Smithy

Oh, sure - you can assemble in the car. I just don't know how much space you have for doing that. I agree that things will go soggy if you assemble them and then transport. Whether they'll go soggy in an hour I don't know. I don't think any of it will go stale (rancid) in less than a day. The cooked chicken will get into a danger zone of bacterial growth after a few hours, but I don't know really how long you'd have. Four? I hope some of the professionals will chime in here with better information. They may have more practical suggestions, too. Incidentally, this (scroll toward bottom of post) is more or less what I'm imagining, with chicken instead of beef. If you have a different mental image, then we're not talking about the same thing!

Ah! Then it sounds like you need to have them assembled as much as possible before you head out! You still need to make sure the chicken doesn't sit warm for too many hours. Either cook and refrigerate it tonight, then reheat before you go, or cook it in the morning just before you start assembling the tacos. Incidentally, I just looked at the instructions for the type of crispy taco shells I've used. They say that for microwave reheating you should fan them out so they aren't overlapping much (take them out of their package first) and microwave for about 45 seconds.

Hello, and welcome! You can definitely cook those taco shells in the microwave instead of the oven; in fact, I've had better luck with microwave. Unfortunately I can't remember for how long I microwaved them. 30 seconds? if the package doesn't say (mine did) then I'd start with 30 seconds, check, and if they don't seem crisp enough then try another 30 seconds, and so on. If you have a shell to spare I'd use one as a test case to figure out the right way to do it. Does your girlfriend have a microwave, and is it feasible to heat the taco shells at her place just before serving? To me, having them warm is the best way to go. I personally like the contrast between the warm shell and filling, and the cold lettuce, salsa and guac. If you can't reheat anything at your girlfriend's place, then heating the shells and the chicken filling just before you leave and then storing them in something that will keep them warm for transport is the way I would go. (Got a cooler?) You can cook the chicken filling tonight, but if you do that you'll need to refrigerate it tonight and reheat just before you leave, for food safety purposes. The salsa can be made any time. The guacamole is better fresh so it doesn't discolor. The lettuce is more likely to stay crisp if you shred or cut it the day of her party. I have a vision of your arriving with two coolers: one carrying the cold items (quacamole, salsa, lettuce, drinks?) and one carrying the warm taco shells and chicken filling. Assembly at her house is part of the fun. If you don't have coolers or insulated bags you can improvise by putting them in containers and separating into a "hot" shopping bag and a "cold" shopping bag. You have a lucky girlfriend!

Thanks for pulling this back up, @Okanagancook. I have a few Scary Drawers that I should maybe start working through, although I probably won't any time soon. An interesting point is the "when did you last use it" test. We remodeled our kitchen 9 years ago, and that meant completely emptying it out. I put quite a few seldom-used things in a storage bin that went into one of our outbuildings. This summer, for the first time, I found myself retrieving one thing from that bin. Maybe it's time to let the rest go.

It really couldn't happen for me this summer, but I do hope to get the chance sometime in the future.

Very pretty! I'm usually disappointed in apricots, but grilling them might improve the flavor. Forgive me if I've asked you this before, but are there apricots grown in your part of the world? I always think of them as needing a longer and hotter growing season.

That's a fine essay. Thank you for the link. I really need to read him more regularly. As far as the recipe goes, I don't think the orange juice will be acidic enough. As I recall, Navel orange juice has a pH of around 4, maybe slightly higher; lemon juice (Eureka or Lisbon, not Meyer) has a pH around 2.5. (This article says 4.35 for orange, and 2.30 for lemon, and notes that the acidity of both decays with age.) I wonder if you could use baking powder instead of, or in addition to, the baking soda to compensate? I also have my doubts about using almond milk instead of milk. I'd go with the cottage cheese instead, which should be closer to the fat content. Edited to add: got any citric acid sitting around from a canning project?

I am always on the lookout for things that can be fed to our unruly and wildly irregular once-a-year firewood party. These look like they might be a good item. Is this a recipe you can share? (If not, I'll understand. Been there, done that, kept the secrets.)

Well, heck. I wish I'd known that before. I spent a touch more (not much, really) than I needed to because I didn't know that. Thanks, Kim. Readers, take note!

I'm pretty sure my old recipe for West Coast Flank Steak (marinated in citrus juice and other things, then broiled, I'd have to look at the recipe for more details) came from this book.

I can't compare them, but I can say that I have the Kyocera in your link and have been happy with it.

My sister had that cookbook. I wonder whether she still has it, and if so, could I wheedle it out of her? Edit: oh, what the heck. My own used copy has just been ordered from Amazon.

This is the book that convinced me that cooking was not some esoteric branch of thermodynamics*. I liked it so much that I found a copy of their Easy Basics for International Cooking and gave it to my best friend. She still uses that book, and unlike me she is not a cookbook collector. * Well it is, actually, but I am no longer intimidated by cooking.

@andiesenji wrote, long ago, about the ability of her basenjis to open refrigerators and perhaps freezers...but not to close them again. As I recall she had to latch them with very strong, dogproof latches. I'm sure alarms are cheaper and more aesthetically pleasing, however. Good luck, dtremit. I too would like to see some of your creations. Yes to stews, soups, sauces. Are you up to making, say, stuffings for pastas?

Same here on no curtains, no neighbors. It drives me nuts when we're in the Princessmobile, in a park, and have to draw the curtains! I feel entirely too closed in.

Hello and welcome, Wagner. I too am interested to see what you have to say about the food you cook there, and about your journey from engineer to cook. There are a fair number of scientists and engineers on this forum! If you have any questions about how to use the forum software, or whether or where to post something, feel free to ask a host (I am one) by PM or email.

Remind me please (I know we discussed this some time ago) what glass curtains are? Are they what would be called "sheers" in the US? @weinoo, I'd forgotten all about my yogurt strainer since I gave up trying to make my own yogurt. You've given it new life. Many thanks!

Following up on my previous post, here are the crumb shots. I ended up taking all 3 loaves to our friends' house so we could all compare and taste them. One friend adored the pumpernickel, the other thought it was "okay..." the first pumpernickel she'd ever liked, but still not a favorite flavor. She preferred the whole grain sourdough. None of the breads was a flop. Here, in the same order as the photos above, are the crumb shots. I'd have liked them to be a bit more open, but the flavor was good and the texture wasn't bad...it just wasn't as stellar as what we often see here. My learning process continues.

I split a batch of sourdough whole-grain bread into two batches. I baked one in the oven using a cast iron pot (started at 450F, turned heat down to 375F, finished out of the pot at 250F) on convection. I baked the other in the CSO using the "Bread" function at 450F until it was golden on the outside, about 45 minutes, then finished at something like 250F until the interior was done. I am thrilled at the oven spring on both - and I think I'm finally getting the hang of shaping boules to help get that oven spring. But look at the difference in the crusts! On the left: the loaf that had about 1/2 hour in the cast iron pot; on the right: the loaf that baked in the Steam Oven. The shine is quite different. I'll have to provide crumb shots later. One of these is going to a dinner party tonight, along with my very first pumpernickel boule. A crumb shot for that will come later as well. The whole-grain breads began as insurance in case the pumpernickel is a flop, but based on its aromas and feel I don't think it will be, despite the small eruption at the slash.

It's nice to see King Arthur's products getting back into play. I found some of their AP unbleached flour yesterday; between that, the above-noted bread flour, and some dark rye flour (Bob's Red Mill) I found I've been having fun baking bread again. I'll post more about that in the bread topic.

Thank to a recommendation from @rotuts in, of all topics, Behold My Butt! I am now the proud owner of used copy of Lettuce in Your Kitchen: Flavorful And Unexpected Main-Dish Salads And Dressings, by Chris Schlesinger and John Willloughby. It's a fun book, and worthy of being noted (again) in this topic. So far I've made one of their fennel salads (Cary's Leaf Lettuce Salad with Orange, Fennel and Red Onion) although I took small liberties with it. The salad is great. The dressing is great. I have a bunch of other salads bookmarked to try. One of the things I especially like about this book is that it categorizes and describes greens into classes: The Lettuces; The Mild spicy Greens; The Slightly Spicier Greens, and so on. Each recipe notes potential substitutions in case a specific green isn't available. Very, very useful. I know from the discussion around rotuts' comment that I'm not the only one to have purchased a copy recently. Has anyone else used it yet?

My husband keeps a kegerator worth of his everyday beer when we're at home. Early this week he called for a refill. Of his usual, Busch Light*. The bottle shop just called: they can't get it. Because the supply is completely out. Why? Because the distributor is in Wisconsin, and that state's bars reopened last weekend. I guess there's a whole lot of celebratin' going on. Oh, still available: Bud Light and Michelob Ultra/Light/I forget. So there are some beers even lower on the totem pole than Busch Light! He went for Blue Moon Hefeweizen instead. *(His kegerator is safe from me.)

Damn all you enablers, now you've got me thinking I need a dehydrator. Or at least, that I could justify having one. Please say more about the lovage. Mine is going great guns, and I mave to admit that I usually just admire it without remembering to use it. If you dehydrate it, how much does the flavor change? Do you rehydrate before later use, or just throw it dehydrated into (say) stews, soups, pasta dishes?

Score in the store today! First time I've seen any KA flour around here in weeks, much less their beloved bread flour. I resisted the"hoard" impulse, and bought only one bag.

OK, I'm going to have to try bread in the CSO as opposed to the cast iron Dutch Oven in my main oven. That's a wonderful rise!