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Hosted by Barbara J Nosek
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Kitchen Talk – Pssssst, Pistou. What a wonderful little find in the NYT Bread & Soup Cookbook we mentioned in the 10.01.21 Salon. It says a tablespoon of this distinctive paste will enliven 
almost any soup {and more, as with pesto}. To make it, boil 4 slices of bacon in a cup of water for 3 min, drain, chop. Blend with 2 egg yolks, 2 cloves garlic & 1 t dried basil until all ingredients are pureed. Pour into a bowl, stir in 6T on Parmesan & 1 t olive oil. Done. 
So looking at the tasty stuff in Pistou, I started thinking it could morph into other apps. Here, I used already-fried bacon, left out the eggs, added enough extra oil until it to started to hold together, and pressed it onto hot toast. Fancy some fancy butter? Take a look at this taste test from MyRecipes.
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Shopping Finds – One of the best toys/tools ever, and yay inexpensive too. As you can see here,
So, I have an 8 oz pkg of xanthan gum to make King Arthur flour’s recipe for gluten free bread, but that needs only 1 1/4 t. What to do with the rest? Google has some great ideas regarding thickening gravy, sauces, salad dressings and more. The bread recipe is on that page too. Amazon just in case you can’t find it in the store. I bought the Amazon’s Choice one, shown.
This week’s featured CS-designed, Zazzle-crafted item – You know, it’s a sad
state of affairs when it seems every year the interactions across the aisle in DC become ever more coarse. It doesn’t have to be this way, does it? Yes, it is my stuff, but more than the sale I hope in some small way we can send the message that we’d like better manners, more civility. You can see seven different ways to say “Make America Decent Again” right here on this CS page.
Featured Recipes 
If you look on Google you’ll see that others also stake this claim to fame. This one may be among those that deliver. Ree Drummond includes roasted peppers, red onion, tomato and two kinds of cheese, all sparked up with Dijon. The recipe calls for just rye but the pic shows the more interesting marble rye {am I the only one picturing a white haired lady running like the dickens}. From Food Network
Love chicken tortilla soup? This prep promises to simulate that taste, but put it on a plate . . . with lots of cheese. With an ingredient list that also includes diced tomatoes & chilies, beans & corn, and Mexi flavors, it sure does sound tasty. And you know what – it is! Easy too, as you simply combine, cover with jack cheese {we added cheddar too}, and bake until the top is golden brown, and then garnish each serving. From Southern Living
Caramelized Banana Bourbon Bread Pudding
Every word in that title is a winner. But wait, there’s more. Chocolate, cream, spices, and not one but two kinds of bread. The last line of the directions reads like a promise: “The bread pudding should have a nice caramelized crust and a moist (not wet or dry) interior.” From Tastemade
This is almost always a full flavored dish, but the one Sunny Anderson made on tv just
looked so extra appealing, I had to try it myself. May have been influenced by Katie Lee’s reaction, clearly smitten with the New Orleans treat that she called so comforting. What may well be the ruling ingredient here is the smoked ham hock. Now this may be a culinary violation but I piled some of the leftovers on cheese grits. Southern meets Southern! On Food Network
Well likely makes you wanna look. Once you look, likely wanna make. And maybe more than once, or as the title on the page says, cookies to “put on repeat.” Here are a few that caught my eye – butter cookies with clove sugar, candy cookies, butterscotch chocolate sandwich cookies, chocolate chip cookie in a mug, peanut butter breakfast cookies. From Food & Wine
Cocktail Hour Buzz 
Sundowner snacks, drinks, talk – whether for a crew, or for two, or just for you
♦ Nice to see that Food & Wine doesn’t mind crashing through its titular walls. Well, to be fair, there is food involved – pickles to be exact. What makes a headline is that these pickles seem to be even more definitively pickled. And that’s because they are gin-flavored. No real gin, but all the botanicals of Hendrick’s Gin is right there in the jar. This ginny pickle would be a great conversation piece for the snack table {but maybe stop short of plopping it in the tini}.
♦ Truth be told I’m pretty much a purist when it comes to deviled eggs, but the gussied up ones that we featured in last week’s Salon looked pretty darn good. And you know what, they are!. Given the number of eggs, I decided a bit more bacon wouldn’t hurt, with even more for garnish. These cheddar bacon deviled eggs are from AllRecipes.
♦ Want to use fresh coconut water in your drinks? Want to serve your drinks in coconut shells? The first trick is getting the darn thing open. It was actually Alexa {see you next week!} who directed us to Wikihow for these 3 ways to open a coconut.
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of Dijon. 
it’s time. The glorious mix of flavors in the filling is all wrapped up in thin slices of beef that simmer to fall-apart tenderness. 
The title confection indeed is the catalyst in two sets of crossed paths – chef & boyfriend, chef & food critic – potentially closing one door and opening another. As with most romantic journeys, fictional and otherwise, there is a bump in the terrain but this one is more like a volcano, and that makes us gobble up the pages, anticipating that pivotal moment when it will inevitably erupt. It’s 4 1/2 stars on Amazon, multiple formats. 
sautéed in butter for breakfast, or joined by veggies for lunch or brunch.
stick of melted {said margarine} butter to the dry mix, drop by teaspoonfuls on an ungreased baking sheet, then 350 for 12-15 min. 
use most often isn’t among them but I love it still, and that’s the 
bread recipe is my gram’s and to this day convinced her secret was beating the daylights out of the dough, still showing it who was boss well into her 90s. 
This sweetside pull-apart would make a fabulous way to start the day. After minimum prep, you can relax while the slow cooker does its magic, transforming refrigerated biscuits, butter, sugar x 2 and cinnamon into what the maker calls decadent and “oooey, gooey and sticky-sweet all over.” 
Buttery, cheesy grits partnered with shrimp showcase the chef’s instincts for adding just the right stuff, here including scallions, garlic and bacon. What I especially like about Flay’s prep is that unlike most s&g dishes where the shrimp are parked atop the grits, the direction here is to mix them together, causing a magical interplay of flavors {see note}. 