Smithy

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.

Thank you for that video link! If you look at my idea of slicing per your method, you'll see that I totally misunderstood your description here. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video may be worth a million. 🙂 I still have 20 Key limes, as well as a few Persian limes, on which to experiment. In the video, she was using a Persian lime. I wonder whether squeezing all those Key lime cheeks by hand will lead to hand fatigue. I'll report back when I come up with a reason to juice all that fruit. Thanks also to you and to @Kerry Beal for the confirmation of citrus peel bitterness. My juicer is the family heirloom lemon squeezer, but we never used it on oranges because of peel bitterness. I may find that I also need to exclude limes from its use.

Yesterday's culinary adventure: I finally got around to making the Sopa de Lima I've been raving about from the San Diego Peace Corps Association's "Taste the World" event that I attended in January. This recipe came from chef Matt, who graciously gave me the recipe and permission to post it. Here it is, as he sent it to me. At some point I'll post it in RecipeGullet. Lime Soup (RPCV).docx The recipe calls for both a skillet and a pan, and I opted instead for my enameled cast iron pot for both steps. That meant digging it out of its hidey hole inside the bench I'm currently sitting on. (Of course, that space didn't remain empty for very long.) My stash of Penzey's Spices was still easy to find! I opened the jar of Mexican Oregano. That's very nice stuff. It isn't as full of stems as the Rancho Gordo version I've used before. I'm going to like using this. Then there was the question of juicing the Key limes. Of course I was going to use my trusty juicer, but I decided to test the methods suggested above by @Margaret Pilgrim and @KennethT as well as simply slicing and squeezing them. First up: simply slice along the equator and squeeze. After doing that to 4 limes, I had 40 ml of juice. Next up, I microwaved briefly and rolled them around on the counter to release more juice. It looked as though it should have released more juice -- certainly the squozen halves looked like they had less juice left in the pulp -- but juicing 4 limes that way only gave me 30 ml of juice. The third trial was to slice off some of the outer skin and pop the limes into the juicer otherwise uncut. I have to admit that each lime made a very satisying "pop" when its structure finally let go, but my results were along the lines of 20 ml using that method. Maybe a bit more. As you can see in the photo, it gets harder to judge the gradations as the total goes up, but I was disinclined to keep emptying that container for more precise measurements. The kitchen scale would have been even more precise, but I wasn't up for that either. I finished the process on the final 8 limes using my original method: cut in half equatorially, no heating, no rolling. Squeeze. That yielded another 60 ml, which means it was more or less in line with the heating method but quicker. The total yield of Key lime juice was 150 ml. The rest of the mise: a chopped onion, sliced carrot and celery, minced garlic, chopped cilantro, sliced green onion, the oregano, 3! containers of homemade chicken broth from the freezer, sliced tortillas to be fried, chopped avocado. Shredded chicken from Albertson's. I bought it last week and tucked it away in the freezer. Not shown: a bay leaf, because I seem to have left those at home. First up: gently fry the tortilla strips in oil, just until they start to brown, then move to drain on a plate. I was surprised at how much they continued to brown after they came out of the oil, and how deliciously crispy they were. Set them aside as garnish, for later. Sweat the onion, carrot and celery until soft, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, oregano, and bay leaf it you have it, and cook for about another minute. Add the broth. At this point your're supposed to put in boneless, skinless chicken breast to cook, and here I took the shortcut of already-cooked shredded chicken. This saved me about 15 minutes but probably made a flavor difference. When the chicken is cooked, remove it to shred it while the soup continues to simmer. Then, after the chicken has been shredded into bite-sized pieces, return it to the pot and add the lime juice and green onions. Cook until the chicken is heated through. Taste and adjust the seasonings, especially the salt. Serve the soup hot, with garnish of the tortilla strips, avocado and cilantro. This was very, very good. It had a slight citrus peel bitterness that I suspect was from oversqueezing the limes. Next time I won't be quite so vigorous. The broth also might have been richer if I'd cooked the chicken in it rather than using precooked chicken. Still, it was good. It'll be worth cooking again and again, and I'll have no trouble eating the leftovers!

It's 88F outside and, although I don't especially like this area, I admit that I'm glad to have electricity so I can run the air conditioner. While I wait for it to cool down enough for our evening walk and dig (halfway to China, @FauxPas!) I'll catch up on the culinary front. This rather unflattering photo is of the "barbecue" meal I bought today at a 4H fundraiser. It was at a private airport about 20 miles from here, and some impressive airplanes were on display in the spotless hangar. Seriously, we could have eaten off the floor of that hangar! But they had tables and chairs set up. 😀 There were also dozens of raffle items -- bread from local bakeries; dates; other food goodie baskets as well as plenty of non-culinary items. I didn't take photos of any of these. The main course was shredded beef that gives the lie to my idea that shredded meat has to have been overcooked. This was delicious and not dry. I wish I'd rearranged the tortilla before taking the photo so you could see how much beef was there. There were also beans, as you see, and salsa, and cole slaw. Dessert was a selection of cookies and other desserts. I noted things like pineapple upside down cakes, but I went for the chocolate. I've already eaten the chocolate chip cookie. Maybe later tonight I'll feel like having that brownie. Right now I'm having trouble imagining taking in anything except water, and more water, and more water for the rest of the evening. With lots of ice. Speaking of chocolate: I mentioned earlier that I'd come home with some of the Guinness Stout cake I'd made for the soup and dessert party a couple of days ago. Here's a refresher photo: Well, I had some of it yesterday and my opinion of it went from "good" to "very good". I don't know whether I was just fatigued by the process on that first night, or overwhelmed by all the choices. Perhaps it improved from sitting a day or so. Yes, I'll make that cake again. In the meantime, I did foist the rest off on my hosts/landlords, and they're delighted with it.

If the recipe specified a stovetop temperature, I doubt TdeV would have asked the question. It might help to know what particular stovetop recipe is being converted for the oven, though. Is it a thick liquid? Something you bring to a boil first? A saute?

You're very welcome! And I'm glad it has arrived! My little jar of Aji de Amarillo (Peruvian chile paste), that I ordered on March 6 and was shipped on March 7, is still zinging around the country! I've lost track of the delay notices, but there have been at least four.

I like your side-by-side photograph idea. And of course I want to see it here!

My guess is that the heat of pasteurization denatures the proteins enough that they won't whip as well. Remember that the leavening is largely due to air incorporated into the whites before baking. This article supports that notion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814624005302#:~:text=Pasteurization caused deterioration of the,improved the viscoelasticity of LEW.

@OlyveOyl - no need to candy those pecans, just toast them! But I think it looks delicious even as it is. Furthermore, that plate is gorgeous!

Okay, so I changed my mind about posting about dinner. This salad looks pretty and is delicious, and the recipe is worth repeating. Here's dinner. The dressing is an oregano vinaigrette from this article: Don't feel like cooking? Try this easy and savory antipasti salad. I didn't much stick to their salad recipe. I have asparagus that needs using, ditto spinach, and I've gotten into another jar of years-old kalamata olives that, I'm happy to report, haven't gone off yet. Meats from the charcuterie board I put together last week. I didn't bother with peperoncinis, cheeses, roasted red peppers or artichoke hearts or basil garnish. (My basil plant has died.) But this salad dressing is one of my favorites, and I'm glad to have a batch of it made again.

Further to the question of the oven and oven racks: it turns out to be relatively difficult to photograph what I'm talking about, but I'll do my best to describe it with words and pictures. The oven racks themselves are anchored to the oven wall ridges that define the slots with a fore-and-aft arrangement. The back hook, if you will, (at the right of this photo) sits under the ridge. There's a stopper along the bottom of the ridge to prevent the rack from being pulled all the way out by accident. Closer to the front of the rack (at the left of the photo) is a loop that also sits under the ridge to stabilize the rack. The way you move a rack from one slot to another is, first pull the rack out enough that the loop at the left will clear the ridge. Then slide the rack all the way to the back, where there's a gap between the ridge and the back wall to let you lift that back hook. Reverse the process to install the rack in another slot. This is how a properly installed rack looks: However, the very top slot has a light bulb and a thermocouple interfering at the back wall. If you push the rack all the way back and try to lift the back end, as for every other rack position, you bang into the light bulb at one side and the thermocouple at the other. This is what confused me yesterday and required that I pull out a flashlight and look carefully inside. That top set of rack ridges has the gap for the back hook farther forward. It works fine, now that I know the arrangement, but it confused the heck out of me yesterday, in the heat of battle so to speak, until I grabbed the flashlight and looked. Fortunately I hadn't started the oven yet! In other culinary news: I had the usual morning walk, gleeful in having found some open space within easy walking distance, then had my usual breakfast of yogurt, fruit and nuts. Nothing new about that, and I didn't bother to photograph it. Then we were gone most of the day, for social engagements in the late morning and much of the afternoon. Between engagements I had my first (no kidding) fast-food-joint burger since my darling died. It was actually pretty good, though I still marvel at the way prices have shot up. This was $11, about what it would have been last year, but I'm still mentally back in the $4 or $5 burger era. I shared most of the meat patty with my canine buddy. I liked the flavor very much, but didn't really want all that food. Now, at 7 pm, I'm still not hungry. It'll be a big dinner salad. Maybe I'll post a photo, maybe not. If the oven rack issue isn't clear enough, ask away!

Here are some older topics on the subject, both about cooking with it and about making it.

I think you're probably right as to the reasons. We've seen that happen, at least in the USA, with other cheap cuts of beef and, for that matter, chicken wings. When peasant food becomes chic it becomes more expensive. I hadn't thought about the relative scarcity factor, though. One tail out of all that carcass is pretty slim pickings. Reason to raise the price? Yes, if it's chic.

Well, it came out as well as you commenters predicted! Better than I'd expected, in fact. This being a happy desert climate at a good time of year, the main courses were outside and I didn't take any photos. There were clam chowder, corn chowder and onion soup, all made by the hostess. The clam chowder was my favorite. There were also some wonderful cheese biscuits, made by the host. I didn't know he'd been a professional baker at one point in his life. I told him that if he weren't already taken, I'd be proposing marriage on the strength of those biscuits! The dessert table was already groaning by the time I arrived. I took some good-natured tweaking for bringing a round cake to a thing where small portions were to be doled out. Who knew? I hadn't known! But the good-natured tweaker, who is a friend and made sure I knew she was teasing, started the process and then left me to figure out how to cut slices. That's when I took my money shots. 🙂 It did turn out well. I was surprised that I couldn't actually taste the Guinness. No stout flavor at all that I could discern. The chocolate came through. The frosting, cloyingly sweet on its own, played well with the cake. A lot of people commented on how moist the cake was, and how delicious. I came home with maybe a third...more than I'd hoped, but still a compliment given the variety and quantity of desserts available. Maybe I can foist some of it off on my current landlords and neighbors. @FauxPas, I love your idea of the stencil -- but that definitely wasn't in the cards for today! Maybe sometime. Also, the oven explanation and shots will have to wait until I have better light. The oven light glares too badly. But consider this a placeholder. Will I bake this particular cake again? Maybe. If I do, I'll try the Leite's Culinaria frosting to which @Dave the Cook linked above, and I'll increase the Guinness content. I'll also use the proper springform pan, assuming I wait until I get home, and I'll adjust the oven temperature down a bit for more even baking.

Well...I dunno about this cake. The grand opening, so to speak, will be in a few hours. This is a preliminary report. With stories, of course. Story the first has to do with making sure I had all the ingredients...and then discovering that I didn't, or that I had to work to find them. I've already noted, I think, that I had the cocoa powder (etc.) but not Guinness, a cake pan, enough flour, or sugar. So I got those. Yesterday I realized that I also had no baking soda! So I grabbed some while I was out doing more errands. I really hadn't wanted to go into a grocery store again, but there it was...I had to. Okay, so I had everything. I thought. Today I started assembling ingredients. Large eggs, check (a dozen brought from home). Flour, sugar, cocoa powder, cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, butter, check. Uh-oh. Where's the vanilla? I know I packed vanilla! But it wasn't in the spice cabinet! It wasn't in the pantry! Oh. Ahh! No need to agonize over a substitution, or another trip, or a change of plans. I started pulverizing the sugar, since the recipe called for superfine sugar for the cake batter, and confectioner's sugar for the frosting. I hadn't wanted to buy a bag of confectioner's sugar for this recipe. Surely I could get the granulated stuff fine enough. Eh, not bad. It isn't as fluffy as proper powdered sugar, but it should work. I mixed the ingredients and put together the cake batter per directions. Let me tell you, that batter has a wonderful taste by itself! Very promising! I did wonder whether my cake pan was too small, though. I put a parchment paper collar around the rim of the pan, in addition to the circle I'd put on the bottom, and put the whole thing onto a baking sheet as a spill guard. I had fun figuring out how to get the oven racks where I wanted them. They should adjust easily, but I'd fit the topmost rack into the topmost slot and had a tough time getting it out again. It took a flashlight to figure out why: that slot is designed differently because of the oven light and temperature probe. I'll post pictures if anyone's interested. Then I dug out my oven thermometer -- first time this trip -- and tried to get the oven set to the requisite 350F. What an operation! I think of gas ovens as being more steady than my electric oven at home, but this one took the better part of an hour to get it adjusted right: too cool, too hot, too cyclic. As it happened, i was gathering other items and trying to get some organization into my thoughts and processes, so the oven adjustment added to the confusion but didn't delay anything. I had a pretty good mise en place before I started to mix anything; it's the best way I know to not get stuck looking for something at the last minute. But it can dirty up a lot of dishes. Each time I emptied a bowl or finished using a spoon or spatula, I dropped it into the dishpan. When the cake was baking, I washed all those dishes and then got going on the frosting. (As a side note: my trailer tank gauges say that one grey water holding tank is full and the other is somewhere above half. They're labeled Grey 1 and Grey 2 but I can't find any plumbing diagrams or labels telling me which is which: whether Grey 1 is the kitchen, or the bathroom sink and shower. Based on my water usage, the kitchen sink tank is likely the "full" one, but the only way I'll know is when that sink refuses to drain. So I'm playing "chicken" with it. I also know that I may find out the hard way that it's the shower that won't drain because I guessed wrong and it's the bathroom grey tank that's full! I'm hooked to the sewer, ready to dump, but I hope the Moment of Truth happens at more or less a convenient time. Every time I dump the dishpan, I wait to see whether the sink will drain. It's a puzzlement.) The frosting was an interesting process: stir the "powdered" sugar to break up any clumps; stir in the cream cheese and work them together until smooth. This Tillamook cheese was a bit more crumbly than I'm used to, probably because it has no gums, and I wish I had a "before" photo of it sitting atop the sugar. I was too busy at that point to think about pictures. In this collage below, you may be able to make out a slight graininess at the left that's gone by the time I took the right-hand picture. That sugar just dissolved into the cream cheese; everything smoothed out. Then I added the heavy cream and stirred to get it smooth again. The time came to take the cake out. Looks like that collar was a good idea. Look at that rise! It also looks as though maybe the cake baked too quickly (oven too hot) or else the pan is simply too shallow. The recipe does specify a springform pan but I didn't want to buy one; I have a good selection of those cake pans at home already. Hmm, there's also a crack in the middle. As I worked on another batch of dishes, the crack became a crater. I hadn't made a double batch of frosting, because I only had enough ingredients for a single batch, but there's enough here to cover the top and sides anyway. I fear it's going to come off almost like a tunnel cake in the center -- I filled that hole with frosting! -- but so it goes. That frosting also doesn't look anything like the foam head of a pint of Guiness, and I don't think it would even if I'd only piled it on top. Well...a food stylist I'm not, and I'm sure they all know that. I hope I can get this over to the party without any sudden stops. I'm trying to figure out what I can carry it in / on. If I get a chance, I'll take a money shot to post later. Maybe if I feed everyone enough Guinness they'll like this cake!

@liuzhou...you've made me proud!

I was taken by (yet another) moment of self-indulgence at a Walgreen's recently. They were "buy one, get another at 40% off" and I was feeling nostalgic about the Easter baskets my mother used to put together for us. What the heck, I said. For 6 or 7 bucks I can have TWO sets of ears to bite off!

I responded earlier to this with a link to bon appetit's instructions that make it look easy. One thing to note, that may make things not so easy: the recipe specifies the need to avoid ultra-pasteurized milk and cream, because they won't curdle properly. I don't know your shopping situation, but I often find it difficult to avoid the ultra-pasteurized products in the places I shop.

Thanks for all that, Dave! Including the comment about frosting only the top. I'm with you on that one.