kayb

Interesting technique. I'd never have thought of doing it that way. My method, handed down from generations back of Southern cooks, is to rinse the okra and, while wet, slice the okra into said half-inch rounds; those go in a bowl and sit for at least 20 minutes. This allows the "slime" to exude. Then it all goes into a plastic bag with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of self-rising corn meal mix (a combo of cornmeal, flour, and baking powder), salt and black pepper. That's sealed and shaken, and the breaded slices fried in about 1/4 inch of oil over medium-high heat. I tend to use canola, but peanur or any other oil that tolerates high temps will work. The "slime" helps the breading mix adhere, and the finished product is crunchy and not "slimy" at all. I can't abide boiled okra, though I've been told roasted is good -- I'm going to try it sometime. I've also had dehydrated okra that made an excellent snack. You can also put the breaded, uncooked okra in a single layer on a cookie sheet, freeze it, and transfer to a plastic bag to freeze. I freeze mine in gallon bags and fry what I want, from frozen. It's important to put the okra in the skillet in a single layer and not crowd it too much. You can drain one batch on paper towels before frying the next. My three daughters and I will eat two pounds of fried okra at a sitting, and fight over the last bite. Give me that, fresh sweet corn and sliced tomatoes, and maybe some purple hulled peas, and I'm in heaven. Meat is entirely superfluous in that meal.

High market season, and a big crowd out for the Fourth of July market. Sweet corn, crowder peas, pink-eyed peas, green beans, peaches, tomatoes, okra, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, eggs....and cinnamon rolls, which I have successfully resisted all summer. I caved this morning.

I will have some of Scamhi's paella, some of Bon Vivant's steak sandwich, and some cornbread from Shelby, who makes it the way I do (sugar? in cornbread? Abomination!) Shelby, try making it in your waffle iron, a trick I learned from Kim Shook..... Had our Fourth of July dinner on the third; baked beans, potato salad, pork loin done in the oven instead of on the grill as it was raining/threatening rain all day. Plus zucchini stuffed with a take on Mexican street corn -- kernels, sour cream, grated cheese, ancho chile powder, smoky paprika, cumin and grated cheese, and baked. Pretty tasty. Pork loin sprinkled with barbecue dry rub mix, then SV for 24 hours at 125, cooled, and then roasted with a chipotle honey butter glaze. Could have been a touch more done, but very good. Zucchini. I'll do this again.

Salad made up as I went along: Watermelon, tomato, bacon, grated cheese, white balsamic vinegar, balsamic glaze. Pretty good.

My house is a 1950s model with limited countertop space in the kitchen, and particularly, limited countertop space with access to electrical outlets. Today, when putting on a pork loin to sous vide for 24 hours preparatory to being refrigerated and then grilled as part of a holiday extravaganza, it occurred to me: I have a laundry room. It has a utiity sink,and it has outlets. I can put the sous vide rig in there, be easily able to add water if it needs it during the long cook, and have it Out Of My Way while I'm doing other things. Feeling quite brilliant.

I have to say, the notion of American cheese on a tomato sandwich never occurred to me. I must remedy this. Most likely tomorrow.

Come on. Love to cook for people. And it was Yarnell's (made in Arkansas, about 75 miles from me, in fact) "Guilt-Free" Homemade Vanilla. They do, however, make a French vanilla that is marvelous, too.

Inspired by Kim's Indiana visit, I decided I wanted pork tenderloin/cutlets; I recall when I'd get tonkatsu in Tokyo and how much I loved them. So I took a couple of pork loin chops I'd carved off a whole loin and frozen, and set to pounding them thin. My meat mallet is perhaps a little weak for the job, and/or my arms are out of shape, but I eventually got them to about 3/8 inch thickness (from about 1 inch), and then floured, dipped in egg/milk wash, and breaded them in crumbs for frying. Whereupon they "drew up," as my Grandmama would have said, back to something thicker than 1/2 inch but at least thinner than when I started. They were, though, quite crispy on the outside, and tender and moist within, so I'll call it a win. Veggies were creamed fresh corn and purple hulled peas warmed over from the previous night, and new potatoes poached in butter and cream. And, of course, sliced tomatoes, a three-times-a-day staple this time of year. These were Cherokee Purples.

Overnight house guest last night, and a morning with no work obligations, so I did a big "weekend" breakfast midweek, which was a rare treat. Bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, sliced tomatoes, watermelon, canteloupe, pear preserves. Followed an hour and a half later, I am ashamed to admit, by a "lunch" of blackberry cobbler and ice cream.

I was in Nashville last weekend and stopped off at the Patterson House for a cocktail. The notion of bacon-infused bourbon intrigued me, so I had a Bacon Old Fashioned. Wow! House-made bitters applied via eyedropper. Four Roses bourbon infused with Benton's bacon. If there's a way to make simple syrup "artisan," I have no doubt this was. It was the best old fashioned I've ever tasted, bar none. Info on the bar here.

I had cooked in my own kitchen for 40 years before i bought my stand mixer and a good food processor. I don't know how I ever functioned without either one. My absolutely indispensible kitchen tools,though, are my two good knives -- a 5 1/2 inch utility and an 8-inch chef, Misono, that I brought back from Tokyo.

From time to time, yes. Le Creuset, too.

Count me in the appetizers-for-an-entree/tapas camp as well. I enjoy the variety of tastes, and often, I find the quantity of an entree is just too much. What I can eat looks back at me reproachfully from my plate, and I hear my grandmother chastising me about children starving in China.

Great travelogue, Kim. And as for on-line friends -- I have a group I met through another forum whom I've formed close friendships with over an almost 20-year span (dating back to the days of AOL dial-up and 20 hours per month at 19.95...!); we get together every so often, coming from all over the country, to spend a weekend together somewhere, and I've visited in many of their homes as well as they in mine. It's a wonderful thing. Not tremendously familiar with the cuisine in Indy, but I do love St. Elmo's steakhouse. And an Indiana pork tenderloin sandwich is a thing of beauty. In fact, I have some pork loin chops in the freezer. I could pound those thin......

liuzhou, that's a lovely burger. I'm fond of mine with caramelized onions and blue cheese on top. liamsaunt, mm, and chefmd, those are some most appetizing-looking fish dishes. I find myself cooking a lot of tilapia in the summer; it's a light entree in a lemon-butter sauce, and the filets cook so quickly they don't heat up the kitchen.

Not overly hungry, and it's the first HOT weather of the summer, so I opted for cold stuff. Homemade corn and black bean salsa and chips, with some grated Monterey Jack cheese added to the salsa. And, since I'd seen several posts about sliced radishes on buttered toast or crispbread, and I had all the above, I decided I should try that. The taste of radishes next to butter is a revelation. My crispbread is seed-encrusted, and tends to overpower the butter and radish; I have some water crackers I will try tomorrow. I also have some blue cheese butter, which I did not use because it was in the fridge and way too cold, but I'll bring that out to get room temp and try it, per Anna's breakfast the other morning. Radishes and butter. Who'd'a thunk it?

Seconded re: Kaiserschmarm!

TFTC, I bread my own okra because I always find the pre-breaded to be too heavy. I rinse the okra off and cut it up while it's wet, then put it in a bowl and leave it on the counter for 15-20 minutes to let the "slime" ooze out. Transfer it to a plastic bag, dump in some cornmeal mix (half and half corn and flour), salt and pepper, and shake it until it's coated. Then fry it in medium hot oil, about 1/4 inch deep. That's what's always worked best to me. Mama used to use those brown paper lunch bags to shake it up, but I never have those around. I've found the breading isn't bad to fall off IF (1) I have the oil plenty hot; (2) I don't crowd the okra too much in the skillet, and (3) I leave it along after I put it in for several minutes. I try to stir/turn mine only once while it's cooking. This was exceptionally good okra; most of the pods were 2-3 inches long, but even the few longer ones were not tough at all. The corn, however, WAS a bit on the tough side, and not as sweet as I'd expected; as if it had been picked several days ago, which disappointed me.

Summer for dinner. Fried okra, creamed sweet corn, green peas, sliced tomatoes. The pork loin chop came from a 15-pound loin I bought at the butcher the other day, and broke down yesterday into a big roast which I'll sous vide and then grill for the Fourth of July, and 10 packages of two inch-thick chopes each. Sous vided the chops for 2 hours at 125F, allowed to cool to room temp, then seared in a hot skillet. Didn't eat all the pork chop. Went back for seconds on corn and okra.

Makes me smile to remember that one. I still know all the words. Used to sing my kids to sleep with it.

I did. They're shelled and in the fridge. Not as sweet, raw, as I had expected/hoped, so I think I'm going to briefly steam them and then toss them with butter.These, according to the farmer I got them from, were snow peas he'd allowed to grow larger; don't know that I've ever heard of that. They look like a sugar snap but don't taste like it. I wish I could find the old-fashioned, long-pod "English peas," as I grew up calling them. Haven't seen them at a market anywhere. A little later in the summer, there will be what I've heard called "ladypeas," a small, cream-colored pea that tastes something like a crowder, but milder. Love those as well. And then it'll be the crowders and purple-hulls. I am presently delighted because I've found a semi-local grower (an hour or so away) who raises Silver Queen corn, a white sweet corn that is the best, in my opinion, in the world. I've ordered 10 dozen ears, which I'll cut off, cook briefly (longer than blanching), and freeze. Can't wait. Should be ready next week or the next.

All sorts of goodies at the market this morning! First okra of the year, first sweet corn of the year. Both will be for dinner Sunday. Green peas! I was so excited I bought two baskets. Some will be steamed with butter, some blanched,shocked, and used in salads, some eaten out of hand. A small green cabbage and a small red cabbage; time for slaw. Lots of tomatoes. Lots of green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, new potatoes. Gorgeous carrots. Radishes. Peaches, blueberries,blackberries (I didn't get any because I'm going to the you-pick place tomorrow), raspberries. Peppers, as I've taken the notion to make some salsa. I love this time of year.

Carryout fundraiser dinner was forgettable (but for a good cause, so that's OK). Dessert, however, was sublime. It is blackberry season in Arkansas, and there is NO better pie than blackberry cobbler. I ate very nearly a quarter of this one, with Yarnell's French vanilla ice cream (another Arkansas product).

Took a page from Anna's book and tried my hand at creamed tomatoes. Used the recipe link she posted, but when it came time to grate cheese to sprinkle on top,I thought, well, a cheese sauce would be nice. And the cream sauce became a cheese sauce. Two things I'd do differently. I'd pre-roast my tomatoes; a matter of personal preference, I like mine more done. And I'd cut the bread really thin, and toast it darker, to play up the crunchy element. But the taste was excellent, particularly when accompanied by sausage, scrambled egg and a blueberry muffin.

TFTC, didn't know you'd lived in Memphis. I lived across the river from it for 30 years. I remember picking the early October green tomatoes, too; we put them on windowsills to ripe. Every window in the house would be bedecked with tomatoes. Mama would also make green tomato relish. A friend told me she has successfully canned green tomatoes by slicing them, stacking in a wide mouth jar, adding salt and then boiling water. The jar is capped and processed in a water bath for 20 minutes; it then has to be moved Very Carefully (lest the hot tomato disintegrate) to a location where it can sit undisturbed for two or three days. I guess it sort of re-forms itself or something. She says it's not as good as the real thing, but not bad.