kayb

I do a meat loaf similar to this. It's pretty dang good.

November 16. I am still picking tomatoes. We've had one, very light, frost. And Thanksgiving is next week. But there's no global warming.

I've never done mirepoix like this, but I do caramelized onions on a fairly regular basis.

Yep. They don't call it "spaghetti gravy" down here for nothin'.

You may have my share of all the collards in the world. Please don't ruin the okra by boiling it. Cut it up, dust it in cornmeal, and fry it!

I'm sure regular garlic, minced and gently sauteed, would work. I get the big four-pound bags of peeled garlic cloves at Sam's a couple of times a year and make a half-gallon of garlic confit, because I prefer the taste and texture of the confited garlic to either raw or sauteed. I also caramelize a huge batch of onions at a time in my slow cooker, then package and freeze. It's just easier.

YUM! Cinnamon toast sans cinnamon (just butter and sugar), made from oatmeal/whole wheat/flaxseed bread.

This morning's breakfast: Cinnamon toast, sans the cinnamon (just butter and sugar), from my oatmeal/whole wheat/flaxseed bread. I've noticed something about the toast function on the CSO. If I'm toasting plain grocery store white sandwich bread, which I keep on hand to make grilled cheese sandwiches for the youngsters, I need to go no darker than 4 on the toast setting. This bread was set to 7, and barely showed a hint of crispness around the edges. What makes the difference? This is a very moist, heavy, hearty bread, and it's my assumption the texture and density are the defining factors. Anyone?

Maiden voyage at using the IP to make chicken noodle soup. In a flash of serendipity, I discovered that the small colander that came with my recent set of mixing bowls fits perfectly in the IP. And it has little handles so it can be lifted out. I put it in the pot, filled with about half a roast chicken still on the bone, added water, and cooked it at low pressure for 20 minutes. Lifted the colander, with chicken carcass, out; added carrots and onion to the stock and let that cook for 10 minutes medium pressure while I pulled meat off the chicken bones. Seasoned the broth and veggies with some cumin, coriander and cinnamon; added the cut-up chicken and eight ounces of egg noodles. Cooked on the "soup" setting for four minutes. Noodles were perfect doneness; alas, the seasoning profile lacked something. Quite a bit, actually. I doctored it with hot sauce and some salt, which helped, but I would have been better served to have stayed with plain old salt and pepper. Live and learn.

Farm-raised catfish, being very mild in taste, lend themselves to all sorts of preps, too -- anything you'd do with tilapia, and as most tilapia is imported from China, whose food-farming conditions, so I've read, are a bit suspect, I prefer to stick with catfish. This recipe calls for bluefish, but I've done it with catfish filets to marvelous effect. In fact, should do that again soon.

A part of the world I've always wanted to see, particularly after hearing descriptions by several in this forum. Welcome, glad to have you, and hope to come visit someday!

Ah, the Redneck Riviera! I do love it. Haven't been to Gautier for a long time; I used to turn the other way when Highway 49 hit the coast, and go to Pass Christian, a similar town until Katrina made landfall. Haven't been back to see how it recovered. Glad you enjoyed the catfish. If it's cooked fresh, and hasn't been sitting under a heat lamp, and it's either farmed or cleaned by someone who knows what they're doing, there's not much bettter. If you should ever find yourself in the neighborhood of where the Tennessee River meets the Mississippi-Tennessee state line (and the only reason you'd be likely to do so would be if you were a Civil War buff and going to Shiloh, or an Elvis devotee going to Tupelo), I'd highly recommend you try Hagy's Catfish Hotel for the fiddlers (small, whole fish, sans head and skin). All you can eat. Marvelous.

Found a recipe when going through my Mama's recipe box, apparently one she'd clipped from the newspaper, and it sounded interesting: Grandmother's Oatmeal Bread. Grandmother apparently baked a lot of bread. I cut the recipe in half and still had enough for two 8 x 4 1/2 loaves. Had no wheat germ, but Mr. Google assured me I could substitute flaxseed meal, so I did. Here's the recipe: A good, hearty bread. Makes good toast. Sturdy enough for most sandwiches.

First real breakfast I've cooked in ages on Saturday: bacon, scrambled eggs, toast from an oatmeal loaf I baked Friday, and pear preserves. Baked blueberry muffins this morning. No photos, because I forgot. Back to yogurt tomorrow, as I made a batch today.

Lunch today was one of my better efforts. I had cured a salmon filet per Kenji's gravlax recipe (with coriander and dill). With deviled eggs and silver-dollar-sized latkes. Some of the latkes got apple butter, instead. Not shown is the mustard dill sauce for the gravlax.

Braciole, risotto from the Instant Pot (Hip Pressure Cooking recipe), and roasted broccoli from the CSO. I'm not certain how I ever cooked before eGullet taught me the wonders of all these small kitchen appliances. This was before I cut the strings that tied the rolls together. That's really not worms on the lower right. Tonight was a disappointment -- pork chops baked in sauerkraut with some brown sugar, vinegar, white wine and caraway; cucumber salad, German potato salad. I guess I'd cooked all weekend and was tired of it. Potato salad dressing was too thin, cucumbers had a tough skin, and the pork chops just didn't taste good. No photos.

Made my first IP risotto tonight, from the Hip Pressure Cooking recipe. I sauteed onions, toasted rice, added more wine than called for (somewhere between a third and a half a cup), and then went 2:1 liquid:rice. 5 minutes at high pressure, about 5 minutes regular release then quick release for the remainder. Stirred in the parmesan and added a couple tablespoons of butter, because, well, butter. Perfect doneness on the rice -- just the tiniest bit al dente. Not quite as creamy as stovetop risotto, but I didn't stand there stirring it for 45 minutes, either. On another IP topic -- when I make yogurt, I always have a thin layer of milk solids stuck to the bottom of the pot. I can get rid of it by soaking and then scraping/scrubbing....but I've learned I can also get rid of it by filling the pot about 1/3 full with water, adding a squirt of automatic dishwasher detergent, and setting it to the saute function until the auto timer runs out. The pot just rinses out.

As I was cleaning out the freezer this week, I discovered several packages of frozen caramlized onions. A couple of weeks ago, I made beef stock. I feel French onion soup coming on. One of the chief reasons I love fall and winter is soup.

I eat meat probably every other day, on average. There are meats I absolutely adore, most of them pork -- bacon, ham, barbecue. I enjoy a good steak, but I don't want one all that often; ditto a good chuck roast or beef stew or roast beef sandwich. I like the idea of substitutes for meat that would taste the same/have the same texture in the dishes I enjoy, mostly from an environmental and pricing standpoint. I don't care about making a vegetable taste/act like meat just for the sake of having meat in a meal; I'm perfectly happy with a bowl of beans, or a plate of cheese, or some other protein. I could, however, never be vegan. I don't think I could function without butter, cheese, eggs, and half-and-half for my coffee. I am willing to pay a premium for the assurance the animals/birds that produced those products did so in a safe and healthy environment and enjoyed a comfortable and pleasant lifestyle.

Ahhh, linguine in clam sauce. Many fond memories of Little Italy, a Mom and Pop Italian joint in Memphis back in the 70s. How I loved that place. I had a surf and turf of sorts: steak tartare and scallops. Steak tartare was via the ChefSteps recipe for same; scallops by Paul Raphael's. With some cheese (Emmenthaler, Cabot cloth-bound cheddar, and Parrano). And pickles and olives, because, well, one needs a vegetable and some fruit, right?

@Franci-- here you go. This is cut and pasted from my blog, thus the narrative style to the instructions. 3 pounds bacon, diced and the fat rendered, but not crisp 1 cup caramelized onions (about three medium onions) 1 cup strong black coffee 1/4 cup garlic confit from the fridge 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp red wine vinegar about 1 tsp allspice about 1 tsp Aleppo pepper 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (or brown; my hand found the turbinado first) 1/2 cup maple syrup about 1/4 cup brandy If I don’t have caramelized onions in the fridge, I start with that; roughly dice the onions, put them in a bit of olive oil in your big Dutch oven, and let them go. Go ahead and use the big Dutch oven, because you’re going to use that pot to add everything else to. I go ahead and add the brown sugar to help the onions along in caramelizing. While that’s happening, brown your bacon. I work with three pounds because Wright’s, my bacon purveyor of choice, sells a three-pound package of bacon pieces and ends. Same excellent bacon taste, just the trimmings, which is fine for these purposes. Wright’s, at $8.99 a pound, is pricy for making jam, but the ends-and-pieces, at $7.99 for three pounds, is a helluva deal. There’ll be some pieces big enough you’ll want to cut them up; try not to have anything bigger than an inch cube. I render it in batches, about a pound at a time, until it’s done but not necessarily crisp. Then when the onions get caramelized, I dump the bacon in with them. (The bacon grease replenishes my supply in the crock in the cabinet; one must, after all, keep bacon grease for one’s cornbread, and seasoning peas and beans!) I add all the other stuff at whatever point I have a second amid stirring bacon. Measures, as in most all my recipes, are approximates. If you want yours hotter, add more pepper; sweeter, add more syrup. If you don’t have Aleppo pepper, a bit of minced chipotle will do. I used about 1/4 cup more coffee because that was how much was left in my cold-brew container in the fridge, and I didn’t see the point in wasting it. And then I just let it simmer. I’ve done it in a slow cooker and cooked it overnight, but I was also going to be making bread, and as my counter space with access to electrical outlets is severely limited, so I just let it simmer away in the Dutch oven. It needs to cook at a bare simmer for at least a couple of hours, Once it’s cooled, transfer it (in batches) to the food processor and process until it’s the texture you want it. I then transfer it to canning jars, the little half-pint ones, and process it in a water bath for about 45 minutes. This recipe will make five or six half-pints, which is enough to stock some gift baskets and still give you some to enjoy at home. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of canning, you could freeze it, or quarter the recipe and make enough to keep in the fridge for your own use; it lives nicely there for a good while.

I've made a bacon jam that's a great spread on biscuits, or as a topping for burgers. If you'd like, I'll send the recipe.

Sent me to google, that one did.

Arkansas voted for medical marijuana. This state's voters never cease to amaze me.

It's election night. Dinner is wine, and snacky stuff. I have good Genoa salami, several kinds of cheese, olives, pickles. Did I say wine? Started out finishing off a bottle of pinot grigio that was in the fridge from last night. Went to a new bottle of Orin Swift Prisoner, which I commend to all y'all as an excellent, excellent red blend. (At $40-ish a bottle, it ain't cheap, but it's election night. It calls for the good stuff.) I have yet to get to the snacky stuff.