kayb

I was on @Anna N's breakfast wavelength, but for lunch; a ginormous Bosc pear and a wedge of Rogue River Creamery blue cheese. That's on a dinner plate, for scale purposes. I finished off the pear and about half the wedge of cheese.

After a couple of months off my yogurt-and-granola kick, I'm back to the old standby. Instant Pot yogurt (thanks again, whoever it was who suggested I use non-fat dry milk!) with local honey, homemade granola, fresh pineapple.

Good Lord, @rotuts, you'll have enough corned beef to feed the entire island!

@liuzhou, tell me about ginseng fruit, please. Is it from the same plant that yields ginseng root?

Nice -- and quite retro! Just think how good it'd be with an over easy egg perched on top...

I had takeout barbecue ("barbecue," in these parts, is always pulled pork), beans and slaw last night. Tonight, I had leftover barbecue and beans. We ate all the slaw last night. No complaints on either night.

Glad to have you here! Jump right in, the water's fine. What's your special area of interest, if you have one?

Crab legs cure many ills. Glad you treated yourself! Onion and pickle on a barbecue sandwich? That's...odd. At least in my Memphis-centric barbecue world. Great idea on the use of leftover crawfish boil potatoes, though. Bet that salad was excellent! Now, that just looks excellent. I have some spicy cured chorizo that would serve marvelously in that role... @scubadoo97, my sympathies on the mandoline mishap. I once took a divot of skin and flesh out of the underside of my ring finger, between my knuckle and palm; my ring stopped the blade from going further. It was difficult to tell whether the cursing or the bleeding was more prolific. The cut-proof glove is a now a must in my house.

I have a friend whose kids show livestock, mostly swine. I was talking with her on her way home from work one day during show season. She walked in her house and I heard an exclamation, then a shout: "Harper, get that damn pig out of the shower! Kids get serious about showing.

Well, once again I have that odd quote thingy at the top left over from a previous post, and can't get rid of it. Sorry. I'm following this, as well. I also bought a spag squash the other day, with an eye toward cooking it in the IP. A perusal of Google shows multitudes of recipes in the 5-8 minute category, but I found only 1 that addressed cooking it whole; they said 17 minutes, and then quick release and test it with a fork. Will report if/when I try mine.

I will have you people know that last night I dreamed about having an empty freezer. It's nowhere NEAR happening, but I did dream about it. That's SOMETHING, right?

Thanks! I have a great local purveyor of asparagus, and I'll be doing some of these. (I have an extra fridge, too, so...)

Tell me, please, how you pickle them?

Good. Individually vacuum sealed steaks. About four ounces each.

Thanks to the miracles of modern transportation, we're able to get just about whatever we want right now; it may not be too GOOD, but it's available. I've caught blueberries on special a couple of the times at the grocery and bought them. We'll start having local fresh strawberries in about a month, maybe quicker, as warm as it's been. On the other hand, I did cave and buy a couple of Sugar Baby watermelons at the grocery the other day. Not bad, and reasonable at $2.50 per. The grandchild heartily approved. I may have to add a few hills of sugar babies and of cantaloupes to the garden.

@rarerollingobject, those are absolutely stunning. I don't know that I could eat one, for staring at it. Coconut cake, as I have a friend coming to visit next week and this cake has to sit in the fridge for three days to get all nice and moist before you serve it. It's my mother's recipe, but for the fact I cheat and use fresh-frozen coconut instead of grating my own. I put too much coconut in the frosting and didn't have enough left to sprinkle as heavily on the top as I like. The frosting is a mix of sour cream, sugar and coconut as a filling between the layers, with the remainder combined with grocery store whipped topping (I've tried whipped cream, but can't figure out how to get it to stay stable for several days in the refrigerator without going runny) to frost the outside. More coconut sprinkled on top and patted on the sides. It'll be about right by Wednesday, when she arrives.

I'm putting my bottom round in a 5 percent brine tonight. Ruhlman says five days. I think I've done longer than that before. What's everyone's recommendation? Plan to SV mine. It has some nice marbling. Time/temp on the SV recommendations? I spent St. Patrick's Day in downtown Chicago once. Never saw so many drunk folks in one place in my life. Green river and all. No freezer cleanout points for YOU!

I looked at corned beef at Kroger, just out of curiosity (as I plan to corn that bottom round I bought at Aldi the other day). $5.99 a pound! I didn't even look to see whether it was flat or point; just wheeled on by.

My copy has arrived. I'm intrigued by the basil-parmesan ricotta waffles-as-bruschetta. Also the PBJ waffles for the grandkids.

That makes sense. I try to order larger quantities when I order from y'all, although when I just did, it was only three pounds. And just out of curiosity, have you recently gone up on shipping rates? I didn't recall them being that high last time I ordered. Still well worth the price, particularly as I contemplated making that soup only to find I had no black beans...

When I was a kid, there was a very Middle America dish that involved sweet and sour meatballs made with pineapple, pineapple juice and soy sauce. Usually it was served from a crockpot, with toothpicks, at a buffet. I wanted to start from that premise. I think the meatballs I recalled were beef, but I wanted to try ground turkey. I drained a can of crushed pineapple, reserving the juice, and made a panade of white sandwich bread and milk. About half the can of pineapple, the panade, an egg, some onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and seasoned salt went into the meatballs, which I shaped and then stuck in the freezer briefly to firm up. For the sauce, I started with a diced onion, sauteeing in the Instant Pot. Added garlic confit. Added a pound and a half of quartered button and cremini mushrooms. Once those began to give up their water, I added a cup of white wine. Let that simmer about 10 minutes, then added the pineapple juice, a copious quantity of Worcestershire sauce, a and a pint of chicken broth. I was purposefully staying away from an Asian profile, so no ginger or lemongrass, but I did break down and add a glug of sweet chili sauce. Once that came to a boil, I fetched the meatballs out of the freezer and put them in the liquid to poach. I let it come back up to a boil, then switched the IP over to slow cook on the "more" setting, and let them cook for two hours. About an hour into the cook, I took some of the broth, stirred in a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch, and added in the remaining crushed pineapple. This was pretty good. I served it over wide egg noodles, but next time, I'll put it over mashed potatoes or grits instead of noodles, and I might add just a touch of paprika. It's not overtly sweet, and there is no identifiable pineapple taste. The sauce needed to be thicker; I fished out the leftover meatballs and reduced the sauce before I put the leftovers away, and I think that'll improve things. Would be worth trying with ground pork, too. All in all, not a huge success but not bad.

Glad to hear you're making the adjustment. I've resigned myself that I can't cook for just one, or at the most, two people, so I'm GOING to have leftovers. My focus now is to just go ahead and toss the stuff if I'm reasonably certain I will never eat it, instead of having it cluttering up the fridge or freezer for days or weeks or.... Tonight's freezer cleanout is an ahi tuna steak from some I caught on sale at Aldi t'other day. My child has expressed a wish for tuna poke with Asian cucumber salad, so that's what we'll have.

Picked one up last week. It'll go in the brine tomorrow.

@Shelby, my favorite hearts of palm salad is with chunks of crisp-tender asparagus, barely blanched early green peas, and sliced, sauteed mushrooms, all in a red wine viniagrette. Served over sliced tomatoes, with a little grated Parm on top. No, I've never had the fresh HoP either.

Pulled out a top sirloin steak from the freezer, along with a bag of cooked rice frozen t'other night and three small broccoli crowns from the fridge that were about to have been there too long. Beef and broccoli. I had mushrooms I intended to put in there, but I forgot 'em.