kayb

Mushroom brandy sauce. Pan drippings, saute some minced shrooms, add a healthy splash or three of brandy, a little marjoram, and some beef stock. Pretty marvelous on anything from your fingers on up.

Thanks, Anna. I should have looked at his site before I asked. I'll go ahead and start them tomorrow, instead of waiting until Monday. They've been in the fridge curing since noonish today.

I hope we're doing pancakes Tuesday night at church -- haven't heard anyone say! Love the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper! For that, I'd move chicken and sausage gumbo to Monday.

Southern Gourmasian's chicken and dumplings are a thing of beauty. Trust me on this. I will often hunt that truck down when I'm in Little Rock on business just to eat them. Haven't tried their other offerings that have recipes listed.

Bumping this old thread up, as I have a question about duck confit. I've been gifted seven wild ducks; two mallards, sizeable, and five smaller ducks, probably teal or wood duck. I've plucked pinfeathers, salted and stuck in the fridge to cure. I plan to confit the entire duck for the smaller ones, and probably smoke the mallard breasts (which are close to the size of a small Pekin breast, but with very little fat, of course). My question is this: My duck went in the fridge in the dry brine about 15 minutes ago. How long should I cure it to take care of some of the "wild" taste? I plan to do the confit in the SV; I have frozen duck fat I'll thaw and add to the bags, since they have so little. Would I be well-served to SV the mallard breasts prior to smoking, to get a little tenderness going there, as wild duck is decidedly chewier than the tame variety? Anyone out there with any experience with confiting wild ducks? My only cooking experience with them has been braising breasts, or making duck gumbo. (I can, btw, make some FINE duck gumbo.)

Which would be reason enough for me never to live in Duluth. Can't be without my okra!

Those are the residents of Bentonville, AR, where the WalMart headquarters is located. Try living in a town of 10,000 where the largest employer employs a little more than 4,000. Mine was one of the few families that did not have an immediate member working for WalMart. (I just worked for Sam Walton's son, in one of his other businesses.)

On the basis that it has Arkansas, and therefore MIGHT have the Southern Gourmasian, which is the finest food truck known to modern man, it's worth a try at 99 cents.

Contemplating chicken and sausage gumbo for Fat Tuesday.

If it meant no more breakfasts like that, I'd be sad, too. This, however, makes me happy. I have had orange juice and coffee. I'm about to make a grocery run (because I am out of EVERYTHING, including laundry detergent, and I have no clean underwear!), and I will contemplate breakfast at that point.

I've read about these crusts. How'd it do with the toppings? I've contemplated trying one, as my daughter has celiac disease, and regular GF pizza dough leaves, well, something to be desired.

Yes, we grow lots of stone fruit, and no, no (or very little) citrus. I think we might could manage citrus in high-tunnel greenhouses. Re: use of space and "anyone can be a grower." I was amazed and impressed in Japan to see almostvall single family homes outside the cities using every square inch of yard space for fruit and vegetable production. I loved it.

Here's one that caught my eye as I was browsing through Local Palate. Looks lovely. I'm anxious for a visit myself, to try it.

You might think about shredded chicken instead of beef. I think that's more traditionally served with cocoa (mole) sauce.

Thanks! The kids enjoy mama's Sunday dinners. And I enjoy cooking them.

@pjm333 I believe I may have gained five pounds by just looking at those. The dulce de leche cookies look something like alfajores. I made those a few years back for Christmas cookies. A lot of work, but quite tasty. I'd love to know more about the pine nut tarts, as I have pine nuts in the freezer.

Huh. So I've been making chicken-fried steak all this time and didn't know it. Pfffth, Dear Old Google. It's Country Fried Steak.

Same thing, different terminology, I think. I'll have to drag out the big camera and document if I do it Sunday; camera on the new cell phone is NOT very good. , There's a photo of the results here, on my blog. I may repeat that exact meal Sunday. Wish I had some fresh tomatoes to slice.

Sigh. As I was stricken about 9 last night with an urge to bake cookies, which persists this morning, I got the SoNo book. Anybody got a good molasses cookie recipe? I think that's what I'm jonesing for.

I love a schnitzel (it's about the only way I care for veal). I love a pork tenderloin sandwich from a diner somewhere in downstate Illinois. I love a tonkatsu in Tokyo. But if you're in the South, particularly the Mid-South-to-Texas swatch of it, your "schnitzel" is country fried steak. Round steak, jacquarded and then pounded thin (back side of my heavy cleaver works marvelously). Salted, peppered, dipped in flour, egg wash, bread crumbs, fried in hot vegetable oil. ALWAYS sauced -- with white gravy. Served with mashed potatoes. Prepared properly, it's the food of the gods. Since round steak tends toward the tough, even with jacquarding and pounding, I've taken to sous viding my naked steaks at 125 or so for three or four hours, then cooling, going through the flour/eggwash/breadcrumb treatment and frying. Pretty nearly perfect. They make a good sandwich, on a hamburger bun with spicy mayo and lots of lettuce, and I've rolled them around a stuffing like braciole and then breaded and fried as well. Or sub a tomato and onion sauce for the white gravy and call it Swiss steak. I was thinking braciole for Sunday dinner. It may be country fried steak instead.

x 3.

Glad you're better. And, but for the peppers, the salad looks wonderful.

I would get some GOOD bacon (Benton, Nueske's, Petit Jean, etc.) and dice it up and render it until it was quite crispy, then take it out and set it aside. Then I'd add a couple of anchovy filets to the skillet, smush those up, and add red wine. Let it reduce by about half, add about as much half as much beef stock as you did red wine, and let it reduce some more. If you want it thicker, you can dip out some sauce, whisk in a little cornstarch, and add it back.

Here's the recipe I use. Can't testify as to how authentic it is. I've also added chopped, cooked shrimp to mine, very successfully. I have used regular or panko bread crumbs instead of tempura bits. I have diced up water chestnuts to add, just because I love 'em in anything. I tend to serve two sauces with it -- a sriracha mayo, and another one I sort of gin up out of soy sauce and sweet chili sauce.

If it's just me around the house/office, it's driven entirely by my work schedule. If I'm working at a client's site, chances are I'll eat lunch out, and that frequently means just a snack around 6:30 or 7 for dinner. I generally try, unless I have to hit the road early, to eat a "healthy" breakfast with a protein and some fruit and whatever else I find handy, around 7:30 or 8, after I've had my first cup of coffee and gotten used to the idea of being alive. I tend toward a later lunch -- 1 to 1:30 or so.