kayb

Yeah, the Circus Peanuts were pretty awful. I'm still fond of candy corn, as long as it's the Brach's brand. And I love a Tootsie Roll. My favorite when I was a kid was the Hersheys or Mars miniatures. My kids would shoot you and trample your cooling body for a miniature Reeses cup, though. Mama always gave out homemade popcorn balls. We lived out the country and people would drive out from town to trick or treat at our house. My job was to wrap the finished balls, individually, in plastic wrap and tie them with black and orange ribbon. I usually get a couple of big bags of the mixed candy to give out -- either the Hersheys or the Mars. Have a couple of families down the street whose small goblins are acquainted with Lucy the pug, who barks ferociously at all doorbell ringers, and not freaked out by her, and they're usually the only trick-or-treaters we have.

One rare example of a time the food would make no difference -- if I had that view. Gorgeous. Fruit doesn't look half bad, either.

Well, she's still amongst us, anyway. I can testify that hospital food is no better here than @liuzhou experienced in China, but for the meatball sub I had for lunch which was at least edible. Bolognese is still in the fridge.

After having an instant pot for two years, I've come to the conclusion it definitely has a place in my kitchen. I love it for dry beans, which I cook a lot. I've learned how to do a lot of the braises that initially I much preferred stovetop at a slow simmer, or in the oven; I get that same development of flavor with a long saute of the aromatics and wine or beer before the lid goes and pressure cooking starts, and perhaps more sauteeing after the pressure cooking is completed. I like it for rice (I had only an el cheapo rice cooker previously), and I like doing the pot-in-pot dishes with a meat and sauce in one pan, rice in the other. Its greatest attraction to me is certainly convenience. Well, and it's the only way I've ever made yogurt, to which I'm now addicted, and I appreciate the way hard-boiled eggs peel so easily. I will make cheesecake in the IP, mostly because cheesecake ties up the oven for so long. Other bread-ish, cake-ish things, no. Have not yet tried the lasagna. Prefer sous vide for ribs. IP also does a fine job cooking apples for applesauce or apple butter, as I will be doing in a couple of weeks.

Well, I had gotten up early and made a pot of Instant Pot bolognese sauce. Got home from church, was simmering the sauce with added cream and parm, and boiling the water for the linguini, when I got a call to come to the hospital where a dear friend had just had a heart attack. Turned everything off and flew out the door. Put Bolognese in fridge when I got home last night. Water is still on stove. Perhaps will have pasta tonight. Sauce tasted good. I used the Serious Eats recipe.

So are the schupfelgnuden a potato dumpling of sorts? Or more like spatzele? They look luscious. You had me at the eggs in tomato sauce until you mentioned bell pepper.

Not a huge fan of the hard-boiled egg because the white seems to have no taste. I have toyed with the idea of deviling eggs in a two-step process that involves pickling the whites overnight first, before taking them out, drying them, and filling them. Going to try that one day. Deviled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar. Or just deviled eggs with caviar. I'm good.

Yes, by all means, please do. I see "German" and my eyes light up.

I love his show.

Groan. So gorgeous. My caprese salad is good, but it can't touch that.

Got my travelogue glasses on and a glass of wine on the table. Looking forward to the trip.

No, but I've had them in a wonderful Brussels sprouts dish in a Memphis restaurant; some sprouts were shredded raw, some were sauteed, and some outer leaves deep fried. I don't know what all they did to it, but it was marvelous.

Be still, my heart! I would have been a regular customer of your bar and grill. Particularly if you had good beer on draft. Unlike @Smithy, I LOVE sweet potato fries. No extra sugar, no sweet dipping sauce (no dipping sauce atall, in point of fact). Just hot and crispy with a dusting of salt.

Pear preserves. Bought three three-pound bags of Bartlett pears from Aldi for $1.99 a bag. Six pints of pear preserves, and a pint of pear syrup, because those were some juicy pears. A moment of silence for the beloved old pineapple pear tree on the home place, which I fear has borne its last pear.

Amazon's "deals" are usually just six or 12 hours for the big discounts.

I have always, if I do say so myself, made excellent potato salad. Recently, I got on a trend of making it and it just...didn't...taste...right. Couldn't figure out why. I all but gave it up. Then it dawned on me one day. I was using either spicy brown mustard or Dijon mustard, not plain old ballpark yellow mustard. Potato salad wants ballpark mustard. The potato salad universe, I am happy to report, is now righted again.

Working my way through the beef in mine in preparating for the new beef coming next month. Found two packages of "fajita strips." Doubt they'll wind up as fajitas, but they've got me thinking some sort of stir-fry this weekend. Maybe spicy Korean beef with veggies and rice? Got a sirloin tip steak in the fridge now I thawed out Sunday and didn't use. Stroganoff tonight, I think. Have mushrooms, too.

Re: the ball cap. I occasionally wear one when I'm out running errands and have not had a good hair day. Sometimes when I'm out running said errands, I decide to eat lunch. Usually a diner, maybe the local Mexican or burger joint. Nothing fancy. You would rather look at my ball cap than my hair after I've been wearing it due to a bad hair day. Trust me on this.

I truly think the only way around this is to know the farmer you're buying from. I buy what are known as "tractor chickens." They live in a wire cage about the size of a good-sided camper trailer, with a wire bottom giving access to grass, bugs and such, and they're moved every two or three days to a different spot on the pasture. Breast is much pinker meat than grocery store chicken. It's all I'll eat. Can't be advertised as "free range." Isn't necessarily organic (depending on the kind of feed used). But it's been raised reasonably humanely, and I'm comfortable "my" farmer doesn't dose his birds with antibiotics and steroids.

If you can get the green shells off before they rot, and boil them, you can use the resulting liquid to dye cloth a medium brown.Thus, "butternut" as a description of Confederate uniform trouser color in the US Civil War.

White bean soup with ham. Not photogenic. I was going to have kraut and fried potatoes with it, and decided the bean soup would suffice.

Welcome! You'll find a variety of cooking abilities and styles here, from professionals to enthusiastic amateurs. Jump right in with whatever entertains you! What were your specialties at your bar and grill? I've had great bar food, and pretty awful bar food.

For the first time this year, there's a little nip in the air this morning that caused me to think about hot cereal. I was scrabbling through the pantry for the steel cut oats, which I KNOW are in there but can't find, when I came across the bag of farro. H'mmm. sez I. That ought to work. So I cooked a half-cup of farro, toasting it in olive oil, then boiling it for 20 minutes or so, drained it, added a pat of butter and a bare teaspoon of maple syrup, just enough to give it a faintly sweet taste. Good fall breakfast!

I have taken to making my stock in the Instant Pot (180 minutes high pressure). I pull the solids, strain it, put it back in the washed pot, and run it through two saute cycles (20 minutes each? 30? I forget), which reduces it by half. Freeze it in one-cup portions in freezer bags, laid flat and all the possible air expressed. Works well for me. I'm about to accumulate enough jars I could can it (my stepmother loaded me up last time I was home), but my canning shelves are about full with veggies, pickles, jams and jellies.

He's a bit extreme in his food views, not to mention significantly more authoritarian than I'd like. But his "How To Cook Everything" unlocked the secret to good fried rice for me, as well as a fail-safe pizza dough, and for that I will always be eternally grateful.