We participated in Earth Hour tonight and had a lovely dinner by candlelight.  On the menu was pork tenderloin rubbed with dry mustard, cayenne and garlic, roasted on a bed of sweet onions and cherry tomatoes, with broccoli and cheese sauce.

We picked up a few beautiful yukon gold potatoes today and thought that scalloped potatoes sounded like a good idea.

I dug through some old cookbooks and decided on this recipe for scalloped potatoes.

Since we only had three medium sized potatoes, I figured that the quart of hot milk was a bit too much, so I cut it in half down to 2 cups. We didn’t put quite enough flour in the sauce at the beginning, and adding it part way through the cooking made for a some-what lumpy sauce.

We also added a some chopped green onions, onion powder and garlic powder for some extra yum factor.

And oh my, despite not being quite as smooth as we’d have liked, they were delicious.

Look at that, a bunch of days went by so quickly and no posts on RetroFare.

Our bad.  We were busy with our offline life together and just didn’t get organized in time to post all the stuff we had planned.

But we’re back on track, so look for more tasty recipes.

photo credit: midiman

Easter is early this year, so for the next few days we’ll be focusing on easy Easter recipes that don’t take up too much time.

Do you have a favorite Easter recipe or tradition that is quick to prepare? Share it in the comments!

From wikipedia’s article on Colcannon:

Colcannon (Irish: cál ceannan - white head) is a food made from mashed potatoes, kale or cabbage, butter, salt, and pepper. It can contain other ingredients such as milk, cream, leeks, onions, chives, garlic, boiled ham or Irish bacon. At one time it was a cheap, year-round staple food.

We’ve got a traditional recipe for it called Kale Cannon, but you might like to try The Passionate Cook’s updated Colcannon recipe.

From the wilds of the Internets, we bring you:

Coconut & Lime makes some wonderful Absinthe Cupcakes with Green Fairy icing that come out a lovely green color.

The Unemployed Cook created a wonderful looking Asparagus Soufflé that captures the beautiful green color of the asparagus.

YumSugar follows with another bright green dish: Sweet Pea Soup.

And who can resist a delicious Guinness Milkshake from The Kitchen.

If your experience with slow cooking is anything like mine, food can get stuck to the inside of your crock pot and not want to budge.

Overnight Oatmeal is especially bad for this, but I’ve found a way to dislodge most of the baked on residue.

Just fill up the crock pot with water and a little detergent and turn it on low for a while. All that stuck on food will start to dissolve or at least peel off the sides of your crock pot.

Did this trick for for you? Tell us about it in the comments!

This may come as something of a shock given the nature of the site, but I’m not a huge fan of recipes per say.

As an idea, a spark and very loose guidelines they’re wonderful and a healthy shelf of them will always make for a better kitchen. Just never taken much of a particular interest in them on a whole.

I learned to cook by watching my father during the week, my mum on the weekends. Neither followed a recipe once to the best of my recollection. It was the creative process they took to, they were government employees and I think rather happy to partake in something that didn’t rely on tomes or paper trails.

Then again, some noobs just need to rtfm. Quiche, first attempt ever.

What was supposed to be black beans and rice becomes chorizo, mushrooms, peppers, onion, potato and avocado.

On the whole it was delightful, only problem was it didn’t stay whole. Came to resemble something more akin to an unruly fritatta, not that I’m opposed but as a quiche one looks for a little more teamwork and togetherness. Too much stuff, not enough egg.

Remixed and readjusted is totally worth the endeavour, hope you love it too.

• 3 egg whites
• 3/4 c milk
• 2 yukon gold potatoes
• 1/2 green and red peppers
• 1/4 red onion
• 2-4 mushrooms
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 chorizo sausage
• 50-80 grams old cheddar… half a cup give or take
• pinch of onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and basil.

Start some water to boil, when ready add potatoes and chorizo together… cuz it rocks. Preheat oven to 350c. Sautee the peppers, onion and mushrooms to get a bit of the moisture out… I neglected to do that as well. If you’re looking for easy and yummy, it’s really not necessary but if you’d like a higher factor of quichiness…quichiocity… if you’d like it not to look like an omlette that’s been hit with a hand grenade, sautee first. Little oil, little black pepper and you’re beautiful. Medium to low heat.

We have a grill, so that was the next step for the chorizo, but I’d imagine a quick slicing into discs and joining the onions and peppers would work just fine.

Grate the cheese, beat the egg whites and milk together and then mix everything all together and find a cake pan or pie plate to cook it in. I’m more a fan of the pan, dull or glass just seem to work better for me as I think shiny tends to reflect heat leading to a higher moisture content than I’d like.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

I skipped a few steps in this and went a little overboard with the ingredients first time around, double what I’ve listed here cuz that’s how I roll. It was awesome, but failed as a quiche. I don’t want that to happen to you.

We can work together to make it a brighter day and bring a little unity to your quiche! There were a few episodes of The Wire that desperately needed watching and I couldn’t find the cookbook… even if you get this recipe wrong it’s still win.

photo credit: Benimoto

With Saint Patrick’s day coming up fast, we’re going to spend the rest of the week focused on this lucky holiday.

Stay tuned for some tasty Irish fare!

You haven’t really had oatmeal until you’ve had steel cut oatmeal cooked slowly overnight until it becomes incredibly creamy, but still retains a wonderful texture.

In addition to tasting great, steel cut oats have been less processed than rolled or flaked oats, and tend to have a higher fiber content.

If you’re lucky enough to have a crockpot or slow cooker, you can try this breakfast out.

Start by lightly coating the inside of your crockpot with cooking oil. It makes cleaning up easier. Then add:

• 1 cup of steel cut oats
• 4 cups water
• 2 tsp Maldon flaked sea salt, or 1 tsp of regular sea salt

Cook on low overnight.

In the morning, there’ll be a bit of a crust to the oatmeal. Give it a good stir, let it sit for a few minutes and that crust will dissolve into the oatmeal.

We like to have our overnight oatmeal with a drizzle of fruit syrup from Summerland Sweets. It’s also good with a touch of brown sugar.

Did you try this recipe? Tell us how it turned out in the comments!