All Activity

Thanks for that writeup. I haven't had time yet to dive into the book, but from what you write here and what I've seen so far this book seems to be akin to Vivian Howard's This Will Make It Taste Good as far as its approach and likely uses go. Would you agree with that?

If they taste good - that's a win. I have made many batches and oddly my first batch was the best. There are so may variables, one just has to perservere.

I’ve been chatting about Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) here and there and apparently I’ve convinced @Smithy to pick up a sale-priced copy so I figured I should share my thoughts. This is Samin Nosrat’s second book, following Salt Fat Acid Heat (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) which was quite successful and spawned a 4 episode TV series. The first 4 chapters of that book are an excellent intro to the elements of cooking. There are plenty of recipes that follow but IMO, the real meat of the book is in those first chapters. In a way, Good Things is similar with a lot of interesting condiments up front and less interesting recipes that follow. I see it as an “Idea” book rather than a “Recipe” book. I was initially frustrated by how many of the recipes I wanted to try required one or several of the condiments or dressings in the front of the book. I reset my focus, spent a few hours making a few of those “good things” and set off to use them. The pickled Thai chiles and pickled red onions were hiding in the fridge but were also part of my first prep session. The preserved lemon paste takes a lot of hands-off time to make the preserved lemons but that NYShuk brand is readily available at Whole Foods or online. The Calabrian Chile Crisp requires a fair amount of hands-on time but it’s awfully good. I ordered the Calabrian chiles from Oaktown spices but she offers substitutions. Back to the book, most of the recipes for these condiments are followed by multiple suggestions for their use and the index is very complete in listing all the uses of each condiment, sauce or dressing. A lot of my cookbooks have similar sections of basics, condiments etc used throughout the book but such a complete index is fairly rare. I’ve spent hours with some books basically making my own index for stuff like this. The Good Things index is complete and greatly enhances the utility of the book. There’s a section of vegetable “recipes” by season that are mostly simple cooking suggestions and ways to incorporate those condiments. Nothing fancy, but I picked up a few tips like roll cutting carrots for roasting. I routinely do that for stir-frying but it also makes perfect thin edges to brown while roasting. I make marinated or pickled beets often but her use of the preserved lemon paste instead of vinegar was intriguing to me. Included in those veg sections are a number of flow charts for assembling salads or cooked veg dishes. Generally, I don’t find flow charts, diagrams or spreadsheet arrangements to be the best way to communicate recipes but for some reason, these have resonated with me and I’ve been using the roasted veg salad pages in particular for lots of salad ideas. These matrix pages are accompanied by examples that demonstrate restraint in choosing a few ingredients and not something from every category. Those are my highlights of the book, so far. I intend to work through all the salad dressings and play around with her uses for each. There are plenty of other recipes, a whole chicken chapter, and desserts, too. The harissa chickpea stew and spicy tuna pasta were both excellent but the ideas I’ve gotten from those condiments, dressings and salad matrix pages are the best parts of the book for me. The book’s not perfect. Its use of metric measurements is spotty which is annoying since it was published at the same time overseas with complete metric measurements so they could easily have been included. I thought the popcorn was way too salty, the olive oil fried bread was too oily and my first pass at the preserved lemon paste was inedibly salty but the wins exceed the misses by a lot.

Well, my sister got me a one-day macaron baking class for Christmas. It was a lot of fun! So I tried to do it at home. Sadly, it seems I am not yet a macaron master! I think I didn’t stir enough, so the shells never formed. Tastes great, but will need to try again it seems. Everything is a learning experience.

Attendees Chocolot Kerry Beal alleguede curls RanaMN Melani RobertM DianaD Lisa M

I wonder why listeria is so prevalent in the last few years? I honestly don't know if I had heard the word 10 years ago and now it's every other week. Are there better detection methods?

Thanks for the info. I always wanted to try those. Haven't been to Trader Joes since Covid. I'm in Canada but sadly Trader Joe's is not. My next foray will likely be after the next election...

I just acquired a copy of Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, thanks to @blue_dolphin's recommendation above. It looks like it might be a good book to fit your needs. Another book to consider, which I haven't read but which received a lot of discussion here, is J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. You can read more about the book in this topic:

Tamales are such a crap shoot. When I find good ones, I like them a lot. The last time I was at a Trader Joe's I looked for the pork and red sauce tamales that I'd liked so much. No dice. So I tried these: Meh. Bland. Even the masa seemed to lack the flavor of really good masa. The green chile had some heat but none of the green flavor I expect from green chiles. Here's an attempt to show the melty cheese and chiles inside. After shooting the photos I gussied these up with salsa and sour cream, to give them a bit of oomph, but I won't buy them again.

The Ambriola cheese company has recalled cheeses sold under these names: Ambriola, Locatelli, Member’s Mark, Pinna, and Boar’s Head due to listeria contamination discovered during routine testing. For more information, see here.

Interesting - looks like a vegetarian mash-up of the two versions in 'Land of Plenty' Thanks for the link, I love ya cai and will give it a go.

I have dehydrated mushrooms and ground them. The powder is great in scrambled eggs, soups, stews etc.

I still haven't tried any of his recipes for using these eggplant preserves, but I want to update with this note: chopped into smallish bits and mixed into my green salad, the eggplant makes a nice addition. The acid kick fits well with my vinaigrette, and compliments the rather bland ripe olives I'm using up.

No, not yet, but thanks for the reminder.

I blame @blue_dolphin. I really just went in looking for Good Things, but look at that promo price! So then I had to get her earlier book too, although it wasn't discounted. I'll have fun with these.

actually: 'The USDA defines "lean ground beef" as containing less than 10 grams of total fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and 95 milligrams of cholesterol per 100 grams (3.5 ounces) serving.' basically also labelled as 90/10 - which is the meat/fat, by weight. USDA also has rules about "retained water" in ground beef (and others . . .) because "grinding beef" generates heat, without 'extra cooling' the fat in the grind will melt. ice was popular once, but more stringent & better 'inspections' have resulted in producers using 'dry ice' for cooling, as the CO2 evaporates and doesn't make a mess of the 'retained water' issue. none of which applies to Canada.

yes, I'd put it on the pizza stone - it does the same thing as the warmed up pan. and yes, she puts it on the oven floor so the heat is directly on the bottom crust and it helps to crisp it

@JeanneCake, is the reason RLB is putting the frozen pie on the oven floor is because the oven floor is especially hot? I have a ceramic pizza stone which sits permanently in my gas oven. I think it helps the oven have a more reliable temperature (range is 50ºF at least). It's up about 6 or 8" from the broiler, but I put the pans for items I'm baking directly on the stone. Because I had to look up what the stone is actually called, I learned it's oven and grill-safe to 2000ºF. Of course, my oven only goes to 550ºF. Would you expect this would suffice for a frozen pie shell?

By farr, my favourite way to cook green beans. https://food52.com/recipes/20767-fuchsia-dunlop-s-sichuanese-dry-fried-green-beans

On a somewhat related note, RLB in the Pie and Pastry Bible suggests putting a frozen pie directly on the oven floor to help the bottom crust cook/crisp (she is also baking at a higher temp for 20 minutes then turning the oven down; her pies are fully frozen in this example). I am not that brave, I would heat a half sheet pan in the oven first, put the unfilled frozen crust on it to par-bake for 10-15 mins then pour the filling in and continue baking the whole thing. I would probably par bake the crust at a higher temp and turn the oven down once the filled crust is in the oven.

One of my family's favorites is the Tijuana Lady, a more complex, vanilla-forward Margarita variation: Tijuana Lady (Michael Madrusan, Little Branch NYC, 2008) 1.5 Oz Tequila 1.0 Oz Licor 43 .75 Oz Lime 2 Dashes Angostura bitters Add all ingredients to your shaker; shake with ice, strain into a coupe

Aah. Perfect answer, thank you. (I mind).

I've never frozen that particular dish, but in general, cooked beans freeze pretty well -- they sometimes break up a little, but that's not usually a problem. Other dishes that freeze well are stews and soups. If they include pasta, you might want to leave it out and add to cook when you reheat the dish. I've found that pasta tends to get pretty mushy when frozen. I'd say that from the Super Easy Instant Pot book (which is where the Spicy Chickpea recipe can be found), the Chorizo Chile and Sloppy Joe filling would both be good candidates for freezing. You could also make the Creamy Turkey and Wild Rice soup -- just leave out the frozen vegetables and cream and add when reheating. Which other books do you have? I'll take a look and see what other candidates I can recommend.

Sounds like a recipe for a soggy bottom, but there are plenty of people who don’t mind that.

I've read and reread the recipe, and the 6 comments, and I agree: it seems to suggest baking from frozen crust. I guess I'd go ahead and try it, unless the crust package's instructions say to thaw it first.