Steve Irby

Here's a sampling of the output from the past several days. I've made Cornetti from the Carol Fields bread book for years. Not Instagram ready but so good hot out of the oven. The trim was placed in a muffin cup with homemade pear preserves. Chocolate Seduction from a little Consumer Guide booklet that I was gifted around 1982. The recipe calls for a 10 inch tart pan but I made five 4-inch tartlets. And from a yard sale cookbook by Linda Collister - Divine Chocolate Recipes. Maybe my favorite chocolate and pecan cookie recipe. I used Callebaut 811 in all of the recipes.

Last night's dinner was a sampling of sausages from the weekends effort. I prepared 10# of fresh Spanish Longaniza sausage, 10# Bubba Five Alarm Hot links and 8# of Italian onion sausage. All formulations are from the Len Poli, Sonoma Mountain website. The temperatures have been low enough for me to air dry the longaniza sausage in the garage for a few days. The hotlinks were smoked on my gas grill using my Smokai smoke generator. Here Charlie patiently waiting for the batch of mixed songbird and lizard sausage

I've been making this recipe from the New York Times for quite a few years now - Galatoire’s Sweet Potato Cheesecake. This year I finished it with praline pecans from JW Renfroe Pecan Co. and a butterscotch drizzle.

This ones going to be lunch for days! Smoked turkey with a cabbage and potato concoction. The turkey was smoked pretty hard but pulled from the grill when the meat was still a little pink. The meat was perfect after being reheated in the stew -moist and very tender. The dish was seasoned with some mystery spices that my sister brought back from a recent trip to Turkey. I used a red spice blend labeled meat and ground chilis labeled black, black pepper. I think the chilis are black urfa.

I'm getting started on my annual loss leader turkey fest. This year I bought a 21# turkey and defrosted it in an ice chest. I was afraid it would break the glass shelves in the refrigerator! The breast were dusted with a combination of Tony Chachere's seasoned salt and a Dangold seasoned salt. The wings were bagged with sage, lemon, butter and S&P. The tenderloins were trimmed of the sinew, dusted with meat glue and Tony's and wrapped in bacon. They'll be in the hot water bath for about 3 hours @ 141F. I'll chill and finish the items later. The leg quarters were heavily seasoned and are smoking on my Weber kettle.

Grilled pork chop dusted with Penzey's Revolution spice blend then finished with a soy-satsuma-honey glaze.

I've had better luck using two squares and sandwiching the bone or carapace. I've tried to wrap bones with one sheet but the boneguard shifts making it a little fiddly to adjust.

BJ's had a really nice package of thick cut pork chops so I stuffed four of the six and cooked them sous vide. I used some homemade longaniza for the stuffing and made a quick sauce of heavy cream, pork gelee, tomatoes and green onions. I used a boneguard from JVR to prevent the dreaded puncture in the hot water bath.

Shrimp remoulade and fried green tomatoes.

Tonight's dinner included a pear and starfruit salad. The pears were downed fruit from a neighbors tree and the starfruit came off the reduced for quick sell table (6/$1.50). The salad ingredients included surprisingly hot serrano peppers, mini red peppers, red onion, walnuts and blue cheese. The dressing was a pear preserve vinaigrette. The preserves were prepared with the scavenged pears, lemons, oranges, cinnamon and candied ginger.

I think the dish was a restaurant original. I use gruyere cheese grits as the base.

Dinner was leftovers from a late lunch on Saturday. My wife is very involved in animal rescue and I prepared a big spread for the TNR gang. The mezze's included roasted beets and carrots with whipped citrus goat cheese, marinated roast peppers and eggplant (Escalivada), grilled zucchini , sautéed shrimp with feta, smoked eggplant dip (Mutabal) with toasted pita and bread. I was so busy with prep and serving that I didn't take a single picture. Dessert was white chocolate cheescake. This slice is heading over to the next door neighbor. The main course on Saturday was my take on Salmon Rockefeller as served at the former Madison's Restaurant. This photo was from dinner a few years ago but the plating was identical. My blender hollandaise was definitely not as good this time as it was a little thin.

Dawn to Dusk loaves. Started in the AM with 1000 grams of flour at 78% hydration and 2.4 grams of yeast. Finished sometime after dark.

Tonight's supper was leftover grilled salmon repurposed into salmon cakes with celeriac remoulade. Served with a pizza slice from Flourish And yesterday we had Chinese broccoli, chickpeas and preserved lemon over pasta. Topped with Fulvi pecorino Romano and Aleppo peppers

@BonVivant that fried okra and tofu has me drooling. What's the procedure for the tofu and duck yolk sauce? Okra was also on our menu today. Lunch was a variation on "Meat and Three". The okra is sliced then rolled in cornmeal prior to frying in hot oil. My Mom couldn't fix enough for us kids.