kayb

Well, after a weekend out of town (granddaughter was a sugarplum fairy, grandson was Baby Jesus, and KayKay had to go watch!) and a work trip all day yesterday, I need to fit some treatmaking in with a significant amount of work that must be done this week before another all-day trip Thusrday. @Shelby -- I have no presents wrapped, either, if that helps. And not nearly all of them purchased.

No, it's loose Fritos in a paper Coney tray, covered with chili and grated cheese. So simple. So good.

Great minds....

If there's anything any better than a pot of Rancho Gordo cassoulet beans cooked with a sauteed onion and a smoked ham hock, I don't think I could stand it. That bread would be primo with some of that ham in a sandwich....

That sent me down the rabbit hole of looking up a kharcho recipe. I'll be trying that.

Speaking of regional favorites, right now Sonic is selling its chili frito pies. Which it now makes in a coney tray, not in the single-serve Frito bag slit down the side, like it used to. Is nothing sacred? Still, no one makes a chili pie like Sonic. If they sold "Sonic brand" canned chili at the grocery, I'd buy it to go on tamales, as I've been known to do with the regular containers of chili. And I love their onion rings. Garden variety frozen onion rings, but the onions are wonderfully sweet, and they hit the sweet spot for crunchy but not soggy and not overdone rings. And of course, cherry limeade.

Not a huge buyer of oranges, but damn, that popcorn sounds wonderful!

Down here, we'd call those pork rinds. Or, in the vernacular (for @weedy's benefit), "poke rines." And I can eat a bucket of them. In fact, my favorite barbecue joint serves them just that way, in a small tin bucket, as a complimentary appetizer. I regularly box up and bring home half my lunch or dinner because I've filled up on the pork rinds. The little crispy bits to which @Kerry Beal referred upthread, we would call "cracklings." And they are the best add-in you ever put in cornbread.

That would be what we called Swiss steak.

I do a passing decent Salisbury steak with essentially the same spices as meat loaf, sans ketchup and/or tomato sauce (garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, pepper, Worcestershire, an egg and some bread crumbs), with caramelized onions. I caramelize the onions, take them up to a bowl, quickly brown the steaks in the same pan, take them out on top of the onions, make a dark roux, add steak and onions back in, and add beef broth to nearly cover. Then I simmer for a LONG time. I have been known to add mushrooms to this combo. With plenteous mashed potatoes, and green peas. I will sometimes, for nostalgia's sake, add brown-n-serve rolls, but not often. It's also good to do the meat "sloppy Joe style," i.e., scrambled/browned, for sandwiches.

Welcome. Unfortunately, the link did not work for me. What kind of cooking do you do most?

Christmas treatmaking continues. Chocolate oatmeal stovetop cookies. "Christmas Crack," a confection that involves a butter toffee atop saltines, then topped with chocolate chips which are allowed to melt and then are spread. I inadvertently grabbed white chocolate chips, which didn't melt so very well. Added pecans as well. Two gallons of Chex mix. I'll have to make more before Christmas. My family inhales this stuff. M&M Dream Bars. These are a bit crumbly, so I'm waiting to cut them up until I'm ready to package them in their final containers. Not pictured, coconut macaroons. Treat-making is suspended for a few days, as I am going to get my (Merry Christmas to ME) new car tomorrow, and then will be driving it to Nashville over the weekend. On the road for work a couple of days next week as well.

There is one thing I want. An offset spatula.

Today it was just about pure trailer park trash cookery. I did chex mix, stovetop oatmeal chocolate cookies, "Christmas crack," and FINALLY got a batch of Pickapeppa Pecans done without burning them! Oh, and the M&M Bars. Forgot those. Treatmaking is suspended until next week. Life intervenes. Y'all carry on.

That ought to help cure about anybody of anything.

Chex mix. I had chex mix. At least it was homemade, and had LOTS of pecans.

From a post on my blog a while back: 3 pounds bacon, diced and the fat rendered, but not crisp 1 cup caramelized onions (about three medium onions) 1 cup strong black coffee 1/4 cup garlic confit from the fridge, or roasted garlic 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp red wine vinegar about 1 tsp allspice about 1 tsp Aleppo pepper 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (or brown; my hand found the turbinado first) 1/2 cup maple syrup about 1/4 cup brandy If I don’t have caramelized onions in the fridge, I start with that; roughly dice the onions, put them in a bit of olive oil in your big Dutch oven, and let them go. Go ahead and use the big Dutch oven, because you’re going to use that pot to add everything else to. I go ahead and add the brown sugar to help the onions along in caramelizing. While that’s happening, brown your bacon. I work with three pounds because Wright’s, my bacon purveyor of choice, sells a three-pound package of bacon pieces and ends. Same excellent bacon taste, just the trimmings, which is fine for these purposes. Wright’s, at $8.99 a pound, is pricy for making jam, but the ends-and-pieces, at $7.99 for three pounds, is a helluva deal. There’ll be some pieces big enough you’ll want to cut them up; try not to have anything bigger than an inch cube. I render it in batches, about a pound at a time, until it’s done but not necessarily crisp. Then when the onions get caramelized, I dump the bacon in with them. (The bacon grease replenishes my supply in the crock in the cabinet; one must, after all, keep bacon grease for one’s cornbread, and seasoning peas and beans!) I add all the other stuff at whatever point I have a second amid stirring bacon. Measures, as in most all my recipes, are approximates. If you want yours hotter, add more pepper; sweeter, add more syrup. If you don’t have Aleppo pepper, a bit of minced chipotle will do. I used about 1/4 cup more coffee because that was how much was left in my cold-brew container in the fridge, and I didn’t see the point in wasting it. And then I just let it simmer. Here is the bacon jam recipe, Unfortunately, the sweet onion marmelade was either something I bought or somebody gave me, not something I made.

I'll get several little small pieces of kitchen widgetry. Nothing big I really want, except I'm contemplating a small dorm-room-size fridge for curing meat. That will be after Christmas, and after we buy a house and move.

Good looking tenderloins! And done just the way I like them.

I always enjoy making cookies once I get started. They're a tough one for me to get started on, though, for some reason. Today, hopefully, the molasses spice cookies, spiced Pickapeppa pecans (since I burnt a pound up yesterday! 🤔), rice krispy treats, and we'll see what else we get up to. Made M&M Dream Bars yesterday, and a gallon and a half of chex mix.

Welcome! Will be looking forward to your posts. Tell us what you like to cook, and how you're using that marvelous cheese that you can get everywhere up there!

I'm with you, Shelby, and with Suzi, Heidi, et. al. I have no patience with trophy hunters. But game and fish comprised a good part of our diet while I was growing up, and I've seen Daddy pass up many a shot at a doe with a late fawn who might have been still nursing. We respected and cared for the animals we raised, and we respected and appreciated the fish, animals and birds we hunted. We also respected the land we farmed, and what it produced; I grew up feeling it was almost a sin to waste food. Not to get theological on everybody, but there's a school of thought that holds that God created everything and is part of everything, and that by honoring his creation, we are honoring God. Wasting it would be dishonoring God. I can go with that.

Yes, I'll freeze the baked goods; the candy will be fine, though I may stick it in the storage room fridge just to keep myself out of it. First, though, the Calvados. I really think it calls for that.

Yesterday, I made four applesauce cakes, and four dozen cheese wafers with bacon jam. The applesauce cakes are @Arey's recipe. I cut one today for quality control purposes; these things are good. Very moist, "cakier" than a typical fruitcake, with a lower ratio of candied fruit. I will tweak the recipe just a tad when I make four more; they want some salt, and some ginger and nutmeg along with the cinnamon would not go amiss. I may also make an excursion to the liquor store and get some Calvados to mist them with. They'll be a nice addition to the Christmas treat collections. Applesauce cake for breakfast? Yes, I think so! The cheese wafers are a savory shortbread cookie with lots of cheese, in this case extra sharp cheddar. I used the pestle from my mortar to flatten the cookies inside my smallest biscuit cutter, and make little "divots" in the center, where I put bacon jam. Except on the last dozen, because I ran through my half-pint of bacon jam I'd opened, and rummaging about the fridge, found some sweet onion marmelade. I'm going to make some more with blue cheese and put fig jam in the centers. The wafers are about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and about 1/4 inch thick. Here is the "mixed" pan, filled and baked. Today will be cookies -- M&M dream bars, molasses spice cookies, maybe coconut macaroons, maybe chocolate stovetop cookies, maybe meringues, and the additional applesauce cakes. Then there'll be a candy day -- fudge, pralines, toffee -- next week, and somewhere in there, I'll make Chex mix. And the treat basket fillings will be completed, early!

And I will quote a dear friend: "The South imparts a graciousness to living that is absent elsewhere."