kayb

Well, when I bought it this morning, it was $3.99. I'm a Prime member, if that matters.

Welcome! Maine's a place I'd love to visit sometime.

Brunswick stew tonight. I finally broke down the Boston butt we ate bits of Saturday. 3 1/2 pounds of meat, plus what went in the stew (about another pound?) stashed in the freezer. Better than half of this stew will go in the freezer as well. Tomorrow, I'll attack the ham, portion it out and vac-pack and seal it, and grind up the big chunks to freeze for deviled ham or ham croquettes, and freeze the hambone for future stock. Come the apocalypse, if we can keep the freezer powered up, y'all come on down. There will be plenty to eat.

Had to spring for that one. Thanks.

As a youngster, we generally had around the house both all-purpose and self-rising flour. It is a testament to where I grew up that I thought for years the only self rising flour was "Martha White Self Rising Flour With Hot--Rise Plus," a legacy from the Flatt and Scruggs show on Saturday evenings.

I would advise most any method over that employed by my ex-husband, when we had moved into a new house built in what had previously been a soybean field. Mouse came in through the fireplace vent. Cat, ex-husband and I watched this process, cat merely looking quizzical, as in, "Huh! That's a mouse!" Ex-husband chased mouse into the kitchen, where it took refuge in the drawer below the oven where the cookie sheets live; he cornered it there and beat it to death with a fireplace poker (please imagine sound effects. They were worse than that.). Then he proceeded to curse the cat, who had watched the entire proceeding with some amusement. Next day, I'd gone to work. He was working nights. He called me about 2 p.m. "I'm going to kill your damn cat." Cat, it seems had not been so blase' about the NEXT mouse to come inside. Killed it, and brought it to our bed, placing it carefully on the pillow beside ex-husband's face. I told him if he hurt my cat I'd throw him out in a heartbeat. He didn't. I should have, anyway.

I have always loved those bowls. Soups look good, too. I'm making Brunswick stew tomorrow.

I picked up an off-brand -- Ambiano, the brand of a lot of small electrics sold at Aldi -- four or five years ago. It has two wands, one a blender and one a whisk. I use it probably once a week. It's held up fine, but obviously the amount of use is not close to yours. But I think I paid maybe $19.95 for it.

I used to slice enough onions to fill my crock-pot to the brim , add butter, and cook on low overnight until well up in the next day for perfect caramelized onions. Granted, about 2 a.m. the house would smell VERY onion-y. I'd freeze the onions in plastic baggies in half-cup portions. Handy things to have. As my daughter is very smell-sensative, I don't do that any more. It's occurred to me to take either the Paragon or the IP out on the back porch and do it there. That would be if I could get the Paragon to work. So far, I have not been successful, but to be honest, I only tried it once and I suspect the sensor needed charging, as I could never get so much as a light out of it.

Milk-in-a-bag never made it to my part of the world, I guess. We always got the half-gallon paper cartons when I was a kid, which were then mixed with another half-gallon of non-fat dry milk mixed with water. I think that was an economy measure. We used a fair amount of milk; my grandmother and I were milk drinkers, Daddy drank it in his coffee, and Mama made biscuits every morning. As a young adult, I could, and did, buy milk in returnable glass half-gallon bottles for a while. Then that dairy got bought up by someone else, and we were back to the by-then plastic jugs. I buy half-gallons. Usually, I use it by the time it would go bad. Not always.

Glad to have you! Yes, do tell us a bit about you, and what you like to cook. Or eat.

I went looking for a gluten-free Cheddar Bay biscuit mix I was pretty sure I had, but couldn't find it. I had my mouth set for that as a crust, so I used some gluten free baking mix, added shortening, cheese, eggs and milk (eggs? in biscuits? go figure), and made up a biscuit dough I dolloped on top of the filling. It was a bit thinner than regular biscuit dough, thus the flat appearance. Brushed it when it came out of the oven with some garlic-herb butter. Worked like a charm. I still have a big chunk of roast left. I may stick it in the freezer.

This bit of doggerel comes to mind: "Loves to eat them little mousies Mousies what I loves to eat Bites they little heads off Nibbles on they tiny feets." I cannot for the life of me remember what that's from, nor do I have any idea why I remember it. True story. A girlfriend called me in hysterics one day, screaming there was a mouse in her oven she found when she removed some fish sticks she had baked. When I took the call, I was standing in line at Victoria's Secret, waiting to check out during their semi-annual bra sale. My side of the conversation: "Hello." ... "You baked a MOUSE?" I swear, every head in the place turned to look at me. It was worse than one of those "When E.F. Hutton talks..." commercials.

Half of the remaining pot roast, with all its veggies, went into a pot pie with a GF cheese biscuit crust. Seems like a very small inroad on the leftovers, but it's good.

Glad all the critters got treats for the New Year. The small people had scrambled eggs, so Lucy got about half an egg, which she promptly scarfed down.

Lovely work, Kim. Were I in Richmond on Christmas Eve, I'd be attempting to cadge an invitation.

Well, it's New Year's Day and not New Year's Eve, but.... I really didn't especially feel in the mood for black-eyed peas and greens, particularly as there is a refrigerator plumb full of all kinds of leftovers, but I also did not want to offend the Gods of New Year's Good Luck. So, I have peas and greens simmering in a couple of Dutch ovens on the stove as we speak. I did have to do without my latkes and mimosas today, as I was engaged in collecting the small people's stuff from all over the house today, loading it in my car, and delivering them to the other grandparents. But there are a few days left before the work year resumes in earnest, so I'll perhaps get to them tomorrow or Saturday. How does everyone prefer their black-eyed peas? Over the years, I've settled on sort of a bastardized cassoulet -- dry peas parboiled while I saute some onion and garlic, brown some sliced smoked sausage or kielbasa, dump in a can of diced tomatoes and then add the peas and liquid. I'll check in an hour or so for seasoning and add whatever it needs. Mustard greens (I don't like 'em, but I can at least choke down a bite or two of mustard greens as opposed to turnip greens or kale) get cooked with bacon grease, salt and pepper, low and slow after they come to a boil. Because that's the way Mama did it, and I know no other way.

Re: bulk egg prep like egg salad, etc. -- the Instant Pot groups on FB recommend cracking the desired number of eggs into a bowl and steaming them, P in P, to the "hard-boiled" stage, then chopping and using as usual. Seems to me that'd be a reasonable procedure. Obviously wouldn't work for deviled eggs.

Growing up on a small farm in the South, we ate mostly what we raised. Lots of garden vegetables, farm raised beef and pork, farm eggs. Flour, coffee, etc., came from the grocery, but that was about it. Meal time was always 5 p.m.; Daddy got home from work (like most folks, he had a "day job" and farmed on weekends) at 4:30, and that gave him time to clean up, get a cup of coffee and read the paper. Meals were homecooked 29 nights out of 30; we might go out once a month. Mama cooked, usually from a fairly basic repertoire of pork and beef dishes, with, rarely, some chicken (Daddy said they fed him so much chicken in the Army he didn't care if he ever ate it again). There wasn't a specific night for a specific dish, though. Grandmama washed dishes. There was always bread, but rarely home-baked; some foods called for biscuits or cornbread, though. Mama only made yeast bread once or twice a year. First sip of wine? After I was grown. We were a tee-totalling household when I was a kid. Key component of our family food culture, I think, was preserving what we grew, either freezing or canning. I still do it, after a 40-year hiatus. Yes, there was generally a pre-meal, brief prayer. I, the only child, was scolded for elbows on the table, but little else. I was scolded much more for chewing with my mouth open, something I Will Not Do and cannot abide as an adult. I still fall back on a lot of the same dishes now, but I cook a lot more sporadically and do branch out a lot more. We usually had ice cream in the freezer; I usually don't now.

Well, I at least started out the year healthy. Yogurt and granola. I really don't particularly want black eyed peas today, but not sure if I want to defy the Good Luck Gods.

I think grouper may be my very favorite fish. Would be worth moving to the Gulf Coast for.

I wound up taking the small people to the local Italian restaurant because they wanted "sketti." Which was really linguini, one with just marinara, one with marinara and meatballs. I had seafood cannelloni, which wasn't bad.

What a wonderful trip! Thank you for taking the time to share it with us. What beauty!

My thought exactly on the sausage roll. The boulders are really cool. I was not familiar with them either. With such gorgeous scenery, less-than-stellar food becomes a minor consideration.

My NYE plans involve little people, ages 8, 7 and 7. I think I will make the aforementioned pot pie for dinner tomorrow night. NY Day, little people or not, there will be mimosas and latkes for breakfast, and a blackeyed pea cassoulet for later in the day, both of which I'll likely eat by myself, but that's OK. We have assorted snacks that are of the suitable-for-kiddos variety. I will celebrate a more proper NY holiday a day or two into it, when I have delivered urchins to the other grandmother. Meanwhile, my kids are on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. There are occasions when life is not real fair.