Whoa!! $70? The grocery store sold my husband a goose with no tag for 11 bucks! Uh oh. I hope it's edible! Either way, maybe I'll take the manager a plate!

Sounds just like my husband! But, he did bring home the goose (frozen) so I'm hopeful!

Could you use goose fat in place of, or in addition to, beef roast pan drippings to make Yorkshire Puddings (in a popover pan)? I'm probably making a small prime rib alongside my goose in case I mess it up! I also have a couple of containers of duck fat in my freezer.

I know, right!? I have several long roasting pans but nothing heavy-duty like Le Creuset. I think I would have to keep the skin intact and not pierce it to do it Peking Duck style. Don't you have to separate the skin from the meat and inflate it or something do get it to crisp up? I did read a really good tip online, to stuff the neck cavity full of dense bread so the neck skin doesn't collapse. That might even be a good idea with turkey, too. I never thought of doing that before. I've probably cooked 100 turkeys in my life and have stuffed, like, one, so I wasn't thinking about bread, generally. That's not counting filling the main cavity with onions, celery, apples, etc. I always bake cornbread "dressing" in a different baking dish, which I think is a Texas/Southern thing. I don't know. I have until Christmas to decide what to do the goose. I'll probably do a small prime rib roast, too, though, so hubby doesn't gripe if the goose doesn't have any meat on it after it's cooked. I'm only feeding 4 or 6 for Christmas, hopefully...

My husband found a frozen goose at Kroger without a tag. When he got to the checkout, they charged him $11 total for it! I think it's about 12 pounds. So, I am studying goose prep and waiting for Christmas, going the Olde English route. I've only made one goose in my life, thirty years ago. I remember it yielded a LOT of fat, and, unlike back then, I now know what a valuable substance this is! Several of the recipes I've come across say to prick the skin all over (without cutting into the meat), and boiling it before roasting it. I definitely want the skin to be crispy, so I'm actually considering applying a Peking Duck method to it. Any ideas?

I know you posted that story years ago, but it was sweet-a true Chrstmas story. Brought tears to my eyes. Thank you.

Anyone here old enough to remember the book, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche (1982)? My husband didn't eat quiche for more than a decade after it came out, even though quiche was something I made occasionally and which he always liked. Dumb. He didn't actually read the book (naturally), just heard the late night talk show hosts make jokes about it. It was something of a cultural phenomenon at the time.
I don't know if it's linked to any media stereotype particularly, but, as a woman and "role model" to two "graceful" adult daughters (and a son), I do not eat monster burritos or burgers with more than one patty (even if I'm alone).
Not much of a beer drinker, either, but I don't judge... Ours is a family that watches football and other sports, and I couldn't begin to estimate how many beer commercials I have seen in my life. Finish this jingle: "From the land of sky blue waters..."

Not cookie dough, but over twenty years ago my daughter and I decided to bake a cake for little sister's 4th birthday since Daddy had said "she doesn't need a birthday cake." We made the cake from a boxed mix the evening before the birthday (which was also Christmas eve). We just licked the mixer beaters (one apiece) so we only ingested a very small amount. By morning we were both soooooo sick!!! No-one else in the house tasted the raw batter and no-one else got sick. Ugh, it was horrible. Santa Claus/Birthday Girl's Mom didn't have time for food poisoning and definitely didn't have time to also have a 6 year old suffering with it!! I never ever ever even taste anything with raw eggs in it now! Raw cookie dough is totally disgusting to me even though I ate it as a kid without any negative repercussions that I can remember.

HSN: GreenPan™ Elegant Curves Stainless Cook Set and Cookbook Item: 150-067
This one comes in a set but it looks like it is on clearance at HSN for $99.
Retail value, $249. They call it a 4 quart casserole with lid here.

MEAT-a-BALLS!

Stay safe, Isaac-ianans!!

I'm also from Dallas. My daughter and I went to NYC June 30-July 3, and we went to Katz's (LES) on a Sunday, 4th of July weekend and super-crowded, but totally worth it "for the experience" and the Pastrami! Order everything you want when you get up to the counter the first time, because it's a pain to get back in the line. Don't lose your ticket!! Russ and Daughters (est. 1914) is nearby and, while we didn't make it there for the lox and bagels, next time we go we plan to go.
As a foodie, you can also spend many happy hours at Eataly (between 23rd and 24th on 5th Ave, by the Flatiron Building). There are 5 or 6 restaurants inside. We had a small meal at three of them (antipasti and salads at one, seafood at another, pasta and dessert at the third, and we would have tried to get in Manzo there, too, but it was late, closing time, so we went up to the beer garden (Birreria) on the roof for a brew. We had a great time, but I ended up having to go to the UPS store before we came home since I couldn't fit all the dry pastas and things I bought into my suitcase!
We were only there four days but I can't wait to go back! I missed Chelsea Market, another great place for gourmet shopping, but we did go to Morimoto in the same building (10th Ave.between 15th and 16th Sts.) for the best (only) $500 meal we ever had! We missed Chef Morimoto-San by an hour, so all the crew were on their best behavior, we think! Every bite was stupendous!
We were also staying away from steak and looking for quintessential NY experiences! One really fun place we went was Ellen's Stardust Diner just off Times Square (51st and Broadway). The waitstaff are all Broadway stars-in-the-making, so they sing old standards and show tunes and do shout-outs to customers with birthdays, etc. It was really perfect for us on our first night in Manhattan! Some of the performers are fantastic singers! The food is decent (diner-fare) and the drinks are potent, but it is the atmosphere that makes it worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing.
Junior's Cheesecake (Broadway loc.) on 45th between 8th Ave.and B'way, is next door to the Minskoff Theater (Lion King), and we went there after the show. It was almost midnight (Saturday) but still crowded. The original is in Brooklyn but this Junior's was good for sharing a late night salad and a slice of cheesecake (or two).
Sunday was our "eat our way across the Lower East Side and Chinatown" day, so we went to Prosperity Dumplings (46 Eldridge) (potstickers are 20 cents each, scallion pancakes like $2 and huge!), Donut Plant 379 Grand (amazing creme brulee donut!), Pommes Frites (Belgian fries and like 25 sauce choices to dip them in for under $5), and Katz's. We would have done dim sum at Jing Fong, or Oriental Garden (both on Elizabeth Street) but we were too full (and hot) by the time we got close to them. Red Egg is rated highly as is Nom Wah Tea Parlor (est. 1920s.) Any of David Chang's "Momofuku" places are worth trying ,too, I hear.
You said you like falafel, and there are many good places (including food carts). We got gyros from a Greek food truck by the American Museum of Natural History, which were delicious (as were the guys running it! Don't tell my husband I said that.) Empanada Mama on 9th between 51st and 52nd was a place I really wanted to try (same snacks catagory as falafels, I guess) but we didn't. Many flavors of empanadas, and cheap, but probably too close to what we can get (or make) at home. There's a good falafel place in Plano at Independence and Parker (southeast corner.)
We wanted to avoid anything we could get at home: steak, BBQ, Latino/Tex-Mex, Brazilian, Indian, bar food, or Cajun/Soul/Southern food (although we really wanted to go to Harlem and eat at Sylvia's-the Gospel Sunday brunch is supposed to be fantastic!!-but we ran out of time.) Also, I never figured out what the best Thai recommendation in NY would be (maybe Sripraphai in Woodside, Kittichai on Thompson Street in SOHO, or Ponsgri Thai (3 locations)), but since we have good Thai food in Richardson, we decided we would wait until our next trip. Same for straight-up sushi, which will require a trip of its own to find the best in NYC. My brother told me Veselka (Ukranian, East Village) is good and something maybe not available in DFW. Several Russian (caviar and vodka) places rank high but they were out of our price range this trip. There is a vegetarian Tibetan place, too.
It was hotter in NY than in Dallas while we were there (omg) and we were trying to save money by taking the subway and walking everywhere. We tried to get to the Smorgasburg street food fair that's open on weekends in Williamsburg (under the bridge) but it was just too hot to get there. Sorry to have missed it! We never got that quintessential Italian meal, either, although we did take out a John's Pizza pre-getting-dressed-for-the-theater, which was very good. Glad we had a fridge in our hotel room and some ziploc bags. We actually brought some of our various leftovers home to Dallas.
Have fun!

Perfect choice, John! Jameson 12 year old Irish also goes well with cheese! Uh oh. I might have to invoke the "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" rule today! Any ideas for a tasty main dish, or should I just go with the whisk(e)y, crackers, and cheese today?

Yeah, Baby! Garlic!!

YUM!!!!

That rocks! I suppose I could also mention that sometimes I make sort of a flavored cheese ball without coating it in nuts or parsley. I remember making a Christmas tree for one of my kids' class (high school club) parties that went over well. It had sliced pimiento-stuffed green olives and chopped green onions in it, I think. The teacher had me send out an email with the "recipe". I can't remember what kind of crackers I sent to school with it. Maybe "water crackers" I got at Big Lots. (Yeah, I'm a big spender!)

I'm with you, Bill! Sounds like home!

Believe it or not, I use my XL Butterball Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer (model 20011210) for sous vide since at the moment I can't afford the Sous Vide Supreme. I have the rack for the SVS and a Foodsaver with long rolls of Italian-made bag material which I cut long and fold the collar over several inches while I put the food in the bag so the seal isn't compromised when I take the air out. The fryer holds the water at whatever temp I set it for for a long as I need and it works great even without circulating the water. I recently made boneless lamb shoulder which I had brined/marinated in yogurt and spices, (divided into 5 or 6 packages with olive oil, Greek herbs, lemon, and salt) for, I kid you not, three days at 134-135 (as per thermometer reading-NOT the machine's setting which was123-124! I rotated the bags occasionally. The meat never overcooked. It stayed pink and was silky-tender and yummy. We ate one package the first day (after about 6 hours) but the others stayed in the machine. I added hot water a time or two but very little ever really evaporated off. Next time I plan to give the meat a quick, hot sear before I put it in the bags so it looks somewhat brown when I take it out but without the risk of cooking it more after sous viding it.
Having said that, I have several different thermometers and every one shows a different temp when I use it. Specifically, for sous vide I use as my default thermometer (Polder foldable instant type, less than $20 from QVC) the one that registers the lowest temperature compared to my other ones. If it says my meat's internal temp is 145, my other thermometers probably say the temp is above that. Your 143 reading is so close to the margin of safety it makes me suspect that the thermometer could be off, and even a degree or two in this range could make a difference in food safety. I would 1. start my (rinsed) chicken while very, very cold and simply let it cook longer, 2. sous vide chicken breasts at 147-150, and 3. check the temp of your finished product with more than one thermometer and consider the one with the lowest reading as the most accurate. Glad you didn't get real sick! It may not have been the chicken at all. In my experience, it usually takes at least 10-12 hours for food poisoning to set in. We had a quickie dinner using an unfamiliar jarred spaghetti sauce (Mrs. something) the other night, and we were all, let's just say, rumbly in the tumbly all the next day!
One last thought on sous vide cooking: salt tends to dissipate for some reason and many of my early experiments came out needing salt. I have learned to add a bit more than I would ordinarily use when I sous vide. There's a book called Cooking For Geeks which has a long chapter on sous vide cooking that explains the science behind how sous vide works to break down connective tissue, leaving really tender meat without "drying" it out or causing stringiness as pressure cooking, crock-pot cooking, or even braising can do.
Hope that helps! Have fun with your SVS!

Fast rise yeast is good for pizza dough since you probably want to bake it soon after it's mixed and not have to wait for a second rise. I actually like to make a dense sponge using active (regular) yeast for most breads if I have time, and let it sit overnight or in the refrigerator for 12-48 hours. One trick I've learned after 40 years of bread baking is that tap water is bad. Most municipal water plants add a lot of chlorine to the water to kill organic impurities (such as yeast.) I use bottled water or a completely different liquid for bread. Also, add salt only after proofing, because salt tends to retard yeast action. With experience you can use salt to regulate how fast you want your dough to rise. Experimentation is what home bread making is all about, and the more dough you work with, the better you'll get at determining when it's ready to shape or bake.
The weather on any given day affects the dough. For example, when the weather is rainy, the barometric pressure is low and humidity is high so your dough will usually rise higher than on a high pressure/dry/sunny day. This has more to do with the flour's gluten and its moisture-bearing capacity than with the yeast action. I'm so envious of splatgirl! My dream house would be built around a wood-fired oven (indoor-outdoor!)

Ok, technically this may just barely be "cheese" but here's the recipe. Place a block (or two) of cream cheese on a serving plate. Pour a bottle of PickAPeppa Sauce (like, 7 ounces) over it. Surround with Triscuits. Add some cute little spreaders for your guests. Party!
You can also "make" this using something like jalapeno or red pepper jelly, heated gently and stirred so it flows slowly. Pour over cream cheese (you won't need the whole jar.) Sprinkle with snipped scallions. (Look, here comes Santa Claus!) Serve with pita chips or another dip-worthy cracker.
Depending on how many guests you are having over, you could even soften several packages of cream cheese and press them into a jello mold in some festive shape (a wreath comes to mind), chill until firm then unmold onto your classiest, most expensive platter-since this whole dish costs, like, 5 bucks. (Who needs Brie, right?) Use two or three kinds of jelly to turn it into a work of art! (Just don't drown it in jelly.)

I saw Chunky bars at the Dollar Tree a year or two ago, and I was so excited to have found them after about 40 years I bought 3. I ate one as soon as I got in my car...it just wasn't the same. Sigh...

Oops! So sorry I am just now looking back at the site-been very busy. Well, I did end up just putting them in the smoker. I marinated them overnight in a brine with salt, cider vinegar, fresh orange juice, sugar in the raw, a few drops of mesquite smoke distillate, some other flavorings (ginger, onion powder...), all of which were fairly bland to my taste, but I didn't want to hear my husband gripe about the turkey being salty. I only made eight (one package) and froze the other eight so as to be able to correct any shortcomings I tasted in this first batch. I put some basic ancho chili, cayenne, sugar, salt dry rub on them, then smoked them, as I recall, for about three hours at 220. I dolled up some bottled BBQ sauce, dunked 'em in it, and tightened them up with this "glaze" on them in the oven at about 300 for maybe 20 minutes. I checked them to be sure they were fully cooked, covered them in foil, and left them resting on the stove while I got the rest of dinner ready. I actually didn't taste them myself that night, but my family said they were really good, and the daughter who had requested them thought they were "awesome." They only saved one for me which I ate for lunch the next day. It was pretty good, actually better than I expected it to be-I'm not a big fan of smoked turkey legs (a little too "paleolithic" for me). I still think even 5 or 10 mins in the pressure cooker would have plumped them up before smoking. Next time I might also add some hickory wood chips to the smoker to increase the BBQ flavor without having to extend the cooking time (and drying them out.) I started with mesquite and apple-wood chips in the first hour, then switched to straight apple-wood for the remaining time. In my experience, mesquite tends to become bitter after a couple of hours, so I use it rather timidly on anything other than chicken pieces, ribs, fish, or other quick-smoking items. I decided turkey legs would get done at the outside of my time-frame, but now I think they probably needed a little more smoke. Next time I'll add the hickory and also set up an auxiliary smoke maze in the upper part of the smoker and close the (top) damper almost all the way to give them some serious smoke. Oh, the other thing I did was "pin" the skins up over the meat with toothpicks. The skins on the raw legs had shrunk back after being brined, and since I wasn't wrapping them in foil before putting them in the smoker, I worried the drumsticks would dry out. I know they would have tasted smokier if I had left the meat uncovered (with the skins drawn back), but the surface of the meat might have also become too desiccated (and, therefore, even harder to gnaw off those bones), even at 220. I don't know...Maybe I was completely over-thinking this meal...I had never smoked turkey legs before and I just didn't want to mess them up where they'd be impossible to eat (and end up having to cook something else that night.) Thanks for the advice!

Yes, thank you! I have a couple of packages of raw, unseasoned turkey legs. I will preccok them in the pressure cooker maybe with a little liquid smoke and other seasonings, then smoke them outdoors in my smoker. Maybe I'll hit them with a little bbq glaze finish in the oven at the end depending on how they look. Thanks for the answer to my "parboil" question I searched for.; Google brought me here. :-)