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Spanish cheese (two types) and ham. Very good.

Last dry run before our tapas and paella evening. As one of our guests doesn’t eat meat we are going to serve up half of our quail eggs in morcilla, the other half are going in Richard Corrigans Smoked Cod Scotch Eggs, with smoked cod mixed in with mashed potatoes. RC says to cook the eggs in 170C oil for 2 minutes. I cooked them on for a little longer as they were very pale (top three eggs). The oil went up to 190C and the 2 minutes was just about enough (bottom 3 eggs) My observations, the mash was very soft and was difficult to cut in half, even with a freshly sharpened knife. The 190C eggs were firmer on the outside but softer on the inside. Next time I will not make the mash so soft, and may consider mixing in an egg to bind them a little better. Both batches tasted good and were cooked through. 190C egg on the bottom of the photo below. We had our first wedding anniversary at Richard Corrigans Lindsay House Restaurant, Soho, London, back in 2008. The restaurant was in a two storey Regency Terrace Town House, sadly now closed. The meal was extraordinarily good, one of our best fine dining experiences without a shadow of a doubt. Edit: https://www.dine-online.co.uk/lindsay.htm

Regalis is my favorite place to order specialty products such as mushrooms, truffles, etc. https://www.regalisfoods.com/collections/2023_category-mushrooms-wild-edibles

The 'fun stuff' came along with some bad stuff. My garage 20 cu. upright freezer bit the dust last week. Of course it was chock full and wasn't discovered until everything was ruined. The 'fun stuff' is the new frost-free freezer arriving today. The 'I will never again' is to not fill to the point of having so much extra food that I could fee an army.

Fried rice with green beans, spinach, mushrooms, and andouille sausage. Onion, garlic, bird chiles, and fish sauce for flavor. Finished with cilantro and feta.

I'm interested too!

When someone figures out how to turn legs into wings, let me know.

A trip to Dishoom is seriously overdue. The Shoreditch restaurant is close to work and very handy for Liverpool Street Station and home.

Chicken biryani I used the recipe in Dishoom, although the eggs and the cashews are not in that book. Friends I haven't seen since before Covid came over, so it was a lovely weekend.

https://www.100x100chef.com/en/product-chef/725-3307/liquid-silicone-for-professional-mold-making This may be the product.

It's chanterelle season and I've been craving some. I will occasionally see some in small packages for a dear price at one of my local farm stands. I bought once or twice but they were the tiniest little things, and I needed several packages to make a meal. Does anyone have a mail-order source that they like? I used to buy from earthy.com (fresh morels, never fresh chanterelles) but haven't since they were acquired. Today, they only had dried.

Salad with roasted cauliflower, haloumi, olives, spiced chicken, and a honey vinaigrette.

Traditional Moules Marinière (ie made with cider rather than wine). Unfortunately, I can't find French cider here but managed to get a Belgian lambic apple beer as mentioned here. It worked well, though not so dry as the real thing. So, garlic and shallot were softened in butter, cider added followed by the green-lipped mussels then covered and left a few minutes till the mussels open then added parsley and served with crusty bagette. The broth was excellent and mussels always are anyway! Happy mouth. Vive la France!

Pressure Cooker Dal Makhani from “Modern Pressure Cooking” by Phipps - Black urad is first briefly pressure soaked before cooked with garlic, ginger, tomato paste, cinnamon stick, black cardamom pods, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek and sirarakhong chili. Finished with some butter, cream and cilantro and served with some caramelized onions.

I think in a restaurant setting, leaving stock out all night and then serving it to customers (no matter what you’ve done to it) might get you fired.

Not yet, but probably will. The thing is I actually like them! Just not the industrial version. I may buy some at the market later. However, once I've drunk the six-pack of beer, who knows what I'll do?

I’m guessing the last part means that you plated them, photographed them, then binned them?

How many pawpaw trees do you have? Years ago, I planted two pawpaw trees because pawpaws are not self-fertile. Just when they were about old enough to set fruit, one tree died!😒 So I am planting four more. I am not taking any chances.😋 dcarch

I can’t really remember my first cookbook but thinking back my first wife and I had a few Marks & Spencer cookbooks. M&S is a national store with most towns having one. Back in the day they produced a series of basic cookbooks that were great for the relative beginner. Here in the U.K. we also had the Australian Woman’s Weekly recipe books, soft back, large format, glossy books with plenty of pictures and step by step instructions. I still have a few of those kicking about. Every year I buy cookbooks as Christmas presents as each of my children have a love of cooking and all four of them are competent in the kitchen in varying degrees.

After a bit of a lull in the six-pack beer delivery chain, unexpected gifts have resumed (at least for once). This turned up last night. Braised duck tongues with soy sauce, five-spice mixture and twenty-preservative-and-fake-flavour-mixture.

Maybe fish cakes, too

Back to this question. I thought I would share what I did with my pepper seeds this year. I germinated them in a Sunblaster countertop greenhouse with LED light, using those little jiffy peat pots. Guessing about actual heights here but once they were an inch or two tall and had some true leaves on them, I transplanted them to garden store black pots, 10 to 14" or so. All of them were doubled or tripled up. I left them to grow in those for a bit too long, probably. They were at least 6 to 8" tall when I separated some of them and put them in their own pots. They did have roots intermingling somewhat and I was as careful as I could be at that point but not obsessive. I left a couple of pots with two plants sharing. Almost all my plants did well, though I probably could have got a better harvest if I had given them more space. But for an example, here is one that is still thriving despite my less than delicate handling and it was definitely separated from one or two other plants. I still have several other ones but they are slowing down due to cool weather. I guess I would say they can still do well but maybe best to give them a chance to develop some decent roots and grow some true leaves.

What will you do with them? Any special preparations?

With a tropical storm possibly nearing close to us, I pulled out a fillet of red grouper from the freezer. It was a big sucker. Wife said cook it it all against my my better judgment but I have found that it’s better to just say “yes honey” hopefully a lot of fish salad will be in my up coming future

Thanks! Marinated in fish sauce and toasted/ground coriander and cumin seed.