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Vegetarian Wellington Filet with Red Cabbage Salad - the puff pastry was filled with a duxelles/farce made from cremini mushrooms, onions, garlic, walnuts, hazelnuts, parmesan, mustard and thyme and topped with portobello mushroom caps. Served with a simple salad of red cabbage, parsley, olive oil and verjus

They do chunky ones too. I chose these deliberately. 串 (chuàn) are from Chinese far western Muslim province. The Chinese character is a clear pictogram. They are very different from the Greco-Turkish type (mostly Cypriot) you find in England. They are cumin and chilli heavily spiced, whether "stingy" or chunky. Usually the lamb meat is interspersed with chunks of sheep's tail fat.

The skewers look really stingy - probably because I'm used to chunky shish kebabs.

A delivery lunch. A bit of a screw-up on the vendor's part. I ordered 5 lamb skewers and 5 beef skewers, but they delivered ten lamb. The fries came with tomato ketchup sachets but no salt. As usual. No worries, I have plenty of salt. Four types, in fact. I didn't use the ketchup. Never do with fries.

香港式蛋挞 (xiāng gǎng shì dàn tà), Hong Kong style egg tarts. Not to be confused with 澳门式蛋挞 (ào mén shì dàn tà), Macau egg tarts And certainly not 鸡蛋布丁 (jī dàn bù dīng), egg pudding.

Saturday my sister, niece and I stopped by the other breakfast restaurant in town, called Brekkies, which I think is an atrocious name. I really don’t like going out to breakfast, but they do, so I went along. Here’s the inside. Sister’s pancakes Niece’s waffle We really needed to charge our car, and the closest level three charger is in Provincetown, so we ended up back there. We charged up, spent the afternoon at Herring Cove, then went for an early dinner at Front Street. Fried zucchini blossoms to share Calamari with garlic sauce Shrimp scampi Puttanesca with shrimp Zuppa de pesce Calamari fra diavolo Gnocchi with truffle cream sauce Niece had a bread pudding for dessert We made it back to Herring Cove just in time for sunset Today my husband and I did our usual harbor walk at low tide. I took this panorama of the houses on the beach. We’ve stayed in most of them at one point over the years. We then went over to the ocean side to walk there. I tried putting my feet in but it was way too cold for me! There were a decent number of people swimming. They are hardier than me. Dinner was at Mac’s Shack. It was even more crowded than usual because there was a music festival on the nearby pier tonight. Oysters Spicy tuna mango martini Halibut turadito Fried clams Fish and chips Toro poke bowl and tuna roll with avocado, mango, and cream cheese for my niece scallops with bacon on corn bisque We walked down to the pier after dinner to get some ice cream and check out how crowded the festival was. The sky looked pretty The house we are renting is very close to the pier, so we walked back and listened to the concert from the deck. The headliner was a band called Wheatus. I thought I didn’t know them, until they started playing. Now I have “teenage dirtbag” stuck in my head 😂

Husband made a beef stew which we had with broccolini and mashed potato. He makes the stew with loads of onions cooked even longer than the beef till they have melted down to form the ‘gravy’. I made an old fashioned apple pie.

Yes. For banana bread I usually wait till my local supermarket decide the unsold bananas are beyond redemption and give them away for a token payment.

Just to be clearer, the name I gave is the name used in Thailand for the specific cultivar known internationally as pisang awak . Also, the transliteration I gave is the standard Thai. The English name is not indicator of nationality of origin any more than 'English muffins' are from England. It is an indicator of the cultivar. They are grown in many countries. Of course, Thailand has other banana varieties including Cavendish. However, กล้วยน้ำว้า (kl̂wy n̂ảŵā) is by far the most common.

They look pretty close to the little bananas that I get here in Costa Rica. They probably aren't quite ripe yet but they will be in two or three days. The riper they are the sweeter they get. You can wait until they get quite dark before you use them. I found that the easiest way to mash them is just put them in a zip top bag and squish them.

I would.

Just to be clear, pisang awak = nam wah (nam wa, namwah), alternate names for the same banana. There are other names for the Thai banana depending on location, and there is more than one variety of the Thai banana.

Thank you. From what you said, i should wait to use them until they turn yellow? The picture shows them as being more yellow than they are.

Did a bunch of grilled veg (I had salmon fillet brushed with hoisin, DH had a strip steak). Corn salad for tomorrow’s dinner, leftovers of the grilled eggplant/zucchini/red bell pepper/red onion warm salad that I make a lot over the summer.

Thai bananas (Thai: กล้วยน้ำว้า (kl̂wy n̂ảŵā) but more commonly known as pisang awak, the Malay name in most countries) are eaten both raw and sour as well as sweet and yellow all over SE Asia, including here in southern China. I have often made successful banana bread with them when fully ripe to the point of over ripe. By the way Thai banana flowers are a delicious and commonly used vegetable here and in Vietnam. Also, grilled sticky rice Thai banana cakes are a common street food in parts of Vietnam.

It's been more than a year since I've had a Thai banana. I believe they go by the name of Nam Wah. I remember it as being sweet with slightly sour/vanilla overtones. They are firmer than the more popular/common Cavendish banana, and should be showing some black to indicate ripeness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R64M22Pt50&t=22s I like them more than the Cavendish ... more character. I understand that they are often served fried, but don'thave first hand knowledge of that.

The Korean grocery store has beef and pork already cut up and ready to take home and marinate but they also have beef short ribs not only cut up but in a marinade ready to take home and grill. We had not tired them before today and they were good. The little BBQ was going to be too small and converting the smoker is a chore. the clean-up is too. I got a cheap charcoal grill at Walmart yesterday and set it up for today. In a couple of weeks, Charlie is having a couple over for some of my smoked meat and wants to include some Korean food, so I knew that I'd need a separate grill then, because I can't use my smoker for smoking and grilling at the same time.

The galangal is pretty slow growing! Compare this to what it was back on 8/22... My cabe rawit plant is doing really well. Cabe rawit is usually translated as Thai chillies, but I think that they're different - much more plump. I have a bunch of chillies on the plant now - none ripe yet... this is an early one:

There are more than 1,000 species of Thai bananas?

At home for cooking, I never buy any farmed fish - though I may partake of some - when at a sushi bar, for instance (or if I shop at Russ & Daughters for varieties of smoked salmon). As I mentioned, both salmon varieties I cooked were delivered fresh, as opposed to how we get them from Wild Alaska or Great Alaska Seafood. For this smoke, I used Japanese (Sakura) cherry blossom wood chips.

there are more than 1,000 banana species. so - mash 'em and keep baking!

Fettucine with charred grape tomatoes, bacon, shallot and arugula. Topped with parm on the plates.

Staff note: This post and responses to it have been split from the Banana Bread: Tips & Techniques discussion, to maintain topic focus. I bought these today. They were labeled in the store as Thai bananas, but there are no other markings on them to tell me more about them. I bought them thinking they might be good for banana muffins. Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me, particularly, are they ripe now or do I wait to use them until they turn yellow? All help appreciated.

I was at the local Cal DMV office a while back and the folks were efficient, friendly, and competent. I had to go through three separate processes and they went quickly and smoothly. The last time I was at a Starbucks the visit was far less enjoyable than the recent DMV visit. YMMV

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either of those salmon - at least when I used to get them from Wild Alaska... I found them too lean. I LOVE the akaroa king salmon from New Zealand - it's almost buttery and so tender. I actually get it regularly for sashimi at the Wegmans near me. Best salmon sashimi ever. What do you use to make the smoke in your donabe? Have you ever seen coconut husk charcoal available near us?