kayb

OK, bread mavens, I have a question. I made my first seed culture for sourdough. From there, went to my first starter, both per Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. Seed culture did what it was supposed to do. Made up the barm and promptly refrigerated it, as I was leaving town for a four-day business trip. Got back, fed the barm (3:1, per Reinhart recommendation), and refrigerated it overnight. Next a.m., took it out of the fridge and made starters/sponges for two batches of bread, still working from Reinhart: his New York Deli Rye and his Pain Poilane. Rye did as it ought to do. Only issue I had it with it was that I let it proof in the loaf pans too long and it fell. Still tastes VERY good, though. Decidedly sour. Poilaine, however, is another story. Starter took forever to rise. Finally did. Then dough took a solid 24 hours to double in size, on my countertop. (Granted, I keep my house cool.) Made loaves this morning (roughly 12 hours ago). So far, rising has been miniscule. Dough was pretty stiff, but has softened with initial rise. I am thinking I will go to bed and see if these babies are of any sort of proper size to bake in the morning; if not, I'm thinking I'll not waste the energy and will just chunk the dough. What's happening here? Any ideas? This is my maiden voyage with sourdough. Should these wheat loaves rise, will they be too sour to eat? UPDATE -- After 24 hours, still no rise. I gave up and binned it. Still no clue what happened.

Kraut! In total, 10 pints and two quarts of kraut, which had been fermenting for five weeks (as I was not able to get to it at the standard four-week mark). Interesting note. This was grocery store cabbage. In comparison to the farmers' market cabbage made into kraut back in the early summer, this did not shrink nearly as much, and did not give off nearly as much liquid. I guess that speaks to how long it had been picked and how far it had been shipped. Still tasted good, though.

I love any kind of beans or peas or lentils. Love them. Don't know that I've ever met a bean I didn't like. Some of my favorites -- red beans and rice, white bean and Italian sausage soup, Boston baked beans, field peas with ripe tomato relish, refried beans, edamame, succotash....I could go on and on. And on. I don't know that I've ever met the bean I didn't like. And learning about Rancho Gordo was a revelation.

A very monochromatic dinner: From 12 o'clock, roasted pears, fresh kraut, home fries, boneless pork loin chop braised in hard cider.

I didn't take photos -- it was a Saturday work lunch because both my client and I are headed out of town on Monday and this was work that needed doing. So we did it over lunch at The Farmer, a farm-to-table establishment that's making a bit of a name for itself in Memphis. We split a chicken tostada salad; sliced smoked chicken breast atop a crispy tortilla, topped with a field pea relish, which was so many orders of magnitude better than it sounds that I can't begin to describe it, tomatoes, spinach and arugula, with a chipotle cream dressing. Pretty marvelous. Would have been even better with the addition of some roasted corn kernels. I opted for the salmon patties lunch. (Admittedly, salmon stretches the definition of farm-to-table in mid-America...) I have fond memories of salmon patties, made from canned salmon, when I was growing up; they were a cheap, easy entree and we had them a couple of times a month. These were NOT my mama's salmon patties. Fresh (or fresh-frozen) salmon, poached and flaked, put together with a minimum of binder (doggoned if I could discern any binder at all, but SOMETHING had to hold it together), with Creole remoulade, and a side of absolutely luscious mac and cheese. The other side was roasted eggplant, for which I'd opted in place of the standard braised greens, and it left something to be desired. I'm not certain what the seasoning was, but it wasn't what I wanted. I tried to consider if there was room enough for an apple tart for dessert. There was not.

I hate it when that happens. Which it does, at my house, with all too much frequency. And just think...if something as acidic as salsa can incubate something disgusting (been there, done that too!), that's some powerful stuff. Just heartbreakingly lovely. Enjoy every second!

I suspect he won't grow up to be a macho bull. They didn't stay bulls long on our farm. A steer suits much better as a "Fluffy."

Beautifully written, @liuzhou. You have the ability to take people with you into your stories. Growing up in the rural South, pizza was not a big part of our world. There were the Chef BoyArDee kits in a box, with the dough mix, the tiny can of red sauce, the tiny envelope of "parmesan" cheese. Frozen pizzas had not yet debuted, or had not made it to our part of the world, and there were no pizza parlors. By the time I was in high school, I think there were frozen pizzas, but still no pizza parlors. And a family moved to town and opened one. They called it Chicago style pizza, but it wasn't the deep dish, which is what I always think of as Chicago style pizza. It was a thin, crispy-chewy crust, a thin coat of a zesty sauce, and a glorious array of cheese, meat and vegetable toppings, cut in squares in the St. Louis style. It was a revelation. I graduated from high school with the son of this family, so I'm sure the parents aren't around to make pizza any longer. But damn, I'd give a lot to sit down in front of a big, greasy box filled with a steaming hot Craig's pizza again.

I have been at the bottom of a landslide of work and (work-related) travel for two weeks, and just climbed out today with a visit to catch up on two weeks of the Dinner thread. Too many lovely dinners to mention, although Shelby's teal breasts and livers are calling my name. I have cooked exactly once in two weeks; that was eggplant lasagna, with sliced eggplant in place of pasta. Very good, if not overly attractive. And as the business travel took me to Dallas, I splurged on an Al Biernat steak. Filet, medium rare, sweet potato puree, potatos au gratin and asparagus lingering in the background, half a bottle of Orin Swift "Prisoner" red blend. Best dinner I've had in ages. A friend and I split the 12-oz filet, and the resulting serving was just about perfect.

It's been my experience in pot roast and a few other things I just, for some reason, prefer to braise in the oven, that 275-300 works just fine for a long, slow cook. At least with pot roast, it doesn't seem to me to be time-critical, once you get it to the falling-apart-when-a-fork-is-twisted-in-it stage. 300F for 4 hours does a 3 pound pot roast very nicely, or that's been my experience. I wouldn't expect chicken to take that long, and I could see it benefitting from a lower temp.

Have to confess I don't even do that. It's not scorched...just kind of solidified in a very thin layer. I just clean it after I make the yogurt. Doesn't impart any kind of taste to it.

I don't make it any more, because I much prefer the ripe tomato version. But essentially, this recipe from Edna Lewis' The Gift of Southern Cooking" is pretty much it: Green Tomato Relish Ingredients: 12 - large green Tomatoes, cored (about 20 small to med size) 4 - green bell peppers, seeded 4 - medium or 1 extra large yellow onion 1 - red bell pepper, seeded 1 - tablespoon + 2 teaspoons yellow mustard seed 1 - tablespoon celery seed 2 - cups apple cider vinegar 2 - cups regular granulated sugar 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons kosher salt Directions: Chop the tomatoes and peppers very finely or if you prefer a chunky relish dice into chunks. Either by hand or in small batches in a food processor. Add the chopped vegetables in a large pot (heavy bottom non reactive stock pot) add the mustard seed, celery seed, vinegar, kosher salt, and sugar. Stir well and bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer over medium heat. Cook stirring often and skimming any foam as needed. ( I did not have to skim off anything) Simmer until the relish/chow chow cooks down and thickens into a relish, about 2 hours. Fill mixture into hot sterilized pint size jars and process in a hot water bath. Process 10 minutes for pint size jars. Remove jars using canning tongs and place on a counter with a towel. Let jars cool until the lids have popped and sealed. Recipe Yields: 5 - 6 pint size jars @rotuts would fuss at the bell peppers, but while I hate 'em, I can handle them in this application. But I think Mama always used sweet banana peppers. Host's note: this perennial topic continues in Gardening: 2016 (Part 2)

No photo, but as I was still starving this morning, I stopped by a little diner after taking my grandson to pre-school (he had a McDonald's hash brown and a biscuit in the car on the way to school, which made me shudder, but carbs are about all the kid will eat!) and pigged out on a proper breakfast; bacon, over easy eggs atop hash browns, and a biscuit. Some orange juice and lots of coffee. I feel refreshed and renewed. That hit the spot.

I always just set my milk to "steam" for 0 minutes, which takes it up to temp, natural release so it doesn't spray milk-steam everywhere, then take the liner out of the pot and set it on the stove or a cutting board to cool more quickly....then add the starter, whisk and hit the yogurt button. My only quarrel is that a thin layer of milk protein sticks to the bottom of the pot, but I soak it for a bit and take my plastic scraper to it, and it cleans right up. I did use the remaining 2/3 cup of yogurt from my last batch to start my current one, and it worked like a charm. I think perhaps I didn't use enough yogurt to "seed" it properly last time. Only other difference is using dry milk now, which I love.

Two suggestions: If you expect to go back to frying later, slice and freeze the tomatoes in a single layer on a cookie sheet, and when frozen, put into a plastic bag and back into the freezer. Bread/batter as usual and fry from frozen. Or...make green tomato relish! The bananas are cool. The bug looks evil. You sure you shouldn't take a .22 to that critter?

Makes sense. Thanks.

Before the advent of photographs and illustrations in newspapers, the Times was known for its narrow columns and small headline fonts, lending to it a "grey" look. Until recent years, the Times still looked "greyer" than many papers, being late to the present style of color photos, more white space and "airier" layouts. (The things one remembers from the History of Journalism class one took nearly 40 years ago...)

@Shelby, how do you bread/batter your fish? That looks more like a batter than a dry breading. And were they cat, or of the bass family?

Has anyone tried Sun Basket? It purports to have all-certified-organic products, and offers vegetarian, vegan, paleo and gluten-free options. Got top marks from a BuzzFeed review of several different servcies (I loved the one for Purple Carrot; in the "good" category, they noted, "The box arrived.")

Lettuce wraps!

Sigh. Today, my entire food intake has consisted of a package of Ritz cheese-n-crackers and a half-bag of trail mix for breakfast (I found both in the car en route to an early out-of-town meeting); Sonic onion rings and a cherry limeade for lunch, and a bowl of Corn Chex cereal for dinner. Damn this working for a living. I'm too old to start out at 7 a.m. and get through at 10:45 p.m. I'm starving but too tired to fix anything.

I'm with Jo. Haven't regretted mine for a second.

A worthy threat. "Pink stuff" or "green stuff"?

@Franci, I will be interested to hear your experiences with baking bread in the CSO when you try that. I have been thrilled with my results. It fits my two 8 1/2 x 3 1/2 pans perfectly.

Very nice. I JUST remembered I have a chunk of pork loin, cured for Canadian bacon, air-drying in the fridge. Oh, well, it'll get an extra half-day's drying time, as I'm not about to start smoking it at almost 8 p.m. CDT.