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I usually start the day with a smoothie but decided to give the blender a day off. I had a few odds and ends in the refrigerator that became a tortilla de patatas-ish breakfast. The filling was leftover potato pave, red onion and yellow pepper sauteed in butter and tomato infused olive oil. I topped the two egg dish with labneh and semi-dried tomatoes.

Espresso loaf cake with burnt butter and coffee icing by Diana Henry (recipe)... It was fine, but failed to wow me. I thought the icing was better than the cake, which is the opposite of what @blue_dolphin thought way back on page two (!) of this thread, so don't let me put you off if you like the look of it.

The guiding idea for this tabbouli is from Balaboosta (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), written by Einat Admony, a restaurateur / writer / cook in Manhattan. Her proportions are 1 c bulgur (before soaking), 1 c each cilantro and parsley, and 1/4 c mint, with the tomatoes, onions and dressings thrown in. That said, she herself writes in the book: Last night I was busily using as much of the herbs as I had available, and flying by the seat of my pants -- that is, no cookbook. And to @rotuts' point, I like the bulgur for its texture and ability to absorb and show off the tangy dressing. So I suppose you could say my version is from Northern Minnesota.

That area of downtown Santa Ana is really charming. Next year, I’ll try to get tickets to more of the Encuentro events - it’s 3-day weekend of Peace, Love & Beans - and stay overnight. There was an art walk, movie screenings, panel discussions related to food and drag bingo, among other things.

"Big enough to swaddle a baby" spinach.

Ive had various friends from the Middle East their version of tabbouli was always very green. I prefer T a la @Smithy. I think bulgur has interesting flavor , and texture .

That's what I'm used to too. Basically a parsley/mint salad with a few bites of grain thrown in for good measure.

What region is your tabbouli from? It has a lot more bulghur in it than I usually see. The Iraqi version my friend's mom used to make as well as the Jewish Moroccan version I've had have almost no bulghur by comparison - they're mostly green.

@Duvel, those "hot dogs" look fantastic and one would be enough to feed me for a week! Ha! I feel like a broken record. Still trying to use the bagged salads my friend gave me (almost done with them!) and my sis and BIL brought me what is likely the last of their home-grown tomatoes. So, this particular salad kit was well-past the good by date. I salvaged enough lettuce from it, added a large tomato and some bacon and it was plenty for me with all the croutons.

@blue_dolphin What fun!! Was Steve there? That area is so different since I lived in OC. I've got that place on my list to check out if I ever get back to SoCal any time soon.

...sprain my ring finger trying (unsuccessfully) to open the world's most tightly sealed jar of cornichons

A few weeks ago I received a slushie machine: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) This is not to be confused with the shaved ice "slushie" machine that sits next to it. The new machine makes nice frozen fruit juice, but tonight I decided to try a chocolate milkshake from the included recipe booklet. I have to say I am pleased, other than with huge amount produced. As I dispensed the product it looked more like soft serve to me. Since I have so much milkshake I've decided to dispense a good bit of it into containers and blast chill it. Time will tell. Edit: when I went to dispense the remainer of the milkshake, the texture was different. Now it was more like a milkshake than soft serve. If I want to try to do this again, I should freeze the first portion that comes out rather than the last.

Spinach is starting to bolt so I have been harvesting. Is this what they call baby Spinach?

Oh, the La Chamba pot! I look forward to reading more about it! And the salsa: chile and peanut may be marvelous!

So many beautiful dinners and spreads show up on this topic! But then, here I am: I needed to use the herbs before they went off, and by the time I'd finished making tabbouli I wasn't very hungry. I post this to show that non-fancy dinners are also welcome here. Tabbouli in Tostitos Scoops, sometimes supplemented with hummus (yesterday's culinary achievement). Not fancy, but delicious and filling. And the dishwasher is now taking care of yesterday's and today's dishes.

Over here in the Lunch topic, I detailed the menu from the “Supper with Friends) meal at the Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Encuentro held this weekend at Alta Baja Market in Santa Ana, CA. I had a little time to shop at the market and picked up a few items: I got a La Chamba soup pot and comal, two bottles of cocktail bitters from Miracle Mile Bitters - toasted pecan and yuzu - and a jar of Taco Maria Chile morita and peanut salsa. Looking forward to trying out all of them.

Thanks for the link. I'd forgotten about that website, but I shouldn't have. There are some good recipes and writing in there.

Lunch was Irish seafood chowder. Cooked a soffitto (Sp.various) in butter, added plain flour, added fish stock, added small cubes of potato. Simmered this for about half an hour then added some cream, milk, salt and pepper, some thyme, brought this all to the boil and added cubes of salmon, cubes of snapper, some shrimp/ prawns and a few shelled mussels. Cooked for 5 minutes till all seafood cooked. Done.

try here

Thanks, Kerry, but the link didn't work.

I found the one Jo linked to on amazon.ca however $120 more.

I decided to try my pizza oven again tonight as I was making flammekuchen. Well I'll be, it did a great job.

Thank you for going to the trouble to find this for me. It is not available on Amazon.ca. too bad, because that was the price range I had in mind.

I don't have any pictures but recently I have been hungry for ham. That is something that is just not available in Costa Rica except at Christmas time. Then we can buy imported ham but it's usually the pre-sliced spiral cut ham that isn't that good for sandwiches. So I made some with this recipe. It turned out great. I made sandwiches with homemade sourdough bread and homemade Gourmet mustard. The only thing not homemade was the Swiss cheese. It completely satisfied my cravings.

This is what I would do too.