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Well possibly brunch as it was 11.30am A Spanish chorizo omelette with baguette toast.

Dinner was noodles, broccoli and Hungarian goulash with sour cream. We have small tubs of sour cream here in Australia, but nothing as delicious as the tubs of sour cream available in US … well at least California where I have done my most grocery shopping when in US. I first tasted US sour cream in the 80’s when visiting my girlfriend who had moved there, Woodland Hills, and at her home she produced a tub of sour cream. ” Taste this” she said, I did and my eyes opened wide ”I know” she said. It was so good.

Some quick googling shows they sell non-alcoholic vanilla "flavoring" in the US and it appears that some of this may be labelled or at least advertized as extract

Meatloaf with Pork Tenderloin Filling and Mustard Sauce from an essen & trinken recipe - meatloaf is made with a mix of ground pork and beef, bolillo roll soaked in milk, shallots, garlic, egg, mustard and tarragon. When you form the meatloaf you incorporate in the middle some strips of pork tenderloin. The meatloaf is baked in the oven for 45 minutes. The mustard sauce is made with shallots, brown sugar, port wine, vegetable broth, heavy cream, potatoes and bay leaves, pureed and finished with regular mustard and sweet mustard. Served with roasted diced, roasted potatoes, frisée salad and pea shoots.

By law in the US vanilla extract must contain at least 35 percent ethyl alcohol by volume, although it may also contain glycerin. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-169/subpart-B/section-169.175

Tonight I assembled the above mentioned Electactic juicer in hopes of making carrot soup. I ran out of energy and instead of soup, dinner was cheese and crackers. Meanwhile this afternoon I ordered another vertical slow juicer: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

I’ve found that the Furikake Snack Mix varies widely in the percentage mix of ingredients from bag to bag. There have been a small number of wasabi peas in each of the 5-6 bags I’ve had so far, but you’re not missing much. There’s very little wasabi taste, if any.

I think, and this is just my opinion, that this is one of the things that make wine so much fun.

It's quite possible that I didn't taste "the right" (for my tastes) zins when I was there. Years ago, my darling and I and 3 other couples liked to get together for wine tastings and dinners at each others' homes. One of our members, by far the wealthiest and best-traveled, asserted that no wine was worth purchasing, in his opinion, unless it cost at least $20 and was from France. His sole exception was Ridge. By the time our group got around to zinfandels, we'd begun doing blind tests: one host member would bag the bottles and the other host member would number them, so that we could all enjoy the mystery of ranking and tasting. Our zin testing set included Sutter Home at $4.99, Ridge at, oh, $28? and two zins priced in the mid-teens. We all ranked them according to our preferences. I forget which one was got the most votes for "best" but I think it was one of the mid-teens bottles, probably Seghesio's Old Vines Zin. I knew at once the Sutter Home; ro me it tasted like Buzz Saw in a Bottle. But THAT one was our wine snob's favorite! He was very gracious when the bottles were revealed and he saw he'd picked the cheapest of the bunch. 😆

I think Ridge still makes some excellent zins. As you note, the prices are on the high side and they make so many single vineyard zins that vary quite a bit in character that you run the risk of paying that premium price for something less than stellar. That’s no fun!

I wouldn't say it's even particularly American. It is common in France. My grandmother served it in the 1950s, probably much earlier before I was around. It is also known in Italy and Germany. Indeed, the ancient Romans used it, too. Probably brought to the USA by German immigrants. China also developed the taste, probably separately.

Sausage and peppers

Western maybe, but not Montana. My mother used to do that same salad, using iceberg lettuce. i don't know whether she brought that idea with her from Florida, where she'd grown up, or learned it in California, where my father grew up and where we lived.

I don't know how much coumarin tonka beans contain, but I would definitely check the recipe against recommend maximum daily coumarin intake per kg body weight. I'd really like to replicate a sweet woodruff sherbet I got at a restaurant in Berlin several years ago. I even planted it in my backyard last fall, but once I started to look into the amount of coumarin in sweet woodruff, it turns out I can only add a few grams of the stuff to a whole Pacojet beaker in order to keep the coumarin at a safe level... I will still have to try it in the spring, but if the flavour of the ingredients can't be maximized due to safety concerns, it might not be worth it 🤔

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.

Had our covid and flu shots, and I was feeling pretty achy, so supper was from the freezer: Smoked turkey and sweet tater. Veg from the freezer and the piccalilli I made: Another easy supper, from WW cookbook Spicy Shrimp and Cheesy Grits: After 2 days, I was back to my old self! Trying to lose a few lbs after Thanksgiving and before Xmas - more WW recipes: Vietnamese Pho: WW Bacon Cheese Burger with onions and sweet tater. This is hubby's plate with gravy: Brandy Beef Stroganoff: And finally, Oven Baked Crunch Fried Chicken!

Porter Creek is the only winery wine club I belong to - I generally get 6 bottles, twice a year. Their winemaker is the son of the founder of the winery, Alex Davis, whose dad George founded the winery in 1978. They still make a zin.

My recent experiments with cultured milk sherbets stabilized with Gellan F and Flaxfiber has given me the perfect opportunity to try cold infusion of thyme. As a first attempt, the thyme was vacuum infused in the cultured milk for 30 minutes. The thyme flavour could perhaps be a little bit stronger, but the emphasis on the fruity and citrusy flavour notes of the thyme, as well as the complexity of the thyme flavour, was absolutely amazing. Gellan gums flavour release could be a factor in this too however. I'll have to make a batch with 1 hour infusion time next time, to see how that affects the thyme flavour, but this was without doubt another win for the gellan sorbet/sherbet approach 😃

Right back at you, that is lovely bread. I'm really enjoying my not-so-flat loaves that come out of my little pots, and hope that I can get a little more loft with better scoring. It's never going to be as holey--or hold quite as much melted butter--as your loaf, but maybe a little more if I get this bit right.

I like Sunce's zins. There's something about the Dry Creek zins that I think really brings out the grape's spice, and Sunce does it well. My other favorite -- but I've dropped this membership -- is Seghesio. They do some fine zins as well. Porter Creek used to, but their head vintner left for greener vineyards years ago. I don't remember if that's why I dropped that membership, or it was simply a matter of expense. I'm missing one or two; if their names come to me I'll come back with that information. On the "disappointing" side was Ridge. Although they're in Healdsburg, their zins to me seemed flat - none of the spicy character I love -- and overpriced when I tried them. Times change, of course. It would be fun to go on another wine tour through the Sonoma area some day and see what I think now.

I think omelets get foisted as 'an ideal' simply because the basics are extremely simple. eggs pan heat no "special stuff" needed. three day reductions etc. etc. etc. . . . not needed . . . so, iffin' it is so simple, how come it's 'so hard?' just about every person on the planet has had a delicious omelet. so what happened? imho, the first issue is , , , cooking an omelet is much more about technique than other mentionables. one has to recognize when the pan temp is right - one has to correctly judge when the omelet is 'set' that can take a bit of learning/experience - for people who wish only to master minutes+seconds+power level for the microwave.... that can be an issue. there is another aspect to 'OMG that was a good omelet!' - which is 'seasoning' - a salt free omelet . . . not gonna' cut it. then the 'fillings' . . . more is not more better. too much volume, the omelet is not well behaved on 'rolling out' the fillings also have a huge effect on 'seasoning' aka taste . . . cheddar vs. Asiago . . . worlds apart, for example. I did an interesting approach recently - used a stick blender to 'whip up' the eggs+dab of water. that introduces a lot of air and hence physical volume to the omelet 'mix' - 'filled' a ten inch pan noticeably more than 'usually expected.' it worked - requires lower heat+more time, turned out more pure eggish blanched style. ... frankly I'm more a fan of the "country style" omelet where it is entirely permissible to have some slight browning.

Beautiful work! I find my loaves do OK, so long as I've developed structure well enough. But I don't work with low-gluten materials like you do (except for some lower-strength grains like einkorn, emmer, etc. - 60:40 einkorn:BF below, sorry if I've already posted it), so I can understand why it might not work well. Shoot. I hope you find a good solution!

@weinoo It was in Sacramento, lived here all but three years of my life.

@jedovaty quite seriously why not take the bag back, and suggest your bag was missing those W. peas ?

I made these for the birthday of a colleague who cannot eat gluten (taking lots of precautions including cleaning everything before use because everything in my kitchen is covered with flour dust from milling all the time, and using the mill I keep gluten-free for the milling) and loves banana bread. I dislike most banana bread because it is too heavy, too sweet, and bland. These cupcakes are light, buttery, not too sweet for me, and spicy enough to be interesting. And the Date-Coconut-Caramel sauce (not my invention, see below) was the brilliant finishing touch. Banana Cupcakes with Date-Coconut Caramel Sauce Mill together 200 grams sorghum 50 grams sweet brown rice 6 allspice About 3 pieces mace 6 Long peppers 1/2 teaspoon whole mahleb (Substitute about 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground mace or freshly ground nutmeg, scant 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground long pepper or fresh ground black pepper plus a pinch of ground cardamom, and 1/2 teaspoon ground mahleb seeds or 1 teaspoon almond extract) Remove a portion of the fresh ground flour to food processor and add 185 grams Blue Stripes Banana cacao dried fruit 'gummies'** (packages are 125 grams but I had one and a half on hand) Blitz in food processor until the dried fruit bits are very fine pieces (sesame-seed like) so they can hydrate and soften by the end of baking. 50 grams toasted coconut milk powder* 45 grams flax seed, ground very fine 2/3 cup sugar 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 100 grams roasted unsalted cashews, grated/ground to a light sandy texture (I use my rotary nut grater for this) Sift/whisk in until all evenly blended 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened Beat into flour until thoroughly mixed 1 1/2 C thoroughly mashed ripe bananas (premixed with one of the eggs and left to sit for 30 minutes if not fully ripe) Beat until smooth 3 eggs (remember to the one you used to speed-ripen the bananas, if you did that) Beat in one by one and then beat in enough water to make a thick but spoonable batter. Spoon into muffin cups (they can be basically full, they rose to a nice dome but did not overtop the cups) and bake 375°F degrees about 20 minutes (internal temp about 205 degrees). While they cool, prepare date-coconut-caramel as a dip for the topping. I tweaked the original Date Caramel recipe from bakedbymelissa.com a little bit by using powdered coconut milk, some toasted* and some not. I used all 16 large and plump medjool dates in the package I bought, reserved the soaking liquid, zapped in the food processor with some of their soaking liquid, added a scoop of the toasted coconut milk powder, and another 2 scoops of the untoasted coconut milk powder, and then I think all of the rest of the soaking liquid plus some extra water to make a puree just thick enough to dip and coat the top of the cupcakes without dripping down the sides. Next time I will cut this down because this made twice as much as I needed for 2 dozen cupcakes. *I always keep coconut milk powder on hand and not coconut milk, and I toast some of it from time to time in the oven or in a skillet for extra flavor oomph. **I would probably substitute dried unsweetened Philippine mango if I did not happen to have this on hand; as I made it, the banana flavor was heightened by the dried banana and the dried cacao fruit is quite tart and not very chocolatey.