Your Top Favourite Meals + Desserts

[creative]

I thought it might be interesting to learn what your favourite, top meals and desserts are. (You can say why if you want).

I am suggesting 3 in each category (though up to you). Could include a runners up list.

1. A good roast dinner - e.g. goose or duck, with lots of crunchy roast potatoes (done in goose or duck fat), carrots, green beans and a lots of rich gravy.

2. A deluxe meat pie (organic beef) with a flaky pastry top.

3. Fish and chips, i.e. haddock with tartare sauce .... (what can I say, I am British!)

(Runners up: Lasagna, Fish Pie, Paella)

Desserts

1. A Boozy Deluxe Trifle with white rum-soaked stale fruit cake, mangoes, bananas, real vanilla custard and whipping cream. Topped with flaked, toasted almonds and maraschino cherries. (Not fussed about the jelly).

2. Black Forest Gateaux

3. Tiramisu

(Runners up: Italian icecream, Apricot Tart [creme patisserie base] and Almond bakewell tart)

 

[Mad Cook]

I thought it might be interesting to learn what your favourite, top meals and desserts are. (You can say why if you want).

I am suggesting 3 in each category (though up to you). Could include a runners up list.

1. A good roast dinner - e.g. goose or duck, with lots of crunchy roast potatoes (done in goose or duck fat), carrots, green beans and a lots of rich gravy.

2. A deluxe meat pie (organic beef) with a flaky pastry top.

3. Fish and chips, i.e. haddock with tartare sauce .... (what can I say, I am British!)

(Runners up: Lasagna, Fish Pie, Paella)

Desserts

1. A Boozy Deluxe Trifle with white rum-soaked stale fruit cake, mangoes, bananas, real vanilla custard and whipping cream. Topped with flaked, toasted almonds and maraschino cherries. (Not fussed about the jelly).

2. Black Forest Gateaux

3. Tiramisu

(Runners up: Italian icecream, Apricot Tart [creme patisserie base] and Almond bakewell tart)

I don't think I have any serious preferences. What I DON'T like are kippers, bananas and, try as I might because I know it's good for me, kale. I would like to love soft goat's cheese because the recipes sound delicious but I can't bear the smell. There is a British hard goat's cheese called Ribblesdale which is lovely but the soft stuff is dreadful. It tastes like goats smell

Thinking hard about it the like side -
1. Anything caramel. My guilty secret is that I can eat Carnation Caramel by the spoonful so I don't keep it in my store cupboard - I wouldn't have the strength of will to leave it alone. I just buy it when I need it for a recipe.

2. Following on from 1. above, my mother's millionaires' shortbread - shortbread biscuit covered with caramel and chocolate on top

3. My mother's (which is now mine) trifle. None of these current apologies for trifle that tv chefs produce. A proper trifle with a layer of sherry soaked cake and ratafia biscuits, next a layer of fruit (I like a mixture of fresh peaches and raspberries), a layer of chopped jelly on top of that (some people pour the melted jelly on top of the cake and fruit and let it soak in and set - bleuch!) then a layer of thick custard (my great-grandmother, who handed this trifle down to us, would have used a home-made egg custard but I like Bird's Custard). The custard has to be thick enough to set - no problem with Bird's and it has to have rum in it (a nursery pudding this is not!). On top of that a thick layer of whipped cream and decorated with glace cherries, silver balls and hundreds and thousands. You have to start it the day before you want it because of letting the various layer set.

I did once devise a Caribbean trifle that involved ginger cake, mangoes & tropical fruit jelly, custard, cream and a lot of rum and decorated with crystallised ginger and it was very good but not the same as the original.

Runners up - custard cream biscuits, baked rice pudding, porridge with golden syrup or demerara sugar

So that sorts out the sweet stuff.

As for savoury -

1. A really good bacon butty (English slang for a sandwich) on white bread with the bread dipped in the bacon fat in lieu of butter.

2. Roast goose for Christmas (forget the boring old turkey, you haven't lived until you've had a roast goose!)

3. "Birds" pork pie. (Nothing to do with Bird's custard.) The raised pork pies are made and sold in their own shops by a family firm called Birds in the area around Nottingham and Derby in England. If you haven't had a Bird's pork pie you haven't had a pork pie worth the name. They are absolutely devine!

Paella was my runner-up too. In fact it was almost a running mate for the bacon butty. I must also put brussels sprouts on the runners-up list. Love 'em.

 

[creative]

Wow Mad Cook - thanks for sharing! I loved reading your post and finding out your preferences.

I made something similar to your Caribbean trifle (with the ginger cake) using rum. Except you wouldn't have liked it because it had bananas! I altered the custard to chocolate custard and topped with cream and crushed chocolate flake bar - with grated fresh coconut.

Glad you are also a goose lover...very savoury! Not often in our shops though.

I have a feeling this could be an interesting thread, i.e. given that we are cooks, then it will be more than a straight forward list .... having detailed descriptions of food. Great!!

 

[CraigC]

Sauerbraten mit kartoffelkloesse und rotkohl. Dessert would be a second helping. Breakfast the next morning would be sliced and fried (butter only) kartoffelkloesse with over easy eggs. Of course there is no way to select anything as a favorite, too many new things to try.

 

[creative]

Sauerbraten mit kartoffelkloesse und rotkohl. Dessert would be a second helping. Breakfast the next morning would be sliced and fried (butter only) kartoffelkloesse with over easy eggs. Of course there is no way to select anything as a favorite, too many new things to try.

Perhaps it needed clarifying but I thought it was self evident that favourite means current favourite.

I was wondering whether to mention in my OP .... if it were your last meal on earth (for whatever reason). That might focus the mind considerably!

 

[CraigC]

Perhaps it needed clarifying but I thought it was self evident that favourite means current favourite.

I was wondering whether to mention in my OP .... if it were your last meal on earth (for whatever reason). That might focus the mind considerably!

Sorry, didn't realize it was limited to the pony you're riding right now. The meal I listed has been a favorite since I was a child. Too many favorites I haven't tried yet to have such a narrow focus.

 

[Aunt Bea]

Roast pork with sage dressing, mashed potatoes, carrot coins, applesauce and cabbage salad.

Kielbasa with kraut, buttered beets, applesauce, pierogies, onion rye bread and butter.

A great pizza with Buffalo wings and things.

For dessert I like my Mothers version of sticky toffee pudding with whipped cream, cottage pudding with nutmeg sauce, pineapple upside down cake with whipped cream, warm gingerbread with whipped cream, warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, banana cream pie, mince pie with a wedge of sharp cheddar and on and on and on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I am not sure if this is the way it is done in GB but, this is the way it has always been done in my family.

Sticky Toffee Pudding
Preheat oven to 350 F
Butter a flat casserole dish (9” square)
Batter
1 cup AP flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 t baking powder
½ t salt
½ cup milk
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup chopped walnuts
Topping
2 cups water
1 cup light brown sugar
1 T butter

Put topping ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Mix first four batter ingredients in a bowl, mix in milk and add chopped dates and nuts.
Spread batter in greased baking dish, pour topping mixture over the batter and bake about 1 hour.
Eat warm with real whipped cream.
If you do not like dates use raisins or a couple of chopped tart apples.

 

[creative]

Sorry, didn't realize it was limited to the pony you're riding right now. The meal I listed has been a favorite since I was a child. Too many favorites I haven't tried yet to have such a narrow focus.

?? There was no pony just clarifying what favourite meant. Obviously none of us can know future favourites so we go with what we know so far, yes?

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

 

[creative]

Thanks Aunt Bea!

Wow....a recipe too

 

[Mad Cook]

Wow Mad Cook - thanks for sharing! I loved reading your post and finding out your preferences.

I made something similar to your Caribbean trifle (with the ginger cake) using rum. Except you wouldn't have liked it because it had bananas! I altered the custard to chocolate custard and topped with cream and crushed chocolate flake bar - with grated fresh coconut.

Glad you are also a goose lover...very savoury! Not often in our shops though.

I have a feeling this could be an interesting thread, i.e. given that we are cooks, then it will be more than a straight forward list .... having detailed descriptions of food. Great!!

I found geese in Morrisons early last summer which was a bit odd. Frozen and very reasonably priced. I indulged in a bit of impulse buying!

Haven't seen them since but then, I haven't looked. The last one we had for Christmas a few years ago was from Sainsburys. Mind you, the prices quoted in magazines in the build up to last Christmas were extortionate. Fashion, I supposed.

Your version of Caribbean trifle sounds good.

 

[Mad Cook]

Sorry, didn't realize it was limited to the pony you're riding right now. The meal I listed has been a favorite since I was a child. Too many favorites I haven't tried yet to have such a narrow focus.

I didn't think it can be other than the "pony you're riding right now". At any time you can eat something new and think that you'd be happy if you had to eat it exclusively for the rest of your life.

 

[Katie H]

I'm sort of in the same camp as CraigC is. In my nearly 70 years of eating, I can't say I have a favorite favorite of anything. Sometimes it's what I'm eating now.

I haven't even come close to enjoying all the wonderful things to eat that are out there, but I'm giving it my best shot. And my waistline can definitely attest to that.

 

[Stock Pot]

Favorite meal to cook.

Chicken Marsala. It's delicious, easy to cook and uses just one skillet.

 

[Kayelle]

Perhaps it needed clarifying but I thought it was self evident that favourite means current favourite.

I was wondering whether to mention in my OP .... if it were your last meal on earth (for whatever reason). That might focus the mind considerably!

Thanks Creative, that should narrow it down. If I was doomed to be executed, my last meal request would be...

"Surf and Turf"..a perfectly grilled rare fillet of beef wrapped in bacon and a pile of shelled King crab with clarified butter.

A big baked potato with all the trimmings, truffles and bacon too.

Caesar Salad

My mother's Lemon Meringue pie.

A case full of award winning various expensive white wines I've never tasted.

 

[Addie]

My tastes are simple. Meatloaf. After that fried Haddock or any seafood. I very rarely eat deserts. Maybe one or two a year. And that has to be mostly fruit.

 

[chiklitmanfan]

FAVORITE MEALS:
1) Sushi, Miso soup, Asian cole slaw. (I roll my own. Got tired of spending big $$$ for a few bites)
2) char-grilled chicken fajitas (I have a detailed recipe I'll share with you soon)
3) Low country boil (my son does the best job on this meal)

DESSERTS:
1) Dutch Apple pie
2) English trifle
3) Tin roof sundae (vanilla ice cream, salty Spanish peanuts, hot fudge, and whipped cream)

 

[Mad Cook]

FAVORITE MEALS:
1) Sushi, Miso soup, Asian cole slaw. (I roll my own. Got tired of spending big $$$ for a few bites)
2) char-grilled chicken fajitas (I have a detailed recipe I'll share with you soon)
3) Low country boil (my son does the best job on this meal)

DESSERTS:
1) Dutch Apple pie
2) English trifle
3) Tin roof sundae (vanilla ice cream, salty Spanish peanuts, hot fudge, and whipped cream)

Fight you for the tin roof sundae! Salty peanuts and fudge - I'd happily go to the "chair" after that.

Why is salted caramel never salty enough to taste the salt?

 

[CWS4322]

Since I am not a "sweets" person, I have to say there is only one dessert that is my favourite and I only make it once a year, in August, during peach season:

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f40/flora-bs-peach-cream-pie-tnt-100-years-72777.html

For meals, well, I just don't make the same meal often enough to call one a favourite, but if I had to choose, I'd say Janssen's Temptation.

http://www.discusscooking.com/forum...s-the-perfect-recipe-87145-2.html#post1307995

I've never served these two dishes at the same time and I don't have any others that are favourites because it can be 2-3 years before I repeat a recipe. So many things to cook, not enough time. I make cole slaw and potato salad a few times a year, but not because they are favs, just because I have the ingredients available and they work with what I'm making.

 

[bakechef]

Thanksgiving dinner and dessert has to be my all time favorite meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing fresh rolls, gravy, homemade cranberry relish. Then pies for dessert, I love pie.

I am a big fan of autumn flavors!

 

[bakechef]

Fight you for the tin roof sundae! Salty peanuts and fudge - I'd happily go to the "chair" after that.

Why is salted caramel never salty enough to taste the salt?

I'd say that the true appeal of salted caramel has fallen victim to trendiness. Salted caramel was originally a salted soft caramel sprinkled with course salt, often fleur de sel. Now just about anything is called "salted caramel" if salt was included in the recipe. I'm a huge fan of sweet and salty, so this bugs me a bit.