kayb

Having never gotten in to my ow coffee roasting, I bought my beans for years from Cafe Brazil in Dallas. They stopped carrying my choice, so I looked elsewhere. Currently I'm buying from Rozark Hills, a small, niche roaster in Rosebud, Arkansas, in the central Arkansas mountains. I'm presently sampling my way through their wares and at present, a Sumatran is my favorite. Their prices are good and their shipping is quick.

Welome, Ronald! We've got the folks here who can answer all your Indian cooking questions. And most other ones!

I would say definitely a CSO or an F. Blumlein for inside the kitchen for smaller meals. Heating up the house with the big oven will be an issue in Florida. Congratulations on your new place. Sounds wonderful!

@blue_dolphin-- You will forevermore be @purple_dolphin in my mind! Love the hair!

Has anyone ever tried pasta salad with gluten free pasta? I have this fear the pasta would disintegrate in the dressing.

Agreed. I have better space for a garden in my front yard than in the back, where the shade trees are massive. But we have a huge lot (almost an acre). I do NOT water the lawn, nor do I spray it. The guy comes and cuts it once a week. I'm contemplating at least planting some fruit trees in the front yard. I do love my back yard -- it's great for the grandkids, and I'm probably going to put in an above-ground pool next summer. I'm also adding at least two more raised beds, and planting blueberry and blackberry bushes along the fence where there's good sun. But it's decidedly more yard than I need.

Congratulations!

@Shelby developed the salsa plant herself. Very rare. Grows only in Kansas.

Yep. Lots of butter. Lots of Worcestershire. Lots of Tabasco. Lots of seasoned salt. I make gluten free Chex mix. Corn chex, Rice chex, tons of pecans, the occasional pine nuts or cashews, and GF pretzels. I have been known to add Cheerios, but they tend to migrate to the bottom of the bag or bowl.

Hands down favorite zuke technique/recipe 3 cups grated zucchini, drain for 20 minutes in colander 1 sleeve Saltine (my children will tell you they must be Zesta or Nabisco) crackers, crushed 2 eggs, beaten Stir together. Pan fry in 1/4 inch oil over medium high heat until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towel covered rack in a warm oven until time to eat.This will make about enough for four people, unless two of them are my children, in which case, two or three people. Any leftovers may be frozen and rewarmed in the CSO. My girls would eat these three times a week if I'd cook them. Needs no other seasoning; just the salt on the crackers. You could serve with a dipping sauce if you wanted. Personally, I like them with sriracha mayo.

Lord have mercy. Didn't cook the Berkshire porterhouse chops until tonight. They were sublime. This would be the tenderloin portion of both chops; I left the strip side for Children A and C. No pork was wasted. I do not have words for how tender, how unctuous, how flavorful this meat was. The rest of the veggies weren't bad, either. I may not eat for two or three days. But I think I'm ruined for any other pork chop

Oh, but it's not NEARLY as good as homemade!

Picked a dozen or so Roma tomatoes. By the end of this week, I ought to have enough for a batch of sauce. Interesting tomato thing happening. Eight plants in the bed, four or five different varieties. One plant, and I don't remember which one it is but I think it's one of the hybrids, is having issues with blossom end rot. None of the others are having the issue (and in previous years, at previous gardens, the Romas were subject to it). Ideas? I wish I could remember which variety I planted where.

350, about an hour. BIG russet bakers. Next time, I think I'll steam-bake for 45 minutes or so, then finish up with 15 minutes of convection to make them a bit more crispy.

Is that radishes, or new potatoes cut into matchsticks?

I had accumulated a big stock of tomatoes, and didn't want to can them, so I dried them in the oven; they'll go in bags and probably into the freezer, if I don't eat them all out of hand. My dehydrator seems to have gone the way of my big stock pot when I moved; can't find either of them, so I guess I'll be replacing both, at least before the apple tree bears fruit this year. Also shelled and froze a quarter-bushel of crowder peas, which shelled out six pints. I'll get another quarter-bushel of purple hulls in a week or so and add those to the stash. A typical pastime on the Fourth of July has always been shelling peas and watching baseball. This year, it was shelling peas and watching Hamilton.

I discovered steam bake is not the ideal function for cooking Hasselbach potatoes. I'll need to try convection next time.

Doesn't get a lot simpler than this for the holiday:

You want to know what kind of 2020 it's been? Last night, the grill's gas bottle ran out. On the Fourth of July. Fortuately, the convenience stores were open and they all have the racks where you swap your empties for full ones. Only delayed dinner about 15 minutes.

Bought a bag of 50 ears of sweet corn from a farmer earlier this week, and it was last night before I could get around to shucking it. I shucked and silked it, then life happened and before I knew it, it was 10 p.m. and corn wasn't going to get cut off and frozen before I went to bed. So I got up this morning and set about it. Predictably, the corn had dried out a bit. So I thought, "hmmmmm," and set the first half-dozen cobs to boiling to make corn stock. Used that instead of water blanch the corn before cooling and freezing. Voila! Renewed moisture. Eleven pints in the freezer. I may pick up another bag next week, and work it up more expeditiously.

SCORE! I had dashed out to Kroger to pick up plastic bags in which to freeze corn, and as I was pulling out, saw a trailer from Newman Farms, up in Missouri, sitting across the street on a parking lot. Whipped into that lot quickly, as they were advertising heirloom Berkshire pork. I picked up two packages of center-cut chops, two chops apiece, about an inch thick, and a two-pack of what they called porterhouse chops, boneless, which were the size of a small strip steak and an inch and a half thick. Also got two pounds of ground beef. Got to talking to the girls manning the cashbox while the guy was getting the meat out of the truck for me, and they were telling me the farm was run by a professor at the Arkansas State ag school, of which both girls were graduates. We knew some people in common at the school, and as the fellow handed me my bag, he told me, "We appreciate you supporting the farm. We're known for our bacon, so I put a pound in there for you to try as a holiday bonus." Particularly as my regular meat suppliers, as noted above, are slap out of any beef and pork, and will be for the next two or three weeks. Plus, I've never to my knowledge had Berkshire pork, so I'm anxious to try it. And my regular supplier just will not get his chops cut any more than about 3/8 inch thick. The plan is already for meat loaf this evening and strip steaks on the Fourth, but those chops are down for Sunday!

Ventured out to Kroger this afternoon, first stop inside the store in maybe six weeks. I was cheered to see an improvement in mask-wearing percentage; well over half the customers -- and there were a bajillion of them, apparently preparing for a big holiday weekend -- were masked. Meat coolers appeared to be well-stocked; in fact, the only gaps on the shelves were in toilet paper (there was some available, but big gaps on the shelves), and where the disinfectant wipes used to live. I picked up some ground beef, as my farm guy is out, and some ground chicken. Glad I stocked up on beef and pork from the farm guy a week or so back, because he is presently out of both. Said he'd taken a couple of calves and a pig to the processor last month, and should have meat ready in a couple of weeks. He has plenty of chicken, he says. I'm glad he, at least, is doing very well, business-wise, during the pandemic. I signed up for my quarter-steer mid-June, and I can't get it until December; it's a shortage of slaughterhouse availability. Am getting tomatoes out of the garden now; some issues with blossom-end rot, so I need to get some calcium out quickly. Looks like I will have a bumper crop of Romas, which is good, as I'll make lots of sauce with them. And I have little baby green beans on my Kentucky Wonders. Sadly, the yellow squash and zucchini have really slowed down; not sure if it's a fertilizer issue, a water issue, or what. I may have crowded that bed too much.

I am quoting this only because I can only like it once. This the absolute, carved in stone, TRUTH! And I'm not sure what target onion temp is. Anyone know what the temp of an old-fashioned crock pot is on low? That's the way I used to caramelize them, just throw them in there with a stick of butter and some salt and let 'em go for 18 hours or so. So that would at least give you a starting temperature. I have to confess, I have yet to have turned my Paragon on. Yay! The threat of scurvy is abated! I bought 50 ears of corn today. Will be shucking and cutting off and freezing corn tomorrow, provided the dental surgery doesn't put me on my ass.

Got one that's starting to get a little color on it. May be ripe by the weekend. He's the only one, though. Got to get some calcium and magnesium out there, though; having an issue with blossom end rot.

@DukeB -- Wish I'd been your neighbor. I just grabbed my last package of caramelized onions out of the freezer. H'mmm. That might be a good use of the Paragon. Plug it up outside and caramelize onions in the big stock pot.