Jaymes

You'd get no ridicule from this quarter. Actually, I brought up eggs some time back in this thread when I said: "And don't discount breakfast for an occasional dinner: scrambled eggs or omelets, pancakes, etc. It all works. In Texas, we've got a great late-night, busy-night dish: chili and eggs. Quick, easy (if you've already got the chili in the freezer, which we always did) and delicious. My family loved that." Egg-based dishes are indeed an excellent source of protein and a great time-saver. Although as I've said elsewhere, feeding a large family that includes teenaged boys requires a bit more effort than that usually needed for smaller families, I did often manage to work in an egg-based main dish. Curried hard-cooked eggs over rice was one. Creamed eggs over toast, another. And in the summertime, I often could get away with a big chef's salad for dinner - including chopped eggs, cheese, ham, leftover green beans or peas or corn or other veggies, etc., and a loaf of the ubiquitous 'crusty French bread.' ___________________________

Not sure how you're going to "make it." If you're going to be corning it and then boiling it for corned beef, you don't need that deckle/fat cap. But if you're planning on smoking or barbecuing or broiling it, be sure to ask them not to trim it off.

And the current thread popping up about rice pudding reminds me that I used to make rice pudding in my crock pot very frequently. Especially when we were living in warm locales like southern Arizona or Panama and we wanted rice pudding without heating up the kitchen for a couple of hours - which, by the way, is another huge benefit of owning a crock pot in a hot climate. Not only are they perfect for stews, braises, soups, etc., when the weather is cold; they're great for things that take a long time to cook when it's 110 outside and you don't want a big hot oven to heat up your whole kitchen. Here's a typical recipe for crock pot rice pudding: Crock Pot Rice Pudding

You know, this thread on rice pudding bouncing to the forefront at the same time as the current crock pot thread reminds me that I used to make rice pudding in my crock pot all the time. Here's a very typical recipe: Crock Pot Rice Pudding

It's been my experience that although it's relatively easy to find a brisket "flat," it's darn near impossible to find a whole brisket, untrimmed, including the fat cap/deckle/point, etc., anywhere but Texas. Down here, we barbecue the whole thing. My son, out in California, didn't understand why his smoked brisket was never so juicy and tender as what we regularly produce in Texas. The secret, of course, is that we're smoking the whole brisket, including that fat cap, while all he could find was the much leaner trimmed-up flat. ______________________

And I do something similar with garlic and onions and salsa and Mexican chiles that turns into a terrific (and cheap) filling for tasty and low-fat turkey tacos. That's also basically how I make our tacos de lengua. Tacos de lengua - Recipe Gullet ______________

Ah ha! So then, reading and remembering! An excellent method, and one I obviously should adopt.

Are you guessing? Or do you know for sure that's it? I don't know - when I'm in Mexico, I never hear anybody say "tomatillo." Even in the markets when I'm standing there looking at what we clearly call a tomatillo in the US, the signs and vendors refer to them as tomates verdes.

There are some great front quarter cuts that you don't get if you just go for the hind quarter. To me, really, it all comes down to how many folks you're going to be feeding. If you've got a large family, like we did, you'll use it all. But if you get a full side, and there are only, say, two of you, you'll still be looking at a lot of beef in your freezer a year from now. So in that case, you would be better off to find another one or two families to go in with you. If you do that, though, you need to come up with a fair way to distribute the most-popular cuts because that can be an issue.

I have a niece that is an art teacher. She is also a silversmith, a painter and a glass blower. Her studio has several crock pots that she uses for various functions. Plus, she's got an endlessly hungry husband and two teenagers to feed, so she's got a couple more crock pots that are often hard at work in her kitchen.

I'm probably showing my ignorance, but aren't tomatillos and tomates verdes the same thing? If not, what's the difference?

Hopefully, you all don't think that I was the one disparaging crockpots . I actually love them for the uses Jaymes describes above. We entertain a lot like this also and, crockpots are great for this. So much so, that people continue to give me more based on how many we use. In addition to several medium and xlarge ones, I bought some smaller one on sale and use them for fondues and chocolate dipping sauces. Our friends love it. However, based on the way I cook in my every day life of prepping on weekends (and the types of things we eat), still haven't found a way to incorporate them for regular cooking. The only two things I use them for other than parties are cooking brisket and, occasionally, a turkey breast that always comes out really moist. However, since we are not big meat eaters, I don't do this often (unless we are having a party ). I think you're absolutely right about this. It does, just as you say, depend so much upon your circumstance. Those voracious kids to whom I fed countless crock pot meals are all grown and gone. Jettisoned the husband, too, somewhere along the way. So now, like you, primarily use my crock pot for guests. But I'm a big believer that different times, different circumstances, different needs, different problems require different solutions. I just think it's a far wiser policy in general to say "someday that 'whatever' might come in handy"; rather than, "never have, never will, and oh by the way, ugh." ____________________

Absolutely beautiful. Thanks.

Right. You're really better off to get a half-side - the rear half. In our case, we got the entire side for free, and we were raising a big family, so were happy to use up the less-tender cuts for stews, braises, hamburger, etc. But after Dad retired from the cattle business, and we bought beef, we tended to get a half-side. Especially for your first time, you might start with the half-side. Although I could get a half-side into the freezer portion of my large side-by-side fridge, that's still a LOT of beef. _____________________

My father was in the cattle business for years, and he often would give us a side of beef. Although this sounds so simple as to be practically no advice at all, my advice would be to simply tell them to butcher it however you like to use it. Much depends upon the size of your family and what portions you generally purchase and cook. If you usually cook, for example, five-pound roasts, tell them that. Ditto as to how thick you like your steaks. Be sure to get some good stew meat. And some hamburger. Is it easier for you to cook your filet in one long piece, or in filet mignons? Imagine yourself standing at your supermarket butcher counter buying beef. What do you usually buy? That's how you tell your butcher to cut your beef. __________________

And if you entertain a lot, which for a number of years we did (and by "a lot," I mean that there were about six or seven years wherein we did not go a single month without having guests in our home an average of three times a week for events that included some sort of food; everything from 30 or so ladies for teatime or an elegant luncheon or an all-day bridge party [that also required breakfast upon arrival and snacks throughout], to cocktail parties, to several families for backyard cookouts, to Sunday brunches and holiday or "game-day" open houses for we-never-knew-how-many, to dinner for 30, 40, 80), crock pots are invaluable for serving heated foods, and drinks such as aromatic hot punches, mulled cider and wine. So, assuming you can get over the stigma of having your friends and guests know you own one, they're extremely handy for entertaining. And it wasn't just those electric ranges that had a "deep well." I remember my grandmother's old gas stove had a deep well. A lipped pot dropped down into the well. There were two handles that recessed into the side of the top lip with which one lowered and retrieved the pot. I think someone told me that my grandmother had bought that stove back in the 20's. I still have the pot with its lipped rim. I remember going to my grandmother's house when I was a very small child. There was always something tasty bubbling in that pot. And if you google "deep well" stove, looks like there are quite a few expensive ranges that feature one. Doubt they would be received in one's kitchen with quite the same level of derision as the poor ol' lowly crock pot. Bad crock pot. You bad, bad crock pot. _____________________

I'm feeling tres worldly because I eat Central Texas barbecue all the time. Including at Snow's.

The main reason to have a crock pot is that your original question involved leaving your home all day to go to work and then having to come home and get a good, hearty meal on the table in a half-hour or less. I, for example, would never go off and leave my oven on all day, even on low. I actually tried it once, but worried about it until finally I left work and went home to turn it off. But I left that crock pot on all day all the time. I had a big family, including for quite a few years, teenaged boys. My goal was to fill them up. That's not an easy thing to do under the best of circumstances, and practically impossible when you have a stressful, full-time job to worry about. I think we're talking apples and oranges here. "Fine gourmet technique" for a hobby cook that has time in the kitchen vs a big hungry family and a full-time job outside the home. If you're going to be hanging around the kitchen all day long putzing with this and that, or if you're comfortable leaving your SV Supreme on all day long, I agree with you. You don't need one. _________________

There's no reason to disparage a crock pot. It's just an appliance, after all, with no moral value. It's designed to cook things slowly, and for that, it works wonderfully. We've actually had a great many threads on eG devoted to crock pots. Do a search for threads with "crock" in the title, and about a dozen will pop up. There are adoring fans using their crock pots to make everything from breads to cheese to roasts, including my recipe for easy tacos de lengua. You can put steel cut oats on before you go to bed, and wake up to the creamiest oatmeal imaginable. And absolutely nothing works as well as a crock pot for making onion confit. I also use mine all winter long to make gluhwein and hot mulled cider when we have guests. Absolutely would not be without it. I think turning up one's nose at an appliance is just silly. Of course, to each his own. I know that a crock pot doesn't work well for every dish. It can turn some things to mush. Like any other appliance, you have to learn how to use it to its best advantage. Here's a thread with over twelve pages of interesting discussion: Crock pots/slow cookers - recipes and techniques _________________________

Not to mention that if you're the only one cooking for the family of four, and you get held up a little at work, or on the commute home, and you've got dinner all ready in the crockpot, you can tell the rest of them to go ahead. And you'll be home shortly. I'm totally telling ya....

I'd like to add that you definitely should go get that crockpot. After all, if there were another kitchen appliance, or pot, or pan, or whatever, that you needed and didn't have, you'd go get one, right? So why should a crockpot be any different? There's nothing quite like coming home on a cold dark night when you're tired and hungry and opening that front door and inhaling the aroma of a comforting stew or tacos de lengua or whatever that is already prepared and waiting for you. And the first time that happens, you'll thank your lucky stars that you bought that crockpot after all.

I did that for some twenty years. The crock pot and freezer and microwave are your best friends. In addition to the many great tips here, I'd say my number one bit of advice is to cook one or two large meats on the weekends: a big ham, large beef or pork roast, couple of chickens, etc. Even fire up the grill and cook a big batch of hamburger patties for later in the week. One thing I did was to buy at least two extra turkeys at Thanksgiving, when they're loss leaders, and have the butcher saw the frozen turkeys into halves; then I'd wrap them separately and stick them back into the freezer. Over a weekend, I'd smoke one of the halves. I found that generally speaking, the protein is the most time-consuming. If you've got a big ham or roast beef or pork roast or turkey or whatever ready to hit the table, it just doesn't take that much time to toss a salad, or steam some fresh veggies either stovetop or in the microwave. And toward the end of the week, it's easy to chop up whatever bits of meat are left over and then combine them with some frozen stock and some noodles or rice for a hearty soup. Sam's and Costco sell large bags of individually-frozen chicken breasts and fish filets. You can pull out however many you need for that night, put them on a sheet pan, cover with some sort of sauce (we use my tomato salsa a lot), and pop them into a hot oven for about 10 minutes for fish, 15 for chicken. You can also do this with thin pork chops, or they saute in a skillet in no time flat. Whole potatoes only take a few minutes to bake in the microwave - about five minutes each. Bake either white or sweet potatoes, then wrap them tightly in foil to continue to steam and heat through evenly while you prepare the rest of the meal. Another huge time-saver for me was the salad bar at our local megasupermarket. All sorts of veggies already prepped: shredded carrots, chopped onions, mushrooms, green peppers, etc. These things can go into a salad at home, or into a soup or stirfry. Try to use more imagination than time when it comes to side dishes. Especially salads. Buy the shredded cabbage at the store and toss it with cole slaw dressing. Open a cold can of pears and serve them over cottage cheese with a sprinkle of grated cheddar cheese. Toss leftover veggies like peas and beans in with your salad. If you have tasty nutritious sides, it's easier to fill out an entire meal. And don't discount breakfast for an occasional dinner: scrambled eggs or omelets, pancakes, etc. It all works. In Texas, we've got a great late-night, busy-night dish: chili and eggs. Quick, easy (if you've already got the chili in the freezer, which we always did) and delicious. My family loved that. And we still do. ______________________

I challenge anyone to watch this video and not get inspired!

Boy, there is sure a lot of inspiration there. Thanks for tracking down all those inspiring threads. Remarkable how similar we all can be and how we can all have have similar problems. Sometimes a "rut" is a really comforting routine... And sometimes it's just a rut. But as I said in one of those other threads, for me, when I need inspiration, all I have to do is to look through one of my cookbooks. Especially one of my cookbooks with gorgeous photos. Impossible not to get inspired. ____________________

I've been to quite a few restaurants that, as soon as management leaves, the young staff blasts some sort of really unpleasant rock music. And they don't give a rat's ass if you don't like it. And then later, when I've told management what happens after they leave, they admit that they've been told that before and that it's an ongoing problem, but that they've had a hard time correcting it. A couple of places where the music is so loud and so "contemporary" as to be unpleasant, I've been told that management does it intentionally so that customers don't settle in comfortably. That way, they can turn the tables faster.