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I did a little 2 rib roast last night for a quick after-work dinner with a dear friend. There were 3 of us and we had no leftovers. I'd never done one this small. It was the $5.99 sale model roast from Albertson's, but it did have a good fat cap. The meat was at room-temp, oiled, salted and peppered when I put it in a shallow pan, surrounded by potatoes and carrots. It went into a pre-heated convection oven at 450F for a little over 5 minutes, then I turned the temp down to 350F for about 40 minutes. I pulled it at 118F, tossed the veg into another pan and put them back in the oven to finish roasting while the beef rested. Made jus from some great beef stock I had in the freezer (reduced, then strained to get rid of the potato bits scraped up from the roasting pan). I was glad I'd decided to roast the veg in the same pan, because the roast was lopsided and I propped it up with the potatoes. It was very good! It had a nice crust and was perfectly medium rare. (Served with some lightly steamed green beans sauteed in bacon fat, then combined with feta and toasted pecans. I thought I had a gracious plenty beans to make for some leftovers, but every bite was consumed. They were SO good!) I just wish I'd had time to make some of Marlene's Yorkies to go with!!!

We're making a LONG drive from FL to NM in a few days. We'll hit the North Shore area around lunch time on Sunday. Any recommendations for a quick, casual, but delicious lunch?

Oh my... my list could go on for days!!! An Afghan hound nose snuck under the plastic wrap and vacuumed the roast beef section off a deli-tray arranged in a "wheel". Only the beef, nothing else was touched. Of course this happened just before guests arrived. The "wheel" was artfully rearranged and nobody suspected it ever had a beef section. <g> Another Afghan ate an entire huge ham, cooling on the porch before Easter dinner. It's nice to have a vet that will take your call at home on Easter Sunday! A different vet took our call on Christmas Eve and assured us the pound of M&Ms wouldn't kill our cocker spaniel. But, just as the vet predicted, it made for one miserable pup and some technicolor "output"! One greyhound + two steaks resting on the counter = PB&J for human dinner. That same greyhound once attempted to swallow a chicken carcass whole. I have very small hands... small enough to slide down a greyhound throat and retrieve said carcass! Countless donuts, glasses of wine, burgers and ribs straight off the grill, loaves of bread, sticks of butter... all gone the way of theiving dogs! We are now blessed with a houseful of greyhounds and NONE of them are food theives! Their good behaviour has made us complacent. The most recent casualty was a pan of cornbread dressing prepared for a pre-Thanksgiving potluck. It was consumed by a visiting greyhound. I'd prepared two pans, so at least one of them made it to the party. The same greyhound emptied a 5 lb. bag of flour in his owner's bed just yesterday!

Brooks, you just crack me up!!! On my drive to meet a friend for lunch today, I caught a bit of Diane Rehm's interview with Paula Dean on NPR. OMG! It was embarrassing to listen to! I kept thinking, "CRAP! Do folks thinks she represents Southern women (especially those of us who COOK)???" Yet, many of the women I work with think Paula is WONDERFUL! They also love Rachel Ray! However, the ones I know who love those shows were ALL raised in the great frozen North!

The mystery has been solved. It's White Lilly Flour. Friend/housesitter bought it because she knows that's what I often use. What she didn't know is that I never use it for yeast bread. Everybody else thought the rolls were fine, but I knew they weren't quite right.

I don't think it's self-rising. She's an experienced cook and she made cookies with the same flour. They turned out okay. It's odd... I just ate one of the left over rolls. It didn't have the characteristic "yeasty" flavor I expect from this recipe. Still, I think I'll pitch the rest of the flour...

I used my sister's very tried-and-true recipe for fluffy dinner rolls. I've had hers a bazillion times and they are always perfect. I've made them myself before and they've always been good. It's just a basic white bread recipe, using vegetable shortening for the fat, no milk or eggs and only a little sugar. I don't know what kind of flour I used. Our house sitter replenished my supply while we were away last weekend. I asked her what kind of flour she bought and she said just regular AP flour. (She works at Publix and I'd guess it's their store brand.) I typically use King Arthur unbleached AP flour in these rolls. The dough was beautiful. The only slightly odd thing was that it rose more quickly than I expected. I chalked this up to the fact it was very warm in my kitchen. (I used regular dry yeast, not the Rapid Rise kind.) The rolls looked gorgeous! The texture was nice, very light and fluffy. But, they tasted like raw flour! Any ideas why this would be?

We live a LONG way from the nearest town and it's a teensy burg. Appliance must be purchased from the bigger town that is even further away. We just replaced our dead GE Profile with a mid-range Bosch purchased at Lowe's. Whatever brand we buy, we must pay mileage and a big service call fee. DH, who does most of the washing up, loves the new machine. He says it holds WAY more than the GE did. I can't believe how quiet it is. We've only had it a couple of weeks, but so far, we are very happy with it.

Living in pecan country, I usually just pick them up at the local farmers market. (We have two trees on our property, but they are very old and don't produce nuts worth messing with. We just leave them for the squirrels.) Sometimes my sis gives me a gallon bag or two of gorgeous halves from her trees in Texas. If I want something other than plain ol' pecan halves/pieces, I shop at this place. We use their parking lot and their HUGE dog walk area for meetups with the Atlanta greyhound adoption group. They also have a pretty decent meat-and-three lunch buffet. Their lemon pecan bars are really good! I always have a bag of their pecan meal in the freezer for doing pecan crusted fish. One of our volunteers always buys a bag of the Key Lime Pecans. Priesters Pecans This place is good, too. It's our regular "potty break" stop on the other route to Atlanta. (They also have a nice, big doggie walk area. Get the theme, here?) I especially like their toasted/salted pecans as a snack on the road. Merritt Pecan Pam <the crazy greyhound lady>

We'll have a Costco in Tallahassee sometime next year. I'm most looking forward to the Kirkland brand dog food and their $19.99 42" dog beds (we have 14 of them, puchased at an Atlanta Costco)! A friend in CA gets awesome bread at the Bakersfield store... it's called Portugese something... He owned a restaurant for years and is a genius in the kitchen. I assumed he'd made the bread. He fessed up and told me it came from Costco! I don't know if that's available at all the stores. I hope so.

Tallahassee... the store with the pork loins is the Oak Valley one, on the far North side. The same store had some GREAT looking lamb Thursday. I didn't get any, but decided today I wanted some. Because I was going to Thomasville, GA to the produce market, I tried that Publix. No luck on the lamb... Will have to trek to the Oak Valley store tomorrow morning.

One of the Publix markets where I shop has something I've not seen in any other Publix (at least none of the other Tallahassee area stores). In the deli, along with the rotisserie chickens, they do rotisserie pork loins. I try to remember to call ahead when I want one, as they frequently run out before I can get there after work. Whatever we don't eat the first night goes into pork fried rice a couple of nights later. They are SO popular. I wonder why only one store prepares them?

Years ago, we lived in a house with a big old pear tree in the yard. The pears were of the "cooking" sort. They never got ripe/soft enough to eat raw. I made many jars of wonderful chutney from them, and my DH's aunt made pints and pints of pear butter. I'm thinking you should do those with your apples. I miss that old pear tree, and my asparagus patch in the same yard. We also had a wonderfully prolific blueberry bush. But, I let the birds have those, or gave them away if I managed to pick them before the birds did. Neither DH nor I like blueberries.

I bought six ears of yellow corn this morning at my favorite produce stand... they are located across the parking lot from the place where the big grocers come to buy produce from local farms. I don't know the provenance of the corn I bought... probably someplace in N. GA or SC... But, the ears were HUGE! It was YELLOW corn. I cut some of it off the cob for a creamed corn dish that includes okra and tomatoes. I nearly SWOONED at the first taste of i! Such corny flavor! Sweet, not starchy, but it tasted like CORN! So much of the white or bi-color corn we get is just sweet. It doesn't really taste like corn. When I scraped the cobs, the amount of "milk" produced was amazing! I blanched the other four ears and will make up a little baggie for the freezer. I wish this market was open on Sundays... I'd be back tommow to buy more for the freezer.

Methinks perhaps the "bread on the table" thing comes from a combination of: (1) farm families where bread was/is a way to fill the stomachs of many children and field workers (2) the Great Depression, when bread (or the means to make it) was one of the few semi-reliable sources of sustenance For my Dad, bread on the table was a comfort... He didn't NEED it, but it made him comfortable to have it available.

When I was very young, my Dad always insisted on bread with supper (the evening meal). The bread was usually "whack-a-tube" biscuits, or thick white bread buttered and toasted "Texas Toast". On REALLY good days, it was a loaf of my Grandma's fabulous homemade bread, made from a sweet starter she obtained from a friend's West Indian housekeeper. Later, when Mom got heavily into organic gardening and healthy eating, bread played a lesser role (unless Grandma provided the golden loaf). But, on Sundays and holidays, we always had bread... potato rolls or Grandma's bread or Aunt Irene's lighter-than-air dinner rolls... I still can't do a holidy meal without making bread... sometimes it's good, sometimes it's just so-so, but I have to make it! In a real pinch, I'll go buy a bag of Sister Shubert's rolls.

One of the hospitals where DH worked gave us a HUGE ham at Christmas. I decided to take it to a New Year's gathering, but got home from work late the night before and wound up baking the ham in the wee hours of the morning. For some reason, I decided it really needed a pineapple glaze. So, I put pineapple juice in the pot and then added BAKING SODA! In my sleep-deprived state, I somehow thought I could salvage it by just dumping in the corn starch. MMMMMM.... Pineapple Play Dough!

The country store I frequent most often doesn't sell produce... It's more of a feed and farm supply place. But, they do have wonderful fresh eggs... sometimes I even get colorful ones... blue and green and peach colors! They also have plants... 'maters, peppers, herbs, etc. And, lots of rabbits/goats/chickens/emus/etc... But, NOT for sale as food! :-) They also have budgies and parakeets and a few other more exotic birds. Micky and Penny, who own the place, just LOVE animals of all sorts. Penny sells a few antiques out of the back room. Hmmm... methinks I need to encourage them to start a produce sideline! That might help them compete with the big Tractor Supply that's going in just down the road.

Another vote for the roasted cauliflower... Also, Jackal's Quick Potato Gratin a la Dauphinoise and Susan's Champagne Chicken All have become regulars on the dinner menu at our house!

Here's the way I learned from my grandma, with the corn from grandpa's "truck patch"... Cut the corn off the cobs and then scrape with the back of the knife, as others have described. Melt a knob of butter (or a little bacon grease) in a cast iron skillet. Saute the corn in the butter for a bit (maybe 10 minutes?) Don't let it get any color, just start to soften. Add a good amount of milk or half-and-half. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or so. If it's still too liquid, take the lid off and let it cook down to the desired consistency. Salt and a good amount of fresh ground pepper at the end. Sometimes I saute some minced Vidalia onion or a shallot before adding the corn. Sometimes I add crumbled bacon and/or chopped tomatoes and/or chopped green onions at the end. But, most times, I just enjoy the plain creamy, corny goodness. BTW, I like it best with old-fashioned yellow corn. The texture and flavor are better than the white or bi-color varieties. If your corn isn't super fresh, you might want to add a little sugar with the milk.

"Catherine's Fried Chicken" is nearly identical to the method I learned sitting on a stool in my grandma's kitchen. (We had a white housekeeper, who made the world's best sugar cookies. But, chicken was my Grandma's domain.) The only differences are: Instead of brining, Grandma just put the chicken pieces in a bowl and salted them well, tossing them around in the bowl every now and then for 30-60 minutes before proceeding. And, she used Crisco for the frying. I haven't fried chicken in a long while... I think it will be on next weekend's menu! Tonight, I'll have to make due with fresh baby butter beans, squash casserole, beets, tomatoes and some cornbread.

Calrose rice From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Calrose Rice is the most recognized variety of rice in the United States and abroad, especially in the Pacific. In Hawaii, Guam and other islands, Calrose rice accounts for more than 90% of the rice consumed. The variety is grown in other areas of the world where it is suited to growing conditions, such as Australia. After cooking, Calrose rice grains hold flavor well, and are soft and stick together, making it good for use in sushi. Calrose was once a much sought-after variety in parts of Asia, where it was considered exotic. There was even a black market for the variety and it was smuggled in large quantities. This is not the case in South Korea, where consumers prefer Asian varieties. The odor and taste of Calrose is said to be disagreeable, and its lower moisture level can lead to drying and cracking in the grains, which prevents the cooked rice from taking on the shiny, rounded look valued in other varieties.

"The Millennium Coursing Cookbook", sold to raise funds for the (failed) fight against the ban on hare coursing in England... forward by Clarissa Dickson Wright... What few of the recipes I've tried have been mostly awful, but the Guinness stew is great! I love this one, from my friend Sir Mark Prescott (I know it's okay with him if I post it here)... "Suggested for lunch and dinner, 7 days a week (unless better offer arrives!) Take one tin of Heinz (and only Heinz) Baked Beans. Open with rusting can opener and eat cold out of the tin with teaspoon, accompnied by two pieces of dry 'burnt' toast (slightly stale bread is best and no butter). Wash down with strong black sugarless tea and follow with a bowl of Kellogs Cornflakes (milk but no sugar) and an orange. Should be cooked, eaten and washed up in 11-15 minutes (or you aren't busy enough!)" The book is filled with humor, wonderful quotes about dogs and hares, and some charming illustrations. I pull it out every few months, just to read through it and reminisce about the wonderful days spent with those people and those dogs...

Not smoked. I've not bought from that place. What I have bought was VERY salty... really the same thing as what is called "salt pork"... Honestly, for seasoning all manner of greens, field peas, beans, etc., I prefer some of our good locally cured/smoked bacon or ham hocks.. The side meat and salt pork are mostly fat. I love the tasty bits of lean meat left behind.

Scroll down the photos... there is one of a package of side meat...