kayb

Country cooking at its finest. Kraut and kielbasa; white beans (RG alubia blanco) and ham, cooked in ham stock; zucchini fritter.

This morning (no photo; can never remember to take pics in the mornings!), steel-cut oats cooked with dates, sweetened with a bare teaspoon of maple syrup. Warm stuff on a cold, rainy day.

That makes sense! It was lurking in the corner beneath the unit through which the oven vents. I will see if I can figure out how to put it back without it falling out again. Thank you!

Anyone have a clue what this is? I cleaned my oven yesterday (it's a self-cleaner) and, as customary, i used my vacuum to clean up the ashes left behind. This time, there was a fair amount of white residue on the glass and the oven floor, so I took a wet dishcloth and cleaned it up, which was when I discovered this little critter lurking in a dark, back corner. It appears to be some sort of light-weight ceramic. Top and bottom are the same. It's a tad over 1 1/2 inch both in diameter and in height. Ideas? I started to toss it, but wondered if it might be critical to oven operation, although the oven appeared to work just fine without it.....

While it cannot hold a candle to @liuzhou and @huiray's authentic Asian meals, here's a Southernized-Americanized version of okonomiyaki and fried rice. Didn't remember to take a pic until I was in the process of eating, thus the "used" fork. Also had cucumbers marinated in rice vinegar, ginger, soy sauce, mirin and sesame oil, but forgot to add them to the plate.

There are several quick-bread recipes for beer cheese bread, which I love, and I've done a yeasted bread that has beer, cheese and browned sausage that's marvelous with a spread of soft cheese as a snack or appetizer for a crowd, or with a soup. I find that dark beers -- stouts, et. al. -- tend to make better, more flavorful breads. I used to make a bran quick bread with chocolate stout that was just stunning for breakfast. My very favorite beer for cooking is Green Flash Double Stout; hate it for drinking, but it's great in breads as well as in stews. It comes in a four-pack and ain't cheap -- $5 or more for four 12-oz bottles. But it keeps well if kept in a cool, dry place; I'll buy a four-pack in the fall and use it in carbonnades a la flamande, or chili, or just a braised beef dish of some description. I also tend to, when a recipe calls for a cup of it, to dump the whole 12 oz in and compensate by cutting another liquid or upping a dry ingredient. More good, yeasty taste. I sampled my RLB potato sandwich loaf this morning. This may be the best sandwich bread I've ever made; it's much more moist than her basic sandwich loaf. It did not appear to have suffered from the bleached flour. I was somewhat puzzled by the recipe, which called for a mere two cups of flour and 1/2 cup potato boiling water. And I misread the recipe and used 4 tbsp, instead of 4 tsp, butter, a mistake I think I'll repeat, as the bread is so good.

Homemade Greek yogurt (have I mentioned I love the Instant Pot?), homemade granola, blueberries. No photo.

A "breadless" Reuben. Cheese subs quite well for bread when you're on a diet. And veggie soup.

I had dashed into the local Price Cutter (warehouse-style grocery) recently to pick up butter, because it's consistently a dollar a pound less than Kroger. Saw Gold Medal for $1.77 a five-pound bag. Unless it's on sale, it's $3.39 at Kroger. I stocked up. All they had was bleached.

Thanks. Doing the sponge for her potato sandwich bread tonight; will mix dough tomorrow.

Question. My copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible came in today, and I was perusing recipes. I noted she specified, in italics, UNBLEACHED all-purpose flour in several recipes. I have, at present, 20 pounds of Gold Medal BLEACHED a/p flour, because I caught it on an exceptional sale at the grocery recently. Will the recipes work as well with that? What quality does the unbleached flour add that are absent with the bleached?

Many thanks!

Many thanks. Saving that. Like @Sartoric, I turned to Sam Sifton's chicken shawarma recipe on the NYT Cooking site for tonight. I used a cut-up whole bird, bone-in, and agree with the recipe's recommendation to use boneless pieces, perhaps even cut in two or three pieces. Marinade just doesn't penetrate the whole thighs and half-breast pieces well enough. Warmed up cauliflower/tomato curry over basmati rice; roasted (a bit too long) Brussels sprouts, and cucumber salad in rice vinegar, mirin, ginger, lemongrass, sesame oil and fish sauce. Chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.

Looks wonderful! Do you have a link to, or would you share a recipe for, your Lebanese style flatbread? As I am making chicken shawarma tonight, that's on my mind.... This morning (houseguest was my excuse!) we had latkes. I had a poached egg yolk on one, and a combo of Greek yogurt and homemade apple butter on t'other. With Wright's bacon. Yum!

Forgot to take a picture, but.... Reubens, since I had homemade rye bread. Oddly, grocery didn't have corned beef brisket in the Boar's Head brand, which is my preferred brand in these parts (meaning outside the range of a damn good Jewish deli), but only corned top round, which was pretty good, too.

That just went on my list to try, as I have Stilton in the fridge. Sans sage, though, as my sage plant didn't make it through the winter.

Details on the egg tart, please?

Many thanks, @paulraphael, for your detailed scallop-cooking instructions. I did frozen scallops tonight, and they were excellent. With roasted broccoli (left in the onion a tad too long) and sriracha-garlic-cheese grits. Very good.

Grouper is possibly my favorite fish in the world; I brought some back when we were on the Gulf coast last fall. I love to just pan-saute it, with salt and pepper, and finish off with a little bit of lemon butter. Wild rice and sweet peas are my preferred accompaniment. You seldom see grouper in the stores in Mid-America; does it not freeze well?

I made a quick dash by the grocery this afternoon to pick up just a few things for meals for the weekend (have a house guest here). Corned beef, swiss, Russian dressing and kraut to make Reubens tomorrow; Brussels sprouts to roast with the chicken shawarma tomorrow night, Worcestershire because I was almost out and that just Will Not Do. And a couple of bottles of veggie juice to go in smoothies.

I've been in a not so much diet group, but a "healthier living" group since mid-January. Rather than the proscriptions of a diet, it simply has you earn points if: 1. You eat three servings of veggies a day 2. You eat two servings of fruit a day 3. You eat no added sugar or sweets (exceptions made for natural sweeteners) You earn points for each of those, as well as other activiites like exercise, drinking a minimum of 64 oz of water a day, etc., and for maintaining or losing weight. So, I've taken to fruit smoothies with protein powder for breakfast, sometimes with a rice cake with peanut butter. That knocks out my two fruit servings (1/2 cup each) first thing in the morning, except on the days like yesterday when I decide I want bacon and eggs. I tend to snack on fruit anyway, so I never have a problem getting that in. At present, tangerines are my favorite. Surprisingly, vegetables are a different story, as a "serving" of veggies is a full cup, and three cups of veggies a day is a LOT of veggies. I've made a vegetable juice I keep in the fridge that I like, as well as keeping a pot of vegetable soup in the fridge all the time to have for lunch and dinner. I snack a lot of raw cabbage and carrot sticks with hummus, and fortunately, I love a baked sweet potato. This would be a lot easier if it were summer, with fresh vegetables! I try to be reasonable on carbs -- if I have a sandwich for lunch, I'll do it with thin-sliced bread and just one slice, and then I'll try to have less carbs at dinner. Potatoes -- I love anything you can do with a potato --and fat are my downfall, so I try to police that pretty closely. Trying to incorporate more fish into my diet, as well; I eat a lot of beef because I have a freezer-full.

I did RG alubia Blanco in ham stock last night. 45 minutes, then let it switch over to slow cook for a couple of hours until it was time to eat. I'd soaked them for about 6 hours. Perfect.

After fighting with my laptop for two hours this morning -- and winning! I decided I deserved a treat for breakfast. So, bacon with poached egg yolks on rye toast, with a tangerine. I have really enjoyed tangerines this year, and the bacon and eggs were a welcome change from my standard fruit smoothie.

Alcohol, and candy. At present, the candy is bothering me more than the alcohol.

RG alubia blanco beans in ham stock, through with the pressure cook and over to low on the slow cooker side, as we speak. Need to make some cornbread.