All Activity

On our way to Tyrol to spend part of the Pentecost holidays in the alps we made an overnight stop in Munich. Apertif was enjoyed at the Höfbräuhaus (little one included for size comparison) … Of course, we paid homage to Engel Aloysius … We went on to dinner at Augustiner Braustuben. For me, their Edelstoff beer is the best beer to be had in Munich. It comes exclusively from wooden barrels, which give it a fresh and slighly tarter taste … Little one ordered Käsespätzle … My wife had Wiener Schnitzel (made from veal and fried in clarified butter) … And I had a Franconian Schäufele (crunchy pork shoulder) … No complaints 🤗

Had a busy day supervising a couple of workers cleaning up the yard and planting flowers I picked up on Friday. Then 13 year old granddaughter wanted a one-on-one time with gramma - to bake. We made biscuits and her dad gobbled up 2 when he came to pick her up! Followed by pumpkin pie. She used my processor recipe for pastry, and mixed up the filling from a can of pumpkin puree. For supper, we had joong from the freezer - I made 75 last year! Vegetable and soup in one pot: Chinese mustard greens, ginger. and pork neck bones. After granddaughter left, I still had some pastry left. And I had fresh rhubarb for the first pie of 2025! It was a wonderful day!

It’s readily available where we live. It’s even in the grocery store! Our house is only a 15 minute drive from the Trillium brewery (#3 in the country), so we always have lots of good options to choose from. Too bad I cannot drink it any more 😑 One drawback is that it is very tall. I do think things would get lost in there for me because of that. I have two full sized fridges at my house and that setup works better for me. Last night we visited Pisces. Here is the menu Drinks. Spicy margarita for my nephew, a n/a gin and tonic for me, and a weird flavored martini that my husband disliked (this has been a theme for this trip) We shared a starter special of flash sautéed calamari with olives, tomatoes, and arugula Husband and nephew both had a special of spaghetti with poached oysters in a bacon Parmesan cream sauce with spinach I had the cornmeal crusted cod dish. Nephew had a dessert of espresso affogato and we all shared a slice of lemon cake with blueberry sauce And that’s it for this visit. A few pictures from our beach walk this morning on aptly named Cockle Cove. The sand is covered with the cockles that give the beach its name Until next time

I just discovered this show. The original series plus the newer "Tokyo Stories" are still on Netflix. Ms. Alex and I watched the first three episodes of Season 1 tonight. It's indeed gentle, charming, and touching.

Mirliton Casserole with saffron rice on the side.

Stumbled on a recipe for Korean Beef Noodles. Made with ground turkey instead and have a jumping off point for next time-less noodles, lots more veg.

Thanks for the info. I came across a mention of the box a while back and asked about it, but didn't see a response. I'll read the thread ...

They take a few weeks to ripen once the fruit has reached its full size (like the one in the picture). This variety turns purple when ripe. At that point, they can be harvested but they will continue to ripen and get a bit wrinkly as they do. That’s when they taste the best, with the skin still supple but no longer smooth. It’s not hard to grow them here once they are established. I was warned by someone at the nursery that it will take over my yard but we are not quite there yet.

Can't remember where I got the recipe, but I make it often: Apple Cranberry Chutney A delicious cranberry chutney with apples, oranges, golden raisins, and spices, perfect alongside pork, turkey, and chicken main dishes. 1 orange, peeled, tough membrane removed, chopped 1/4 cup orange juice 1 package (12 ounces) fresh cranberries 1 3/4 cups sugar 1 large Golden Delicious apple, peeled, cored, chopped 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon Preparation: Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 8 minutes, or until cranberries are bursting. Chill until serving time; freeze surplus in small containers. Makes about about 4 cups of chutney.

Bumping this up to note that this little box is turning out to be a handy countertop cooking appliance on the order of a small electric skillet. Today I used it to reheat a grilled sandwich from yesterday. The removable pan insert will be much easier to clean than my mother's trusty Farberware electric skillet. I think the accessories will never be available again, and I'm glad I only spent $40 on it, but I'll be able to get $40 worth of fun and use out of it.

@Smithy very hard to find good apricots here as well. I once purchased apricots at Wegmans which came from an upstate (NY) orchard, they were so delicious, never to be found again! These were the best I’ve had in a long time.

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt - screwed up that one ... I'll fix it. I was going to post a pic, but my phone was in the car and the cameras were on their chargers, and the dish didn't look very interesting, just a pile of fusilli in red sauce. Also, I was more interested in sharing the experience of my thoughts and what I did than the final image.

Thank you 😊

Sorry! It's a portable induction cooking box that, when first offered, afforded a lot of different inserts. Our dear departed Anna N, and others, enjoyed playing with it. I bought the basic box last year when it was on a very special sale. It appears that the sale was in order to eliminate inventory. Here's the topic on the A4 Box Induction Cooker.

It all sounds wonderful, and I wish you'd posted a photo! But this bit I can't suss out. What's DCKC short for?

What's an A4 box please? Google only wants to show me paper

I had a craving for pasta, specifically fusilli, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making a sauce since there was none at the ready. How would fusilli work with aglio e olio … As an aside, fusilli is quickly becoming one of my fvorite pasta shapes. The size is perfect for me, I love the texture of the pasta as it’s chewed, and the ridges do a pretty good job of holding most sauces. Good enough for this poor dirt farmer from NYC. I broke out the new, deeper 12-inch skillet and added about 2½ quarts of filtered water and a big dollop of Diamond Crystal Salt. I grabbed the last of the DeCecco fusilli from its resting place alongside the microwave oven, where several other pastas are also stored. While the water was heating, the sauce started to come together. Some Rancho Milagro EVOO went into a 10 inch skillet and, seeing some beautiful Italian anchovy fillets in the fridge I decided to add them to the aglio e olio, and when that decision was made, I decided to just riff a simple sauce leaving the aglio e olio as primarily a building block. I added enough anchovy to, hopefully, be just barely noticeable in the background, or at least that was the intention. About three large cloves of pressed garlic were added to the anchovies cooking at a medium temp. The garlic sizzled a bit when it hit the oil so I immediately added a little less than ¼ cup of water from the container on the stove. There's always water handy to add to cooking garlic to reduce or eliminate its tendency to burn. Next came the Aleppo pepper, two generous teaspoons of that lovely, flavorful pepper. That was cooked together with the garlic for a while, and the oil tasted for intensity and flavor. The garlic seemed to be fine, but a bit more Aleppo was required … not too much, though. And then the riff continued. A couple of tablespoons of Mutti Triple Concentrated tomato paste was added and cooked to a brick red color with the oil and other ingredients. Tasting told me I was on to something, but more was needed, and I imagined a kind of funky pork flavor as being a good addition to this , and so I added just about 1½ tablespoons of ’nduja (https://ndujausa.com/). The whole thing came together nicely. By the time the sauce was ready, the pasta was done. I pulled some pasta water from the skillet, drained the fusilli, and dumped it into the sauce, adding a bit less than ¼ cup of the starchy pasta liquid. When the stirring and mixing gave me the creaminess I wanted, I turned off the heat and removed the pan from the hob. It was time to add the cheese, a blend of Pecorino Romano and a lovely Grana Padano from a local, old school Italian deli. Lunch was a delight.

That's awesome! I had a couple growing at a place in Arizona, but they never formed any fruit so they may have been just the ornamental variety. They were still attractive and unique though the actual fruit would have been nice! How long do they take to ripen, do you know?

@Smithy the ones in your freezer will be fine any way you cook them Id coo0k from Fz : SV re packed Fz or simmered , in the traditional manner. I recomended SV .

I also have this on a fence. It took many attempts but seems well established now after a few years. As of this morning, there are more than a dozen passionfruit on the vine.

@OlyveOyl, how nice that you can score apricots at your Farmers' Market, at least for a few weeks! I very much miss good apricots. They were abundant when I was growing up in Central California, and the last time I was there during the summer my sister and I discovered a neglected tree with apricots that lived up to our memories. The fruit simply doesn't make it to our grocery stores here with any flavor. I think it's the variety, bred for shipping rather than flavor. You go! Keep showing off your good fortune!

Apricot raspberry tart, a layer of raspberries sandwiched between two layers of apricots from the farmers Market. This was the second week of apricots at the FM, hoping there will be a third week! We had this with rum ricotta ice cream.I have enough apricots left to make an ice cream 😁!

Have you told us how to make your Apple, Orange, Cranberry Chutney, @Dejah?

-----uhmmmm, freezing is a mega-difference than refrigerating . . . I frequently see "Use or Freeze By: " dating on meat products. imho, yeah - held too long before use.... altho otoh . . . if I'm reading 05/11/2025 correctly , , , that's not outrageous "old" - so indeed, may be "just bad beef" there's a lot of bad stuff being sold . . .

I finally got around to cooking one of 3 corned beef briskets I bought last March. Two have been in the freezer all this time. This one has been in the refrigerator, in its original package. Note the "sell by" date. My technique for cooking corned beef brisket is more or less as described by @Margaret Pilgrim above. Two night ago I ended up with a passable, not wonderful, corned beef dinner. I didn't bother with photos. My real reason for this brisket was that I've been jonesing for a Reuben sandwich or three. I wrote more about the resultant sandwich here and here. The first half, yesterday, was fair but missing something. I tweaked the second half today and got better results, though still not as good as I'd wish. Basically, I think I waited too long to cook that corned beef, even though it was held in the refrigerator in its original packaging. Either that, or the Kroger brand isn't very good. I have 2 more briskets (one point and one flat), still in their packaging, that have been frozen since I bought them. I'll have time to try them later.