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I found an unadvertised sale on ham this week and happily took advantage. Not only was it plenty of ham for this week’s Ham & Spinach Crustless Quiche CFM, but I am left with a ham bone with lots of ham still attached for the freezer and future meals. Most of the ingredients for the crustless quiche, baked hash brown patties, and satsumas/cuties/mandarins/citrus. I was using two hotel pans and decided I would compose each one separately. Each hotel pan got 30 eggs, a pound of diced and sautéed button mushrooms, one diced and sautéed red bell pepper, and a pound of chopped and sautéed spinach, plus a little over 2 pounds of ham (in each pan). I really thought the care I took to get rid of as much liquid as I could from the vegetables before adding them to the mix, but there was still more liquid released than I would have preferred. I really wanted to get this posted today, so my narrative is short. Hope to edit in more info later.

@gfweb but no ' CIA ' just yet. Ill work myself through them , from time to time , just in case.

Still more noise than signal in this one, as you say.

Thanks for the reviews and insight into this product, you saved me from some disappointment.

Of course you cook with concepts. Unless you just follow directions without thinking about them. This concept works with an unsalted bird. Or unsalted meat from a different source. It would work for making something stock-adjacent that you don't mind having some salt in. Like soup. I don't make stock with salt either, and this was my first concern with the video. That's not an argument that there's no use for what he's demonstrating. And if Chris Young is advocating for it, I trust the result tastes good.

@gulfporter Yes, I realize duck is difficult to source some places. I'm lucky to live in duck central. Duck is the cheapest meat available here. 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

We live in a small backwater village (mi esposo's description) an hour outside Guadalajara. I have never seen duck in any form sold in any of the mercados or butcher shops here. Only a few local restaurants offer it on special from time to time and I would guess they obtain it from a local farm or small poultry ranch. Years ago a Frenchman who lived in Guadalajara came to our village's weekly open air market, selling duck products....really nice confit and rillettes. He opened a B&B and stopped coming out to our village. It's likely there are ducks and duck products available at the abastos (large city market) in Guadalajara. But since we own a US home that we commute to every other month, I simply buy and enjoy my duck when I'm there. Your burgers sound excellent! Ahhhh, duck fat. I will fantasize about that the rest of the day.

Chris Young, the Costco stock guy, worked on Modernist Cuisine as well. I priced out the stock made using the posted MC recipe, and it was quite a bit more expensive than the Costco stock in my area. The posted MC recipe yields 5 cups of stock at a greater cost than the Costco stock and takes twice as long to make. I'm not advocating the Costco stock as better, although it could be in certain situations, and as for me, it's not the only choice I use, but there are times when it's advantageous.

Duck leg meat is my go-to for burgers. I debone the legs and hand chop the flesh. Served with duck fat fries, of course.

Good on you. Had I had (and I have had) a disaster like that, I would declare the kitchen closed and go out to eat or order in! You are a trooper! !

Just missed! I did get chile paste up my nose 😆

Been there!!!! Hopefully none of it got in your eyes!!!

Lunch was an adventure. I was using the blender to make a red curry paste. When I removed the lid to check progress, I accidentally bumped the "on" switch. Kitchen instantly looked like a chainsaw murder scene. So after lots of words I won't repeat here, extensive clean-up (thanks, Mrs. C!), and a shower, I remade the paste. Ingredients included Holland chiles, garlic, galangal, red curry paste, tamarind, and palm sugar Red curry shrimp with peas, carrots, cilantro, and Thai basil

I spent a few days in Alamagordo, New Mexico, which is near White Sands National Park; Alamagordo also has a space museum and some pretty nice scenery. White Sands is good for a fairly quick driving tour, or for extended hikes. I saw folks doing both. The sand is unusual because it's gypsum, very fine, very round grains, and good for sliding down like you're sliding down a snowbank! The Visitor Center rents out sledding disks, but I borrowed one from the KOA where I was staying and enjoyed a few rounds of sliding as well as hiking, and watching other folks slide. The Visitor Center has good informative displays, as well. I'd intended to picnic there, but had forgotten the food! It was just as well. By the time I left, around 1 pm, the wind had come up and rain had started. I drove through the rain, a few miles past the other end of town, and arrived at the Heart of the Desert Pistachios and Wine place I'd noticed on the way to Alamagordo the day before. I'd also noticed a place called Pistachioland that looked interesting, but Heart of the Desert was closer to town so I stopped there. My interior photos aren't as good as I'd thought. Somehow, I missed the wine tasting room, the display of pistachios and candies, and the bags and bags of variously treated pistachios. You could taste almost anything there, and folks were enjoying the wine tasting when I arrived. I didn't try it; I concentrated instead on the infused olive oils and the nuts. The stuff isn't actually produced there; the gift shop is a cooperative of sorts. Still, you can sample and taste and enjoy. The oils and vinegars aren't cheap! I tried a Green Chile olive oil that nearly blew my head off. When I exclaimed, "OOFda!" the woman helping me laughed. She'd lived in Minnesota for a few years and her Norwegian mother-in-law had used that expression a lot. I tried a few other infused oils, but settled for some small bottles of straight varietals: If I have any sense, I'll use them as finishing oils but be sure to use them before they go rancid! The herb blends didn't impress me. These are samplers to be opened and sniffed. Maybe they were old? Their aromas seemed blunted. There are other doodads to be had: funny soaps, serving dishes and non-food gifts like sunglasses, and bags of pistachios with various flavor treatments. I bought a small bag of roasted pistachios and a smaller bag of chile-treated pistachios for an extra heat kick, and some biscotti that I'll try to save until my sister visits: Then I headed home to unpack my goodies, finally eat something, and admire the rainbow near sunset.

Lunch at nearby eatery in Ajijic Centro. One special was Hamburguesa de Pato. Never had (or seen) a duck burger before. Ground duck patty with bacon, goat cheese and caramelized balsamic onions. It was great. But to get the duck flavor, we had to break off a piece of the burger.

Love the mug 😊

Cashew celery with kale and teriyaki tofu from Tenderheart by Hetty Lui McKinnon

Well, we're "home" for now. I've brought out another special coffee mug, one I had made for myself earlier this summer, in celebration. I arrived a couple of evenings ago and will have several catch-up stories to tell. The mountains in this photo have nearly disappeared due to dust and a wind storm, but I can't be sorry about that considering the weather elsewhere. It was gusting up to 60 mph most of the night, back at my real home, and schools and roads are closed due to blizzard conditions. Meanwhile, it's dumping snow and rain farther north and west of here. I did some social activities yesterday and am content to stay here today, writing, organizing, walking, playing music, and cooking...something...I'm not sure yet what's for dinner. Brunch today was a classic case of "snatching the bacon from the fire". A few nights ago I went on a roasting and mixing extravaganza -- I'll tell more about that later -- and made what has to be the most disappointing batch of tabbouli I've ever made. The herbs were getting old and needed to be used. I had to pick through them. Apparently I didn't soak the bulgur enough, because it was crunchy the following morning. I left the tabbouli out of the refrigerator for several days, and eventually the bulgur softened enough to be manageable, but I still wasn't crazy about the flavor of the whole. Enter the "toastie" idea. Why not take a slice of jalapeno popper bread (I'll tell you about that later), griddle it, then top it with tabbouli and cheese? Why not, you ask? Well...how exactly did I think that cheese would melt? So I put a second slice of bread on it, flipped the lot, and ended up with a jalapeno-popper-sourdough grilled cheese sandwich with tabbouli. Pretty darned good, actually. I'll be more careful next time I make tabbouli, but I'll be able to use this stuff up.

That may be so, but you don't cook with a concept. You cook with the finished product. I've never cooked with a salted stock nor do I want to. I want to be able to control the salt of whatever I make with that stock.

That's Chris Young's recipe also, you know. He was head research chef on the Modernist Cuisine team. Just as At Home is a simplified version of the original MC volumes, Young's YouTube channel is a further simplification for the low-attention-span cooking hack crowd. I'm sure he'd agree with you on salt and stocks, especially if you're making stock for reduction and saucemaking. He's just demonstrating a concept here.

Chicken, broccoli, and citrus stir fry with brown rice. We get a biweekly citrus delivery with our CSA box in the winter. The contents vary but it’s mostly variations of oranges with the occasional grapefruit, meyer lemon and/or makrut lime. We usually just eat all the fruit out of hand but for some reason had an overflow situation going on this week. This sauce had the juice of two blood oranges and two tangerines, and there were kumquats in the stir fry.

If everyone can PM me their information Name Business name if you have one address e-mail address cell number you will be using in Montreal Renee from Chocolat-chocolat wishes to know about any food preferences/allergies for the dinner she is hosting.

Chocolot Kerry Beal alleguede curls RanaMN Melani RobertM DianaD Lisa M citowolf - Celia D Lambrecht gourmet +1 Sue PEI (possibly with Jane) GRiker Rajala Kate Jared A Kelsey Hayley Eat.Choui Audrey Brown Bernie - said he was coming

I couldn't agree more with your method. That's exactly what I do except that I want to use the meat. So I let it cook for 18 minutes, take out the meat at that point, then I return the bones and skin and finish cooking. I still get a nice flavorful broth.

@haresfur I agree w you to use less rather than more water. the iPot can be used to concentrate stock , using the quick release , then using the liquid again , several times in series. the steam that's released is the same as boiling the stock on the stove top. there are many threads on using the iPot for stock , well before this one was started.