Katie Meadow

I come down on the side of "not too large" ingredients, but I don't like a big mush, either. So my potatoes usually get cut into very small cubes that hold together with other ingredients on the fork. No spearing involved, but also you wouldn't want to eat it with a spoon. I never heard of putting cream in hash, but it sounds good. I didn't grow up kosher by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did my parents ever pour dairy products into a pot full of meat. "OMG what am I going to do with all this duck fat?" were words never spoken in my childhood. Too bad I didn't grow up on a farm in France. Then my mother might have learned to make a decent cassoulet and I would have been weaned on duck confit hash instead or corned beef from a can. (Yes, a can. I'm sure my dad never corned a beef in his life.) To add insult to injury, he also ate it with ketchup. And I don't mean catsup. Catsup is found on the rug before you take Snowball to the vet. The whole idea of hash is to throw in whatever you think goes and whatever you need to use up, no? If all you've got is cows, spuds and onions, then that's your hash. My dad's corned beef hash was always exactly the same; he had plenty of rules for the four things he ever cooked and never improvised. His four things were good, but he would have been useless on a desert island. And he would have been horrified at the idea of red flannel hash. Beets are for borscht, aren't they?

Okay, I'm inspired and I have just the proper leftovers/misc stuff in the fridge to make a perfect case for hash tomorrow. That would be frozen leftover ham from shanks, a few jalapenos, and a couple of potatoes, old enough so that I don't actually remember what kind they are; my guess is they are yukons. Going out and actually purchasing ingredients for hash seems to defeat the purpose. I'm going to par-boil the potatoes, which I don't believe I've done in the past, and since I am planning to make the hash tomorrow it seems worthwhile to do the potatoes today and refrigerate them overnight. When should I throw in the onion if my potatoes are partially cooked (still firm I'm presuming) and cubed in smallish bite-size pieces? Which needs a head start, the potatoes or the onion if I want an overall crispy result? And just to throw in another variable, instead of using my cast iron, I'm going to try using my newest Good Will find: a non-stick Sur la Table heavy duty fry pan that looks like it has never been cooked in. This is my first non-stick pan ever, and although the idea of buying a used non-stick pan is sort of revolting, this one looked so clean I sprang for it. And it was cheap. We'll see if I can produce a sufficiently crispy hash with this pan and pre-cooked potatoes. With eggs and some simple slaw this will be dinner.

My experience is that salting ahead improves the texture; it still has good bite, but doesn't taste so raw. Also salted slaw seems more forgiving when it comes to dressing the slaw in advance. Unsalted slaw that sits after being dressed gets watery and the flavors get diluted. I toss my shaved cabbage into a colander, salt in layers, mix, then fill a large bowl with water and set it on top for weight. Two hours seems to do the trick, or a bit less if time is short. I don't wring it out after this, although it can only help. Too lazy.

I've had duck confit hash (the duck was definitely in shreds) and smoked salmon hash, although I've never made either myself. Both were yummy.

My biggest stumbling block has always been that the potatoes stick fiercely to my cast iron pan, although generally the pan is well seasoned and doesn't have a lot of other sticking issues. I'm looking forward to seeing some recipes that turns out crispy potatoes instead of a crispy pan. I have a fondness for simple hash: just potatoes, peppers of various kinds, onion, maybe a little leftover ham and always paprika, smoked or otherwise.

Smitten Kitchen Apple Sharlotka: I love all kinds of apple cakes, including some that have lots of raw apples simply mixed into the batter. But this recipe has something seriously wrong with it; I made it recently and it was terrible. The recipe on the website includes NO butter (or oil) in the batter, which made me suspicious right away, although I proceeded to bake it. Wouldn't this be one reason the cake is a total bore?

Given I am a person who tries to use less salt, surprisingly I do carry a vial of gray sea salt around in my purse. A couple of summers ago I discovered the fresh corn ice cream at Tara's, in Oakland. It definitely screams for a little salt, but the board lists salt, among other things, at 50 cents extra. What's with that? We're taking about a few grains, no? So I started carrying my own salt in case I should find myself walking by Tara's. Every once in a while it comes in very handy for bland or seriously undersalted foods.

Identifying what's properly salted is a crapshoot. If you eat out a lot, most food will probably be within your expected preferred range. Anyone who has reduced their sodium intake for one reason or another knows that the taste buds adjust after a time, and keep adjusting as the level of salt in the diet decreases. If you eat a lot of processed food and fast food, most of that stuff will also taste properly salted, no? I love salt, but I've cut way back in the past few years. I never ate a lot of fast foods or processed foods, so my tolerance level for sodium is below average, I am guessing. Mostly I don't eat out any more, and the reasons are multiple: costs far too much, the food often tastes too salty and I usually have the time and/or inclination to cook. I try to salt my food moderately while cooking, and usually end up undersalting by some amount, even to my own taste buds. So I often use a little finishing salt after plating, and always provide it to guests at the table. I have a sister-in-law who cooks with no salt at all and her food is tasteless, imho. She's the only person I know who probably considers my cooking too salty. With the exception of baked goods, I almost always cut back on the salt specified in a recipe. I used to think that restaurants in NY oversalted more than restaurants on the west coast, but I don't believe that any more; salt seems evenly distributed in all parts of the country. If the sodium content of all processed and fast foods was cut back somewhat--maybe gradually--and if many restaurants did the same, there would be a general lowering of salt tolerance in the entire population; hard to imagine that happening, however, given the vast number of people who are used to phenomenal sodium levels. To say nothing of the money it will cost the food industry to make some changes.

Thank you Frank Bruni's mother! The recent recipe in Dining for her traditional xmas eve Eggplant Macaroni is excellent. The eggplant is prepped as for eggplant parm and the noodles, sauced with your favorite red sauce, are layered in along with a modest amount of grating cheese. The whole is baked. I didn't have as much red sauce as specified but I thought it was perfect, and even better the second day. My husband topped his with a snowfall of grated cheese and that was fabulous. What I like is the simplicity, and the refreshing lack of gooey cheeses. Not that I don't love mozz and ricotta, but this is easy (and cheap) to prepare and doesn't have that "in your face" cholesterol presence. Makes a large casserole, perfect for vegetarians.

Try that heater that's in the attic. If it doesn't do the job to your satisfaction, there are lots of economically priced small space heaters--gas filled or otherwise--on the market, some mentioned above. They are quite effective, especially in a modest sized room. In addition, you might try cooking in the oven in the morning. Put together a stew of slow cooker type comfort foods the night before, and put it in the oven first thing in the morning. Using the oven (oven door closed, obviously) will still help warm the room up and not be wasteful. Or whip up some cornbread or popovers. I even find that making chicken stock in a giant pot on top of the stove heats up the kitchen, considering the pot is radiating heat for several hours non-stop. My first year of college in Wisconsin it was so frigid in my dorm room that I went to a Salvation Army store and bought an ancient popcorn popper and deconstructed it so I could sit at my desk with the exposed glowing coil beneath me. They don't make 'em like they used to, though. And I'm sure the safety aspect of my clever solution never figured in to the equation. In those days we used typewriters and threw away a lot of crumpled sheets of paper. I wouldn't be surprised if the waste paper basket was right next to the popper bottom. No science major, here.

[Manager's Note: You can read the earlier posts on this topic in Trader Joe's Products 2002-2011)] Finally my local TJ's is stocking Bulleit Rye, and not just Bulleit Bourbon. Same price for either, $19.99. And that's the same price as it is at BevMo, which also just started to carry the Rye.

My husband bakes bread (he likes kneading)and makes a mean pie dough and we make relatively simple cakes or baked desserts without a stand mixer. I've often flirted with the idea (they look so lovely!) but considering how often we would really use it, I keep balking. Most hand held mixers are pretty junky, and believe me I've been through many of them; I find a hand mixer invaluable for whipping egg whites, cream, creaming butter and sugar, etc. Finally I bit the bullet and bought one that was a little more heavy duty, the Viking. I like it a lot and it seems worth the extra $25 that it cost above most other basic hand mixers. Perhaps if you had a good hand mixer and used it for a few months it would be easier to decide how much you really want a stand mixer. And if you do decide to invest in a stand mixer, for smaller jobs you would still be glad you owned the hand one. The hand mixer thread here was very helpful to me.

What a weird thread. It has caused me to look at my peculiar storage habits and see what my reasons for up or down really are. Fine glassware (gold rims, inherited, rarely used) are stored in a closed cabinet, rims up. They get looked at more than used, so they look a lot nicer right-side up. Plus I agree with posters above that resting glassware on a thin delicate rim seems counter intuitive. Mugs. My mugs are restaurant style and have a rather flat rim. If they are not bone dry when removed from the dishwasher they hold condensation if stored upside down. I store them right-side up. All 12 get used pretty often, so I don't really worry about dust. Cheap Ikea wineglasses get stored upside down. They also get used fairly frequently, and are durable enough, so I have no rationale for this. Drinking glasses that get used frequently are stored right-side up. Those that are used not so often are stored rims down. I think it's to prevent dust settling in them, although it seems like a toss-up: dust inside or rims touching a less than pristine surface? Luckily there are only two choices. Now I might rethink and store all glassware rims up, since I am sure most glasses get used faster than visible dust can accumulate inside them--and I am pretty sure that I don't have a shelf-cleaning fetish. Frankly, in a kitchen that sees cooking every day and with wooden cabintery built in 1960 it's hard to imagine a germless dustfree environment. And here's the thing: if a glass looks dusty I will wash it before using it. Same for a rim that doesn't look spotless. Besides, I've never once had a documented episode of getting sick from drinking out of my own glassware, nor has any family member or guest. And I hate shelf paper, it's totally annoying.

How he justifies sweet potatoes or carrots being unhealthy is a great trick. Sounds like he eats carbs, though, so high calorie carbs like brown rice, bulgur wheat, pasta etc., with vegetables he WILL eat sauteed in ample olive oil might be a good start. It's always hard to see someone lose more weight than is healthy. Maybe you could convince him to see a nutritionist to help come up with a palatable diet and some new ideas that he could cook himself when he's on his own; quirky eaters are the bread and butter of nutritionists and many nutritionists have some excellent ideas for high calorie foods that don't include butter or animal fats. Peanut butter and avocados come to mind. My too-skinny daughter was told to drink orange juice for a mid-meal snack, since that's high carb as well.

I hope I'm not totally misguided in my efforts to make the stuff I own last as long as possible in good condition. No wood ever goes in our dishwasher. The handles on my knives look decent. My in-laws put all their wooden handled knives and utensils in the dishwasher and they feel unpleasantly rough and look dried out and pale. In the dishwasher thread it has been observed many times that the life of modern dishwashers is increasingly short. Other than poor quality manufacturing and the use of cheaper materials and planned obsolescence I can't imagine why. So, I try to run the dishwasher in the most economical way possible, meaning as infrequently as I can get away with. Awkward shaped plastic objects, all pots and pans and large mixing bowls get washed by hand to maximize space in the dishwasher. Because dishes can sit unwashed for more than 24 hours, I briefly rinse them before loading. I don't know how necessary this is, but I don't like opening the door and seeing large congealed food stuffs, or smelling them. I'm guessing that I am not saving money on water use by washing pots and pans by hand, but hopefully I'm extending the life of the machine. Personally I would rather pay the water bill than buy a new dishwasher every three years.

Typically we have guests and make Coq au Vin on New Year's Day, but this year we are having Cheatin' Heart Chicken as part of a border meal; and that would be the Louisiana-Texas border. The cheatin' part is because I have leftover turkey gumbo sauce and I'm going to cook chicken in it for an incredibly easy dish over rice. Along with this will be buttermilk slaw and vegetable pickles (very fiery as it turns out, due to an unusually hot batch of jalapenos), both from the Homesick Texan cookbook (great gift, thanks hon!), chard in the manner of collards, and cornbread. For dessert there will be a very high-class jello mold (anything molded counts as southern, right?): fresh pure blood orange juice mold (nothing in it but gelatin and a coupla Tbsps of sugar) served with brandied whipped cream and chocolate cookies. Ooh, maybe I should sub bourbon for the brandy? There will be cheese straws and edamame for simple apps, so that's how the beans get in.

Living in New Mexico for a number of years during the late sixties and early seventies I've eaten my share of pinto beans. I did not become a big fan of beans then. It's only been the last few years that I branched out and began trying other types of beans and discovered how different they all are in flavor, texture, depth of pot liquor, etc. It's been so long since I had pintos from NM that I really don't remember what they were like. I have tried RG's pintos and found them a bit bland and typical of most pintos in that they don't hold their shape very well and tend to melt; great for refritos I suppose. What I always wanted from a pinto I discovered in rattlesnakes, which I am lead to believe is a cousin of the pinto. The only place I have found to buy good ones is Purcell Mountain Farms. I would suggest that anyone looking for a pinto-like bean with deeper flavor and firmer texture try them. If RG ever goes into the rattler business, I'm so there. Any dish you can call 'Snakes in a Pot can't be bad, and they don't taste like chicken. The Good Mother Stallard beans are my favorites of all Steve's inventory (of the ones I have tried so far, anyway.)

So far the best price for Ortiz that I can find is at Berkeley Bowl, and they are pretty reliable about keeping it in stock. They sell smaller cans of Ortiz and it is cheaper by the pound that way than buying a jar or large can at, say, the Pasta Shop. Still not cheap, but presumably because it is bonito--and therefore a smaller type of tuna--it has less mercury. Your cat must be awfully picky. I'm sure the fresh fish counter at the Bowl has something he will like.

Recently I've discovered Trader Joe's brioche bread. It is an extremely useful product--especially if you need stale brioche bread for french toast or bread pudding, since it is pretty much stale as soon as you buy it. Actually I very much like it for toast.

djyee, that looks yummy. Did you take a workshop from Kasma? I took one the summer before last, though we did not make that dish.

Wow, no new posts since 2009? Last year my daughter and I got Baking with Julia for my husband. It was a success. He's a pretty good baker, but has limited technique, and still makes some basic loaves he learned from the Tassajara Bread Book way back when, but he's starting to branch out. He makes a lot of bread for sandwiches, and it has to be toastable. Mostly we don't eat sweet breads. We own exactly two other bread books, besides the crumbling Tassajara and the Julia book: Glezer's Artisan Baking and an ancient copy of Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery, which I have rarely seen him look at. I want to get him another bread book, since he seems inclined to leaf through options when contemplating what to bake next. I'm thinking Reinhart's Crust and Crumb or Carol Field's Italian Baker. What are some ideas for more recent publications that you bread bakers have liked?

The only source of grease in these cookies is the oil from the peanut butter, so if DH drains off the oil before you make them that is the likely sticking culprit. I'm not much of a baker, and frankly the science of baking mostly eludes me, but in my experience most other recipes for peanut butter cookies use less pb and additional butter to compensate (not to mention flour.)

Don't recall a serious sticking problem. They are delicate though, and tend toward the crumbly, so you have to be gentle getting them off the sheet. Maybe a silpat or even just parchment paper would help. Perhaps some peanut butter has a higher oil content than others and has less tendency to stick? As for the sweet factor, I probably cut back a little on the sugar as well, since that's always my natural inclination. Did you start with salted peanut butter? Adams pb is in fact pretty salty if you just eat it out of the jar on a spoon.

Yes, great story. At least with this southern tradition you are on alert for the metal in your mouthful. One new years day a zillion years ago my family was in the the Yucatan and we were served venison. I got the buckshot and broke a tooth. The rest of the day is a blur.

Andie, my chile paste was rojo, made from dried New Mexico chiles that I prepared a la Rick Bayless. If you get some decent hot chiles you can make a lot of red chile paste and freeze it in small amounts. When I lived in NM that was the staple during winter and spring when fresh green chiles were not available, and it was very typical to add it to beans or posole at the end, often just serving it separately so people could add it to taste, which was good, because it was really fiery. In those days I'm guessing they were dried hatch chiles. But these chiles I used were absurdly mild, not typical for NM dried chiles. I've had better luck using a mix of dried pasillas and guajillos which are sold in bulk at Mi Pueblo. Different flavor, though. I'm sure beans for the new year is a tradition somewhere. I'm looking forward to trying the Mayacobas next.