SLB

"The meat from Arby’s is real, but it’s processed to the point that it becomes something distinct. It comes inside a plastic pouch, which is superheated in water until the meat is cooked through, and then sliced after being removed from the packaging." MmmHmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/magazine/no-one-loves-arbys-like-i-do.html

I think benne seeds is another name for sesame seeds; apparently slaves and their descendants called them "benne seeds", so maybe "benne" is a derivative of the word from a west African language. And in my experience, any field pea is an excellent substitute for cowpeas. Or, pigeon peas, if you can take the funk.

For those who use the recovered potato starch as a binder -- do you use ALL the starch??? It seems like a lot. If I had grown up with these, I'm sure I'd know the correct texture when I saw it. But I'm travelling here.

I'll take some over thisaway. Man does that look good.

Wow. So.Friggin'.Beautiful. Over here, my rice is in RubberMaids. I have a long-grain mass-produced one, and a shorter-grain mass-produced one. I can't keep up with too many rices. I have that Seductions of Rice book [mine is an original, and it has the cover with the bowl of rice on it]; when I first returned to NYC I figured I was gonna go deep into rice, so much of it being genuinely available here. But it never happened. My rice is altogether uninspired. And it lives in RubberMaids.

I picked up some sunchokes, I'm making this soon. Looks great, thanks for posting.

Well. That's an awfully good point.

I can't quite believe I'm saying this, because I perseverated for a full decade before breaking down and purchasing one, but: the stand mixer. For a year -- maybe 18 months -- I used it to make a lot of bread, which benefits from a true, anchored dough hook. And then, life kicked me over to the low-carb lane, so . . . Sigh. I now make nothing that cannot be done just fine with a hand-held mixer. Nothing whatsoever. I make maybe two batches of cookies and not even two cakes a year. In fact, I think the thing is going on my 2021 ebay pile. This little exercise was useful!

I enjoyed this article, and know that a number of members here share aspects of this history: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-appalachian-food?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page&fbclid=IwAR2J4o548s5_6DceAD7-7APDlW0pW2JK1OQHvNMt4MwAhQyLckABh0wPhm4 And -- for all I know, Travis Milton is a member here. In which case -- kudos. Your work is inspiring. And those "leather britches" are intriguing.

In seriousness -- the pumpkin did make the drying time a lot longer. So, be warned. This thread isn't super-into dehydrating, but FYI . . . . Also -- I actually think sweetened coconut would be good here, too. I had some sweetened coconut in my refrigerator for several years which I threw out about a month ago, and I am mad.

The pumpkin was in the dark corners of my freezer from TWO YEARS AGO. It had been roasted and pureed and, I thought, well-drained. Did I mention how old it was? I don't actually like pumpkin all that much, except in pumpkin ravioli. Which, as you may have deduced, I never actually got around to actually making. I need to get this freezer kinda clear for the New Meat. Which is how I found those two cups of roasted pumpkin. Embedded in applesauce, dehydrated -- it tastes, honestly, excellent. I might improve things with sweet potatoes, but I am fine with this here pumpkin function.

Un-pretty apple leathers, which look fine once you cut them into candy-sized snacks: Apple-walnut-coconut; apple-pumpkin; apple-plain. I could've chopped those walnuts into something sensible, but it was really late and I was about to lose my mind I wanted to go to bed so bad. Anyway.

@HungryChris in 'da house: You may be curious about that insanity passing for a lid. It turns out I don't have any regular-mouth lids. I have a lot of one-piece storage lids in general, so it never even occurred to me that I didn't have two free, tonight. It turns out they are all In Service, every last one. Also -- that strange color is due to the fact that these are the Ball blue jars. My random uptown hardware store had them, in fact they were the only jars around. I don't usually pay extra for stuff like blue glass, but I did since it was my only option. I believe this is called a win-win in capitalism. I am making a pile of winter hiking snacks involving apples; beyond that, I guess I'm not doing anything else preserve-ish until spring. On Edit: WAIT! Saurkraut. I was waiting for some kind of frost. There may have been some frost up the Hudson Valley, so maybe next weekend I can get some saurkaut going. Yes, kraut.

Anna, sister. Sing it. Edited to add: I think I might actually pass out just thinking about it.

I am having trouble getting a real rise in thawed dough, so it was useful to read the tip here about upping the yeast. I do fine with frozen breads that have already been baked. But I'm wondering about frozen biscuits? I brought frozen biscuit dough to NC Thanksgiving last year, and they came out like bricks. I was really shocked, and also embarrassed. I think I'm going to try frozen finished biscuits. Is this a fool's errand??? Any expert counsel on successful freezing of biscuits?

From the looks of it, you might be able to shove that little bit in . . .

Same, same. Trying to find one to put in the donation pile, since I'm out of real estate for cookbooks.

Seconding the BRILLIANT. Thanks, guys. It's the tail end of the pepper season here (per the farmer's markets), and a friend who I'm planning to covid-visit (pre-game quarantine, testing, etc.), needs Shelby's Cowboy Candy as an arrival gift. So I am especially glad for this sleuthing. Meanwhile, you know what I need. I need one of those Master-Preserver types to update the recipes from the "Preserving" Volume of the Time-Life "Good Cook" series. There are some really interesting-sounding concoctions in there. But I think you're not really supposed to use outdated recipes, or whatever. Sigh . . . . Hang in there, everyone. It seems like it's gonna be a long winter.

So, I went down to Union Square today, and sure enough there were quite a few tomatos there! Stokes did not have the paste tomatoes, but they had plenty others. I asked if I could come out to the farm to get a lot and they said sure, there'd be some there for another week. So I don't know what was going on with the email exchange. Maybe they just meant they aren't doing bulk picking orders anymore. And -- gawd, is Union Square a nice market. My office is kind of near there, and would get there periodically back when we went into the office 'n stuff. It's been a long time, I've been all and only Inwood through the whole summer. Inwood's great, and I have two key critical vendors there whom I'm really grateful for. But it's no Union Square.

I'm going with this.

This.Is.ADORABLE. I bet all of us, every single one, wouldn't mind a do-over of this past year, too.

Happy birthday, Shelby! I'm witcha on the weird pandemic b-day, I'm three weeks from my 50th. Which was supposed to be at Prune, here in NYC, with my nearest and dearest. Sigh. I am sad about it, and I am also mad. I'm trying to look for an outdoor situation with heaters, but it's kinda late and also, with our infection numbers ticking up, I'm not sure I want to gather folks. Most of my friends have kids who are back in school (with great trepidation) and . . . I think I just need to hope we can do something really fun and delicious later. Meanwhile. In a super-strange pandemic-turn, three days ago I got invaded by a sweet tooth. I don't mean the kind that fiends for pastries and desserts. I mean the kind that is fiending CANDY. ?! Egullet. I NEVER eat candy, save the occasional snickers. I don't even ever want candy. Until now. I'm afraid, very afraid. I've been eating up my stores of dried-sugared fruit which I put up for hiking and camping. It does not normally tempt me! But I've been eating it like some kind of reasonable SNACK!? [It IS a reasonable snack when you're hiking and hauling gear uphill in the cold, etc., which is why I have it; but it don't make NO kinda sense when you sit in a chair at a desk all day. And -- did I mention? I don't ever even really THINK about candy. Until two days ago.] Last night I was in the grocery store which had these hard green mangos. It's not even mango season, I wasn't even thinking about mangos! I was over there needing some limes! And it came into my mind like a vision, the kind that *spiritual* people report: something from a cookbook I haven't looked at in a decade: Diana Kennedy's green mango rolls. Almost two pounds of sugar. Two.Pounds. For two little sheets of dehydrated green mango candy. [In perhaps the MOST embarrassing part of this story -- I walked BACK to the store to get the sugar. Because I don't have a lot of sugar over here, did I mention, I don't really eat too many sweets? Dudes, I went to the store twice today. To make candy.] Everything went into the dehydrator at 10, dried all night. I had some candy with my breakfast. My breakfast which otherwise consisted of sensible salmon croquettes. Pandemic in the time of food is getting scary over here.

I know; the thing is, tho -- the pan was brand-new at the time, hadn't accumulated anything. I scoured and scoured, greased and regreased, and gave up using it for eggs. Blanc Creatives asked me to send it back for them to inspect and try to figure it out; I never got around to sending it, tho. Which is kinda dumb, and not really like me, I'm normally a religious returner. But it has been working beautifully for non-eggs, for real.

I stopped using it for eggs, so I don't know. I have been using it for meat, meat, and more meat. I'll do my eggs in it for the next few days, and report back.

I have these, like 'em fine: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/kitchen/cooking-utensils/spatulas/76103-silicone-spatulas