kayb

I've gained and lost the same 20 pounds perhaps 20 times over 30 years. Currently I'm just coming out of the down side of that cycle, and intent on not climbing up the other side. I've made a few changes over the years that make it easier. When eating out, I've learned to order an appetizer as an entree; along with a salad and/or soup, it almost always gives me enough to eat. When I'm eating a full meal, I work on portion control and eating slowly, savoring. I cook on weekends. Gladware is my best friend, along with the fridge and microwave at work; lunch at work two days this week was a big bowl of purple-hulled peas with tomato relish, accompanied by a side of sauteed squash. My co-workers envy me. If I don't have leftovers I can warm up, I make up a quick soup the night before and pop it in the fridge so I can grab and go in the morning. I keep in the credenza in my office a jar of peanut butter, a plastic knife and a sleeve of graham crackers. Graham crackers and peanut butter (two of the three-inch squares, maybe a tablespoon of PB) will stave off hunger pangs, give me a good shot of protein and fiber, and takes about 30 seconds to prepare. It's my go-to breakfast if I don't have something prepared to bring from home; I usually try to bring along some fruit or yogurt. At night, I lean heavily on cold meats, cheese, fresh veggies and fruit. I'm often cooking just for myself -- I have a 19-year-old with a busy social life -- and I eat what I want, and often that's a caprese salad and a bowl of cantaloupe. And that's fine. I generally don't have desserts, and never candy, cookies, etc., around the house. I try to exercise, but I've gotten out of that habit in the past six months; I've learned to set myself a time out in the future that I'll get back in the gym, and stick to it. This time, it's Sept. 1, to accommodate some travel I'll be doing in August. My other biggest challenge was getting out of the 1960s mindset that a meal is not a meal unless it includes a meat, a starchy vegetable, a green vegetable, and bread. It's been an interesting journey. I've learned a lot about myself, and about food.

Tomato-watermelon salad. Dice up the tomatos and some watermelon (about equal amounts. Whisk up a light balsamic viniagrette with basil, drizzle and toss. You can also throw in diced fresh mozzarella. Tomato breakfast stack. Nuke a medium redskin potato until soft; flatten with a water glass, brush with olive oil, bake @400 degrees until toasty, top with a thick slice of tomato, some crumbled bacon, and an over-easy egg. Deconstructed BLT salad. Thick-slice tomatos, top with a schmear of Hellman's mayo and crumbled bacon; serve atop baby spinach. Constructed BLT: Toasted sourdough, Hellman's, crisp thick-sliced bacon, baby spinach or leaf lettuce. Tomato stuffed with some kind of salad -- Core tomato and cut from top down, to within 1/2 inch of bottom, into eighths. Spread open; top with tuna, chicken or egg salad, or cottage cheese. Tomato on a muffin -- thick slice of tomato, seeded and drained, on an English muffin half, topped with grated parmesan, broiled. Summer garden salad -- sliced onion, tomatos, cucumbers in a viniagrette of half-and-half white vinegar and water, with sugar to taste; soak in the fridge for several hours, drain, and toss with sour cream or plain yogurt. Easy tomato bisque -- peel, dice and saute tomatos in olive oil until soft; add plain yogurt, spice to your taste, and puree.

I grew up in Benton County, TN, at that time one of the state's largest producers of sorghum molasses. The production of the first "new sorghum" of the year was always a major occasion requiring the canonical "new sorghum" dinner: Thick-sliced country bacon, canned tomatos from the garden, biscuits, butter and sorghum. To eat the sorghum, one put a pat of butter on the plate, poured a dollop of sorghum over it, creamed the two together with the flat of a table knife blade, and spread it on the biscuits. Sometimes it would be cracklin' cornbread instead of biscuits. Andisenji, a source for old-fashioned sorghum molasses: The Andy Mast Family, 480 Hidden Valley Road, Pleasantville, TN, 37147. They're Amish, so I doubt they have internet capability for ordering, but I'd bet you can order by mail.

This is more of a request for a recipe. I had a stunningly wonderful dinner the other night in Philadelphia (Cafe Michelangelo on Bustleton Avenue), where cheese ravioli was served in a sauce of pancetta, diced tomato, butter and fresh sage. I think I can recreate it, but if someone has a recipe, I'd love to see it.

My test for that, which my mother taught me, is to peel back a little of the shuck to expose a few kernels and pop one with a fingernail. If it squirts juice at you...it's fresh!

I use redskin potatos, small enough to be cut in quarters; leave the skin on. Toss in a bowl with olive oil, seasoned salt and rosemary; pour out onto a lipped cookie sheet lined with foil and turn so skin side is down. Roast at 400 until golden brown. These yield a crunchy inside, and a creamy, slightly sweet inside if you're using new potatos, as I did the last time. I also do sweet potato wedges the same way, except I peel the potatos, cut the heat down to 325, and toss with olive oil, a little sugar, lots of Hungarian paprika and enough cayenne to warm it up. Those you have to turn once or twice. They roast in about 25 minutes or so.

One more. Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet. A buck at the library's used book sale.

Here's one that's excellent on chicken breast fillets or pork chops; I typically let it sit maybe 15-20 minutes, then either sear in a hot skillet, or grill or broil. Can double or treble the recipe with no ill effects that I've found. I keep saying I'm going to try it on fish and see what it does. 2 tbsp. Kosher salt 2 tbsp. ground black pepper 2 tbsp. ground cumin 2 tbsp. chili powder 2 tbsp. ground coriander 1 tbsp. ground cardamom 1 tbsp. ground ginger The original recipe called for minced fresh ginger, but I found the ground works better for purposes of blending and adhering.

A two-day grilling extravaganza here on my little hillside overlooking the lake. Yesterday, the Fourth, was burgers, brats, grilled Italian sausage, grilled corn on the cob (fresh corn!), and barbecued bologna. With baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw, roasted sweet potato wedges with paprika and cayenne. Today is pernil (Puerto Rican roast pork) on the grill, accompanied by Caribbean "Sunday beans," leftover potato salad and cole slaw, and roasted new potatos, with a ricotta cheesecake with red-white-and-blue fruit salsa (that would be strawberries, blueberries, bananas and coconut). All the above accompanied by watermelon mojitos.

For the Fourth -- Apple-walnut turnovers with blue cheese and thyme for breakfast, followed by a midafternoon grilled repast of burgers, brats, grilled Italian sausage, corn on the cob, grilled; potato salad; baked beans, sesame-ginger cole slaw and a Southern favorite, barbecued bologna! And if I could figure out how to post photos, I would....is there a tutorial?

West Tennessee, on either side of Kentucky Lake just south of the Kentucky line, was long the center of sorghum molasses production in the South. One of the red-letter days in the year was the day the first "new sorghum" came out of the mill. I vividly remember as a child going to the mill and buying the quart and half-gallon buckets, which looked much like a paint can, and having it for dinner that night with thick country cured bacon, fresh butter, home-canned tomatos and cracklin' corn bread. Today, I still buy it from the mill when I go home, albeit in pint jars; I use it a lot as a condiment for pork and other savory dishes, or as an element in sauces or marinades. I never make baked beans without it. I never make bran muffins without it. It's wonderful over peach ice cream, and as a base for a sauce for bread pudding. I've even used it as a substitute for the Karo syrup in a chess pie.

Two more: The Chez Panisse cookbook, and The Cafe 1217 Cookbook. The latter is little-known but a treasure, from a wonderful restaurant here in Hot Springs, unknown until featured a year or so ago on Food Network and in Southern Living. Gourmet carryout. Who knew?

The recipe is from Camellia Panjabi's excellent 50 Great Curries of India. A nearly identical recipe is here: fish in coconut milk (clicky). Enjoy! ← Thanks. I'll be giving that a try.

Could you direct me to the fish molee recipe, please?

From a pie-crust novice: when one uses dried beans or rice as weights when pre-baking a pie crust, can said beans/rice still be cooked as normal? Or should they be set aside and designated as "pie-crust-baking weights"?

And can you share a recipe for that, please?

Scuppernongs -- wild white muscadines. There is no better jelly. Looks like apple, tastes sort of grape-y. And wild blackberries; smaller and tarter and much more blackberry-y than the cultivated variety. Incredible with sweetened creme fraiche, over shortbread. Does fishing count? My very favorite is bream. I can eat a half-dozen fresh-caught, pan-fried ones, about 3/4 of a pound whole, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 pound dressed (including bone).

One more. I'm moving, and friends gave me a cookbook (recipes from the Florida Keys and Caribbean, can't remember the name and it's not close by) as a going-away gift. Something else to pack! But that's cool.

After 10 years of living in Japan, I've never seen a baked or fried maki zushi. Ever. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I wonder where you've had them. My rule is "Anything fried is good!" ← It was in what our Japanese hosts had described as a "traditional" Japanese restaruant in Kyoto, in the Arishiayama area. Sorry, but that's the best I can do; don't remember, and don't seem to have written down the name of the restaurant. Lots of tempura everything; maybe that was their schtick. Damn fine food, though. Most of the sushi I had there was nigiri.

When I've visited Japan, I was surprised to learn that (a) the traditional Japanese sushi very rarely includes rolls, and (b) when it does, they're generally baked or fried. So I'd say you could. I'd still be nervous, though; one only has to experience food poisoning once to go WAY out of one's way to avoid it again.

Low Country Boil. Fresh Gulf shrimp I brought home from vacation, new potatos, fresh corn on the cob, a quinoa salad with feta and cherry tomatos, Asian slaw, and a cheesecake someone brought. One of these days, I'll get my camera back from my kid and practice food photography. These photos on this and other threads are to die for!

Most meats and veggies, no matter the spices, benefit from being mixed with leftover (or made for the purpose) croquettes with mashed potatos and fried. Most anything Asian goes into stirfry or fried rice. Many leftover garden veggies (usually lightly steamed or blanched, seasoned only lightly with salt and butter and maybe a little pepper or tarragon in their original state) go into a plastic container in my freezer which, when it's full, is my timer on when to make either gazpacho or vegetable beef soup, depending on the time of year.

Cut into 1 1/2 inch or so chunks, blanch or steam until crisp-tender, and douse in ice water; drain. Boil fresh English or small green peas for about 2 minutes and treat the same way. Toss cold veggies in a viniagrette of your choosing (I generally use red wine vinegar and EVOO, but balsamic or lemon juice will work, serve over sliced tomatos and top with grated Parmesan. I've added any number of things to this -- sliced mushrooms, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, diced cooked chicken, water chestnuts, shrimp, depending on what I had and whether I wanted a side salad or a light entree. The other is a sandwich on good crusty sourdough, with roasted asparagus, the cheese of your choice, shaved ham or pepper roast beef, and Dijon mustard. Sauteed in a little EVOO and finished with a shot of sesame oil and soy sauce and a bare sprinkle of sugar. (Green beans and broccoli are both good like this, too.) Steamed and topped with melted butter and a sprinkle of tarragon. Steamed and drizzled with hollandaise or orange dijon sauce. I don't recall that I've ever met an asparagus spear I didn't love.

Will be in Nashville in July. I can't wait. My kids will be up there next weekend, and I'm sending them on a recon mission. The only problem I see is trying to try too many of the cocktails in one visit.

Fried rice, from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, with fresh English peas, carrots, shallots, water chestnuts, and salad shrimp. I seasoned with organic (gluten-free) soy sauce, because one child who loves fried rice has a gluten allergy. Is it just this brand, or is the gluten-free variety much milder and sweeter than regular soy sauce? Today I'm making gyoza, to cook later in the week with the leftover rice. And one of these days I'll rescue my camera from my child and start taking food pictures.