kayb

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.

I guess SO! That looks phenomenal.

Can you give us a source for that dried okra? I got mine at Fresh Market, in the section where they have all the snacks and trail mixes and such. I really don't remember looking at the original source. I bought it because it was an "I'll be damned, I've got to try that" moment. Pretty tasty!

Andie, if you grew up on a farm in Western Kentucky (I grew up on one in West Tennessee, and I'm not sure why one is "west" and one is "western," but that's the case), you are certainly familiar with the very exacting measurement -- the "mess." Which, of course, is enough to feed however many there are for dinner, a "big mess" being enough to do so and have leftovers. I always heard "mess" used to refer to vegetables, fish or game birds; never to domesticated animal flesh, and only rarely to fruit (I believe I remember hearing about a "mess" of fried apples). Not sure why that was so.

Wine-braised lamb shanks with herbs d'Provence, from Bon Appetit Yorkshire pudding, from Nigella Lawson's How To Eat Brioche, from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise Lobster Risotto, recipe I cut-and-pasted from the NY Times Dorie Greenspan's genoise (with fresh strawberries on top!)

I WILL cook a live lobster this year.

Quinoa. Couscous (it had somehow escaped my notice; I'm not certain how). Cured Spanish chorizo (my God, that's wonderful stuff). Dried okra (think okra-flavored popcorn). I know there was more, but these come to mind.

New Year's Day traditions covered in dinner today -- black eyed pea cassoulet, and kraut (hey, it was cabbage once!) with smoked sausages, potatos and apples.

Forgive me for being a homer, but I've always thought Memphis is a fine restaurant town. Not up to New York, Chicago or Philly, certainly, but a wide variety of cuisines and a lot of good food in all price ranges. And of course, there's the barbecue...

I love chicken and dumplings, but don't make them a lot, for whatever reason, possibly because there are so many little meat-and-threes around here that make wonderful ones.... One excellent cook I know told me to always start with just two or three dumplings, as they'd disintegrate and thicken the stock; then go ahead and put a big batch in. The best dumplings I ever had were made with homemade pie crust. No added seasonings in the dough; plenty of black pepper in the broth. Being not much of a pie-crust maker, I use the rolled ones from the pastry case when I make my own C&D. Sara, if you're still wondering what tweaks you need to make in your recipe -- I'm saying one big change would be to NOT skim that fat. You want that wonderful deliciousness permeating the finished product.

I use it to coat roasted chickpeas for a snack. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas (or soak and cook dried ones); pat dry with a paper towel. Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon or two of wasabi powder, and roast on a greased cookie sheet for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, stirring or shaking every 10 minutes or so. Making some today to go in Christmas gift boxes.

It's been heartrendingly cold (or what passes for it here in the South; in the mid-20s for the lows), so I've been on a soup kick. First, chili (definitely non-traditional, with black beans and whole-kernel corn) with fried sweet potatos with paprika and cayenne: And another evening, cannellini bean and Italian sausage soup, with cheese toast:

Hope you haven't already done the West Tennessee/East Arkansas leg of your trip. In the event you have not: Trolinger's, on U.S. 79 just west of Kentucky Lake in Paris, TN. It's a combo grocery store and barbecue joint and meat market and gas station. Order and pick up at the counter, grab a soda out of the cooler, eat, go to the register and tell them what you had so they can ring you up. And you can buy salt blocks for your cows or corn to bait the fields for your next dove hunt at the same stop. Take U.S. 641 out of Paris and go about 20 miles to Camden, and eat at the Smokehouse, right there on the highway. Some of the smokiest pork I've ever encountered. Agreed with the comment upthread about the place in Lexington. When you get to Memphis: Have a beer at the Rendezvous, or maybe a cheese and sausage plate, just to sample the atmosphere. Don't do it on a weekend. Ribs are good if it's early, dried out if it's later. Pulled pork is little more than average. In order, my favorite Memphis pig palaces: 1. Germantown Commissary, only place that gives you a deviled egg with your bbq plate, and it's a good deviled egg. Two bbq plates will feed three people unless they're defensive linemen for the New Orleans Saints. 2. Central Barbecue. All in all, best overall experience with sides and a great beer list. Meat is not QUITE as good as the Commissary. And they don't have the eggs. 3. Interstate. Ribs. Ask for sauce on the side; as someone upthread commented, they DO slather on the sauce. Go at noon; it's not in the greatest neighborhood. 4. Three Pigs, corner White Station and Quince, off I-240 South. Good pork, best slaw. Someone upthread said they don't eat slaw on the sandwich, to which I have only one word: Heretic! 5. Barbecue Shop, on Madison in Midtown. (about the 1700 or so block, I think; in any event, between Belvedere and McLean). Best overall quality over a variety of meats, including brisket, should you for some reason want beef barbecue, as well as chicken and ribs. And their barbecued bologna is not to be missed. 6. Cozy Corner, for the barbecued Cornish game hen. Outstanding. In Eastern Arkansas, there are two I'd strongly recommend -- Dixie Pig in Blytheville, and Couch's in Jonesboro. Institutions, both of them, and rightfully so. If you get as far as Little Rock, try Sims. Carolina-style mustard sauce. I'm not crazy about it, but others are. Have fun!