kayb

Leftover roast beef, sauteed onions and mushrooms, over mashed potatoes. It started out to be beef stroganoff, but I decided to separate it and will use part of what I saved for stroganoff later.

Unless you're in and out of your freezer a dozen times a day, I'd say you're in the market for a new gasket.

You can order Tony's online, here: clickety Shipping might be outrageous for the refrigerated, but... it's not every day you've been married 59 years! Many congratulations, and may there be many more!

I've gotten it in a four-ounce, vac-sealed package at Kroger, at the seafood case. It ain't great, but it ain't awful. I don't remember a name, sorry.

A natural interest in this topic, and a desire to avoid real work today, led me down the rabbit hole of trying to document some of what I thought I knew about immigration patterns into the Ozarks, presuming, as @gfron1 has mentioned, when folks moved in, they brought their culinary traditions with them. Seems I was mostly right. It does, in fact, appear that many early settlers in the Ozarks had come from the Appalachian areas of East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky and Virginia. A lot of those settlers came in through ports in Virginia and North Carolina and migrated westward. Other Ozarks settlers came down the Ohio Valley to Cairo, Ill., and crossed the river, or down the National Road through the Shenandoah Valley and west across Tennessee. International immigrants were primarily German and Central European, with a sizeable Italian immigration as well. Lots of German settlements in the Ozarks, particularly in Missouri. This is a fairly interesting (to me, anyway) article on it. You can see a potentially marvelous fusion of cuisines!

A couple of good friends are from, respectively, Australia and Trinidad. He swears by black cake. She makes it, and sent me a recipe. I'm going to try it one of these years, havig never seen a dried fig I didn't like.

I have always found balsamic vinegar to be a natural pairing with Brussels sprouts; my favorite prep is to cut them fry them cut-side-down in bacon grease (or olive oil) until they caramelize, and toss them with a healthy portion of balsamic vinegar. I'm not sure exactly what you'd put with that to make it "saucy" enough for pasta, though. I'd agree I think a tomato sauce would get crossways. How about using more balsamic, and just adding a little pasta water?

Particularly for @Anna N:

My Aldi yesterday had a NICE butcher block cutting board, about 16 inches square, about an inch and a half thick, and it said what wood but I've thrown the label away and don't remember, for $14.99. Insets cut in two opposite sides for ease of picking up. I didn't really need it, but for that price, could not turn it down. I'm thinking I'll give it a light sand and rub it down with mineral oil. They still had the sous vide circulator, marked down to $40 from $49, so I suspect those are on their way out. Had I had my phone, I would have taken a photo.

Freezer challenge today was a big fail. I used nothing from the freezer. I added three pork tenderloins, because Aldi had them on sale.

Yes, I like mine flattened. They fit inside a pita better that way! My kids used to live just up the street from a Middle Eastern/Greek restaurant. I became a falafel aficionado by picking up takeout there when I'd visit. And there's a great place i Memphis that I stop in when I'm over there and have time; you're right, they do heat back up right well (the CSO works nicely for that).

I can testify to Broadbent's bacon. I get their big packages of bacon seasoning pieces, which I then use to make bacon jam, which is the most divine condiment known to modern man. However, being an adopted Arkansan, I would be remiss if I did not at least get in a plug for hometowners Petit Jean Meats. You won't go wrong with anything you get from them, and that black pepper bacon is sublime. I would also put in kudos for their smoked turkey breast, and their pastrami.

I have had some success frying falafel in about 1/3 inch of oil in a skillet, and flipping them when done on one side. Wonder how they'd air-fry?

I am contemplating that very thing for dinner tomorrow, save with cornbread 'stead of polenta.

No, those and any meat we canned got pressure-canned, instead of water-bath the pickles, tomatoes and jams/jellies got.

I can address that, a little. The kitchen in our house where I grew up was quite small. Countertop centered with double sink on one wall. Maybe 36 inches of counter on one side of the sinks, maybe 18 on the other. Door to the back porch in perpendicular wall to left of counter. Stove and fridge, both freestanding, on perpendicular wall to the right of the counter, door to hall in perpendicular wall to its right. Kitchen table, sitting in front of recessed shelves in area where the flue for the wood stove used to be, behind it, took up the remaining corner of room. We would can every summer about 80 quarts of green beans, 100 or more quarts of pickles, 100 or more quarts of tomatoes in various forms, and that many pints of assorted jellies, jams and preserves as well as whole and cut-up fruit. We'd freeze 150+ pints of cut-off corn; 100+ pints of purple hulled peas; lesser amounts of lima beans, butter beans, butter peas, and pinto beans. We'd prep and dry probably 50 pounds of apples, and 50 pounds of peaches. (The freezer lived on the back porch, at first, and then in the basement after we added onto the house.) We'd make crocks of sauerkraut, and can 20 or 30 quarts of it. We'd cut, bread and freeze okra. We'd can new potatoes, and carrots. Apples, onions, and potatoes went in boxes in the basement, nestled in hay (in the smokehouse, which was immediately behind the back porch, pre-basement). In the smokehouse, by early December, there would usually be four hams, several slabs of bacon, and several links of sausage hanging. We did either freeze or can some of our sausage fresh, and froze pork roasts, chops, etc. We'd usually get a calf back from the slaughterhouse, broken down and packaged and frozen, in early November. All the prep work except for the hog butchery, which took place at a neighbor's farm, was done in the 36--inch counter space to the left of the sinks, which was cleared of anything else. (The 18-inch counter to the right of the sinks was sacred to the coffee maker, and held the dish drainer. Neither of those ever moved.) Finished products went on the kitchen table, one of those now-classic green and white formica ones, until they got moved to the back porch or recessed shelves, or later to the basement. Most of that would take place over a two-month period in July and August, though there'd be late plantings of both peas and corn that were harvested up until late September, and some of the fruit was earlier, some later. Some things, like corn, would come in all in one big swoop; others gradually, over a four-week or longer period. But we'd can or freeze at least three days a week, and often more. In between there was harvesting, prepping (snapping beans, shelling peas, cutting off corn), all mostly done outside. House wasn't air conditioned. When we'd be canning in August, Mama and I would throw a No. 2 washtub into the truck, go to town and get a 50 pound block of ice for something like 50 cents. We'd put it in the kitchen on spread-out newspapers and turn the fan across it. Then Mama would threaten to kill me for sitting on the edge of the tub and blocking the cool air. When we added on to the house we bricked it, and it was so much hotter we had to get air conditioners.

I love the yellow sunset! and I'm off to find the chicken recipe.

I shall make it expressly for you, should you ever decide to venture south for the winter.

Mine makes about 12 pints, best I remember. Plus a couple of quarts of tomato juice.

There is, in fact, an Ozark Folk Center cookbook. clickety I knew I remembered seeing one. They have one in the collection at the library in LR, as well as in the A-State library in J'boro.

I'll be danged. Sure does. Never heard it called Chili Sauce in our part of the world, though.

It's snowing like a sonofagun, and is going to 20 tonight (that's COLD down here, y'all!). I suspect, as we are incapable of dealing with snow here, there will be no church. Be assured I will be baking tomorrow. Am having pot roast tonight, which will be recycled into shredded beef with brown gravy tomorrow to go over mashed potatoes. Thinking I'll make a loaf of plain white sandwich bread to make open faced hot roast beef sandwiches. With green peas on the side.

Will be interested to see if anyone has checked the calibration on their CSO. I have not.

OK. If you're going to make the tomato pickle (which is what Mama called it), here's her recipe: 1/2 bushel tomatoes, peeled and cut up 6 lg. onions, chopped 6 lg. bell peppers, chopped -- note -- I use Cubanelles, because I loathe bell peppers and won't have one in the house 1 hot pepper 1/2 box pickling spice 1 1/2 c. vinegar 3 c. sugar 3 tbsp. salt Let the juice drain off the tomatoes, in a colander over a mixing bowl, for an hour or so. (I can the juice to use in making the BEST bloody Marys...) Throw everything in a large pot, cook over medium heat until the tomatoes break down, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until they're thick. Can in water bath canner.

Re: idiot proofing -- I am living proof anything (even something in the SV bath) can be screwed up. The biggest error most folks make with the IP, I think, is to try to use it for things it just isn't designed for, or that other methods are better. I can't tell you how many people on the IP facebook page have asked how to cook a KC strip in the IP. I just grit my teeth and scroll by. If it's a hammer, just bear in mind not everything is a nail. That said, there's little better for making a lot of long-stewed/braised dishes. I love it for carnitas, for beef stew, and for dishes made with dry beans.