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chromedome

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  1. chromedome

    Dinner 2023

    On Tuesday we drove to the airport in Moncton (90 minutes away) to pick up my sister-in-law, who will be staying with her dad for the winter. She was a bit peckish after being in the air for most of the day with only airline snacks and a packed sandwich, so we decided we'd hit a drive-thru in Saint John before dropping her off. As it happened, the new Popeyes - the first in the province - had just opened in our old east-side neighborhood, and since none of us have had the opportunity to try Popeye's we decided that it was a sign. Not gonna lie, my first thought was "Wow, and I thought KFC was getting pricey!" A 2-piece combo at the KFC a few blocks away is $11.49, at Popeye's it was (IIRC) $13.99. Since there were four of us to feed, we went for the promotional "Family Feast" at $47. It consisted of 6 pieces of chicken, 2 sandwiches, 4 biscuits and 2 sides (we chose the mashed w. gravy and the red beans and rice), and added on extra gravy. It was...okay. The chicken was juicy and well cooked, the coating was nice and crisp, and it was both less salty and less greasy than KFC. Also the pieces were larger (dunno if it's the same in the US but up here a couple of years ago KFC shifted to cutting a larger chicken into more pieces, and they just feel smaller). Compared to the other nearby option, Newfoundland-based Mary Brown's*, the coating and size of the pieces are about comparable (it would be interesting to try them all side-by-side; given that they're just a few blocks apart they'd all be reasonably fresh and hot). The red beans and rice were the best part of the meal, as far as my GF and I were concerned. It was over-salted and heavy with fat, and probably packed more calories than the actual chicken, but it was tasty for all that. I'll almost certainly eat there again, but will definitely be watching for specials and coupons (as I do with KFC and Mary Brown's). I enjoy a good piece of fried chicken, but frugality dictates eating it at home more often than out. *The chain started back in the 1960s by licensing its recipe from Virginia's Golden Skillet, but was unable to use that name because another NL restaurant had registered it. So they went with Mary Brown's (apparently the maiden name of the GS founder's wife?), and over the past couple of decades have grown from a regional franchise of a few dozen outlets to a national one of 250-ish).
  2. I'm sure they're not the first to come up with it, but I noticed yesterday that one of the Indian places in town ("Naan-ya business!") was touting butter chicken poutine on its sign board outside at the busy intersection. Indo-Canadians are among our largest minority populations here, so in its idiosyncratic way it's an instant classic of sorts.
  3. chromedome

    Lidl

    “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread.”
  4. Interesting. When I was a curious kid, and read for the first time about people eating insects, I decided to see what a few of my local options tasted like. The small black ants found in my back yard had a distinctly peppery note, which I found surprisingly pleasant. The larger red ants had little to recommend them, and to my chagrin also defended themselves rather more aggressively. After getting my tongue bitten, I abandoned that particular line of inquiry. More recently, when my GF binged a Netflix series about chefs around the world, two of them (that I can recall) used ants in some of their preparations. One was in Mexico, the other...Argentina, I think? Maybe Brazil? In each case, it was a nod to the local indigenous heritage.
  5. Shrinkflation, meet..."skimpflation." I often used to talk in my cooking classes about looking for weasel-words on labels, like "chocolatey" (translation: "not chocolate"), "made with" (translation: "means we can prove there's at least some of that ingredient in there, somewhere") and "all-natural" (translation: means absolutely nothing). https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/skimpflation-shrinkflation-chocolate-1.7021544
  6. More enoki mushrooms, affects Ontario and Quebec: https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/lian-teng-brand-champignon-enoki-enoki-mushrooms-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes-0?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23
  7. An interesting "thought experiment" on the potential - and potential downsides - of chemically synthesizing nutrients, specifically fats, as opposed to the currently extant agricultural processes. The meat of it is in the "Main" and "Discussion" sections, if you want to skip over the technical bits. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01241-2
  8. The realistic answer is "it depends on how you cook, and what your expectations are." Laurentius' advice is perfectly sound, as far as it goes, but you may not feel a need to invest in something that burly (here in Canada it would cost well north of $1000, which is just right out of the question for me personally; as you can guess I'm not the target market for the Control Freak either). My two are a low-end Salton, the dirt-cheap kind that are sold at Walmart, and a slightly higher-function unit sold under the Kuraidori brand name and many others. Do they offer the same power? No. Precision? Also no. Range of potential power settings? Fugeddaboudit. But...for my cooking they're fine, and I can buy 20 or so of them for the cost of a high-end unit. So really the starting point is defining what your needs are, and then working backward from there to negotiate between your needs/wants and the price those things command. There are a lot of features that are nice to have, but not if the price premium blows your budget.
  9. After my previous post I toyed with the idea of letting things go just to see how long I could push the tomatoes, peppers, etc. Then I remembered the sage words of Han Solo: He's pretty much a definitive subject-matter expert on the topic of cockiness, so after a look at the forecast - ulp! - I took his word for it and harvested what there was. The overnight low was around -12C with the wind chill (ie, the "feels like,' which translates to about 10F, and of course the wind is even harder on plants than on humans and animals). Some I'll leave to ripen, others will probably get turned into salsa or something. That's about 4.7 kg (roughly 10 lbs) of tomatoes, just under the 5kg limit of my kitchen scale. I've long since lost track of how many tomatoes I've harvested, but it was something in the range of 50-60 lbs. That won't sound like a whole lot to those of you in balmier climates but out here where it's often a struggle to get any ripe tomatoes before the season is over, that's grounds for jubilation. The covers from the tomatoes and peppers will get reallocated to my cold-tolerant greens, because while they'll survive in frosty weather they won't grow much either. Being covered seems to have made a big difference in those beds where they've already been deployed, so I'll hope to keep harvesting for another month or so. That's the theory, anyway. We'll see how it pans out in practice.
  10. Malachita brand cantaloupes are being recalled for salmonella. So far this only affects NS, PEI and Quebec (not a large demographic here), but it may expand. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/malichita-brand-cantaloupes-recalled-due-salmonella?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23
  11. Uh-oh. Check those fridges, fellow Canadians... President's Choice white button mushrooms are being recalled for listeria. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/president-s-choice-brand-white-sliced-mushrooms-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23
  12. So here's the day after the snow, in a few photos. First, what my jalapeno bed looks like from the outside: ...and inside. There are bell peppers still ripening under, of all things, an old shower curtain that we'd replaced with something prettier: The broccoli and broccolini are still doing fine, though of course brassicas are pretty cold-tolerant: ...and the tomatoes are still hanging in there. Today I took enough beans for a meal out of my beds, and that's the end of those for the year. I also picked some broccoli/broccolini, which will go with tonight's dinner (yet TBD). Seed packets: $4.99/ea Large roll of heavy 6ml "greenhouse quality" poly: $69.97 Picking tomatoes from my east-coast garden in November: Priceless! (Yes, I'm deliberately waiting until tomorrow to pick any, specifically so I can make that boast. )
  13. chromedome

    Dinner 2023

    At first glance I thought that said pickled halibut, and choked on my coffee. Not quite a "Cary Grant looking in the window seat in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'" double-take, but close.
  14. Not a food recall, but I'll put it here for convenience... Instant Pot knockoffs sold at Best Buy and elsewhere under the Insignia brand name are being recalled. Apparently the markings on the inner pot are inaccurate, and if filled to the "max" level they'll become geysers. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/insigniatm-multi-function-pressure-cookers-recalled-due-potential-burn-hazard
  15. I have two lower-end units - a Salton and a Kuraidori - and the fan runs pretty constantly on both, once they've been on for a couple of minutes (and for a while after they're shut off, if they're really hot). Unless you're in a position to try a few head-to-head and see which one is subjectively quieter for you personally (because we all have frequencies we hear better than others*) then it's basically 6:5 and pick 'em. As you say, you might have to just put up with it. (*In my case my hearing has been in rapid decline for the past couple of years, but I find the HVAC in a large store deafening even when people with better hearing barely notice it at all. Go figure.)
  16. In other news: Sky remains blue, ocean still wet. Film at 11. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/revealed-industry-figures-declaration-scientists-backing-meat-eating
  17. Huh. I didn't know there were landlocked shad. Go figure! Shad were one of my favorite fish when I was a kid, because a) it was the largest thing I could expect to catch from the bank with a spinning rod; and b) as a smart-alec little kid, they gave me an opportunity to casually drop the word "anadromous" into conversation.
  18. chromedome

    Dinner 2023

    Girlfriend had a hankering, so I made Completely Non-Authentic Chili (TM) last night. There was a pack of Impossible faux-ground in our freezer (she can't eat beef for medical reasons, and we both find the Beyond to taste better, but when Impossible's on sale I buy it for casseroles and such), and some cut-up tomatoes from our garden in the freezer, so those and some kidney beans and some homegrown jalapenos were the base ingredients. Cooked the beans first in my IP, then used it again to to cook the frozen tomatoes. I also pulled out a smaller quantity of pan-roasted tomatoes, because I thought those would add some depth of flavor. I aimed to reproduce more or less the kind of fast-food chili you'd find at a Wendy's or a Tim Horton's, because that's what she likes (she'd be the first to tell you she has plebian tastes in many respects, or more accurately she'd say "I like what I like" and leave it at that). It came out just about right, and I have a bit of bean broth left over to put into a soup or something. No photo because a) chili isn't especially photogenic; and b) I never think of it in time.
  19. Like a couple of others here, I have a similar 2-pound Zojirushi. I also have one of the big 6-quart high-power KitchenAids with the good spiral dough hook, and use them both regularly. I very seldom bake in my Zo, though, like Elsie D I just use the dough cycle and then transfer it to conventional pans for oven-baking. It's "no fuss, no muss," I load the machine, walk away for 1 hour and 50 minutes, and then come back. I use the KitchenAid for a couple of specific recipes that are too big for the Zo, like the oatmeal raisin brown bread my GF is currently obsessed with. I've found that it's a really fine line with the stand mixer, because I've had to cut down other recipes to make them work. KitchenAid claims you can make bread recipes calling for up to 14 cups of flour, but I've found this to be unreliable. Once I get beyond 8 cups it's really hit or miss, depending on the texture of the dough, and it often still climbs the dough hook and gets wrapped around the head unit. Given that your problem with the big Zo is the death of its time clock, I presume you use timed baking a lot, which of course you won't get with a stand mixer. The current version of the Virtuoso appears to have a slightly brighter display, but it's still the same old-school LED. The thing is, despite the age of the base design, it's still by broad consensus the best bread machine out there. I've looked at a lot of comparative reviews lately for an article I was writing, and nothing's as consistently good across the board. Breville's Custom Loaf has a bigger, more informative backlit display, and is broadly comparable to the Zo, but by all accounts is noisier and its gimmicky folding paddle (it gets out of the way when you bake) is prone to failure. The lower-priced KBS Pro has a backlit display that's decent, and the nonstick surface on the pan is ceramic rather than teflon for durability, but it's a single-paddle design so the bread pan isn't as long and "conventional"-looking if you bake in the machine. Like your Virtuoso it has two heating elements, though they wrap around the bread pan rather than the Zo's top-and-bottom orientation. Said to be very good for sandwich-style breads (some reviewers say it's better than the Zo for those) but struggles with dense or slack doughs. Make of all this what you will. A big stand mixer will certainly do any kind of bread you want (in moderate-sized batches), but you lose the convenience. Other machines exist with somewhat better displays, but there are tradeoffs that limit their usefulness. It's all going to come down to what you prioritize.
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