kayb

Menu in Progress, I wanted to lick my screen for those turkey enchiladas. David Ross, gorgeous, gorgeous striped bass. Ditto dcarch on the stuffed fish with the broccoli. I'm intrigued by the concept of making tomato powder, too; can you elaborate on the technique? RobirdsTX, you make it a gorgeous-fish trifecta; lovely snapper! AnnT, I'm going to have to try those Greek meatballs. Have some ground chicken in the freezer. And Rico, I never thought of using canned oysters to fry for a po'boy, but I don't see any good reason why not! Those look excellent!

No, size doesn't really matter; I often use medium. It's just a pain to peel anything smaller than 31-40s. Yes, it's absolutely acceptable to grill the shrimp and then put them over the grits, and pour your sauce of choice over all.

1. BadRabbit, are you speaking of the Hot & Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Ala.? They have a cookbook? Please tell me where I can acquire same, ASAP! Love that place! 2. Polenta will work just fine. You can take some regular coarse ground cornmeal and make the equivalent of polenta/grits. Perhaps it is a different strain of corn, but the major difference is the grind -- grits are coarser than polenta, which are coarser than cornmeal, which is coarser than masa harina. 3. Grits sources: Two good ones which ship nationally Delta Grind, of Water Valley, MS -- http://www.deltagrind.com/contact.html -- and War Eagle Mill in War Eagle, Arkansas -- http://www.wareaglemill.com/khxc/index.php?app=ccp0&ns=catshow&ref=CerealsWholeGrains&sid=bn03knw03339v3282c808pz769zblj34 (a five-pound bag for $7.95). 4. The grits for shrimp and grits should be made with half-and-half whole milk and water, and plenty of kosher salt, finished with butter and cheese. I prefer smoked Gouda, myself, but your mileage may vary. I also like to let my grits cool and form into a nice solid mass, which I then slice and fry to get a nice crispy grit-cake outside with a creamy inside. 5. Shrimp to go over the grits are of two basic categories: The creamy sauce, and the non-creamy sauce. Neither is preferable to the other; it's what you're in the notion for and what your pantry accommodates on a given night. Non-creamy shrimp-and involves sauteeing whatever aromatics you choose -- I don't do the trinity because, well, I don't like celery and I don't like bell pepper. I usually saute onion and garlic and occasionally diced carrots. I'll add some white wine, let it cook down, finish off with chicken broth and whatever seasonings I'm in the mood for, poach the shrimp in that, reduce until it's as thick as I want it, and go. In the alternative, I will brown andouille or tasso or even bacon, use the rendered fat to saute the onion and garlic, and add coffee and water for a good old red-eye gravy (if you wrap the shrimp in bacon and broil them, you then have Mr. B's Bistro shrimp and grits, which are marvelous). Creamy shrimp and grits starts out the same way, adds some tomato paste to the aromatics, then the wine (can be either white or red) (I have used Marsala when it was at hand), and seasonings, including Pick-A-Peppa sauce, which is critical to a good sauce, and finished off with a healthy pouring of heavy cream which is never brought to the boil stage. Shrimp go in when the wine does, and cook in the base for the sauce. You can also, as I did in this dish, repurpose cooked cocktail shrimp that were left over from a reception the night before; just put them in the sauce when you're heating it back up after you've added the cream. All you want to do is bring them to sauce temperature. Garnish with some chopped scallions, and enjoy!

I tried this recipe after seeing it on the Pioneer Woman blog. It's an amazingly good dessert, quick to come together, and almost all pantry ingredients except the cherries. Worth keeping cherries on hand when those unexpected guests drop by! Cherry Pudding Cake Cake: 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1/2 cup whole milk 2 tbsp butter, room temperature 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 1 can tart cherries, in water, drained, juice reserved Sauce: Reserved cherry juice (plus water to make one cup} 1/2 cup sugar 1 tbsp. all purpose flour 2 tbsp butter 1/2 tsp. almond extract Cream together butter and sugar; add milk and egg and combine well. In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to wet ingredients and stir until well combined. Fold in cherries and pecans. Pour into a buttered 9 x 9 baking pan or dish, smooth top, and bake at 375 for about 40 minutes. While cake is baking, whisk flour into juice in a small saucepan, add sugar, and bring to a boil; cook until thickened. Remove from heat and add almond extract and butter; stir until butter is dissolved. When cake comes out of the oven, immediately pour sauce all over the cake. Use all of it. Serve warm or at room temperature. Wonderful topped with a little whipped cream.

Yes, on the pickles. It's what gives them their "snap." Other than that, I have no clue.

Tonight: Lasagna and garlic bread. Last night, a slice of Honey Cornmeal yeast bread: Slathered with the fruits of my first attempt at makign homemade ricotta:

Oh, that beef. Luscious. Loving your blog.

dcarch, I'd be your Valentine any day for a dinner like that. I'm always in awe of your plating (and photography), but every time I think you've outdone yourself....you do it again! Scottyboy, that fudge bar and ice cream had me swooning. Lovely meals, all! I haven't cooked in a week. Last week's meteorological blizzard has translated to a blizzard at work this week. I did manage a fine dinner last night at our local "best restaurant" -- champagne truffle soup, with a brie/crostini "grilled cheese," and a surf and turf with a marvelous filet and lobster, and plentiful pourings of Stag's Leap petite syrah....

I'd gut the thing and start over, knocking out a wall to triple the size while sacrificing a spare/junk room. I'd have a BIG cooktop, gas instead of electric, with a grill/griddle insert. A double oven. Granite countertops. One marble-topped counter that would be the pastry/bread center. A three-part sink, the smaller center sink for rinsing produce, etc. Countertop appliance "cupboards" that would open and allow them to slide out for use. I could accommodate those in the tripling of the counter space I have. At least two full columns of drawers. At least one base cabinet divided vertically to hold baking sheets, lids, etc. A French-door fridge with a big freezer drawer on the bottom. I'd include a big walk-in pantry, keeping me from having to traverse the den to get to the laundry room/pantry, and have a countertop extension to a bar with comfy barstools for people to sit and sip wine and keep me company while I cook.

I was testing a mandoline for a local manufacturer/importer of sharpeners who is expanding into edged tools (not knives, but everything else). He warned me -- repeatedly -- not to use it without the guard. I was entranced with cutting 1/32 of an inch slices of tomato, and removed the guard; somehow, I managed to slice a dime-sized piece of skin and flesh from the underside of the middle finger of my right hand, between second knuckle and palm. Bled like a sonofagun. And my finger was stiff for two weeks while it healed.

Given that I'd just picked up fresh milk, eggs, cheese, butter, sausage and sorghum molasses from the Farmers' Market, I figured I'd come home and cook a pig-out breakfast featuring all of the above. Had I had locally milled flour, it would have been an all-local breakfast (well, except for the coffee). Photo features what I was taught as the proper way to eat sorghum molasses: Put a pat of butter on the plate; pour a dollop of molasses over it. Blend the two with the blade of a table knife. Dab a bit on a biscuit, take a bite, repeat. The egg reminded me of just how good a farm-fresh egg is.

He lost me with his opening sentence: "It has always been crucial to the gourmet’s pleasure that he eat in ways the mainstream cannot afford." In my book, what is crucial to the gourmet's pleasure is good, fresh ingredients, well-prepared, with a creative twist that takes a dish out of the realm of the ordinary into the sublime. Cost has little, if anything, to do with it. Last summer, I cooked Kim Shook's sauteed corn with shrimp and tarragon for lunch for myself and three friends; as best I recall, the ingredients cost me something under $10, and my guests raved about a dish that was so unusual, so out-of-the-box, so good. (Thanks, Kim!) Now, while I realize $2.50 for a meal is outside the financial reach of many of the world's citizens....so is access to the Atlantic Monthly.

Wonderful views....will look forward to your culinary tour this week!

We had another six-inch snow -- I know, that's nothing to you Yankees, but two six-inch snows in a single winter -- two weeks apart, yet, with a four-incher in between -- is UNHEARD of down here -- so I've spent a couple of days doing some cooking. Shrimp and grits, recycling cocktail shrimp I brought home from a reception. To avoid overcooking and rubbery shrimp, I made my sauce, turned it down very low, and just put the shrimp in long enough to warm up. Tonight, a pissaladiere, sort-of (no anchovies) wirh Tuscan white bean soup, sans greens, because, well, I don't like greens.

I recently retired my Melitta. I use my Bodum French press exclusively now. It makes two mugs' worth. One goes in my big insulated mug, the other in a thermos for later consumption. I use a travel french press, the plastic variety, at work, heating the water in the microwave, grinding the beans each morning before I go in. It doesn't strain out the grounds as well as I'd like, so I pour my coffee through a paper towel into my work mug. I use a blend from the local gourmet store, which is a branch of Surfas. Not a real pricy coffee -- I think it's $10.75 a pound -- but a good, full, rich flavor.

I often bring leftover soup, which is generally a hit, or homemade bread if I have an overabundance. Sometimes I'll make quiche for Friday morning staff meetings. We have one office mate who makes unGodly wonderful pies and cheesecakes, another who does good dips and cheese spreads. Our favorite, though, is at Christmas, where one of our members who is Greek brings in homemade baklava. Dear God. It's to die for.

Two entries for the "best ever" category -- the New Orleanse "debris" sandwich, trimmings and such from roast beef, dumped back in the gravy or jus, spooned out onto a Leidenheimer roll. And then the Roast Beef Po'Boy at Uncle John's restaurant in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, one of the two retail establishments in that town of about 400 people. It's thinly sliced roast beef, layered thickly on a roll, and topped with marinara sauce. Damn, it's good.

A recent Weeknight Kitchen newsletter from the Splendid Table proffered, along with some forgettable main dish, the easiest coconut macaroon recipe I've ever seen. I've filed the recipe and lost the column from which it came, but I've committed it to memory, as it is my very favorite cookie in the whole world now. And it's easy enough to make any time I have the macaroon urge. 3 cups dried, sweetened coconut 2 eggs 1 tsp almond extract (Lynne called for vanilla, but I prefer almond) 1/2 cup sugar Beat eggs with almond extract. Add sugar. Stir into coconut until the coconut is well moistened. Make "haystacks" on a parchment-covered baking sheet, and bake at 350 (which is probably 375 in a normal oven) for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. The recipe makes about 20, which is good, because that means 20 is all I'll eat.

Lightening for the mixer or the husband? That was my question as well. A saw? Seriously? What portion of the mixer did he think it could function without? All things considered, I believe I'd much prefer having a Kitchenaid to a husband.

Dove, the breast portion only. Parboiled in salted water, then wrapped in bacon and grilled. Preferably on the first Saturday in September, the opening day of dove season, and accompanied by potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw, and catfish. (Why catfish? In case the hunters didn't have a good morning.) I have helped clean upwards of 500 dove between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. after a big hunt. You can do wild duck breast the same way, but I prefer to lightly dredge mine in flour, pan-fry to golden brown, then pour red wine halfway up the side of the breasts and simmer until it's gone; then I add beef or veal broth and simmer another few minutes. I remove the breasts, add dried cherries, reduce, and serve as a pan sauce.

I generally buy double-yolked eggs, as I'm fortunate enough not to have any cholesterol problems and I love the taste of egg yolk. Those babies are BIG -- bigger than a jumbo from the store, though they're sold at the farm-supply place as extra large. (They can't sell them as double-yolked, because sometimes there'll be a single-yolker that gets through.) In any event, I generally use them just like they were large, and enjoy the extra egginess they impart. When I can find them, I love bantam eggs to hard-boil and use in Scotch eggs.

Well, I cancelled my planned tests tomorrow, so I could eat today. (Not really; it was supposed to snow, and my child is due to give birth any minute, so I judged I'd best be ready to jump and run when summoned.) So I made coconut macaroons, and amaretti, and baby new potatos topped wtih creme fraiche and caviar. It's a wonderful thing when you're watching the Super Bowl alone. Except for the dawg, who, as it turns out, loves potatos with creme fraiche and caviar.

Jaymes -- I saved your stifado recipe to try. What kind of vinegar do you use?

A fascinating week, Erin. Thank you!

I'm some of both. I've had some horrible experiences shooting from the hip, as well as some good ones. I have my standards that I can make in my sleep, for which I never consult a recipe, and often vary by changing out the protein or the spice or whatever. Then I have things I try from a recipe, and note to myself (with a post-it on the cookbook page) that next time I want to try it using x instead of y. Sometimes I make substitutions I know will work -- I can sub beef chuck for short ribs, or vice versa. And when I bake -- a fair amount in the winter, little if any in the summer -- I follow recipes religiously. I do find that what often happens is that I wind up reading past some critical piece of the instructions and getting the assembly portion wrong...which is OK in some cases, not so much in others. My from-the-hip on weeknights has been modified a bit since I've gotten in the habit of cooking on the weekend with an eye toward repurposing the leftovers in something else later on in the week. So I generally have something of a menu plan.