This was my first try at making recipes from my new cookbook The Silver Spoon. I made “Chicken with Cream,””Braised Broccoli,” and “Baked Pumpkin with Potatoes.” The chicken and the pumpkin and potato dishes turned out quite nicely, and everyone who ate it said they had never had anything that tasted like that before. Particularly the chicken.

The recipe calls for a whole chicken, parted, seasoned, and dusted with flour. The chicken is browned in a pan, then spends half an hour simmering in cream. I had never cooked meat in cream before, but I will certainly do it again. This method made the chicken incredibly soft, moist, and decadent. A bit of ham is added at the very end, along with lemon juice. The lemon juice absolutely brightened up the flavor and made it much more interesting. I’m not entirely sure what the ham added to the dish, since it didn’t get eaten with the chicken, the chicken still being on the bone and all. Oh well, it tasted really good.

For one side dish, I made “Braised Broccoli,” which was really not much different than steamed broccoli and pretty standard cooked broccoli for a side dish. See? normal stuff:

The other side dish was pretty interesting. It was “Baked Pumpkin with Potatoes” and once again was something that neither I not Raven had eaten before. Both of us are accustomed to pumpkin being used in sweet preparations. Raven is generally not a fan of pumpkin, so he was pretty sure even before I made this dish that he would not like it. Well, it turns out that layering pumpkin, onion, and boiling potato, with a couple of tomatoes on top and cooking it for a really long time makes for a dish that even Raven had to grudgingly admit he enjoyed. Yay! I can make more things with pumpkin now!

This was a really pretty dish, although it required by far the most prep work of the dinner. The pumpkin (one and a half small pie pumpkins went into mine) needs seeded and peeled before it is sliced. Peeling pumpkin is neither quick nor easy. At least, if there is an easy way to peel raw pumpkin, I don’t know it. Oh well, in the end it tasted really good, and that’s what matters.

[In the background there are Fair Scones. I had a box of Fisher’s mix and a craving, so I made up a batch using the “shortcake” variation on the box (just because that variation gives me an excuse to knead the dough a bit). Not really what I call baking, but fair scones have a special place in my heart. Ever since I was little I can remember a spot at the Oregon State Fair that did these scones hot with raspberry jam (at least I think they use this mix). I looked forward to those scones every year.) (P.S.: I’m sure the scone place is still at the Oregon State Fair, I’m just not in Oregon anymore to enjoy it.)]