Smithy

India.

They do look like some animal's eyeballs! How interesting! What is the texture like? I'm guessing a gelatinous exterior. Is the dark inner part a hard seed, or more like a crunchy nut?

I'm not sure when I'll get to baking again, but these look like I need to make an excuse. Is this the recipe in question?

"PIC" may need translating, just as "PNG" did. Does it stand for "Portable Induction Cooktop"?

The clouds this predawn look like contrails from aerial dogfights. Don't know whether that's what's going on, but there is a Marine Air Base nearby. As I'd planned, and as suggested by @DesertTinker, I made another pot of The Homesick Texan's Sunday Pinto Beans using the same seasonings but omitting the salt entirely. The aroma was maddeningly good all day -- as good as the previous day's pork roast! When the beans were essentially done, I put the previous batch of beans in, added a bit more water, and put them back in the oven to get to know each other better. They look dry in the photo, but with a good stir their texture was fine. Still too salty, though! So I think as long as I'm using Morton fine sea salt I'll use 1/4 of the amount called for in the original recipe. We had taco salads, of a sort. He used chips to push his around, and I used a spoon. I have a lot of these beans remaining, for quick dinners or snacks. Maybe i'll have a breakfast burrito!

Really, I'm thinking along the line of capers, to include in green salads or tuna salads...but even capers have a lot of variety. For instance, I don't like most vinegar preserved capers, and prefer the salt-cured version. I've been saving dill pickle juice since, well, I emptied the jar of pickles. 6 weeks? Longer? Figured this was a good opportunity to use some if it, although it's been going nicely into my tuna salads.

I had to think about that and take a few more slugs of beer to process it. Thanks for that insight!

Has anyone ever tried pickling spinach stems? I like to use them sometimes for crunch atop a salad, but have never tried to pickle or preserve them. I got lazy today, and just covered them with pickle juice rather than trying to actively ferment them with salt. The color balance in these two pictures is goofy: the raw stuff on the left was a little greener, and the stuff on the right isn't as vivid, but that has to do with my photographic efforts. I'll report back when I have results. If anyone's tried this before, what did you do and how did you like it?

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*Sigh* more enabling! Until now I didn't know about the All-in-One Dutch Oven Cookbook for Two (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Now it's in my collection. It's a good thing Kindle cookbooks don't weigh as much as regular cookbooks.

Janet was good enough to post her recipe for Chili con Carne here after I asked. It obviously isn't the entire book, but it gives you an idea of what's in that book.

If I understand the question correctly, there are a lot of cookbooks out there that produce an entire dinner dish in a single pot. Here are a couple by our own @JAZ: Dutch Oven Dinners: A Cookbook for Flavorful Meals Made in Your Favorite Pot (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) has The Best Chili recipe I've ever eaten (although my husband prefers his own version) The Ultimate Instant Pot® Cookbook for Two: Perfectly Portioned Recipes for 3-Quart and 6-Quart Models (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) She's done a lot more Instant Pot cookbooks, and as far as I know most or all of them use only that one pot. Is that the sort of thing you mean with your question?

I've mentioned before that pork is probably my darling's favorite meat. He's been jonesing for a pork roast...old-fashioned pork roast, the way he likes it. We've had one from home in the freezer, vacuum-packed, about 3 pounds. We finally hauled it out and cooked it the time-honored way: atop a layer of potatoes that had been nuked to give them a head start, covered with Lipton's Onion Soup mix, and cooked low and slow until the meat was done. Oven temperature was around 275 - 300F, which is as low as I can get on the bottom rack. We let it go a few hours until the meat reached 165F, then turned the oven off (it stays warm due to the pilot light) and let the meat coast until we were ready to eat. I have been quietly working to shift our meals toward more vegetables and less meat, but I must say this was FABULOUS. Unctuous. Delicious. Yes, fatty. Note that there were a few vegetables, but they weren't the focus of last night's meal. We carved the meat off the bone this morning and sliced it. The potatoes are in another container. We figure we have at least 2 meals each, maybe more. Since we still have leftovers from previous dinners as well, I don't think there will be much proper cooking going on for the next few days. Oh, except I need to cook more beans! Last night's sunset:

I'm very glad you tried the recipe and reported back! I like it when people try something I've written about, whether it's my own invention (quite rare) or someone else's. Besides, your link prodded me to go back and find where @lindag had said I could subscribe to her emails. I've done so.

My current batch of kefir, in a pop-top milk jug, has blown its lid twice already today. Pretty funny, but I think it's time to put it into the refrigerator. 🙂

Some of last night's leftovers for lunch. The stuff is dry, probably because the potatoes soaked up the bacon grease and moisture. It's also bland. Or it was until I added kimchi. That's livening the dish up! But I don't think it's really the desired flavor profile...at least I'm getting in some fermented food.

I've never tried the Kitchen Basics brand; my go-to purchased stock has been Swanson's low-sodium broth but I never use it all at once. Thanks for this recommendation. I'll have to try it.

Thanks, @OlyveOyl. I think I understand it now.

That looks like a huge room. Is it all one room in those photos, or are you showing us more than one kitchen? What's this in the foreground, if you remember? And is this a long-handled wok with a lid on? Is it set into a recess atop the stove?

Last night's dinner wasn't inspired by anyone's recipe: I just wung it. Chopped chicken thighs seasoned with Italian herb mix, chunks of potato, onion, and bacon; a jar of Trader Joe's marinated grilled artichoke hearts, and a few cherry tomatoes. Not bad, but it needed...something. I put the last of my tahina sauce on it (a Clark recipe, there) but it needed something more. We won't have any trouble finishing the leftovers, but it wasn't one of those dishes where he said "I hope you wrote down what you did!" This morning I've broken into a jar of rabbit rillettes I bought at a favorite restaurant at home before we left. Pretty good stuff, but quite rich. I think I'll cut it with something...green onions, perhaps? Chopped parsley? Quick! If you're a cake baker, wouldn't you love to be able to put a finish like this on your chocolate cake? It's actually mud drying and flaking in a nearby puddle. I can't help thinking it looks like chocolate curls atop chocolate glaze.

Thanks for that recommendation. I'll bite, so to speak, particularly because I'd like to see Ms. Clark get some money from me for her hard work. Granted, the Kindle version (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) won't give her much, but it'll ring something at the cash register.

You raise a very good point. When I cook rice from scratch I don't salt it either, so why would some of those pouches contain salt? I'll have to see if I can find a pattern to the salt/no-salt packages.

I had to look this up. Is this Chinese water jar (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) similar to what you have? I can't figure out how the water seal works. I'd appreciate photos and an explanation.

I'm not sure yet what I'll do about dinner tonight. He began agitating for pork roast. A large (3 - 4 lbs) pork roast came out of the freezer today, but no way will it be thawed in time. I remember that @Pam R, way back when, discovered Cooking a Frozen Roast Without Thawing but I don't think I'm going to try it today. So the pork roast is thawing for tomorrow, and I pulled some chicken thighs out for today. How exactly I'll cook them remains to be seen. Strange...sometimes I can't wait to try out new recipes, and other times it just seems like too much work to read, process and follow a recipe. I've had Melissa Clark's beautiful book Dinner: Changing the Game (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) checked out from the local library for a while. I'll probably use her for inspiration instead of following one of the recipes I've bookmarked. This is, incidentally, a gorgeous book. I usually find Clark's recipes in the NYTimes to be reliable. I may spring for my own copy of this book, but it seems a bit silly if I haven't cooked from it in a month of ogling. I'm still benefiting from all the washing and chopping of broccoli, onions and cauliflower I did last week. I had tossed the cauliflower and onion chunks with oil, turmeric, cumin and salt in preparation for Melissa Clark's cauliflower shawarma, then not used all of it. Some of the remaining uncooked vegetables went into a pan dish last night, along with coins of Polish sausage and yet another simmering sauce. Thanks to @rotuts' questions, I looked this time at the sodium content of the simmer sauce and the rice package. The sauce had a fair amount of sodium, but the rice had none! I noticed the other day when I was shopping and looking at the Ready Rice packages that some at least have no salt added. Their basmati and jasmine both are salt-free. I wondered how my darling would like a coconut curry korma sauce, and whether I'd like it with Polish sausage. We both were happy. Last night, before I began cooking, we saw the Wolf Moon rise. This morning, we had a good clear shot of the sunrise.

I looked at spring-loaded jar lids to take the place of weights, but users noted that finely shredded items would come up through the spring, so a layer (like a cabbage leaf, or FauxPas' mesh) was still necessary. I have a bit of leaf under the weight in my jar. I didn't save an entire leaf as I should have.