kayb

Well, I don't patronize Chick Fil A, but that has as much to do with the fact I loathe their food as it does with their political attitudes. Truly, it makes more difference to me with smaller, locally owned places than it does with chains. I once went into a small Mom and Pop sandwich shop, where Pop was engaged in some horrible racist diatribe to a customer at the counter who was nodding in apparent agreement. I turned around and walked out.

Raining and I'm working, so needed to scrabble together lunch from the fridge. Leftover German potato salad, warmed in the microwave, topped with a couple of poached egg yolks, most of the whites drained away (and I managed to break BOTH yolks, dammit). This is a keeper. I'll do it again. Possibly tomorrow.

A very happy birthday to your Mom, @sartoric, and best wishes for the coming year and another big celebration for No. 95!

Being a typical southern USA resident reared in the 1950s and 1960s, I grew up in a very meat-centric household. While I still, on a worldwide scale, eat a lot of meat, it's much reduced from what I was used to being served as a child, when there was meat at three meals daily. I probably eat meat four days out of seven, maybe five days. Often, though, it's a much reduced portion of meat, more as an accent to the meal than a "main dish." So I consider I've made progress in that regard. However, I haven't progressed as much in the area of preparation; I still tend to fry things, and I still season vegetables with bacon grease, neither a tremendously healthy habit. However, I'm genetically blessed (thankfully!) with good cholesterol levels, and since I lost weight and got out from under some stress, have a respectable blood pressure level. So there's that!

And if you want a cheesecake, I can only say that fresh homemade ricotta surpasses cream cheese in SO many ways.... I might add, I make it pretty frequently and in small batches, because it doesn't have a long fridge life.

@rotuts The rolls were...OK. A tad dry, and I think that may be because I cooked them just a bit too long. I was making a Philadelphia butter cake, with the yeast-bread-type base and a gooey sugar/butter top layer, and decided midway I wanted to make a smaller cake in my 8 x 8 pan as opposed to a 9 x 13. Already had dough for the base made and risen; took half for the cake, rolled the other half out thin, painted it generously with melted butter, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, rolled up, cut in rolls, let them rise. Baked 20 minutes at 400. Should have been lower temp and/or shorter time. The dough is a light brioche -- two eggs, 1/2 stick of butter, milk, flour, yeast, sugar. I think the recipe called for 1/2 cup milk, 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 packet yeast, 1/4 cup sugar. It made 13 small rolls, which were baked in the CSO's pan, with a little left-over room. Frosting is simply confectioners sugar with a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream, applied while rolls were still hot.

I use about a quart of whole milk, a half to three-quarters of a cup of cream, about 3 tbsp of cider vinegar and a tsp of kosher salt. That makes about a good cup of ricotta.

Fingers in ears. And blindfold on.

Old-fashioned Southern Sunday dinner: Fresh corn, tomatoes from the back yard, roast chicken (details on the CSO thread) and fresh purple-hulled peas with tomato relish. A fine repast, if I did cook it myownself.

Oh...my...God. My first roast chicken in the CSO, and I swear, I believe it's the best roast chicken I ever made (and I've made a bunch). Five pound farm-raised chicken, frozen, thawed yesterday and brined overnight per the NYT's Beer Brined Chicken recipe. Well, mostly by that recipe; I had neither shallot nor leek, so I subbed a quartered and peeled Vidalia onion. Into the CSO for an hour at 400 on steam-bake. After 30 minutes, the skin was promising to burn, so I put foil over it. Next time, I'll put the foil over first, and take it off for the last 15-20 minutes to crisp up. After an hour, the breast meat was 175, the thighs nearly 190. I pulled it, crimped the foil around it a bit tighter, and covered it with a dishtowel as a guard against a pesky housefly, and let it sit for 30 minutes. Breast was moist, toothsome, perfectly done. Good, delicate flavor from the marinade and the herbs baked inside it. I haven't tried a thigh yet. I may never cook a chicken any other way. Elsewhen, I also made cinnamon rolls in the CSO yesterday: Obviously a kitchen bandit made off with a warm cinnamon roll.

Bhukhhad, I love the "sabji days" idea! I eat a lot of vegetables, and often no meat at all, but it's good to have a good name for those days. Salads are fine, but not what I want that often. I have, though, been wanting to try to sprout some mung beans, and this post inspires me to get to the market and get some beans! (Of course, I will also have to go to the international market to add to my spice collection. My favorite "sadji" is probably fresh corn, roasted and cut off the cob; avocado, cut in chunks; diced tomato, salted and drained; and chopped scallions, in a dressing of mayonnaise, lime juice and smoked paprika.

Damn, that looks wonderful! Winds up being served room temp to slightly warm, with the combo of cold yogurt and hot chickpeas?

That is a lovely creation.

Either the chicken breasts or the tenderloin, with that assortment of veggies, call out for a stir-fry of some sort, with whatever ingredients you have in the pantry/fridge to create an Asian-ish sauce. I tend toward tamari, mirin, sesame oil, sriracha, ginger, maybe some rice vinegar. Assuming your pantry includes rice for a base. Good, quick dinner!

I have been immensely impresssed with the Anova customer service people. They don't play.

Linguine with tuna, capers and Kalamata olives in a lemon/olive oil sauce.

Amazon has the Instant Pot Lux60 on sale for $69.99 until midnight CST only.

Pleased to have you! Lots of great cooks here to learn from -- I learn something new nearly every day.

I tried some after about four days; weren't very good. I'm holding out for two weeks before I try again. Host's note: this extended topic has grown too large for our servers to handle efficiently; click here for the next segment.

@ElainaA, looks like a lovely meal.

Any of you who have used a dehydrator with no solid barrier between heating element and ventilated trays (like the one I got at Aldi) -- how do you clean the bottom where the heating element is? I am doing beef jerky today, and have some dripping through the vented trays onto the bottom. At a glance, heating element doesn't appear to be detachable. Just wait for it to cool and clean with a wet cloth as best I can? I amused the guy at Aldi to no end today. They had nice-looking cabbage for a buck a head, so I bought six with which to make another batch of kraut, as the first one is GONE. Guy at the checkout looked at me curiously. "Cabbage on sale?" "Going to make kraut this week," I replied. "Really? You can MAKE kraut? Will you teach me how?" So the Aldi guy is going to come to my house, bringing more cabbage so he can make his own as well, and we are going to make kraut. My daughter had a fit. "Mom! You don't KNOW him! He could be an axe murderer!" Yeah, but I'm the one with the REAL sharp knives.

@Shelby, great looking bread! Should have put yesterday's bacon barbecue meatloaf in the CSO, but I used it for bread that was a dismal failure. I'd made and frozen some sandwich rolls a while back, and have had success before in thawing, proofing and baking, but not this time. Think I didn't give it long enough to thaw and proof. We chunked them.

Tomato, cottage cheese, two kinds of pickles, baked figs with blue cheese. Fueled for the rest of the day now!

Ahhhh....Silver Queen. No trip to Georgia this month, so no Silver Queen for me. Sigh.

IP to the Sunday dinner rescue. I had made my bacon barbecued meatloaf and reached in the pantry for a big can of Bush's Best baked beans, my starting point for my standard baked beans, only to find...there wasn't one there. So, I pulled out the IP, quickly cooked some Rancho Gordo domingo rojo beans, and proceeded apace with baked beans. Sunday dinner saved.