kayb

Thanks for the nice words on the baked Reubens, y'all (and, Kim, on my hands! I'm blushing! At least my manicure was fresh...) Newly-out-on-her-own daughter came by tonight, and took the leftovers with her -- lunches to carry to work all week. Now I have to come up with something to carry to work all week for lunch....

Intellectually, I agree with what Bittman says. I don't eat much fast food at all any more, other than the once-every-two-months-or-so stop at Sonic or Burger King for French toast sticks, my guilty pleasure. But I do periodically buy it for the teenaged boy I'm raising, who won't eat anything green, eats very little seafood, very little fruit, but would happily dine every day on chicken strips or burgers or mac and cheese or pizza. And yes, he's overweight. Unfortunately, I didn't acquire him until he was 15, so his eating habits were pretty well formed. I've just gotten through indexing the first year of recipes on my blog -- before this kid came to live with me. Looking back, I notice that I didn't cook every night -- but even my "snacky" nights were good, from-my-fridge or pantry, healthy (for the most part) snacks. I can't feed him like that. If I'm coming home exhausted from what is an increasingly stressful job, and I really have no appetite, I give in much more frequently than I should to the temptation to stop and pick him up something. Not a whine -- though, reading back, it certainly sounds like one -- but just a reflection that sometimes convenience is the best we can do, given the circumstances we face.

An over-easy egg, Petit Jean bacon, and a smashed potato with truffle oil and grated Parm.

Oh, man, Percyn ... that lobster roll! A thing of beauty. Heidih, I love that rye recipe. I always add caraway seed, because rye w/o caraway just doesn't seem right. This time, it's made with a half-cup of buckwheat flour and a half-cup of whole-wheat flour subbing for one of the cups of rye flour...as my bulk grains/flours store is closed on Saturday and Sunday, and the local supermarket, can you believe it, did NOT have rye flour! Clayton's recipe calls for making a sponge of two cups of rye flour and a cup of rye flakes, with two packages of yeast and two cups of hot tap water, and letting that ferment for two days. Over the same time period, you soak a cup of rye berries overnight in water, drain them, then cover them tightly and let them sit at room temp until you're ready to make the bread, so they'll start to sprout. Then you add another cup of rye flour (if you had it, that is!) and 3 1/2 cups of bread or a/p flour. For my money, you could leave out the rye berries; I can't see that they particularly add anything.I don't think I'll bother with them next time.

JNash, I've made potato cakes from cooked (generally leftover) potatos all my life. Not sure I see the point in baking them first; I always just fry mine, like croquettes. They're excellent with a little green onion added in. PaulPegg, the carrot soup sounds astounding and looks even better. I can just taste the carroty goodness. Today, I made baked Reubens, minus the sauerkraut, which I sauteed with apples and served on the side. The process starts with Triple Rye Bread from Bernard Clayton's New Book of Bread, and after its first rise, instead of shaping into two loaves, it gets rolled out about an inch thick on parchment. Spicy mustard is slathered down the center, and layered atop that are corned beef and baby Swiss. The sides are cut into diagonal strips, which are then wrapped over the top in a basketweave type pattern. Weaving completed. Egg wash.... And kosher salt. The finished product, oozing goodness.

Kim, as nearly as I can recall, the onion spread is: 8 oz cream cheese 4 oz goat cheese one great big onion some marjoram about 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese Dice and caramelize the onion; add it to the room-temp cream cheese and goat cheese, and blend it up with a potato masher. Stir in the marjoram. Put in a pie plate, and top with the parm; broil until golden brown. I had had one similar to it, and had no recipe, so I sort-of made it up as I went along.

percyn, of what does white breakfast pudding consist? It appears to be a sausage-type thing?

There's not a festival any more, to my knowledge (there was when I was in high school, a century or so ago), but you must add mid-October to early November, depending on the year and the weather, for "new sorghum" in the Tennessee River Valley of Western Tennessee and Kentucky. You can get "local" sorghum year-round, but "new" sorghum, with crackling cornbread, for the first two-three weeks after it's cut, cooked and canned, is just a spectacular taste that has no equal. I might add that, to be enjoyed correctly, it must be accompanied by slab bacon and home-canned tomatos. Heaven!

When I was a kid, my mother, grandmother and I "put up" all kinds of fruit and vegetables, as well as freezing and/or curing meat (beef, pork, game). We had about an acre and a half garden, and a big orchard, and the summer was filled with canning and freezing. Some things were always canned -- green beans, tomatos, purple hulled peas, pickles, jams, jellies. Others were always frozen -- corn, squash, okra (cut and dusted with cornmeal, salt and pepper frozen in a single layer on cookie sheets, then bagged after it was frozen). About all we bought at the grocery were staples -- flour, meal, coffee, sugar, etc. When I moved away to the "big city," Mama, convinced I would starve if left to the mercies of supermarkets and restaurants, kept me supplied with home-preserved and frozen food, until age caught up with her and my father and the family preserved food pace fell off. So this summer, my co-worker had this fig tree. She hates figs. She hates the mess they make on her driveway, and the wasps they draw. And I went over and picked figs. And for the first time in almost 40 years -- and the first time EVER by myself -- I canned fig preserves. Small figs, about ping-pong ball size. About three pounds' worth, draining in the colander after a good wash. Cooking, with sugar. They made plenty of their own liquid. Nicely cooked down, and pureed a bit with an immersion blender. I have no canner, so the stock-pot served for sterilizing jars and water-bath canning. The finished product. I was proud.

Did a brunch for my granddaughter's dedication service at church: Ham and black pepper parmesan biscuits Quiche cups with corn tortilla crusts, for the gluten-intolerant child. The darker ones were yellow corn, with chorizo and black olives; the others were white corn with ham and broccoli. Fruit salad in a dressing of honey, spicy mustard, olive oil and lime juice. Baked caramelized onion spread Crustless lime tarts with whipped cream Black bean and corn salad A few other odds and ends like fig and olive tapenade, gluten-free banana bread with Nutella, chickpea and tomato salad, hummmus and veggies. All in all, a success, though I hate cooking in my daughter's kitchen!

I usually get a half-dozen or so food gifts at Christmas from vendors with whom I do business. Got a "tower" of different goodies from Harry & David, a ham or two, a bottle or two of wine or whiskey, a box of candy from some famous St. Louis confectioner whose name I disremember, but the candy was excellent. But my favorite, year-in, year-out, is my two-pound box of shelled pecan halves. I plan for them, know about when they're coming, and my holiday baking and candymaking happens shortly thereafter! I always do sweets for my co-workers at Christmas. I make a mean praline, and decent fudge, so I always do those; some years I supplement with candied nuts, or some sort of flavored chocolate bark, and last year, to throw everyone off, I did tiny terrines of bourbon-chicken liver pate. I'm thinking this year may be homemade bread and fig jam, since I canned a boatload of that this summer.

It's a marvelous world and a marvelous blog! Makes me want to visit SF.

Just kill me now. You people out there have the most astounding shopping options....

Zagnuts. You see them occasionally, but not often. Paydays. It's my bar of choice. And, oh yes, Sugar Babies! I LOVE Sugar Babies! In the movie-box size!

H'mm. Methinks it's Japan...that appears to be a bullet train....Might it perhaps be Blether?

Can't say I'd miss any of the above. I drink Yuengling Lager when I can get it (I have to bootleg it from Tennessee, the nearest sales point). I like 1554, from the New Belgium brewers. I like Belgian trippels, and some IPAs, long as they're not too hoppy. And Red Stripe is a reasonably decent supermarket beer. I would note I was drinking Dos Equis well before the "most interesting man," and I tend to like the darker Mexican beers -- Negra Modelo, particularly. I like Bohemia as well. When I was in Japan I loved draft Sapporo, but it's not the same here; if I'm in a notion for Japanese beer, it's generally Kirin Ichiban. Oh, and Kingfisher with Indian food.

Kim, I didn't really have a recipe. Sauteed half an onion, some garlic, about 3 or 4 carrots. Threw in a pound of grass-fed ground beef and browned it. Added a little salt and pepper, a little fresh rosemary. Added a splash of red wine out of the glass I was drinking and some beef broth. Let that cook down while I mashed the potatos, some Yukon Golds I'd peeled, cut in chunks and boiled with seasoned salt. Mashed those with butter and a little heavy cream, put in a big plastic bag. Stirred a single serve packet of frozen green peas. Put the ground beef mixture in a pie plate, cut off the corner of the bag and piped the potatos on top, then smoothed them out and baked it. Easy, relatively quick, teenaged son loves it. Me, I'd put some cheese in the potatos, but he disapproves. Go figger.

So what's the character that's cut as a vent into the pie crust? Looks luscious, btw.

Keith W, how does one get on your guest list? Nolnacs, enjoying your blog, though it makes me sad; I was scheduled to be on a plane right NOW headed for Philadelphia, and the Reading Terminal Market was certainly on my list of places to go while I was there. I had to cancel my trip, so I'll enjoy vicariously through your blog. Last night, I made a Sichuan stirfry with zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, carrots, peas and turkey meatballs I'd made and baked earlier. It was awful. Actually, the veggies were pretty good but the meatballs, in which I had used five-spice powder because I thought it would be good, were miserable. We ate the carryout Gyoza and sushi from the Japanese restaurant down the street we'd picked up to go with it. Earlier in the week, and it's a terrible photo, but not reflective of how good the food was, I wanted German comfort food, so I made Austrian red cabbage, German potato salad and bratwurst in mustard cream sauce. It was marvelous. One night this week, it was a shepherd's pie, because the teenaged son had requested it. And last weekend, which I never got around to posting, it was flank steak, chipotle fried corn, zucchini with barley stuffing, and potato skins.

My daughter, now 25, has celiac disease, diagnosed about four years ago. She had had a number of unexplained ailments for some time, including severe gall bladder dysfunction that necessitated removal at age 19 (she weighed 105, was an athlete, had never had a child, i.e., none of the risk factors for gall bladder probs at the time). She had a thyroid problem and had to take supplemental whatever-it-is the thyroid produces. She was extremely anemic -- oral iron supplements did no good, and she had to have IV iron infusions every six months (most people who have to have them find one every two years is enough). She had a great deal of stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. We were at our wits' end trying to figure out what was wrong. We finally went to ANOTHER hematologist, who did the standard blood work, called us in, and told us,"You need to go to a GI specialist, but I'll bet you $100 you're gluten intolerant and have celiac disease." We looked at each other quizzically, because we'd never heard of it. But she had an upper GI which confirmed the guess, and she's been gluten free ever since. It's not a real hardship for her, as she's never been a sandwich person, and she's adapted to GF pizza crust and pasta. She loves vegetables and fruit, and that's 75 percent of her diet, anyway. Now they have a six-month-old and their pediatrician has advised them to feed her GF foods only for the first year, until it's a little easier to watch and see if she has any ill effects from gluten introduced gradually, in small amounts. Her husband is vegan. Cooking dinner for them can be entertaining.

I pride myself on my French toast, and I'm a proponent of the "simpler is better" method. I use challah, heavy cream and eggs. Period. I beat about three eggs in with about 1/2 to 2/3 cup cream in a wide, shallow bowl; slice the challah between 3/4 and an inch thick; lay a slice in the bowl, press it gently all over the surface with the back of a fork, flip it over, repeat the process, and fry it in butter on a medium-hot griddle. If there is anything any better, I don't think I could stand it. I have also discovered I can do the entire loaf on a weekend, put the leftover slices in plastic bags, and the teenaged son can reheat them in the toaster oven through the week.

Jarred maraschino cherries. Straight out of the jar. With a fork.

Just caught up on the blog -- fascinating! Have always wanted to try nopales. Perhaps the salad prep you showed will be my entry point!

I read her blog and enjoy it, but don't watch much FN any more so I likely won't watch her show. I enjoy the "homey-ness" of the blog, and don't really care whether it's fake or not -- I also love mystery thrillers, and they have nothing to do with fact. That said, sometimes I do tend to roll my eyes at the cutesy factor. I've used some of her recipes that I liked, some that I didn't. But there was one recipe for a cherry pudding cake that is an ABSOLUTE keeper and a great quick dessert when you weren't expecting guests, long as you have a can of pie cherries in your pantry!

Suzi, so sorry your birthday dinner was a bust, but I am so happy that your birthday resolutions over the years have turned out positively! For my birthday, I generally cook something I've never made or had, and have been wanting to try. If it's not good, I go out! At work, we have a tradition of picking what kind of cake or pie we want -- as my birthday is at the height of strawberry season, I always pick a strawberry pie or fresh strawberry cake. My kids always get what they want on their birthday, and it's generally the same thing each year. The eldest gets Italian roast chicken and zucchini fritters. The middle child gets red beans and rice. The youngest -- the low maintenance one -- gets chicken pot pie. My new adopted teenaged son gets flank steak or burgers.