kayb

The entree was generally ham, although sometimes it would be pork loin, or even chicken. Little variance in the sides, though -- asparagus (steamed, with hollandaise); deviled eggs brought home from the egg hunt at church and quickly deviled, the shells saved to crush finely and put on top of the soil in my grandmother's African violets in the window; green peas with butter, and some form of potatoes, generally scalloped. And homemade yeast rolls. My Easter dinner today is very little different. I generally wrap the asparagus in proscuitto and roast it, and sometimes will sub a corn pudding for the potatoes.

Don't know about groceries where you are, but groceries here carry a frozen okra that is not breaded; just sliced and quick frozen. It doesn't have a brand name, in a plain clear bag with generic-looking black lettering on it, says it's fresh-packed in Georgia. I have found you can thaw that, toss it with cornmeal mix, salt and pepper and fry it, and it's doggoned near as good as fresh. Particularly in the middle of the winter when the only other option is that heavily breaded stuff, which I loathe.

Thanks, gfweb!

Shelby, I have been singularly unsuccessful at corning my own beef. I have a lovely piece of brisket reposing in the freezer right now from the quarter-steer I bought last fall, but when I've tried to corn beef before, I either haven't gotten the signature red color (using pink salt), or it was so tough and salty as to be inedible (Morton Tenderquick). Can you give me a primer on how you cure yours, because I'd surely love to do that with the brisket I have. This one was a grocery store pre-corned brisket, which was OK, but I know my farm-raised would be better if I could corn it right.

Well, it holds promise, if I don't screw it up again next time. I apparently looked at the clock wrong and mistimed the bake, resulting in a too-dark, too-tough crust and a too-dry crumb. (tested with a meat thermometer as the recipe suggested, and commenced cursing when the dial topped 190 and was still heading north....) Flavor is good, though. I'll make the same recipe again today so I can have sandwiches with the rest of the corned beef I cooked last night. And can someone give me tips on forming a free-form boule? Mine always wind up too flat and broad. Think I may bake this next batch in a loaf pan.

Corned beef as a component of a New England boiled dinner for St. Paddy's. I mistimed the rye bread and cooked it too long; will try that again today so I'll have bread for sandwiches.

AnnT, you have inspired me to make rye bread today to go with the corned beef I'm cooking. Off to the kitchen.

Basics: Scrambled egg, bacon, cheese biscuit, pear preserves.

Rotuts, this is a recipe I found on Epicurious. I cut the brown sugar by 1/4 cup, and I'll leave out the orange zest next time.

BKE, did you deep fry your ricotta fritters? I'd like to try those, but I purely hate to deep fry anything at home. Having finally found a source for farm-raised chickens, I made Italian roast chicken. I have no idea how authentically Italian this is, but I learned to make it from a lady whose parents emigrated from Italy in the 1920s, some four or five years before she was born. The chicken is stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, ricotta, parmigiano, and spices (she used spinach as well, but I didn't have any on hand so I skipped it). If you use a pound of ground beef, you use about half of it to stuff a four-pound chicken; I added bread crumbs and made the rest into four big meatballs that I scattered about amid the potatoes, carrots and onion. The whole thing got sprinkled with salt, pepper and oregano and baked in a covered roaster for 2.5 hours at 300. It is always astonishingly wonderful, and one of my family's favorites. Topped it off with a piece of pecan pie, made the day before in honor of Pi Day. New recipe, called for a half-teaspoon of orange zest. Pie was great but I'll leave out the orange zest next time.

BKE -- your pork tenderloin is calling to me! Family dinner for the young'uns yesterday: Chicken and dressing, corn casserole (Kim, it was the standby creamed-corn-and-Jiffy, although I used some corn I'd frozen last summer), green beans with new potatoes, French bread. No photos because we were starving and tore into it.

Condensed milk will do that to snow.

Snow day breakfast: Overnight-rise yeast waffle with Wright's bacon and maple syrup. Hard to beat. I continue to be astounded at how good these waffles are. Google "Good Night Waffles." It's the recipe that comes in the book with the Waring wafflemaker. Recipe makes about 7 round Belgian waffles.

Wendy's is my fast food restaurant of choice when I'm forced to eat fast food, because I can get a baked potato. They don't screw that up too badly. Frosties aren't half bad, either.

Snowcream!!!!

As we have welcomed March with the biggest snow of the year (between 8-10 inches, on top of an inch or so of sleet), I'm resorting to warm comfort foods. Last night it was vegetable beef soup accompanied by a pimiento cheese sandwich with bread and butter pickles on homemade white sandwich bread. I seem to have gone through the stew meat that was part of my quarter-steer I purchased last fall, but an exploration of the freezer yielded me a package of soup bones and one of beef shank, amusingly enough labeled "osso buco" by the butcher. I browned those and then boiled them with some aromatics; pulled off the meat, scooped the marrow from the shank, and added that to a pot with two cans of diced tomatoes, a sauteed onion and some garlic, two cups of the beef stock, a package of frozen mixed vegetables, two medium diced potatoes, and assorted spices. It was a little light on salt, but quite pleasing. The pimiento cheese spread is a Southern staple, and one of my very favorites -- 8 oz. each grated sharp cheddar and Velveeta (one of the two things for which I will use Velveeta), 1/2 cup diced pimiento peppers, 1/2 cup mayo, 1 tbsp cider vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp seasoned salt, 1/4 tsp cayenne. Finished it off with some blackberry pie (purchased at a bakery) and ice cream.

Terrifically busy last week so didn't do much except snack and heat leftovers, although I did enjoy some fine chargrilled oysters at a restaurant Monday. Shelby, must try stuffing meat loaf with cheese. Wish I had some venison. Wonderful meals, everyone. Now that snow has closed the world here in Arkansas, I am about to cook.

kanela -- what gorgeous purple peppers! How do they rank on the heat scale? Getting antsy for fresh tomatoes. Still a couple of months to wait. We'll have greenhouse tomatoes by May 1, hopefully.

Patrickamory, that is some gorgeous chili. Would go awfully well here, where it's been unusally frigid of late. Sometimes you just feel like meat and two. Well, three if you count the bread, I guess. And yes, that's probably an unhealthy amount of butter on the sweet potato. Not sure why my meatloaf fell apart. Still tasted good, though. Edamame succotash, with corn I froze last summer, on the side. A real comfort food meal.

My standard, go-to white bread. It works for sandwiches, toast, whatever you wish, and you can also use the same dough to make dinner rolls or sweet rolls. Comes from a recipe handed down through a church cookbook. If anyone wants it, it's here. Was planning to make pimiento cheese to go on it, but I haven't gotten that done yet.

I have never tried sous vide eggs, but I can testify to the peeling of fresh farm eggs, which are notoriously more difficult to peel than older eggs or grocery store eggs. I've found that if I take my eggs directly from the hot water, drain them, crack the shells all over, and then peel underneath running water, they will peel cleanly. I'm generally doing mine hard-boiled to devil or for salads, though, so I'm not sure how well this would work with soft-boiled. If it DID work and you peeled the egg, could you then return it to the 55C bath to bring back to serving temp?

I ignored the stretch and fold instructions the first time because I simply overlooked them, and I treated the dough as I would any other yeast dough. They worked fine for me, so that's what I've done ever since. I was at Columbia for dinner. As I recall, there's a separate dining room with a raised dance floor, off the main dining room, and that's where the performances take place. We were seated in the other dining room, but we went in and stood by the wall to watch for a bit before we left. I ordered their cookbook from Amazon, and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pizza with roasted cherry tomatoes, bacon, caramelized onion and garlic, parmigiano and mozzarella. I don't like my pizza crust very dark; just barely done.

ElsieD, the recipe I use is here. I usually use vegetable shortening instead of lard, because I don't normally have lard on hand. And my loaves/rolls must be bigger than theirs, as I only get four from the recipe. One roll/loaf makes two sandwiches. I LOVED Columbia the one time I went there. Did you watch the flamenco dancers?

gfweb -- use those pullet eggs for Scotch eggs! I use quail eggs when I can get them, but I don't have a consistent supply. Haven't been in breakfast mode of late. Made bran muffins one weekend morning, enjoyed with an unhealthy amount of butter: And another couple of mornings, it was a very basic quiche -- eggs, cream, chopped ham, Emmenthaler. I don't bake my quiches in a crust; got out of the habit when I was baking them for my daughter, who has celiac disease and must be gluten-free. This wasn't as good as I thought it would be; I didn't salt the eggs because it's been my experience the cheese and ham add enough salt. This time, they did not.