kayb

@blue_dolphin, thanks. Had forgotten that. Saving it this time.

H'mm. A thought. Could one do balls of polenta like one does arancini -- surrounding a lump of mozzarella?

Preach! A woman after my own heart. This is one of my hot button issues, and hunger/nutrition programs are something in which I'm deeply involved at the local level. And our state legislature is presently meeting (and villages across the state are missing their idiots), with an avowed intention of revamping SNAP regs to prohibit the purchase of "junk food." I have several problems with that. One is, as @quiet1 so eloquently notes, unless you are into shaming the poor by restricting what they can buy with SNAP, while leaving intact what I can buy with the cash in my pocket or bank account, you are inherently treating people unequally. On a purely philosophical basis, I don't like that. Second, with some of my work in this area, I've been amazed to learn how many people just...can't...cook. As in, give 'em a potato and they're clueless what to do with it. Ditto a package of chicken or ground beef. Never were taught. Even kids like mine, who grew up with me cooking at least five days a week, picked up very little of it, and have no desire to learn. I shudder to think what you'd get back if you gave them a bag of dry beans and asked them to prepare them. Third, we can't assume people on SNAP have the same, or even vaguely similar, ability to cook that we do. They may be homeless; they may be living in a by-the-week motel with no cooking facilities. They may live in an apartment or house where the power has been shut off. They may have no pots nor pans. There may be non-working appliances, if there are appliances at all. And fourth, people may simply not have TIME to cook. I'm lucky; I work from home, so I can stop now and again to stir something, or saute something and put it in to braise or slow cook, or turn an oven or an Instant Pot on or off. If I were working two low-paying jobs (and $10 an hour in Arkansas is a GOOD wage for a high school graduate in an unskilled or semi-skilled position) in order to support my kids, it's highly likely I wouldn't have TIME to cook between Job A and Job B. Should I be able to buy frozen pizza my kids can put in the microwave? Or TV dinners? They're not optimal -- but they may BE optimal in my situation. It's not necessarily a case of people PREFERRING junk food. I volunteer at a soup kitchen, and yesterday was my team's day to cook. We made meat loaf for 60 people, served with green beans, corn and bread. Almost every one of our guests asked for seconds; about 20 asked for carry-outs, which we gladly give as long as the food holds out. Many of them walk several miles to get to our kitchen. We always have fruit for dessert, and no matter how much fruit we provide, it's always ALL gone at the end of the day; a lot of it walks out in people's pockets, and we're fine with that. For the last two years, I've been involved in another program called "Cooking Matters," an effort sponsored nationally by the anti-hunger initiative Save Our Strength and in Arkansas by the Arkansas Hunger Alliance and the United Methodist Church. It's designed to teach people to cook healthy, nutritious meals on a SNAP budget. I've had people come to me in tears and say, "I was able to buy almost enough groceries to last all month, going by this book and what I learned." And that's wonderful, but it doesn't touch the homeless person that's eating chips out of a bag under an overpass or in a Salvation Army shelter. It's not nearly as simple as people would like to make it. Hunger, like most other major issues, is damnably complex. And I don't think adding to regulations on it is going to simplify things any. Soft drinks, btw, are not likely to make the list of "bad foods" non-purchasable by SNAP in Arkansas. The soft drink lobby is pretty big here. The word is they started working that issue back way before Christmas. Sorry for the sermon. It's something about which I'm passionate. You may now resume your regular programming.

Can you add a splash of vinegar to tone down the sweet?

Shredded or diced very fine for sandwich/lettuce cup filling. Roasted/grilled whole and cut into strips crosswise, or bite-sized cubes, for going over greens. For a sandwich filling, I like mayo, halved green or red grapes (or both), toasted, slivered almonds, chopped sweet pickles and curry powder. Chopped hardboiled eggs if I rememberd to cook 'em. And never, ever, any raw onion or celery.

Open face meat loaf sandwich, with lots of mayo, and brie. Sorry, @rotuts, not TJ's brie, as we don't have such an establishment. Forgot to take a pic because I was starving, but it was good.

I also use the ball jars. But I do have a pound bag of beans in the freezer. I order my coffee, and usually get it in five one-pound bags at a time to save on shipping (they use flat rate boxes, so shipping five costs the same as shipping one). What does freezing do to the taste/quality? I might add that, while I have definite likes and dislikes in the realm of coffee, and will generally do without rather than drink bad coffee, I probably am not nearly as particular as many of the "coffeeheads" on here.

Chicken pot pie, with a spinach salad.

Last night for soup supper at church, I made a bastardized version of Tom Yum soup. First, I cooked a pound of stew beef, cut into smaller sized pieces than the 1 x 2 in the package, in the IP; 30 minutes HP, regular release. Meanwhile, I soaked a handful of dried shiitakes. Sliced the hydrated shiitakes, added them and their water to the IP, along with some more water and lots of Tom Yum paste, and switched that over to slow cook while I went out and ran some errands. Came home, switched it over to saute', let it come to a boil and added Pad Thai wide rice noodles. It was a hit. If I had it to do over again, I'd cook the noodles separately and put them in a separate dish to add to the soup, as I'm afraid the leftovers will be much too glutinous from dissolving noodles to be very good. But we shall see. And there wasn't a great deal left.

I took my bacon completely OUT of the grocery package in which I SV'd it; perhaps that makes the difference. I transferred it to a gallon zip-loc, where it could lie relatively flat. As someone upthread mentioned, it's a little fragile and tends to tear. I find it's easier to pull two slices at at a time away from the "mass" of bacon, and then separate those slices. @Porthos -- I think the thickness is important to (a) be able to separate it, and (b) be able to sear it without overcooking it. I'll be curious to hear how finishing it off in the oven may go. Would seem to me it might be difficult to preserve the soft interior of the bacon and get a crisp on the outside.

It's going to be gorgeous. Love that fridge.

Is it just me, or does that egg seem to have an abnormally large white-to-yolk ratio? Maybe it's the way it's cut... In any event, hope it did the trick and you're feeling better.

I do 1.75:1 water-to-rice ratio, salt the water, use the "rice" setting, and then generally leave it on "keep warm" for 15-20 minutes or so. I suspect that allows it to steam and take up the additional water. I use whatever generic variety of rice, mostly likely Riceland-produced but the store brand, is the cheapest, and, like you, use it when the taste doesn't matter much. FWIW, I use about the same method for brown rice, only I extend the "keep warm" time to a minimum of 30 minutes. I've left it as long as an hour, but if I do that purposely, I might go up to 1:1 on the water-rice ratio. I learned early on that when I didn't do the wait time with brown rice, it would be soupy and still crunchy.

I get the mottled look and ignore it; it's common on all my stainless stuff. BKF would fix it if I were concerned. When I have issues with anything stuck on the liner, I fill with water, add a hefty squirt of dishwasher detergent, and put it through a saute' cycle, uncovered. Rinses right out.

Yum! Soup supper at church tonight. Think I will make pho, or at least the Southern American version of pho.

Well, SOMEONE certainly gave the guy a shiner. The very first time I ever had duck confit, it was from a meal my dining companion had ordered at a restaurant in Atlanta. It was so marvelous I probably ate half his dinner; I just couldn't stop. In fairness, he probably ate half my pork loin chop. If people are good with sharing, and the restaurant doesn't object, I love it as a way to experience more of the menu. Occasionally, as was the case recently when I was out for a good dinner with friends, I come across a dish I wish I'd ordered all to myself, but I'll know to do that next time.

@HungryChris -- hard to beat! How far are you from Boston? Will be up that way and probably going up to Gloucester in the spring. Would love to come on up and meet you for lunch or dinner. Can't be that far' y'all's states are pretty small...

I've had good luck using some gladware-style containers I got at WalMart. Back when I used to go to WalMart. Havent been in two months, working on seeing how far I can stretch it....

One of the most serendipitous "that ought to be good" lunches I've had in a while; mayo, roasted and frozen cherry tomatoes, a couple of slices of bacon and some brie layered on potato-flax seed bread and broiled. One piece made a quite substantial and tasty lunch! The center piece of brie sort of slid into the gap when I cut the toastie in half. Could have probably done with two pieces.

Welcome from another Arkansan (Jonesboro, here). Never done any freeze-drying, but interested in trying it for herbs, etc. Would you share a bit about your equipment and set-up?

An "old school" night tonight, because I was in the mood: Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, steamed peas with butter. I like to do my meat loaf in a pie plate, thin, so there's a bigger ratio of crust to inside. And I was thinking about how good that would taste with some melted Brie in meat loaf sandwiches later on this week. Last night, it was carbonnades a la flamande. Usually a fail-safe for me, this one lacked something, and I'm not sure what. Could be because the liquor store has stopped carrying my go-to Green Flash Double Stout, and I went with a Belgian stout instead. I serve mine with grits instead of noodles, because I like it that way. Saturday night, it was choucroute garnie. Good, but I forgot to take pictures.

And it at least appears you can order online without a membership. I don't know that the full range of goods are available via the website, though.

Follow-up on igourmet.com: For anyone who's signed up for Ebates, there's 5 percent cash back on all orders of sale merchandise. Some duck confit leg quarters, some sausages, a pate and several different cheeses are on their way to me. Damn you, enablers.

With you on the baseball field. Pitchers and catchers report in 36 days, btw. I do love my legumes, of all colors, though. Leave me a few limas, wouldja?

Dinner via the IP tonight (no photos, because, well, I'm lazy). Choucroute garnie. Three pints of sauerkraut, the homemade variety, that have been languishing in my fridge for a while. Bratwurst, kielbasa, ham. Caraway and juniper berries. A bottle of cheap Riesling. Rye bread. Hard to beat.