Smithy

@Porthos, that apple-walnut-raisin-cranberry pie sounds interesting. Is there any chance you're share the recipe? It might be a nice twist for our family gathering.

@Darienne, I feel for you on the ham. I dislike most hams (hated them as a child) because of the extra sweetening on an already sweet meat, although what we call "picnic hams" were an exception. Since my sister also disliked ham, it went missing from the family holiday dinners as the family scattered because my parents couldn't deal with the leftovers. Then my husband, who loves ham, joined the family. In order to help him feel welcome, Mom tried a spiral-cut ham. It was a huge hit with all of us. It masn't sweet! It made great sandwiches, it reheated well for dinners, we snitched pieces as snacks. (Nowadays I'd put chunks into scalloped potatoes or mac 'n' cheese, but I didn't think along those lines back then.) WELL, what a success! So Mom made sure to buy a spiral ham every Christmas season. It wasn't until years after she'd passed that my husand confessed he'd always thought the ham disappointingly dry. He kept the secret well, knowing that the ham was for him.

Yes. I must admit that the reports from @blue_dolphin have quelled any recent urge I've had to splurge on one of these pans. The condition of @kayb' is much less daunting. I enjoy admiring the finished results, though! Kudos to those of you willing to put in the work.

@andiesenji, I'm pretty sure I downloaded that recipe back then...and never got around to trying it. Typical of me. I've downloaded it again, and I'm delighted that RecipeSource is still around. I have a question about the wine, however. What is special about Passover wine that I should look for it for this recipe? If I were to use a non-Kosher wine, what should I look for? Thanks for a great story about making the cake and the way it was received.

My experience is that they're very woody if eaten raw, but I'm not sure I've ever had a fresh (not store-bought) ripe quince. The ones I've tried from the grocery store haven't measured up to, say, membrillo - but neither do apricots.

I haven't tried broth with turkey at all, and I've never purchased spare parts for the broth-making, but here's what I have experienced with chicken: by the time the broth is done - whether in a standard stock pot or the instant pot - the broth has pretty much all the flavor and the meat has very little. My dog appreciates the remainders, mind you, but those bits of meat that I tried didn't merit inclusion in any dish I could think of. I suppose if the meat were cooked for less time it would retain flavor, but then the stock would have less. Furthermore, I think the thickness of the "jelly" relies on melting the collagen from within the meat. This has also been my experience with beef. Caveat: I am a rank amateur at this. Let's hope the pros can tell us how to get good broth without destroying the meat!

The canned enchilada sauce crossed my mind, but I couldn't find any of the green persuasion and didn't think the red would go well with it - but it was drier than I'd have liked. Your Dutch oven version sounds a lot like my best friend's tamale pie...something I never liked as a child but thought was terrific when she cooked it last spring. I think it might have been the original inspiration for this IP concoction. Thanks for the suggestions on additions and garnishes.

It's a work in progress, but in general we think it's worth continuing to develop. The basic ingredients are tortillas (I've tried both wheat and corn) chopped onions boneless-skinless chicken (we've been using breast), cut into chunks about 3/4 - 1" (bite) size green chiles of your preferred heat level, roasted, skinned, seeded to your level of patience, and chopped to about 1/4" (what you'd get out of a can) grated cheddar cheese (or other cheese of your liking) a small amount of cooking oil, spices such as cumin and oregano, possibly paprika, salt if you wish (we haven't) liquid such as the chile juice, if yours provide enough, or else chicken broth, and possibly cooked pinto beans. I didn't use them this time in the layered dish. I don't think I have in other attempts, but my notes are unclear. There is no need to cook the chicken first. The first time I tried this, I started with chicken breast I'd sous-vided until lightly cooked but still pink, and I only pressure-cooked for 11 minutes at high pressure. The chicken was overdone. Twice since then I've used raw chicken and cooked for longer time, with better results. Here is what I did this time. I'll get to lessons learned at the end, so you don't need to repeat my mistakes! Cut the chicken into large but bite-sized chunks, and season with cumin, oregano, possibly paprika or smoked paprika, salt if you wish. Set that aside while you chop the rest. Chop the onions into fairly small chunks - say, 1/4" - 1/2" dice. This is not a precision cooking exercise, so no need to fuss over the precise size. Mix that into the chicken. I didn't take a picture of that stage. Chop the roasted, peeled, and seeded chiles. Use the type of chile that gives you the heat level you prefer. This photo is of just before I started chopping. As you see, I'm not a perfectionist about the seeds! Place a small amount of oil in the pot - enough to film the bottom of the pot so nothing sticks. Place a layer of tortillas over the bottom. So far this involves tearing them so they'll fit. (Corn tortillas tend to be too small to cover the bottom, and wheat tortillas that we buy are too big.) Place a good-sized layer of the chicken/onion mixture on the tortilla, and put chiles on top of that. Put another layer of tortillas, then chicken/onion and chiles. Do the same thing again, until you're out of filling. Top with another tortilla layer. Pour in the liquid around the edges. Top the whole thing with a goodly layer of shredded cheese. Pressure cook on high for 1/2 hour, then natural release. (This took less than 10 minutes, because the pot was quite full. In a full-sized pot, or with the pot less full, I'd let it sit for 10 minutes than do a quick release.) Cut down through the pot so it comes out in layers. Serve with salsa, sour cream, and more grated cheese if you wish. If you want to get fancy you could shred lettuce or chop some greens (cilantro, parsley) to scatter over the top, but I haven't done that. The first times I did something like this I was aiming for an enchilada casserole ("hot dish!" my darling says ) and used wheat tortillas. I was working with bags of prepared chiles I'd gotten from Hatch. I dumped ALL the juice in. It was too damp. By the way - be very careful to read the package label, or you'll blow your head off when you mistake hot chiles for medium! This time I was trying for the lasagne-like layers. In order to keep them firm I used a solid layer of tortillas - corn, this time - overlapping each other. I didn't have much juice from the chiles, so I supplemented it with about a cup of chicken broth. The whole thing was too dry. Adding cheese or salsa to the layers, using more liquid, or (mostly likely) doing fewer layers so there's more filling per tortilla layer will be my next attempt. I'm sure there are ways to improve this aside from the issue of dryness. Would a light precook of the tortillas develop the masa flavor more? Sauteeing the onions first would certainly provide a different flavor. However, I was all about ease here - and except for the dryness, we were pretty happy with it. Salsa and sour cream at the table helped with the dryness. Comments, suggestions and questions are welcome.

Nice to see something green there. Is that cheeseweed mallow?

I have never, ever liked ketchup (or catsup) except on very rare occasions as an ingredient in a sauce, or to top a meatloaf. That is, I have never, ever liked it until a friend mailed me a jar of her homemade catsup as a Christmas gift. Because I have never, ever liked the condiment I accepted the jar graciously but didn't open it for at least a year. Maybe it took two years. Then I opened it - and I liked it! It had a texture, unlike any of those nasty bottled condiments. It wasn't sickly sweet. The tomato could be tasted, along with some lovely spices.It harmonized, accented and augmented dishes instead of overwhelming them. Alas, by the time I got around to asking her for the recipe, her mind was going. I have no idea how she made it.

By the way: for those of you who love pinto beans, how do you prepare them? Ratio of water to bean, time and method of cooking, seasonings added....? I fell in love with pinto beans because of Cooper's, in Llano.

The Hatch chiles were roasted so they were soft, but they needed to be peeled and seeded. They were almost the right heat level for us, although we might have enjoyed the "Hot" batch. Based on last year's "hot" chiles from Hatch, I'd been leery of that label. I pulled out the Instant Pot Mini and made a batch of pinto beans. When the beans were done, I gave the pot a quick rinse, then put a film of oil on the bottom. I began layering corn tortillas with a mixture of chopped chicken breast, the chopped chiles and diced onion, then more layers as one would a lasagna dish. The chicken had been seasoned with cumin, oregano and a couple of other spices I've forgotten. I put about a cup of chicken broth into it: typically, my attempts at this have come out wet because of too much liquid, but I had more layers of tortillas than usual this time and not as much chile juice. The whole lot was topped with cheddar cheese, and left to pressure cook for half an hour while I did something else. The "set it and forget it" aspect of the IP is a lovely feature. Dinner. The IP concoction was dry because it had too much tortilla for the other ingredients. This was rectified at the dinner table with sour cream and salsa from home. Sour cream and cheddar on the beans was pretty darned good, too. I really liked the chunkiness of having cubed the chicken to 1/2" - 1" instead of a finer dice. The beans tasted good but not as soft and creamy as I'd have liked. The next day, I simmered them with extra water for at least another hour. It's amazing how much water those beans can take!

In such ways do our vocabularies grow. Thanks!

"fettled" ? I know what it is to be in fine fettle (and a fine word it is), but this verb form seems different. Please translate for us Yanks.

Nice of them to provide you with reading material.

I wrote above that the intoxicating aroma of freshly roasted Hatch chiles, plus fresh and warm tortillas, set our dinner plans for the night. Those plans changed, of all the unlikely possibilities, when we stopped for fuel. This truck stop didn't have a "pay at the pump" feature. I had to go inside with our credit card before they'd turn on the pump. Tantalizing smells of spices and cooking hit me. "Wow, that food smells good!" I exclaimed to the woman at the cash register. "Where is it coming from?" "That's the restaurant," she said, "Indian food. If you like curry, you'll love their stuff." I went to the other end of the building. The Desert Sky Cafe (link goes to their Facebook page) looks like any other diner, but a cafeteria-style cart was set up with various curries, dahl, and fluffy rice. They advertised an Indian buffet for $10.99. I went back outside. I already had dinner plans! I went back inside and bought one takeaway meal for the two of us to share. It would be lunch. The chiles and curry smells competed, but fortunately did not war with each other, on the drive back to our campground. We stowed groceries, then sat down to eat. I had selected butter chicken and a curry. Two roti were included with the meal. We tasted one, then the other, and back again. We tried the roti, both on its own and with bites of the main course. We liked both dishes. The butter chicken was hotter than the other curry, but both had complex flavors. I can't be more specific about the curry that wasn't butter chicken, because I've forgotten how they labeled it. I thought it had been called a chicken curry, but the structure of the meat seemed more like beef. It tasted good, but the sauce overwhelmed any distinctive meat flavor. Thanks to this late lunch, we weren't hungry when dinner time rolled around. We admired the sunset, then settled in for popcorn and a movie.

Thanks for the information on the seeds. That hadn't occurred to me. Reason #11,298 that I love eGullet! Aha! I've been puzzling over the duritos and looking at Wikipedia. The thing I tried yesterday was a bit on the rubbery side, and not at all crisp. Now I realize I was trying the dried, but unfried, wheels. Maybe sometime I'll see some at a snack stand and be able to try them. If I like them, I can try my hand at frying and seasoning them!

@HungryChris, that is an amusing beer name. I didn't realize, until I googled Amarillo, Simcoe and Azacca, that the variety of hops is so wide. Thanks for sharing your meal and beer choices.

Deming, New Mexico sits off Interstate 10 to the west of El Paso and north of Columbus. We drove to Deming yesterday for groceries and other errands. The road between Columbus and New Mexico has a lot of creosote scrub punctuated by the occasional interesting sight: an airport development, a few ranches, beautiful rocky mountains in the distance. Toward Deming there are also a few pecan groves and one huge chile plantation. I don't know what type of chiles these are, but they're drying and wilting on the vine. It doesn't seem likely that the farm is abandoned. Does anyone know more about these? Peppers grocery store in Deming is, in our opinion, the best option for stocking up. Their produce may not look as good as the Walmart produce, but there's a greater variety and the grocery store is far friendlier and better run. The interior decorations are fun, too. Here's a sampling of their produce area. The selection of fresh and dried chiles, and dried beans, is impressive. (In the middle right picture are some orange wheel-shaped things called duritos. I tried one and couldn't see the point. Can anyone shed light on what they are and what one might do with them?) I selected a few poblanos and jalapenos from among their fresh chiles, and a few pasillas and chiles de arbol from the dried. I was also able to get some dried hibiscus. I know it as karkadeh, but @heidih was good enough to tell me to look for jamaica. They spelled it slightly differently here (jamica? now I don't remember) but it's the good stuff. The deli area had bags of freshly roasted and peeled Hatch chiles, both of medium-hot and hot-hot persuasion. This set my dinner plans. I grabbed a bag of the green medium-hot and the intoxicating aroma followed us around the store as we finished up our shopping. I also picked up fresh, warm tortillas. It's overkill to buy both flour tortillas and corn tortillas, but these are high-quality and I like both types. At around $2 per package - especially at this quality - it seems a shame not to buy both. Farther along in the store, I discovered that they also have a wide selection of frozen Hatch chile products! I hadn't noticed them before this trip. That may mean we won't need to go to Hatch next spring on our way back, but we'll see. We enjoyed the drive and I'd like to see more of that town. Finally, I discovered these cute little guys among the eggs: Oh, I was tempted! But I don't know when I'd use them. I'll hope to see them next time through.

Ah, but in Minnesota (and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan) the default term for almost any hot baked melange is "hot dish". When I moved up there I had to learn that the word "casserole" was unused, and a bit uppity.

How to make brussels sprouts fattening...and delicious...with minimal fuss. These were quartered, tossed with cut-up bacon ends and pieces, and left to render in the oven. Then cream and Hanford Jack Smoked Jalapeno cheese were mixed in and left until melty and brown. We had quite a discussion about whether this was a gratin (my description) or a hot dish or a casserole. Then we had another discussion about whether the brown, crunchy (and quite delicious, I thought) bottom crust qualified as tahdig, since no rice was involved. If we can't call it tahdig, then we need a word for it.

We'd make a spectacle of ourselves, wouldn't we? I'd be fighting you for them.

That doesn't seem to be in RecipeGullet. Do you have a link?

We have space! We have our rooms back! We finally lit for a few days, unpacked the garage and let it become our dining room. Although the cramped conditions haven't worn on us as much as in past years, we both feel relieved at the extra room. To celebrate, I cooked a skillet dinner of corn, bacon, potatoes, our uneaten road-trip vegetables, jalapeños and Hanford Jack cheese. I even broke out clean napkins. (They're from the same set as the previous batch, so don't worry if you don't see the difference. My darling didn't.)

Texas has wonderful rest areas with picnic shelters. Unless otherwise marked, you can stay for 24 hours there although you can't set up a tent or other "structure". The fines for breaking the law range, according to posted signs, from $1 to $200. I wonder whether the $1 fine is ever assessed or collected. We prefer to stay farther from the freeway, but it's nice to know that these are available. Each picnic area has a different theme.