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Had to get that. The author is obviously Methodist.

The blueberry barbecue sauce rocks a pork steak, too. Just sayin'.

Had to spring for Milk Street and the casserole. I'm southern and Methodist. Casseroles are in my blood. (I am convinced it's part of the Methodist Discipline that one must own a 9 x 13 pan. I'm quite sure John Wesley said so.)

Yep. Fine, fine stuff.

Re: fried bologna. A slab of fried bologna, nearly charred around the edges, on two pieces of of mustard-slathered Wonder bread (or Sunbeam), with dill pickle chips and a slice of American cheese? Food of the gods. A thick slab of bologna on the grill, painted with a thin coat of barbecue sauce, ain't half bad, either.

Don't vac-pack a cat or Chum. Or Ronnie! Envious.

Welcome, Bernie. You're in the right place. Many SV'ers in here (me included) and many of them experts at it (me NOT included). Chef Steps is a good resource, too! What do you like to SV? Or cook, otherwise?

The casserole doesn't have a strong eggplant taste, but then, eggplant doesn't have a strong eggplant taste. I knew it had cracker crumbs and cheese, and made an educuated guess as to milk. It has a buttery flavor, too, and a crumb-and-cheese topping. In yesterday's iteration, I roasted five small-medium globe eggplants for 40 minutes at 400F in the CSO on steam-bake. Let them cool, halved them and scooped out the flesh; it made about 2 1/2 cups when lightly mashed up. Stirred in two beaten eggs, about four ounces of grated co-jack cheese, a quarter-cup or so of half and half, and about 2/3 of a sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed into crumbs. Stirred that up and smoothed it out in a deep-dish pie plate. Topping was the rest of the sleeve of crushed Ritz, and about another 2 ounces of grated cheese. Baked at 350, steam bake, 30 minutes in the CSO. It was close. Real close. Could have been a little saltier; I didn't salt, as both the cheese and the crackers are fairly salty. I might use grated Velveeta next time, and I think the topping would benefit from grated Parm. There was too much topping; I needed about half as much. I might add some melted butter next time. And it would have benefitted from some black pepper. Other than that, it was pretty much spot on. Thd other eggplant treatment I really love is to take cubes of eggplant, toss them in a mixture of honey and miso, and roast them. Yumm-O!

Still lots of veggies at the Farmers' Market, so lunch was veggie-centric today. Corn (from the freezer, and I very nearly scorched it, but the browned bits ARE tasty!), green beans with ham that had been vac-packed and frozen since Easter; and eggplant casserole, along with cornbread. I am coming closer and closer to nailing the eggplant casserole recipe from one of my favorite restaurants, The Cupboard in Memphis, where I've been eating since 1977 and have yet to try an entree or a sandwich; that's 40 years of vegetable plates. A classic case of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it."

I buy all my milk, half-and-half, cream and butter at Aldi; generally MUCH cheaper than Kroger (including butter, a buck a pound cheaper; half-and-half is comparably cheaper, whole milk close to the same. I find mushrooms at a good price there, consistently. Supermarket cheese is significantly cheaper, as is orange juice frozen concentrate. Bread has a tendency not to be fresh. Produce is fairly consistently a good deal.

Huh. Butt looks even nicer.

It IS tough to let it go, @Smithy, but I won't ever move back up there, and I don't want to see the house set empty or fool with leasing it and the attendant headaches that brings. Selling it is the smart thing to do, but I will admit to being sentimental about my home for the first 18 years of my life. But it'll make a good home for someone who wants a little land outside of town, and I actually have a cousin who's interested in it, which would be nice because it would still be in the family. Be assured when I light somewhere -- to avoid the tax hit, I plan to take what I get out of that place and put it into a new home here in Jonesboro -- one of the first things I plan to do is plant some fruit trees. One will be a pineapple pear. I tried preserves last year with Bartletts from the market, and they're but a pale imitation of the real thing.

Bear with me. Long post coming up. I'm getting ready to sell my parents' "home place" up in West Tennessee, if I can bear to do so. So I gathered up my brood of children and grandchildren to go up there, spend a night, and make up our minds what we wanted out of the place. One thing I knew I wanted was pears. There's a wonderful old pear tree, probably 50+ years old, down by what was once the garden. It's a pineapple pear, and the hard, dry fruit makes the best pear preserves known to modern man. My father ate them with his scrambled eggs for breakfast every day of his life except Sunday, when breakfast was cereal. And pear preserves with scrambled eggs, bacon and a biscuit is a breakfast I'll still choose above all others. So I dispatched the Thundering Herd out to pick pears. ars The old tree only bears about once every three years now. This year, it was loaded. I brought home about 30 pounds of pears. em This is about half of them. Lucy was unimpressed. Peeled, sliced and sugared a Dutch oven and a stock pot full and set them to simmering. A cup of sugar to a pound of pear slices. A quarter-cup of water per pot. That's it. th After about three hours at a low simmer, they're a beautiful reddish brown, and ready to can. I canned eight pints. Still got a bucket of pears to go. Will be back up there in two weeks, and will get more pears then. y They taste like home. And I plan on making enough to last me for a long, long time.

Y'know, I'm not crazy about her housewares line, but the woman has made a lot of money with her schtick. I tend to think her writing is a bit overblown 80s sorority girl, but that's OK too, I guess. And her husband does have a nice butt, which she photographs right regularly. I approve of that.

Well, that sent me to Google. Now I'm convinced I must make this. What time/temp did you SV at? @Ann_T, I'd be happy with the tortilla, but thrilled with the tapas platter. I need to make a tortilla. Been a while. @weinoo, I like the thought of that treatment for the beans, particularly now that I have learned there is an olive oil/vinegar store in Jonesboro and I no longer have to go to Memphis to get specialty vinegars and good olive oil. I'm going to check it out Monday and this will be on my menu. Maybe with saumagen and sauerkraut!

Will be interested to hear. I can see possibilities in that. Let us know, would you? And put me down in the "did not know that" category.

I stopped off after the Farmers' Market at what is becoming my usual breakfast spot, a little diner called the Eggsellent Cafe (one of those you can get breakfast for lunch, if you want, and they close at 2). French toast and bacon, orange juice and coffee this morning. I like this little spot. My only complaint is that the breakfast combos are So Much Food! But man, they're good. Just breakfast staples, and all of them cooked well. When the grandson's around, he favors the Mickey Mouse pancake.

Pass.

Talk about your dream job....

There are no Costcos in Arkansas, I guess because they don't want to take on Sam's Club on its home turf. I've been to the ones in Memphis and Nashville with the kids, and it's generally a better variety of non-food merchandise. I know a lot of y'all get meat at Costco; as I buy almost all mine from local farmers, that really isn't an issue for me, though I did buy a beef tenderloin at Sam's for a Christmas dinner once. It was good, but I overcooked it. I do like Sam's for things like laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and, oddly enough, underwear. I don't buy a lot of food other than snacky stuff.

Possibly my very favorite thing about the IP is being able to decide at 4 p.m. that I want Rancho Gordo beans for dinner, and being able to have them. FWIW, my "recipe" is simple: dice an onion, mince some garlic, saute them, add beans and stock or water, manual 30 minutes, NPR, salt to taste. Boom. Done. Make cornbread.

Prepared Cajun seasonings are always horribly salty. I use them, but sparingly. Zatarain's is no better or worse than most of the others. I use one sold by a little Cajun restaurant and seafood market not far away.

I would vote on the side of keep them both, for the reasons enumerated in the previous two posts for side dishes. As for beans and grains they are one of the chief things for which I use my IP, and I'm always looking for "what can I do with....". Others' mileage may vary. Tonight, my IP is busy making vegetable beef soup; it just beeped done, in fact. It's a little cooler, and I've felt like hell today anyway, so I figured vegetable beef soup could do nothing but help. May make myself a grilled cheese to go with it.

But trying to get all their little feet to stay still while you artfully arrange them has to be difficult.

So far, this may be my favorite of your meals in Italy.