kayb

I was lucky. I had a stainless steel colander that fit my IP perfectly, and it became my default steamer basket. As for the glass lid, until I got mine, I found a dinner plate worked quite nicely. Now, as for the countertop oven...you might want to stay away from the CSO thread, out of respect for your bank account...(yeah, this forum costs me money regularly!)

I beg to differ. I believe the world's most expensive ham is the Kentucky grand champion ham, sold annually at auction. See story, here. For the last several years, it's been a Broadbent ham. You can order a non-competition ham from their website. clickety Good stuff.

Like @Smithy, I've never found any meat left from making stock worth much other than pampering the dog. I use a carcass, however much meat is left clinging to it, skin and wings that didn't get eaten, a halved or quartered onion and four or five cloves of garlic. I don't salt it. I let it go 90 minutes and then however long on "keep warm" until I get around to doing something with it. I use the steamer basket to hold all my solids, so I just lift that out and chunk the contents. Then I run the pot through a couple of cycles of saute with the lid off, to reduce it by about half, and pour it into a baby food keeper thingy that lets me freeze about half-cup portions. When they're frozen, I pop them out and stash them in a zip-lock, label it as to what kind of stock, and back in the freezer they go. At present, I have bags of chicken, ham and beef stock in there. It's simple enough to add the water back in when you're using it. I've been told it works well to keep all sorts of veggie scraps frozen and when you have enough, make vegetable stock. Onion trimmings, carrot peels, broccoli stems, and so on. Have never tried that.

It is your mission in life to cost me money. And you do it well.

Is the red potato what we here in the US know as a sweet potato? Looks like it...

Damndog has had pancreatitis. Can't feed her people food.

I lust for those onion rings.

BTW, you timed your trip through the lower Mississippi Valley well. We're in the midst right now of getting what is forecast to be 1-3 inches of snow as I type. Shoppers are currently reenacting the Visigoth sack of Rome in the milk and bread aisles at all grocery stores, and then forgetting how to drive. I am home, and staying there, away from the lunacy. I am convinced that, down here, snowflakes are really pods for some alien bacterial invasion that sucks every vestige of good sense out of people as soon as they get in a car.

I make something very similar to this, but I've never tried it in the IP. I'm astounded it works with the proportion of dry ingredients to liquid! I've also done it in a Dutch oven with the top layer a layer of cornbread...just make up the batter, spoon over the top, smooth it out, put the lid on and into the oven it goes. Particularly good with cornbread made with extra cheese and corn kernels. I usually add layers of shoe peg corn, rinsed, canned black beans, either browned ground beef or chicken, grated cheese, chopped black olives, and canned enchilada sauce. Garnishes served tableside include chopped avocado, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, salsa, and Pancho's dressing (recipe here, from the much loved Ark-Mex restaurant of the same name). Mexican rice for a side.

Come to my house. You can match up with my mint-that-ate-everything, and I'll put my money on the mint.

I, too, am one of the worst offenders in this regard. Often it's a case of my ambition exceeding my ability in terms of time and initiative; the squash I was CERTAIN I would cook a day or so after buying it is wilting in the fridge a week later. I cook for only two of us, but in truth, it's more usually just one, as Child A generally eats a big lunch at work and then is not particularly interested in dinner, nor do her tastes run along the adventurous lines that mine do. I'm ashamed, every time I clean out the fridge or throw away some baked good that's gotten stale or molded on the counter, of how much food I waste.

PBR used to put out a bock beer every year, and I always looked forward to it.

Amazon has the Breville Smart Oven Air on an "early Black Friday" deal for $319, regularly $399. Clickety

FWIW, I always cook/glaze my fully cooked hams. 20 minutes per pound at 300F. I know it's not necessary, but to me, both taste and texture are better. I glaze very simply. Rub plain old yellow ballpark mustard all over the ham. Take brown sugar, add a little nutmeg and ground cloves if you wish, and pat that all over the ham to form a thick coating. Mist with bourbon. Into the oven. I don't baste while it's cooking/reheating.

A couple of years ago, I took the plunge and decided to make Eudora Welty's White Fruitcake (recipe here) to go in Christmas gift baskets. They were horrible. Doughy in the center, after having been cooked for the length of time specified. Gave them another 20 minutes. Still horrible. As I had several dollars' worth of fruit and nuts tied up in them, not to mention flour, butter, etc., and several hours of work, I was loath to pitch them. I wrapped and froze them, took a frozen loaf out, cut it into quarter-inch thick slices, and baked them a second time. Lo and behold, fruitcake biscotti, which were quite good. Not good enough I'll make the fruitcake again just to make the biscotti, but it sure saved the ingredients. Bags of them went into the gift baskets, and people loved them.

I do mine in the IP; overnight or all-day soak, drain, then saute an onion and some garlic in the pot, add beans and other seasonings/ingredients excepting salt (meat, peppers, etc.), add water or broth (generally water) to cover by two inches. Manual 40 minutes. Take a potato masher to them to break up some of the beans and make a creamy sauce, salt to taste, low saute with lid off for a few minutes if needed to reduce. Have to stir fairly frequently during that step so they won't stick and/or scorch.

I was in the notion for a pot roast, but somehow, all the roasts have migrated to the bottom of the freezer and I didn't feel like digging. So when my hand came to a Boston butt pork shoulder roast, I said, "that'll do." Seared the roast, which I'd seasoned with garlic salt and black pepper; put onion chunks in the bottom of the roaster, added a half-cup of white wine, the roast, then surrounded it with potatoes and carrots, which I seasoned with Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Covered and baked for about five hours at between 275 and 300. Had some good pan drippings and could have made gravy, but couldn't be troubled to do so. It was Just Fine the way it was.

Because every once in a while, you have to splurge. Had a houseguest, so pulled out the stops for breakfast. Bacon, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, pear preserves, a latke with sour cream and caviar (ok, it was the cheap domestic kind), and another latke with apple butter. I did not want lunch.

"...with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for..."

If the large pans are like my small one, be aware they are quite shallow. My 12-inch is probably an inch deep.

Looks like it's going to be a great-sized space. Anxious to see results. I love an outdoor kitchen. When we move next year, I hope to have one.

The big annual craft show in Jonesboro is this weekend. I was GOING to go, until I saw the parking lots (jammed) and lines waiting to get in (long, and while it was a pretty sunny day, it was in the upper 40s/low 50s and a BRISK wind out of the north), and I drove right on by. Nothing I needed that badly. Supposed to be in the 30s tonight and not get out of the 40s tomorrow. It's pot roast time for Sunday dinner!

I have taken to baking muffins every Sunday morning. My basic muffin recipe is this one or a bran muffin, this one, which is the one I think they used to print on the back of the AllBran box. I've experimented with all kinds of add-ins and flavors for these. The vanilla ones morph well into lemon poppyseed, pumpkin, banana, and my personal current favorite, cinnamon apple. The bran ones get all sorts of fruit -- dates, figs, cranberries, or whatever I can find dried in the pantry, and assorted nuts. My Sunday school class at church has gotten used to the Sunday morning muffins! I think tomorrow's will be apple cinnamon or caramel apple, as I have some apples to get rid of. Although I really have a taste for date walnut bran muffins....

I grew up on canned salmon croquettes. There was always a can of salmon in the pantry, and Mama would grab it when she needed dinner in a hurry, or there was nothing else handy. I still make them occasionally; good for a blast of nostalgia.

There is no such thing as excessive amounts of butter. And I LIKE corned beef hash from a can. Got to have a fried egg, over easy, on top of it, though.