kayb

Glad to have you with us! Jump right in!

The mouse is back! I do love the mouse...

I will not cross the street to eat at either one with a very few exceptions: Breakfast -- McDonald's hash browns will stand between me and starvation. One of those with an apple pie will carb me up for the day. Their coffee is acceptable, as long as you catch it fresh. Burger King, however, has French toast sticks, which I absolutely adore, but will rarely order, as I am pretty certain an order of them is about 5,000 calories. If I am starving, it's lunch or dinner time, and those two are my only options, I'll reluctantly go with BK, unless it's my one time a year to want a fish sandwich. Their burgers are better. My eldest, however, will not eat them because, she contends, they use Liquid Smoke, which is another one of her migraine triggers.

Loved touring and eating with you! Thanks so much! Hope your travels home are safe and uneventful, and security hasn't phoned ahead to warn them about your "going armed."

Go, Trojans! (As a Tennessee native who has spent well over half her life in Arkansas, I loathe Alabama.)

What a gorgeous meal, and so beautifully presented. I think my favorite, too, would have been the pasta, but I'll bet it would have been a hard, hard choice. Love the look of the dessert. Lovely and light after such a sumptuous meal.

They do indeed. Intrigued by the double-bake method. I may try that with my bran muffins.

One of the finest creations to ever be delivered by a Sonic drive-in carhop--chili cheese tots. With a side of onion rings. Breakfast of champions.

No, because I've never done it before. It's the recipe/process from Ruhlman and Polcyn's "Charcuterie." Recipe's here. I put it in about noon today; I'll pull it from the brine Sunday, let it dry out in the fridge overnight, and smoke it on Monday.

Though I doubt any of us can top @dcarch's work, above, it IS that time of year again. For me, I always feel like I MUST grill something, possibly several somethings. This year, I suspect "something" will include perhaps a smoked whole chicken, and, depending on how many are showing up at my house over the weekend, I MAY pull out an 8-pound Boston butt from the freezer, coat it down with a good dry rub, SV it for about a day, and then stick it on the grill to smoke. I've also put a big piece of pork loin in to cure/brine for Canandian bacon, and that will need to go on the grill to smoke as well. I will perhaps put them on each end of the grill and put some fresh veggies on to grill over the fire. Oh, and there are there's my impulse buy at Aldi this morning. I always peruse the sausages, as they tend to have an interesting variety, and they had a creature called "Hawaiian smoked sausage." Now, I have no clue what a Hawaiian smoked sausage ought to taste like, but in the interest of research, I bought a package, and I'm going to grill that and make some pineapple-mango salsa to go with it. H'mmm. Maybe grilled pineapple-mango salsa... What's everyone else doing?

Grill those babies. Cut 'em in half, brush the cut side with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss them on a medium grill. I like to cut a thin slice off the opposite side and brush that with olive oil. I could eat 'em all summer long like this, as long as I've got the grill fired up anyway. And sometimes I'll light it particularly for this. Yellow crookneck squash is good this way, too.

I'm right there with you!

Everyone's dinners look so good. As I have a sick one in the house recovering from a migraine, and cooking smells often bother her when she has "migraine tummy," I'm enjoying takeout from the local barbecue establishment. Particularly good as I did not have lunch today. This is about half the chopped pork, and I'd already dug into the beans. Their slaw is only tolerable. Beyond that, I've not been in the kitchen for a week, as I've been gone and then trying to catch up on work since I got back. Managed to clean up a week's worth of coffee cups and silverware, go to the grocery, and get a pork loin brined in cure to make Canadian bacon, earlier today.

Picked up some very green (no red at all) mangoes today. Will try @Wild_Yeast's mango pickles. Something in me wants to spice the sugar syrup, but I'll go straight by his description/rx for this first go-round. I have a batch of sauerkraut fermenting that'll be ready next weekend.

Time and temp in the CSO? (Season starts tomorrow in Arkansas!) Did you par-boil them first? I do love a dove breast.

You are exactly right! And welcome to eGullet. If you haven't found it already, check out the gardening thread; the preserving thread is great, too! What are some of your favorites from the garden?

Let me add my belated happy birthday wishes. As my birthday is in late June, I'm perfectly happy with fresh garden veggies. Well, unless there's lobster. Or Cajun shrimp. Or sushi at the Tsukiji market in Tokyo. Or perfectly done barbecued ribs. Or any of a hundred other things. It's whatever I'm in the mood for that day, that year. Fresh coconut cake is always good, though.

Well, I thought I replied to this, but I either hallucinated it (a distinct possibility) or it vanished during the transfer of topic titles. Speaking of which, I have absolutely no problem with the discussion of the issue on eGullet (though I think the switch in topic is probably a Good Thing). I don't eat at Chick Fil A in large part due to their abysmal food, but if they had GOOD food, I'd abstain because of their social policies. I did hate giving up their lemonade, though, because that stuff rocks. I am simply saying I do not think that either the corporate policy OR attitude at Cracker Barrel is what it was when the outcry over its treatment of LGBT employees or potential employees took place. I may well be wrong, and if so, it won't hurt my feelings too much to bypass them, too. There's always convenience stores, granola bars and Diet Cokes when you're on the road.

Just gorgeous. With a wedge of cheddar on the side!

Damn, that sounds marvelous. I had takeout chicken tikka masala. Satisfactory, if not exceptional. First night at home in a week, worked like a madwoman with my head in the computer screen all day. May potentially get to cook tomorrow.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else who makes yogurt have an issue with milk sticking to the bottom of the pot? Per the Laura Pazzaglia YouTube video (I lost my book!), I denature the milk by steaming for 0 minutes (essentially bringing to pressure and then releasing), natural release (because I tried quick and it sprayed milk all over my upper cabinets). I get a skim of not really scorched, but stuck-on, milk solids on the bottom of the pot. They clean up OK after a soak, with a minute or two or three with a plastic scraper, and there's no "scorched" taste to the yogurt. Oh, yeah. That's just wrong. I've never had that. You need to call them. I've found that just for simplicity and ease of getting things done, there are a lot of things I prefer to cook on the stove, and boiled (and poached) eggs are among them. Ditto quick-cooking veggies, like cubed potatoes, broccoli, etc. I guess just because I'm generally in the kitchen doing other prep anyway. Good to know how to do it in the IP, in the event I don't have a burner open, but not otherwise. YMMV, obviously. A dollop (or a packet) of dishwasher detergent boiled in the pot (ANY pot on which you've burned something badly) works wonders.

Best thing I've cooked in the CSO so far: Whole chicken, brined for 24 hours then steam-baked for an hour at 400. Just about perfect. And toast. I like the No. 3 setting.

Look. Nobody thinks they're social pioneers. Nobody thinks they're haute cuisine. What they are, if you are an ominvore, is a source for a reasonably decent breakfast, (am not fond of any of their other meals) when you're on the road, in a hurry, and don't have time to scope out the local offerings. Until some recent evidence of wrongdoing, I'll consider them an adequate, if barely so, option. They beat MickeyD's.

My sympathies and congratulations on finally obliterating the SOB. I hate a fly. And we have hordes of them. I probably should not have reposted the photos again, but they're so gorgeous I could not help it. That meal is a gorgeous thing. I am back from a three-day conference at which I ate hotel food, but for one exceptional dinner at the Capitol Bar and Grille in Little Rock, where I had their burger with pimiento cheese. If you ever go to Little Rock, AR, do this. They also have a reasonably decent Cuban sandwich. And spiced pecans that will make you cry, they're so good.

And people talk about RABBITS being prolific... Just caught up on 100-plus posts on this thread, having been out of town for three days. Such gorgeous scenery. Reaffirms my wish to visit that part of the world someday. Thanks, @ElsieD, for taking us with you! (sorry, though, I just cannot do brown gravy on french fries.) Oh, I am SO going to do this. Down here, particularly when one goes to deer camp or duck camp, a breakfast standby is "fried biscuits," much like toutons except it's biscuit dough, fried in butter, and doused with syrup. It'll give you a shot of energy and warm you up before you hit the cold pre-dawn to get to the duck blind or the deer stand.