Smithy

I went out to the garage just now (-10F) and loosened a few potatoes for cooking today. At this point they're so frozen that they're comical: when they clack against each other, they sound exactly like billiard balls!

Lunch today is a very similar salad to yesterday's: roasted vegetables, cooked chickpeas, and (this is a change) a few bites of Juusto cheese, all gently reheated in the microwave oven, then tossed with spinach and dressed with the above-mentioned Creamy Sesame Ginger Dressing. What's especially interesting is that the dressing is even better now that it's had time to sit in the refrigerator overnight. What a delightful blend of flavors! (The rewarmed Juusto helps, too.)

Do you mean the curing involved the spices you named, or that's what came after the cure? More to the point...how did you cure that salmon? It looks delicious.

@YvetteMT, sometimes, nothing but a good beef chuck roast will do. And yours looks like just the ticket!

I'm certainly seeing what you mean about needing to make stuff in advance and then having it ready to go for...something. Today I made the Creamy Sesame-Ginger Dressing, then realized I didn't quite know what to do with it. By late afternoon, after I'd finished chores, I was hangry. Still didn't know what to do with that dressing! But I had a bunch of roasted vegetables, and put it over them. Quite good. More detail in the Salad topic.

I spent a little time today making a new-to-me salad dressing, and a lot of time shoveling snow and doing other outside chores, and when I came inside I was too hangry to think straight. Dinner was a sandwich with salami, turkey, and 2 kinds of cheese, griddled on my panini press, and a roasted vegetable salad described here. Unfussy. Easy. Appropriate for dinner when the time arrives and I haven't prepared. Interestingly enough, while I was looking for items with which to make a rice dish using those roasted vegetables and some kind of meat, I excavated packages of meat and fish that definitely will be making appearances here before too many more days. But none of them was thawed, and I needed quick and easy tonight.

I didn't get to that today after all, although I tried some of the dressing with mashed potatoes from the refrigerator and found it was a worthy lunch. I did start to pull potatoes from my frozen bucket in the garage, but they are so hard-frozen together that I figure I'll go after them with a chisel tomorrow. 🙂 What I did do today was make her Creamy Sesame Ginger Dressing, with the intent of having more than one dressing available in the refrigerator. After that I worked on outside chores, and when I came back inside (having given up on the potatoes) I was HANGRY. And not sure what to eat, but it needed to be quick. I pulled together a salad of already-roasted vegetables -- handy things to have in the refrigerator -- and chickpeas, heated them in the microwave, tossed in some spinach, and dressed with that sesame-ginger dressing. The dressing is another keeper. I had doubts about it when I was tasting it by itself, but atop those vegetables it's a fine dressing indeed.

Wait, not to be nitpicky but wasn't it only 7 years ago? See here.

I'm sure they add to the production costs, and hardbound books have heavy competition. Still, they're a nice touch and for my tastes they add value, both utilitarian and aesthetic.

Well. I love the look and layout of this book, and one of the small details that I find charming is the ribbon bookmark. Except I wish there were at least 2 of them. (I already have Post-It Notes (TM) sticking out of a bunch of pages. On the other hand, her earlier book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat doesn't have ANY ribbons. I wish it did.

I thought I'd read this somewhere, but couldn't remember for sure and made a full batch of the House Dressing tonight! I don't think I'll have any trouble using it up, though. 😀 It's a nice dressing, and a nice change from my usual vinaigrette.

Oh, that totally makes sense! And as it happens, I have a glut of potatoes right now. Thanks for mentioning it!

First attempt at making and using the House Dressing from Samin Nosrat's Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I didn't bother trying any of her salad suggestions, as such: the salad is spinach, olives, tomatoes, a hard boiled egg, mushrooms and croutons. The "House Dressing" is a honey/mustard sherry vinaigrette. One of the interesting steps about it is that you finely dice a shallot, rinse it, then soak in the vinegar and a bit of warm water for a couple of minutes before whisking in the rest of the ingredients. I think the soak helped tame the shallot a bit. When I tasted the dressing by itself to adjust seasonings, I thought it would all be a bit much (too much vinegar, too much shallot) but atop the salad it tastes wonderful. I'll have no trouble using this batch. Edited to add: @blue_dolphin links to the dressing recipe in this post.

Do you think the squid ink pasta brings more than color to the dish?

@Shelby, I have to laugh about the boudin. I've tried it a few times, purchased in Cajun or Cajun-adjacent territory, and will admit that I've never really taken to it. When I saw your photo above I thought, "hey, that looks pretty good!" Now I know it doesn't count. 😄 (Edited to add: your disappointment is probably like mine the few times I've tried chorizo made in northern Minnesota!)