kayb

A sentiment I'm sure many of us have shared...

I can make a pie crust, but I never do, because I see no reason why I should when the Doughboy does one that's as good as mine and a helluva lot easier. I cannot make chicken and dumplings. Comes out like wallpaper paste every...damn...time. I've tried biscuit dumplings, pie crust dumplings, in-between dumplings. I can make something approximating chicken and dumplings...with egg noodles. Could not, for a long time, make a decent milk gravy. I'm about to get that one down. Don't know why I had probs with it; I could make a white sauce just fine.

Oooohhh. Good one!

I can't get it to load, either.

Only one that would tempt me is the stackable insert, and I have that. Although the carry bag is pretty cool.

Now THAT's a grilled cheese!

A couple of years ago, I decided to try my hand at fruitcake. Being a proper Southerner, I made Eudora Welty's White Fruitcake, from the Junior League of Jackson, Miss., cookbook. It was horrible. Pasty. Doughy. Not wishing to trash 20 or more bucks' worth of candied fruit and nuts, I cogitated a bit, froze the fruitcake, sliced it 1/8 inch thick, and baked the slices a second time. Fruitcake biscotti. It was a hit in the Christmas baskets. Ain't making it again, though.

It wasn't terribly photogenic, so I didn't photograph, but I made potato-corn chowder for a friend who's recovering from hiatal hernia surgery and is limited to smooth soups. Where I'd normally leave the corn whole, as well as some of the potatoes, I blended the whole thing. On the advice of a nurse friend, who said lower-fat was better for that kind of surgery recovery, I left out the cream and cut back a bit on the cheese. Onion sauteed in bacon fat; four or five medium Yukon Golds, cubed; a pint of frozen corn; two cups chicken broth, two cups whole milk, a cup of grated cheddar stirred in at the end. 15 minutes in the IP, blended with the immersion blender. Tasted plenty creamy.

Re: Raisins. I don't loathe them. Given the choice, I'll avoid them. I can only quote Dorothy Parker: "This was not plain terrible. This was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

Thanks! One for the potential Christmas list....

Don't get me wrong. I love everything mentioned above, along with most of the other things I've bought due to this forum. But it's cost me money over the years, it has.

We have those big wheeled carts you take down to the curb. But it was hot today, and it had been out there all day. I just couldn't do it. I'm still cursing when I think about it. Decided to just eat the pancakes, sans egg and bacon. I have leftovers. Will add the egg and bacon tomorrow.

Just read the whole thread -- one of the things I love most about eGullet is the travelogues. Thanks, and particularly thanks for the great photos. And the menus. I have a question about the meringues (as meringues are among my limited sweet skills). What kind of cream in between, and with what are they coated so the shavings will stick? This may be a Christmas potential, as I have a ton of frozen egg whites.

I've eyed that proscuitto panino before. Good?

Oh, heck, honey, if that's all you buy after the enablers on this forum get to you, you'll be better off than I am! (Let's see, a sous vide circulator, an Instant Pot, a Cuisinart steam convection oven...not to mention all the small stuff....)

...Throw something out from the fridge without first looking to be SURE what it is. I was cleaning out the fridge today. Picked up a carryout box I knew (or thought I knew) was leftover Thai fried rice from when we had takeout the other night. Tossed it. Then when I was cooking dinner, I went to the fridge for the smoked turkey I had picked up Monday, from the restaurant two hours from here that smokes the best turkey I ever ate in my life.... Yep. I contemplated going out to the trash and dumpster diving for the most recent bag, since it would have been at the top. Decided against it. Cursed, at length and creatively. I am cooking the fried potato and cheese pancake from Six Seasons. Not to be outdone, I shall poach an egg to go on top of it, and warm up a couple of slices of bacon. Nyah.

They're worth it when it comes to making apple butter. Trust me on this.

Huh. How 'bout that. I've got two pounds in the freezer. May thaw them out and try it. Sound a great deal like Mr. B's barbecued shrimp.

I have two go-to hot sauces: Pappadeaux, and Pickapeppa. Both are complex, and carry more taste than heat.

I cooked up an entire 24-oz package of Wright's bacon this morning, something I do periodically as the smell of bacon cooking is a migraine trigger for my daughter, so I try to keep some pre-cooked on hand. I may or may not have eaten, oh, eight pieces of it. With two biscuits with butter and blackberry jam. I am not a bit ashamed.

Nice, @HungryChris. Have you ever smoked shrimp? CAN one smoke shrimp? I've never heard of such, but I'm curious. I picked up three three-pound bags of Bartlett pears at Aldi this morning. Pear preserves coming up. Hurts to have to buy pears, but for the last two years, the 50-year-old tree on the "home place" has yielded none. It may or may not come back; it had been alternating between a bumper crop and very few pears every other year for several years. Still looking for Arkansas Black apples.

Thanks! Got that one!

I have plenty of bread. May get in cookie mode.

I do like Good Eats. The others, not so much.

I've never had farmed quail, but we used to hunt quail, when there were still quail here some 50 years ago when I was a kid, and I could and did eat them like there was no tomorrow. Mama would split them, soak them in buttermilk, bread them in flour, egg wash and cracker crumbs, and pan-fry them. I could eat half a dozen. We would regularly eat squirrel and dumplings (Mama always went a bit heavy on the black pepper for my taste), and rabbit and dressing (plenty of sage!). Wild duck -- the reason, I think, I'm just not a huge fan of farmed. Venison -- chops, roast, backstrap, sausage, ground. Bass, bream and catfish. I dearly love a pan-fried fresh-caught bream to this day. I have turned down, in my day (we didn't cook it, but some of the "old folks" did) possum and coon. Greasy, and very gamy. Tried bear, once; wasn't fond of that. Turtle is ... OK. Ditto rattlesnake. I wouldn't go looking for either. Now, I guess after venison, my favorite game, when I can get it, is dove, wild turkey (the breast, SV'd, served with a fruity sauce, is To Die For), and wild duck. And of course, venison. Think I may have found a source for venison. I should start hunting again. My father taught me to lead a covey of quail with my .410 Mossberg when he got it for me for Christmas when I was seven. Good times.