HAPPY BIRTHDAY P D- B

Bedford -- is that where the Zippo lighter plant is/was?

I made scrapple once (emphasis on the "once"). I'll take Spam any day.

May i have some of both, please?

I can send you the recipe for scrapple.

Will that be regular Spam or 25% less fat Spam (given the amount of sodium, should we even worry about the fat content?)

Zippos are made in Bradford , not Bedford. Bedford is in the limestone springs belt. It is one of the first likker rebellion counties

I'll have the heart attack Spam, please.

Never been to Bedford. I just googled it -- dare I say it seems prettier than Bradford.

And you can get a race car! (I once got a T-shirt.)

We use Spam for catfish bait. Theyll eat anything as long as it smells gamey.

Set, Backbacon out here has no coating. I've seen pea meal bacon, don't think I've ever eaten it though. I should buy some and try it... don't know why I haven't before though. mmm, I do like bacon.
When I was a kid, we ate lumpy, horrible bland oatmeal 5 days a week. To this day I can't get past it, I haven't tried the stuff in years, it makes me gag just thinking about it. The grits I tried weren't much better. I really had no idea you were supposed to mix stuff in with it other than salt and pepper.
I tried a hush puppy in New Orleans. I had forgotten, I guess it was unremarkable. I may not be a fan of corn, unless it's fresh peaches'n'cream.
Chai, does scrapple taste anything like spam? I watched 'Charm City Cakes' once and they were doing a scrapple off, a la Iron Chef. When it was fried it kind of looked like brown, pinkish donair meat.

The hush puppies you get in restaurants are usually just deep fried corn bread batter--you only get really good ones when somebody who knows what they're doing makes them at home. When i eat grits, i butter them, and depending upon my mood, i either salt them, or put sugar on them. I'm not a big fan of oatmeal, either, athough i hear you can live forever on a diet of oatmeal and broccoli.

I used to be that way with oatmeal cause my mom just kept cooking it till it turned to glue. I buy these steel cut oats and just pour boiling water on top until the oats spoak up the water. The oats retain a nice chewiness and it isnt at all like we remember it from our childhoods

I eat steel cut oats too -- way better than gluey flaked oatmeal.

Ceili, I really don't remember much about that scrapple -- I made it years ago. But I know I didn't want to bother making it again. (I think it was similar to spam but the cornmeal made it grainy.)

Here ya go -
Featured recipe: Polenta without Fear

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/featured-recipe-polenta-without-fear/?scp=1&sq=featured%20%20recipe:%20polenta%20without%20fear&st=cse

Hope the link works - otherwise I'll just copy the recipe.

Wait, I'd better do that anyway, as NYT is about to start charging..




October 19, 2009 , 12:01 PM
Featured Recipe: Polenta Without Fear
By MARK BITTMAN
To the list of imported dishes that are easier to make than we Americans have been led to believe, you can add polenta. When the luxuriously creamy, pale yellow cornmeal mush first began to appear in cookbooks and in upscale Italian restaurants here about 35 years ago, we were (incorrectly) told that to prevent the cornmeal from forming lumps as it cooked, the cook had to stand by, stirring constantly for a half-hour or longer. Here’s how to make polenta a regular, no-fuss part of your meal plan.

Polenta Without Fear
Yield 4 servings
Time 25 minutes

For creamy, soft, mouth-filling polenta, stir in butter and Parmesan -- the more the better. If you want something more flavorful but still a little austere, add herbs, like marjoram or thyme, along with a handful of parsley or basil, and a couple of tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil. For polenta firm enough to grill, broil or sauté, cook it until the creaminess is gone and it starts to pull away from the sides of the pot, then turn it out onto a plate or a board and let it cool until firm.

Ingredients
1 cup milk (preferably whole milk)
Salt
1 cup coarse cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 to 4 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup or more freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, to taste, optional

Method
1. Bring milk to a boil with 2 cups water in a medium saucepan and add a large pinch of salt. Adjust heat so liquid simmers. Add cornmeal in a steady stream, whisking as you do to prevent lumps. When it has all been added, let mixture return to a boil, then turn heat to low. Polenta should be just barely simmering.
2. Cook, stirring occasionally and being sure to scrape sides and bottom of pan, for 15 to 20 minutes, until mixture is creamy and cornmeal tastes cooked. If mixture becomes too thick, whisk in some water, about 1/2 cup at a time.
3. Taste and season polenta as necessary with salt and pepper. Take pan off stove, stir in the butter or oil and the cheese if you are using it, and serve, passing more cheese at the table if you like.
Source: The New York Times
(In a later article, Bittman said time will vary with the type of cornmeal, stone ground taking longer.)


I've seen other recipes since - that are even less onerous.

Hidden in this one - scroll down to the part about making the polenta -
is a cold water polenta method:
http://www.wineloverspage.com/user_submitted/recipes/rc_504082.html
(This is the printed article, but the site is generally more decorative)

I tend to prefer stone ground corn meal, which would take longer, but I still like the cold water concept and will have to try this.

Adding one more easy polenta recipe (this one involves baking and using cold water):
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Polenta-Pie-with-Gorgonzola

who is Frank Bittman? Is he a food critic like Micheal POllard or something?

Mark Bittman - has written a column called the Minimalist for something like 13 years. Recently stopped and is now writing op ed food pieces combined with some NYT magazine pieces that have recipes.

But his recipes in the NYT files go back years and years, are generally on the simple side.

wow, never heard of him. I remember the food critic from the NYT who used to show up in diguises. She wound up as editor of Gourmet, just before the magazine folded.

I like Chris Kimball and his crew at Cook's Companion and AMerica's TEst Kitchen. THey explain the chemistry associated with much of the recipes . We like to make simple traditional dishes (except for sushi and szechuan) and see how they can be improved with different cooking or sequences.

Ruth Reichl, I think...


America's Test Kitchen - I remember liking that but haven't looked at the site lately. Cook's Companion I didn't know about.


Here's a general info page re Bittman and The Minimalist columns, with some handy links for recipes:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/mark_bittman/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=the%20minimalist&st=cse

Thank you osso. I shall delve into the link. Iam always interested in new ways to prpare old stuff, either by convenience or by different ingredients.

Msolga started a thread years back now about favorite sites to view for food preparation/recipe questions, and I've always meant to add a list of the blogs I follow, which are getting to be up there in numbers. Have to think about that, since it takes a bunch of time to give blog titles and links not using my own computer archive links. Maybe I'll just give the blog titles and people can google them if they want. (Just counted and stopped at 75 since I lost my place - must be about a hundred.) I don't follow all of them all the time, but they're there if I'm ever bored..