chromedome

Those wild Spam are tricky to gut. The last thing you want to do is nick the bile duct...

That was my first thought, too, a subset of the Thermomix' capabilities at a much more consumer-friendly price. Gonna be interesting to see how it plays out.

I apologize if someone's already mentioned this and I simply missed it, but apparently Instant Pot's new product - a blender that cooks - will be a Walmart exclusive. Given the company's history with Amazon, that seems a bit odd. https://www.cookinglight.com/news/instant-pot-ace-blender-walmart https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/9/20/17882916/instant-pot-cooking-blender-walmart-exclusive https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/new-instant-pot-cooking-blender

No photos from yesterday, because it was a gray and drizzly day, but a good enough haul. Another big bag of mixed cooking greens (turnip tops, beet tops, several kind of chard, broccoli raab, dandelions), a lot of late lettuce, a couple pounds of carrots (I'm just harvesting those as needed), another 8 or 10 cucumbers, and one big spaghetti squash. My tomatoes have already gotten more of a chill than they can withstand, alas, so I harvested a half-dozen that were nearly ripe and another 18 that were at least full-sized. I'll probably fry a couple of the green ones, and let the rest ripen on the windowsill of my sunny, sunny kitchen. I have a patio tomato that's just about to start producing, so I'm going to bring that indoors. It's actually three tomatoes in one pot (a full-sized red, a full-sized yellow, and a cherry cultivar) so hopefully I'll be able to keep it happy through the cold months in the kitchen. I got no further okra. None of the pods have advanced at all from that photo three weeks ago. I think what happened is that the heat and sunshine failed just at the crucial moment, and that kept the plants from fruiting as they should have. The plants themselves still look healthy and flourishing, they're just not getting any further forward. All told I think that's encouraging, because in a normal spring I'd have been able to plant them 3 to 4 weeks earlier. I don't know if okra transplants well, but that's also something to look into before next spring. Next year I'll also cover my brassicas with netting to deter the bloody cabbage worms. I'm only out there once or twice a week through the summer, and that's not often enough to stay ahead of them by hand-picking.

As a longtime retailer turned chef, there are few things in this world that irritate me more than poor, negligent customer service. In retail stores, after being ignored at the cash for a while by gossipping staffers, I've been known to call out in a loud voice (and bear in mind, I sold hearing aid batteries for years): "I'LL JUST RING THIS IN FOR MYSELF THEN, SHALL I?"

In Atlantic Canada it's certainly popular, and especially in Newfoundland. Locally it's referred to as "Newfie steak."

Yup, me too. The version of corned beef hash I grew up with was that fried with onions and leftover mashed potatoes. I still make it up every now and again, when I'm feeling nostalgic. That, or a fried-bologna sandwich.

I kid you not, I've had people tell me "I didn't know you could make whipped cream from scratch!"

Just to apply some North American context for you, @Duvel, they sell frozen grilled cheese sandwiches and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the supermarkets here, for people who find those too challenging or time-consuming. Something they're promoting right now in supermarkets here is a reusable parchment bag that holds a grilled cheese sandwich, so you can drop it into your pop-up toaster instead of using a pan. The packaging proclaims "Grilled Cheese Made Easy!" ...because apparently, it otherwise isn't.

My mom's going to connect me with the young gent who bought their place in the country after my father died. The one thing I wanted to carry on was my great-grandfather's rosebush, which is growing in a corner of the property near the house. I took a few cuttings before the house sold, but none of them made it. It's just a scraggly old thing of no particular distinction, but it was my great-grandfather's rosebush, right? They'd trained it up an arbor at their old house in Halifax, and I have photos of my grandmother as an infant standing underneath it. The picture of my great-grandfather in uniform, the day he headed off to the Great War, is taken in front of that arbor. So is the photo from when he returned home, six months after the terrible Halifax Explosion, to find the arbor intact but the house somewhat damaged and patched. Communications left a lot to be desired in those days, especially in Halifax after the explosion, so for that entire half-year - despite his best efforts - he'd been unable to learn whether his wife and children were among the casualties. So yeah, I'd like to keep it going.

It looks like a bad decoupage project by someone who's watched too much Martha Stewart (or too little, perhaps).

Okay...how many times can you say "crisp corn crust" quickly, without tripping over your tongue?

If any Canadians should be reading this thinking "Hmmmmm....", I'll point out that Golden Temple brand atta flour is available at every Superstore.

I used to have a wonderful little oven that was sold by our Superstore grocery chain under its own President's Choice brand. It was (perhaps) slightly smaller than the french-door Oster, but had two racks, convection, a rotisserie, and digital controls. It sold for $89.99 Canadian, which even then was a ridiculously low price for its features. My late wife smashed it with a hammer one day in a fit of rage (not at the oven) and was very unhappy with herself when she learned they were no longer available. I've not seen anything since with the same features for anything under the $150 range.

"Harmonized" sales tax is the (currently) 5% federal sales tax, plus the variable provincial sales tax, added as a single figure at the checkout.

It does for me. It looks pretty cool, and it would/will be interesting to see how it plays out IRL.

FWIW, as a guy who hasn't done anything with his IP yet except the 2-minute test, I always feel that a cookbook consisting entirely of one-pot meals is a bit "niche." Not bad, as such, just limited. I acknowledge the logic of FrogPrincesse's suggestion that beans and grains could be folded into side dishes, but for me KayB's point that these are disproportionately important in the IP world is equally valid and probably trumps it.

It hardly seems fair, right? Getting rat lungworms without eating rat lungs?

I actually did buy the 6-quart IP. Truthfully I'm still ambivalent about it, even after being bombarded for the past two years with my fellow eGers' enthusiasm (two years to arrive at ambivalence is actually qualifies as a snap decision for me, for this sort of thing). It's still in its box in my office with the receipt carefully taped to the top, should I decide to take it back. I probably won't, though. Five or six years ago I was interested enough to seriously consider the cheapo Presto stovetop pressure cooker at Walmart, so I'm sure I'll get my money's worth out of it eventually.

The last bastion of unreconstructed Freudianism...

"Are you going to tell me," said Arthur, "that I shouldn't have a green salad?" "Well," said the animal, "I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am." - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At the End of the Universe

Yeah, not happening. Despite all I've read here, there's no way in the world I could bring myself to plunk down $200+ for an oven that size. Just can't do it. If it was the same dimensions as the Oster French-door oven, I'd have to give it some pretty serious consideration, but not at the current size. Of course, if they did bring out the larger version I'd probably balk at the price.

There's a goodly stand of chokecherries on the way out to my GF's parents' place, where my garden is. So we stopped today on the way home and stripped a few of the bushes, to the tune of 15 pounds of chokecherries. My GF likes to make fruit wines occasionally, but has never attempted this one before. Should be interesting.

Also, I was just at the store and they've got the Instant Pot Duo 60 (v 3, if it matters) for $79.99 and the 8-quart version for $159. ...should there be anyone other than me who's yet to succumb.

For any of my fellow Canucks who might be interested, Canadian Tire's current flyer has the CSO for $229, regular $349. This weekend only, for their anniversary "Big Red Sale."