kayb

Oooh...sriracha maple! Sounds excellent! I make Chex mix every year, but it's usually the standard butter/Worcestershire/hot sauce/spices version.

I wish I had pictures from dinner last night. I went out with friends for a "girls Christmas dinner" at a relatively new restaurant, Catherine and Mary's, in Memphis. It's the newest of a series of restaurants started by a pair of Memphis guys, Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman, who've been previous James Beard nominees for best new chef(s) for their flagship "Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen." They also have Hog & Hominy, a pizza and small plates casual place, and Porcellino's, a craft butcher shop that specializes in in-house cured meats and also serves sandwiches and casual lunches/dinners. C&M occupies the cuisine rung just below Andrew Michael's, which is more a fine-dining establishment. C&M is a touch more rustic, a touch more casual, and offers traditional Italian fare with an updated twist. We started out with a salumi plate of four different meats from Porcellino's -- all marvelous, but oddly, we had to ask for bread, and it was not very plentiful when it arrived. The menu was divided into first-course small plates, pastas and entrees. The three of us ordered two of each, and shared them. For firsts, we had a dish of Brussels sprouts which were not only the best Brussels sprouts I have ever eaten in my life, but were possibly my favorite of all the dishes we had that night. The sprouts were deconstructed into their individual leaves, some of them shredded, the others left as whole leaves. Part of the shredded ones were in a creamy, Alfredo-ish sauce; some were stir-fried with some sort of cured meat, and whole leaves were flash-fried to crispy. The interplay of the textures and tastes was little short of phenomenal. We also had a cannelini bean dish with crunchy fried strips of guanciale that was pretty excellent. The pastas were rigatoni with "Maw Maw's Sunday Gravy" and meatballs, the red sauce lively with red pepper, clinging to the pasta and shrouding the absolutely perfect meatballs that had simmered in it. This was a comfort pasta at its very best, and next time, I may order a plate of it to keep to myself and forego the entree completely. Again, oddly, there was no bread served, in fact, no bread throughout the entire meal, which seemed to me to be a major defect. We did not ask for bread after the appetizer round, but a slice of good bread would not have gone amiss to soak up the last bits of that Sunday gravy. For entrees, we shared pork loin served over lentils, and a strip steak served over stir-fried kale. The pork loin was good; it appeared to have been sous vided, and oddly, was only seared on one side, but had a very good flavor. The steak was OK. It might have been better than OK had we not had so much excellent food to precede it. Other entree choices included a braised lamb shank, a seafood medley, and a fish of the day. We finished up by sharing a slice of mascarpone tart with figs. It was good, but I really wish I'd just gotten gelato. It was definitely good enough that I'll be planning a return visit. And I don't think I'll ever eat there without ordering the Brussels sprouts again.

Based on @daveb's recommendation, I contacted Dave Martell and have arranged to send mine to him in January. Thanks!

@BonVivant, I do so enjoy your food travelogues!

Pork rinds are one of my favorite snacks, when I get them at one of the local barbecue establishments that prepares them onsite. One of my favorites deep-fries them so they're crisp and puffy, then sprinkles a dry barbecue seasoning rub on them. Absolutely delicious. Brim's is a southern regional brand of potato and other snack chips, including pork rinds. One of my children, when she was small, would demand "orange chips," which we finally determined were Brim's pork rinds, which came in a bag with an orange design on it. (This is not unlike my friend's four-year-old son, who demands "blue pizza," or some local store's take-and-bake deli pizza that comes in a blue box.)

Oh, my, that is a lovely thing!

I have discovered a fine use for an untouched fast-food loaded baked potato (cheese and shredded bacon). Nuke it, and top it with a poached egg. A quite satisfying breakfast.

@Captain -- I would have been pleased to be a guest at your table! That looks marvelous!

Oh, I didn't miss the sale. He is residing on my Kindle as we speak. I like the notion of the trencher, but I'm also loving the thought of those Stilton-bacon rolls, and the first rye recipe he offers. Agreed on the crumpets; I've also bookmarked the one @robirdstx mentioned a while back. I've never gotten the kind of texture/crumb I want, trying to make English muffins.

Dammit. I see about four loaves I want to make. Next week.

@cakewalk, you slice much straighter than I do. I didn't get out my little slicer guide thingy; I should have.

Flax seed potato bread (from bread topic), toasted, spread with homemade ricotta and topped with peach preserves from my Biscuit Love gift box. Those preserves are possibly the best such I have ever eaten. I intend to buy a vat of them when I'm in Nashville next week. Bacon cooked in the package SV, then drained and refrigerated, then seared a minute on each side (sous vide thread). Gawdamighty. I'm going to need to start a diet early in the new year.

With all the ham and turkey left over from Christmas, I needed sandwich bread. This is the flaxseed potato bread from Food 52 (recipe here). It makes a substantial loaf -- I baked it in my 9 x 5 pan, and it rose significantly and had a great oven spring as well. Beautiful loaf, but for the blister on top; I should have slashed it and didn't. This is a substantial bread; two slices of it will make you a sandwich that will hold you for several hours. It's quite moist, and the flaxseed (I used meal, because it was what my hand found first in the cabinet) lends a great, nutty quality. Here, the loaf is sliced and ready for freezing. I interleave it with waxed paper and put the whole thing in a gallon zip-loc bag. And here, a slice toasted, spread with ricotta cheese and peach preserves, and some bacon made a good breakfast.

For what it's worth...I find it works well for me to sear for about a minute on either side, vs. the Kenji suggested method of two minutes on one side and 10 seconds on the others. Damn fine bacon. But mostly, the quick cook is wonderful.

I cooked two racks of ribs, coated in dry rub, for 36 hours at 145 F, pulling them out and cooling them before sliding them in the oven with a glaze of sauce, for Christmas. They were the biggest, meatiest, baby back ribs I think I've ever seen, and the were GOOD. I have a meal's worth in the fridge, and another meal's worth in the freezer; we'll see those again. But the real SV winner of late has been the bacon mentioned upthread. I have to be very careful cooking bacon when my daughter is at home, as the smell is a migraine trigger for her. But to SV the bacon in its store vac-sealed package, clip a corner, drain the fat and drippings, then refrigerate or freeze, and then pull out a few strips at a time to cook -- not only is it MARVELOUS bacon, but it also cooks quickly enough I can have my bacon and not bother her! I have four more 24-oz packages of Wright's in the freezer that need to go in the SV. This is a life-changing process.

@rotuts It's a traditional dish that's been on every Thanksgiving and Christmas menu as long as I can remember. 1 12-oz bag of cranberries, washed and picked over 1 green apple (I use Granny Smith) 1 red apple (I use Fiji) 1/2 to 1 cup pecans, roughly chopped (depending how much you like pecans; I use a cup) 1 orange 1 small box raspberry jello 1 to 2 cups sugar (I use about 1 1/2) (depends on whether you tend more toward tart or sweet flavors) 1 cup water Grind the cranberries and apples roughly in the food processor or some sort of grinder. Add the chopped nuts. Zest the orange and add that, then peel and puree the sections and add that. Make a simple syrup of the sugar and water, remove from heat, and whisk in the jello. Pour over the fruit and toss to mix thoroughly. This is NOT a congealed salad. The jello and simple syrup make a sort of syrupy dressing for it. I don't make it as sweet as my mother did; she used the full two cups of sugar.

I didn't think there was any way to season cast iron except with bacon grease. At least that's all I ever knew to be used when I was a kid.

A gift box from Biscuit Love, a Nashville restaurant, that included two bags of quickbread mix (one sweet, apple fritter, one savory, rosemary cheese) and several jars of jams and jellies including smoky tomato jam, onion and garlic jam, peach habanero jam, peach preserves, strawberry preserves, and something else I forget. Still stockings to unload; I'm waiting until my daughter, who's been ill and who's, I hope, sleeping off a horrible sinus infection, gets up for that. She typically loads me down cool little kitchen widgets. Oh, and an Amazon gift card that I have no doubt will result in something kitchen-y.

Ordered a nine-inch glass lid to use on the IP when I want to use it as a slow cooker. If you have not done this, I highly recommend it; it's much simpler than using the regular lid, and allows for some evaporation and thus the appropriate changing of flavors if, say, you're making something that includes alcohol. I used it to make mac and cheese for our Christmas dinner; used the saute function to boil the noodles, drained them, switched over to "keep warm" and added the cheese, butter, cream and milk, and just stirred it periodically until we were ready to dig in. I found this one on sale for $9.95, free shipping. Looks almost identical to the IP-branded one. Glad I've got it. The IP gets even more versatile, if that's possible.

OK, so I didn't get any photos of Christmas (Eve Eve) dinner, but here's a pic of Christmas lunch from leftovers. Cranberry salad, potato salad, two slider sandwiches on leftover rolls (one ham, one turkey, both with Swiss, the ham with Dijon, the turkey with curry spread), a handful of olives. As I took a late afternoon nap and woke up at 5 minutes to six, I missed Christmas Eve 6 p.m. service, so I went ahead and fixed myself more leftovers for dinner -- a slice of cheesecake and a wee dram of eggnog.

@HungryChris, that's just wonderful. We've had Christmas dinners in some pretty unlikely places over the years, and they're always fun. One place I worked, the boss was a Texan and quite skilled at the preparation of brisket. He cooked brisket and we all brought side dishes. Much fun!

I have a prototype Edgeware that never went into full production. It's a V-slicer. I love it. I use a heavy silicon oven mitt when slicing. Use it mostly during canning seasons.

That is a lovely, lovely plate. We had the big family Christmas dinner tonight. Ham, smoked turkey breast, ribs. Potato salad, sweet potato casserole, asparagus, cranberry salad, mac and cheese. White chocolate cherry cheesecake. Pecan pie. A veritable snowstorm of wrapping paper shredded across my den floor. Two completely spazzed-out dogs. One mom who became a prime target for children's brand new Nerf guns. Plus a roasted turkey and gravy I delivered to a local group shelter as part of a holiday dinner project this afternoon. I was in such a dither cooking and finishing things I took absolutely NO food pictures (and those were some PRETTY ribs, too!). But we have this picture, which I think is much more important than the food: Hoping for all of y'all as Merry a Christmas as I've already had!

Pull out pantries and cats! Can't beat it! Happy to see things coming together for you. I know that's a good Christmas present. Hope you have a fine Christmas dinner from someone else's kitchen!

automaticconversion.com is my friend. ML to tablespoons or cups, grams to ounces, etc. That on my phone, along with a C-to-F converter, lets me sail through whatever I need to sail through. (As someone who often deals professionally in capacities of utility systems, the first time I had to convert "acre-feet" of water to cubic meters of water, the above website saved me. I've been a convert ever since.) I grew up on ounces and pounds, feet and inches, cups and quarts and gallons, teaspoons and tablespoons. And Fahrenheit. I don't expect I'm going to easily convert at my age. But as long as I have a phone that will do it for me, that's OK. Eventually, it would be most handy to have a world that was all one or the other (with nods to Lincoln in his Cooper Union speech, because I am a history nerd as well as an enthusiastic amateur cook).