kayb

Meat loaf (with butterbeans and scalloped potatos), one evening. (And I discovered later in the week that leftover meat loaf, crumbled, works marvelously in beef and barley soup.) My loaf pans were all either in use or in the dishwasher, so I used a pie dish. Worked wonderfully; more ketchup-glazed surface area, which I love, and more crispy bottom.

Leftovers. Thursday night, this was a filet with garlic mashed potatos. This morning, it was steak bites with potato cakes, and I warmed up the asparagus (with either some mashed potatos or some leftover bearnaise, not sure which, sticking to them, but it didn't harm the taste a bit). Brings steak and eggs to a new level.

Legalsec, here's my red beans and rice, a family favorite: Soak a pound of small red beans overnight; drain, rinse, and put them in the crockpot, adding enough water just to come to the top of the beans. Saute a pound of andouille sausage, sliced 1/4 inch thick, along with a medium diced onion, 4 cloves of minced garlic, a cup of diced ham (or the meat pulled from a couple of boiled hamhocks)until the onion is soft and the meat browned a little, and add that to the pot. Add a 15-oz can of diced tomatos, a 10-oz can of diced tomatos and green chiles, a couple of tablespoons of smoked paprika, a teaspoon of Lawry's seasoned salt, cayenne pepper or hot sauce to taste, and a couple of bay leaves. Stir it up a bit to combine the ingredients, and cook it on low all day. When you get home, kick it up to high and add two teaspoons of gumbo file powder, a half-pound of raw popcorn shrimp (if you want), and let it cook while you cook the rice, bake some cornbread, and sit down and relax with a cold beer. By the time the cornbread and rice are done, it's ready. Another favorite is white bean and sausage soup -- a pound of navy beans, soaked overnight; smoked sausage, cut in slices and browned; onions, garlic and carrots, diced and sauteed until the onion is soft; a 15-oz. can of diced tomatos; a teaspoon of dried basil, a teaspoon of dried oregano. Cook on low all day. It may want a little more salt when you get home, depending on how salty the smoked sausage is.

Many thanks to the posters who (a) told me to use regular yellow onions, and (b) advised me to use the crock-pot. Now, THESE are some caramelized onions!

I bought a bag of "regular" yellow onions at the grocery yesterday, and they are going in the crock-pot as soon as I get to the point where I can do anything in my kitchen, where I am at present trying to unclog a sink. Will report back in on both projects.

I've been learning my way around lentils this year. Last night,I made perhaps the best ones I've ever had. I started out making a tomato sauce in the Greek style (onions, garlic, tomatos, cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg), salt and black pepper, and added the lentils and some water and let them cook until tender. About midway through the cooking, I added some lamb meatballs I'd made up -- ground lamb, bread crumbs (I actually used matzoh meal, as I had some I needed to use up), egg, onions, garlic, cayenne, cumin, coriander, cardamon, paprika, thyme. Baked those in the oven until they'd developed a nice crust, and then gently added them to the tomato/lentil mixture and simmered for about 20 minutes. Marvelous! These were the cheapie brown lentils from the grocery. I have French green lentils from Whole Foods I'm going to try in Mark Bittman's recipe for green lentils with cashews.

I used to cook a lot of pot roasts and pork roasts in my slow cooker, but I've come to believe that they just taste better in the oven. What I DO use my slow cooker for is lots and lots of soups and stews. My red beans (for red beans and rice), white bean and sausage soup, black bean soup, Caribbean Sunday beans, anything that calls for a dried legume, generally get cooked in the crockpot, albeit that means a little advance planning. I put beans on to soak the night before, and saute all my aromatics and meat and put them in the fridge. Next morning, I put the beans in the crockpot, add the aromatics, add any liquids, tomatos, other seasonings, etc., and leave for work. When I get home, it's bread and a salad prep, and dinner's ready, not to mention lunch for the next day. Oh, and I do posole in the crock pot, too, adding the canned hominy after I get home.

Question about the Foodsaver; mine, which was relatively new, has stopped pulling a vacuum. It still seals, but it doesn't suck all the air out. Any easy suggested fixes for this?

Hungarian braised beef, a chuck roast cut in two-inch chunks, seared, coated in paprika and then braised in a wonderful tomato sauce. I served it over rice, but it would have been just as good, or perhaps better, over egg noodles. A quick after-work meal of migas, heavy on the cheese and light on the peppers, as my 20-year-old was eating as well. Tonight, if I can get the sink unclogged, it's meat loaf, potato gratin and....something.

Most notable meal of the week was chicken cutlets, made from boneless, skinless breasts pounded thin, dredged in seasoned flour, dipped in egg wash, and coated in panko, fried over medium high heat until golden (maybe 2 minutes on a side, tops). Perfect degree of doneness. A sauce made of shallots sauteed in butter, white wine reduced by half, some lemon juice, some paprika, and thickened with a little dollop of butter and flour. Served with zucchini fritters, glazed baby carrots and mashed potatos. No photos because I was cooking in someone else's kitchen and didn't have my camera with me.

Ravioli is always a winner. You can make several different stuffings, and people can take home some of each. A soup swap, where you make three or four different kinds of soup, (and people can also bring some from home) and everyone takes home several quarts of different soups, is fun as well.

Mama (who made some of the best C&D I've ever eaten) always used a roasting hen. She's boil her until she was falling apart, pick the meat off the bones and throw it back in the pot, and then put in the dumplings, which, unfortunately, I cannot remember exactly how she made. They were like a cross between pie crust and biscuit dough, rolled out and cut in strips about an inch wide by 2 1/2 inches long, and dropped into the boiling broth. They cooked up to a wonderfully chewy, toothsome consistency. I won't be trying. I've tried for 30 years to make decent C&D, and I can't do it. Too many good meat-and-three places around here make good ones for me to ruin yet another good hen in the attempt.

Welcome, Millich! Here are a few of mine: Ham (or pork in general) -- potato salad, baked beans, apples, sweet potatos, green beans, asparagus, winter squash, fried okra, sliced tomatos Steak -- onions, tomatos, potato gratin, rice, mushrooms, grilled squash, asparagus, grilled or caramelized onions Roast beef -- potatos in most any form except potato salad; roasted root vegetables, carrots in any preparation; green beans, snow peas, sugar snap peas, baked or grilled onions Fried chicken -- mashed potatos, green beans, fried okra and sliced tomatos. Roast chicken -- asparagus, carrots, sauteed squash, apples, sweet potatos, cornbread dressing (stuffing), tomatos Baked or sauced chicken -- Rice, polenta, root vegetables, green beans I'm not including cooked greens because I don't like them and thus don't prepare them. There are few legume dishes because I tend to use them in entree soups and stews that generally don't have a side dish.Tomatos, when they are in season, go with anything, or by themselves. I think the most important rule is to cook what you like.

Most coffee. I've become a coffee snob, which means the coffee from the Bunn in the break room at work is undrinkable, as is most restaurant coffee. (For the record, I also dislike most coffeehouse coffees, which tend to have way too much of a bitter taste; I'm spoiled to my medium roast, freshly ground, and prepared in my French press, which goes with me when I travel.).

Miller and Budweiser used to come in 7-oz bottles; I think Miller may still do so. Those were "ponies."

A couple of points: You do not have Memphis on your list. If you want to sample barbecue, it is absolutely criminal not to go to Memphis, where they purely and simply have the best barbecue in the world, notwithstanding Texas, Kansas City, North Carolina or otherwise. (And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) You should choose from among Interstate (order pulled pork, ask for sauce on the side); Cozy Corner (barbecued cornish hen); Central (ribs, pulled pork, or anything else); or Germantown Commissary (anything, but do not miss the deviled eggs). It looks as though you're going through Texarkana. Stop at Bryce's Cafeteria, old-fashioned cafeteria, unadorned Southern cooking, for a very accurate sample of how the locals eat.

Maraschino cherries, straight from the jar. I can, and will, eat a whole damn jar of them. El cheapo bread and butter pickles (a buck a jar at the dollar store). Chocolate cream drop candy (which we as children in the South used to know by a name that is not now proper to speak in polite company, or any company at all, for that matter), squashed flat, and layered with a slice of co-jack cheese. Oh,yeah, and the green bean casserole with golden mushroom soup and fried onions. Got to have it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's canonical.

Percy and Kim -- Happy to provide the recipe, here: http://kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-kitchen-as-laboratory/ I failed to note in the blog post that I basted the pork about three times during the course of cooking. The sauce was an improvisation because I thought I had hoisin sauce, and didn't, so I faked it.

Thanks, everyone. Did not know about the bicarb of soda trick; I will try that. Nor did I know that sweet onions are not the best for caramelization; sweet onions being all I ever buy, if I have the choice. I didn't want to add any more salt because I was afraid the later addition of the beef broth would make the soup too salty, and I have a real aversion to too-salty foods. Blether, I got no browning at all, until I really turned up the heat and then I got just a bit. The only difference I can see is that the ratio of onion volume to area of pan bottom was greater than it normally is. They did seem to have a good bit of moisture in them, and it was not until after I turned the heat up that I got rid of the moisture. It might have been if I had kept at it, I would have gotten the caramelization eventually on the higher heat. I will try white onions next time I want French onion soup. By the way, rather than the French-bread-and-Gruyere traditional big crouton on top, I made grilled cheese sandwiches on whole wheat with Fontina and Havarti. Easier to eat, and just as good; they stand up admirably to being dipped into the soup.

I love cooked onions, and I love to cook them until they caramelize before using them in a recipe. Lately, I've been making French onion soup and I find myself with a major onion issue -- the damn things won't brown! Today, I thin-sliced six sweet yellow onions and threw them in the stock pot with butter and olive oil. I added a little salt, a little black pepper, a little marjoram, a little honey, and let them go on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. An hour later, they were almost an onion puree, with a wonderful fragrance and flavor....but as blonde as Doris Day. In desperation, I reached for a bottle of red wine that was sitting on the counter, and added a dollop; once it cooked down, it gave me my nice caramel color I wanted (and added a really nice taste to the soup, too). I have never had any trouble caramelizing onions before. I wonder if it's because I'm cooking a larger amount, in a vessel that has a relatively smaller cooking surface and higher sides? Can anyone advise me?

For the singletons who are trying to deal with cooking for one/leftovers/not throwing out food, here are a couple of suggestions: --Recycle the leftovers. Leftover chicken goes in a salad, or in a soup; a pot roast winds up as vegetable soup or beef stew; roast pork reappears in quesadillas; roasted root vegetables go into a salad with wheatberries (who'd'a thunk it? Saw the recipe and had to try it; it's good!); a slice of meatloaf gets wrapped in puff pastry and baked. --The vacuum sealer is a great invention. -- Fresh veggies like peppers, etc., can be diced, spread out on a cookie sheet and frozen, and then stored in a ziploc bag, to be taken out and used as needed. -- Fresh avocados can be scooped from their skins, mashed with a little lime juice, and frozen in a ziploc or with a vacuum sealer. Then you have them for soup or guacamole. -- Keep bread in the fridge or freezer to keep it fresh longer. I buy a big loaf of sliced bakery sourdough, freeze it, and take it out to use a slice at a time. -- Tortillas are your friend. You can make a wrap out of anything. I take lunch to work four days out of five, if I don't have a lunch meeting. It may be leftover veggies, soup, or something as simple as an apple and a few slices of cheese. Makes a difference in the budget AND in my waistline!

This one's quick, and very, very good. I like it smooth, so I put my immersion blender to work. Also, I half the recipe, as that makes a LOT. 6 Tablespoons Melted Butter 1 whole Medium Onion, Diced 1 bottle (46 Oz.) Tomato Juice 2 cans (14 Oz. Cans) Diced Tomatoes 1 Tablespoon (up To 3 Tablespoons) Chicken Base 3 Tablespoons (up To 6 Tablespoons) Sugar 1 pinch(es) Salt Black Pepper To Taste 1 cup Cooking Sherry 1-½ cup Heavy Cream Chopped Fresh Parsley Chopped Fresh Basil Sauté diced onions in butter until translucent. Then add canned tomatoes, tomato juice, chicken base, sugar, pinch of salt, black pepper and stir. Bring to a near boil, then turn off heat. Add in sherry and cream and stir. Add in parsley and basil to taste. Adjust other seasonings and serve with yummy, crusty bread on a cold blustery, dreary, depressing, rainy, snowy day. This comes from Ree Drummond's Pioneer Woman blog. She credits it to her friend, Cathy.

My favorite pernil recipe is one I cut-and-pasted from the New York Times years ago. The house smells like it for a week, so I usually do it outdoors on the grill. 1 pork shoulder, 4 to 7 pounds (or use fresh ham) 4 or more cloves garlic, peeled 1 large onion, quartered 2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves or 1 tablespoon dried oregano 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ancho or other mild chili powder 1 tablespoon salt 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper Olive oil as needed 1 tablespoon wine or cider vinegar Lime wedges for serving. 1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Score meat’s skin with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. (Alternatively, mash ingredients in a mortar and pestle.) Blend in the vinegar. 2. Rub this mixture well into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. Put pork in a roasting pan and film bottom with water. Roast pork for several hours (a 4-pound shoulder may be done in 3 hours), turning every hour or so and adding more water as necessary, until meat is very tender. Finish roasting with the skin side up until crisp, raising heat at end of cooking if necessary. 3. Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting it up; meat should be so tender that cutting it into uniform slices is almost impossible; rather, whack it up into chunks. Serve with lime.

I can testify it works well for sweet potatos, which are more difficult to peel raw than are their white cousins. As for the difference in taste-texture -- I think there's a definite difference in cooking the peeled potato than the one in its skin. I see a marked difference when I make potato salad, when the boiled-in-skin potato do not partially disintegrate around the edges into the dressing when they're tossed together, still hot; that, to me, is the secret of great potato salad. Beyond that, put me down with the side that thinks the Gilligan's Island method is more trouble than it's worth.

Last weekend, I tried my hand at my interpretation of Chinese roast pork, which is certainly not the traditional Chinese roast pork, but my own version: served with fried rice and sesame roasted root vegetables: My 20-year-old declared it a success. One evening, it was a pot of rather plebian chili -- yes, it had ground beef instead of cubes, and yes, it had beans, but it was GOOD: Had it with an assortment of cheeses -- tomme d'espelette, uniekaas robusto, and roasted ricotta. And the major portion of a bottle of Trapiche Oak Cask malbec.