Steve Irby

Friday at 05:15 PM

Last nights dinner and todays lunch. Okra based gumbo with smoked turkey, Conecuh sausage, shrimp and blue crabs.

Tuesday at 01:21 AM

The last of the home corned brisket served as corned beef hash.

October 13

On 10/10/2025 at 5:18 PM, TdeV said:

Can I be your neighbour, @Steve Irby ?

A neighbor that cooks? Most certainly!

October 10

I started dessert prep earlier in the week with the intention of making a raspberry tart. However the week got away from me and the raspberries were getting soft. The raspberries are now in the freezer destined for smoothies and have been replaced by strawberries and blackberries. Here's a few desserts that will be given to the neighbors. The fruits are glazed with homemade pear preserve syrup. I ate one blackberry tart for QA/QC purposes and it was delicious.

October 10

18 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

We had cioppino on the menu in one restaurant where I worked. One day we were out of the wine that we usually used to make it and substituted another. The sauce still tasted fine but it gave all the seafood an off taste. Could that have been part of your problem?

The cod and clam tasted fine in the sauce but the off flavors were evident in the jonah crab, scallops and shrimp. They had that kind of "gray" flavor from being stored improperly.

October 9

I'm sorry to have to call this dish "not ready for primetime cioppino". The sauce was great but the shrimp, crab and scallops had an off flavor and the clams were kind of anorexic. It turned out to be a pretty expensive photo op☹️

October 7

I split a couple of dozen raw ersters (9th Ward phonetic spelling) with Charlie "Boudreaux" Irby. Actually I ran him off after three since they were running a little small and I was pretty hungry.

October 6

Lunch was meat and three as it is often referred to by us southerners. The meat was pineapple and brown sugar seasoned venison sausage from a deer that my nephew shot. It was processed by a small seasonal butcher in Causeyville MS. The string beans and creamed corn came from the freezer from produce that I put up this summer. The au gratin potatoes were prepared from trim that I had leftover from preparing T Keller's potato pave. I'm going to start my nap after one more bite of the corn!

October 3

I picked up a couple celeriac roots off the quick sale table and decided to make ravioli. I had enough puree for about six dozen so we had a nice serving for dinner and the rest were frozen. The ravioli were served with brown butter, sage, prosciutto and parmesan cheese. My camera was a little wonky and gave a yellow cast to the food with the sage leaves appearing burnt although they were lightly browned!

@Smithy I've also been enjoying tomato pies this summer. I usually make two quiche and one tomato pie per session using prepared pie shells. I place the seasoned tomato slices on a wire rack and cook at 220F for a couple of hours to get the moisture content down. I also enjoy the pan juices😋

We've had a few meals this week from a piece of smoked brisket that was hiding in the freezer. This is the last portion of the really ~~fatty~~ well marbled point.

September 16

Bruschetta using Craft Bakeries red sea sour bread with two toppings. The tomato topping is slow roasted tomatoes over Shahia Brand labneh balls with oil cured olives. The mushroom topping is black pearl and Italian oyster mushrooms sautéed in butter.

September 14

It's a good thing I'm bald because there was a lot of mopping action on my head with this dish. I picked up a tray of smallish green peppers off the quick sale table and roasted them a few days ago. I sampled a liitle bite from one of the peppers and it seemed pretty mild so I chopped them up and added to some smoked turkey leg quarters that I was clearing out of the freezer. I had a small can of chopped jalapenos on standby in case the stew was too mild. They definitely weren't needed. I ended up with a very h🥵tly spiced turkey and green chili stew. I added a couple of cans of white beans to tame the heat a little but you still felt the heat as soon as you stopped eating. The roasted pepper on top is a mild gypsy green pepper that was added as camouflage.

September 10

Yesterday was my birthday (#71) and we had reservations for dinner at a nice restaurant. As the day progressed, and the energy levels dropped, we decided to hang at the house and have a light supper. I ended up preparing a simple salad with hoikkado scallops piccata. Dessert was a flourless chocolate tart from Publix that was very good. We also had a scoop (or two) of B&J Pistachio Pistachio ice cream since we were celebrating.

September 8

I was gifted a couple of different types of Hungarian paprika so I decided to make Chicken Paprikash. I served it with spätzle and steamed cabbage. One of the recipes that I was looking at had an affiliates link to the Kull spätzle maker. The price on Amazon was $199.00! I guess it's time for me to move mine to the safety deposit box.

July 11

Corvina with oil cured olives, fresh artichokes', slow roasted tomatoes, capers and feta. Finished with a nice splash of very aromatic EVOO. Served with mashed potatoes and green salad. The conspicuous product placement is because Olive Oil Lovers has a loyalty program where they award credit for a review of certain products that include a photo or video. I'll be submitting these photos for my $5.00 credit!

We've had company several times this week so I've prepared a variation of this mezze selection as a starter.

July 11

On 7/2/2025 at 8:49 AM, lemniscate said:

@Steve IrbyAre you doing fresh dills with the pickles? It's rare I can find small pickles here and they're usually over the hill, but I love a half-sour out of the jar/crock. Can't even seem to find the commercial half-sours here anymore, tastes are changing it seems.

I certainly agree with the changing taste observation. I'm making an old school sweet pickles from a recipe that my Mom used so it goes back 90+ years. It's been the benchmark for generations and is immediately identifiable in potato salad or coleslaw. The cucumbers have to be really fresh and smallish so this batch turned out really well.

June 30

16 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@Steve Irby

is the smoke flavor from just the grilling , or did you add a smoke source ?

I use a Smokai smoke generator with apple pellets

June 30

Another Jody Adams recipe that I haven't made in awhile - Grilled Smoked Chicken with Poppy Seeds and Pancetta. I substituted Wright's Bacon for the pancetta and dry brined the smallish 3# chicken for 24 hours. The paste applied prior to grilling includes fresh rosemary, fennel seeds, flat leaf parsley, garlic, honey, lemon zest and poppy seeds. It is a thing of beauty coming off the grill and taste great.

June 27

Dinner was a favorite recipe from Jody Adams In the Hands of A Chef that I haven't made in a few years. Fazzoletti with lemon cream, pistachios, spinach and roasted tomatoes.

June 22

@ElsieD My mom blanched garden vegetables and I'm following in her footsteps. She would start freezing water in empty milk containers prior to canning so she could chill the vegetables after processing. I have the luxury of an ice maker to build my inventory and sharp knives. She had a couple of dull Old Hickory knives that she used just about her whole life.

We drove over to Cassebaum Farms Produce yesterday and bought a bushel of shelled speckled butter beans, half bushel of creamer peas and other fresh vegetables. I've never had nicer shelled beans/peas than these. I did not have any "bits and pieces" to pick out or have a lot of dirty scum during blanching. I put sixteen pints of beans and eight pints of peas in the freezer.

June 21

On 6/16/2025 at 8:54 AM, Ddanno said:

Out of curiosity, why do you make them in the fall?

@Ddanno The short answer is food safety. I only make sausage when a cold front moves through so I'll have a two or three day window with temps below 50 F. I usually make three or four types of sausage for a total of ~forty pounds. Cold weather and a large room (garage) makes the job much easier! Some of the sausage cured with pink salt benefit from air drying at lower temps. The attached photo is two types of sausage on a drying rack made out of a commercial pizza oven conveyor belt that I repurposed.

June 20

Fresh corn season is upon! I bought 36 ears today that I put up as cream style corn, 24 ears on Wednesday as cut corn and 12 ears last week as cut corn or on the cob. The corn today was kind of starchy like field corn so I just nipped the tops of the kernels off and raked out the milk with the back of my knife. I gave the corn a quick blitz with an immersion blender to finish. My JCK Blue Steel No.2 Kiritsuke knife does cuts through the kernels effortlessly. I've been buying the corn at Walmart for thirty-three cents/ear when it looks really fresh. All of the corn has been sweet to super sweet. I've put up about 26 pints todate

Cut Corn

Light cut and back dragged for cream style

Cream style blanched and ready for the freezer

June 17

@OlyveOyl that jumbo lump crabmeat is beautiful! And that's a lovely salad with the avocado balls.

June 17

Ottolenghi's starter was our dinner. And the first artichokes that I've ever cooked!

June 16

I'll have what she's having! Actually I did but mine was all smushed up on the plate. And my portion size was considerably larger😋 I prepared this vegetable plate for my 97 year old neighbor. Lima beans with rosemary, garlic and EVOO; turnip greens with bacon and sausage; mashed potatoes with half & half and butter; and fresh sweet corn tightened up with a beurre manie. And no southern lunch is complete without cornbread.

June 16

7 hours ago, Ddanno said:

You can't casually leave an interest bomb like "homemade sausage" without a bit more info, can you?

I guess I was distracted by my sweating bottle of Sierra Pale Ale. I make two or three different fresh sausages every fall with a spanish longaniza always in rotation since at least 2015. Here's a photo from 2018 taken in my garage. My wife was so happy when I got a second hand stainless table and moved my seasonal sausage production out of the kitchen.

And here's the 2024 run of a batch of smoked hot links and longaniza

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