Shortbread Cookies and Vanilla Ice Cream

While the baby back pork ribs dinner enjoyed on the first Saturday night of 2026 might well have been sufficient to leave us all satisfied, I still felt like we were due a dessert offering. I'd made and stored away some vanilla ice cream, using a perfect and perfectly dependable approach from King Arthur Baking. Then I also whipped up a batch of shortbread cookies, which are generally supposed to be left to set up but I went ahead and served 'em warm and a bit pliable with the sweet frozen dairy scoops of heaven.

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Based on "Sweet Milk Ice Cream," published in the King Arthur Flour catalogue some years ago, but the recipe is no longer available on their website.

"Shortbread Cookies," from Nagi Maehashi of RecipeTinEats.com. [Published 16 March 2019 / Updated 18 June 2025]

Meal No. 4017: Baby Back Ribs & Mac 'N Cheese

On the first Saturday evening of 2026, it was three at the table and the specials at the Harris Teeter set my menu, which was our much-loved oven-roasted baby back ribs together with a huge dish of macaroni and cheese. Those ribs emerged with a high-factor deliciousness, although not as tender as I was shooting for, and the mac 'n cheese is always seductive. We feasted well, keeping alive for a little while longer the spirit of the holidays.

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"How to Make Great Ribs in the Oven," by Emma Christensen. From The Kitchn. [Published 01 July 2017]

"Willie Mae's Mac and Cheese," shared by Willie Mae's Scotch House of New Orleans via Good Morning America. [Published 19 May 2020]

Meal No. 4015: Chicken Swiss Stuffing Casserole

With only hazy notions bouncing around about dinner possibilities on New Year's Eve, I tossed spiced prepped chicken breasts into the sous vide mid-day with hopes something more concrete would settle out in my menu planning. After walking across town to the CVS and back, I felt I'd made my commitment, but it required a broad interpretation of a recipe I've been making for almost 30 years: creamy Swiss baked chicken casserole. I stuck with the same approach to the "goop"; I made sure to still layer in sliced Swiss cheese; and I thought it might be interesting to let the stuffing be a pseudo-crunchy topping. It all came together reasonably well, and the addition of roasted spiced broccoli is always a good idea. For the three of us together on the final night of 2025, it was a casual repast that met our easy-going moment.

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Grandly adapted from "Easy Creamy Swiss Baked Chicken Breasts," a recipe shared with me by Cindy Coulson in 1997. A matching version of the recipe can be found on Cooks.com.

“You Can’t Hold a Candle to These Filters”

From November 27 past the middle of December, our area underwent a prolonged unseasonal chill, with below-average temperatures every single day, save maybe one. It reached its nadir in the wee hours of December 15, when the house weather station recorded a low of 14°F. That’s certainly inhospitable, but the injury added to the insult was that the front of the house got down to 56°F, even though last February I had a completely new HVAC system installed.

When the tech from Webb Heading & Air Conditioning came out that Monday morning, his all-too-speedy verdict was that the filters on the new system (which were supposed to be good for 6 months; they’d been installed in August) were blocked by...candle soot.

This has long been a candle-burning household but this is also a house that’s almost 5000 square feet. I am having trouble wrapping my mind around two or three candles burning several days a week bringing my system to its knees in about three months.

But apparently that’s the price of progress, when looked at a certain way: advances in filtering technology mean a whole lot of stuff you don’t want blowing around your house, or passing through your system, might also include some trade-offs. The comfort specialist who did the original design of the new system and the service manager from Webb Heating & Air Conditioning came out just before Christmas and worked me through the options for striking a better balance on maintaining the system’s integrity and functionality while also living a normal warm-scented life in a candle-loving household.

We’ll have to experiment with less efficient filters and I’ll need to look at how to manage their cost better, but I appreciated the cooperation and collaboration to figure out how the dilemma could be navigated.

Meals No. 4014 and 4016: Spring Mix with Chicken Breast

Spring mix and the sous vide were the essential combo for a midday salad on the final Monday of 2025. I prepped homemade Thousand Island dressing to adorn it all with, and the standard finishing touch of roasted sunflower seeds got their last-minute shake-shake on top. It was a satisfying bowl of green and good, although I was pretty darned hungry again within a few hours.

The sky overhead on those last couple of days of 2025 also brought us an unusual sight, more common down at the beach or over a football stadium: an airplane towing a banner of some sort. I'd spotted it on a downtown stroll but the plane was over the central business district and I was down near Old Salem, so I couldn't make it out.

But then on New Year's Eve, it flew directly over the house when out we went with the pooches, so I was able to snag a couple of quick photos. Mystery solved: an advertisement for the following weekend's Duke's Mayo Bowl game between Wake Forest University and Mississippi State (which WFU handily won 43-29).

By the end of the week, we'd leaped over into 2026, and that Friday invited a repeat of the salad-with-chicken meal. Broken record that I am, but these holidays had been an ongoing battle with the morning weigh-in and I dithered between impulsive determination and surrendering to impulses. My downtown walking regimens had been intense and aggressive but my body was operating with a mind of its own. The battle waged after that first Friday salad lunch was taking another pass at what I call the College Tour route: I walked through all five college campuses within striking distance of the house, clocking in at a sweaty 6.4 miles once I ambled in pain back up the driveway.

Still, let's celebrate how the year's inaugural Friday started and ended: with a fiery dawn to begin the day, and the nearly-full Wolf supermoon appearing over the city that evening, trying to break through the day's cloud cover.

The Saturday timing of the fullness of that moon coincided with a rainy drizzly day, so my next chance to catch sight of it was as it was charting its brilliant exit path toward the western horizon Sunday morning.

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Based on "Beef & Cheddar Melts Sauce," a Roediger House creation.

December Vacation Snacks and Sweets

This past holiday season was not wildly focused on sweets or fun foods, as I might have hoped, given the extra time at home. But that doesn't mean there weren't some goodies to please us while family gathered or friends were on hand. The earliest entry into that suite of treats was peanut butter fudge (pictured above), a pretty simple concoction that's worth breaking out the double-boiler for. It sets up nicely and brings out the peanut butter flavor in earnest measure. I also made a double-batch of pimento cheese (pictured below), using a recipe I came up with after reviewing a number of competitors. I've included a link (at the bottom of this post) to the recipe that was most impactful, if you feel like playing around a bit yourself.

I also made another kind of chocolate pie. You'd have to go all the way back to the winter of 2011 to find the first time I made Emeril Legasse's chocolate cream pie. It is a stunning concoction, not because it's particularly fancy, but because the simple alchemy behind it brings out the most marvelous heavenly slice of chocolatey goodness, almost light in feel but definitely well-massed in endorphin delights. It has made semi-regular appearances here over the last decade and a half, although it's been missing from the dessert rotation for over a year and a half.

Many a time it's been on the dessert menu here, I've shortcutted its prep by using store-bought chocolate crusts...but Nabisco discontinued that product. I don't love chocolate graham cracker crusts but my grocery stores don't seem to carry those either. Isn't it better to make one's own, though? That's definitely the route I took for that chocolate cream pie. It seemed to be well received when I served it on Christmas Eve after we'd had our fill of skillet pizzas.

I might as well throw in for good measure the way I used up the rest of a peasant bread loaf: a fine round of nighttime cinnamon toast. Well-buttered and then thickly sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar, these crunchy sweet delights were much more than I could handle on the evening when temptation compelled that I make them.

Finally, as the holidays were wrapping up, I wanted to send my brother-in-law back on the road with a bagful of white chocolate macadamia nut toffee cookies, given his fondness for them as road snacks. I had to sample a couple myself, as they came out of the oven the night before his Sunday morning departure, and I could attest most assuredly to the latest success with this new-found recipe. Gone so rapidly, and knowing only one possible solution: make another batch. That happened a couple of evenings later:

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"15-Minute Peanut Butter Fudge," in the article "Simplifying Fudge" by David Pazmiño. In Cook's Illustrated, January & February 2007, p. 22-23.

"South Carolina-Style Pimento Cheese." Recipe worked out by me, based on Sharon's Palmetto Pimento Cheese. [Published 23 October 2009]

"Emeril's Chocolate Cream Pie," by Emeril Lagasse (2007). Featured on The FoodNetwork.com website.

"Perfect Oreo Cookie Crust," from Sally McKenney of Sally's Baking Addiction. [Published 11 November 2022]

Adapted from "THE BEST White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies," from Christina Marsigliese of ScientificallySweet.com. [Published 19 February 2025 / Updated 11 October 2025]

Meal No. 4013: Party Ham Biscuits

On the final Saturday evening of December, a holiday snack became the central feature of dinner: caramelized party ham biscuits. ’Twas another special request, and I wanted all the more to fulfill it because of the disappointing tally of holiday-themed goodies that did not get made this season. Sometimes, the strictness with which I manage my own eating habits has a cascading spillover effect on others nearby.

Ah, but let’s note with tremendous satisfaction that the roller coaster of weather as 2025 finished out gifted us with another day in the 70s on that weekend after Christmas. The sunshine was soothing and renewing and I loved my mid-day 5-mile downtown stroll. My steps were quickened and intensified in anticipation of the pre-emptive battle against the size of the evening’s eggnog tres leches cake I was absolutely looking forward to.

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"Party Ham Biscuits," a recipe shared with the Jones family by fellow UNC alum Susan Brown. I recorded her version in my recipe collection in 1988. There are various takes on this recipe, of course. Pretty popular is the "caramelized" version, such as this one: "Caramelized Ham & Swiss Buns," by Iris Weihemuller of Baxter, MN, in Taste of Home, December 2013, p. 59.

Horseradish Sauce based on "Horseradish Sauce Recipe," from Natasha Kravchuk of Natasha's Kitchen. [Published 07 February 2019]

Eggnog Tres Leches Cake

Our post-Christmas feast with friends had a decadent dessert to help close out the evening’s game-playing: eggnog tres leches cake. This rare wonder that sings seasonal bliss when I peel back the cake cover is a carol song of Christmas. In the spirit of exaggerated retelling, I’d like to think members of the dinner party almost gasped with giddy delight when the plates began to be distributed. It might’ve happened that way, but to be honest, I was singularly focused on how much my own oversized square of confectioned evil was going to elevate my mood into munchy mania.

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"Eggnog Tres Leches Cake," from Michele Feuerborn of FlavorMosaic.com. [Published 13 December 2015]

Meal No. 4012: New Year’s Day Meatballs

This year’s Christmas feast gathering of the tightknit crew of dearest friends occurred on the day after Christmas. It called for one of our other celebratory menus, a dish we refer to as New Year’s Day meatballs in honor of the first occasion I ever got to sample ‘em. It’s a standard call to bring company mashed potatoes along, and while we’re doing the easy casseroles, why not also go with layered green bean casserole?

All this was followed by our latest rounds of the homemade Collins Against Humanity game, with plenty of belly chuckles, a smattering of gasps, and the occasional difficulty of navigating the tortured alliterations that recur all too often on some selections of response cards. It was another great evening of togetherness. Keeping us all company while the frivolity played out over his head was the ever-faithful and truly golden child pooch of the Roediger House:

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"New Year's Day Meatballs," from Carol Fultz; recipe shared with me in 2001.

"Company Mashed Potatoes" and "Layered Green Bean Casserole," longtime family favorite sides.

Meal No. 4011: Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

...and then it was Christmas, a bright sunny warm holiday with a quiet city and crows squawking: the absence of muss and dearth of fuss were among the best gifts of the day. At dinnertime I tried to make a menu wish come true: biscuits and sausage gravy. A bit too spicy, after an intended hot sauce shake was more akin to a glub, but that’s what tall glasses of water are for.

I thought it was awesome for Christmas Day to get up to 74°F here. The dogs loved it too.

And the officials at Piedmont Triad International Airport, just across the Guilford County line from here, tell us it was the warmest Christmas ever observed, reaching 75°F, breaking the previous record of 74°F that occurred in 1955 and 2015.

So all that pleasantness allowed for a pretty brisk walk midday through multiple neighborhoods, and then I got out the lawn mower to knock down all the monkey grass for winter. Who needs a White Christmas when there’s yard work that needs doing?

Meal No. 4010: Skillet Sausage Pizzas

Christmas Eve at the Roediger House was a pretty nice Wednesday, for late December: warm enough for good outside time with the dogs and suitable for casual house endeavors as per one's mood. With breezes to keep me from overheating, I knocked out a 5.1 mile walk in the early afternoon, in fact. And then, with four at the dinner table, I depended on prepped overnight mostly-no-knead pizza dough so that we could all feast on skillet sausage pizzas that night. Laid out on a bed of homemade pizza sauce that I'd retrieved from the freezer, adorned with almost enough cheese, and helped across the finish line by well-scattered Italian sausage, we slayed our slices and wiped away any wondering sauce and bellied up to the buffet bar for more because it's what the moment called for. One of the pizzas also got an abundance of marsala-sautéed mushrooms to go with that sausage, and there would one find the winning slices, for sure.

We got pretty close to 70°F on that Christmas Eve, by the way. Once the direct sun is hitting my Tempest weather station, I recognize there is a false elevation of the temp reading...but still! It's almost the end of December and I was enjoying outside in my short sleeves. Heck, yeah!

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Pizza Crust based on "Fool-Proof Pan Pizza," by J. Kenji López-Alt, culinary consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Updated 30 March 2023]

Meal No. 4009: Walnut & Grape Chicken Salad

Tuesday a week ago was the eve of Christmas Eve, and I had leftover herbed chicken breast that was perfect for supper. But it needed help, so herbs, red onion, grapes, walnuts, and a nice honeyed dressing were brought to bear and a delicious chicken salad resulted. I’d also made another peasant bread loaf, because it was also a night for leftover tomato soup and more grilled sandwiches were needed. My chicken salad went onto its own slice of fresh bread. As our weather had moderated during Christmas week, it made for a pretty pleasant post-dinner stroll through downtown after I'd done clean-up, with a vigorous 4.2 miles as the mark once I returned home, a bit sweaty!

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"Easy Same-Day Peasant Bread," from Jenny Rosenstrach of the CupofJo.com blog. [Published 02 February 2022] Adapted from Alexandra Stafford of AlexandraCooks.com. [07 November 2012 / Updated 15 November 2025]

Meal No. 4008: Caesar-Dressed Spring Mix with Herbed Chicken

After a brief cold snap rolled through, starting with the Sunday of the winter solstice, and carrying over its coolness into the Monday before Christmas, I was tempted to make another comforting dish for the 4008th meal in the "new" kitchen addition. (For those watching too closely, I'll clarify that the night before was a quick repeat of broccoli-cheddar soup, so I added Meal No. 4007 to the post for Meal No. 3997.) But I'd had a bad weigh-in that morning, and I'm fighting the holiday gains, and I walked over four miles in the chill breezes of that Monday afternoon, and so it was salad at suppertime, with sous vide herbed chicken breast, and plenty of homemade creamy Caesar dressing. I was glad to have saved some grape tomato halves, and there's always room for some toasted sunflower seeds. It wasn't in keeping with the holiday, but I needed a better weigh.

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Based on "Easy Lemon Caesar Salad Dressing," by Kim Hardesty of lowcarbmaven.com.

Meal No. 4006: Cream of Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

As we reached the end of the week before Christmas, the weather finally moderated; that Saturday was gloriously sunny with fully blue skies and yet still was marred by some sharp cold breezes. (Sumner enjoyed that morning, as the photo at the bottom shows.) I'd already put into motion my plan for that night's meal, though, thanks to a loaf of homemade peasant bread in anticipation of grilled cheese sandwiches, the perfect accompaniment to steaming bowls of delicious cream of tomato soup.

It was the mid-day meal that Saturday and couldn't have been better timed. Partial atonement came from a brisk walk of nearly four-and-a-half miles in the final hour of daylight. Then: a honking huge slice of remaining chocolate meringue pie!

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"Ultimate Cream of Tomato Soup," from Cook's Illustrated, November 1999. Recipe can also be found online at Cookography.com.

"Easy Same-Day Peasant Bread," from Jenny Rosenstrach of the CupofJo.com blog. [Published 02 February 2022] Adapted from Alexandra Stafford of AlexandraCooks.com. [07 November 2012 / Updated 15 November 2025]

Chocolate Meringue Pie

Lordy: I am a weak man when placed before me is a warm slice of chocolate meringue pie. An enduring favorite, etched deep into glorious memories from my youth, and particularly imprinted in connection to family treks to the Meadow Restaurant in neighboring Johnston County, the simple beauty of this sweet concoction is always irresistible and therefore its appearances must be carefully spaced out at the Roediger House. But it was the Christmas season, and I was in a joyful mood, and I'd made a pie shell whose future was undetermined. At least: undetermined until the thought of chocolate meringue pie occurred to me and then there was no other thought or action possible. It was ready to serve the Friday before Christmas, sort of an early present to myself.

One of these days, I'm going to get much more consistent at really reading the recipes I'm trying to follow. Or, maybe I'll have to start relying on just one at the time instead of bouncing back and forth between different recipes for the same item. This chocolate meringue pie ended up with an extremely thick and chewy crust because—of course!—I was bouncing between recipes for one-crust pies and two-crust pies...and thought I was making a single when it should have been for two pie shells. The worst mistake I've ever made in my kitchen? Not by a long shot.

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"Chocolate Meringue Pie," based on a classic and common recipe.

"Buttery, Flaky Pie Crust," by Stella Parks, editor emeritus and former Pastry Wizard at SeriousEats.com, and the current reigning monarch of Bravetart. [Printed 14 December 2021 / Updated 20 September 2025]

Meal No. 4005: Cuban Lechon Pulled Pork Nachos

Sometimes I feel like this is the meal I make when I'm taking the easy way out, but it doesn't make it any less delicious or compelling. I'm talking about Cuban pulled pork sheet pan nachos, along with lime crema. Well-toasted in the oven, cheesed to an excessive parallel dimension, that's what was served Thursday before last. Did it nudge the next morning's weigh-in past what I'd like it to be? Of course it did.

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Sheet Pan Nachos based on "Loaded Sweet Pork Sheet Pan Nachos," from Elyse of Six Sisters Stuff. [Published 14 March 2018 / Updated 20 September 2024]

"Easy Lime Crema," from Lisa Bryan of DownShiftology.com. [Published 22 April 2020 / Updated 07 May 2020]

Meal No. 4004: Lamb & Mushroom Meatloaf

Another Williamson Wednesday took place just over a week ago, when dear friend Amy was at the table for dinner and an evening of hanging out. That was a good opportunity for our latest go at lamb and mushroom meatloaf, always a crowd-pleaser with its unique combination of ingredients. It comes from a cookbook from the Asheville-based Tupelo Honey Cafe, and I first made this all the way back in 2013 for Meal No. 801. Standard alongside in my mind is another Tupelo Honey Cafe favorite: smashed sweet potatoes. I turned our recent Texas toast rolls into garlic bread, and roasted whole green beans with a really nice Shenandoah Valley herb mix filled in the rest of our plates.

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"Lamb and Multi-Mushroom Meatloaf" (p. 150) and "Smashed Sweet Potatoes" (p. 128), in Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen, by Elizabeth Sims with Chef Brian Sonoskus. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2011).

Meal No. 4003: Salmon Croquettes with Chili-Lime Aïoli

After cooking up a whole salmon fillet for dinner the previous Sunday evening, I was ready to put the leftovers to work on a subsequent dinner in the form of salmon croquettes. That happened back on Tuesday, December 16: terrific pan-seared salmon patties, well-crusted; roasted broccoli florets; and a luscious garlic-chili-lime aïoli that brought it all together. For the three of us at the dinner table, it rose to the modest declaration of being a damned fine supper.

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Adapted from "Salmon Burgers," from Denise Austin, Shrink Your Female Fat Zones, Rodale Books (2003), p. 396.

"Chili-Lime Aïoli," from David Wald of Princeton, NJ, May 2009.

Meal No. 4002: Prime Rib Melts on Texas Toast

Enough prime rib remained from Meal No. 4000 to use for Monday night leftovers, and it was a chance for me to try a variation on Texas toast, topped with everything bagel seasoning rather than sesame seeds alone. Once baked, my inartful technique resulted in compromised shaping of these rolls but their flavor and fluff were not affected. Once sliced, buttered, garlic’d, and toasted, they served as entirely suitable beds for cheese, chopped prime rib, sautéed onion, and one’s choice of cheddar melts sauce and/or red wine demi-glacé. This meal was a big ol’ yum-fest.

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”Texas Toast à la Canes,” from David Schmid of David’s Delights. On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7GRISDADr. [Published 17 October 2025]

Apple Crisp Cheesecake Bars/Apple Chai Cream Cheese Strudel

Apple featured prominently in a couple of recent desserts here. The first of those was Friday a week ago, when a joyful gathering of dearest friends of the Roediger House occurred, and our sweet finisher was apple crisp cheesecake bars. I went to work on this marvel mid-day, prepping the brown sugar shortbread crust, whipping up the chilled rolled oat crisp topping, mixing together the vanilla bean cheesecake layer, and dicing a mix of Granny Smith and Honeycrisp apples with sugar and spices. Once assembled, into the oven it went and by early afternoon it was ready to cool down and then be chilled. It’s been just shy of three years since I made a batch of these, and this was only their fifth appearance here. It was music to my ears to hear the high praise from the assembled crew, which signals pretty clearly that once every three years is not enough.

We ended up with only a couple of cheesecake bars left, but with fellow Tar Heel Kelly coming for the succeeding Sunday night meal, I took inspiration from its insufficient remains and created a variation for a different dessert: apple chai cream cheese strudel. Starting with refrigerated puff pastry saved me a lot of trouble; then I cooked some finely-diced Honeycrisp apple with plenty of brown sugar and cinnamon, and I whipped cream cheese with sugar and egg yolk and chai spice. The rolled-out puff pastry was sliced just so, in order to create an elegant strudel braid to seal it all up. A nice egg wash and some turbinado sugar sprinkled on top set it up for a proper baking time. I finished it off with an eggnog glaze just before serving up our plates to round out our Sunday dinner hour—and our bellies, I suppose!

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"Apple Crisp Cheesecake Bars," from Meghan McGarry of ButtercreamBlondie.com. [Published 03 October 2014 / Updated 09 December 2023]

Adapted from "Easy Apple Strudel with Puff Pastry,” by Hyegyoung K. (Holly) Ford, founder of the blog Beyond Kimchee. [Published 15 September 2021 / Updated 02 June 2025]

Chai-Spiced Sweetened Cream Cheese Filling loosely adapted from "Blueberry Cream Cheese Pastry Braid," from Sally McKenney of Sally's Baking Addiction. [Published 16 February 2014 / Updated 25 April 2025]