lovebenton0

Yup, I cooked it on high with the lid off for most of the time when I was awake as per the recipe submitted by Marlene, Fifi & woodburner. & had more liquid to start off with than in the recipe anywayz. ← That's why I was wondering what you did, as you had considerably more liquid to start. Just being a curious confit newbie myself. I also start mine pretty high, but haven't needed to cook uncovered for very long before stepping down the heat and covering after the sweat and reduction begins. I plan to use a bit more OJ in the orange onion confit test than I used wine/demi glace in my others. Good results, Gul_Dekar.

I couldn't stand to be around boiled shrimp for years! A friend was making gumbo with shrimp for us when I was pregnant (and I could eat anything! nothing else bothered me). But we arrived while it was going into the pot of gumbo, which I normally would have loved to be eating. Something about that smell when it started cooking in the gumbo . . . I sat out on the porch with a bowl of rice, and a peanut butter sandwich. Fortunately I recovered from that -- about 10 years later.

Wrapped in lettuce, now that's going pure! Did you have to cook it on high for a while to reduce that amount of liquid? Thanks for posting the pic -- it's not that bad. Now that sounds really good! Love chicken livers. Have to do some. I had some onion confit for lunch on toast with poached eggs on top. Mmmmmm! Really good way to heat the confit a little, just tucked some in the third cup in the poaching pan. (No, I don't poach eggs in a swirl of water, sorry, I let someone else do it that way. ) Next confit try -- with orange juice instead of wine and a little orange peel grated into it at the end. Can't take credit for this -- Paula Wolfert's suggestion: orange onion confit. Seems to me this would be good with all kinds of meat and bird. I might try some very fine candied ginger slivers added near the end also. Hmmm . . . have to think on this one. I could add some to part of the batch and see which way I like it better . . . or just to taste test the difference. My DH is about to restrict my onion budget any day now! edit to correct confusing grammar and add comment.

Add a nice bowl of bleu cheese (crumbled Gorgonzola is great for this) blended with cream cheese or goat cheese, and garlic chives, to the table with the butter for spreading on crusty bread. This is a good complement to the tenderloin especially. The lasagna is a good idea -- I've done that before to go with meats on a buffet. Eggplant lasagna, and it always goes quickly. Lightly sear sliced broccoli in butter and EVOO. Roast red peppers and garlic, lots of golden sauteed or grilled onions. Toss all with coarse ground or Kosher salt, crushed red pepper if you like. Very pretty and stands up well, can be eaten warm or room temp.

Definitely all kinds of dried beans and peas. Cooked with a bit of meat and stock, onions, garlic, carrots, peppers -- hot or not. (I don't like long cooked celery . . . ew! But a little celery seed does a nice thing for soups and stews, dried beans.) A bit of EVOO or OO is your friend. Good flavor for small per serving amount and good for you too. Baked pasta dishes. Ziti, rotini, penne pasta, etc., baked with tomatoes, onion, EVOO, garlic, oregano, etc., red pepper, muzz or just good grated Parm on the top. Add meat if you want or not. Grinding your own meat in grinder -- I use my FP -- is the best. You can buy cheap cuts of beef, pork, lamb (scratch and dent, just use your senses), and have really good ground meat. Sometimes that's what you need or want for a dish. Cheap cuts make excellent grind for burgers, meatballs, meat sauces, etc. Have to throw in another vote for braising here -- great this time of year especially. Cheap cuts become divine meals. Paired with the current bargain veg you have a great meal for little $$$. Baked potatoes as the main topped with your fav veg and/or meat combo. Perfect set up for Makeovers with leftovers that are great the second time around -- cause it's new again , such as chili or thick soups, stir-fried veg combos. All make great toppers with fresh garnishes of herbs, roasted garlic, sour cream, cheese, whatever you like. For something to add a lot of flavor with little cost, easy to make and keep on hand try some onion confit to top your cheap sides of rice and pasta, or smeared on toast, or stirred into vegs. Great on bakers and soups as well. If you make it you'll find a hundred ways to use it. I'm working on my list now. Using your pressure cooker with cheap cuts of meat is also a good way to go -- particularly when you want that fall apart goodness without much time. Beans, stews, soups, pork ribs (country cut, cheap), with sauerkraut, apples and potatoes in PC are wonderful.

Simple here too! Lentil soup (beef stock and beer) with home ground chuck roast, chopped garden tomatoes, onions, garlic, lots of garden fresh thyme and cinnamon basil, fresh bay leaves off the tree, black pepper. Served soup with mound of rice on the side in the bowl and topped with cinnamon basil/onion confit. Thin, toasted homemade mixed grain/wheat bread with garlic butter. I did the soup in the pressure cooker in the morning to let it set during the day, then heated it for dinner. Warm, spicy and filling.

There's one on the Chex site. Don't know if that's the one your thinking of, but you might want to chex on it.

I like to use all the chex cereals -- and I really like the wheat chex, but I add it later to the oven toasting. Also use pecans, sometimes cashews too, potato matchsticks (not as inspired as your homemade waffle fries, Andie, but good), bagel chips and the crispy fried onion rings. For seasoning my fav is my own Cajun spice mix (but any good one will do) with the worscestershire sauce with this combo. Have also done it with curry powder and the worcestershire sauce and added pecans and cashews to the 3 cereal mix with the onion rings for toasting then toss with golden and dark raisins. That's a good combo. I don't really care for the pretzels -- too salty for me.

Fascinating adventure, Ellen! Thanks for posting this for us. Very nice work. My great-Aunt was one of the first people to enter China after the doors were opened again to the world -- I wish I had her photos to go along with the written journal.

Mace is also very good when added to pie crust, sweet dumplings, and other rich bread doughs. Savory, use a bit for meat pies! I love fennel, seed, bulb, and fern! But then I have this monstrous fennel that grows to about 6' 2" every year, so I better. Great in almost anything Italian with sausage. My fav It'n sausage has fennel seed in it too. It's what gives it that particular flavor to me that says, yes this is Italian sausage! Of all silly things, for some reason I have a bottle and a tin of whole cloves -- and how often do I use that? Maybe twice a year? Edit to add: Yes, mace is actually the thin outer skin of the nutmeg -- no wonder it's pricier! A distinct flavor from nutmeg, yet complatible.

Applause! That's good, Priscilla, now you know what the basic is and you can play with it in the future. Tonight will be a lentil soup, rice side with confit for dress. I'm going to have some of the first confit with Bleu d'Auverne Miramont on toast for lunch. Apples on the side. This was fantastic on baked potatoes! Let us know what you do with the bleu and confit.

I thought this photo essay on the Ruiz family's tamalada in the Austin American Statesman this morning was pretty cool. Of course, ours will be cooler!

Snail bait! The Escargot Line. Would fit right in with some of the (hand-painted signs/flashing Xmas lights) Bait -- Pool -- Tanning Salons around Central TX.

So, you lucky gal, when are you starting these magic seeds? Have you grown these before, jess? I haven't -- but would love to! May need to check out ebay myself. I wouldn't have thought of that for seeds -- good tip. ← Typically, I start seeds after a brief procrastination period somewhen in late Dec. This year I thought I might start earlier to get hardier specimen in the ground, but I'd hate for them to get windy-legged and pale from too much too soon. What do you think is the best time for seed starting in these parts? And is anyone trying onion sets or seeds this winter? I'd like to start some leeks, and have no earthly as to what to do or expect. ← I don't know if starting the tomatoes earlier will really benefit them, jess. I usually try to start any seeds about the first of the year for early crop sets. And tomatoes usually go out in our garden about the end of May (due to that damn sneaky last frost we usually have about the 30th. ) As far as the leeks go -- I want to put some in this year also. My neighbors have grown beautiful and delicious leeks -- they are generous garden souls, my arboretum neighbors! I will ask them what they recommend. I think they go in fairly early but will get back with that.

Salmon croquettes with fresh lemon thyme, dill weed, and parsley in the mix, curried cabbage slaw with pecans and golden raisins, and -- tater tots. Red pepper spiced tartar sauce with the salmon and chili garlic sauce with the tots.

I did actually add garlic, minced, to both my batches, with no ill effect. I added one clove per lb. It doesn't taste garlicky. It just becomes part of the mush before the final carmelization process begins. Not bitter at at all. I may try the roasted garlic another time, that would add a different note than the minced, and I agree, that would be best added later. If one added a lot of garlic in proportion I'm not sure what that might do -- roasted becomes nutty sweet anyway. How's the confit, peanutgirl? Sage in your confit, Priscilla -- how do you like it?

Get thee some rosemary, fifi! I love it that's it's an "evergreen" and never goes down around here. I have stuck cuts of rosemary from my (truly TX size) bushes in bottles of water to enjoy the fragrance and aroma in the kitchen and had them root right up. I love rosemary most when it's cool like this. Stews, soups and roasting -- especially chicken -- just seem to call out to me. Let us know what you noodle out.

I rarely eat breakfast . . . unless you count coffee. I usually save breakfast for dinner when I crave it. But this morning I made ginger-spiced pancakes mounded with sliced apple and pear cooked with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, and two fried eggs. Coffee. Aaaahhhh!

Well, we've all come up with something a bit different. But since I'm answering right now . . . what I have to say is if you don't want any herbs at all (the earlier versions were not herb confits just the usual addition of herb as very low notes) don't add any herbs. The addition of bay leaves and a sprig or two of thyme or some herb of your choice lends a nice bit of complexity to the confit without making it "fancified." You have time to add any herbs later if you choose, plenty of time. 3 lbs of onions 1/4 cup butter about equal OO or EVOO 1/2 tsp salt (scant) 1/2 tsp pepper 2 or three Tbsp of red wine, port, sherry your pick 2 or 3 Tbsp of demi glace or reduced stock (if you want, it seems to even out the sweetness a bit) Do the do.

Here is the rule of thumb: sweet onions = not so sweet confit strong onions = sweet confit If sweetness is what you want in the finished product, get the strongest onions you can find. My complaint about this batch being too sweet is probably due to using very strong white onions. Previously I have used all yellow onions. I am now thinking of taking lovebenton0's approach and blending. I really don't want my finished product to be very sweet. If "sweet" onions are available I may blend some with the strong onions so a few Vidalias or 1015s may not be a waste if you don't want a sweet confit. Regarding "the rule," I would predict that there will be all kinds of annoying variations in between. Like the water content varies, I think managing sweetness will be a crap shoot unless you can do a thousand batches, tasting the raw onions then the confit, and can store that knowledge in your "flavor brain." ← ". . . a thousand batches . . . " At least! We did discuss this some on the previous page. Well, I'm not sure what I did, but the onion confit I made yesterday is not overly sweet, just sweet enough, and quite flavorful. If you go by the advice that fifi posted, i.e. sweet onions cook up less sweet than sharp onions you would actually end up with a less sweet confit. However, the other point is that the sweets carry less flavor, but perhaps with the addition of other herbs you might tailor your confit to a more specific purpose. And maybe the use of the red wine in mine opposed to the sweeter port had something to do with the less sweet factor, also I added no sugar, at all. Also I did not use butter -- which is naturally sweet, but used rendered chicken fat with the EVOO. And hopefully, someone with much more confit experience than I have, will jump in here for you, NulloModo. ← And somebody has. Thanks, fifi.

I used large onions for my first confit -- with no sugar -- also no cloying sweetness. With the second I used small very sharply scented/flavored yellow onions (you'd have thought my dog died if you'd walked into the kitchen while I was cutting them!), and large purple onions. Still no cloying sweetness. So I'm not sure what the difference is between what I'm experiencing and what others are experiencing. Fifi brought out the point of letting hers go darker than usual yesterday with the rosemary, in an effort to cook past the extreme sweetness. I've let both of mine go to a very deep stage for the color and marmalade texture. Maybe that is contributing to the lower sweetness level. It does taste sweeter to me several hours into the cooking than it does when finished. Also the overall flavor intensifies after some set up time in the fridge -- definite difference in the first (thyme/bay leaf) confit after a couple of days. Of course, the next batch could send me into sugar orbit . . .

Oooops! This one actually arrived ahead of schedule, the day before Thanksgiving and forgot to post it. So you can add this one now.

I don't think many chefs are scrubbing pots these days! But damn, man! I'll take one of those pot scrubbers!

Susan, lovely menus. Once again -- or twice I should say -- you won the day! Your mom is lucky she had you! A request, if possible -- would you share your recipe for the tot mahn? Please? And, Marlene, OMG woman! Your party was beautiful and the food looked fantastic, as well as you and your house. What a treat for everyone. Thanks for posting all the pics.

Hey! And it's on sale, too, Santa!