bellaS.F.

I make a couple of variations of what I call Cajun Meatloaf. I mix salt, pepper, cayenne, thyme, cumin, sometimes nutmeg, in a bowl. Begin to saute onions and peppers in butter and then add the spice mixture and chopped garlic. Add Worchestershire and some hot sauce to taste. Sometimes I add some frozen corn. The mixture thickens quickly. Let mixture cool. Add to meat with eggs, milk, & bread crumbs. You can also add some catsup. I do put catsup on the top but I want to try one of the glazes mentioned. I like to form a freehand loaf. The edges get really carmelized and crispy. Quite yummy.

Cutting an X in the root end before putting them in the boiling water helps.

Evabug, I was wondering about being able to freeze the smoked salmon. Does it taste good after defrosting for bagel, lox, and cream cheese, or just for cooking? (Lox, purple onions, and eggs, oh my!) The Costco near us makes a yummy smoked salmon cream cheese. They make an addictive pumpkin cheesecake, which I would never have thought of buying, but there was that freebie table. It is huge, so I have tried to cut it into serving pieces and freeze it. It freezes really well, but somehow, not much of it makes it into the freezer. Many oif the good local bakeries sell their breads there, and Costco gets the "fixins" from some others and they bake it there. Thumbs up for the bread oozing cloves of roasted garlic and the rolls (Ciabatti?) which you sometimes can get warm out of the oven. Costco has made my addiction to cookbooks something that no 12 step program will ever cure. By the way, I have read that Julia Child thinks that they have the best meat. She supposedly said something such as "it still tastes like meat". And, I read that she has been known to stand in line with one of their roittised (?sp) chickens. Do they have them in other stores? They are really wonderful. For $4.99 you get a moist, cooked bird. Great as it is, or to make soup, enchaladas, etc. Ah... sing the praises of

Wouldn't know where to start or how to end when mentioning wonderful Zins. ZAP, Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, just had their huge tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco., on Jan. 25. (It takes place every year SuperBowl weekend.) Think of 2 large pavillion/piers and over 300 producers each pouring multiple Zins. You get a glass and a baguette when you walk in. Then you have to pick and choose what to sample, knowing that you need to make it out at 5:00. Wednesday of that week there was a seminar/tasting, (6 flights of 5 wines each, arranged by region) with the winemakers talking about their areas, soil, etc. and a luncheon, held at COPIA in Napa. Thursday night was "Good Eats" at Rosenblum, Friday night was "Blue Jeans to Black Tie" Dinner, live & silent auctions, and a winemaker at each table with his or her specialties. Four days immersed in incredible wine. Howell Mountain fruit is really nice and peppery. The nose alone is often full of pepper. Rosenblum makes an Annette's Reserve Rhodes Vineyard which is quite yummy. Scherrer fruit is great. The grower sells some to Greenwood Ridge which is quite popular. Some of the grapes he sells to his son Fred Scherrer, who we feel does the best job with it. He makes an "Old and Mature Vines" and a Shale Terrace. Shale tends to drink better when young, but is also very good. Gallo used to get some of the grapes, but I don't know if that is still true. ZAP does tastings in other parts of the country. They will be having one in Washington D.C., Boston, and, I think, New York this spring. Nothing is the size of the one here, however. There were people there who fly in every year for that week. I need to go and pour a glass of Zin!

Jaymes, made the carnitas the way you suggested tonight. WOW !!! That is going to be a standard around here. I am looking forward to making it for some very discerning friends. Many thanks!

A huge California Zin or a Syrah. Now I am really hungry!

I like their spiciness. They add a lot to dishes. Another yeah vote.

Melt butter and olive oil in a large shallow roasting pan with a nice amount of chopped garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Put in cracked/cleaned/cooked crab pieces. Stir up well. Bake at 500 for about 12 minutes or so, till heated through. Put crab pieces in a bowl. Add some lemon juice and chopped Italian parsley to the liquid. Taste for seasoning. Pour over crab. Have some wonderful, warm crusty bread to sop up the yummy juices. A DRY Gewurtz. goes wonderfully with that. (If you can get Navarro, try it.)

nightscotsman, I will be making that dish tomorrow, ohhh how I want to taste that now! I make the figs with the blue cheese and proscuitto, I make them with just the blue cheese and some truffle honey drizzled over it after it comes out of the oven, but what I like even better is just wrapping them with proscuitto and grilling them till the proscuitto gets srt of carmelized. Whenever I make tapenade I add, when figs are not in season, dried figs and orange zest. Fresh figs and black olives make a really good spread.

If you have all of the ingredients and freezer space, make the World Famous Prize Winning Chili, freeze it in batches, and on evenings when you come home from work too tired to boil water, you can have a wonderful meal. Or make a huge batch of refried beans and then have a nacho party, or make a spicy rice with chorizo and beans. By the way do you share your Award Winning recipe?

fresh lime margaritas

If anyone cares, Chilean sea bass is endangered. Whole Floods/Paycheck out here won't carry it until it is fruitful and multiplies.

Thanks for posting that recipe Laurie A-B. It sounds great. I will try it this weekend.

Blue cheese, toasted walnuts (sometimes carmelized), and purple onion. homemade garlic croutons oven-roasted asparagus, curls of Parm., thin slices of proscuitto, Kosher salt, pepper, a good olive oil, and lemon juice (this one doesn't even need the lettuce) arugula, sauteed pears, blue cheese, purple onion

Fennel slaw made with a citrus vinegrette. Would be fresh tasting and cut through any greasiness.

(Is there anyone else here in CA.?) I too have a fondness for mashed potatoes. I don't think that I found a type of potato that I don't like, but it may exist. I like using a ricer to mash them, although I sometimes do the smash 'em, chunky style. Cubes of mozzerella which get stringy and soft are good to throw in. I've done it with mozz. and small pieces of a spicy salami. Creme Fraiche for a rich creamy version. I usual throw garlic cloves in while I'm boiling the potatoes, just a handful, not a NECKLACE. Wonderful comfort food.

Tom' Colicchio's cookbook ??? Unless I can't think at the moment, I do not know who he is.

Questioned it at first when I saw heads and not cloves of garlic, but tried it anyway. It was great. Don't forget that it's the whole head (sliced crosswise in half), so you are not getting blasted with a bunch of chopped garlic. You can use as many of the soft garlic cloves afterward that you want to. It is just... really flavorful and rich.

With the heat you folks back east are probably having, this probably doesn't sound the least bit tempting. What can I say, but I walked by these beautiful ribs who called out to me and I could not resist. The butcher cut them in half for me and now I have 12 pieces to turn into...??? I have never cooked beef short ribs. I thought of doing something similar to what I do with lamb shanks... braise them and cook them with red wine and port (maybe not the port but some brandy) and garlic, onions, carrots... I had a meltingly tender version at Hawthorne Lane this spring that had a wonderful gravy but no veggies in it. I don't think that they pureed it, because the texture was not there. Anyway... anyone have a good recipe?

SA, I really like the idea of the tomato base. While we are getting such good tomatoes, I am going to make a large batch of that and get it into the freezer. I want to try and get the summer minestrone done this weekend. I found some great baby squash varieties which should be nice in this. Many thanks.

SA, I look forward to seeing the recipes. Thanks!

We save the rind from Parm. I have a nice sized bag of them in the freezer. (We tend to go through chunks of Parm. rather easily.) I actually never made a summer minestrone, which surprises me to realize. Any suggestions for a recipe? And... if you know of a good and hearty winter soup recipe, longing to be made better by a prociutto bone, I would like to hear about that too. Thanks!

Beautiful, fresh ahi, cut in thick chunks, dipped in beaten egg white and then coated with chopped macadamia nuts, just seared on all sides in a cast iron skillet. Only did a couple at a time. Problem was, when making the next batch, the first batch somehow dissappeared... it was lucky that any made it to the table.

I've been reading through the cooking topics before I came aboard, and my mouth is watering! Thought I'd add another idea... I make one of those soak-overnight-in batter French toasts (I'm kind of lazy on a Sunday morning), using orange juice and some Grand Marnier in the batter. I use a cinnamon swirl challah sort of bread. (If you live in the S.F. Bay area... it's made by Semifreddies.) I bake the French toast instead of grilling it, although now I'm thinking trying out our new grill pan and see how it turns out.