1stmakearoux’s Profile

Recent Comments

From Talk

Boing! Rubbery meat help for brisket/short ribs, please

I braise my brisket in a cast iron Dutch oven. I usually season it with some Montreal Steak seasoning, add a little meat tenderizer, and score the fat side with a sharp knife. Then I brown it, fat side down for a few minutes, turn it over so the fat side is up.Add a cup or so of beef broth or red wide, cover tightly, and cook at 350 for a minimum of 3 1/2 hours. It comes out tender and tasty!

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

An old Cajun greeting: "Who's your Mama; Is she Catholic; And can she make a roux?"
I love most any recipe that starts with "First, make a roux!"

From Talk

Why are you a serious eater?

My dear sainted mother was a wonderful mom, but her cooking wasn't her strong point. I'm not sure if that was her fault or perhaps my father's rather finicky eating habits. On Fridays, our dinner was always the same. She would get some frozen fish, called jack salmon, which were neither jacks nor salmon, but were semi-whole, skinned, gutted, and beheaded fish of some sort. Whiting perhaps. She would roll them in corn meal and fry them until they were so stiff you could hammer nails with them. The two side dishes were Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese (yes, the blue box with the powdered cheese) and a can of stewed tomatoes.

When I grew up and left home, my first experience with real food was when I went on the Fire Department in my home town. We always had lunch and dinner at the firehouse. The crew consisted of four men. One volunteer would cook, and the other three guys would clean up. Wow! Could this guy cook! I gained 15 pounds the first six months! He taught me how to fry chicken, make a wonderful, tender pot roast, etc. That was back in the early 1960s. And I've been eating well and cooking ever since!

See more comments by 1stmakearoux »

Recent Posts

From Talk

Leftover BBQ

From Talk

Where to buy smoked ham shanks?

From Talk

Chicken Livers: Are yellowish ones OK?

From Talk

thermometer problems

See more posts by 1stmakearoux »

Recent Favorites

1stmakearoux hasn't favorited a post yet.

Recent Polls

1stmakearoux hasn't answered any polls yet.

Recent Quizzes

1stmakearoux hasn't taken any quizzes yet.

Recent Comments | Response to Comments

From Talk

Boing! Rubbery meat help for brisket/short ribs, please

I braise my brisket in a cast iron Dutch oven. I usually season it with some Montreal Steak seasoning, add a little meat tenderizer, and score the fat side with a sharp knife. Then I brown it, fat side down for a few minutes, turn it over so the fat side is up.Add a cup or so of beef broth or red wide, cover tightly, and cook at 350 for a minimum of 3 1/2 hours. It comes out tender and tasty!

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

An old Cajun greeting: "Who's your Mama; Is she Catholic; And can she make a roux?"
I love most any recipe that starts with "First, make a roux!"

From Talk

Why are you a serious eater?

My dear sainted mother was a wonderful mom, but her cooking wasn't her strong point. I'm not sure if that was her fault or perhaps my father's rather finicky eating habits. On Fridays, our dinner was always the same. She would get some frozen fish, called jack salmon, which were neither jacks nor salmon, but were semi-whole, skinned, gutted, and beheaded fish of some sort. Whiting perhaps. She would roll them in corn meal and fry them until they were so stiff you could hammer nails with them. The two side dishes were Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese (yes, the blue box with the powdered cheese) and a can of stewed tomatoes.

When I grew up and left home, my first experience with real food was when I went on the Fire Department in my home town. We always had lunch and dinner at the firehouse. The crew consisted of four men. One volunteer would cook, and the other three guys would clean up. Wow! Could this guy cook! I gained 15 pounds the first six months! He taught me how to fry chicken, make a wonderful, tender pot roast, etc. That was back in the early 1960s. And I've been eating well and cooking ever since!

From Talk

Grilling on the Line

Always undercook it. If it's not done enough, it can be put back on the grill. If it's too done, you can't fix it.

From Talk

Grape Nuts

I don't recall the details, but some years ago, I made oven-fried chicken using crushed Grape-Nuts.

From Talk

Antique/Vintage Cooking Utensils

I absolutely couldn't cook without my cast iron! All of it, skillets, griddles, Dutch ovens, etc., have been acquired through antique shops, yard sales, junque stores, and with a little care, they cook like a dream and last several lifetimes.
Do a little more research on this and other food blogs. There's a ton of information out there.
By the way, I always season them with bacon grease.

From Talk

jazzing up white rice

I tend to like plain white rice cooked with a little butter and S & P. If I want to jazz it up, I'll saute' some garlic along with the Cajun Trinity (onion, bell pepper, and celery) and add that to the cooking rice. Also, let me suggest you try Valencia rice. It's slightly different, and very tasty. Cheaper, too!

From Talk

How do you plan your meals for the week?

Being retired, I have some time on my hands. Luckily, the grocery store is only a couple of miles from home, so I ride my scooter to the store almost every day. Being on a somewhat tight budget, I usually look for the bargains. I especially like the "buy one, bet one" deals. That being said, I still occasionally have a craving for something in particular, so I'll get whatever it takes, within reason. I'm really good with leftovers, too.

From Talk

No More Warmed Over Leftovers...

When I make a pot roast w/vegetables (potatoes, onions, carrots, celery), I'll use the leftovers cut into bite size pieces for stew. Use plenty of gravy and add some Bisquick dumplings to the mix. Delightful.

From Talk

Boiled Peanuts: How To?

Just a thought that may have been overlooked: Raw p-nuts need 6 to 8 hours to cook, green p-nuts will cook in 2 hours.

From Talk

Slow cooked beef brisket

Last night for dinner, I braised a half of a brisket in a cup of beef broth with some potatoes, carrots, onion, and celery. I browned it first, then cooked it a 325 for three hours. It came out very tender and tasty. I don't see a need for 10 hours in the oven.

From Recipes

Seriously Sick: Food For When You're Under the Weather

My go-to healing soup is Won-Ton form the local Chinese carry out.

From Serious Eats

Serious Heat: Mustards to Spice Up Labor Day Cookouts

Pilsudski's Polish Mustard w/ Horseradish from Reading, PA. Deelish!

From Serious Eats

Cook the Book: 'Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book'

The problem is that I can't remember ever having bad BBQ!

From Talk

Saving Bacon Fat

I keep mine on the stove. I use a lot of it, and I've never had a problem with it going rancid. The container I use has a fine mesh screen to filter out any solids, and a tight fitting lid.

From Recipes

The Nasty Bits: Crisp Fried Pig's Tail

That's got to be one of the funniest posts ever! Thank you so much!

From Talk

What is your "style" of cooking?

Southern style comfort food is what I do best

From Talk

Suck the head!

@pavlov
Crawfish is extremely rare and hard to find here in SW Florida. I assume your recipe would work with shrimp. Have you ever done it with shrimp?

From Serious Eats

Top Ten Worst Halloween 'Candies'

I disagree about a lot of the candy items mentioned here.
I, for one, LOVE the fun-sized (or mini, if you prefer) candies. It's a tiny bit of something insanely tasty, enough to give pleasure without causing tummy pains. When I was a young'un and I went trick-or-treating, one house gave out mini Clark bars. Yum-o-delish! I polished those off first.
I think the chewy peanut butter kisses taste absolutely divine.
Candy corn, I think is plenty of tasty, as are the candy pumpkins made of candy-corn base. Think little dollops of hardened cake-frosting.
As for apples and raisins, those I didn't mind in the least.

However, some items, I do agree about.
Toothbrushes -- a boring reminder
Religious pamphlets -- disappointing and WEIRD to boot.
Packages of "normal" food -- oh, for crying in Manhattan, what kid wants to receive a can of baked beans or a box of oat bran in his little plastic jack-o-lantern.
One time I received cough drops -- and not the Ludens or Pine Bros or Smith Bros or F&Fs, which are tasty and could pass as hard candy (as can the Ricolas). These were nasty little green pellets that were -- and tasted like -- MEDICATION. Like I said, for crying in Manhattan! For crying in Manhattan, Chicago, and San Francisco

Oh well. At least I didn't get a ROCK

From Serious Eats

Top Ten Worst Halloween 'Candies'

If I didn't live in an apartment building with no kids in it I'd be giving out and full sized candy bar AND a red bull to every kid. HAHAHA!!! HALLOWEEN IS FOR KIDS! SUCK IT PARENTS!

From Talk

What childhood food do you wish they still made?

Oh, man, I thought I had blocked out my Gatorade Gum cravings!

From Talk

What childhood food do you wish they still made?

I miss bbq munchos, planters cheeseballs (there is another brand available now in a large container that are good but...) and morton raspberry filled powdered donuts. Oh, those were the days.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Great thread - missed it on the 18th, so I'm glad it turned up in "recently commented on"

@toferburl: Hi there. I live in Essex.

my name comes from a river in Vermont named the Lemonfair. No one knows how it got its name, but I prefer one of the possibilities, that it comes from "les monts verts," since we're the Green Mountain state. So this is my little way of saying I'm a Vermonter.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

I live in Portland and travel solely by bicycle.

From Talk

Boing! Rubbery meat help for brisket/short ribs, please

Everyone here was so helpful that I'm going to give the brisket another go tonight. The stakes are raised...six pounds of meat...for two of us.

By the way, I cooked the rest of the bouncy brisket last time and it softened up. It needed like 2 more hours at 200...

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Y'all have made me laugh so hard through this great thread!!!!! I feel close to each of you. Simply using my initials and birth month and date help to get me where I need to go in my "old" age. BABY BOOMERS ROCK!!!!!!!

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

I could have a really good time following up on all your names, like: @toferburl, is your last name Kimball? Does the name "Pavlov" ring a bell?

This is really fun. The non-food names are every bit as interesting as the food-related ones. I'm very, very glad I don't have to pick a winner.

So, on hindsight, I should've gone with the nickname my little cousins--twerpy boys--gave me when I was about 14. Every time we'd come to visit, they'd run around hollering, "Hide! The FBI is here!" Flat Bette Irene. Yup, that's me. Depending on their mood and creativity and their ages, I've been Fried, Furry, Fruity, Flatulent, Full, Faux (padded), Fiendish, Frisky, Fixed, Freaky, Funky, Finky, Fat, Foolish, Floppy, Frickin'--every F-word they could think of went in front of my name. I didn't think F-words were funny, but my cousins thought they were hilarious.

Tonight, I'm Famished Bette Irene, and that's not at all funny.


From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

@livefreeordine--I have a house in NH too but I always thought it was "slip, freeze and die!"

@capcooks ...That January I lived in Philadelphia and was 10 days over my due date with my second child. I had never seen so much snow. Luckily, the cheesesteak place reopened right before I had to go to the hospital...I miss all the good Phila food.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

In our house we love butter and when I cook I get butter on my fingers simple no-brainer. butter, porkfat/lard, olive oil they all rule any natural fat is in reality good for you in moderation and tastes great. what would pie crust be without butter or lard? Eggs if not fried in bacon fat then butter? A sauce stew or soup without that last pat of butter, splash of olive oil or even a dab of chickenfat, porkfat, lard or some full natural fat to finish it off? Go figure , it's a miracle ingredient ! It would be like a world without salt a dash is all it takes! I sure hope Emeril Lagassi only uses that much salt for showmanship or his food would taste only of salt. It is rediculous the amount he uses it's so disgusting, he ruins what was quality ingredients before he got to it there is no other justification for that much. Aren't there people starving in America much less the world that would give their lives to provide for their families what he renders inedible?
I could also have chosen butterbrain as I slip off topic so easily.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

My business is Paumanok Preserves jams, jellies, condiments, et.al. My products are "well preserved, " and people tell me my age (70) doesn't show. I started using my "handle" a few years ago when I decided to put a vanity plate on my truck: WLPRESVD. The NYS limit of 8 letters/numbers is also my birth number, so it all works. I plan to retire at the end of this season, but won't have to change my signature.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

When my oldest daughter was in High School her two best friends had Moms who were blonde and small like me and they used to call us the "Small Blonde Moms". Those were good times with great memories so I am proud to be "Smallblondemom".

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Oops, I just realized that I referred to SE as Chow... and just to show my lack of creativity ...my name is the same on both.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

It's not the most witty/clever name on here by any means... but mine is wine-related (and by the way, wine counts as food!); I admit that I'm a bit of a "wine geek" (studying to be a winemaker, in fact), and I've been especially fascinated for quite some time by what is happening on the wine-producing "scene" in South Africa. In South Africa, the Chenin Blanc grape (and by extension, the wines made from this grape) is often called "Steen".

It's a short name, easy to remember, and references my love for wine (and I knew that quite a few people here on SE would "get" the wine reference)... so it became my name here on SE. (Although I could easily have gone with "LovesEveryTypeOfWinterSquash" or "GiveMeAllOfYourHoneycrispApplesRIGHTNOW"... but those definitely lack poetry as names!)

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

I had a terrible time trying to think of who my nom de Chow should be so I went with the obvious. I'm from WI and I'm a woman.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

I christened myself "chiffonade" way back in the mid-90's in the days of yahoo chat. How do you pick a name? I define myself by the fact that I cook. Given I really identify with my name, it's my name on nearly every site I visit. When I joined Facebook, I had to include "chiffonade" as my middle name or 90% of my online community friends wouldn't have known how to find me.

I'm "therealchiffonade" because someone came to SE and posted "as" me. Luckily, the staff at SE quickly contacted me to confirm it was an impostor, I joined the site as "therealchiffonade" and stayed.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Well, I'm a chef who wants a TV show. My handle comes from my website (WannabeTVchef.com) which contains clips of my food writing, TV appearances and other culinary personality stuff.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Well, my name is Christopher and I live in Burlington, Vermont, hence, toferburl. It's not particularly exciting, but it has worked for a few years. I may change it here though, I would like to add some pizazz to my persona and then post more often. Stay tuned folks!

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

In January of 1996, I put on an event at the DC Convention Center called Capital Cooks with Books. It was modeled on Philly's Cook and the Book. (I had Gourmet, USAirways and the Beard Foundation as sponsors. I also had 36" of snow on the ground during the event. Which was why there was no second year.) As I was working on the project, I became involved with the old Food and Drink Network on AOL (Which I eventually hosted for 7 years.) My screen name Capcooks was just blatant self promotion. And even though I left the AOL fold years ago, I still keep the name so old interwebs friends can still find me,

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

It is an homage to one of my cats. No, I am not the queen of bleu cheese!
Though I do love all kinds of cheese.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Well I imagine a lot of people already know of the well-known show from which I stole my name, but in case you don't, Liz Lemon is the title character from 30 Rock. How could I resist? An alias that combined one of my favorite characters of all time and also was an explicit reference to a perfect little fruit? It was destiny. I was surprised no one else had taken it yet when I registered.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

I just chose my name today.The reason I chose it is because I am a huge Good Eats and Alton Brown fan. Not to get too Star Wars...but he is like my Yoda.

From Talk

Your Clever SE Name

Mine is the same name I use everywhere on the Internet, and not food related at all. Gaellon was a character in two stories I wrote about 15 years ago; I prepended the Dr when I got my MD in 1997.

Recent Posts

From Talk

Leftover BBQ

From Talk

Where to buy smoked ham shanks?

From Talk

Chicken Livers: Are yellowish ones OK?

From Talk

thermometer problems

From Talk

Sea Salt

From Talk

Please help me find or make porketta seasoning

From Talk

My Lucky Day!

From Talk

What to do with duck livers, etc.?

From Talk

Roast Duck

From Talk

Picky-eater dinner guests

Recent Favorites

1stmakearoux hasn't favorited a post yet.

Polls

1stmakearoux hasn't answered any polls yet.

Quizzes

1stmakearoux hasn't taken any quizzes yet.

About 1stmakearoux

Website:

Location:

About:

Favorite foods: Cajun, Cuban, Southern, Soul Food

Last bite on earth: