kayb

I love Charlie and will go hear him at any opportunity. If he's a PBJ fan, so much the better. Hope he's doing well...know he's getting on up there.

I will be following this with interest. Never thought about beef bacon, but if you can make duck pastrami...why not?

BLFGT. One of the South's finest inventions. I'm glad to see it go nationwide! ETA: The "insides" make a good salad, too -- bacon, lettuce, fried green tomatoes, some sort of creamy mayo-based dressing. To kick it up a notch, add ripe tomatoes as well, along with some corn kernels, and use fried okra for "croutons." Then you almost have the tomato salad from Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, which is a thing of beauty.

Y'all made me do it. Details on the Lunch thread.

Talk about getting the most out of 60 pounds of tomatoes -- I consider I've done that with this batch, though I'll think twice about trying to work through TWO boxes of tomatoes in one swoop. My kitchen, and stove, just aren't big enough. Just before the final water-bath last night was finished. The total: 17 pints, 11 quarts of tomatoes, 5 quarts, two pints of juice. Not shown, the four pints of roasted tomato-garlic sauce. On the other counter: The final quart of juice that didn't make it to the other side, the tomato-garlic sauce, and part of the 16 half-pints of tomato sauce made from the skins and cores. All that was left of the two boxes of tomatoes, less the waste I cut off in the form of bad spot, and the one or two tomatoes I just chunked completely. Learned this trick last year. You save your skins and cores (I had about 6 quarts) and simmer them for three or four hours. Then you hit them with your immersion blender, and run the resultant puree through the finest plate on the food mill. 16 half-pints of sauce. I started to toss the skins onto the compost heap, but remembered vaguely I'd heard something about using skins to make tomato powder. Thought, h'mmm. So i spread the skins, a thick paste at that point, out on parchment in the oven, set the oven on warm (170F) and I plan to leave them at least until bedtime, and possibly overnight. Once they dry out significantly, if they need further drying, I'll break them up into smaller pieces and stick them in the dehydrator for a day or two, until they're completely dry and crunchy throughout, and then run them through the food processor. It may not be worth a damn, but I thought it might be interesting on top of eggs, or maybe gratins, with some smoked paprika or otherwise added in. I will report. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And all I've got to lose is a few hours of electricity.

Because sometimes you just need a burger and fries from your favorite burger joint at three in the afternoon when you've skipped lunch, and after talking about it on the Fast Food Burger thread, I was jonesing for a Presley's Drive-In Burger and fries. Poor photo, but... I confess a love for frozen crinkle-cut fries, when they're fried right. Presley's fries them right. Crispy outside, creamy in. Simple fixins on burger -- mustard, mayo, pickles. ETA: I love the diner melamine plates, too. You do get a throwaway styrofoam cup, so they can give you a to-go refill. Hit the spot.

We've got a 5 Guys; it's...OK. For a burger, there's an old diner/dairy bar I freqent; makes hellaciously good fries and onion rings, and the burgers are the good-quality thin patties with plenty of crust from the flattop. They toast buns on the flattop, as well. They have a drive-through, but the burgers and rings don't transport well; much better fresh, hot, eaten there. I find consistently when I travel, the local diner/dairy bar/cafe does a better burger than any fast food chain common to the South. In bigger cities, you may hit some regional chains with better burgers, but no In-n-Out and no Shake Shack here (well, there's a Shake Shack about 45 minutes away, but it's no kin to the chain, being one of the local diner/dairy bar combos, and it does, in fact, have a fine burger. I tried In-n-Out when I was in Arizona, and yes, it's pretty good.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhh....... Yes, I badly need some Vitamin Beach!

I am canning tomatoes. I have been canning tomatoes for approximately eight hours. I expect to be canning tomatoes for the next two to three hours. Oh, and I'm drinking more wine-from-the-box. These may be some interesting tomatoes. Completely outdone by the fact my tomatoes, all 40 plants, have up and quit, I bought two 30-pound boxes of "canning tomatoes" for 10 bucks apiece at the produce market yesterday. The first box produced 16 pints of tomatoes, and three quarts of tomato juice. I'm now out of pint jars, so the second box, which is currently on the stove cooking, will go all in quarts. I also canned six pints of roasted cherry tomato garlic sauce, which caused my daughter, when she got home from work, to announce she was certain the entire neighborhood was safe from vampires this evening. Don't even SAY tomato to me for a week or so after tonight.

I wish I had your problem. I should have figs tomorrow or Thursday. I plan on fig jam. I ran out of pint jars today doing tomatoes. Must make a WalMart run and get more, as I have kraut to can tomorrow.

Timely to read this. Having given up hope on my tomatoes, and having happened across two boxes of "canning tomatoes" at a produce market today, I bought them. So tomorrow I can a bushel of tomatoes and tomato juice, along with some roasted cherry tomato-garlic sauce from the gallon or so of cherry tomatoes I bought at the farmers' market on Friday. Then Wednesday I should have figs, so it'll be fig jam time. Am still on the hunt for Kentucky Wonder green beans. Have a line on some, actually IN Kentucky. As I will be "up home," which is just 40 miles south of the Kentucky line, in 10 days, I may be making a pilgrimage. Called one market and two farms up that way today, and wound up talking to one nice old gentleman for 20 minutes about who "my people" were. He decided he knew my great-uncle. Gotta love the rural South.

Do you have deer? Deer will munch on all your apples they can reach, and ALL the windfalls. If you need an apple butter recipe, I've got a fine one.

I had Quaker Oats Squares. By the handful, from the box. With red wine. Also from a box (though I did use a wineglass). This was all of which I was capable after a FULL work day plus grocery shopping after work.

I'm pretty much down to enameled cast iron, regular cast iron, carbon steel and stainless steel. Have just moved to stainless mixing bowls since one of my plastic ones sprang a leak. I do have a couple of glass Pyrex bowls I use mostly to proof bread in, and some Pyrex baking dishes. And one noteworthy Le Creuset ceramic lidded baker that I would have never purchased, but won in a recipe contest; it's a casserole dish for holidays, or anytime I want to serve something that really needs to stay pretty hot. I can fill it with boiling water for a few minutes, dump that, put the food in (if I don't bake it in it) and set the lid on, and it stays piping hot for close to an hour.

I think I want to come work at your office.

FWIW, you can order Broadbent's Country Ham here. I like the breakfast steaks, as the dinner steaks are massive. This is one of the best country hams I've found. How'd you like the cocktail tomatoes? Mine were ... OK. I didn't love them, and I expected to.

Well, that's just the flight. On the other hand, the food courts at the train stations are the most amazing thing in the world. I have to get to the station an hour early to decide what to take on the train with me! So much good stuff!

Take your time mastering the photo uploads, but be sure to upload and share with us everything you have! This is fascinating. Perhaps one of the things I love most about eGullet is the vicarious samplings of the world's cuisines offered by those to whom they are "home cooking." And I'm so full I'm about to die, but I would KILL for those giant prawns! They look marvelous!

No, it's an 11 x 13 baking pan. To clarify a bit on the reicpe and process: In the bowl of your stand mixer, put 2 cups of the flour, the salt, the yeast, the sugar and the butter. Pour in the water. Turn on mixer and mix until it's a batter of sorts, adding the beaten egg along the way. Add the other two cups of flour; you may need a little less, a little more, or to add a little more water. You want a soft dough that is not sticky. Knead with the dough hook for 3-4 minutes. I shape it into a ball by hand, spray the interior of the same bowl with oil, and then spritz the top of the dough, cover with a dish towel and let it rise. Because of the large amount of yeast, it'll rise relatively quickly, and is easy to overproof. I punch it down, shape the rolls, and put three across on a baking pan on parchment. Another spray with oil, cover with the towel again, another hour or so rise, then bake at 325 for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. You could certainly add an egg wash and seeds, etc., if you wanted seeded buns. I've also done these rolls with cheese and herbs added (add with the second batch of flour). They make very good savory sandwich-style roll-ups, cinnamon roll fashion; I've done ham and cheese that are very satisfactory.

As always, thanks for taking us along. I always enjoy going to Manitoulin with you two.

Buns, rolls, or whatever you want to call them. These are my standard dinner/sandwich roll; I make them big so they serve nicely for sandwiches later on. When they're completely cool, I'll freeze them in packages of two or three and enjoy them for two or three weeks. Hard to beat for a breakfast or lunch sandwich of most any description. Recipe made 11 3.8-oz buns; couldn't remember if I used 3.5 or 3.8 for a dozen out of each batch of dough. Proofed in a warmed oven for 1.5 hours, made into rolls, oven rewarmed, proofed for another hour. I use a full tablespoon of yeast, to 4 cups flour, 2 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. salt, an egg and 1 1/4 cups 105F to 110F water.

I had four gorgeous pork steaks from my farm beef/pork/chicken purveryor, and had been casting about for a way to prepare them. Contemplated grilling, but today's forecast was for rain, so I decided to go the sous vide/broiler route. Put them in yesterday with a dollop of Deep Run Roots' Blue Q sauce in each bag, and let them go 18 hours at 140F. Chilled them in the fridge for a couple of hours, then fished out of the bag, put them on a wire rack and brushed with some more Blue Q, and ran under the broiler. These were about a pound apiece. One never made it to the oven. It's frozen in its SV bag. Forgot about them and just slightly overcooked one side; I was content with the espresso-colored coat, but it was a bit much for the kids. Shown with one steak turned dark-side up, for contrast. Had them with potato salad, purple hulled peas, sauteed crookneck squash and onions, and yeast rolls. Had a bit too light a hand with the salt on everything. Many leftovers, as my daughter and husband didn't make it for dinner.

Pork steaks cooked sous vide in Deep Run Roots Blue Q sauce and finished off in the broiler, with potato salad, purple hulled peas with tomato relish, and yellow summer squash sauteed with onions. And a BIG homemade roll, made that way on purpose for sandwich buns later in the week. More details on the pork steak on the sous vide thread when I get around to putting them there.

Envious. Grouper is perhaps my favorite fish. And it doesn't travel well.

Just marvelous. Thanks!