kayb

Sandwich looks wonderful, but the crumbcatcher is great!

Lovely dinners, all -- @Norm Matthews those popovers are things of beauty, and @scamhi, I would have made latkes topped with caviar for breakfast this morning but for having used all the potatoes yesterday in potato salad! Gorgeous claws, too. @Shelby, the fishes look marvelous; so glad you're enjoying the oysters. We had a rather simple dinner oriented toward the three preschoolers around which the day revolved -- ham, turkey, mac and cheese, asparagus, broccoli, potato salad, deviled eggs, and a big tossed salad. I think I enjoyed it about as much as the big traditional fare. Many leftovers for today!

That's some pretty wonderful looking food. I see you use avocado a lot; I approve! Will be in your town in early Feb. What's your restaurant?

Yesterday brought things to eat in the mail. Two one-pound boxes of See's candy, and two one-pound bags of giant Georgia pecan halves. One of the bags of pecans is presently in the oven roasting in spicy sauce; the other will likely get candied via the spicy-sweet walnut recipe posted recently. Almost through Christmas treat-making. A good thing, I guess.

Add me to that list.

Along the same line, my mother (a child of the Depression, who abhorred food waste) used to keep a gallon ice cream bucket in the freezer. Dibs and dabs of leftover veggies from dinner always got scraped into the bucket. When it got full, it was time to make vegetable soup. If I had any freezer room, I'd do that. One of my resolutions, if I made New Year's resolutions any more, should be to clean out the damn freezer. There's stuff in there old enough to vote.

I would think the addition of the lemon juice would make it acidic enough; I might add some citric acid for good measure if I water-bathed it. Honestly, it's so simple to make I don't see making a large enough batch to worry about it.

Those look GOOD, @cyalexa! Need to try that next year. A friend gave me a recipe for canning green tomatoes which she said would result in slices suitable for frying, but I've never tried it. I wound up with a good-sized batch of apple butter -- nine pints and 12 half-pints, a good bit of which is being given for Christmas gifts. I think it's some of the best I've ever made. I also tried something new the other day to use up some bananas that were about to go south on me -- banana jam. All the Interwebs recipes seemed to be horribly heavy on sugar, so I wound up with: four ripe bananas, mashed; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup water; 1/2 tsp cinnamon; 1/2 tsp nutmeg; 1/4 tsp cloves; 1 tbsp lemon juice. Boiled the water with the sugar and spices and lemon until sugar dissolved; added the bananas, cooked and reduced over emdium low heat for maybe 30 minutes. This is Good Stuff on a peanut butter sandwich! I did not water-bath process it since there was so little of it, but for a larger batch, I see no reason why it wouldn't work. One caveat: The color of the finished product is...not attractive. Those of you who have changed a dirty diaper will understand.

@sartoric, let me add my congrats to you on the pork belly; a lovely thing. I've never attempted to cook pork belly; this may encourage me to do so. @David Ross, if I could have those crab cakes for Christmas dinner, I'd be a happy woman.

Brunch is my favorite meal for a crowd. Love the gravy in the IP idea.

You people all obviously pay more attention than I do to cleaning.

Oooohhh. Thanks for bumping that one back up. Trying it with pecans.

Picked up carryout t'other night from the local barbecue purveyor. Decided I didn't want it. Had lunch from it the next day. This is one of the better carryout deals I've found. The "Buddy Pack" nets you a pound of pulled pork, four big buns, and a pint each of baked beans, slaw and potato salad, along with sauce, for a bit more than $20.

Question, as I have not yet used my IP for a pot roast, one of my most-loved cool-weather dinners. I like the flavor of my potatoes, carrots and onions cooked with my roast. At what point would you recommend adding them? And would you do a natural pressure release, then open and add, then bring back to pressure for the remainder of the cook, and natural release again? How long in both phases of the cook? I love an oven braised pot roast, but am anxious to try one via IP.

Ask and you shall receive. This is an outstanding crabmeat cheesecake from the Palace Cafe in New Orleans. "click"

Fascinating. Anxiously awaiting the next installment.

What a gorgeous plate!

My Anova and my Instant Pot.

I am now well and truly set for Christmas. Today, I secured a full half-pound of American hackleback sturgeon caviar, harvested from the White River in Arkansas near Georgetown, which is near where the White comes down out of the mountains, quits being a trout stream, and becomes a broad, sluggish Delta channel home to spoonbill catfish, buffalo, gar and sturgeon. Jesse George at George's Fish Market in Marvell, AR (Marvell is also noteworthy for being the home of Levon Helm, if you're interested) has been selling Arkansas caviar for more than 40 years. He ships about 5,000 pounds a year, down from a high of 10,000 only because it's hard to get seasonal help to process it during the short window it's available -- from a week or so before Thanksgiving to a week or so after New Year's. Most of what he sells goes either to one of the big domestic caviar marketers or to restaurants who have been buying from him for ages. But some he sells out the back door of his market to people like me, who just show up. I took a chance and drove down today, because I knew fishing had been good the past few sunny, calm, mild days and nights, and that weather was moving in that might change that. It's about an hour and a half from where I live, and I had a stop I needed to make in between, anyway. Fortunately, I caught him at the market. I had a choice of paddlefish (spoonbill cat) or hackleback. I chose hackleback, at $10.75 an ounce, vs. paddlefish, at $7.50, after Mr. George kindly let me taste each. I hadn't gotten halfway home before I was wishing I'd gone ahead and bought a pound. I will start off Christmas with latkes, scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, and caviar. With prosecco. Christmas dinner mid-afternoon for the fam will include deviled eggs and caviar. And there will be caviar and prosecco again for breakfast on New Year's Day.

An old post that I apparently never posted. Rotini with smoked salmon alfredo sauce. Meh. Sauce was too rich, and the smokiness of the salmon got lost. Last night, as I'd been in the kitchen all day making Christmas goodies, I opted for a bean soup with some RG beans I had cooked and in the fridge. Sauteed onion, garlic and carrots; added 12 oz of smoked sausage, sliced; added half a small cabbage, shredded; when it wilted, added about three cups of cooked Ojo de Cabra, Alubia Blanca and Domingo Rojo; the latter two I'd cooked for a salad that never got made. Added a cup of chicken stock. Cooked on "soup" setting for 15 minutes. Cabbage was way too soft; I'd probably saute it separately and stir it in before serving next time. Flavor was excellent, though. I can see the IP is going to encourage my tendency to start out with a dish and only a vague idea of where said dish is going to end up....

I started in sous vide with a Side Kic circulator, which, I believe, is no longer available. It bit the dust after a year or two, and I replaced it with an Anova, which appears to be much more sturdily made and is at close to the same price point. It serves for everything I want to do as a (still) novice SV home cook. I love it dearly. Mine has bluetooth, which I have never used, but does not have WiFi, which I see no use for. The temp settings are easy, and the readout is clear and easy to read. My vacuum sealer is a FoodSaver, I forget the exact model, but one of the lower-end ones. I periodically have to take the foam seals out, rinse and squeeze them in clear water, clean out the channels, and then put them back in. It doesn't always pull a hard vacuum, especially with irregularly shaped things, but it serves my purposes. I think I paid around $80 for it, new. Hope that helps.

Three words for you: Bacon. Fat. Gingersnaps. I ran across this recipe in the New York Times' cooking section, and stared at it, off and on, for two days before I decided to go ahead and give it a whirl. Now, as I am a proper Southerner, I always, ALWAYS have a crock of bacon grease at the ready (can't cook without it). So I microwaved that to liquefy it, and strained out 3/4 of a cup, which I promptly refrigerated. That, in turn, went into the food processor with sugar, flour, an egg, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I went exactly (as best I recall) by the recipe; next time, I might sub 1/4 cup butter for part of the bacon fat (I use Wright's bacon almost exclusively, and it's very salty and very smoky), and I might up the spices just a bit, and I'd certainly reduce the salt. But these babies are GOOD. I rolled the dough into about one-inch balls, which in turn baked up into about vanilla-wafer sized cookies, and about two of those will do you with a good cup of coffee. The recipe will make between 4 dozen and 5 dozen of this size cookie. When they cool, they're quite crisp, though mine never flattened out as much as the ones in the NYT pic. Definitely a keeper, and a most intriguing addition to the Christmas gift baskets!

rotuts, first step in the IP, second step stovetop. First because the IP was busy, and second because there was way too much apple puree for the IP. And yes, those are Arkansas Black apples bobbing in the sink.

I can report the Instant Pot does an admirable job of cooking apples for apple butter. Steam for 20 minutes on high pressure, natural release. Perfect. I can also report 20 pounds of apples makes a s***load of apple butter. I'm about to be on my fourth Instant Pot of apple quarters. Cooking them quartered, unpeeled, uncored (to preserve all the natural pectin) with vinegar and sugar, food milling them, then cooking the puree with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and more sugar for the final product. Puree is much thicker and will take much less time to cook down than with conventional stovetop prep, since I cut back from a half-cup each of vinegar and water to 1/3 up vinegar and about half that much water. Arkansas Black apples, my preference for apple butter. Cooked in Instant Pot, 20 minutes on steam. It's likely to be tomorrow before I can them. Thank God for an extra fridge.

Similar to Comeback Sauce, although I never had Comeback Sauce with curry powder in it. My go-to recipe for comeback sauce, which is a necessity with ham croquettes or any kind of fish cakes, is here.