Smithy

That sounds like a wonderful flavor combination. I love those particular seasonings.

Bumping this back up to note that the A4 boxes seem still to be available but no longer on sale. This surprises me, since our last speculation was that the fabulous sale was happening to eliminate inventory as they wound the company down. The accessory kits are listed as being available when bundled with the A4, but when I try to order the accessory trays separately they're still listed as Sold Out. Has everyone who ordered an A4 box during that lovely sale gotten theirs? There was some concern about customer service a few months ago. If you have gotten it and started to play with it, remember to let us know how it's going -- either here or, better still, over here: I'm a couple of months and a couple of thousand miles from being able to play with mine, but I'd love a progress report!

If you've never had gumbo before, you're in for a treat! You may want to peruse, and even contribute to, this topic: And yes, even though it's an old topic it's always available for participation and expansion!

That's a much nicer color!

I don't have much to add to what's been said so far -- the design looks good and at that price point I'd sure be interested -- but I will say "me too" regarding that color. I find that particular color of orange very unattractive. Blue, yellow, even black or stainless steel or red would appeal much more to me! The knobs and gauges are great. I've become leery of items that require a remote signal to run. A remote connection can be handy (say, start from your phone while you're away) but requiring one is a dealbreaker for me. I would advocate a larger disk if you can manage it. 8" diameter seems a bit small for the uses I can imagine. Can you make it 10" or, better still, 12" but have a pot size adjustment so it doesn't heat unnecessary surface?

Oops I did it again.... That's this morning's wreckage from last night's dinner. I started very late, having had this sandwich in midafternoon. If it hadn't been for the peppers and kale already cut from a couple of days ago and not getting any better, I'd have called that dinner and gone to bed. But no. I wanted to use them, and the onion, and some of the good San Diego bread from the freezer, to make a panade. I also wanted to cook some bacon in order to try it with my soup per @C. sapidus's suggestion up here. So yes, it was hot and I hadn't cooked earlier in the day. I just kept the air conditioning going until the smoke alarm, which is very overly sensitive, forced me to open all the vents and turn on all the fans instead. I pumped air outside as fast as I could. I was reminded of the folly of cooking bacon "for later". This was cooked in the oven. It's nice and crisp. Of the original 5 strips, only 2 survived to go into the refrigerator for later. 😀 Even though the smoke alarm objected to this process, you can see it was a pretty good way to cook, and not overcook, the bacon. I got about a quarter cup of grease out of the deal also. The "lunar lander" earned its keep, slicing onion and cheese into the fine bits that I wanted. I used a bit of my good English cheddar from Costco and this cheese, which has been with me since sometime last summer. Other ingredients that went into the panade: ...as well as more bacon, to get the skillet process going. I ended up using a bit of olive oil also. Then it all went in layers into my casserole dish: bread cubes, sweated vegetables, cheese, until that dish was as full as I dared make it. I pressed eveything down to mash it as much as possible, then poured chicken broth in until the liquid layer was about halfway up the dish. Into the oven it went. Baked until bubbly. I'm glad I put a pan underneath that baking dish! It was good. It was also very late. 10 pm? I thought of how often my darling and I had discussed and lamented late dinners. I still don't like 'em. But this was good, especially after I put more shredded cheese atop the serving. But then, there was the washing-up to do. Ah well, between the soup and this I won't need to cook for several days if I don't want to!

I got up early to deal with the refrigerator vegetables that I didn't cook last night. The red bell peppers were already starting to go off. Most was still usable and it's all chopped and put into a refrigerator container. The kale has been destemmed and chopped, and is similarly refrigerated. The onion will be fine where it is, for now. This will all become a panade using some of the frozen bread, or possibly a Spanish tortilla -- I think that's what that layered potato dish is called -- to use some of the potatoes. Either way, it probably won't happen until tomorrow. I went excavating in the belly box to find the chicken broth I knew was there and a new jar of pickles that I hoped would be there. I've used all my chicken broth from the freezer, and seem also to have exhausted the pickle supply. The excavation was interesting. Have I shown you the belly box storage area? If not, let me know and I'll snap a photo of it. Suffice to say for now that there are two coolers and a produce box, all tucked away like circus clowns in the Volkswagon. And I need to review more often just exactly what's in them. (Cue my darling's voice: "Do you know what's in those coolers? They never get any lighter! You should look!" How often did he say that in the past?) Well. There's a LOT of the Lipton's Onion Soup mix we used to use to coat roasts and hams before roasting. That's going to take a while to use up. Oh! There's the cornbread mix I was looking for at home! Tempura batter mix. Curry pastes. Larb mix. Cans of tomatoes, beans, olives. (Those weren't a surprise.) An unopened box of baking soda. I hadn't left without it! Several types of barbecue sauce. More jars of salsa from home. More specialty flours, though no AP flour like I needed the other day. That at least wasn't an empty purchase. More spices and baking basics. Note to self: I also have baking powder, and harissa, and a bit of sugar although not enough for what I needed the other day. That also was not an unnecessary purchase. No pickles. I'll have to buy more. But I did find the chicken broth, and while I was at it I excavated more of the staples I use fairly often. (Ignore the greenery behind the cans. That's a broccoli photobomb.) I would not buy those generic black ripe olives, but my DIL gave them to me when she didn't need them. I'll use them in something.

Nice idea! Thanks!

The surviving potatoes are dry, and sitting out on the counter still uncooked. I got as far as pondering several potato salad recipes, and other interesting potato dishes, before deciding last night to have some of the Sopa de Lima and call it dinner. This turned out to be an interesting and enlightening exercise. I wish I'd taken a better picture, but this is all I have now: I had two containers, and this is what's left of the larger one. See that layer at the top of the container? It was gratifyingly gelatinous last night. It also had the peel bitterness. I know this because I'd eaten most of the contents of the first, smaller container before deciding to supplement it with soup from this larger container. There was little of the peel bitterness in the first bowl's worth. When I added the good gelatinous stuff, the bitterness was much more pronounced. I also learned that the fried corn tortilla strips that I cooked the first night may not have a good substitute. They get soggy in a heartbeat, so I tried using Doritos tortilla chips as a replacement. Not the same, at all, at all. But now I have a container of the Sopa de Lima and no fried tortilla strips to go with it. I used 'em all up last night. Crackers, maybe?

This morning, roasting them all seemed to be a good idea. I have my doubts about that right now, though. 🙂 And you're right about the lasagne! In the meantime, I suddenly realized that the foul odor in the pantry wasn't my imagination. Some of the potatoes were going bad. That is a really, truly, terrible odor. The spuds are now out, and sorted; their (leak-proof, hallelujah) container is washed and drying. I'm considering potato salad for the survivors.

Yesterday was a day of fairly heavy housecleaning -- that is, trailer cleaning. For the first time in several weeks the floors feel (mostly) clean to my bare feet. Considering the dirt, dust and foot traffic of the four-footed kind that's an accomplishment. The upshot is that I really, really didn't feel like cooking. It was a big ol' dinner salad again. Really big. That bowl is what I usually use to serve two or three people. Good, but more even than I wanted. But I ate it anyway. I'm now out of spinach, asparagus and Campari tomatoes until my next grocery visit. I had a tuna salad for lunch a couple of hours ago: oil-packed tuna, mayo, salted capers, all on crackers. Here's what's left: I must remember to rinse those capers before using them; they have way too much salt as they are. They're delicious, though. I prefer them to the vinegar-brined capers. I still have non-leafy greens in the refrigerator: red bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, celery, kale, a couple of jalapenos, all of which need to be cooked before they go off. I'm lucky to have a lot of other food options: lots of canned and dried beans, as well as rice, pasta, potatoes and onions in the pantry. In the refrigerator and freezer there are various meats (cured and uncooked) and cheeses and breads. There's leftover Sopa de Lima. Problem is, right now I don't want to do any food prepping for dinner. I just want water. And more water. My thermometer says it's 101F outside. I'm glad to be plugged into electricity; the air conditioner in this trailer is good, but if I were out boondocking the generators would be working pretty hard to keep it going. The evening walk won't happen until very late this evening.

Our Minnesota recycling program can take a lot of plastics, but not these. Whether they can or not seems to change from year to year. I avoid buying things in the clamshells when possible, but as noted in the opening post it simply isn't possible for some of the produce I want: primarily berries and tomatoes (cherry and cocktail size).

We had stovetop Corningware (saucepans and so on) when I was growing up, so I assume this is also stovetop safe. It isn't marked either way. I may get a bad surprise! But I may be saving it as a tea pot no matter what, for the times I'm visited by tea drinkers. Really, as long as I don't boil it dry, it should be stovetop safe.

Staff note: This post and responses to it have been moved from the Gotten any fun stuff lately? discussion, to maintain topic focus. Folks up the road from me are getting ready to move away, so they had a yard sale yesterday. I came away with some low plastic resin tables and a step stool of the same stuff that will come in handy for reaching things in my trailer or loading things into my pickup, and a rusty but serviceable set of tin snips that I need. I resolutely did not pick up the other things that caught my eye. Until today. I'd noticed that some sensible person had taken the vintage set of 3 Cornflower Corningware baking dishes for $10, but they'd left behind the Corningware baking dish that I thought I could use. I spotted the couple outside, packing to go. They were finished with the yard sale, but happy to sell me that baking dish. And load me up with other things I admired. They were happy to get rid of them! Two Corelle pie pans, the 2.5 liter Corning baking dish, a 6 cup Corningware kettle, and a Japanese lacquerware tray that I simply couldn't resist. If I never entertain company again, I'll have this to entertain myself. 5 bucks for the lot!

I'm amazed at how quickly they grow! What species of quail are they? If you mentioned it uptopic I've forgotten.