All Activity

Thanks. I've bought a few trees from Four Winds growers - they're great! I actually looked at their website the other day and was surprised by the prices - they've doubled since I bought my last tree (at least 10 years ago). I appreciate the idea of seeds, but since I'd be growing it indoors, if I decide to do it, I'd get one grafted onto dwarf rootstock.

And for that matter, tossing a cabbage certainly would not put a dent in your fiances. No one throws out food lightly but it could be excused this once.

@rotuts That's disappointing. TJ's has/had a Citrus/Garlic spice blend that I love and use a lot. I'd have expected this to be equally good and would have jumped on it. Sorry to hear it was disappointing.

Pork and dried tofu with red and green chillies - Hunan style.

In the middle of an article about an entirely unrelated topic (90s alt-rock, as experienced via the lousy speakers at a workplace), I came across this absolute gem of a sentence: The article itself, by Niko Stratis, is well worth a read for the way it captures the mood of small-town life and those dead-end jobs most of us take on in our teens. https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/alt-rock-dept/alt-rock-toadies-possum-kingdom

Sandworm Congee More about sandworms.

The first part of a 4 part series presented by Tony Armstrong is focused on food and well worth a watch (as are the other episodes). Tony Armstrong is sort of a golden boy of indigenous TV in Australia. He is charming and entertaining. He is a strong advocate for indigenous culture, which is important when talking about food history in Australia. So many of the people interviewed are aborigines, including restauranteurs. There is a lot of focus on bush tucker, but also on the arrival of other food traditions. The show includes a lot of archival footage. I learned quite a bit that I didn't know, like Granny Smith apples were developed here. The tie in to the early marketing by "Granny Smith" was really interesting. As was the segment on Greek immigrants via the US starting Milk Bars, bringing soda fountains and American food to the country. Of course there is plenty of discussion about meat pies, Chiko Rolls, and Vegemite. Don't know if anyone outside Australia can get to ABC iView. Maybe try a vpn.

Barley-Lentil Stew with Mushrooms, Crisped Prosciutto, and Dill from “Ancient Grains for Modern Meals” - stew is cooked with hulled barley, pearl barley, puy lentils, prosciutto, leeks, cremini mushrooms, chard stems and leaves, garlic, morita chili, marjoram, oregano, dill, parmesan rind, soy sauce and vegetable broth. Topped with crispy prosciutto, sour cream and dill

@KennethT I have a calamondin / calamansi tree; happy to send you some seeds. I'm not sure if they will grow from seeds or if you need to graft. There are a few nurseries in the US where you can mail order the plant and I don't think there are shipping restrictions to New York. https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/a/blog/how-to-grow-a-calamondin-citrus-tree

I don’t know what possessed me to buy a 1kg tub of Thai green curry paste, but because I have SO much, I always use TOO much. This green chicken curry was Thailand hot. The kinda hot where food cart aunty looks at your pale skin, wags her finger at you and screams TOO HOT FOR YOU !

Very smart to avoid over complicating things! Which makes me wonder why (aside from the presence of a 5 lb cabbage) you want to combine 6 new-to-you recipes into a newly designed and untested creation at what seems like a rather stressful time. Maybe this is a fun activity to keep your mind off of the stress? If so, great. If not, I’m wondering why you’re not leaning into the sameness and freezing batches of old favorites.

If you like coleslaw, I sometimes make this to use up the rest of a cabbage that is languishing: https://www.daringgourmet.com/freezer-slaw/

Thanks, @Smithy. The cabbage I bought is huge, 5 lbs at least. It will be good for more than one batch. So far I have prepared and lightly cooked sliced onion, garlic, sliced celery, cubed potato, gorgeous bacon. I haven't sliced the cabbage yet, because I don't want to slice it then leave it uncooked. So I'm only missing the sauce. (I'm not good at making sauces!)

i would add a tomato sauce of some kind.

Welp. It's another bust, as far as I'm concerned. I bought this with a mixture of misgivings and hope. On the plus side: citrus! garlic! chicken! easy cooking and disposal! On the misgivings side: black beans and plantain...not that I actively dislike either, but they aren't on my list of favorite flavors. I'm sorry to report that the entire dish was on the gummy side. Did I simply overcook it, so the rice was overdone? I don't know. But I didn't especially like the plantains, and black beans are my least favorite of the legumes, and there was the gumminess of the overall dish. Any pleasure I might have gotten from the chicken and garlic was lost. Oh, and I neglected to gussy it up with cilantro as shown in the box photo, even though I just came from the grocery store and have some fresh. I ended up salting it, to drown out the sweetness of the plantains. I'm sure the sweetness would appeal to a lot of people, but it doesn't to me. On the bright side: here's another dish I tried once, for not much money, and won't need to try again. And hey, cleanup is easy!

Dinner was SV turkey breast over celeriac and potato mash with wilted spinach and carrots. The turkey was half of a turkey breast half that was divided length wise after coming out of the water bath. The breast was seasoned with Cavender's Greek Salt, lemon slices with fresh sage and rosemary. I browned the breast prior to serving and deglazed the pan with the bag juices to make a sauce. The breast was seasoned and sealed the day prior to being cooked. I left it in the circulator for four hours at 141F.

Attendees Chocolot Kerry Beal alleguede curls RanaMN Melani RobertM DianaD Lisa M citowolf - Celia D Lambrecht gourmet +1

It is indeed no longer out of town. I myself haven't been to the new one - just the old one you mention.

I suspect you're very good at making sauces! Matching a sauce to the dish in question may be an issue, and I'm not sure I can help much with that. I need to explain that I'm on a crunchy cabbage slaw kick right now, thanks to @blue_dolphin and to my best friend, so cooked cabbage isn't really at the top of my mind. I think I could cheerfully live on a nice, crunchy slaw (cabbage, celery, carrots, radishes, peanuts or walnuts thrown in) with a good dressing for many days. That said, and given that you're looking at cooked dishes to freeze, thaw and reheat, I'd give some thought to flavor compatibilities and personal tastes. Would you like beef and cabbage together? I don't find the idea especially appealing, but if you do then the demi-glace might be an idea. Is the cabbage supposed to be the star, or a supporting actor? If the star, then I think the first two sauce ideas sound like good ways to gussy it up. I do think the potatoes and Gruyere sound more like a way to hide the cabbage than to celebrate it. There are recipes also for braised cabbage, with or without chicken. If that appeals, I'll post the one I have. It takes the dish into the acidic region thanks to vinegar.

Kerry, Put Lambrecht down. Nancy's 70th is the 16th and she said "we are going to Montreal ". Just to clarify location. I took courses at Callebaut many years ago (where I met Ruth) and it was at Callebaut about 45 minutes away. Do they have a facility in Montreal proper now?

@blue_dolphin @SLB and @Smithy Here's why I'm asking about sauces. My usual way is to look at a bunch of recipes then start cooking (mostly without a recipe). The current dish I'm trying to design involves cabbage. I've collected half dozen or so recipes. The sauces are made of: evaporated milk, flour, parmesan, breadcrumbs milk, flour, cheddar, sour cream French demi-glace cream cheese and mustard potatoes and Gruyère I think if the dish gets too complicated, it loses something. Seems the sauce could be simpler. Maybe I don't know how to make a sauce?

In this context, I don’t think the sameness is a bad thing as you probably won’t get tired of having the same thing as often as twice a month or even once a week.

A friend has offered to help cook some meals, so I pinched stuff from that email. 😃 Right now I'm making up dishes with stuff from the fridge, though I do go out and buy a couple of things if it seems sensible. However, there's a certain sameness to what I cook, because I do it the same way. This is how I make a batch so far. (Credit to @patti and her Cooking for a Community Fridge) The pie tin pan is the same size as chicken pot pies from the grocery. For those, DH and I usually eat 1/2 pie apiece, but they are overflowing with pastry. The plastic container is how I got the pies home from grocery. They're handy to stack pie tins in the freezer to freeze. Each pan has been foil covered, then labelled with a printed file folder label. After being frozen, meal is slid into a 8x12 vacuum sealer bag (fits perfectly!) and then vacuumed. Nice little hockey pucks. In case I made the jpg too small to read, this dish has lamb, beetroot, onion, fresh corn (frozen by me), green pepper, tomato, and Rancho Gordo Good Mother Stollard beans. To be truthful, there might be barley &/or mashed potato in there too (because I never remember to put everything on the label).

I share @blue_dolphin's question, but will reply reserving the right to revise upon more information: I would just make whatever regular sauce, leave it on the runniest side (or add water back in if you've boiled it down); and then freeze it in ice cube trays (or, whatever!). A sauce that is constituted primarily of pureed green vegetables is to turn an unappetizing color. It is, however, going to taste great. You might want to boil off any excess water on the reheating side, if it doesn't occur naturally . **[you guys. I am Not a Chef. This is how we do things up in here in this home. I think Those of Us Who Are Chefs may feel differently -- specifically maybe are horrified -- at the notion of adding back in water to be boiled out later, repeated boiling, etc.] I had hoped that the Vivian Howard recipe was actually more like a sautee, particularly since she calls for spring-roll wrappers which are quite thin. But, alas no. She's talking 2 quarts of oil, so you are correct that the intention is to deep fry. I'm taking the Fifth, I mean the rosary, on my intake of the fat in fried food . . . .

Do you have a favorite recipe for the Pavlova base? I've always wanted to try it