Mmmmm...dried figs. Delicious.

Has anyone figured out that I like figs yet?

UG's second link connects to the California fig growers site. They have a page of recipes including cooked figs and figs in salads. Fig salsa, fig ice cream, figs and carmelized onions, fig preserves, etc.

Figs do make good preserves and jams, but I keep the yield of my fig tree down by severe pruning so I've never made any.

Not only good, Great.

Thanks for the ripeness info, lizzymahoney, I never would have thought to consider that. I went looking on my favorite recipe site last night and found some interesting options:

Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs Wrapped in Bacon

Raspberry and Fig Gratin

Balsamic and Fig Caramel Sauce

I think I can quote this in full from memory:

". . .Dessert was a platter of figs brought in at the end of dinner. Then Cousin Elmore used the only word he'd bothered to learn in Italian: "Fighi, fighi!" The cook dropped the platter and bolted for the kitchen, precipitevolissimivolmente."

-- Patrick Dennis, Around the World with Auntie Mame

guy salad

tear open one bag of fancy ass mixed salad greens, dump in large bowl

chop a left over steak or chicken breast into 3/4" cubes, add to bowl

add half a sliced and quartered cuke

add a big handfull of grape tomatoes

a bunch of sharp cheddar cheese....shredded

bleu cheese crumbles to taste

1/4 cup of almond slices or walnut pieces

4 tbsp chunky bleu cheese dressing

apply lid to large bowl, shake vigorously.

grab a fork

don't clean up

That sounds good lj...cept I'd feel obligated to clean up...being a chick and all that...

That is normally my salad except I add bacon bits and something crunchy - either croutons or chow mein noodles

blue cheese? yuk. Nothing with overt mold, please.

As a kid, I didn't like bleu cheese dressing -- not at first. But I got the taste for it and from there, in time, learned that with cheese a lot of the time the important bit IS the mold -- what do you think that white coating on brie is? So, I like the bleu, and Gorgonzola, and can't get enough Stilton... I even go as hardcore as St. Nectaire (considerably more ammoniac than nectarean (or nectarous if you prefer a more up-to-date word)), which no one else in the house will touch, even though they are fond of a hardcore hot-and-sour soup, something the East Coast does better than the West Coast.

There's mold, and there's mold. Gotta have the proper mold.

these are not exactly light and fluffy, but they are very good. Jam inside:

Applesauce muffins (Dr. Weil)
1 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 c oat bran
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t allspice
1 egg
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 cu chopped dates
1 1/4 c applesauce
1/4 cup jam (raspberry or apricot work well)
preheat oven to 350 F. Mix dry ingredients and spices in large bowl. Add egg, brown sugar, dates. Gradually stir in applesauce. Mix. Fill 12 muffin molds 1/3 of the way full of batter, then drop 1 t of jam on top of the batter. Drop enough batter on top to fill the muffin mold 2/3 full (on top of the jam). The jam will fall into the batter when it bakes. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the tops are light brown.

I love Brochettes de Crevettes - basically shrimp and bacon marinated then cooked on a grill shish-kabob style. To simplify the recipe, take shrimp and bacon, place on skewers, marinate in italian dressing ~6 hours, then grill until done. The bacon will not be crispy, if it is, you overcooked the shrimp. Very yummy!

What's a good meal that is easy to prepare in advance and freeze to take to a family gathering of about 20 people? This will be a day's drive away at a remote lake cottage, and we would do the meal a day or two after arriving.

So I'm looking for something that would be appealing to all ages, easy to heat up on a stove top. (the oven heats the place up too much so we don't want to use that) Fairly simple to clean up is good. In years past, we've done tacos, but that's a lot of work.

Any ideas?

If you want to freeze, then heat up on a stove, I recommend something like chili or stew, something with liquid in it, rather than a casserole.

I was going to say lasagna until you said stove top... maybe a soup or stew? Chicken and dumplings? Chili?

Yeah.... what cloud said....