kayb

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?

Over-easy (barely; I almost let it go too long!)egg, bacon, waffle made with masa harina. Sliced tomatos grown locally in a greenhouse, from the Farmers' Market. After watching the dog watching me hungrily, I decided to make a version for her. Bacon needed to be used, and hey, might as well fry two eggs as one. We're both happy.

My absolute favorite hash is sweet potato and pulled pork barbecue. I cube the sweet potatos, pan-fry them in a non-stick pan in about a quarter-inch of oil, so they make crispy little cubes; drain out the excess oil,throw in the barbecue, add some of my homemade barbecue rub/seasoning or a little pimenton de la vera, let it get crispy, flip, crisp that side, and plate it. And I top it with an over-easy egg. Chicken hash isn't bad, either, with lots of black pepper and a creamy milk gravy.

re: all day fast food breakfasts. Sonic serves breakfast all day, if you happen to be in Sonic territory.

Welcome, Charcuterer! Bring on the photos; I don't plate worth a damn, either. Shelby, no, that's commercial mozzarella. I'm going to try my hand this weekend. Oh, and the crawfish trailer is open! mm854321, I continue to be amazed at some of the things you do with seafood. That looked delicious. c sapidus, great-looking trout with the bacon and beans. Hanging on to that idea for this summer when beans come in. Paul Bacino, the eggplant is genius material. I think I may have just decided what to do with the quart of homemade tomato sauce in my fridge. What kind of cheese did you use? Anna, I have never been able to get chuckeye tender enough to eat. How long and at what temp did you cook it? (I can then save that info for when I get a sous vide setup.) Some wonderful meals out there this week.

I think Chris tags it well. I have friends who consciously attempt to eat healthily, abhor fast food, don't use cream-of soups, patronize the farmers' markets -- and then construct some of the most boring meals on the planet. Veggies overcooked, meat overcooked, both underseasoned, very unimaginative. And they don't like to eat at my house because, well, things are at least adventurous (may be excellent, may be a bust, but they dislike departing from the familiar in either direction). Tastes differ, just like tastes in haircuts differ. I'm also in ermintrude's camp as far as cooking on the weekend for the week ahead. This past weekend, I did tamarind braised beef over rice, with leftovers that got paired with vegetarian okonomiyaki another night, and I have enough left to put over rice noodles yet another. The pot roast with potatos, carrots and onions has already made one appearance as a roast beef sandiwich, and will turn up in vegetable beef soup tomorrow night. Plus I made a quart of marinara sauce, with no particular plans for it but with tomatos that needed to be used, and a quart of white bean and tuna salad off which I've been lunching all week. Plus I baked a loaf of gluten-free bread that's been serving as breakfast toast all week. And I can come home and have a GOOD dinner ready in 20 minutes. When I move and get a bigger freezer, I also plan to get a sous vide machine and I expect I'll be cooking more in serving-sized pouches and freezing them, rather than using something during the time period it can be stored in the fridge.

Weekend stuff: Tamarind braised pork over rice. Pot roast at 1 p.m., ready to go in the oven: Have not yet downloaded the one of the finished product, but I forgot to photograph it until after my teenager and I had decimated it. This was lunch today: A tomato and mozzarella sandwich on a gluten-free roll, with bacon jam and honey chipotle mustard. With bread-and-butter pickles.

Wow. Marvelous stuff. I haven't had time to read all week, caught up tonight, and am suffering shopping overload! Oh, to have those options!

Marvelous meals, everyone. Recently: Chicken thighs cut into chunks and stewed with sweet potatos, tomatos, coconut milk, chiles and chicken broth. I was aiming for Caribbean; I missed it somewhere along the way. I need to tinker with it some more. On the side, potato skins, my 16-year-old's favorite side dish and one of mine as well.

Got to put one plug in for "cream of." I made a chicken pot pie at least once a week when my kids were small; a cup or so of shredded or diced chicken, a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup, a cup of grated cheddar cheese and a bag of frozen mixed veggies, plopped between two Pillsbury pie crusts. Fast forward a few years, and Daughter No. 3, now grown, asked for one. In the interim, I had gravitated away from "quick and dirty" cooking and to more "artisanal," if you will, dishes, with local, fresh ingredients. So I made one with fresh carrots, corn and green beans; meat from a roasted organic bird; good cheddar (as opposed to supermarket brand) and a bechamel made with a combo of homemade chicken stock and heavy cream. And homemade pie crusts. You know what? It wasn't THAT much better than the "cream of" version. Ditto for a homemade version of the canonical holiday green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup. So a can of cream of chicken soup usually resides in my pantry, and a two-pack of Pillsbury pie crusts in my freezer, against the day the kid wants another chicken pot pie. Beyond that, I have little if any use for the Campbell's stuff of any variety, except for one can of Golden Mushroom at the holidays.

I'd probably think about cutting it up in large-ish cubes (say 1 1/2 inch) and using those in a soup or stew or posole. (I still swear by Chris Amirault's mother-in-law's posole recipe, which about the best thing I ever tasted in my life; it's on here in the posole cookoff thread.) It would be good to cube and take the place of beef in chili. And tonight, I'm braising some pork in tamarind, ginger, garlic, onion and coriander, and it smells marvelous; can't wait to try it. That particular pork was pork shoulder, but ham steaks should work. I'd think you could also sear the steaks and then simmer them in some kind of sauce until they got nice and tender, somewhat like you would a round steak.

A very monochromatic dinner of pork shoulder roast braised in apple juice; caramelized apples and onions; roasted turnips and parsnips, and a cabbage slaw with caraway, allspice and cloves. I made a start toward gnocchi with duck confit, but didn't finish it. Both components are tucked away in the freezer for future use. Edited to move photo.

Just for the sake of being different, I fried it up in links for these huevos rancheros. I like the scrambled/crumbled better, I think.

No photos, but tuna and white bean salad over fresh vine-ripened greenhouse tomatos. Wonderful! And all of 5 minutes to prepare.

Gorgeous. My mouth is watering.