Food Q&A: We get a lot of questions

Here's a roundup of questions I've gotten recently.

Q. What is the best way to freeze pomegranates?
A. It's better to seed them, then freeze the seeds. To get the seeds out without getting splattering your kitchen with enough pomegranate juice to look like "Saw XII," fill a large bowl with water. Cut into one side of the pomegranate with a sharp paring knife. Hold the pomegranate under water and pull it apart. Run your fingers around and through the sections to separate the seeds, which will sink, from the pith, which will float. Scoop off as much of the pith as you can and discard it, then pour the bowl through a sieve to catch the seeds. You can freeze the seeds as-is, or puree them in a blender and strain again to make pomegranate juice.

Q. How do you prevent food from getting soggy in a chafing dish?
A. The simplest solution here is to choose another recipe. Some foods are suitable for holding in a warmed container, while others aren't. Something that is crispy or has a crust is inevitably going to get a little soft. Something that is soft to begin with, such as chicken in a sauce, can be kept warm for serving without a noticable change.

Q. Can you freeze potato or cheese soups with a cream base?
A. Freezing can work, although milk- or cream-based soups can separate when frozen, and potatoes are always tricky. They can darken or take on an off-flavor. If the potato is pureed, not chunky, it should be OK. To get around the separating problem, you could reheat the soup in a double boiler over water and whisk it well to bring it back together.

Q. When making a souffle, is it best to use cold eggs or room-temperature eggs?
A. Room-temperature eggs always beat higher and hold air better than cold eggs. If you don't have time to let them sit at room temperature for a half hour or so, you can place them in a bowl of tepid water to take the chill off.

So, What Did You Cook?

If there was a recipe for a perfect cooking weekend, this was it: Gray, cold, damp. Yeah baby!

I started off with a run to the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market for lettuce, mushrooms, green peppers, heirloom apples (mostly those winesaps with skins so dark, they look like burnished wood), a big chunk of Donnie Cline's Hubbard squash, parsley and cilantro, proscuitto and ground pork from Grateful Growers, whole-hog sausage from T&K and a loaf of French bread.

Saturday, I made oniony meatballs from pork and ground beef that got cooked in a from-scratch spaghetti sauce that night. I started a huge bowl of chicken pieces marinating for Chicken Marbella. I made a batch of bacony crackling cornbread to set aside for dressing Sunday night.

I tried a recipe for butternut squash and proscuitto roasted in a sauce of maple syrup, smoked paprika and chili powder. To up the green-vegetable ante, I tossed in a couple of cups of green peas -- remember that old favorite of green peas in a ring of mashed sweet potatoes? Same notion. It came out a little too sweet for spaghetti and had more syrupy juice than I expected, but was great with Sunday night's dinner.

That was Chicken Marbella, cornbread/sausage/apple dressing from "Silver Palate," and the leftover sweet-squash and peas.

I ran out of time for a batch of sofrito, but that's an easy weekday evening project. I didn't make dessert, but with the sweet squash, we didn't need it.

So how about you? What did you cook on a perfect food weekend?