Smithy

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.

Nancie McDermott's Quick & Easy Thai - Everyday Recipes was recently recommended to me by several friends (including @Jaymes) on another forum. Jaymes reports that she and her son cook regularly from it and like the results. So far I can only pass along the recommmendation, though. I borrowed the book last week (via Kindle) and then forgot I had it. That's another disadvantage of electronic books!

@CantCookStillTry, you put many more confident cooks (myself among them) to shame with your creativity and delicious-looking results! That's a beautiful stir-fry above.

I too like that method of poaching chicken, but the convenience of sous vide is I can have it essentialy "poached" for a long time before using it. The consistency comes out about the same. At any rate, I think I'll try that persimmon for a Mexican-style salsa, and see what it does with the chicken. If it isn't a total disaster I'll report back. Maybe if it is a total disaster I'll still report, for the comic effect. (Thanks for the Wilshire Bullock's article. I used to love driving past that building. The fashion show lineup in one picture is hilarious!)

I am about halfway through Pierogi's foodblog and remembering just how funny and energetic she was despite the RA that plagued her even then. Now I want to make comments on the blog, or at least post "reactions" (which the software didn't allow back then) and of course either would be useless. Thank you, Heidi, for posting the link. As I look back through the blog, I keep seeing cookbooks we have / had in common, and inspiring posts. I don't see making pierogies any time soon, but the next time I consider it I'll remember her tutorial. Or her tutorial on short ribs. Or her tutorial on the treatment for Polish sauerkraut, which is different from the way we usually treat it at home. I've missed her voice for a long while, but always hoped we'd be seeing her back. I'm sorry we won't. Rest in Peace, Roberta. Thanks for the laughs.

I love the pun, cross my heart. I occasionally go for chicken breast in the interest of reduced fat. Then I undermine the whole thing by mixing it with heavy amounts of mayonnaise and various seasonings to make a chicken salad, or slather bread with mayo for chicken sandwiches. My latest sous-vide chicken breasts are still sitting in their unopened package, so I have some to play with for this. It might even be lower-fat!

As it happens, I just stumbled over a container of frozen persimmon pulp in my freezer. I like the idea of making a salsa with it. Persimmon pulp, charred onion, a bit of chile for heat...what else should go into that? Garlic and/or oregano as above? And would it be better with chicken breast or pulled pork?

I'm quoting both posts deliberately to add that my comments above don't apply to blending it after thawing. I'm pretty sure I never thought to try that!

It goes grainy and never regains its original creamy texture, in my experience. It curdles, in a sense: not that it changes flavor, but it's useless in coffee. If you can think of a good way to use it in something that freezes well (ice cream?) I think you'll be better off.

Guilty pleasure, when lunch is usually a salad and the summer tomatoes are so good: instead, taking a slice of that tomato and piling it on a sandwich with baby greens, mayo, mustard, cheddar, salami, all on toast. I'll worry about the calorie count somewhere else.

Well, what the heck. How could I turn down a book by Nathalie Dupree that has a preface by the late, great Pat Conroy? I clicked on "Mastering the Art..." wondering whether I'd already purchased it. No, I hadn't. (I have now.) What I HAD already purchased was her biscuit book. In 2012. Yeesh.

Confession time. I bought a tool like this in the fun and rush of an evening's cooking class. 2 years later, I have yet to use it. Perhaps we need a spätzle topic, with tutorial? Please help me justify this purchase. I love the sound of "SO simple and the perface "sop" for all good sauces!"

That's funny, and goes to show why we're lucky to have choices. When I tried a V-slicer (don't remember the brand..Oxo, maybe?) I found the apex of the V to be a pinch point. Stuff jammed in there. I took it back.

BLT is my favorite sandwich! I usually add dill pickles and sometimes avocado, but with really good bacon and such a tomato as that I might just stop at the basics and let those flavors shine on their own.

"Aurora peppers"? @TicTac, please describe them if you haven't already. My gardening is rather minimal. There are lush basil, rosemary and sage plants in a few pots. I planted 3 cherry tomato plants in pots, and they're starting to bear fruit. They're also huge: taller than my husband, in once case. That may have happened because we had that pot in a less-than-optimally sunny spot and then moved it, but all the plants are indeterminate. I was warned that they'd grow tall. They are. But oh, look at the first cluster, down near the base of one pot! There are many more such clusters, surprisingly symmetrical, along all three plants: they're young, but they're daily growing.

It's lovely drizzled over potatoes (baked, fried, probably latkes, probably scalloped). As @heidih noted above, it can sub for garlic and oil, although it isn't quite the same. However - if you can't eat garlic, can you eat this? How do you get along with onions, leeks or scallions?