Smithy

I think this is the post in question.

Sorry these questions got lost in the shuffle! Kosher salt is a fairly coarse salt. It gets its name not because it is a kosher material but because it's used for drawing blood out of meat...i.e. for koshering the meat. For more information see this article in kitchn.com.

@Shelby this is strictly free association because of the name, since I haven't tried the black caviar beans. Would they work in cowboy caviar?

I went with The Saffron Tales and the Smoke, Roots...Appalachian cookbook. When exactly I think I'll read, much less cook from, the extensive digital library I've already accumulated is a mystery. Does that stop me from looking, and sometimes pulling the trigger? Nope.

So did I.

Those are some great links. I didn't know the source of the word "fajita" so I learned something, and the Acapulco web site looks very informative. Casablanca looks like it would have been a lot of fun. Another restaurant I never had the pleasure of knowing, because I'd moved away by the time it opened.

@liamsaunt: Curry powder in a CSA box! That would never have occurred to me!

We're Philistines (forgive the cross-cultural reference) when it comes to excuses for holidays. Nonetheless, I visited the local butcher shop and found their chicken, prepped for fajitas. It took some fine-tuning (finer chopping; more vegetables, juice and sauce) to satisfy me, but for party food that turned into party-for-two-food it wasn't bad. We'll ignore the tortillas for any leftovers. Rice will be grand. A microwave and spoon may suffice.

It sounds delicious! It makes me think of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean food, which have quite a bit of overlap.

Sorry, not my speed!

The discussion about crumpets finally inspired me to try making my own. It was a bit of an adventure. It's so long since I needed to sift anything that I couldn't remember where I stored my sifter. The search had a side benefit: I found a food mill I'll need in a few days before I remembered where the sifter is kept. For a bit more about the process, and for a link to the recipe I used (thanks to @Franci) see this post. Here's the finished result: When I bite into a crumpet slathered with butter and said butter squirts me in the face, I figure I've gotten the holes right.

@Franci: thanks for that recommendation, many years ago! I got around to making crumpets using that recipe, and they are quite good. It's fun watching the bubbles start to form, and then set. Here's the action, and most of the finished batch: And here's the money shot. I've eaten two, slathered with butter. Very rich. Delicious. How shall I store these things? Wrapped tightly and frozen?

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for pointing me back to the pertinent info.

A kindred spirit!

I must be missing something here. A few years ago I had a chance to collect potatoes directly from a farm plot (the harvester had missed some). We thought they had wonderful flavor, and we didn't notice anything unusual about their cooking properties. They were russets. Does the variety matter?

Last night: breaded and roasted pork steaks, with green beans sauteed in olive oil with roasted red peppers, ramps, preserved lemon. The bean dish was my first use of a Lodge Dutch Oven I bought. Made an unholy mess on the stove, but the beans were good. So were the pork steaks. They weren't messy. Tonight: the star of the show was a recipe from Milk Street: Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini and Lemon. The colors are beautiful, and I think the flavor is great. It's a good way to disguise cauliflower. That would have been enough for me, but himself wanted meat, so...tube steaks. Farmer John's Louisiana Style Hot Sausages. There was plenty of spicy heat in that meal to go around!

I have this AcuRite triple timer and am very happy with it. It counts up, it counts down, it has memory, and it beeps loudly. It mounts to the refrigerator with magnets, but can also stand on the counter. It uses batteries rather than 110v (when I have power I can use the microwave or stove timer) and it does not need an internet connection. It does not respond to voice commands. I won it as a door prize, so have no idea how much it cost. It was probably inexpensive.

I know of hunters who ONLY eat the breast, and they do the trick that you describe. I think that's a great way to use the roadkilled grouse.

It's more of a stretch than most. As JoNorvelleWalker commented regarding another rebus, there's a bit of an accent involved. Accent from where, I'm not sure.

I confess that making crumpets has been on my to-do list for a very long time, given the difficulty I have finding them in stores. I'm pretty sure there's a recipe from @andiesenji floating around here somewhere, although I haven't found it. What I have found is this discussion, with a rough recipe, from @jackal10. Edited to add: of course we have a topic on crumpets! Here it is. Okay, back to the normal program.

So did he (and by extension, you) get it?

I've never had an English muffin that I liked, and I've never had a crumpet that I didn't like. In my experience the flavors, as well as the texture, are completely different. I suspect a crucial difference in the batter.

I keep reading about the noise level from portable induction units. Are full-sized induction ranges also noisy? That would be an issue for me.

We're home! We spent the final road night in yet another Walmart parking lot, and were up very early thanks to a street sweeper cleaning the parking lot at 5:30 a.m. The happy result of that was that we got going earlier than usual. I threw together very perfunctory breakfast sandwiches, and away we went. This may not look inviting to you, depending on the environment you're used to, but to me it's a sign that we're coming home, and spring is beginning. The pictures don't show it, but there's a faint blush of pink on the maple trees and the barest hint of green wash on the birch. My flower bed is starting to sprout! The ramps and chives are coming up! We have room again! I've been shuffling food from the Princessmobile's freezer and refrigerator and pantries back into the house. I realize that as trailer kitchens go the Princessmobile's is pretty good. Still, it's nothing like home. Princessmobile: House: Of course, in a perfect world there wouldn't have been much to move back in -- but you already know that I failed utterly at paring down the food when grocery stores were readily accessible and filled with items we can't get here. Now the excess should help us minimize trips to town. I have access to the CSO again! We really, truly finished the last of the meats from Llano for our homecoming dinner. There was one pork rib from Cooper's to be reheated, and 4 stuffed jalapenos from Miller's that got a steam-convection bake treatment in the CSO. Dinner included potato salad and cole slaw from Cooper's, neither of which is shown here. The peppers were wonderful. When we finished dinner, my darling said, "See? I told you we should have bought more barbecue in Llano!" It's been 6 months and some 8,055 miles. You've been great company along the way. I saved this last Lone Star rebus for y'all, since it's so appropriate. Thanks for reading along!

Which way does one do it: soak potatoes in vinegar, then boil; boil potatoes in water that's had vinegar added? If the latter (as I suspect) what are typical ratios of vinegar to water?