Well, we had to put my beloved MIL in a hospice care this last week. So things have been crazy here. Have my SIL’s in town now from Wisconsin, Seattle and Grant’s Pass. Had a big family dinner of Spaghetti, salad and garlic bread Saturday. Sunday was “Packet” dinner. Packets of diced potatoes, packets of acorn squash and packets of fresh salmon. All on the grill. No pots and pans! Love it. Tonight will be leftovers.
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Yay, so many wonderful people are back! Thanks so much for starting this thread, Linda. It feels like visiting with old friends. After an insanely busy summer/fall, I hadn’t gotten my act together enough to post on WFD but vicariously followed all the amazing meals.
Last night, I had some peppers that really needed using up so I raided the freezer and found some lonely-looking hot Italian sausages. Along with some rice par-cooked in chicken stock, onions and garlic sautéed in a little butter, and crumbled feta they made a nice filling for stuffed peppers. I halved and microwaved the plain peppers first and added a little marinara and parm to the filling. Some marinara around the bottom and plenty of parm on top and dinner ended up being homely but pretty tasty comfort food. 
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So sorry your family is going through this. Hospice really helps in so many ways. Your dinners sound like a wonderful table for the family to gather around.
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Yesterday temps were still in the 90s, but I had read through the Bitter cookbook and decided to make endive in butter sauce. Four heads of endive sautéed with butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. The whole thing then slowly roasts in the oven for almost two hours. I took advantage of the oven and made a quick meatloaf with some gf beef, panko, onion, salt, pepper, milk, and an egg. The entire meatloaf was slathered with ketchup and spicy mustard before baking. The meatloaf was great, the endive was only okay. It was still pretty harshly bitter, which I am fine with but DH said was still a bit much for him. I guess I expected a bit more mellowing based on the description, but when cooking from a book called Bitter, you get what you get!
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So sorry about your MIL, Boyzoma. 
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Thanks, meatn3 & LW. She has been in and out of (mostly in) the hospital since June. We’ve eaten more hospital food than I would care to see EVER again. We are trying to get back to some kind of “normal”, whatever that is. And I can get back to my normal menu planning. She is only a 1/2 mile away now, so it works best for us.
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Boyzoma, so sorry about MIL. Hospice is a godsend though.
Gio, Bob’s in Medford has wonderful cotechino around the holidays – maybe all the time, not sure – I get my NYE cotechino there. But maybe you are happy with what you have. 
Apparently I did a bad food-related thing in a past life and the Food Gods are punishing me with so far not diagnosed issues which required a diet of clear liquids only for a couple days at the end of last week and now the cursed low residue diet. (If it is white and flavorless I can probably eat it.) Mindful of nw’s troubles I am actually not cheating. It does do me good to come here though and see all the deliciousness and gorgeousness you all are cooking up. And SO GLAD to see so many old and valued friends assembling here!
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“It is absolutely pronounced AHN-deeve.” I, too, was summoned by the meatloaf bell and made a new twist on Sicilian, stuffed with Genoa salami, fried jalapeños and fresh mozzarella.
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holy hell that looks good kattyeyes!
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Wow kattyeyes! That’s impressive.
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Take care of yourself!
NW’s experience certainly provides motivation to be very, very good.
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Life changes affect everyone, don’t they? So sorry this has happened to your family.
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Thank you for the Bob’s info, Gretchen. We’ve never gone there so I wouldn’t have known… They probably have other things there that we can’t find since we don’t go very far afield to look these days.
WFD: Conchiglie Medie with Garlic,Tuna, Lemon, Capers, Olives. I have no idea what this might taste like except it’s apt to be salty since the tuna is tinned in olive oil. There’s a sauce made with olive oil and butter (I’ll use ghee), and all the ingredients. At first I thought it may be a room temperature pasta, but I prefer a hot pasta, and I love the medium shells, The sauce will be cooked then poured into the hot pasta and mixed with additional butter and parsley. This one pasta dish where I will not use cheese.
Apple Fennel Slaw: shaved fennel, sliced apple/lemon juice, sliced red onion, chopped walnuts, chopped fennel fronds, a few butter lettuce ribbons. Mayo Dressing - because I haven’t had my monthly mayo fix.
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Despite it being 100 degrees today there is a large grass fed chuck roast on the stove pot roast style. Most likely to be tacos for him and lettuce wraps for me. The rest of the roast will appear later in the week, probably the same way since we never tire of taco night.
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Boyzoma, sorry to hear about your MIL, good luck with that! Hospice people are amazing. Glad you had such a nice family gathering.
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GS, sorry to hear about tum troubles. Do take care - time is approaching when we get to eat together again!
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I love braised endive. Never done it in the oven, just on stove top, and not nearly that long. Lots of black pepper, butter and lemon juice are key 
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Agreed linguafood - I was actually surprised how much it smelled and tasted like artichoke. I ate the leftover for lunch today and thought it was really good, better than last night.
My first meatloaf:
Made some mistakes, took some liberties–way more ground pork (with Italian seasoning) than beef, didn’t cook the ketchup/Worcestershire with the mirepoix but just mixed it all in. Didn’t mix the pork/beef well, so there were visible layers in the cooked product.
But other than not getting the crust I’d hoped for (I used the rounded style rather than the loaf pan) it came out fine.
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