Some catchup before the holidays

Normally I have plans for the holidays, cooking plans. Goals, even. Lists of recipes to try. But for this one, I don't really. I'd kind of like to try making pizza again, now that my French rolling pin has arrived. I'd like to low cook a good-sized piece of pork so that we can try the NC BBQ sauce that my co-worker Ruth brought back from NC for us. And we got a cider-brined ham from Pine Street Market for xmas. But other than that? Nothing's on the radar. Oh, we will do dah been lo for new year's.

So we will see what will turn up. I'm sure I'll figure something out before we go to the store which will sadly maybe be tomorrow...

Chicken feet. I know I post a lot of pictures of chicken feet, but you know, I kind of really like chicken feet.

To most people, chicken feet are pretty gross. They don't want to think of their food with feet and certainly not eating them. I have to admit that eating factory-farmed chicken feet is probably pretty gross. But these chicken feet come from Heritage Farms and are very good.

Josh was out of town and I could only find one package of feet in the freezer, the other being buried deep in its depths. And so that's all I made. Cut off the claws, broil, wash, and simmer until soft. I went with less soy sauce that usual because I'm down to the last two bottles of the case I bought which means that shortly I will have to do another soy sauce taste test. Bleh.

But they still turned out tasty even if it was something like three hours of cooking that resulted in fifteen minutes of eating. I was going to post a picture of the bowl of bones, but I know probably 99.9 percent of you don't want to see that, so I have spared you. Merry Christmas.

Yep. Another repeat. My Chinese pork ribs.

When I was little, I had barely ever heard of barbecue, much less eaten it. Grilling was something you did on a gas stove, and it was really just shish-kabobs (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that). But the ribs, they were made in the oven.

I was always the maker of the sauce. This is where that specific taste of soy sauce comes in. For this, and my steamed fish recipe. I have a feeling that without this soy sauce or my orange blossom honey, my ribs might cease to exist.

So a craving for Chinese ribs struck -- and I should probably mention that I don't make any other kind of ribs -- and when we were at Dekalb Farmers Market, I bought a rack of St. Louis ribs.

You know what leftover ribs means? Fried rice. So I always prep the rack to fit on my little broiler pan, then I cut up the loose bits and lacquer those too so that they can become fried rice later. But I have some ribs left too and those will be a snacky later.

I love these ribs. Sweet, a little salty, rich and unctuous... These were good ribs.

Yum.