Smithy

I had the opportunity to rejoice in having two IP's today! It all began with some Rancho Gordo "Eye of the Goat" beans, the leftover knuckles from our most recent smoked pork hocks, and a desperate need to start clearing out refrigerator drawers. I pressure cooked the beans with the pork bones. It took a lot more time and water than I'd expected to get those beans creamy, but when I did they were fabulous. Rather than dirty up a bowl to strain out the bean liquor, I decided to use the other IP liner pot. Then I thought: why not use the other IP? Into that bowl went mushrooms to become duxelles, then a touch of oil, then chopped onions, celery, red bell pepper and a couple of smoked bratwurst sliced into coins to brown. When that was all cooked, the beans (left pot) were spooned in along with some of the pot liquor. You can see the finished dish here, where I rhapsodize about the Rancho Gordo "Eye of the Goat" beans. We were both well pleased, although my darling shook his head at the display of IP's on the kitchen island, with our lovely stove languishing in the background. It's true, it could all have been done on stovetop...but I do like the pressure-cooker aspect of the IP.

I think this is from last year's batch, but tonight I cooked up a little more than half a package of "Eye of the Goat" beans, along with pork hock bones with leftover meat, some smoked bratwurst as meat insurance, and some mushrooms, red bell peppers, celery and onion that needed cooking. It took 3 cycles in the Instant Pot of 35 minutes on High Pressure, then natural release for 20 - 30 minutes, then adding a bit of water and repeating, to get the beans to the creamy consistency I'd expected. I'm glad I persevered. We both thought this delicious! I have a huge backlog of beans (and I haven't joined the club for that reason, yet) but when I'm ready to buy more the Ojo do Cabra beans will be on the order form.

I had a pork brisket, rubbed with spices, that we usually do on the grill. It was cold and snowy (yes, snowy on October 13!) and I tried it in the CSO on steam bake: 225F for something between 1:30 and 2:00. I lost track of the time due to other duties, and wasn't able to monitor the internal temperature. When I pulled the brisket its internal temperature was around 204F. It looked juicy, but only the end that had a fair amount of fat came out that way; the rest was on the dry side. The potatoes underneath it were dandy. The pork tasted delightfully porky: we both agreed that the flavor was great, but the meat was overdone. This pork brisket was around 1.5" thick. Now that the test is over, what would y'all have done? We have another pork brisket from this supplier.

Did the egg vessels get an extra induction kick, do you think, or were they strictly to contain the eggs?

Do you have an electric appliance that your wind generator can drive? The loss of jobs as well as food must be wearing for people too. This is quite a saga. Thanks for providing a firsthand account.

Dammit, @blue_dolphin, you're pulling me toward buying another book when I've barely cracked my new books' covers! Seriously, though: thanks for these great-looking photos and descriptions. Whether or not I end up caving, your posts are inspiring and tempting.

Sauerkraut, 4 days after the beginning. My good friend gave me a head of red cabbage that came out to 1.81 kg; I added 3% salt for around 54g. I'd have added caraway seeds, but we're all out...either that, or the backup supplies are hiding in one of several backup storage areas. This morning I punched it down and tasted the broth. I think it's headed in the right direction.

That looks beautiful, fug, and it's quite a first post! Is this a recipe and technique you'd care to share? I'm always on the hunt for good crab cakes, after having visited Maryland once or twice, but have never been satisfied with mine. Welcome out of the lurker shadows, by the way.

Would you please tell more about your pickled green tomatoes? A recipe would be welcome, especially if it were to go into RecipeGullet where people could find it easily. I have been playing with fried green tomatoes lately, but I think a pickled version would go over well in our household.

Following the idea above, I started with this very pretty assembly of tomato slices, onion, garlic, and jalapeno with a bit of oil drizzled over it. It didn't seem to need vinegar at that stage, so I hadn't added any. I cooked it, stirring once or twice, in a 400F oven until it had browned and collapsed. The final product before blending doesn't look as appetizing, but it was delicious. It's now sitting in containers to become pasta sauce or some other lovely accent note. I also found time to try this recipe for Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes. As usual, the photo by the professionals and my results are wildly different. We dipped the FGT in remoulade sauce or ranch dressing, as we pleased. They tasted good - much better than they look (which is not nearly as appealing as the picture on TheSpruceEats page) - but nothing as good as what I've had in restaurants. I have a very few green tomatoes left. I may try deep-frying them, just to get them off the counter and this FGT bug out of my system, or I may try one of TicTac's other ideas instead. That first relish is really great!

I've missed Lisa's voice since the holidays, and I'm sorry I won't be seeing her here again. She was clearly and patently a teacher: happy to answer questions and provide clear instruction. I learned a lot about knife skills from her, and a new and unusual technique for making hash over a campfire. I'm thankful for her presence and years here.

You've missed out, and I recommend that if you ever see Ferraro Rocher confections in a store you pick up a few to try them. They turn up, especially during the holiday season, at a variety of USA stores: Walgreens, probably WalMart, and I think even some grocery stores I've visited. They're light, airy, crunchy, and a pleasant blend of chocolate and hazelnut. I can only imagine what Kerry's version is like.

Do you mean you didn't care for the flavor, or you didn't see the point of using Marmite to get that flavor? It looks good!

Were the quince growing at the Herculaneum? If so, what was the connection? If not, where were they growing?

Got a recipe for that? I'm thinking about making a green tomato relish with some of these babies.

I made my first attempt at fried green tomatoes last night. We had friends come for dinner, and I warned them in advance that dinner would be a series of experimental dishes. (These are truly good friends!) I sliced the tomatoes about 1/2" thick. I dipped roughly half of the tomato slices in an egg/milk wash then dredged them in corn meal. The other slices I simply fried, with no coating. At the table we had choices of a remoulade sauce and a buttermilk ranch dressing. It was interesting to see how some of the tomato slices fell apart, I suppose because I let them get too soft. @TicTac, thanks for the idea for trying some uncoated! We all liked the uncoated slices with that caramelization. I have to admit however that we preferred the coated tomatoes for the contrast in texture. The coating fell off of some, and we spent some time discussing ways to make it adhere better. The accidentally-uncoated tomatoes weren't as good as the deliberately-naked TicTac tomatoes. In poking around these forums and reviewing this earlier topic on Fried Green Tomatoes I found a link to this great-looking recipe from The Spruce Eats for Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes. I want to try this recipe, too: I really hate pan-frying in the house because of the cleanup. I have a lot more green tomatoes with which to experiment. I had asked the farmer for a dozen, if he could spare them, and by the time picking rolled around he couldn't remember, so he brought me a box!

I was imagining tomato "hammocks" made of netting that allowed them to swing without bumping into each other, or compressing each other from weight, with said hammocks strung across a frame in a box. I think the pantyhose / tomato snake idea is more compact and might be more effective.

Your food always looks so good and so inventive that it both shames and inspires me! Most of all, it tempts me to buy a Kansas hunting license and come join the next party! Although I might have company...as noted above you're likely to get a bunch of us crashing it next time, licenses or no.... Many thanks for blogging again!

Mandarin peels scraped lightly, finely chopped, and dried make a very nice addition to breakfast cereal (oatmeal, for those who can stand it, or dry cereal) or fruit salads or vegetable salads. Heck, I've thrown them into pilaf to great effect. Once dried, those small chunks of peel last a long time if they're stored in a dry environment.

Maybe I've never had proper Lebanon bologna. The stuff I've had from grocery delis (all west of the Mississippi, I might add) has left me cold: not nasty, but too...too...garlicky? Bland? I don't know. What defines Lebanon bologna? As to the shrimp vs. octopus **yaki I am utterly ignorant of it all, and glad to see/read anything you care to share about it. I don't even know what the -yaki means; I know it from sukiyaki (sp?) and that clearly shows how little I know. No, you definitely aren't talking to the wind!

Those bierocks are the brightest stars in a sparkling layout...it all looks so good! Thanks for the tutorial on the bierocks. I have to download this page and save it to try.

This little gizmo is providing me a great deal of vicarious fun. It makes me wish we had a "Whee!" icon. I'm so glad you're playing with and posting about it!

It's tough to have too many of those!

Directly on the pan from the A4? Pretty handy, if so!

Well, you're saying from experience what I thought I'd read about the circulators with a built-in clamp. The pot's rim can't be too wide or too flared, because then the circulator won't clamp properly. If the pot is too shallow the circulator won't be able to clamp to the side and still sit above the bottom of the pot. Thanks for the confirmation on both those points.