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Seared scallops on pistachio risotto with roasted shiitake mushrooms and spinach puree.

I suppose this was a chard curry of sorts. Sauteed onion, serrano chile, and garlic in rendered chorizo grease, and cooked down some leftover tomato sauce. Added rainbow chard and the lovely anise-scented meatball sauce from the other day. Cooked all that down, finished with leftover coconut cream and gosht masala, and topped with diced avocado. Full of flavor, and used up lots of leftovers - my kind of meal

Made a Pain de Campagne loaf. I’m liking the flavor of this one better than the sourdough I was making. This one has a little whole wheat added.

Crepes filled with lightly sweetened ricotta, topped with boozy fruits . I had a little apricot jam in the jar and added butter and a dash of water for the sauce, all got warmed in the micro for thirty seconds.

Does it smell like Vegemite?

I have frozen braised red cabbage before. Usually have to because it always seems to make a lot and I don't have the fridge space. I use cider vinegar and usually put in bay leaves and maybe juniper berries.

Putting this here, because... this is why we don't (shouldn't) put fatty food waste down the drain, folks! https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/17/fatberg-poo-balls-sydney-beaches-malabar-outfall-secret-report

Ham & mushroom crustless quiche, air fryer roasted cauliflower.

I finally made the Swiss steak I'd been planning, but I think I've forgotten how to cook. It is just not like I used to make. First of all, I realized that I'd taken all my large baking pans to the other house and was not going to make a trip over there in this frigid weather and wind. So, made it in a Dutch oven stove top. It just tastes so blah. I think I got the green peppers from Aldi, though it may have been Sprouts. I used 3 of them. They have no flavor. I can't even smell them. I've never had green peppers so tasteless--usually they overpower everything else. I'm blaming the mediocrity of this dish on the peppers and not my poor cooking skills. Maybe sitting in the fridge for a day or two will make it better. The buttered spinach was good!

Kimchi Jjigae from “Umma” - great comfort food with beef franks, pan-seared spam, pork belly slices, cabbage kimchi, fish sauce, beef broth, sugar and kimchi juice. Served over rice

Probably not. I’m afraid that when I was tasting the pasta for doneness, I wasn’t paying any attention to the flavor but it didn’t jump out at me either.

Felt the need for vegetables and noodles = Yaki Udon Noodles. It was a good way to clean out the vegetable crisper. I've learned to soak lots of dried shitaki mushrooms and keep them frozen to save time. Protein were shrimp and char siu from the freezer. Picked up ground turkey and made chili with a can of mixed beans. Eaten with paratha. These frozen paratha are great to have on hand - just toss onto a non-stick pan, a few presses, and they puff up beautifully. We've had balmy +single digit temperatures the last couple of days. Today, the temp dropped with bluster winds and snow. It was COLD! Turned the oven on and cooked a Weight Watchers recipe: Harissa and Yogurt Chicken - one pan meal. It was fragrant with cumin, and warmed the kitchen!

Yes. Here potatoes are not used so much as a starch but as a vegetable in its own right, just like any other. This is a popular way to deal with them. The potatoes retain a crispiness and the vinegar cuts the richness of the soy sauce braising sauce of the meatballs.

The potato dish is intriguing. Did you make it?

红烧狮子头 (hóng shāo shī zi tóu), Red Cooked Lion's Head Meatballs. 70:30 fatty pork, glutinous rice meatballs fried then braised in soy sauce. 醋溜土豆丝 (cù liū tǔ dòu sī), Vinegared Shredded Potato Julienned potato with vinegar and green and red chilli. Served with rice.

Do you think the squid ink pasta brings more than color to the dish?

Genius!

I can see this becoming family lore: When I was a kid, my father breaded my fingertips and fried them for a snack!

Avocado, mango, and fried plantain salad with brisket bacon, Gorgonzola cheese, and pistachios - from the Dinner 2026 thread

Avocado, mango, and fried plantain salad with brisket bacon, Gorgonzola cheese, and pistachios, served over butter lettuce and arugula. Dressing (in the shot glass) was garlic and serrano chiles, sauteed and then blended (plus the oil) with lime juice, honey, and salt. Mangoes were wonderfully sweet

Salmon burger on a brioche bun with arugula and yuzu mayo and a quick slaw of Brussels sprouts, carrot, snap peas and scallions

One of my daughters saw that these are good for storing smaller amount of potatoes and onions. Since both daughters are two person households at the moment, these are big enough to hold a couple of week's worth of potatoes and onions and fit neatly in their pantry cupboards.

Sauscisse is the (nuch) older version from which the English derivation comes. Saucisson is modern French, although both are still used.

Our wine fridge has a cartridge of expanded clay pellets that was soaked in water for a few hours before being installed in the floor when we first initialized it. The way our wine fridge works is that the walls get cold and any humidity condenses on the walls and hangs around there, eventually running down to the floor and into the cartridge of pellets, which then evaporates to re-condense on the walls. It keeps the humidity pretty constant - around 70%. I store all of our "cellar" items in there... potatoes last a really long time, onions, garlic, apples - anything that would have gone into a root cellar back in the old days. We keep them in rattan baskets to help allow air circulation.

Everything looks fantastic (except for the hospital food).... but I hope the little one didn't need to go to the hospital after frying his fingers! hehe....