Smithy

It's several months since I baked bread, and yesterday for a variety of reasons I was none too sure there was any baking mojo left in my life. Nonetheless I'd been asked to bring bread for a dinner party. I went with a straight - lean dough no-knead recipe from Peter Reinhart's bread baking course, with some of the last herbs from my garden mixed in. At the last minute I decided to forget the steam and use my cast iron Dutch Oven as the baking vessel, per Jim Lahey. That works a treat for oven spring and color! The crumb was good and open, though I didn't get a shot of that. The bottom was a bit tough, but that may have been their bread knife. Figuring out how to get a good crust without having too tough a base is a project for this winter. Overall, I was pleased. They liked it too...but unfortunately the other host had decided on cheesy biscuits to go with dinner! That was a very carb-heavy meal. 🤣

I had decided that a 3 qt Ultra Instant Pot would be better for the trailer than the 3 qt Duo in there now. Behold, they'd sold out at that price! So I settled for a handheld carpet cleaning gizmo. Nothing else spoke to me.

Yes, I noticed that at some time yesterday the 3 Qt IP Ultra went from $49.99 to "available from these other sources". Must have been one heck of a sale! As for the clones, that's a good question.

That really is a good price, @rotuts, and I find myself sorely tempted. I've written before that I think the Ultra is superior to the Duo. As it happens I have a 3-quart Duo in our trailer, our home-away-from-home. I'm tempted to replace it with the Ultra. I'm thinking about it. The reason I hesitate is that the existing IP doesn't get much use when we're off-grid, and that's more of our travel time every year. Hmm.

I don't have the 3 qt Ultra, but I have the 6 qt Ultra and the 6 qt Duo. I prefer the Ultra and think it's worth a bit more money, but mainly because I like the customization that it allows. Being able to set the temperature (say, for slow cooking) is a huge plus for me. The Ultra has other features - both customization and ergonomics - that I prefer. I wrote in more detail comparing the two IP 6-qt models here. All that said, if the temperature control and "last program memory" aren't important to you, then I'd agree with mgaretz. I can't shed any light on later versions.

OK, here's my next question, which has probably been answered elsewhere: wash the cabbage before shredding, or after? If before, it won't be as thorough although most of the microorganisms are on the outside leaves anyway. If after, that adds a lot of water that must be eliminated or accounted for in the salt weighing. What do y'all do?

That's very clearly written. Thanks! After reading that article, and the comments above, I'm pretty sure I just haven't kept the kraut cool enough while it was fermenting.

I have waded through this entire topic again, and it's time to bump it up with a question: what has gone wrong when sauerkraut it mushy? I ask because last year's batch, and possibly the year's before, tasted more like salty cabbage than kraut (there was a bit of sour to it) but was absolutely limp. We ended up throwing it away. According to my notes I'd used the same proportions of salt by weight as in the earliest years. Is it possible that red cabbage is to blame? I don't think I've kept notes on whether the red cabbage kraut has ever been satisfactory. I have another head staring at me from the refrigerator door this year. I need to decide whether to try to kraut it or do something else entirely. If it isn't a difference between red and green cabbage, then where else should I look for that lack of crispness?

More about the cake, please. Got a recipe? I can understand your husband's pique, even as I applaud your swapping-choices.

@Franci, that is an astonishing fish head in the top part of the photo. Do you know what sort of fish it came from?

@shain, your food always looks delicious. I am especially intrigued by this one... ...in large part because I grew up loathing lima beans and I still have a knee-jerk reaction against them. I disliked pretty much all dried beans (pinto, black-eyed peas, kidney, and so on) as a child, but limas held a special spot of revulsion due to their mealy texture and lack of flavor. I think, however, that's the fault of the way we got them (frozen box, in a grocery store) and the way my dear mother cooked them. <Okay, rant over.> Your lima beans in the picture above look nothing like what I think of, and I'll bet they're good. What is the dressing on that salad? I'd like to try something like that.

All this talk of carrots and peelers reminds me of a carrot "steak" salad made by slicing planks of carrot, wrapping them into a disk, browned in butter and topped with sauce. I saw it, and got the recipe, in a class almost (gulp) a year ago now, and you can see how it looked here. My take on it, once I got around to actually trying it, wasn't as impressive looking, but it was still fun. There are a couple of pictures about halfway down this rather windy post. I'd forgotten all about this approach. Now that I remember, I may try it again. Here were my intermediate stages:

You're saying this was all gluten-free? Even the biscuits? And they were worthy? If so, wow! What a great find!

@Kim Shook, my best friend was about to despair of her IP for similar reasons. The thing just didn't seem to come up to proper temperature, considering how quickly it came up and how uncooked everything was. (It had been reliable before, as yours has until recently.) She took it apart and cleaned every nook cranny, valve and gasket, using Q-tips where necessary. She discovered that the PLUG wasn't fitting securely into the body of the machine. When she cleaned out the recesses where the plug prongs snap in, the IP went back to working normally! I was surprised at this result, since it seems like the IP would either be getting juice or it wouldn't - but that's what she found. I suggest giving it a try.

Makes me think you should grow your own. How difficult can it be? (No, I don't do it.)

I too would like to know. There's discussion about that in the eG Cookoff #31: Paella, but the Spanish-speaking friend may have a different, or more nuanced, idea.

I wish I had photographic documentation of my salmon success last night using the CSO, but I don't. Still, it's worth description. I had a fairly thick salmon fillet - not quite 2" thick at its thickest, and maybe 5" wide. I mixed a garlic/ginger/soy/avocado oil sauce and drizzled the salmon with it, then cooked it on Steam Bake, 350F, for something under 20 minutes. The timing is approximate because I pulled the salmon before the time ran out, based on appearance and internal temperature. I may have basted the fillet with more sauce partway through the cooking time. I love salmon. I think almost any salmon tastes good, provided the fish is fresh and has not been reduced to cinders. My Other Half is of a different opinion: if he never has salmon again in his life, he won't mind. ("Tough," I said yesterday at the meat market, "this is brain food." That was my story, and I stuck to it.) Even with his anti-salmon bias, he thought it was pretty good. Better than most salmon. Not dry, for once. Me, I thought it fabulous. For once I hadn't dried it out by overcooking it. There was no white protein oozing from the fibers; the flesh was tender and moist, almost gelatinous. The garlic/ginger/soy/oil dressing was a nice compliment both to the fish and the side of steamed fresh green beans. I'll do this again in the CSO. And I'll take pictures next time.

That's still a pretty good size. Since I've never done this before, I'm curious about the appropriate ratio of salt to leaf. Does that 1-liter jar contain, say, 3/4 liter of salt? More? Less? A photo or two would be helpful, when you have time. I started out by laying sage leaves flat over a layer of salt, then covering with salt and repeating the process. I quickly realized that there's be far more salt than sage in the mix, so I started over. Now the leaves are touching; some are curled; they've all been shaken and aren't in neat layers, but the leaves all seem to have salt contact. I think it will all be delicious.

How big is that jar, Jo?

This is the sage I put into salt this morning. It's about 2 cups of salt and sage combined, and I can't see taking up more real estate that way although I think it will be delicious. (Maybe I'll do a second batch.) ...and this is what I have still to pick and preserve or use. There's another pot, with a different variety of sage, at the other side of the house. Thanks for the column links, @heidih!

I scored another smallish batch of tomatoes, including some Romas, and made another batch of salsa one night. One of the advantages of doing this alone was that I got to do it on my own time scale, which is to say I decided along about 9 p.m. to make the salsa that night. The cooking went into the wee hours of the morning - oh, remembrance of happy times past! - and I canned it the next day, out on our deck. Behold, my Midnight Salsa. One jar didn't seal, I think because I overfilled it. It's in the refrigerator now, soon to be used. Next up: harvesting and saving a bunch of my sage and rosemary. I see I considered salt-preserved sage way back in 2005, but have no recollection of doing so! @JoNorvelleWalker referred to her salt-preserved sage here in 2018. So I've cut and rinsed a bunch of sage leaves for that purpose; as soon as they've finished drying in dish towels I'll layer them with canning salt. I don't know that I want to do that with an entire bush' worth, though. What other strategies are there for preserving sage through the winter? Whirr it up finely and mix into butter or olive oil? I know I'll want pasta with sage brown butter this winter, but am not sure that can be done with anything but fresh sage.

It's years since I prepped or cooked artichokes, but this is more or less the way I used to do it. I never thought about using a water stream from the faucet to spread the petals apart, though. That sounds like it would be helpful. Hollandaise sauce is my preferred accompaniment.

Medieval Arabic Cookbooks: Reviving the taste of history

Yes, I have a lot more Taylor and Ng mugs tucked away: the rabbits, the elephants, I think some giraffes. It's funny how many people have used those mugs without realizing what was going on! Then there's the French series like yours on the left. I think I have that rabbit; I may have Le Chien. I suppose it's silly to keep more than my cupboards will readily hold, but I still fantasize about large gatherings at the house such as we used to have.

I love the Raven Lunatic pun! For a similar reason, one of my favorite mugs is this Taylor and Ng classic. For the most part, my coffee mugs are commemorations. (Mind you, I have beautiful china cups. They should probably find another home.) There are the family heirlooms, so to speak: one celebrating our love of aviation, and another celebrating my grandfather's work and my father's upbringing in the California oil fields. This was designed by Dad's cousin, and when my parents passed away my sister and I each got one of the pair. Then there's one of the annual fundraising mugs for becoming a Friend of the Duluth Library. I particularly love the size, heft and balance of this one. Finally, for this show-and-tell, I'll show off the mug brought back from the Kennedy Space Center, when a dear friend (flight instructor extraordinaire, about to turn 100 years old) went to see the launch of one of her students-turned-astronauts. Nothing worth money, except possibly the Taylor and Ng (prices were crazy a decade ago on eBay) but I love the memories they trigger when I use them.