FFWD Broth-Braised Potatoes

I spent 45 minutes this weekend making a list of everything in my freezer, and I didn't even have time to organize it!  It's a little bit scary, I have a couple of different kinds of home-baked bread, half of Marie Helene's apple cake, Christmas cookies, peach freezer jam,enchiladas, lasagna...We have a normal freezer/refrigerator upstairs and a stand-alone freezer in the basement.  It's overwhelming.  The good news is, when I don't have much time to cook I can usually find something pretty good to eat in the freezer.

To go with these broth-braised potatoes, I made broccoli and pulled out some leftovers from Christmas Eve.  This was my first year hosting Christmas Eve.  We had gougeres as an appetizer, pumpkin soup as a first course, and then I served lemon focaccia, slow roasted salmon, chicken with figs, artichoke torte, and braised cabbage with apples.  After the main course we had my favorite salad (a Canal House one with blood orange and hearts of palm) with cheese, and then fruit cake, pumpkin pie, and Buche de Noel (I didn't make the last two desserts!).  We've finally managed to eat most of the leftovers, but I still had some artichoke torte and chicken in the freezer, so they made a perfect easy dinner.  As for the potatoes, we definitely liked them, but I didn't think they were that much better than my typical boiled potatoes with salt, pepper, and butter.  I don't make potatoes as often as I'd like to, though, so it's always nice to have a reminder to make them.

Boiled potatoes and leftovers

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I also made a couple of other Dorie recipes this week.  On Sunday night, I made the Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flans to go with my fresh baked bread (White Loaves for Tuesday's with Dorie) and salad. In November I bought two pumpkins, roasted them, and put the flesh through a food mill (which was quite a mess), but I ended up just freezing the pumpkin when I ran out of time to make pie.   This was a perfect reason to pull the pumpkin out of the freezer.  We both loved the flan.

Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flan

Not quite as pretty as Dorie's

I also made the filling for Chicken B'Stilla on Sunday, to save myself time when I got home Monday night.  I found a half-used packaged of filo dough when I was cleaning out the freezer, and thought it would be perfect for the B'Stilla.  Unfortunately, when I unwrapped it on Monday I learned that it had crumbled to pieces.  (I'm thinking maybe it's bad to freeze and re-freeze filo?)  I did the best I could to use the bigger pieces to line the bottom of my pan, and then just mixed the remaining shreds with butter and scattered them on top.  Not nearly as pretty, but it still tasted great!

B'Stilla and my favorite salad

On Wednesday night, I made the Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli to go with omelets.  My omelets always turned into scrambled eggs before I read Alice Waters' method in the Art of Simple Cooking, but now I love to make omelets (although I still love scrambled eggs too!).  I enjoyed the crumb-coated broccoli, but it probably won't replace my usual steamed broccoli on typical weeknights.  Broccoli doesn't feel quite as healthy when it's coated in four tablespoons of butter!

Broccoli and omelet