kayb

Two things I frequently make are tomato and avocado salad, but that's really more of a savory salad than a "fruit" salad; it has bacon and a mayo-lime dressing with smoked paprika, and a tomato and cantaloupe salad, where I cube the canteloupe, half the cherry tomatoes, half balls of fresh mozz, and toss it all with a honey lime viniagrette. Excellent over roasted asparagus.

A not-terribly-attractive photo of most of the Easter buffet: from the bottom, corn casserole (Yes, Kim, the one with the Jiffy mix, albeit it was with corn I froze last summer); green pea salad (bacon, cheese, red onion, in a mayo-lemon-sugar dressing) surrounded by deviled eggs (I have learned to cut them in half crossways, then cut a sliver off the bottom, and they sit still on the plate since I do not own a deviled egg platter); asparagus, both wrapped in proscuitto and plain, roasted, with Hollandaise; ham and homemade rolls. I'd forgotten to put out the "other" peas, cooked simply with butter, salt and pepper for the one who likes neither mayo nor onion. We finished up with pound cake topped with strawberries and whipped cream. The night before, we had grass-fed ribeyes, sous vided for 4 hours at 125 and then seared on the grill. Magnificent. My SideKic immersion circulator played out, so this was my maiden voyage with my "Merry Birthmas" combo Christmas-birthday present, a new Anova circulator. As we were eating off our laps to watch the Kentucky-Wisconsin game (Yay, Badgers!), I went ahead and cut up my steak whie fixing my plate. Accompanied by my first try at Hasselback potatoes, which were quite excellent, although they should have cooked a bit longer -- these were the big doggoned baking potatoes.I may never make a regular baked potato again.

First grilled burger of the season, with potato skins and a salad of avocado, grape tomatoes, and bacon in a lime and mayo dressing. Pretty excellent. No pics; sorry!

Anna, your cheddar cheese muffins look like a breakfast fit for the gods. The opposite problem -- too many things handy to eat -- contributed to this carb-heavy breakfast. A hot cross bun from yesterday, as well as a caramel apple fried pie I'd brought home from my favorite dairy bar, along with a Scotch egg. I had some small eggs in my last dozen of farm eggs, so I saved them and boiled them with the ones I planned to devil later today. Used some country breakfast sausage. Not bad, but the sausage covering split in a couple of places and thus the egg white was rubbery. I really wish I could find quail eggs.

A master loaf from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, my first time to make it. Lovely loaf. The other half of the batch made fougasse a day or so later. Topped with salami and grated Parmigiano and mozzarella, served with homecanned tomato sauce. (posted on "Dinner" thread as well).

Bed, Bath and Beyond (and likely other places) carries these green plastic bags that are "breatheable" and are allegedly wonderful to store produce in the fridge. I have a friend who has a large garden and swears by them. They're reusable.

Fougasse topped with cheese and salami, and tomato sauce I canned last summer. Accompanied by a glass of MR.

Absolutely gorgeous.

I've spent most of my life in small towns, a couple with a vibrant restaurant culture, most without. I travel to larger cities, for both work and pleasure, frequently. I tend to tip 20 percent for adequate service, regardless of where I am. More, if the service is excellent, or if the tab is exceptionally small. If I have a $5 lunch (is there such a thing any more? Maybe a $7 lunch....), I'm going to tip at least two bucks.

I will eat McDonald's hash browns, and Burger King or Sonic French toast sticks. That's the extent to which I'll venture into fast food breakfastdom.

So, this happened: I had leftover corned beef. I was thinking about corned beef hash, but I was really jonesing for latkes. So I combined the two. With some homemade apple butter, these were pretty outstanding.

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.