kayb

I did the first cycle on low temp, because I was a little nervous about it; went with the normal saute the second and third. Two trips through the cycle might do it. Or just adjust the time (not sure how long you can make it go). There's a post going around Facebook linking to an article on "how to use all those buttons" on the IP. Some good info there. I'll bookmark the next one I run across and share it.

I was perusing the cheese counter at Kroger today and lo and behold, there was Humboldt Fog marked down! So I grabbed it, dashed back over to produce and got Bosc pears. Tomorrow night's dinner will be but an appetizer to an entree of pears with honey and Humboldt.

I did three packages of Wright's bacon last night. One of them is set to be cut up and fried as bacon bits. Some of those bacon bits will go into these, if not this week, then next week.

I didn't know for years there WAS any cast ironware other than Lodge, but I guess that comes from growing up in Tennessee. I was intrigued to see, looking at their website, that they also sell carbon steel; I had been contemplating a Darto, but now I think I'll go with a Lodge. For a Tennessean, no trip to Chattanooga is complete without a stop by the Lodge foundry in South Pittsburg. I've bought a fair number of skillets and casseroles there! ETA, I'm curious how anyone who knows would say Lodge stacks up against some of the higher-end cast iron products.

I ate a moderate amount of hot cereal growing up, and still occasionally indulge. As a child, it was Cream of Wheat or oatmeal or my personal favorite, buttered white rice with brown sugar. Oddly, for a Southerner, we never had grits at home, though we would at a restaurant. I remember MaltOMeal, but we rarely, if ever, had it. I still have oatmeal, although now it's usually steel-cut oats, or rice for breakfast occasionally. And I dearly love champorado, Filipino chocolate rice. In fact, I should make some of that soon.

@HungryChris -- The planets have realigned and the universe is once more sailing in its assigned path.

Amen. I loathe a green bell pepper, and am not fond of green hot peppers (jalapenos, serranos, anaheims, etc., though Hatch are all right in small quantities). For any Cajun dishes, I sub sweet yellow banana peppers. Not fond of celery, either, so I often sub green tomatoes, if in season, for that, or just leave it out. Have also used carrots.

I can tell you the Kroger store brand does not work worth a flip. My dishes were awful. I ran a bunch of clean-out stuff through the DW and got some Cascade. Works much better. Agreed on the JetDry. The remaining Kroger store brand is reserved for boiling in pots that have stuck-on or burnt-on food. And the drip pans for my stove.

@blue_dolphin -- I like the way you work!

@Anna N -- I've made meatballs similar to this. I don't have Porthos' issue with using ketchup, but I would have hesitated at that much mustard -- that's a LOT of mustard. Wouldn't have used THAT much ketchup, and would have used milk or cream with the breadcrumbs. What was your major quarrel with it? Flavor, or texture, or both?

I did my chicken stock with a single carcass for 90 minutes, then ran it through three saute cycles (30 minutes each) with no lid to reduce it by half.

Oddly, when I made a quickbread recently that I thought was too sweet for its savory add-ins, the sweetness seemed subdued in successive days as well. Wonder if there is something that causes the sweetness to be more intense when the bread is fresh? There didn't seem to be a significant change after it abated the first time, but that change WAS significant.

I am concerned. This is two breakfasts with no zucchini. Are you OK?

I'm just so envious y'all still have quail. All gone around here. Ate many, many fried quail growing up. With biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy.

Didn't really have a dog in the first fight, other than to mildly prefer the Pack. Oops. Now am engaged in pulling for the Steelers. If we wind up with a New England-Atlanta Super Bowl, I may choose to read instead.

Roasted a chicken in the CSO today, and in a burst of energy, went ahead and boned it out and made stock with the carcass. This is an accidental accessory I discovered fits my IP perfectly -- the stainless colander from my set of stainless mixing bowls. It sits down in the pot, holds the solids for the stock (in this case, chicken carcass, an onion, garlic cloves, because I cannot remember to buy bay leaves!), and when the stock is done, the handles make it easy to remove the solids for the trash. Left the stock in the IP through two rounds, so far, of the saute function to reduce it. Had almost four liters of stock, aiming for a reduction to two. Two rounds got it down to about 2 3/4, so I'm hoping this last one I just started will finish it off. Reasoning is the concentrated stock will take up less freezer room, and it's easy enough to add water back to it. My daughter is complaining the house smells like chicken stock. This is a problem?

@gfweb Floors are gorgeous! They play beautifully with the rock, with which I am still entranced.

Yogurt and granola topped with a healthy helping of fruit salad.

I suspect it will be two of us, one of whom gives not a flip about the game. Therefore, my significant concern will be something that can be: Cooked in advance Most of the cleanup done in advance Nibbled on throughout the game, as opposed to a major meal Not generate a ton of leftovers I'll have to put up I'm thinking perhaps a soup or stew, done well ahead, enough left out to serve a couple of portions that evening and maybe a couple later in the week, the rest frozen. Some kind of sweets that can be nibbled along as I get the notion (I have a bag of white chocolate chips that have been staring at me, so I may grab some macadamia nuts and make cookies.) Some kind of chips, some kind of dip. Some kind of crackers, some kind of cheese. Maybe some carrot sticks and hummus.

Curry does wonderfully in a TV dinner. Pot roast I will sometimes shred, and make a brown gravy with the jus. That with some potatoes and carrots cooked around the roast makes a good one. Of course, the other use for that is vegetable beef soup, which gets frozen in reused Chinese carryout containers! Often I'll make a bunch of enchiladas and portion them with some rice or beans or both into a tray. I've done keilbasa and sauerkraut, put that in a tray, and ladled some juice from the sauerkraut over it to keep the sausage moist. I've even "subdivided" the tray if I want to, say, cover a pork chop liberally with a sauce or gravy, but not soak the accompanying starch or veggie. And I've put veggies I wanted to keep separate into a zip-top sandwich baggie first, squeezing out as much air as I could, and nestled that into one end of the tray. If you wanted to be really meticulous about keeping elements separate while they froze, you could bag individual components, then package them together. H'mmm...taking that a step further...you could package them together, and then use SV to rewarm them just to serving temp....off to ponder that notion....

@Anna N, I do them with all sorts of leftovers, and occasionally with casseroles that I split into different portions and only bake what I want that evening and freeze the rest. I get aluminum pans (about 4 x 6 inches) from the local dollar store; they come three in a pack, with a cardboard, foil-coated lid. Fill them with whatever (any sort of meat-in-sauce that got served over rice is good, as is, say, a pork chop and some mashed or scalloped potatoes). I jot down on the lid what's inside and the date, with a Sharpie, crimp the foil edges down around it, and they stack beautifully in the freezer. I have one shelf that, when I have enough of them and can empty the shelf but for them, I take the pans after they're frozen and turn them on edge, so I can see quickly what's in them by just sliding them out, like books off a shelf.A plastic tub holds the row in front, while the back row stacks directly on the shelf. Right now, I've been trying to use them up, so that system's not in use, or I'd take a photo for you. I've found they last quite well for up to three months; meat-in-sauce will usually last longer than that. They can go straight in the CSO from frozen; about 45-50 minutes at 350 on convection does the trick. Less time if I remembered to thaw in the fridge first. A decent meal for minimal time and effort.

Interesting topic. Per @Porthos' definition of full-on cooking, "I cook a protein, I cook a starch from raw ingredients, I cook fresh or fresh frozen veggies, etc. They may be individual foods on a plate or a one-dish dinner, but the cooking and the seasoning was done in my kitchen," I probably cook two or three meals a week via this method (and that number varies week to week, depending on schedules). There are only two of us eating, and often it's just me, as my daughter is more picky about what she eats, and frequently eats a late lunch at work and so isn't hungry for dinner. The other nights are either leftovers, rewarmed or restyled in some other fashion, carryout, eating out or just snacking. Again, much of that is driven by schedule. Rarely do I use prepared foods (again, "prepared" as in a frozen entree, canned or frozen seasoned veggies or veggie combos), mostly because there are very few I care for. Likewise, rarely do I eat fast foods from the plethora of chain joints around town, with the exception of occasionally the hot wings joint or Taco Bell when I get in a taco mood. I cook more in the summer, when there's an abundance of fresh vegetables. I can most of my own tomatoes, and freeze lots of peas and corn and some fruit. I make all my own bread (of which we don't eat a lot), but I keep a loaf of soft white sandwich bread on hand to make grilled cheese sandwiches for the kid and the grands. I make my own granola and yogurt, which was an every day breakfast until I got out of that habit. When I cook a big chunk of protein, as in a beef roast or roasting a whole chicken, as I plan to do tomorrow, I generally do so with a rough plan as to how I'll use it in different fashions in two or three separate meals. I use my vacuum sealer a LOT to portion cooked protein, and I often make "homemade TV dinners" and freeze them in aluminum trays.

Business today took me to the old river town of Helena, Arkansas, and allowed me to come home with one of the Delta's great culinary delicacies, a dozen tamales. Delta tamales are a much different creature from the classic Mexican or TexMex ones, being made exclusively with ground pork, and seasoned with salt, black pepper and red pepper (generally cayenne) powder. These were pretty mild, which I prefer. As they should be, they were covered with cheap, canned chili and grated cheddar cheese. For absolute authenticity, they should have been accompanied by saltine crackers, but I didn't have any. I am replete.

No zucchini?

@Shelby and @Tri2Cook -- and on latkes! I actually prefer apple butter on latkes to applesauce.