HungryC

Smothered round steak was supposed to be the entree, but when I was a kid, it was more like an excuse to have rice & gravy. I was well into adulthood before I realized that all Americans aren't raised on rice & gravy. If you open my parents' refrigerator to this day, you will, 9 times out of 10, find some leftover braised beef (round, eye of the round, rump) in gravy and cooked rice. And my mama's version uses Campbell's beef consomme in the gravy. When I make it, I use a little red wine and the faintest whisp of chopped tomato along with the onions & bell peppers. That nudges the dish a little bit closer to NO-style grillades...but it's all still part of the rice-n-gravy continuum. The ubiquity of the dish serves as a good reminder that LA has plenty of cattle, and most rural or semi-rural areas have meat markets that will sell you a share of a grass-fed calf still on the hoof, to be cut & packaged according to your preferences.

Does the cake HAVE to be round? You'd save yourself plenty of work/trouble/wasted cake if you went with rectangular layers. Baking in half-sheet pans sounds quite practical to me. Since efficiency is important, bake those layers ahead of time, cool, and and freeze. Just make sure they're at room temp before you start icing.

Similar circumstances drive me to the WF salad bar...I usually go for a mix of mesclun & baby spinach, topped w/chopped pecans, goat or blue cheese crumbles, and cuces/carrots/broccoli/other crunchy veg. I figure I'm getting protein from the nuts & cheese, iron from the spinach...if the croutons look decent, I'll add a few. Ditto for the chopped egg. My WF's salad-bar dressings are uniformly boring and/or bad, so I opt for a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar and a few drops of olive oil. I always am annoyed at myself when I hit the cash register...it usually forces me back into a better lunch-packing regimen.

I had tuna for lunch yesterday. Solid white tuna packed in oil...drain the oil out of the tuna, mix w/a T or so of tahini, one minced clove of garlic, and a large handful of chopped parsley. Stir the dressing together w/the tuna & a drained, rinsed can of chickpeas. Add cracked pepper (I don't add salt, as the canned stuff is already pretty salty). Especially good w/toasted olive bread.

Those red beans and rice looked amazing. If I wanted to make a non-pork version could I just smoke a turkey and use stock from the bones, then add the meat at the end? I've never had red beans and rice but it looks so good I want to try (a kosher) version. Lots of people who avoid pork make RB&R using smoked turkey. Like Rhonda suggests, commercially smoked turkey parts work well...necks are common, but I really like the smoked turkey wings. After all, you need a little fat to infuse the smoky flavor throughout the dish. Smoked necks & wings are very common ingredients in soul food cooking; if your usual grocery store doesn't carry 'em, find a browner neighborhood & shop those stores. Around here, you can also find turkey tasso(a heavily spiced, smoked, boneless hunk of turkey thigh), which is also good. Best beans I ever tasted were made with "pickle tips"....a/k/a pickled rib tips, a pork cut packed in a vinegary brine. Pickled & salted pork are pretty common "seasoning meats" for beans. I prefer salted pork in my field peas.

Not sure what sort of sourdough-tending regime you follow, but I feed my starter, leave it out at room temp (very loosely covered, generally takes 2-6 hours depending on ambient temp) until it doubles, stir it down, THEN I put it back into the fridge. So it has ample time to absorb anything local floating around.

That out-of-print Prudhomme family cookbook is a treasure. It contains a bunch of serious Cajun home cooking; "sticky" chicken, smothered potatoes, etc. I scored one at a used bookstore, and I can't understand why someone would have ever let it go. Alibris has a few cheap copies listed right now. Rhonda, your fig tree's production sounds about like mine. I planted it (the "LSU Purple" variety) the winter after Katrina, and last year I harvested no more than a dozen figs. Bah. Also funny you should mention Swamp People--I was in Bayou Sorrel this weekend, home of Willie (from the show). Saw a gas station advertising "Willie t-shirts are here". Guess the locals are proud of him.

And the yeast isn't feeding on any proteins, denatured or otherwise, in the flour. Yeast feeds on sugar.

Why are so many experts claiming that the local yeast theory is incorrect and that ALL the yeast activity comes from the flour? The changing flavor is easily accounted for by positing that bags of flour (even from the same brand) are likely ground from grains grown in lots of different places. It could be the feeding from different bags of flour over time that causes the change. Also, I would think that modern air conditioning would eliminate most yeast from the air in a typical kitchen. I use hypoallegenic filters in mine that I would guess removes most larger particles (of which yeast would almost certainly be one). ETA: I don't think that the presence of yeast in the air is in question. What is unclear is if in the average kitchen there is a strong enough concentration to ever innoculate a starter. Every time you open a door or window, huge amounts of air enter & exit your house. Even with a HEPA filter on a central AC system, significant amounts of mold, yeast, etc can circulate in the air (as any allergy sufferer can tell you). Your shoes, clothing, AM newspaper, the dog, groceries, the daily mail: any & every object entering your house contains micro-organisms. The bread you bring home from the bakery; the bunch of grapes in the fruit bowl; the potatoes in a basket; the cut flowers in a vase....all are potential sources of "critters" to inoculate a starter culture. I tried to cultivate a wild-yeast starter multiple times--my earliest failures were due to rampant nasty-bacterial growth...you name the color, and it grew in my starter. Took me a bit of trial & error (and some pineapple juice) to finally tip the balance in favor of yeast. But I live three blocks from the swamp, in an intensely humid atmosphere. Algae, mold, mildew: they're easier to grow than grass around here. I can see how a desert climate might make it significantly harder to cultivate a starter.

Yeast is definitely in the flour, but it's also in the air (and I sure hope it's not on the utensils or bowl...ick). There's absolutely nothing wrong with a purchased starter, but it will evolve over time to become a local one. IOW, whatever yeasts live/thrive in your area will slowly take over as you add flour & water and air (through the stirring).

Hey, Rhonda! I had my first local strawberries last week; can't wait to see what you're cooking & eating.

Agreed. And the bread smells so good! Seriously? Personally I find the smell of the bread nauseating; so much so, that I have to cross the road or hold my breath if I'm going past a Subway. Each to their own, I suppose. I bake bread at least once a week and sometimes as often as 3X; everything from wild-yeast sourdough to cinnamon rolls to English muffins to brioche. The over-yeasted, sugary funk given off by Subway's bakery is absolutely revolting to me. How on earth does Subway make baking bread smell SO bad?

Shakerato is pronounced just as it looks, equal stress on all syllables, sounds like milkshake. But shakerato has a specific meaning: espresso & simple syrup, shaken w/ice, then strained into a glass. Sometimes the glass is drizzled w/chocolate, or the drink gets a tiny float of liqueur. It's not a blender drink. If you repurpose the name, maybe you should display a short description so that people familiar w/the Italian term aren't suprised by a different drink after ordering. I make coffee granita by dissolving sugar in hot espresso, then pouring the coffee into a shallow dish & sticking it in the freezer. Scrape the sides & bottom of the dish every 10-15 minutes or as needed depending on how fast the mixture freezes. Scraped, fluffy granita keeps for a few days, you'll just need to re-scrape to fluff it up. I prefer a drier, more frozen granita rather than a liquidy one. Note: some chain coffee shops use a self-stirring machine to dispense a coffee-flavored Icee or Squishee type frozen drink...clearly NOT the granita to which I'm referring.

How about an avocado gelato with candied bacon praline crumbles, or an avocado paleta (common enough) with some candied bacon frozen inside? You probably won't have much competition in the dessert category.

Oh, cheese makes the list for me. I've attempted ricotta a couple times--supposedly so easy, right? It turned out tough. Who wants chewy curds? So I'm buying it, and I'm now convinced that fresh mozz would suffer the same fate in my hands.

Isn't the term Frappucino trademarked by Starbucks? Why not use the term "shakerato" instead? That's what a shaken, sweetened, iced espresso is called in Italy. If you're already brewing coffees, you might want to consider coffee granita, served in a parfait glass layered with whipped cream. No ice cream freezer required...just a bit of scraping as the granita freezes. Like this (see below):

Don't forget to relax....if you're wired, the experience won't be fun for your students. They're not going to a leisure class to absorb someone else's stress. If it's a demo class, be sure to use precise, descriptive language. Since the students aren't hands-on, you'll have to tell them how to recognize when the meat needs turning, or when the dough feels smooth & supple. Cue cards/index cards are helpful; key words/phrases along with the outline of steps, with reminders about anecdotes/trucs/jokes, etc.

I have same model as Andie...the external pulp container means you can do a whole lot of stuff without taking the machine apart. Bed Bath & Beyond stocks the model, and its ubiquitous 20% coupons can be used on Breville items. I didn't spring for the top of the line Breville--it purees soft fruits as well as juices. I decided that my little smoothie blender (a "magic bullet" type thing) was sufficient for soft fruits. The juice fountain is plenty powerful enough to juice carrots, sweet potatoes, fresh ginger, etc. The only drawback for me: oranges must be peeled first. If you're juicing a couple dozen fruits, it's a pain to peel first. So I'm probably going to spring for the citrus juicer/reamer attachment for my KitchenAid mixer.

It is my understanding that cake layers are frozen to aid in the decorating process. A frozen then thawed cake layer is more stable, has a tighter crumb, and will throw off fewer crumbs as it is iced. Dunno why you'd freeze baked goods other than cakes intended for decorating.

No (or very limited) yeast activity means no flavor development.

Throw it out (or compost it). Anyone who's headed down the sourdough road needs to learn to let go of surplus flour & water. Once your culture is mature, you'll be discarding some of it each time you feed. So as much as you (and I) may hate waste, it's an inevitable part of home sourdough. I always TRY to find a use for the discard portion (had sourdough waffles this morning, sometimes I make small toaster-oven flatbreads or pizzas), but at times, the trashcan is the only option.

Boy, do I feel your pain. I failed at wild-yeast sourdough MANY times before succeeding. The pineapple juice made the difference for me, as I was interpreting the bubbly results of bacteria as yeast activity, and I couldn't figure out why my bubbly starter suddenly went flat around day 5. A few things to consider: if your kitchen temp is very cool, the whole process will take much longer. Just keep feeding the starter as long as it shows any signs of life. Wait at least 24 hours between feedings. If it turns weird colors (pink, green, orange) or smells awful (smell of apples, alcohol, faint whiff of nail polish are okay smells), throw it out and start over. Also try feeding it with a portion of rye flour, as rye ferments easily. And don't over-feed; smaller amounts over several days is always better than a big feeding all at once. And don't seal it up too tightly--give it a little breathing room. RE: culture consistency/texture, this entirely depends on the amount of liquid you wish to add. Some people like a stiff starter, others like a liquid levain. After tending my starter & baking bread from it, off and on, for over a year, I've found I prefer it around 60-65% hydration. You can adjust it up or down as needed through subsequent feedings/builds. ETA: the yeast bakers on the forum over at The Fresh Loafare great at troubleshooting, too...

A slice of fresh ginger is a nice addition, provided that your blender can really pulverize it. Otherwise, just add the fresh ginger juice. I like to add a grating of fresh nutmeg or cinnamon to those containing banana.

This is timely for me, as I'm easing into my pre-hurricane season freezer drawdown. Wish I could trade some frozen okra for some of that chicken stock, then we could both be eating gumbo. A client of my hubby's paid him in okra & seafood. The seafood's all gone, but the okra remains.

I feel fortunate to live in a part of the country where seafood prices often dip below meat prices! Crawfish routinely go for less than $2/lb (live) as the weather warms. And fresh, never frozen, wild caught shrimp were just $3.49/lb. My local supermarket chain advertised pork spareribs, whole hams, pork sirloin roasts and chicken parts at less than $2/lb this week. Split chickens were just $1.29/lb. So am I eating any of that stuff? No--it's a vegetarian week for me after Mardi Gras overindulgence.