Norm Matthews

Learning to cook and learning some menu's are two different things, but one follows the other. As others have said, breakfast meals is a good place to start. Grilled sandwiches and roast chicken are a couple of other things. Most men learn to make some kind of pasta dish early on in their cooking careers, I think.

That's true but additional flavors will be imparted depending on the flavors in fat, water and alcohol. Vodka adds alcohol without much additional flavor. Wines have flavor to add along with the flavor components drawn out by the alcohol. Broth or stock adds flavor to water and bacon fat will be different from duck fat or butter.

Been out of action for a couple months with a broken ankle. Finally got back in the kitchen and made Braciole di Manzo, fettucini, a salad and some honeydew.

We always have my Southern mom's traditional ham hocks, collards, black eyed peas and corn bread but the store didn't have hacks so I used a ham bone that was in the freezer. We had it NYE instead of new years day and I mentioned that I was getting tired of this every year and suggested we start something new. Cassie said her dad always had a Mexican shrimp cocktail on New Years Day so I made it for dinner today. Cassie helped. It was good. Better than I thought it would be. We had it with beer and clamato juice.

I haven't been cooking much. I have been looking for a new Mayan calendar. My old one ran out of days. I thought the bank would send one but they just have the regular one year ones. Oh well. I guess it isn't the end of the world if I don't find a new one. Since we had Thanksgiving at my sisters, we had no left overs. Tried to remedy that today. Roasted a very small turkey for Christmas eve dinner with guests. Also had the usual suspects: Dressing, sweet potatoes, pan sauted squash with parsnips, mushrooms and onions, etc.

Actually I don't know. It sprouted from a seed in my front yard. beautiful bright red leaves. dcarch It looks like Japanese Red Maple

Amazon has them... http://www.amazon.co...=sizzle platter Thanks for the link but I believe those are different. Mine are rectangular and stainless steel. I recently got one of those oval ones and it was aluminum and the under tray is thinner and chiped easily.

I have a cookbook/history of BBQ and one of the oldest known sauces isn't possible to duplicate exactly now because the original English "catsup" used was a concoction that used oysters- no tomates. The book says the closest sub is Vietnamese fish sauce. They specifically state to only use the Vietnamese variety.

Thanks. I brought some home from our restaurant just before we sold it about 25 years ago. I wish I'd grabbed a few more.

I had some coconut shrimp at a restaurant that I thought was good so I tried to make it at home. I think it was a successful experiment. Along with it was a dipping sauce, rice pilaf, pineapple dak bulgogi and pepper steak.

My mom used to make poached eggs in one of those egg poacher pans where the egg was put in a pan held above the water and the egg was steamed, not really poached. I always hated poached eggs until I realized that those weren't really poached eggs. Eggs poached IN water are so much better tasting IMO.

Kim, if interested, you might try this shrimp boil. It makes really good shrimp 2 tablespoons rosemary 2 teaspoons dried thyme 1 teaspoon black pepper 5 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped 1 teaspoon celery seeds 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 2 quarts chicken broth 3 ounces tomato paste ½ cup butter 1 ½ pounds shrimp, peeled, tails on, save shrimp shells. Combine all the ingredients with the peeled shrimp shells and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, Strain out the shells, return to heat and cook shrimp a few minutes, until just opaque.

If you break the egg into a glass custard dish and look at the edge of the white and see no watery edge, it is fresh enough to use without vinegar. If there is a little water around the egg white, vinegar helps congeal it but you may also have to trim away some of the trailings to make it look 'professional' . I lower the custard bowl into the water and let some of the hot water in to help set the egg before slowly and carefully letting it drop in the water. If you must, take a spatula and coax the wayward white strands back in the middle. The biggest problem with the vortex method is that you can only do one egg at a time. You can cook them ahead, then drop them in cold water to set and keep them until you have enough or are ready to eat, then just reheat in hot water.

Everyone's dinners look amazing. Thank you C.Sapidus and Nikkib for your comments about the brisket. Last weekend two of the neighbors helped us take down a dead Austrian pine so I invited them over for dinner last night. We had Shrimp appetizer with beets, hard cooked eggs and a dressing on the side. Cucumber salad Bread Slottsteck (Norwegian pot roast) roasted potatoes, zuchinni and yellow squash and pan juices from the pot roast and Black Forest cake... lopsided. LOL

Despite the morning rain and subsequent cold and damp, I fired up the smoker for possibly the last time and did a small (2 1/2 lb.) piece of beef brisket. Because it was small, it only took about 4 hours.

As i mentioned before, I first make ham and beans with chicken stock and then make baked beans from left over beans but beans for BBQ is a step farther. Start with baked beans, either your own or in a can. For this i prefer canned- Bushes is fine- because they are blander than my baked beans and they take the additional seasoning well. For BBQ beans I add finely minced smoked brisket, BBQ rub, BBQ sauce, brown sugar and molasses.

Thanks Kim and robirdstix. I am a retired art teacher and although I taught calligraphy, It was a different kind. I just recently started teaching myself in this particular style.

Thank you. The pen is a jade green Sheaffer'S from the 1920's, a style described as Oversized Flat Top. Here is a picture of it.

Everyones dinners look great. Me? Ever have one of those days where things just don't go the way you want? Today was sort of like that. I had not cooked in a while but wanted to try a couple things I had never made before. One, I saw stuffed clams in the store and decided to make some from fresh clams. I also saw an iceberg wedge salad from Thomas Keller. The kids made suggestions for sides and the menu was set. And at the last minute I decided to try a different version of cheese biscuits. Then I realized that I misspelled spinach. I was telling myself it was NOT spelled spinache and trying not to add the e but did anyway and left off the 'h' I also misspelled Hollandaise. Drat. After I made the stuffed clams, I realized there would not be enough for us so I got some frozen crab cakes and three more stuffed clams from the store. I am sorry to say the store bought ones were better than mine. But if those crab cakes are what they are supposed to taste like, then i can honestly say I don't care much for them. Here is the lettuce salad with bacon, semi dried tomatoes with herbs, home made croutons and buttermilk dressing with mint and lemon juice. It was good but next time I'll put the dressing and toppings on some torn romaine leaves. Also pictured is the spinach. I made Touch of Grace biscuits with more flour than called for and added cheese. I did that so they would hold a shape better. It baked longer than it said to but still didn't get done. After this picture was taken it went back in the oven for a while longer. Son wanted asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. I made the sauce from a mix. First and last time I'll do that. It was tasteless. Here is some of the crab and clam on a plate And i forgot to serve the rice until we were almost done but here it is.. AND it turned out this was NOT the rice pilaf they had in mind when they asked me to make it. All-in-all, I learned a few things to do differently next time... and which things for which will be no next time .

Navy beans are generally considered better than Great Northern bean for Boston baked beans. Great Northerns have a thinner skin and absorb flavors better than navy beans but navy beans have a thicker skin and hold up better to the long process of making BBbeans The primary thing that makes beans stay hard is how they are stored and age. Dried beans from this years harvest and stored an relative cool and low humid areas cook up much better than old beans stored in a hot and humid place. Salt does not really affect them all that much. I like to make Boston baked beans out of navy beans left over from a ham hock, beans and greens dinner. I use molasses, dark brown sugar, dry mustard, catsup, onion, salt and paprika + some meaty ham. If Heritage ham is used, go easy on the added salt..

Now that I have moved to a city that has a butcher shop with grain fed roasting chickens, I poached one and then made dumplings. My son reorganized the kitchen to make it more efficient. I spent more time looking for stuff (and cussing) than cooking and didn't take any pictures.

I know a couple of airbrush artists who do not have compressors but instead buy cylinders of CO2 for their airbrushes. They replace them like you would a propane tank for an outdoor grill.

Norm, thank you very much for the link. Do you use yellow or white corn syrup? And regular white vinegar or some other kind? I will be making these for sure. Your are welcome ElsieD. My son made the wings this time and I did not notice what vinegar he used but we usually use rice vinegar and white corn syrup. If he didn't use rice vinegar, I am sure he used cider vinegar. He would not have used any of the other vinegars we have. When we had our restaurant, his mother and grandmother used Essig vinegar.

Jewelers solder comes in soft, medium and hard. Soft is easiest to work with. The tool i make when dealing with chocolate coated truffles is a plastic fork with the two center tines broken out.

Early dinner today and sandwiches for a few days: roast chicken with home made gravy. Made stock with neck, giblet and onion. Gravy with chicken drippings, flour, stock, S&P and a splash of sherry. We had it with rice. Son had fresh squeezed orange juice (Valencia) and I had Diet Coke.