Ellis!

And if I eat lots of potatoes and sweets I AM going to need a nap (just like the uncles in Child's Christmas in Wales!)...

Lidian

Oh... that reminds me... I must reread Oscar Wilde's, The Selfish Giant... haven't read it in ages.
I'm reading an Evelyn Waugh right now. Cozy and amusing.

That's how my folks make them too Ellis! I DON't make 'em because if I got good at it I would be making them all the time!! Same reason I don't own a deep fryer. I'd be making french fries every night!!!

Okay, but when I come and visit you, can you make them for me, Den? Please?

Geepers... look at the time... what to make for dinner...
Hmmmm, I've got eggs. And a ham. If I had English muffins I could make those thingys...