emilyr

I don't truss birds, but sometimes, especially for the Thanksgiving turkey, I do a "self-truss" I guess you could call it. I tuck the wings behind the bird's back and cut a slit just below the tail in that extra bit of skin and bring it up and around the ends of the legs. I have to say, though, that most of the time, like paulraphael, I don't like a trussed chicken or turkey. It's drier in the white meat and not enough of the skin is crispy; I've never had a problem with the aromatics coming out of one either. Where I think trussing is important is for large, oddly-shaped roasts. If you want the meat to be the same doneness all the way through, trussing is the only way to go. Then again, if you have guests/diners who want everything from rare to well-done, then you don't really need to.

I love all three, but if I had to pick, I'd have to say French toast. It is the least easy to screw up, and my go-to restaurant breakfast item. Even the quickest-soaked, thinnest bread, least-seasoned FT is better than bad pancakes or waffles which can become like lead balloons in your stomach. FT is easiest to make in the morning as well. I'm not a soaker - to me that's more bread pudding than French toast. Second place goes to good crispy-on-the-outside-soft-and-fluffy-on-the-inside waffles, and third to buttermilk pancakes.

I don't see why it couldn't be done. It sounds delicious to me! The only problem I could forsee would be the amount of starch in the sweet potato. I don't know how it would compare to a regular potato and you might not have quite the same holding power. Though, I think you can add a bit of cornstarch to the cream to hold it together a bit better.

We often have ham steak for Easter dinner (when there are to few people for a whole ham) and usually just sear it in a pan, deglaze with a little pineapple juice, then bake with the juice and chunks of pineapple in the oven. Otherwise we fry it in a large frying pan, letting it get nice and brown on both sides, and then make gravy for breakfast. That's my favorite way. My best friend's mom always grills it and brushes with just a bit of BBQ sauce right toward the end - add it with just enough time left in the cooking to make it sticky on the surface but not to get burnt bits.

I was discussing this with some friends the other day, and I was probably exaggerating a bit. Pork steaks and tenderloin on the grill are really common for BBQ/grilling around here as well as smoked and pulled pork as long as the weather is nice enough to be outside. But for some reason, that "outside" has me not really connecting it with "cooking." I grill and BBQ a lot, but it's almost not the same thing. I think the reason I really think of pork as a fall food is that the things I like it paired with best are fall foods: sweet potatoes, squash, corn, apples, and sage, for example. Also, the ways I like it cooked best are more fall-ish: braises and roasts and in the slow cooker. We were also trying to figure out why pork pops up on fall menus more, and we think it's linked to historical harvest and slaughter times. Though we can have pork any time of the year, traditionally farmers had to wait until the weather was cold enough to hold pork carcasses and the pigs were fattened off the summer's fruits and fall's nuts, etc. Pork is definitely cheaper here in the fall, so maybe that schedule is still generally true.

Pork!! Seriously, I don't cook a lot of pork in the summer except for the occasional tenderloin on the girl, so in the autumn I love to make it many different ways. I think this autumn I'm going to tackle carnitas. Also, I had my first acorn squash of the season. I just roast with olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar. It just tastes like fall. My dad's been asking for chili, beans with ham, cornbread, and beef stew, so I know the change of seasons must be final. He's more reliable than the Farmer's Almanac or wooly worms!

I don't know why that link didn't show up here. Here it is again: http://www.kpla.com/cookbook.shtml

I re-watched part of the beginning of this episode, and I don't think the 'testants were told anything beyond that they were going to be cooking for ranchers. They didn't receive any info on where they would be cooking, like other surprise location challenges. What I don't get is how the production crew didn't provide anything else. Can anyone think of another episode where they were taken to a location the day before and then left there with no refrigeration?? I can't. Most of the time when they're dropped in a primitive environment, they're cooking almost immediately so a fridge isn't needed.

Have you had a particularly cool year there, too? Ours has been extremely mild, and I was wondering if it would affect fruit in ways similar to this. I thought the local peaches were much sweeter than usual, but not as juicy, and my mom speculated that they ripened more slowly because of the temps.

Here they are. I'll probably add them to recipegullet later.

Some of the morning show hosts at work today were discussing on air the flavor combination of chocolate with bacon. The female host had dipped bacon in the fondue she made the night before and loved it. The male host couldn't even wrap his mind around it, so I offered to make something for their feature "Recipe Thursdays" (we recorded it today so that I didn't have to come into work at 6 am). I did bacon/dark chocolate truffles rolled in a salty pecan crust. They were pretty good, IIDSSM. After we recorded the segment, I put the leftovers in the break room intending to take pictures later. When I came back there were just pecan crumbs left in the bottom of the bowl, so I guess they were good!

I made a bacon/dark chocolate truffle for work today, and I think that would be fantastic with it. Also, along the sweet lines, a lime panna cotta or creme brulee. Maybe especially the creme bruelee - I think the smokiness would be fantastic with the burnt sugar taste. Savory - I'm thinking something with pork. With further thought, I don't know if I'd pair it with bacon. You kinda want the smoky flavor of the coconut powder to come out, not the bacon's.

My/my mom's meatloaf is all beef, if only because I don't remember seeing ground pork or turkey in the grocery store until I was 16, and despite living in a moderately-sized city for four year, I've still never seen ground veal available. We tend to do Italian flavors - garlic, bread crumbs (yes - I'll cop to it, Italian seasoned bread crumbs from a can - we're a family of 6 and next to never have leftover bread of any sort), eggs, milk, oregano, basil and parsley, lots of salt and pepper. I have to admit that I've never had dry meatloaf at home and we never use sauteed onions, ketchup, tomato sauce or bacon (but couldn't eat the school's without generous portions of ketchup or gravy). I guess we just know the timing? Maybe it's just because meatloaf is usually a cheap dinner and we're buying the cheapes/fattiest hamburger? All I know is that it's beef-y and garlic-y and delicious. As a matter of fact, we decided this morning to have some for dinner tonight.

I have nothing really substantive to add other than I heard this from a guy at a party (that everyone was trying to avoid) and it didn't seem quite right to me. I don't profess to know much about cocktails, but aren't some, particularly Southern drinks like Mint Juleps and others like Rum Punch, from much earlier in American History? I'm willing to concede that the POPULARITY of cocktails is an American creation, and even that the wide-spread proliferation of them are post-Prohibition, but I would never say "the cocktail was created in Prohibition America."

I've only ever used my slow cooker for savory dishes, but saw a recipe in Family Circle for this applesauce cake cooked in one , and it got me thinking about desserts. I hope I didn't miss this earlier in the thread. A girl from work is leaving tomorrow (we're having a carry-in) and my cousin brought me a huge grocery bag full of pears from her tree. I thought I'd make a pear crisp or maybe this cake (with pearsauce v. applesauce). Would a crisp work? I'm not sure on how brown the top would get, but the recipe I make doesn't get super crisp anyway. I'm really just wanting something that will keep the dessert relatively warm till lunch. The cake recipe only takes a few hours, so in theory I could mix the ingredients together and then plug in the cooker at lunch.

This is what I was going to say. My family and my best friend's family used to get together and make dumplings, egg rolls and crab rangoons. We'd spend a long afternoon making dozens and dozens, moms cooking the filling, kids rolling, guys tending the oil, and then eat ourselves silly on only the side dishes we'd normally order with a full Chinese dinner! It was always one of our favorite things. More fun than Thanksgiving because it was with friends and you didn't have to eat green beans.

My standard, for mornings when I'm planning on carrying breakfast with me, is just frozen fruit with a splash of orange juice. If I happen to want something creamy or feel I need more protein in the morning I add chunks of tofu. I'm starting to be more and more lactose intolerant (if that's even possible) so I don't like dairy in the morning, either, and the tofu makes it seem more like the mall food court smoothies that usually include ice cream. I also have to be in just the right mood for bananas, so I don't add them very often. When I do it's usually with peanut butter, honey and apple juice. I did make a pretty good fall smoothie last year with leftover canned pumpkin, frozen cranberries, pumpkin pie spice, honey and apple cider. The canned pumpkin gave it great texture and the frozen cranberries added enough body/slushiness/smoothie-like texture, but it still seemed like it was missing something. My little sister said that finely crushed graham crackers would be good, like a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard at DQ, but I don't know.

Ok, I'm watching with my mom right now and we were debating who was going to win. This seems like a really close episode. It's down to the last judging and they cut to commercial after building a bit of a climax and getting you guessing. So what's the first commercial of the break? A promo for next week's show with the winner of this week's. Blah. Makes me not even want to watch the last 6 or 7 minutes.

I'm going to be watching this, too. My 29th birthday is in March, and there's a new speakeasy-type bar open in our town (they pulled up ugly carpeting and paneling and found palazzo marble floors and original mirrors!), so my friends and I are planning a "Party Like it's 1929" themed party. Coctails will be the main attraction. The hotel the bar is in will cater, maybe, but we can bring recipes and ideas.

Or in college! The Nalgene was the cocktail shaker of choice at Marquette when I was there! I made my first martini in one.

I have some "super" super magnets that will hold anything to anything steel or iron. I bought them at the feed store and they are called "cow" magnets. The purpose is to be fed to a cow so the magnet will settle into her first stomach and attract and hold any bits of metal that she may ingest, such as nails, pieces of wire fencing, etc., and thus protect the rumen. They are incredibly strong - the one I use on the pantry fridge will hold a thick stack of papers. The only place on the kitchen fridge that will take a magnet is on the side. You should be able to find them at your local feed store - I usually get the "ceramic" ones but do have a couple of the alnico round ones. cow magnets ← My dad used to bring these home from work and my little brothers and sister and I had a lot of fun playing with them - we'd race them by rolling them down the fridge. My mom used them in the kitchen all the time to hold up recipes and once she sewed one into the hem of a towel so that it would hang on the stove. I didn't really think of it til I was older when I realized my dad worked at a meat packing plant and the magnets were used... Thank God for bleach!

My kind, too! Yum. With lows in the 40s this weekend, I have a feeling soup will be in the plans soon. I made a simple potato soup on Wednesday. Just potatoes, onions, tarragon and basil, butter, salt, milk and chicken broth.

Ever the trendsetters we are here at eG, Martha Stewart has a recipe in this month's 'Living' for Egg-in-the-Hole Toasts with Ricotta. They're not online yet, but they look pretty yummy. I may make them this week.

I just got Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky that pulls together the works of WPA writers who spent their assignments traveling around the country writing about how Americans ate everywhere. The project shut down in the '40s because of WWII, so the pieces never got collected. I'm really looking forward to reading essays by '30s writers like Eudora Welty and Zora Neale Hurston.

The one I do actually like the combination of is in the mall in Columbia, MO: Subway and Orange Julius. Neither one really needs to have even a full mall food court kitchen, so it makes sense. I might actually like the Arby's/Wendy's combo. They're two chains that I really like. And the idea of getting a roast beef sandwich and a Frosty is very appealing.