kayb

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.

I love apples stirfried and served with chicken or pork. I add them to sauerkraut (which you probably don't get in China, either...) dishes. One does not go amiss in sweet potato soup. They're a good addition to salads.

Anybody ever use this stuff? It's a beeswax-impregnated cotton cloth, allegedly designed to replace plastic wrap over containers, etc. I was intrigued enough to try it (well, with an endorsement from a cooking friend whose opinions I respect greatly). My first samples came in earlier this week, and I used one to cover a batch of proofing bread dough. Off the top, I can see my customary "cold hands" syndrome will make it more difficult for my body heat to make the wrap conform to a bowl shape; guess I'll have to rinse them in hot water first! But I do like the idea.

I think it's due to @HungryChris making such a major dent in the world's supply...

@Kim Shook -- good to see you back!

My dinner last night, per @Anna N's freezer challenge: Pulled pork enchiladas, Mexican(ish) rice, an extra tortilla with melted cheese and powdered pico de gallo seasoning, toasted in the CSO. Sort of a cheese tostada. It needed some greenery, but I had none in the house and didn't want to bother to go get any.

Makes sense. Before I moved here, changed farmers and bought my freezer, I had a "herd share," a CSA-type operation in which I purchased the equivalent of a quarter-steer annually, but then could take my beef whenever I wanted, and in whatever format I wanted. My "share" was simply a financial interest in the herd that allowed me to to email my farmer every week by Thursday, tell him what cuts and how large I wanted, and he'd bag it up and bring it to the Farmers Market on Saturday morning. I could also use my "share" to buy milk and dairy products, pork, or lamb. When I reached the (financial) end of my share, that was it until I bought a new share. In many ways, I prefer that approach. Not only does it eliminate the need for a freezer, it also means I can customize my beef order to the cuts I want, admittedly at my cost if, say, I wanted all steaks. We had to go this route instead of direct sales to walk-up traffic at the market because of regulations regarding the USDA certification level of slaughterhouses depending on whether the meat is for "personal use" or for retail sale. If I own a share of the herd, they can lump my purchases under "personal use."

Shelby uses a timed cook. I use the rice function and leave it on "keep warm" for several minutes afterward.

Best carrot cake I've ever had in my life is the one from the Silver Palate Cookbook, here. I do find the cream cheese frosting is pretty heavy. I have made it in a tube pan and made a cream cheese glaze.

Left-over scalloped potatoes also work marvelously for breakfast, with an over-easy egg on top.

They DON'T? Then where do they get it?

A lot of times it's a function of urban vs. rural (rural water users are subject to having longer pipe runs, or even shallow wells, and also subject to surface pollution from livestock waste, fertilizer, pesticide, etc.). In urban areas, the question depends on how old the water system is, how old the area of town is, how old the individual house is; the older any of the above, the more likely there are problems, like in Flint's case. Here in Arkansas, it's estimated that more than half the small-town water systems and wastewater treatment systems are of an age they will begin to experience major failure incidences in the next five years. And half the small towns in Arkansas is a big part of Arkansas, given that we've got damn few big towns. Someone pointed out earlier that bottled water can be purchased with SNAP. That needs to remain in place.

Got my intro email. Haven't looked at the first lesson yet.