JAZ

The egg bite idea also reminded me of "breakfast for dinner" possibilities. I wondered how strata/breakfast casseroles might work. I did a recipe for a sort of French toast casserole with breakfast sausage in one of my books, which turned out really well, but just your regular bacon, egg, and cheese would probably also work.

It's interesting that no one ever suggests salting the cooking water for other starches that way. For instance, you'd never hear a chef say that the water you use to cook potatoes or rice should be seawater.

I see you served a pasta salad -- maybe you could provide other hearty salads, which would be easier for those without kitchens. Lettuce salads don't keep very well unless you keep the dressing separate, but other varieties of pasta salads or potato salad with ham and cheese might work. Quiche is another dish that doesn't have to be reheated (although of course it could be).

My mom did that same version, although she used whatever lettuce my dad was growing -- usually red leaf or Boston as I recall. Both my parents were from Montana; I wonder if it's a Montana thing.

I have always bought it, either from a juice bar or in the refrigerated juice section of the grocery store. I think Trader Joe's might carry bottled carrot juice, but don't quote me on that.

I know carrot and ginger soup is really popular, but personally, I'm not a fan. I guess because carrots are so sweet, the ginger makes the soup seem like a dessert to me.

Here's a recipe I developed a while back for NPR's Kitchen Window blog, back when that existed. It was based on an amuse bouche I had at a San Francisco restaurant, carrot soup with chive oil and vanilla. I know the vanilla seems odd, but it works. https://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149928477/carrot-soup

@Smithy, glad we inspired you! @BeeZee, I forgot that we also tried the chicken mole (I didn't take a picture, so it slipped my mind). We had it over rice, and it was good, but I think it would be much better in a taco with something crunchy -- maybe pickled vegetables, or lettuce and radish slices.

We were in the mood for Southwest/Mexican food but didn't want to cook, so I picked up a few of TJ's entrees to try. Chicken chile verde enchiladas: Chiles Rellenos: The enchiladas were okay, but we didn't think they were worth buying again. The chiles rellenos were surprisingly good -- light, fluffy batter; nice sized, fresh poblanos; and plenty of cheese. We heated them in the oven, but I'd recommend the air fryer directions -- the batter wasn't very crisp out of the oven. The only negative was the sauce. It was a very thin, tomato-based sauce without much flavor. I added a half cup of good jarred salsa and it was much improved. Definitely worth buying again.

it's definitely true that recipe plagiarism is nothing new. Back in 2018, I had just written a book for the then brand new Ninja Foodi (the first pressure cooker/air fryer combo). I was looking around on Amazon to see what other books were out for that appliance, and I stumbled across a couple of books that had stolen dozens of my recipes. The weird thing was that the stolen recipes were from my first pressure cooker cookbook. In some cases, the recipe titles were changed, but the recipes themselves were copied verbatim. I let my editor know, and my publisher got Amazon to delete the books, but new books kept springing up with the same recipes copied. it turned out that someone had printed the whole text of my book online, so it was easy for anyone to steal from it. Once my publisher got that taken down, the problems stopped. In a way, I was lucky that the idiots stealing the recipes didn't change them, so it was relatively easy to prove they were stolen. With so many food blogs out there now, it's sad but not terribly surprising that unscrupulous authors steal content. It does surprise me that the publisher (Penguin in this case) didn't respond better to the accusation.

Not sure these count as "fun," but we replaced our old sheet pans and racks with new ones for Christmas. Out with the old: In with the new:

Actually, I did take a picture of the apple crumble when it came out of the oven. So now that's everything.

As usual, I got a photo of one of the appetizers, and then completely forgot about taking pictures until after dinner. So, deviled eggs with fried capers (some with shards of country ham as well): Maybe next year I'll do better.

Most of the ingredients in tapenade are preserved (olives, capers and jarred piquillo peppers, for instance) so what you need to worry most about would be fresh garlic, assuming that's an ingredient. Two weeks seems quite reasonable.

Regarding the amount of liquid in the pressure cooker, you rarely need a full cup of liquid to start. If you're not cooking something that absorbs water (like rice or pasta), you can get by with as little as 1/4 cup, because most foods contain a fair amount of water, which is released on cooking (and since you're using a pressure cooker, it doesn't evaporate). A pound of mushrooms, for instance, will release about 1/2 cup water. Meats release both water and fat, so you'll end up with a lot more liquid than you started with.