kayb

Bumping up this topic because it's the closest one I can find to the question I want to ask. I want to bake some crackers or savory biscuits that (a) package well; (b) retain freshness long enough to be baked in advance and then used in gift bags or party trays, and © are sturdy enough to stand up to a substantial spread. I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cracker recipes a quick browse of the web brings, and most recipes don't speak to the storage issue. I tried blue cheese wafers, a sort of shortbread, and found them too crumbly for my purposes. Any ideas out there?

Huiray, I'm going to try those pork hocks. Chinkiang black vinegar is now on my list for my next trip to the Asian market. As I don't have the book, any guidance as to the proportions of turbinado/palm sugar to vinegar? Also, how long before the end should the eggs be added? Opened up a jar of my fresh-canned tomato garlic sauce the other night; pureed it with the immersion blender, added some red wine and a bit of fresh-canned tomato juice to thin it down, made meatballs and had pasta and meatballs. Very good. Think I'm going to enjoy this sauce.

Ah, school lunches. Our schools served a strange mix of pretty good lunches and absolutely disgusting ones. You ALWAYS ate in the cafeteria on chili and cinnamon roll day (as did half the town; non-school-kids or non-teachers paid a higher price) for that. You NEVER ate in the cafeteria when it was Salisbury steak, aka "mystery meat," ham, or fish. Vegetable soup was a toss-up; they DID serve those massive peanut-butter cookies for dessert that day. So we carried lunches the rest of the time. Mine were always on white bread (Sunbeam, best I recall), and ranged from peanut-butter-and-jelly to packaged ham, turkey or roast beef, with the occasional tuna or chicken salad. Sometimes in the winter it would be a thermos of stew or chili or soup. Generally an apple, maybe a cookie or two or a candy bar. There were lunch boxes, but it was much more "cool" to carry your lunch in a brown paper bag.

The tomato chutney recipe was one I more or less put together from several sources. It was, roughly: 5 pounds Romas, peeled about 20 cloves garlic, minced 2 medium onions, diced 2 1/2 cups turbinado sugar 1/2 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 1/4 cup cider vinegar 2 tbsp curry powder The recipe using the curry powder that I drew from called for 3 tbsp for 5 pounds of tomatoes, but I buy my curry powder from a Middle Eastern market and it is curry powder on steroids, so I cut it back a bit. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with the full amount of curry powder, or add some red pepper of some description, and a bit more sugar. On corn, I do cut the kernels off and blanche, essentially because that's the way my Mama always did it so that's the way I do it! Mine is more of a cream style corn; I don't cut too close to the cob, and use the back of my knife to scrape out the "milk" from the cob. Again, that's the way Mama did it. I cooked corn the other night for my eldest daughter, who has the best memories of dinners at her grandparents' house. She tasted it and announced, "Now, that's the real deal." I considered that about the highest compliment I could have been paid.

If you're fond of Benton's, which I agree is pretty doggoned excellent, try some Petit Jean. Thick or thin cut, and also peppered. Their ham and pastrami also rock.

That looks about as close to perfect as food can get. The addition of cold Cajun boiled shrimp would take it over the top.

A fresh Georgia peach, granola, and, underneath it all, Greek yogurt. I felt virtuous. And it was good.

I've been in a frenzy of canning and freezing for three days (and my back and hip feel it!), after returning from an excursion to the southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains in northeast Georgia laden with produce. I brought back what purported to be a bushel bag of Silver Queen (!) sweet white corn. That got cut off the cob, blanched, and frozen -- 20 pints' worth, plus the dozen ears I gave to a friend and the six ears still in my fridge awaiting Sunday dinner tomorrow. That was the biggest "bushel" I ever saw in my life. My process is fairly simple, if repetitive and time consuming. I cut off the kernels, go back over the cob with the backside of my knife to extract the "milk," and then blanche for about 10 minutes. Let cool and freeze. The corn-cutting station: I do it in the bottom of one side of the sink. It contains the splatter, of which there is a gracious plenty. Here's the finished product. I ran out of freezer containers, and turned to my "stash" of saved plastic tubs. I knew there was a reason I didn't throw those babies away. Recycling R Us. I bought a 25 pound box of Romas for 10 bucks (!). Those became a version of the roasted tomato-garlic sauce. I believe it should ensure my house is vampire-proof for the foreseeable future. I may perhaps have overreached on the garlic. Ready to roast: Roasted: Canned: I also did several pints of tomato chutney. Starting to cook: Cooked down and blended with the immersion blender: And today, I canned plain tomatoes and tomato juice. Haven't downloaded and edited those photos, but you get the idea. I'm tired.

Veggie sticks. Sliced fruit. Boiled or deviled eggs. Cheese, in sticks. Wraps with meat and cheese. Toasted soybeans or chickpeas.

Peaches and cottage cheese, along with tomato slices hidden beneath the slabs of mozzarella. With basil infused olive oil and balsamic glaze.

Ohhhh, don't tempt me. I'm 4 1/2 hours away. And have children up there I could visit. If you don't get a taker, get back with me closer to time. I might make a road trip. The kids had anniversary dinner there and said it was phenomenal. Patterson House bar, downstairs (or upstairs, I forget which) is pretty awesome as well.

Hellman's, hands down (if it's not homemade). I've tried Duke's. Don't see it more than a distant second, and Blue Plate, with which I grew up, would vie for that. Miracle Whip is an abomination.

Kitchen toys are fine things -- I have several of them. But for them to be worthwhile to me, they have to (a) do something I can't otherwise do, like the Anova, or do something I CAN do, but do it much faster/easier/better/more efficiently (like the stand mixer or the food processor). I don't see the cold brew system being any easier or more efficient than my Chinese carryout soup containers. And when they get stained, it's no big deal, as they've become single-purpose containers, and when they get too disgusting-looking, I chunk them and grab two more. (We order a lot of Chinese, and the local Thai and Indian places use the same containers.)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the need in a specialized brewer for cold-brew coffee. I used a pair of quart soup containers from the Chinese carryout place -- one to brew in, the other to strain the cold coffee into. I brew the quart one full, which results in, obviously about 3/4 quart strained brew. Works for me, and you can't beat the price for the system.

I do love some Hatch chiles. I brought back a huge bag of them from Arizona when I was out there a few years ago in the late fall. Didn't realize you could order the fresh ones. Getting ready to make a trip to N. Georgia; will come back with, hopefully, lots of Silver Queen corn and some peaches. Going to try that tip of jelly from the peach skins. Strikes me that if one made wine, it would make a good juice from which to make wine. I will also be looking for some Kentucky Wonder pole beans -- another variety from my childhood that you just don't see much any more. When cooked long and slow with some cured meat, they take on a wonderful smoky-sweet taste -- love them! Do you find there are some things that need to be canned, vs. others that do fine if frozen? Seems to me that tomatoes, green beans, and of course, jams and jellies must be canned, while corn, purple hulled peas, squash, and most fruit can be frozen. As I'm expanding into putting up more vegetables, I'm wishing I'd bought a larger deep freeze. May have to make a change next year. ETA: It also occurs to me you could use those peach skins to make some FINE infused vodka.....

One of these days, I want to come to Kansas and spend a week in the kitchen with you. When we're not cooking, we can watch horse racing, and gamble.

Because sometimes you just want a burger: Grass-fed beef with homemade spicy mustard, mayo, kosher dill chips and tomato on a whole wheat bun. Baked beans and oven roasted potato wedges with cotija cheese.

Saving this post; will be making this sauce. Soon. No, I cut it off. Takes less freezer room, and we generally like it better that way.

With you. I learned the same way, and I don't add acid.

Re: cornmeal mix -- it's actually a mix of cornmeal and self-rising flour, or flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt added. I keep regular cornmeal around for a number of purposes, as well as masa harina and masarepa, or precooked masa, for making arepas. But i use cornmeal mix to bread my okra; seems like the flour helps it stick. Shelby, will you be working up corn this week? Do you freeze your Silver Queen on the cob, or cut it off?

Newbie here as well -- 2010, I think. Love it, and have learned SO much.

I recently bought a Bitoni, this one, It was on sale for 40 bucks and I figured it was worth a try. I enjoy the spiralized veggies in a salad, and am working my way through assorted different kinds of "zoodles." (I can testify zoodles do not play well with white wine sauce and lobster, but are pretty decent with an alfredo sauce.) I like raw cucumber noodles and slices (mine slices as well, and it's easier that the food processor) for salads. Looking forward to trying potato, sweet potato and butternut squash noodles.

Meat loaf sandwich with smoked gouda cheese. Leftover potato salad.

Yay! Maybe next year will be garden year for me, albeit not nearly on the scale of yours. Will follow with interest! Coincidentally, I have at present a meatloaf sandwich (beef, not venison) toasting. Lots of mayo. Smoked gouda, because I didn't have any brie. You had asked, and I had missed it until just now, how I froze the okra. I get it ready like I'm about to fry it -- cut up, dusted in cornmeal/flour/salt/pepper -- then spread it out one layer thick on a cookie sheet and into the freezer it goes. Then I take it out and transfer it to a big plastic bag. That way I can take out what I want to fry. Fry it straight from frozen, just like it was fresh, just takes a bit longer. Problems with tomatoes here; late, cool, wet spring kept them from getting a good start, and then they wthere at the wrong stage when farmers sprayed rice and anything planted in the neighborhood of rice was toast. Finally found some to can. Will be on that myself later this week.

All-time favorite summer cooler has to be a watermelon mojito. Whiz up 1-2 cups watermelon in the blender, strain through a doubled cheesecloth. 3 oz juice, 1/2 oz lime juice, 1 1/2 oz rum, 3/4 oz simple syrup, shake with ice, top with sparkling water, garnish with mint. I also keep cucumber-lime agua fresca in the fridge all summer long. Have found it makes a nice cocktail base as well. 4 oz agua fresca 1 1/2 oz rum 1/2 oz Pimms No. 2 stir with ice