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@TdeV longer may over cook the filling go hotter for grill marks and try a very small amount of soft butter might give you better color not so much ' fat '

@rotuts, the recipe book I checked in said to cook the sandwich for 3 or 4 minutes (only). I did around 8 minutes. Do you think I could go longer?

@Ann_T - 46! Congratulations!!! 4 more to go and you get a letter from the Queen King! Looks like a great meal.

@TdeV I like the look of that sandwich . My PP is off // on so for deeper marks , either turn up the temp if yoy can , or leave it a bit longer. using mayo ( even very little ) will give you a sandwich that is a bit greasy buts quite tasty if you use just a little . in your case you might prefer w/o.

Okay. Bakery country sourdough, sliced thinly. Butter on inside, mayo outside All the panini recipes I looked up added cheese to bacon, so I added about 4 ounces aged cheddar cheese. 0.5 pound bacon steam roasted in Anova, 4 slices each sandwich 2 small tomatoes from neighbour's garden, seeds and water removed. Handful of fresh arugula. On the Cuisinart Panini Press, I selected Panini Press and chose, as the heat level, the mark between medium and high. I pre-heated the device. Here's what I got after 8 minutes The markings on the bread were very light. Obviously the heat needs to be higher. At what setting/temperature do you folks grill panini? Also this was very greasy. DH didn't seem to mind it, but I was uncomfortable all evening. Suggestions?

@Ann_T Fine looking dinner Congratulations.

Celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary Monday. Started with one of my favourite simple appetizers. Tuna pate served on toasted pita rounds. Split, brushed with butter and baked until toasted and crisp. Main course was grilled butterflied leg of lamb. Greek style with all the sides including homemade Tzatziki sauce.

It's a hilarious read so you’ll have fun with the book even if you don’t cook from it but more fun if you do!

That's quite a thick coating on the shrimp in the fried shrimp tacos in the post immediately above this one. Could you taste the shrimp? Can you describe the coating? (For instance - could you detect any breading or flavors?) I'm not entirely a purist about oysters; I'd happily eat Oysters Rockefeller any time I could, for instance. However, I agree that a good oyster doesn't need much dressing up. What did the others think about oysters with tuna? Weren't you even tempted to try one? 🙃

How do you mean the spinach "isn't traditional"? Is it something about the cooking, or simply the fact that it's cooked as a stand-alone green vegetable?

Thanks to you, I've downloaded the book - looking forward to exploring it!

Every time I see this pic my mouth and stomach go crazy. What a platter. 😍

Thai green curry, with rice and spinach. I realise spinach like this is not traditional but we have it as an”eat your green vegetables” side.

I think it was the wombo-combo of too much garlic for one roll, and gobbling it down on an empty tum. It was totally worth it anyway 😄

Lunch at the Owl Cafe, Cloverdale, CA I've been stopping at the Owl Cafe in Cloverdale for 59 years. Whenever coming or going on Highway 101, the Owl has been a stop. Here I had carnitas, rice and beans, a little guac', flour tortillas, and a Diet Coke.

And there's my dilema, such as it is. I appreciate the Victorinox - and have several of their knives - but I'm also a tactile person and the way something feels is also important.

You might try de-germing the garlic. Flavor is milder, ergo, you can use more if that's your inclination, and the upset that some people experience from garlic, is reduced or eliminated.

The chef who taught me knife skills didn't blink at spending $500 on a gyuto or a Japanese single-bevel knife. But he made fun of me for spending $50 on a pairing knife. He believed the best pairing knife was the cheap Victorinox you're using. It has a very thin blade that slips through everything. He never found a high-end knife with such thin geometry. Victorinox steel is pretty good and is relatively easy to sharpen. But my friend didn't bother sharpening the pairing knives. When they got dull they'd go into a junk drawer and he'd get a new one. Hard to beat for $8.

Needed a midnight snack so I made a buttered and toasted roll with pesto, melted cheddar, tomato and some lightly fried smoked garlic. It was delicious. DO NOT DO THIS. I have had garlic burps for almost 3 hours now and there is no sign of them relenting. I probably should have used half a clove but the other half would have been forgotten in the fridge and then binned next week.

A couple of salmonella recalls. The first is national (a specific brand of halvah); the other is Ontario-only and covers various pistachio-based products. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/shaikh-al-kar-brand-plain-halva-recalled-due-salmonella?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23 https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-pistachio-containing-products-recalled-due-salmonella-0?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Yes, it was. Flat shoes, no noticeable makeup… I think it was probably your niece 😀 My sister and niece are coming to join us tomorrow, so we have been trying to go to the places my brother likes and my niece hates before they arrive. Yesterday that meant the Pearl My husband ordered raw oysters topped with tuna. I am not sure why. I refused to try them. I am a raw oyster purist. Plain, thank you. He shared them with his brother. Drinks. Blueberry sour mocktail, cranberry margarita, watermelon margarita Fried shrimp tacos Fish and chips Grilled swordfish It was low tide when we left. These fisherman had to use a ladder to get into their boat Today my husband and I got up early and went for a six mile walk while our respective brothers snoozed the morning away. We stopped in to a new breakfast spot called Cape to Cape. We both had lattes and my husband got an egg sandwich. He said it was very good. I had already eaten before he woke up, so did not try anything from the food menu. We visited a pond in town (the water was too cold to swim, but it was pretty) and then went to Indian Neck for another walk Later we walked down to Mac’s Shack for some (plain!) oysters and an order of jalepeno yellowtail sashimi We then walked into town to check out Hatch’s fish market. They had bluefin tuna, so we bought some of that and grilled at home tonight.

I mentioned Sosa Flaxfiber as a potential stabilizer/emulsifier earlier in the thread, and now I've finally had a chance to play around with it in a couple of small Elderflower sorbet trials. In addition, I had a chat with the pastry chef at a restaurant l visited this summer, and he recommended Gellan gum as a sorbet stabilizer, so I decided to wing it and combine the two: Both trials spun once in the Pacojet, and both batches were surprisingly successful. Absolutely mazing flavour release, especially trial 1 (I didn't taste them back to back however, so the comparison was done by memory one week apart), and the texture/mouth feel was really good too. Definitely something worth further investigation with minor tweaks to the Flaxfiber/Hellan gum ratios. In future trials, I will probably substitute a few grams of dextrose for sucrose in order to reduce the freezing point depression slightly (ca. 1 degree C increased serving temperature). I've already tweaked the sugars for trial 3 in ICC, but I can't remember the exact numbers. A small addition of inulin and lambda carrageenan would also be interesting to try in order to find the perfect compromise between flavour release, mouth feel and melting rate/plated stability... I also can't wait to try this alternative approach with strawberry juice and/or puree for a direct comparison to my version of Paul's strawberry sorbet recipe tweaked for the Pacojet/Ninja Creai.

Two favorites: Garlic-black bean pan-fried halibut, from 'Dancing Shrimp'. Fry halibut fillets until partly done and remove. Stir-fry a minced head of garlic, ginger, and cilantro stems, add black soy sauce, sugar, Shaoxing rice wine, minced fermented black beans, roasted chile powder, and a little fish sauce to taste. Remove half of the topping, add halibut fillets, cover with the removed topping. Flip after a minute or so, and done. Served with Mexican green rice, steamed with a blend of roasted Poblano chiles, garlic, white onion, spinach, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, and chicken stock. This green rice recipe in 'Cocina de la Familia' is my favorite. Also how we used to get extra vegetables into the boys when they were little.

My friends and I were vacationing in Costa Rica we located an outdoor restaurant that served pizza and stopped there for dinner. Unfortunately, while waiting for the pizza to arrive a nearby skunk sprayed.I don't remember the pizza but I do remember the smell.

I’m anxiously awaiting delivery of The Cook's Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Selecting, Growing, and Savoring the Tastiest Vegetables of Each Season (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Kevin West, published today. I love Kevin West's earlier book, Saving the Season: A Cook's Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and always recommend it whenever anyone asks about books on the topic. He's a wonderful writer and the book is as much a pleasure to read as it is to cook from so I’m expecting more of the same. From what I’ve read, it’s half gardening, half cookbook. He describes it being pitched to him as something in the spirit of The Victory Garden Cookbook (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Marian Morash, another of my favorites. Gardening advice can be very region-specific and it’s not something I’ve ever been into, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy the cooking sections. And who knows? I might be convinced to grow something! I’ve heard about this book for quite some time and was starting to wonder if it was ever coming out. He was doing some travel writing but took his website down and was pretty quiet from what I could tell. I didn’t realize he was also editor at large for Travel & Leisure magazine. This post on his Substack goes into some of the process and is a lovely sample of his writing for those unfamiliar with his work. I’ll post back when I’ve read it but it sounds like a great gift for gardening cooks or cooking gardeners!