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These things are pretty much a staple around here. What you want for a squeezer is something like this. I got mine at Central Market. The effort is worth it. We use these for really good margeritas, limeade with coconut rum, you name it. These are the limes that you see all over Mexico. They are often served sliced ready to squeeze on whatever you have been served. They are very flavorful and definitely worth the trouble. Tip: Slice the lime longitudinaly close to the core. You will end up with a roundish slice with no seeds. The inner portion will be pretty much wasted but that is ok. They are pretty cheap, usually.

I am following this thread with great interest. My late dear friend had (has) a lime tree (bush?) in a big pot on the deck. I have always gotten my leaves from there. My intent is to get a cutting for when I get back into a house and garden. I will want one for sentimental reasons but also for the practical. (She would appreciate that. ) She got the tree from some dear Thai friends from where they lived in North Carolina. The tree thrives and produces great and flavorful leaves. So far, no fruit. I had read somewhere, some time ago, that kaffir lime trees were illegal in Texas. I am not at all sure what that means. I am also not entirely sure that that is still the case. All I know is that I will be planting a lime tree at my new home on the San Leon peninsula and that every time I pick a leaf, I will think of my friend.

Yes! And I made it. And it was fantastic! Now I have lost it.

I am thinking that the cornbread dressing may be a "southern thang". The recipe I posted is the results of an effort to recreate my mother's dressing to suit the kids. She never made it by measure and neither did I. The kids pronounced this recipe as "the authentic one" and I let them believe that. Actually, she was always messin' with it by adding other things, varying seasonings and such. But, I'm not going to tell the kids... and don't you dare either. We always did it in pans outside of the bird. And... come to think of it, it probably came from my grandmother and great aunt originally, and maybe from some of their ancestors.

Rats... I don't have a bottle of it to check out but, as I recall, you are on the right track. What I don't remember is the order of the ingredients. But it is basically a mix of citrus (lime, lemon, orange) with cumin, garlic and black pepper. It is pretty tart. I don't think you could go wrong with your own mix. The cumin, garlic, black pepper thing seems to be a fairly common "Latin" mix with maybe some coriander thrown in.

Ummm... Am I the only one that freezes her garbage.

Great tip! That is on the way to my sister's house.

In my family, we have always had a traditional cornbread dressing. Even though we are going out to the yacht club this year, I am still told that I have to make the dressing. In absence of RecipeGullet, this will be a long post. First, the cornbread... Heat oven to 425F Place 3 tablespoons lard, bacon drippings or corn oil into a heavy iron skillet. Put skillet into the oven to heat. Combine dry ingredients: 2 cups cornmeal, stone ground whole grain 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon sugar Combine: 2 cups buttermilk 2 lightly beaten eggs Stir eggs and buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients just until dry ingredients are incorporated. Do NOT over mix. Remove pan from oven. Pour ingredients into the pan and return to the oven. (Technique tip: Put the pan on a level surface and pour batter into the middle so it spreads evenly. There will be a lot of sizzling going on and it will make an attractive crust on the outside edges. Makes for a prettier final result.) Bake for 25 minutes. Then... Here is the dressing recipe that can be endlessly added to... 2 recipes “Real Corn Bread” (Don’t cheat on the corn bread. It must be this recipe.) 2 cans cheap (like a store brand) biscuits, baked pretty brown but not burned 3 cups chopped onion 3 cups diced celery 2 Tbs oil, not olive oil 1 cup chopped green onion 1 cup chopped parsley 6 boiled eggs, diced 1 ½ tsp poultry seasoning, or more to taste 1 Tbs black pepper 6 – 8 cups chicken stock salt to taste Hand crumble corn bread and biscuits into a large bowl, big enough to hold all of the ingredients with plenty of stirring room. Lightly sauté onions and celery until slightly wilted. Add to the bread. Add the green onion and parsley. Cross cut the egg in an egg slicer or dice and add. Add the poultry seasoning and pepper. Mix thoroughly with your hands. (Hands work better than a spoon to get it well mixed without mushing it up.) Continue mixing while adding chicken stock. What you want to end up with is the bread mixture well saturated but no excess stock pooling in the bottom of the bowl. Taste for salt and adjust if necessary. Spray pans with Pam. Put the mixture in the pans and level out but don’t pack down. Shallower pans give you more crust. Deeper pans give you more soft stuff. You pick.. Bake at 350 F until lightly browned and the center springs back when poked. How long you bake it depends on your pans so you just have to watch and poke. Variations (Mother was always tampering with the recipe. To say that this is THE recipe is a lie, actually.) Add cooked crumbled sausage. Oysters are another possibility. (yuk for me) Add cooked crumbled andouille sausage or slices of smoked andouille, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute Cajun seasoning and some cayenne for the poultry seasoning. Add cooked crumbled Italian sausage, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute oregano, thyme and basil for the poultry seasoning. Leave the eggs out of this one. Add cooked shrimp, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute Cajun seasoning and some cayenne for the poultry seasoning. Make some good strong shrimp broth with the shrimp shells (and heads if you have them) and substitute for some of the chicken stock.. You get the idea… Chorizo, poblano, chile powder, Mexican oregano? Someone (maybe Mother) once thought about mixed sauted mushrooms. (I don’t know about that!) Mother once used all fresh herbs of the poultry seasoning persuasion that she grew. It was fabulous. (She grew herbs many years before it was cool.) Note: This recipe can be halved but it is a lot of trouble to make too little and it freezes well. The quantities given in the recipe are not critical. If you want more onion, celery or parsley (or whatever), go for it.

Around lunch time today, I had to go to Randall's (owned by Safeway) and my cart inexplicably veered into the frozen food aisle. When I got to the check out, I noticed that a bag of Tater Tots had found their way into the cart. About 20 minutes in the DeLonghi at 400F on convection and I had tots that I would have sworn had been fried. I took the purist approach this time out. There is a smal can of chili and some good cheddar waiting in the wings.

I am not sure where we are going with this but and I may have misunderstood, but... The fact that you are removing the trays, they are picking up condensation from the air outside the freezer, then are put back in the freezer... Well, that would not contribute to freezer burn of other products. All you are doing with that operation is adding some to the moisture in the freezer. Whether or not that is adding to an icing problem in the freezer is a whole 'nother issue. (That would depend on the size relative to the amount of condensation... blah, blah, blah.) The products that are getting freezer burn are just giving up moisture from the product, through the packaging, and into the air in the freezer.

Now that is a revelation. For some stupid reason, I never thought of that. I don't have one of those little Fry Daddys so I have only indulged in the Tots when they are available out. I will now equip myself with a bag on the next trip to Randall's (owned by Safeway) an indulge in my passion. A nice trip through the DeLonghi should do it. I confess to liking all of the above... well, maybe I would give the casserole a pass. But I haven't seen my favorite lately. I was in some generic breakfast place somewhere and, imagine my surprise to find Tater Tots next to my omelet instead of the hashbrowns. That was truly inspired. I started seeing them as little golden hashbrown nuggets with the crisp surface to gooey innards ratio just about perfect. I asked the waitress about this stroke of genious. She snickered and said that she thought the manager forgot to order the hashbrowns and that all they had in potato inventory for breakfast service was fries and Tots. The cook chose the Tots as being closer to hashbrowns. I had her tell the cook of his genius. They sent me a free side. I now ask if that substitution is available. Yes, I get some funny looks.

Oh wow... Those are some reallycool binders. Thanks for the link!

I am totally guessing here. You could start at maybe 300F and see how it goes. I would probably start a little lower. You are just going to have to watch and see. My "accidental" carnitas (oops, I mean carefully planned culinary adventure ) were not turned at all and were done at 250F. Like someone else said up-thread, first the liquid will cook down to a thick gravy, then all of the water will evaporated away and the fat will have rendered, leaving a pool of fat in the bottom of the pan. I do suggest that you choose a pan that "just fits" the pork in a single layer. That way, all of the pieces get equal and maximum exposure to the cooked down liquid and fat in succession. I guess you could turn them once, maybe. I just found that being obsessive about turning and getting the chunks "evenly coated" ended up with shreds.

Packaging is the key to avoiding freezer burn. The key is the permeability of the package to water vapor. In the freezer, water tends to sublime... water molecules leave the food product to precipitate elsewhere as ice. Plastics are particularly variable. Cheaper and typical polyethylene and polypropylene plastic are fairly permeable. Some of the newer freezer bags are a thicker form of those plastics in a particular molecular configuration that is less permeable than the more common form. Some of the more sophisticated packaging has a layer of PET (same plastic as soda bottles) to reduce the permeability. One of the most impermeable of the plastics is Saran, polyvinylidene chloride. Saran was invented by Dow and sold a few years ago to Johnson. I don't know if it is used all that much in freezer packaging. I also don't know what the plastic is that is used in the vacuum packaging but it is better than your generic plastic baggie. Note that permeability works in other ways. If I have a particularly "pungent" product like pesto or a particularly delicate product like glace de viande or lard, I store them in glass canning jars. Glass and metal (the lids) are, for all practical purposes, impermeable. My sister threw some excess dill into a plastic jar one time and put it in the freezer. Even the ice cream tasted like dill.

If that isn't a testament for sharing a kitchen, I don't know what is. And the book is a tangible memory of that sharing and caring. Excuse me... I have to go sniffle now. (Just like I did when I got the e-mail pleas for the book from the kids the other day.)

Diana... That is really cool how you tailored the book to fit your brother's needs. I like the idea of the funny pictures. I will have to remember that when I come across something that is a fit. You also just gave me another idea. When I was going through my Recipes folder, I noted a file named Disasters. It is actually a collection of one-liners reminding me of various food disasters that are actually funny stories. I had expanded that to include some of our zanier food adventures over the years. Each one-liner is the making of a story. Some of them are hilarious. Now I am thinking of starting to write those up as I feel so inspired and include them at some point.

I have to say that I have done it both ways. My chili usually depends upon a base of ground ancho, with other chiles added to tweak flavor and heat profile. Being basically lazy, I would have to say that when I have used roasted and peeled peppers it is because I ran into a big bunch of peppers for a real deal, brought them home and roasted the whole batch for the freezer, and happen to have them on hand. I have also just used minced the fresh peppers as is. It is all good.

I love the LC specialties like the peppers, tomato and such. Have you seen the eggplant? I have a lustful need for the garlic. I am not at all sure what I would use these for but they are charming. (How cool that your brother thought to snag that tomato for you, peanutgirl.)

Dear Sister and I have researched this topic and we can only find a recipe that she used to make with pork sausage. She was feeding a hungry hoard at the time and this rich cake was a good filler and easy to make. It was like a dense spice cake baked in a bundt pan. We can't find a recipe amongst our fairly extensive resources with the minced pork fat. I do have to say that it sounds really good. After all, mince meat had suet in the traditional preparation. I can imagine that the pork fat melting during baking would impart a fabulous texture. I will have to try this.

So did my feeble mind! I have now been through more of my books and notes and squash casserole is still the only one I can find that has a possible southern origin. I am beginning to think that vegetable casseroles just aren't our thang. In absence of RecipeGullet, I will post my version with the Ritz crackers here. (I promise to enter it when RG comes back.) I put this together after some frustration at getting the Blackeyed Pea recipe and several others that I had tried to taste just like I wanted. 2 to 2 ½ lbs. yellow squash sliced in wheels about ½” thick 1 medium onion, diced ½ stick butter 1 tube Ritz Crackers, crushed into crumbs, not too fine (a Ziploc bag and smashing with your hands works great) 1 egg, beaten Salt, pepper, and sugar (optional) In a Dutch oven or a deep skillet with a lid, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, season with salt and a lot of pepper, Sauté until very tender. Add squash and stir around to distribute the onion. Put the cover on and cook, stirring occasionally until tender. If your pot or skillet is not a heavy one, reduce the heat a bit. If the mixture browns on the bottom some, so much the better. But, if your pot is not heavy, you will have to watch it a bit closer so that it doesn’t burn. Roughly mash the mixture. A few whacks with a potato masher works great. Let it cool. Taste and adjust seasoning and add some sugar if desired. (At this point you can stop and finish later or even the next day. This is handy if you are going to be busy with other dishes for a dinner.) Mix the egg and cracker crumbs into the squash, reserving some crumbs to sprinkle on top. (Or smash a few more crackers if you want a thicker topping.) Spray an 8x8 baking pan with Pam. Evenly spread the squash mixture and top with crumbs. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes until cooked through and the top is lightly toasted. This recipe can be doubled.

I was just discussing this with my sister. She has also used this method with great success. She suggests considering a Reynold's turkey sized cooking bag that is very convenient and you can see what is going on.

Actually, that is a pretty good idea. I think you have found a natural "stopping point" in the process. I would suggest that you take the pork/liquid mixture out of the fridge and put it in a roasting pan in the oven and let it do its thing there. I would just allow a lot of time since I have no idea how long it will take to evaporate the liquid off, and then fry, especially coming from a cold state. That kind of timing shouldn't be a problem since they hold nicely after cooking. Just remember not to "mess with it". That was the hardest lesson I had to learn. I kept wanting to "turn it" or something. I ended up with pork mush... delicious pork mush... but mush just the same.

All of you guys have given me some wonderful ideas. Where I am now is that I am going to keep this simple. I think I have come down on individual Word files and I will set up a Style sheet. (I think that is what it is called.) For one thing, I can steal some of my consultant's time to help me out. For another thing, I know how to do that. For another, managing updates to the recipes will be easier. Over the years, I have been bitten badly by any sort of database applications through their various incarnations. I will not even think of going there. The recommendations for the binders has been really helpful. Yes, I agree that the binders need to be "kitchen proof". If I stay with the standard 3-ring binder style, that says to me that additions will be no problem for years to come. As new recipes develop, I can pretty much e-mail the kids the Word file, they can print it out and insert in the binder. (They both have good printers.) I will stay with the commonly available sleeves. They may be uglier than some options but they are universally available and meet the criteria for being removeable to the kitchen, pinning on the fridge, and are protected somewhat from flying food products. I think a nice binder will mitigate the ugly factor. I will be ordering some CD labels from the site so kindly provided by lovebenton0. Somewhere on the label I will add a Date line so I can put the date of the CD on there with a Sharpie marker. So, I will have a dual thing going. The kids want something on paper and I agree with them. 25 years from now, electronic format may not be readily retrievable. (But... the simple Word file approach may help with that.) The CDs are a current convenience. The paper is for posterity. (My printer uses archival ink.) Last night, I spent considerable time entering new recipes. (Sheesh... I had never entered onion confit or roasted cauliflower. For shame.) I have decided that I do need to include more photos. Here is a tip... the sizing for posting in eGullet is perfect for inserting into an 8.5x11 document. It goes in just right if you want a full width photo. One of those I wrote up was Mayhaw Man's chicken pie. (With full credit and even a copy of his story.) I used the photo of the finished product that I used in the discussion thread. Now I have to go gathering up all of those sticky notes that seem to be everywhere.

No. Ribs are pretty thin so get to temperature quickly. You are only worried about the surface anyway. The interior of meat is, for all practical purposes, sterile. Acids, salt and sugars in a marinade only help you out if you are worried about bugs... but I wouldn't be.

It has been a while but I did this with some beef short ribs one time... I put a little rack in my biggest Le Creuset. I put some liquid in the bottom. The ribs had been marinaded overnight. I put the ribs on the rack, put the lid on and put it into a 225F oven, best I remember. I basted a few times with the sauce toward the end of the cooking time (which I don't remember). I also don't remember exactly what the sauce was but I left the lid off at the end, turned the temperature up, and it formed a lovely glaze. The result was lovely and melt in your mouth. I tried a similar technique with pork ribs. The problem was that I didn't have a heavy pot with a lid like a LC that would hold enough for more than two servings. Then I got a smoker and quit tinkering with the oven techniques.