Katie Meadow

RB&R is a pretty forgiving dish. I am not fond of andouille sausage either so I don't use it. I make a ham stock often and just use that to cook my beans; for that I use ham shanks or smoked pork neck. When the stock is done I remove the meat and pick it off the bones and freeze it along with the stock. Another trick is to use smoked turkey and avoid the pork altogether. Or use pork for stock and then add the smoked turkey for meat. But I have no doubt rabbit can be worked in somehow.

Porn syrup. Never a dull moment.

I think the Empire Kosher chicken from TJ's is very good. The organic Empire kosher chicken was even better, but they don't carry that any more.

And given what a terrific bean the Rattlesnake is, why isn't it more available? When we had a supply we used to call them Snakes in a Pot. What I use now for most pot beans is Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojo. Makes for great red beans & rice and is fine for any southwestern style pot. I spent many years in New Mexico, and no one cooked anything besides pinto beans. Okay, but once I tasted Rattlers it was true love. May be you joined the forum later than me, but I've been whining here about this for years!

Dinner was a splurge. Because of the delicate situation of West Coast wild King Salmon I rarely eat it. And of course the price is insane. But I was craving Kedgeree with wild salmon. So we bought a little under a pound at $30 per. It had been frozen, of course, but still, wild King Pacific salmon. I love Kedgeree, but never eaten it in a restaurant, only made it myself and this one was excellent. It was pretty traditional, but I happened to have some fresh curry leaves and that was the magic ingredient. The fish was very gently poached til just cooked and was delicious, the more so for depriving myself for a couple of years. It was added back into the hot rice mix mixture at the very end, so it didn't overcook. I like fresh fruit alongside curry, so I made my absurdly simple salad consisting of celery, apples and walnuts in a very light dressing. In addition we had some very good mango pickle to go with. I've made kedgeree with smoked fish but with wild salmon it's the mostest.

The dried beans I bought for several years from Purcell Mountain Farms were a brownish mottled bean, deeper in color than a pinto.. The one time I found the fresh ones in the pod the pods were perhaps a mottled greenish color but I don't remember well. When cooked everything about them was perfect: they held their shape, the pot likker was dark and flavorful, and the beans held their shape and were delicious. My gardening days are barely visible in the rear view mirror.

Rattlesnakes! I absolutely love them and for several years my major source, Purcell Mountain, has dried up. I like them for a basic southwestern bean pot, in place of pinto beans, which really pale in comparison, as far as I'm concerned. Only once have I stumbled on fresh ones, at a local farmers' market, but the fellow never returned.

Yes yes to fresh butter beans! When we were in North Carolina last September they were sold at the farmer's market, shelled and refrigerated and were heavenly.

Yes, I'm extremely spoiled by the use of good dried beans. I can't remember the last time I bought a can of beans.To tell the truth, it's a little embarrassing. If I wasn't in such pathetic denial about earthquakes in the Bay Area I would fix up an EQ kit and buy some cans of beans. If need be they could be eaten right out of the can. I've got enough tinned seafood already, so I'm halfway there w/ re to food. In response to the original post, I love most legumes. I like those little green French lentils but lentils don't agree with me, which is weird.

Yes, and the great thing about RG beans, besides the amazing variety, is how fresh they are. But I find that if I keep them more than a few months they do get old and need more soaking and cooking, just like shelf-stale grocery legumes. So I try to order enough to qualify for free shipping, and then order again as needed. My favorites are not often stocked where we shop locally. My husband loves RG popcorn and I'm addicted to Indio oregano and the pineapple vinegar, so shipping. I don't have a huge amount of freezer space, and a lot of it is taken up by stocks of various kinds, so I don't freeze many cooked foods. But nothing freezes so well as a pot of beans nor makes such a satisfying emergency meal. Yo! @SLB: mo buttah mo bettah, right?

Looks very nice and serviceable. Great to have big windows over the sink and counter. Just curious, it seems to me that your last move wasn't very long ago, but my sense of time is getting less reliable. And I've been living in the same house since 1986, so moving is something I barely remember how to do. Why did you move again? And so happy you are back to cooking!

It would be more valuable with it's companion piece, the KNOON

Out of curiosity I looked up some grain comparisons. I ran across some mistakes when it comes to gluten content. A few sources misidentified barley as gluten free. It isn't, and neither is rye. Both are contra-indicated for people who react poorly to gluten. Rice noodles are gluten free. But buckwheat noodles, or soba, are usually made with wheat and some percentage of buckwheat. You can find all-buckwheat soba but read ingredients carefully. In my experience soba made w/out any wheat is hard to manage when it comes to texture. Bulgar, cracked wheat, farro and freekeh are all wheat products and contain gluten. Grains without gluten are, off the top of my head, or course rice, amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat, which is a grass not a wheat. Freekah, as far as I can make out, is toasted green wheat. It's a bit smokey and different, but good--kind of took me by surprise the first time I made it. Bulgur has half the calories of farro. And according to one source also has twice the fiber of farrow. Supposedly farro has more protein and iron. All these stats make me suspicious, so take them with a grain of....salt. I'm certainly no expert, nor do I have gluten sensitivity.

If you cook the grain separately but in stock instead of water, that helps w flavor.

I can't abide mushy grains in soups, so I tend to cook rice, barley, farro, noodles, whatever, separately and just add it into individuals bowls to serve. With leftovers of grain and soup I store them separately in the fridge as well. Sometimes I put a few tablespoons of cooled soup broth into the grain container so it doesn't dry out. Really the best way to control the texture of the grain.

@ElsieD I just noticed that Smitten Kitchen is currently featuring a farro recipe called French Onion Baked Lentils and Farro. I'm not a fan of French onion soup, so I can't decide if it appeals or not, but there it is.

Yes, farro is delicious. Makes wonderful grain salads and i especially like it in soups. Great in various minestrone or vegetable soups along with beans.

Okay, that makes me feel a teensy bit better. I'm having one of those days when everything grim comes flying out of the walls. I just bailed on a sci-fi movie that was just too depressing.

Both swordfish and shark top the high mercury list along with other big predators like tuna, mackerel and marlin Swordfish are also prone to parasitic worms so if you see it on a menu at a sushi restaurant....just don't. Not exactly on topic, but concerning shark, many species of which are endangered, which is one more reason to avoid eating them, I just saw an article about how the Chinese are now getting around the anti-finning laws. They simply take the whole shark instead of just the fin. So I assume that the folks who supply the fin market are eating a lot of shark. Back to swordfish. It's been so long since I've eaten swordfish or shark I can't remember what either tastes like. If it's true that shark can be sold as swordfish because of taste or texture or just because consumers don't know the difference, then best to avoid anything called swordfish. Yech, what a mess.

Here's a stupid piece of information about me. Ed Ruscha picked me up at the Met and took me to his apartment, which, by the way, was really nice. I was a college student at the time. However, he started to get very grabby and I escaped and ran. God only knows what I was thinking.

The packaging is iconic. I loved seeing the giant towers of Spam in Hawaii store displays. I've opened a can to taste it exactly once. See what Paul Theroux has to say about it--or don't, it's very creepy!

All I can tell you about the desired temperature is that our candy thermometer registers 212 F and at the same time, the thermapen registers 228. I don't know why there's a difference, but we generally go by the Instant Read results. Marmalades run the gamut when it comes to the set. We prefer ours on the delicate side when it comes to zest (thin cut with no pith) and not too densely set, so it is easily spreadable. I have no idea if our temperature gauges are accurate, but it works for us. Marmalade has enough sugar so that the finished jars don't need further boiling. We make enough product in a couple of months during Seville season in CA to last all year, usually about 24 jars. We do sometimes add other citrus, but always of a sour/bitterr nature, such as grapefruit and lemon, often meyer lemons, but the greater percentage of juice comes from the Sevilles. One fun addition is Bergamot, two or three per batch, including the peel. Subtle and different, a little floral, still bitter. And yes, it's that time again! My husband spotted some Sevilles the last time he shopped, but he said they didn't look very good, so hopefully the quality will improve over the next few weeks. I admit, we are both addicted and can't imagine not having a generous supply all year long. We do eat a lot of toast at our house.

Briefly, without telling you the quantities and measurements, here's my process. Citrus is juiced and measured, and put in a large dutch oven. Twice as much water is added, and the bag of pips. This gets simmered for about 30 min. The zest/peel gets added, and the mix continues to simmer another 30 min. The pips bag gets removed, then the liquid gets measured and the sugar (I used regular white granulated)is added (3/4 cup sugar : each cup liquid) That gets boiled until it reaches approx 228 degrees on an instant read thermometer. We don't do any kind of test. This temperature always seems to work for us. So there are two stages: before the sugar is added the mix is kept at a med simmer. After sugar is added the mix gets boiled, otherwise you would be in the kitchen til midnight.

It's nice to know that using pith in with the pips didn't result in cloudiness; that's the reason I always avoided the pith. We've been making marmalade for so many years that a while back I invested in a pack of Celestial Gifts 5x7 muslin bags. They do seem pricey, but they are reusable two or three times or more and save me a big headache. I bought them five years ago and have plenty left for the foreseeable future. I typically make 4 batches a season, and each batch yields 6-7 jars.

Of course you use as much juice as you can squeeze from the oranges. Also, when making up a bag for pips try to remove as much pith as possible and just use the seeds. And make sure the bag closes tightly so no seeds escape into the liquid .Yes you can certainly use other citrus fruit in the mix, but depending upon which ones you use you may need to adjust the sugar.