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@ElsieD @Rickbern I have put nearly 5 pounds of Yukon Gold into the Paradice 9 1/2" dicer to put into my batch meals to be frozen. Now I want to steam the potato cubes not-quite-done in the Anova Precision Oven. Elsie, I know you might have got rid of yours, but I think you have another steaming device? What temp? For how long? (I think settings need to include 100% steam) TIA

@JAZ, while we wait for @TdeV' answer I'll ask about another of your recipes. I'm looking at the Pimento Cheese Quiche from your Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook. I have oodles of eggs and this quiche looks like it might lend itself to road trip food soon. Can you think of a reason not to make it and freeze it?

Here's some updated research ... I'm slowly planning a kitchen and looking at all the options. Ventilation is the hardest problem I'm facing, because every domestic range hood is designed primarily for esthetics. Even the ones that aim for a "commercial" esthetic copy the visuals while ignoring the engineering of functional commercial hoods. If you have a big enough range to justify a 48" wide hood (I don't) then by far the best option is a commercial hood by Accurex, CaptiveAire, Hoodmart, Advanced Hood Systems, or someone similar. If you don't want the commercial look, and you have $$$ for the project, you can just buy the mechanism and have a carpenter build a custom enclosure for it. It can be wood, doesn't matter—as long as the dimensions are right. Some of these hoods are available with a built-in makeup air system that will make system design easier. I don't believe you'll have to find a restaurant hood installer to design and build the system. Any good HVAC contractor who understands the engineering and can read the specs should be able to do this. Next best option, and the most reasonable for more of us, is a barbeque hood installed indoors. These are pretty much the only products that the domestic hood makers design to actually do the job. This is the route I'd like to go. Options include Proline, Tade-Wind, Victory. Maybe also Prestige (I can't tell if this company is still in business ... they don't answer, so I've crossed them off my shortlist). These outdoor hoods all raise the intake baffles above the bottom rim of the hood. They're also deeper from front to back (30" to 36", rather than the usual 22"-24"). This all creates more capture volume—the empty space that's the secret to making a hood work; it's the difference between capturing some of the smoke and grease coming off your pans vs. all of it. It also lets the hood be installed higher above the range: 42" instead of the usual 36" limit (which for me means not having to stoop to avoid banging my head). Commercial hoods are designed like big upside down shoe-boxes; they have huge capture area. This is why they can be way up above the cook's heads, be nearly silent, use much less powerful blowers for a given size, and be nearly 100% effective. Nothing escapes into the kitchen. Regular domestic hoods are designed more like ceiling vents; they let a bunch of the smoke and grease into the room, and clear it out eventually. The BBQ hoods are kind of in the middle. They're almost as effective as a commercial hood, but because of the reduced capture volume, require big powerful loud blowers. Be sure to research and budget for makeup air. If you're installing 1200+CFM blowers it's not optional. Unfortunately this is another rabbit hole; I haven't done the work on it yet. So far I can say: it looks boring! TL;DR: For my purposes, a BBQ hood looks like the best option. Until I do this project I'll rely on opening the windows and listening to my girlfriend's coughing fits and accusations that I'm giving us both cancer.

Grilled Moe one of those small top sirloin cap steaks for breakfast and instead of eggs he had twice fried fries, and sautéed mushrooms.

@Gerry B - have a look through the threads that @curls posted above. Details will be added to this thread as they are determined.

@blue_dolphin thank you for those references . throughly enjoyed the video . plan to make that last dressing , and try it on roasted broccoli soon.

Yes. Same here. We get the green skinned variety, too but purple is much more more common.

Scary.

I started a sourdough after work on Friday. Used one of the small starters (95g) with 800g of flour at 68% hydration. Left if out on the counter overnight for a room temperature bulk fermentation. I had intended to bake Saturday morning, but decided it could wait since the dough was slow rising. So I put the dough in the fridge for a cold fermentation. Took the dough out of the fridge last night at 8:00 PM and left it on the counter until 3:00 AM this morning. So basically three fermentations over about 36 hours, 2 at room temperature and one at cold. Baked two batards this morning. One baked under the Netherton Foundry Spun Iron Cloche and the other in a Romertopf Clay Roaster.

Condiment Creep? Hey, I resemble that comment! 🤣 In advance of the book publication, NYT Cooking shared three of the salad dressings from the book. Here are gift links if anyone wants to try them out: House Dressing - This is a modification of the Via Carota restaurant dressing that was very popular when their cookbook came out a few years ago. It’s not a WOW dressing, it’s less acidic than a lot of vinaigrettes which makes it quite versatile, working well with both sweet and bitter flavors, both of which appear in the Autumn Chicory Salad that includes both bitter greens and sweet fruit (pears, apples or persimmons). I made that salad with a variety of fall fruits, cheeses and nuts for multiple parties over the holidays and everyone loved it. Creamy Sesame-Ginger Dressing - This is one of my favorites. The book uses a pickled Thai chili vs the jalapeño in the NYT version. Either give a little background heat that’s really nice. I’ve made versions of the crunchy cabbage slaw that accompanies this recipe several times. I also tossed it with roasted delicata squash and toasted sesame seeds for a quick and easy side. Creamy Lemon-Miso Dressing - I like this one with about half the amount of sugar. The book offers the option of making a preserved lemon version of this dressing using preserved lemon paste in place of the fresh lemon juice, zest and salt. That version is particularly good on roasted veg. Here’s the video that accompanied the NYT article. All the recipes are also linked in the video description.

Browsing through the treasures safely hidden in the mancave, I unearthed two of the fancier instant ramen from Japan … Left: Kyotos Tenkaippin ramen, with a thick gelatinous chicken based soup called kotteri - my personal favorite ever since I lived there. Right: the famous black fish soup ramen from Toyama. Tenkaippin: with four different soup packages to be added at various steps definitely a “complicated” instant noodle - but I managed 🤗 Toyama Iroha: great chewy noodles & light bodies, yet intensely flavorful soup - haven’t had that style in years. All good - and a welcome warm up in this cold weather. No complaints 🥳

That means I'll get double bang from the book bucks: how to make the condiments, but also what to do with the condiments already in my refrigerator! (See: "Condiment Creep" 😀 )

Sugar cane was (and I presume still is) common in parts of Egypt as well. Vendors had street stalls where they'd squeeze the canes to fill cups with juice. Local kids, and my pals and I, would occasionally snatch a stray stalk from a donkey cart as it was being pulled down the road after harvest. One stalk provided a lot of short pieces to share around! In the absence of pocket knives, we'd just brush off the cane and chew the stalk to get the juice. Very sweet indeed. I remember the stalk as being green, rather than the purple in your photo. Are there different varieties of sugar cane? (Short answer: yes! I had no idea until I went looking! Here's one writeup, from juicedfresh.com.)

@Smithy if you like ' green ' in Tex-Mex , next time you are @ Tj's Try the green enchiladas https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/salsa-verde-chicken-enchiladas-076678 I try to always have a few of those in the freezer ,

I first heard of listeria when took a food handling course in order to become a chocolatier...oh, does this go back a good many years and no, I never did, but had many years of wonderful fun with my confectionary partner making so many different confections. Plus we had a terrific time taking a chocolate course from eGullet's own Chocolate Doctor, Kerry Beal. Back to listeria...the most interesting and alarming thing about it was that it could take up to an entire month before you get symptoms. Just checking up on google: "It is correct that listeria symptoms can take a month to appear; in fact, the incubation period for the more severe form of the illness, known as invasive listeriosis, can range from a few days to as long as two to three months (70 days or more). "

Hi! I'm new to egullet, and I'm looking to get more info on the Chocolate and Confectionary Workshop coming up this spring. Will you be posting details?

Yes, I've ground dried mushrooms and made blends with them to include salt/pepper/herbs/spices, depending on how I plan to use. I love to use on roasted veggies, in soups, stews, etc.

As I read @blue_dolphin's comments, Vivian Howard's book also popped into my mind. I hope to get back to cooking more once I get moved (which we made some progress at yesterday).

Very much so.. Especially those first sections. I’ve described it to others as a mash up between This Will Make It Taste Good and the Abra Berens books, Ruffage and Grist that use condiments similarly and tuck a lot of ideas into the recipe variations.

Mushroom powder is widely available in stores here from a large variety of species. I do make my own shiitake powder but I regularly buy this matsutake powder and use it as a seaoning pretty much like salt.

This ugly specimen is 斑鱼 (bān yú, blotched black fish), channa maculata. Native to China but introduced as an invasive species elsewhere. Mildly sweet and flaky, these are usually 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12 inches long.

Went out for lunch and had a soba noodle lunch bowl which was delicious. You can see above in the photo Husband had lunch scrambled eggs with chill and a croissant

Last nights bread crumbed chicken salad bowl

After months of struggling, my Chinese burrito place has officially posted a notice stating they will permanently stop trading on February 6th, although they have already stopped delivery service. A nation (well me) is in mourning.

Not really fruit but always sold by the fruit people. Or street vendors. In the local dialect usually 甘蔗 (gān zhè), which, to my confusion on first hearing it, is pronounced almost exactly like 'ganga'. It is of course sugar cane. Fruity and very sweet.