Luckiestduck, what i suggest to find your mojo.... Put on a favourite album that brings back good memories and lock yourself away in the kitchen, singing and preparing a good meal. In terms of what to cook, using a slow cooker / crock pot can bring incredible flavours to a dish and you'll feel the satisfaction of being able to put a meal on early in the day and smell it cooking for 6-8 hours.... making you look forward to all of your efforts. I can send some recipes your way if you own a slow cooker

Hi loveyournoms,

A few thoughts to see if anything sounds good to you.... Firstly, don't be daunted by the number of people you're cooking for. It can be scary due to the vast number of pots, pans, plates etc.... so my first comment is get prepared! Make sure you know how much room you need and give yourself more time than you think.

In terms of the pork (not sure where you're from but each country seems to be different) you could trim the pork so it's 'frenched' - it's a simple technique that you could do well in advance but makes the pork look far more professionally prepared.

In terms of the sauce, apples are obviously a great route to go down and would work well. As another option, you could make a mustard dressing for the pork, with some Dijon mustard to keep with the french theme.

Green beans go incredibly well (not sure if they're on your list of good or bad veggies!). Other alternatives could be a carrot and potato gratin.

One final tip for now.... when it comes to serving the food, it can take a while so the food can go cold really quickly. Make sure you really heat your plates up before you serve the food to keep it as hot as possible

Good luck!
Ben

I have the total opposite problem and you don't know how lucky you all are!

I'm in England and it's turned so cold.... i'm churning out slow cooker (crock pot) meals like they're going out of fashion but all I want is a decent salad! My wife will not entertain the idea of a salad as it's only 10 degrees outside.

I did churn out a pretty decent chili the other day for my cooking channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUa7m...

Keep enjoying the sun, crack on the BBQ and get some meat and veggies grilling!
Ben

I bloody love a conversation about statistical relevance.... but maybe we'll save that for another day!!

gfr1111 - the only word of caution is to make sure everything is cooked properly. The main issue about the warnings is as the bird is stuffed, the heat cannot circulate and therefore the inside of the bird may be undercooked, poisoning everyone.

You could always stuff a rolled breast of turkey covered in bacon, which means you get a little less stuffing, but also far reduce the food poisoning risk

So I should add a disclaimer that I have no health and safety qualification so take all my advice at your own risk but.... 100% I agree with thegforceny, yes you can eat it cold for atleast 2/3 days after but it may not be at it's best for much past that. Can you re-heat it, absolutely.

For work, I prep food way in advance and most of the time it's better. I made a slow cooker chili over the weekend and just heated up some for lunch now - 3 days after i made it and it definitely tastes better than it did on Saturday!

You're actually in an amazingly fortunate position that you could also use the left overs to make a completely new, delicious meal - If you roast a chicken, make sure you leave enough left over to make a curry the following day.

Going back to your pork tenderloin (I should also say I am from England, so our ingredients may be slightly different) but in England, the pork tenderloins are about a foot long. You could cut it in half, roast 1/2 one day and have a lovely piece of roast pork. With the other half, thinly slice it and make a stir fry the following day.

I'll be thinking about food all afternoon!

Some thoughts from a foodie in England....!

I completely agree, if pasta is an option then that is a 'gateway' food to go down any route you want - garlic & rosemary or tomato, basil, mozzarella, pesto as others have already called out.

Or, go down the bolognese route. I have a slow cooker recipe with Vodka, but feel free to leave that out if your Aunt is eating! https://youtu.be/zosirUWrYqI

Once you open up the bolognese route, you can then start add chili / fresh herbs etc which you can then throw in loads of exciting things to fulfill all your spice needs.

Some other thoughts - lamb handles spice very well - as outRIAAge says above. You could also go down a pumpkin pie type spice mix for a slow roasted leg of lamb.... that would be amazing.

Other than that, how about some Spanish style chicken, with lots of herbs and olive oil. some small cubed roast potatoes or potatoes dauphinause (shout if you want a good garlicy recipe for those!)

Hi GraceW,

I'm very new to Chowhound but firstly wanted to congratulate you on your fabulous progress.

I wanted to add that, if you do want to weigh yourself, please do so once a week, on the same day, at the same time of the day. You might see big fluctuations at different times of the day and different days of the week.

Don't beat yourself up if you weigh more in the early morning or in the evening.

My other advice is to measure size not weight. if your clothes are looser, then you're making the right progress. The scale is not always your friend and does not always tell the truth

Keep it going
Ben

Hi PennyG,

This is a little 'old school' but the queen of eggs back in the day was Delia Smith. She went a bit insane in the last few years as her football team had a decent run and she picked up the microphone at half time after one-too-many sherries.

Anyway, here is the link you need http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/ma...

The key is to take the pan off the heat earlier than you think and let the residual heat continue to cook the eggs until they are creamy

Hope that helps
Ben