Smithy

If you're looking for uses, you may find inspiration in the older topic Verjus.

I've been eyeballing the chokecherries that grow wild around here, without having done more than taste them. I had grand plans last year and then didn't get to them. My book on cooking with wild berries and fruits from this part of the country has a recipe for a cherry barbecue sauce (any of the wild cherries would work). Ingredients are the cherries, orange juice, shallot, ginger root, ground black pepper, hot red fresh chile, tomato paste, white wine vinegar and salt. They say it works well with almost any grilled meat, but especially with game such as duck or goose. Let me know if you'd like more detail. I've also been wondering about making a chutney with the chokecherries. This same book has a recipe for spicy plum chutney in which the wild cherries could be substituted for the plums "(if you have the patience to pit 3 cups!)" My last chutney attempt, using crabapples, was a dud but I think that was operator error. One cautionary note from my book is that the pits and leaves of the wild cherries must not be eaten, nor should they be crushed during cooking or straining. They contain low but nontrivial levels of hydrocyanic acid. Cooking or drying eliminates the compound. The reference books I discuss above, for anyone interested, are both by Teresa Marrone: Wild Berries and Fruits Field Guide of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan Cooking with Wild Berries & Fruits of MN, WI and MI (Foraging Series) She has similar books out for other parts of the country.

@weinoo, I believe you're right that we would go to Fall River to get that linguica. I don't remember how easy or difficult it was to find kale in the mid-80's, but I think the Portuguese kale soup was my first inkling that kale existed.

In a past life I lived with a man from New Bedford, MA. When we found linguica, the Portuguese answer to chorizo, nothing would do but we had to make kale soup. It was a special memory from his childhood. I liked it too. 30 years ago kale and linguica were difficult to get in our usual haunts. Who knew kale would become so common and reviled?

Thanks to someone or several someones on this topic (or was it the lunch topic?) I got the idea to roast down some gorgeous summer tomatoes and onions, along with a couple of eggplants. Maybe I'd even get energetic and toss them with fresh pasta. Maybe I'd put them into a tart or galette. Unbeknownst to me during this planning process, my darling was rooting around in a freezer. He came in, accusing me: "I've found some sausages from last January!" I took a look. Well...no, they were only from last March. But I agree that it defeats the purpose of buying hot Italian sausage "handmade fresh in Arizona today!" when one sticks them in a freezer and forgets them for nearly 5 months. They went into the mix. Two huge eggplants, several tomatoes, several onions were cut up, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and herbs, then roasted until they collapsed. The sausages kept them company in the roasting pans but didn't collapse. The lot was chopped and tossed with freshly cooked dried pasta. Not bad, not bad at all. Even better with grated parmesan. Somehow, that made the sauce elements stick to the noodles better.

Nice to see you posting, Ambra! All the meals you've posted look good, but this one really sings to me: It happens I have green beans, potatoes and pesto that all need to be used. This looks like a delicious way to do it. Thanks for the idea!

I found an old topic titled Who else has tableware lust? in which @moosnsqrl said, "Whatever you do, don't stop at hobbs in Lawrence on your way to KC".... Is this the topic you were remembering?

How terrific that you're coming back to the States - and I'm thrilled that it will be near Austin! May give us a chance to meet up some time, after the pandemic has been sorted. This place isn't in the Midwest, but could you be thinking of Replacements, Ltd? Even if you don't go the road trip route, they're a pretty good source when you know what you're after.

@shain - that beet soup looks beautiful. I'll remember it next time I see beets at our farmers' market; they're coming into season here. @liamsaunt - your tomato galette is one of several recent entries that reminds me I can actually cook some of the beautiful tomatoes that are in season now. I tend to just cut and eat them fresh - maybe on a sandwich, maybe in a salad - but I bet they also shine in something like that galette!

Grilled "superburgers" (half hot Italian sausage, half ground beef, with finely chopped onion mixed in) and warm fresh sweet corn. There were also 3 types of potato salad for a taste-test, but we didn't get very far with that. There was plenty of dinner already. At this time of the day I generally have the meat patty without bread, but the opportunity for the sandwich was too good to pass up. The burger and bread are a perfect size match. We also have tomatoes that are a perfect size match. Top photo: his preference. The burger between two pieces of toast. Miracle Whip on the toast. That's it. Bottom photo: my burger, placed between two pieces of toast with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. It was a tossup as to whether the tomato or the burger was juicier. The blend was marvelous. We finished dinner celebrating our differences.

I too will be interested to hear about your experiences with them. I'm sorry that you're not impressed so far...it's a lot of money! Our family used to splurge on the pears at Christmas time; a lot of friends and family got them, and we always got a box for our own family. We loved those pears, but never tried any of the other fruit.

Oh c'mon now. You know most of us would also love the crime scene photos!

I am mystified as to why the really good stone fruits are so difficult to find in California, where they're grown. For the last 10 years that I visited my family in the San Joaquin Valley during the summer, we had to rely on friends with backyard trees. Even the roadside fruit stands didn't have good stuff. Why is that, do you suppose? I still know good stone fruits from mediocre; it isn't as though I've forgotten. I can promise you that with judicious shopping I have better access to good peaches and nectarines in northern Minnesota grocery stores than in the grocery stores near where where they were grown! (Apricots are another story, alas.)

I'm going to stretch the range a little bit, in two ways. Stretch #1: no cooking or baking involved: The peaches and nectarines are coming in from California and North Carolina here, and they're fabulous. I made peach/nectarine ice cream the other day and took it to friends. We all shared, and they got the leftovers, so I'll be making more soon. Hmm, peach/nectarine turnovers or tarts would be good. Maybe I'll try that too. Stretch #2: tomatoes. We usually think of summer fruits as sweet, but technically, tomatoes are also a fruit. In Minnesota the tomatoes are starting to come into their own. Last night's dinner was our second Caprese salad of the season, and my best version yet due to a hint of salt and garlic in the mix. This also was a no bake/no cook dish, unless you care to count the bread I'd baked some time ago and was anxious to use up.

Thanks for that link. There are some good sale prices there, given the original price. When I started looking online for paella pans, I was shocked at their list prices. Does anyone know why they're so expensive?

Since you aren't trying to cook it, what time and temperature do you use? That's a useful idea.

Do not neglect the idea of peach ice cream! Summer is still in full swing.

Getting back to the concept of homemade ice cream: to me, this is The Real Deal. Good quality peaches and nectarines. Cream. Sugar. A touch of lemon juice for tartness. My trusty ICE-50 ice cream maker whose freezer bowl has been in the deep freeze since last summer. I had intended to include a picture of "as served" but forgot, since it was a dinner party at our friends' house. There were no leftovers to be brought home. I hope I'll find more worthy stone fruits in the next few weeks, but if I don't I'll still have refreshed my memory of just how good this can be.

Those are beautiful, weinoo! @weinoo, @Margaret Pilgrim, or anyone else with experience, please tell me - is a proper socarrat harder and crunchier than the tahdig in Persian rice dishes? I get the idea, without having experienced it, that it's supposed to be. Hard and crunchy like the caramel coat on an apple? Chewier than that, as I consider tahdig? Crisp but brittle and easily broken, with just a little snap? Hard enough to threaten weak teeth? (That's on my mind right now. Don't ask me how I know.)

*bump* I've had a bee in my bonnet about paella for a while now. Part of it is because a favorite local restaurant, struggling to stay afloat during these pandemic times, now offers a Spanish Paella meal kit. Part of it is because if it's really a hit here at home I may have an excuse to go buy a paella (pan) from one of the local kitchen stores that are struggling in these pandemic times. Yes, I could go buy the meal kit. I've been buying meal kits from that place fairly often, and they've always been good. Still. We have a bunch of meat and seafood in the freezer, including materials for making stock. It was time yesterday to make some freezer room. I pulled out a few recipe books to get an idea of technique, but did not consult this topic until today. According to this post my final result is really an arroz rather than a paella. I know I broke a few rules. Well no, I probably broke most of them. Cooked it on the stove top in my All-Clad braiser. Didn't add the incredible variety of meats; used shrimp only. Used corn and green beans instead of peas and artichokes. Didn't get as much crust as I wanted. So maybe a D- for authenticity, but we gave it an A- for flavor. The shrimp was done just right, the overall meal was balanced, and we liked the seasonings with only minor adjustments for individual tastes. We liked it. And it's a good thing we did, because there are a lot of leftovers. So there's my paella-inspired rice dish. Has anyone been doing the real deal lately? I'm pretty sure I've seen some in the Dinner topic recently.

Thanks to this post and my continued irritation with an Oster toaster with too-short slots, I purchased one of these. We like it very much. The toasting is easily controlled and fairly even (it's a bit darker at the base than at the top) and we like the automatic rise. Even my DH, whose hearing is not the best, can hear the beep when it's done. The glass side adds a certain novelty element: although it looks pretty, I wouldn't have paid extra for it. It did, however, force me to clear some clutter so it could be seen, and that's a plus in my darling's book.

Thanks for that reminder, Okanagancook. I have her Complete Asian. I'll pull that out before looking for more Thai cookbooks.

My husband and I continue to be disappointed in country-style ribs, which I assume are the same as your "country ribs". I'm disappointed because I've never thought them wonderful BUT WE KEEP TRYING THEM and he's disappointed because he used to think they're wonderful. SO WE KEEP TRYING THEM. Braised in sauce, roasted in the oven, grilled...all attempts have yielded dry meat because there's no fat in it. So if you have solid advice about how to pick 'em and how to cook 'em, I'm all ears. Sous vide is especially appreciated, in light of this topic.

They're coming along. DH and I each had one tomato from this cluster. Sweet, tart, tomatoey goodness. There are 3 plants, all in pots, all taller than we are. This cluster promises good things to come!

Holy smokes, @dcarch. How dense are those tomatoes? Watery? Firm and meaty? They look scary good...or should I say scary AND good. I'd be disappointed to cut one open and find disproportionately large voids. As they're photographed here I'm downright envious.