kayb

Not being a huge fried chicken fan (yeah, take my Southerner credentials away), I'll grant you Loveless has decent fried chicken. But you MUST eat fried chicken at Gus's in Memphis. You just must. That's all.

My grass-fed beef supplier does the same. I have come to prefer the arm roast to the basic chuck or shoulder roast simply because of that bone, or more particularly, the marrow in it. I scrape it out, mush it up finely, and add it to the beef when I make my vegetable beef soup. Flavor explosion! My dirty little secret when it comes to making vegetable beef soup -- Lipton's French Onion soup mix. <<hangs head in shame>> I dice/shred up the beef, add it and the jus and the marrow, if there is any, along with any leftover onions; a quart of canned tomatoes (I puree mine first), a pint of tomato juice, a bag of frozen mixed veggies, and the onion soup mix. While that's cooking (30 minutes in the IP, however long I want to leave it on low in the slow cooker), I dice up any leftover carrots or potatoes from the pot roast. Those get thrown in just in time to get hot all the way through in the soup. Finishing touch is some Worcestershire sauce. Don't know what it is about that onion soup mix, but it's the perfect seasoning/tie-it-all-together element for VB Soup. FWIW, my roast is generally cooked in some wine and beef broth first.

UNLESS, in my case, you tend to then overcook your meat (especially steaks) while searing. I find it works well to SV, refrigerate in the bag, then sear later. Yep. This may not be an issue for those who are more proficient and/or have better tools for searing than I do. If you have a dog (or probably a cat, either), they'll love you for drizzling bag juices over their food. I failed to pick up Chris's final comment, that a properly-done sear affects only the outer layer of the meat. That is very likely true, BUT, for those like me who either (a) aren't as proficient at searing, or (b) don't have the best equipment for it, it's a useful alternative. It's also a timesaver if you want to cook, say, steaks ahead of time, and just sear at the last minute.

I like mine about 1.5 inches, but I disagree with mgaretz on one thing: to me, it's good to brown the beef (I prefer to flour mine first), then saute some onions in the instant pot, first. Then I add the beef back in, some red wine and beef broth (I don't do mushrooms in mine, but certainly no good reason why you shouldn't), and cook 20 minutes; quick release, add carrots and potatoes, another 15 minutes, and there you go. Also excellent with a good stout instead of red wine.

Panera Bread, one of the few "fast casual" chains I favor. Tomato soup and a half a turkey-avocado sandwich.

Bother me any time you want. I'll be anxious to hear your results. I have cooked only one tenderloin SV, usually choosing to go with a bigger loin roast. I did a sous vide tenderloin for an hour and a half, then stuffed it inside a fresh pineapple, wrapped it in bacon and slapped it on the grill. Badly overcooked as far as texture goes. I understand it's a chemical in the pineapple that does that.

That is a lovely meal. I can almost taste it.

I love The Splendid Table and am a regular Saturday morning listener. Have at least one of her cookbooks, and have cooked a few things from it. Oddly, I find I almost always have to increase the amount of spices she calls for. Did you find that to be the case?

There is a food truck in Nashville that makes a peanut butter-banana jam and Benton's bacon sandwich. I am counting the days until I can get to Nashville, hunt down said truck, and try it. They even use my kids' artisan peanut butter (shameless promotion of family product here: www.nutbutternation.com). It did convince me to try my hand at making banana jam, which isn't half bad.

I was scheduled to hook up with fellow eGulleter @cyalexa yesterday and browse some of Memphis' finer culinary shopping destinations. One I was particularly looking forward to was Porcellino's Craft Butcher, a relatively new restaurant-cum-butcher shop where they make in-house marvelous charcuterie. Unfortunately, germs had a different view of my plans and kept me at home getting over strep throat. Cyalexa, hope you found it OK and got all kinds of good stuff -- I may wind up making a run over there early next week!

You have a GOOD sister!

I tend to stick to the oven for my chuck roasts, rather than the slow cooker or sous vide. I find that 5 hours at 275 provides me with perfectly tender, still a bit toothsome, pot roast from my grass-fed, locally raised beef. Possibly my favorite treatment for cow. As for repurposing the leftovers -- vegetable beef soup!

Looks like it has a built-in clamp that attaches it to the side of the container. Is that right? How wide does the clamp open?

Looks lovely! I've always wanted to go to Highlands. One day...

Recovering from the ravages of strep throat, and thinking about making Brunswick Stew tonight.

Can't really speak to lunch, although the Green Fig (out south on Nolensville Pike) is good. But if you have a chance for dinner, do not miss the Catbird Seat.

Ah. Crescent Dragonwagon, hippie par excellence, a fine Arkansan and resident (I guess, still), of Eureka Springs, where she did at one time run a restaurant and hotel. I was never impressed by her cuisine, but she's an interesting character.

Wonder what relationship a splodge of oil is to a glug? I always tend to measure liquids in glugs. Martha Rose Schulman's "Recipes for Health," while not exclusively vegetarian, is a good resource for vegetarian/vegan recipes.

How do I organize them? Not well. The ones I use most eventually graviate to the bookcase closest to the kitchen, one that's accessible by just leaning over the doggy gate, vs. opening it and walking through to the other one.

Given the choice, I'll buy a "dead tree" cookbook over the electronic variety any day. They're easier to browse, and look things up. However, I have a MASSIVE collection of saved online recipes bookmarked, and categorized, as well as a sizeable collection of electronically archived pdf's and word docs, also categorized and semi-indexed. I find it's easier to look online when I have an idea what I want -- i.e., something with chicken and fruit, or a coconut curry, or a specific kind of cookie -- and easier to browse a physical cookbook when I want "something Middle Eastern" or "Something Mexican," or "something Asian." I also like physical cookbooks I can put sticky notes in for recipes I go back to over and over and over -- like my sandwich bread recipe. I do love my Kindle app on my Samsung tablet, on my phone, and on my laptop; all my "disposable" fiction (I fondly refer to it as "brain candy") goes on that, while non-fiction I think I'm going to want to keep and/or refer back to, or classic fiction I love and know I'll re-read over and over again comes in physical form. There's something about settling in with Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking People between two hard covers that can't be matched by a glowing screen.

You're gonna have FUN! (Amazon is the present-world incarnation of Satan, I'm convinced. It gets more of my money that just about anywhere.)

I presume the Gourmia is like the Anova and will accommodate varying sizes of lips on pots. I use my water bath canner for big stuff, my biggest stockpot for others. I presume you have a good set of tongs; that's the only other thing you need. You'll love it. I bet it's marvelous with venison, which as I recall has a tendency to be tough, particularly if Mr. Deer was older. One tip -- when you're ready to cook, fill your container with HOT tap water. That way the SV circulator doesn't have to work so hard to bring it up to temp. My hot tap water is about 110-115, so no biggie to take it up to 125-130, where most of my stuff cooks. Highly encourage you to try a pork loin, starting out. Lord, I love 'em.

Today, I used the Instant Pot to cook turnip greens, after I'd used it to cook black-eyed peas. Now, you have to realize that I am 60 years old, a life-long Southerner, and have never cooked a turnip green. Not certain how I managed to grow up poor, in the South, in the country, and not like them, but I don't. Don't like any kind of cooked greens, truth be told. So I never cooked them. But my daughter loves them, and I cooked some for her. 20 minutes on high pressure, then an hour and a half slow cook. They still had a bit of texture to them. She says she likes 'em soft, so I put them back over to pressure for another 10 minutes. Cooked with bacon, salt, a teaspoon of sugar, a splash of cider vinegar, a quarter of water and a bit of beef boullion, per a recipe I found on a blog I've been pretty pelased with for traditional Southern recipes. Surprisingly, the taste ain't bad. Or perhaps my taste buds have just changed. Black eyed peas cooked with smoked sausage in a tomato-smoked paprika sauce; scalloped pineapple and cherries; cole slaw. Guess I ought to make some cornbread. Happy New Year, all.

I'll second the recommendation on chefsteps. I have the Anova. Love it. What it can do to a pork loin is a lovely thing.

Y'all are going to make me fry chicken before it's over. And that's something I haven't done in probably 25 years.