fifi

You are correct if you do not have one guy in charge as in a GC. Then it doesn't work as well. You have to have someone responsible. That is why acting as the GC on your own house, for example, may be a bad idea. What you might save in paying for the services of a GC can get quickly eaten up by the interim financing charges. And that GC will probably have priority over the craftsmen needed to do the job. All I am saying is that you can build in incentives into any contract as long as you know who is responsible for what and build that in. The studies of the Construction Industry Institute continues to support the practice.

Bloviatrix brings up a very good point. I have been involved for many years in very large scale contracting and incentives are used extensively. I am thinking of building that into my house contract. Basically, there is a premium available for the contractor if he finishes by a certain date. That can work to my advantage as there is the fact that I am paying for interim financing while the contractor does his thing. Then there are penalties if it drags on beyond a particular date. There are the usual caveats for weather etc. but the concept is there. You may not have to deal with too many caveats since this job will not be subject to weather and such. It is something to think about. I am continuingly appalled about how these kinds of jobs get stretched out when a little incentive contracting could prevent that.

If friends and family know I am smoking pork butt or brisket, they seem to show up like fruit flies to an over ripe banana. However, if I ask my kids and their friends what they want if I am having a "dinner", they invariably ask for my beef burgundy. My particular, and certainly not traditional, version is based on Emeril's "Beef Fricassee" from Louisiana Real and Rustic. Basically, you make a very dark roux, quench it with the beef cubes and go from there with onion, shallots, mushrooms and wine, etc. For a gathering where we are all bringing something, the hostess will invariably ask for one of my bean salsas. If the mangos are good, it is mango and black bean that is requested. (GG . . . You really didn't think you would be able to discipline this group into answering with just one, did you now? )

Here in Houston, I saw some particularly meaty beef neck bones a day or so ago at Kroger of all places. I made a mental note of this for when I go on a stock making binge in a couple of weeks. This is the first time I have seen neck bones in a while. I am wondering if they have come up with a butchering technique that removes the spinal chord tissue. (Mad cow disease, you know.)

Sorry for the double post but I just caught Fat Guy's info about the smoked pork products. I do have to say that I have made stock several times from leftovers of smoked turkey and chickens. It is unique and normally used in limited quantities but can add wonderful flavor to braised cabbage, beans, and many other dishes. You just have to know what you are dealing with and how far to go with it. I will say that it is important to remove most of the dark smoked skin before making the stock because that gives too strong a smoke flavor and you might think you are adding asphalt.

Now I am getting interested in pork stock. I have a question. Do you brown the pork like you do for beef? Or is it a choice of brown versus light stock as in chicken? (I have made brown chicken stock before by browning thighs and such a bit. It is particularly good for onion soup.)

You may have answered why I don't separate. Most of my braises are smaller pieces of meat. When I do larger pieces, the odd hunk of pork or brisket, I do separate. But, I have to admit, that is more for a matter of convenience rather than knowing what I am doing. I have got to try some of the three day projects.

I use Paula's procedure for reheating braises and do notice how much better it is the next day. I never knew that I "knew what I was doing." I am just not organized enough to preheat the oven and figured that it doesn't really matter, heat is heat, laws of thermodynamics and all of that. As I think about it, I can see how the cold start could lead to "plumper" and more succulent meat given how protein behaves. I may even try planning ahead to make that happen on purpose. But I do go with Fat Guy's approach of storing the meat and sauce together. Granted, that is usually only a day or two and in a very tightly sealed container. I am entirely too lazy to separate it. I will try Paula's approach on a very familiar recipe and see if it makes a difference.

Having lived with my bottle of seasoned olive oil for a few weeks now, I have to report that it is about the most sublime fat in my "pantry" now. Having used it for sauteing, salad dressing, and adding a little fat to a pot of paprika turkey thighs, I am now committed to making just a pot of that oil. I will probably double the seasoning mixture just because I like to go over the top. I can always dilute it if it is too strong for direct use.

*bump* I need to report another revelation. The technique used for the chicken thighs also works for turkey thighs. I am in a pretty much constant quest for how to make turkey that I actually like. It is just too cheap to pass up. I had purchased four turkey thighs for the purpose of making turkey confit. I got busy with other stuff and didn't have time to fiddle with the confit. I needed to use up the thighs before they headed south so I decided to try the paprika chicken recipe. Like with the chicken, I skinned the thighs. For four thighs I sliced two large onions. (If you are after a lot of onions you could certainly use more.) Whereas four chicken thighs takes about 1/4 cup of paprika, I kind of eyeballed it and doubled it due to the size of the turkey thighs. It came out about right. Now, the confit recipe came real close to making turkey palpable to me but this is big bird dynamite. This is as good as it gets, maybe even better than deep fried turkey, about the only other way I really like it.

Now there is a stroke of genius. I just tried the paprika chicken technique with four turkey thighs. I had bought them with the intention of trying the turkey confit again. I got busy and needed to do something with them before they died of old age and I wasn't in the mood to fiddle with the confit. First I will report that the turkey paprika was excellent. I have a well known dislike of turkey and this recipe almost fixes it. I was just wondering with what else to do with it other than tacos as it will take me eons to eat all of that. Do you have a sopa seca recipe in mind? I would like to use up the onions and liquid as well.

Congratulations on having made a decision. I have to say that the very few regrets in my life have occured when I didn't "listen to my gut." Oops. I forgot. You are a guy. I'm not sure how that works with guys. But, at least Mrs. Varmint approves. That counts for something, probably a lot.

Oh . . . this is a soup thread. Duh! I completely forgot about what I did with leftovers from Christmas dinner. I was at my son's house and we did the pork roast and related recipes from here and the squash from here. We had some leftovers from the squash and I made a small pot of soup. I just pureed the squash in the pan with a little added chicken broth to adjust the texture and some heavy cream (my kids say that I consider this one of the major food groups). I did end up adding some more of the Latin Seasoning to taste. It was spectacular.

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. This has answered many questions I have had. The pictures are particularly helpful and well chosen. (Be careful . . . Very careful . . . You may get drafted for an eGCI course. )

I quit trying to do this some time ago. I now pierce a pumpkin or winter squash with an ice pick to prevent explosion and nuke the darn thing until it is soft enough to cut without industrial tools.

Confirming what Paula has said, I have kept a jar of lemons in the fridge for more than a year and they were all good. I am now experimenting with keeping lemons, limes and calamondins on the counter at room temperature for several months now and all is well. I have been using Patricia Wells' method, which isn't too different from Paula's, and it has worked well for me. From a scientific standpoint, at a certain level of salt and acid juices, it probably doesn't make a lot of difference from a food preservation standpoint. From a taste standpoint, I really don't know. I made a batch one time that did end up smelling like furniture polish and really wasn't that good. Having done this many times without making furniture polish, I have no clue what happened. It must have been the lemons, how they were grown or whatever. This is not easy to predict. Now, does anyone know what to do with the Key Limes? (Perhaps I should bump up that original thread.) BTW . . . I have been known to snitch a section, rinse it and just kind of nibble at it as a treat.

And a hearty welcome to you, dorachadas. So happy to have you here. I wouldn't worry about it other than the mess. My sister made some in a really cheap glass lidded jar, the kind with the clamp and a gasket, and it never did seal well. She just kept cleaning it off. You may have some wrinkles in the plastic wrap where the lid sealing surface meets the rim. I would just reseal and try again, if nothing else to avoid the mess.

If I am going to keep fats any length of time in the fridge, that is why I use jars with metal lids. Fat in plastic can pick up off flavors from the fridge environment pretty quickly. I have learned that the hard way.

What with my group of friends, you have just given me a great party idea . . . A White Elephant Kitchen Gadget theme. I have a set of Parrot Head cheese spreaders in a holder that looks like a tiki hut bar that might qualify. Why is it that cheese spreaders, bottle openers, and salt and pepper shakers seem to attract tackiness? And, I dunno, "given" works for me. My son had moved to his first apartment. He wasn't into candles much except at the table. He always liked to set a nice table with candles arranged just so. My daughter and I were in a dollar store for some reason. There was this big box of really ugly, badly made big candles. I picked up this light green thing and was trying to figure it out. Then we realized that it was a bad rendition of a buffalo, as in North American bison. OK . . . A buffalo is bad enough but in light seafoam green? We began thinking about the thought process that would produce such a thing, the people who would go to the trouble to make a mold and expend resources to make a bunch of them, and then use the fuel to ship them across the sea. We got a hopeless case of the giggles. Tears were still running down our cheeks as we paid for it at the register. We had bought my son some lovely place mats, runners, candles and holders and such for his table but we wrapped this thing especially nicely and gave it to him first saying in all seriousness "Something for the home." The look on his face was truly memorable as we dissolved into a total incapacitation event. It was given back and forth for several years, often hidden in some other gift, to whoever was hosting Christmas Eve or Day dinner. We also developed a ceremonial "lighting of the green buffalo" just prior to sitting down to dinner. This is probably the first year we were all together that we missed since I think I got it last and it is packed away.

I always wondered about the Eggstractor ? A cousin that should know better fessed up that she almost ordered me that grip and flip thingy. I escaped this year.

It was the wallpaper paste that reminded me. I was just starting to cook again. The son was in love with the pearl tapioca in coconut milk dessert that you get at Thai restaurants. I had been on my first trip to the Asian market and bought some of the pearls and several cans of coconut milk. With no recipe and not having a clue as to what I was doing, I dump the pearls into the milk in a sauce pan. After all, I had made mom's tapioca pudding a lot and the amounts looked about right. Well, it didn't take long to "seize up." Add more coconut milk . . . get a bigger pot . . . more milk . . . another pot . . . throw son the car keys to go get more milk . . . I think you see where this is going. At about the two-gallons-of-paste mark our sanity returned . . . "What are we thinking?" We got a huge case of the giggles and threw it out. On the fishy thing . . . I had a bunch of leftover pecans and walnuts from the holidays. (I can't resist those big bags of nut halves at Sam's.) I decided to roast them up for nibbles with the butter worchestershire routine used for snack mix. Luckily I used separate pans. The walnuts were vile! The most awful fishy taste you can imagine. I mean, spit-it-out vile. It must have been something about the tannins in the walnuts and the anchovy in the worchestershire. The pecans were delicious.

Oooo . . . I forgot about Denis. That is my favorite place on the West side. You can get wild Atchafalaya catfish. Pappadeaux's is good but too loud for my taste and I think Denis is a bit better. Both are kid friendly, especially for lunch. I agree about the Goode & Co. BBQ. It is a little better at the one on I-10 but I am most often in the Kirby area. The taqueria is great though. I still like their enchiladas. The chile sauce is great.

The issue is not the space taken up by the door. This remodel job expands an already large pantry by another 16-18 square feet, where I currently have a traditional door. The issue here is that by bringing the doorway flush to the new counter, if we install a traditional door casing, we'd end up with about a 23 inch door and would be unable to get larger items in and out. I'm trying to come up with ideas to make the passageway at least 26 inches. Eliminating a door frame is the first step. Then it's just a matter of figuring out the rest! As far as bifold doors are concerned, I just have bad memories of poorly hung closet doors, which sound very cheap to me. ← I had folding doors in another house one time for a similar space problem. They were not cheap like some others I have had in rental places and they were trouble free. I think the trick is that they weren't cheap.

Ah hah! Mystery solved. I should have figured that one out. I could not imagine doing something like that in a Hyatt kitchen.

She used to bite them off the bushes in my mother's garden. If she grabbed a cucumber, don't try to get it away from her. Same for green beans and hot peppers. She lived to be 15 1/2 in good health. My son didn't think she would clean up a substantial red wine spill. While he was out getting the mop and bucket she had already lapped up a considerable quantity. Her white paws were stained and she got drunk and fell over. The vet said to just let her sleep it off. If she drank too much she would throw it up. She was one sad looking hound the next morning.