kayb

When we used to make ice cream and use any kind of fruit -- watermelon, peaches, strawberries, cherries, what-have-you -- we'd always puree the fruit first. I am personally a major fan of fresh peach ice cream.

I find Shirley Corriher's Cookwise to be a good intro for people who know little about cooking. I've give that, as well as Bittman's HTCE, several times for wedding gifts when I knew people had an interest in cooking but little experience.

Glad to know someone else does this. I will sit down with a cookbook and read it like a novel, but when it comes to needing a specific recipe for something, unless I'm going to a tried-and-true in a specific cookbook, nine times out of 10 I'll look online.

I do asparagus in the CSO as described above, too. But I think my favorite is simmered in a skillet for a minute or two in a half-cup water and a copious quantity of butter, until the water evaporates, and then sizzled in the remaining butter until it develops a little browning.

Due to circumstances at least some of which were beyond my control, Easter dinner got pushed to the side. So I'm eating junk; will make a pilgrimage out to the crawfish place later this afternoon for three or four pounds of boiled crawfish, because that sounds good; and recycle the turkey breast (which never got brined) by brining tonight and smoking it tomorrow, and make the sugar snaps into a salad with viniagrette, and maybe cook one pound of the asparagus or just blanch it and throw it in with the sugar snaps in a salad. In a viniagrette dressing, I can eat on that and smoked turkey most of the week. I did make Good Friday service and the 11 a.m. today, although sunrise service went by the wayside.

I'm with @liuzhou. I have filtered (through cheesecloth or paper towels) used oil as long as it's not used for fish, and kept it in the fridge and reused three or four times, maybe more. Fish-frying oil gets dumped in an empty glass jar and tossed in the trash. When I was a kid, we lived out in the country and, to minimize trips to the dump, burned a lot of our trash in a big 55-gallon barrel. We'd just pour fish oil, or oil that had gone off after several uses) on that and burn away.

...and the part of my personality that is still 11 years old giggles at the name. Food sounds glorious, though. I always enjoy your reviews.

I just want a piece of pie.

Jealous. I never get that good a "puff" on my pita. What's your secret?

I was inclined toward scalloped potatoes but the corn is a family favorite, too. I may do both.

Bumping this one up. What's everyone planning? At my house, it's smoked turkey breast, pork tenderloin, asparagus, green peas in some preparation (I like them in a salad, everyone else likes them just cooked with butter), asparagus (likely just roasted, with hollandaise), deviled eggs, corn casserole (fresh corn I froze last year, with sour cream, egg, melted butter, Jiffy cornbread mix), and deviled eggs. Yeast rolls. Strawberries over pound cake for dessert.

A steamer or warmer of some description?

I know a lot of folks look down their noses at Bittman, but I love this book. I got it at a time I was just getting into cooking outside the realm of what I'd grown up with, and it was a wonderful resource for me. I'd call it worth the price of admission for his recipe for fried rice, and for his pizza dough.

If the streaks arent' too prominent, I'll eat 'em. I'll serve them to company if they're smushed up and the streaks don't show.

New twist on an old favorite. Oil packed tuna, cannellini beans, capers, oil and vinegar. Greatly enhanced by a third of a cup or so of @HungryChris' marinated mushrooms.

I have been gifted two gallon plastic bags full of frozen wild duck breasts; I'd anticipate a good three to four pounds in each bag. That would translate to a dozen to 16 half-breasts per bag, given wild duck breasts are much smaller than farmed. I'm undecided as to how to prepare them, given that that's a lot of duck to cook at a time. In the past, I've parboiled and then grilled duck breasts wrapped in bacon, and I've floured, quick-fried and then braised them in wine. Both are good. I'm contemplating curing half a bag of these and then smoking them, and doing...something with the rest. I'll add to the complexity by noting that, while I'll eat a steak as rare as the next guy, I do NOT like rare duck. I would also note that wild duck has a significantly different, essentially gamier taste than farmed duck, and has always taken better, in my mind, to higher spiced preps. I think I shall peruse Hank Shaw's blog for ideas, but appreciate any thoughts y'all might offer.

Thanks, @rotuts That's simple enough to accomplish when you're stumbling about the kitchen half-asleep, which is my aim.

Now....if one were, as @rotuts suggested, cook a dozen or so of these for retherming later, what method, time and temp would one use? I could see doing this IF I could retherm in say, two minutes in a saucepan of simmering water, or steam-bake in the CSO, but I'm not inclined to drag out the Anova every time I want a poached/softboiled egg on toast.

Any time you wish!

M'mmmmm....maybe. Not sure how the vinegar would play with the Jezebel sauce.

I don't know that I ever saw a crab with an expression on its face, but that crab looks purely pissed off at its impending fate. Gorgeous food.

Thanks for that! I am intrigued by the roujiamo. Looked it up and I see that some places, it's made with beef, and the beef is actually put inside raw dough, which is then cooked. Would you speak to the filling and prep method for these?

I have an el cheapo WalMart one, I forget the brand, that I paid $44.78 for, five years ago. It does what I need it to do, which is : 1. Melt butter 2. Melt frozen blocks of stock 3. Heat water 4. Warm up a quick plate of leftovers, though I am using the CSO more and more instead.

Depends on the seasoning in the adobo, I'm thinking.

I love the water goblets at the top left of this photo. I have a pair of wineglasses hand-blown by a local artisan with a pattern similar to that all the way down to the stem. The water goblets would go beautifully with them on a dinner table setting.