kayb

Oooh. I WANT that chile sauce.

I make no claims to the authenticity of either of these -- likely little to any -- but I make an "enchilida pie" when I'm too freaking lazy to roll the enchiladas and make sides. It involves layering flour tortillas, meat of some sort, black beans, whole-kernel corn, enchilada sauce and cheese, and repeating until I run out of dish room. Kids love it. The other is taking essentially the same ingredients along with a masa/cornmeal batter; the Dutch oven gets well greased, masa goes in the bottom, other stuff in the middle, and a thinned masa batter mixed with cheese on top, and it's baked. Kids love that one, too.

PEEE-can vs puh-CAHN -- I grew up in the South saying the latter. My Northern friends tend toward the former. Other regional differencews are CRAW-fish and CRAY-fish (in Arkansas and Tennessee, they're the former), and PRAW-leens and PRAY-leens. I'm of the PRAW-leen persuasion.

Back before the gluten-free thing, I knew every convenience store along I-40 and I-30 in Arkansas (and most of I-40 in Tennessee) that had deep-fried corn nuggets. Love those things.

Franci, the recipe is Ina Garten's, here. And I didn't have an old rooster -- I had boneless, skinless chicken thighs from the supermarket. A reasonable substitute. dcarch, I continue to be astounded at your creativity.

Depends on how desperate I am and how much work I want to do. If I don't mind a little assembling and baking, it's coconut macaroons -- dried bakers coconut, a little sugar, an egg, some almond extract, a little almond meal to bind it...shape spoonsful onto a baking sheet and it's 20 minutes at 350. If I don't want to work -- some fruit drizzled with a little condensed milk, which I am never without.

As mentioned previously, sweet potato and pulled pork hash. I picked up a pound of pulled pork from one of the several local barbecue emporiums (emporia?), got home, and discovered I had but one lonely sweet potato. I also had some acorn squash, so the lighter-colored chunks in the hash are that. They tasted much like a potato. Diced and fried the sweet potato and squash until brown a bit on the outside and soft within, added the chopped-up pulled pork to heat and get some crispy bits, then drizzled with No. 5 sauce that came with the pork. You've got to love a 'cue joint that has five different sauces. This one is spicy with a touch of sweet. It was excellent.

Nothing tremendously exciting, but some decent meals in the past week. Shrimp and grits. Sweet potato and pulled pork hash. Coq au vin.

Ooohhh. Can you hook a sista up with a recipe for that?

Cornbread, fortunately, is a very forgiving thing. For 26, I'd ballpark it at -- 4 cups cornmeal, 2 cups flour, 2 tbsp baking powder, 2 tsp. salt, 1/2 cup oil or bacon fat or melted butter (personally, I do not believe one can successfully make cornbread without bacon fat, but that's just me), and enough milk to make the batter the consistency you want it. (I never measure when I'm making cornbread, so the above is an approximation.) Grease and heat the pan before pouring the cornbread in. Bake at about 400 F until golden brown.

If there is such a creature as Garden Ridge in NYC, I bought 3 dozen clear glass plates and bowls for a brunch I was doing for my daughter's graduation. A buck apiece. I keep them in a big Rubbermaid tub in the guest room closet (OK, so NYC apartments probably don't have a guest room closet) with Wal-Mart a-dozen-for-$3 washcloths in between pieces and haul it out once or twice a year. I have to cobble together flatware, two services for 12 and two for eight, two of which I borrow, but it works. I use paper/plasticware at work for lunch, because if I wash my "real" stuff I always wind up washing everyone else's coffee cups and bowls they've left in the sink. They pay me too much an hour for me to spend it washing dishes.

Franci, I LOVE mullet. On the Gulf Coast (aka the Redneck Riviera), all the little beach restaurants make the most magnificent po'boys with them. And always in a cornmeal breading. ScottyBoy and Xilimmns excellent-looking versions of carbonara. I'm jonesing for that; acquired some quinoa penne (celiac disease is SUCH a pain!), and I'm going to try it this week. Have not yet found gluten-free linguine, other than rice-based, and I really don't care for rice-based pasta in traditional pasta applications.

I vote for an extension of this blog. It's wonderful!

Please let this be an elaborate joke, please... I mean, I'm openminded and all, but bacon just would not get me going, not in that way, anyhow. Ick. On an equally uplifting, tasteful, and, unfortunately, apposite note, Stronzo beer tastes like beer with... wait for it: orange juice. Yep, this brew has it all: classy name, charming marketing, and a flavour that makes you want to pound a bottle of Jaegermeister to make it go away. YeeHah. Speaking of making it go away...whoever invented Jaegermeister ought to be taken out and duly shot.

Please tell me you made that up. Cake pops are pretty cool, though. Or were, until I got the celiac disease diagnosis....right after the most wonderful cupcake shop opened up downtown. Lemon-lavender cupcakes. Almost worth falling off the gluten wagon for.

Can't testify as to where you can get them, but we used to roast peanuts all the time when I was a kid. I recall it involved soaking overnight in heavily salted water, and then spread out on a cookie sheet in the oven. I'd have to experiment as to time/temp, as I don't remember any of those details; just opening the oven a couple of times and shaking the pan to move them around.

A friend coincidentally sent me this today: http://makeprojects.com/Project/Sous-Vide-Immersion-Cooker/471/1 Being something less than handy, and not possessing some of the requisite tools, I believe I'll stick with ordering a SideKic. The thread has been fascinating. Thanks, y'all.

Two suggestions: One, my go-to meal for a crowd is a pork loin (for 26 people, maybe two 1/4 loins). Rub down with spice rub of your choice, refrigerate overnight, roast in a 375 oven until the internal temp hits 155. Take out of the oven, tent, and rest for 20 minutes. I can catch quarter loins on sale fairly regularly at my supermarket for 1.79 a pound. I'd think two quarter loins should serve 26. With it, you can go with a cornbread dressing for your starch, and a salad or a ratatouille or succotash type vegetable medley. Maybe potato soup as well. Dessert should be something that is pick-uppable, like brownies or cookies or butter cake bars. Are you doing pick-up service (my guess for meals "provided to you" during the month), and if so, do you provide the transport containers or do people bring their own? If it's pickup, I'd keep everything stored in large containers in the fridge and fill the travel containers as people arrive to pick up; should make the storage issues easier, and they'll be warming things when they get home, anyway. Sounds like a neat idea.

Question from a silicone newbie. I just purchased my first silicone mold, from Paderno, a "Dolce Stampi" mold with 16 oval shaped wells. I wanted that partular size/shape, and silicone was the only one I could find. My questions: 1. Should I put the mold on a cookie sheet for filling and baking? 2. Any adjustments to make in temperature? 3. Can it go in the dishwasher? I bought the thing because I want to make gluten-free pigs in a blanket, and the wells are the right size and shape. Gluten free breads, in my limited experience, are not thick enough to work like a dough and wrap the sausage, so my plan is to layer batter, sausage, batter. They're probably the only use the pan will get.

Kim, I used a pound each of ground pork and ground beef, and half a pound of bracon. Then, tonight, I found about 1/3 pound each pf pork and beef in the microwave,where I had put it to defrost (the frozen centers of the packages. Ick!). You could use a pound of eachand adjust the number of bacon strips accordingly. Both pork and beef were pasture raised, organic, from my CSA. ETA: That brisket looks amazing. My hat's off to Mr. Kim!

Thanks for the answers, Duncan! And welcome to the forums. I'm looking forward to ordering my SideKic, in week or so (mid-month is for discretionary purchases, first-of-month is for bills!).

Gorgeous countryside -- and nice-looking pigs, too! I'm looking forward to this.

I have made tonight, for the Super Bowl, the absolute best meat loaf I've ever made, inspired by the New York Times. It started with a mix of ground beef and pork, combined with the usual eggs and bread crumbs. The spice, though, was my customized barbecue dry rub. That went down on top of five strips of country bacon. That got topped with barbecue sauce and three more strips of bacon, fried and chopped. Then, using the bacon strips to help the process along, I commenced to roll. Rolling completed, loaf was centered on the foil-covered pan. Then transferred, using the foil, to a loaf pan for baking. There it was topped with more barbecue sauce and baked. And sliced. And plated, with last night's leftover potato salad. I know it was horrifically unhealthy, but the NYT version used a pound and a half of bacon and a pound and a half of Italian sausage. I felt positively virtuous by comparison. Go Giants!

dcarch, that's gorgeous. Particularly the cauliflower. Kim, glad to see you back! Pics from last weekend, the pot roast of which I posted the pre-cooking photo upthread After my son and I decimated it.... My portion Last night, as I'd found some nice mandarin oranges at the Farmers' Market (no, they aren't local), I had pork chops with orange sauce, with potato salad, steamed edamame and sliced tomatos. Just had an urge for potato salad, not that it really went well with the pork.

Dear Sweet Baby Jesus. That's the most magnificent thing I ever saw. How do I get on the friends and family list, so I can put in my request?