kayb

I'm good with both those methods, plus occasionally steaming them just barely crisp-tender and serving with Hollandaise. But one of my favorites is to wrap in proscuitto and bake. Yum!

Grilled bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. I beat the egg and cooked it as if it were a one-egg omelet with no filling; made a suitably flat and cohesive layer for the sandwich. I used American cheese; just seems like one ought not mess with the classics. Grilled it in butter. It is not a low-fat offering, and thus not for everyday consumption, but I felt like a morning treat today.

Baked tilapia in lemon butter sauce with fresh sage; a rice-and-lentil blend I get at the local market, and sauteed sugar snap peas with garlic, ginger and soy sauce. Reasonably good, and different.

Actually, my favorite grilled cheese sandwich -- besides meatloaf and fromage d'affinois, which is really a meatloaf sandwich, is butterkase with bacon jam.

Reporting in on the sandwich bread dilemma -- I think the CI recipe may have nailed it. Taste is excellent. Texture is soft, but not crumbly. It's sturdy enough to stand up to a healthy stack of fillings. And it's relatively simple. The recipe called for a 10 x 5 loaf pan, which I did not have, so I made it in two 8 x 4s. It was a tad flat, not a problem unles you are using pre-sliced cheese, in which case you'd have to trim a piece of cheese to fit, which also is not a problem since you can eat what you trimmed off. But I might up the proportions a bit next time to have enough dough to make two conventionally shaped loaves. Thanks to all for your input and suggestions. I've stowed them for future use.

I have get to see the grilled cheese sandwich that is not greatly enhanced by the addition of a slab of leftover meatloaf. Barring the availablility of leftover meatloaf, two or three slices of crisp bacon work wonders.

Houseful of kids and grandkids over the weekend, so I opted for easy -- penne with bolognese. Not half bad, and a couple of pint cartons of sauce in the freezer to boot. One night last week, it was fried rice, which once again led me to thank Mark Bittman for How To Cook Everything, the book which is worth its price for two things alone: how to make fried rice, and his pizza dough. (Although I go to it a great deal for a lot of other things as well.) The mise: For the protein, I used chicken left over from a bird I'd roasted the previous weekend for chicken alfredo. The finished product. I used a bit too much oil.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing. I'm trying to imagine collecting all those quail eggs from all those tiny little quail nests. I assume quail are farmed in China? Thanks for sharing this! I believe I will make a Memphis trip soon to visit the Asian markets and see if I can find quail eggs. If I can dredge up some info on baking them in salt, I might try that. As an aside about cooking eggs in salt -- several years ago I visited Hakone, in Japan, and went to a park where hot mineral springs abound. Eggs are boiled in some of the springs, and sold; to eat one is allegedly to add seven years to your life. (I asked if I could eat 2 and get 14 years; my hosts smiled and said they didn't think so.) The eggs, sold in a small brown paper bag, had completedly blackened shells, which gave me a bit of a pause. However, when peeled, they looked just like a normal hard-boiled egg; when I ate mine, it had a distinct salty taste which I liked a lot. I'd love to go back to Hakone.

They work wonderfully in posole.

Thanks, radtek and edemers. Any suggestions appreciated. I have the loaf from Cooks Illustrated's New Best Recipes rising as we speak; we shall see how it does. I will say that I was very impressed with the texture of the dough after kneading it in the KA for 10 minutes. I have grandchildren here this weekend -- 4, 2 1/2 and 2 -- and they'll go through it for grilled cheese sandwiches whether it's any good or not!

That is a GORGEOUS salad. I want it. Now.

Anyone have a great recipe for white sandwich bread they'd care to share? My favorite white bread is a bit soft and crumbly to stand up to a healthy-sized sandwich. The master loaf from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day is the wrong texture, and tastes dry when used in a sandwich. I'm trying one tomorrow that promises moistness and a soft texture, yet sturdy, but if anyone has a go-to, I'd surely love to try it as well.

Add me to the How to Cook Everything list. The Breadmaker's Apprentice Beard's New Book On Bread And a huge electronic archive filed under the tab "Recipes I'm Going To Try"

Thanks for the Crepes, my sympathies on the supermarket pizza. I, too, have never had one from a supermarket deli that was fit to eat. We had the homemade variety last night, half cheese for my daughter, with the addition of dry salami and Kalamata olives for me. Crust was exceptionally good -- crispy, cracker-like, doggoned near excellent.

Thanks for the Crepes, re: garlic. I don't like the taste of fresh garlic, and I got in the habit of making garlic confit to keep in the fridge and use in any preparation that didn't involve cooking the garlic. I've gradually moved along to using it in any recipe that calls for garlic. I generally use more than called for, one because I love garlic,and two because it's less strong because of the slow poaching process. Sure is easy and a timesaver. I buy the big three-pound bags of peeled garlic cloves at Sam's, and confit the whole thing, and it'll last me 3-4 months.

It's an odd little dish, but my family loves it, so perhaps yours would as well. Not so much a recipe as a technique. Filet your breasts and cut them into 2-4 strips, depending on size -- you don't want bigger than 1 1/2 inches. Put 1/4 cup chili powder in a bag and shake them to coat lightly. Wrap each strip in a spiral with a piece of bacon -- the thin sliced is better for this, but if you have thick sliced, you can use it if you par-cook it first. Secure with a toothpick and set aside on a plate. Line a roasting pan with foil. In the bottom, put a layer of tiny new potatoes, or fingerlings, and carrot chunks cut about the same size as the potatoes. You can add other cut-up root veggies if you wish, and I think Brussels sprouts would be good, too. Put a rack on top of the potatoes. It can rest directly on them. Roll your bacon-wrapped chicken strips in brown sugar and line up on the rack. Bake the whole thing at 375 until your bacon is crispy and your chicken done. Check your veggies -- you may need to remove the rack, cover the chicken with foil to keep warm, and put the veggies back to finish. The juices from the chicken and bacon do wonderful things to the veggies. Small people tend to like it, as do picky eaters. You could vary the spice as to what's available, but I like the chile/cumin kick of the chili powder.

Kim, thanks for that. Looks like it'd be a good brunch dish if you were feeding a crowd. Re: Deviled ham/ham salad. I had a taste for some earlier this week, and used some Easter ham to make it. It was a bit different that my usual -- employed Dijon mustard, worcestershire, vinegar and hot sauce along with the mayo and pickle pieces. Pretty good stuff! I even deviled myself an egg to have with it on crackers for lunch recently. Dinner last night was chicken alfredo, of which I have no photos because it's not photogenic, particularly when you serve it on a white plate. With some buttered bread from a loaf baked the day before. Comfort food.

A shame about the botched attempts at meals; glad you redeemed them. Many years ago, en route from Philly to Gettysburg via the "scenic route" through Lancaster County, we stopped at a German restaurant on the side of the road. My companions could have left me there for the remainder of the trip. The sausages, the potato pancakes, the spaetzle, the red cabbage -- delightful. Wish I could remember the name and the location.

Thanks, Kim! There are several in Memphis, an hour away, and I'm there once a month or so. I'll check next time. Thanksforthecrepes, I for some reason just like the proportion of sausage to egg I can get just right with a quail egg. I can get the sausage a little thicker, so it doesn't split, and if I make it that thick on a regular egg, seems like the whole thing's the size of a baseball! When I used to get them at the Farmers' Market they were not that expensive, but were quite difficult to peel. I learned to peel them under cold water. liuzhou, I'd love to know more about baking the quail eggs in a shell of salt.

I've had two in my lifetime. Broke 'em both. Your Easter spread looks fabulous! Would love the recipe for that cheese souffle.

Thanks for the crepes, I don't remember where the glass plate came from, but I have three identical ones, wherever it was! I'm still eating ham sandwiches on Mrs. Mary Lloyd Young's rolls. The perks of being the cook for Easter.

I dine occasionally in restaurants with close friends and we expect to share. Generally we'll ask for extra small plates so we can put bits of our entree on them at the beginning of the meal, pass them around for others to do the same, so everyone gets a taste of everything. Given the size of most restaurant entrees, that still leaves me with more of my own entree than I can eat. With friends, if I'm drinking a different wine or beer and they ask about it, I'll offer a sip, turning the glass so they're drinking from a different spot. That's more in deference to their potential germophobia than my own. Meals at home are almost always family style.

And I have my share of embarrassing things, mostly things like noodles or crackers that i bought for a specific purpose, didn't use, and have kept on hand until they expire. I'm by no means a Nazi on sell-by dates, but in general terms, something that expired more than two years ago is going to be a bit worse for the wear and should be chunked. Like the rice paper spring roll wrappers. The dry roasted peanuts from 2010. Sunflower seeds with no expiration date, but they smelled rancid, so out they went. Lack of pantry space is all that keeps me from being a hoarder.

Why would you freeze Velveeta? Stuff lasts forever. I keep it on hand for three purposes: 1. homemade mac and cheese (half and half Velveeta and sharp cheddar) 2. Homemade pimiento cheese (ditto, with pimientos, mayo, vinegar, cayenne, sugar and salt) 3. Nacho cheese dip. I think it's the law.

Guilty confession: I love Great Value black bean and white corn salsa, particularly mixed with grated cheese. It's the only foodstuff I go to WalMart for; it is, in fact, almost the only item I go to WalMart for, period, and certainly the only food item I buy there.