Smithy

I'd go for those! Please give us an interior shot when you cut into them! (Unless it's already too late? 😉)

That looks delicious! I had the idea that olive oil was rare in China. Is this a specialty bakery item?

This photo of what's left in the skillet may not look great, but the dinner was a triumph of luck and inspiration over poor planning. I arrived home late from a gratifying but later-than-expected afternoon to the usual mayhem of evening chores. A few days ago I'd bought a pork tenderloin with every intention of perusing cookbooks and doing something interesting with it. This evening and hour, it was down to "winging it" or doing something else for dinner altogether: probably a grilled sandwich. For the third evening in a row. Little time for perusing cookbooks, and the most promising recipes I'd spotted for pork tenderloin required things not present in the house. I diced a russet potato and began frying it in a bit of oil, then diced half an old onion, then began slicing "coins" off the tenderloin and quartering the larger slices. When the potatoes were nearly done I added the onion and the tenderloin slices. Dusted everything with smoked pimentón and Trader Joe's Mushroom Umami Spice Mix. Flipped things around until the meat had began to brown slightly, then added the last of a package of Passage Foods Tikka Masala Sauce (which I will not buy again) that's been languishing in the refrigerator, and a bunch of yogurt to smooth and tone down the sauce. You see the result above. It would have looked prettier with a garnish -- say, a sprinkling of chopped cilantro -- or more liquid in the sauce. It actually did look better in the bowl, since it hadn't started to dry out yet as it has in this photo. But you know what? That meat was not by any stretch of the imagination dry, as has been a frequent complaint in this household during the Good Old Days. The flavors were good, once I added yogurt to that sauce. And I've used up half of an old onion, and finished a sauce packet I really didn't like the first time around. And I have leftovers for another meal, and yet more tenderloin to cook when I've more time to think about it. I'm pleased.

My neighbor shot a bear this year and brought me a pound of the ground meat. It's still frozen. He advised me that it's dry, and I'd get the best results if I mixed it with a fattier meat -- perhaps ground beef. I've been wondering about mixing it with Italian sausage vs. ground beef. On the one hand, I'd like to be able to taste the bear meat. On the other hand, I don't want such a dry experience that it's disappointing. I could make meatloaf, for instance, or meatballs -- but maybe something like a pasta sauce is a better choice? What do you suggest, since I'm not likely to get this chance again any time soon?

Broccoli and pitted olives, tossed with olive oil (and salt, for the broccoli) and then roasted. Garnished with a bit of rotisserie chicken. Mighty easy, mighty good. The olives are an old can from Graber Olive House in Ontario, CA. I didn't know they'd closed during the pandemic shutdown and haven't reopened. I'd say I should cherish these two cans, but they're already old. The olives are very, very good though. This Wikipedia article suggests that the olives themselves would have come from Porterville, CA, near where I grew up and the source of my other favorite local olives.

If you survive, be sure to report back! I have a huge backlog of Trader Joe's jarred products, so it's silly of me to wish I had ready access to a TJ's. Nonetheless, I do.

My guess, and it's strictly a guess, is that it's a matter of taste. If you like the seasonings in the rub and think they strongly complement the meat flavor, you'd add a lot. I find that not all beef has a lot of flavor, incidentally, so the rub may be more necessary for certain cuts. An example, drawing from the sauce side: my husband loved the flavor of barbecue sauce, and he tended to drown his pork and beef in barbecue sauce even as he claimed to like the meats themselves! I find that most barbecue sauces overwhelm the meat they're on unless they used sparingly. Clearly, our mileages varied.

@Dejah, would you adopt me? 😀

My husband was the same! He liked a little egg with his pepper at breakfast! And we nearly came to blows, early in our marriage, over the amount of pepper he put in his split pea stew! I, however, rarely reach for the pepper grinder. I still think it's cumin for me. And yes, this is a fun discussion.

That's a very good question! I don't think of it as a spice, but as I read McGee's definition (quoted in my post above) it may fit that definition. I always think of spices as being dried and garlic as fresh. If we include garlic as a spice, I might have to change my answer from "cumin" to "garlic". 🙂 You're absolutely right that pepper is a spice and can't be eliminated from the discussion. Salt is a mineral; pepper is a spice.

Technically, salt is a seasoning but not a spice, since it is a mineral and not a plant part. Herbs and spices come from plants. I quote here from Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, 2004 edition, p. 248:

@mgaretz, I too appreciate seeing a writeup on this, and look forward to seeing what else you do with it. I looked at these some time back and thought they looked like a possible replacement for our large crockpot with the removable insert. The drawback I could see was the size: 8.5 quart looked too big for us. Now that I'm a singleton, like @Maison Rustique, I know it would be too big. (The current crockpot with removable insert is 6 quarts.) Did you happen to see whether they made smaller versions of this? I don't see it on their website.

So... maybe this discussion is a way to get me started back. Maybe it's a one-off, but I'm enjoying it tonight. click

I'm neither a microbiologist nor a fermentation expert but the numbers I'm seeing say that the kraut probiotics die at 115F. So I think you're keeping the flavor but not the good bugs.

Surprisingly good and easy dinner, considering I've been spending the last few days whinging about how I no longer want to cook or eat. I started with chopped slices of smoked pancetta from the Northern Waters Smokehaus, a local favorite (this stuff has been in the freezer for weeks). Cooked until it had started to brown and render its fat, then added chunks of asparagus and spattered all over the stove. I persevered, and when the asparagus had started to cook slightly added the contents of a can of Great Northern Beans. Added enough of the canning liquid to get the sauce consistency I wanted, then threw in the basil that's started dying since I repotted it. Delicious. First time I've used that stainless steel skillet in quite some time. And yes, I'm still using my black spatula.