Steve Irby

After a rough week on the road, lined with chain restaurants, it was nice to be home and eat a little home cooking. I made a Greek style salad last night with really good Romanian feta. Tonight was a combination of a prepped food from the freezer which included sausage stuffed SV chicken thighs, homemade andouille sausage and with a fresh KC strip. Buttery pommes anna and a simple romaine to accompany.

Guanciale wrapped turkey tenderloin and chicken skin wrapped around a tarragon chicken sausage. I used meat glue and sous vide in the prep of both items. A quick pan fry and finished in the oven. I was going to cook them over the weekend but ran out of steam late yesterday. Served with the usual culprits plus pan charred fresh vidalia onions. Topped with a simple tarragon infused cream sauce.

I bought the Campari's at WD on Sunday and they were $3.49/#. Definitely on the high side but the other four types/brands were not in the best of shape. I had my heart set on a greek salad that night so I bit the bullet bought them. The salad was great and the tomato premium turned out to be worth it.

A not quite ready for prime time dinner to start the week. I had a couple of sous vide duck breast tucked far-far away in the freezer that I liberated from the gloom. Other than the light from the incandescent bulb they hadn't seen the light of day for awhile. Served with a balsamic vinegar, chicken stock and homemade fig reduction. A little sweet potato hash browned up in the duck fat and re-purposed asparagus completed the food pyramid.

After three days of sub-par food in the FL panhandle tonight's offering was as much therapy as dinner. I had a couple of decent shaped potatoes that I prepped in the spirit of Francis Mallmann and roasted up the trimmings with cherry tomatoes, oil-cured olives and capers. I had too much liquid from the tomatoes for the potatoes to bind but the dish was delicious! De-boned some chicken thighs, simply seasoned and forgot about the preceding days. Finished all preps with a splash of olive oil and fresh herbs.

Not quite dinner yet but just a few hours away. Boston Butt, porchetta style, with knife pockets stuffed with thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary, garlic and fennel pollen. Gilded the lily so to speak by finishing the pockets with guanicale strips.

Fresh Pompano caught by neighbor this morning. Two preps, but the brown butter, sage, and pistachio was my fav.

Really tasty hanger steak. Weighed in a little under than 2# and I thought it would be good for dinner tonight, for me and the wife, with enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. We keep nibbling so lunch is going to turn out pretty light.

It was a nice weekend for the grill. Cooked three different sausages that I made a few months ago. Chaurice, Longanizo, and a harissa seasoned sausage.

Dinner was sous vide country style pork ribs with pommes anna and asparagus. The pork was seasoned with fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano) and cooked for 18 hours @ 145F. I made a quick sauce from the pouch juice, pork demi-glace and finished with sour cream.

Here's a batch of Ukrainian style sausage that I made over the weekend. It's a beef and pork sausage that is poached, air dried, then smoked. it's doing double duty this week for lunch and dinner.

Santa came early with a Smokai smoke generator. The main use will be for a homemade smoke house but I installed it on my Weber gas grill. I cooked two slabs of ribs for about 5 hours and they came out really nice. I used a bbq rub from Butcher & Packer. The pellets for the smoker are a blend of apple, cherry, hickory and hard maple.

Instead of cookies I decided to give the curried peach, jalapeno peach and blueberry BBQ glazes/preserves as gifts. Hot packed into 4 oz. jars. The blueberry and curried peach are phenomenal.

That second photo is a double or triple like!

Beautiful photography and composition.

Great looking dishes.

I prepared the grits, greens and pork rinds tonight and it was phenomenal.

Not the best color balance but a pretty darn heart healthy dinner of seafood and salad. Fried soft-shell crabs, oysters and green tomatoes served with smoked corn mayo (Vivian Howard recipe), remoulade and mixed salad green mix.

They were pretty darn tasty. Cooked on a gas grill close to perfection for my taste. I went on the under-cooked side since I've had a problem lately with flare-ups. I've been slacken on grill maintenance if truth be told. The Ajinomoto brand that I'm using has to be at least three years old. I split a ~1 lb. package with a friend and sub-divided into about 8 portions that I vacuumed bagged using a chamber sealer. The stuff is still doing the job.

We really enjoyed the first batch. I was worried that I was a little to aggressive with the smoke but it turned out great. We're still getting good tomatoes so lunch was elbow lick sandwiches on an italian/semolina/sesame bread from the farmers market. I vacuum bagged three additional portions of fresh smoked corn and may prep some more if the corn holds till next week. I haven't read the full thread but it's quite interesting to observe that my local fare is somewhat alien to many of the Egullet family. I've seen many post extolling the virtues of Rancho Gordo beans when we have access to many varieties (that are superior IMHO) of fresh beans/peas that are routinely blanched, frozen, and are a daily staple. To add to Vivian's comment peas (pink eyed purple hulls were my mom's favorite) were served during the week and butterbeans (baby lima) were reserved for Sunday dinner (served at noon). If you had dinner of creamed corn and butterbeans you were having formal meal. A lima bean was a mealy, dried bean cooked up with a ham hock that was served at meat and 3 lunch spots. Here's a couple of photo's of fresh beans from the markets this weekend. The first is speckled butterbeans (Rattlesnake Beans!) from a Mennonite farm stand. And butterbeans and peas from the local produce market. Dinner tonight (it was the big meal, lunch was the sandwiches) was fried green tomatoes, oysters and softshell crabs. Served with remoulade, roasted corn mayo and salad greens mix.

Smoked Mayo Prep. I went all in with 12 ear's of fall corn smoked with river birch.

I'll have to give this thread a little bump. Last week I prepared a butterflied rump roast with meat glue and tonight some chicken thighs stuffed with homemade toulouse sausage. The roast was cooked SV ( 24 hr. @ ~138) and the thighs will be grilled tomorrow.

My neighbor had a pig roast yesterday and my contribution was Toulouse sausage. Fortunately for us folks on the Gulf Coast the weather finally cooled off and it was a lovely evening. I also made a "in the spirit of" North African sausage with a Harissa blend. Here's the Toulouse sausage before linking. And tonight beef rump roast that was butterflied, seasoned with Worldspice beef rub and home made cured kumquats. Sous vide for 24 hrs @ 138 F. To gild the lily I also bacon wrapped the beef using transglutaminase. The roast was really tasty.

Tamworth pork shanks from http://www.bigcreekfarmflorida.com/ cooked Osso Bucco style. Served with gremolata, mushroom risotto (carnaroli rice) and a side of wilted spinach.