Smithy

The pasta dish above would have benefited from some crunch. My darling thinks that croutons are the all-purpose crunch answer to everything, but the idea was off-putting to me. It wanted nuts. Specificallly, it wanted pine nuts. That made me realize that I haven't purchased or used pine nuts / pignolas for several years, and to wonder why. Was it because I was disappointed in them when they came from China? Was it because the pine nuts in the shell given to me as a gift went off before I managed to shell enough to use them? (@Darienne raised the question of unshelled pine nuts some years back, and got excellent advice about how to shell them, in the topic Nevada Pine Nuts. I'm still working on the pecans I purchased unshelled in 2015. I do not need unshelled pine nuts!) Does anyone know a good source of local pine nuts, preferably shelled, especially in the desert Southwest? I'm looking at @FauxPas and @lemniscate in particular, but anyone who has a favorite source should feel free to answer. I've posted this question also in the Pine Nut Source topic, looking for an update because @andiesenji's mail-order source is dead. Failing the local source, a reliable mail-order source or even grocery store source would work.

Does anyone (especially @andiesenji) have an update on reliable sources of pine nuts in/from the USA? The first link in Andie's post above is dead. Although I like the idea of the second source, I know myself well enough to know that I should not purchase unshelled pine nuts. (Unshelled pecans are bad enough!) Failing that, a reliable source of pignolas from Italy, or Spain?

The Pan did wonderful service again last night. I bought 3 pounds' worth of New York Style Calabrese sausage at the Stater Bros in Twentynine Palms when we went through in January. My darling thought it excessive at the time. Now he agrees with me that we should have gotten more. It has a delightful complexity of flavor that's most noticeable in a side by side comparison with other hot(tish) sausages, but that same complexity works well in a pasta dish like this. More gratuitous flower shots.

Lunch today. I really don't need this much. The salad is typically enough. But my darling just cleaned up the leftovers from last night's shrimp dish, so I DESERVE the remaining ham and spuds!

I thought you'd appreciate the "red" idea. Do you mean the whisk needs to be washed by hand, or are you referring to the pan? Not that it matters in the Princessmobile, since our dishwasher(s) are strictly manual. I have seen travel trailers with dishwashers, but those tend to be the super-luxury models that aren't intended to be moved much. In our case such a dishwasher would likely be used as a storage cabinet.

Same here! I think it's the same two books!

@rotuts, are you able to get spinach in bunches? It's a little more work than simply opening a bag and washing the contents, but I think there's a lot more flavor that way.

Happy Leap Day! I've been away doing things unrelated to food, although eating well. I don't know how interesting my salads would have been, or the mac 'n' cheese 'n' ham made from leftovers of our latest ham. Certainly the tube steaks cooked over the campfire, or the hash done on the camp stove, have been seen before. I'll show 'em again in due time. Maybe. Don't want to bore you. I posted about this in the Yard Sale topic, but I'll note it here too: at a recent yard sale to raise money for a bunch of musicians, I bought a wok pan / everyday pan in excellent condition. It cost me all of $2! It's the shape I've wanted for a long time, although now that I have it I'm challenged to find a place for it in the Princessmobile. There is no more wall space from which to hang anything, and it doesn't fit in the cupboards. For now it's living in my half of the closet (along with surplus dates, surplus olives, and presents awaiting my sister)(and, of course, clothes). It's too heavy to ride there for travel, though; the closet floor is too flimsy. I'll probably stow it in the underbed storage, or possibly the belly box, when we hit the road again. I have to weigh both items to be sure, but I think this pan outweighs the mandolin I also bought at that sale. Maybe the pan will simply ride atop the bed, with the musical instruments, when we move. @rotuts recommended a silicone whisk for the pan. Ironically, I had a nylon whisk that I'd bought for my darling to use when he scrambled eggs in his precious nonstick pan. I got rid of it because he didn't like the shape and he never scrambles eggs. I now have a silicone whisk, of the type recommended by rotuts, on order. Red. Last night I used the pan for the first time, and finally got around to trying the Butter-Poached Shrimp and Orzo recipe from Tasty.com that @Anna N put us all onto. I used asparagus from the farmer's market, instead of spinach. It was outstanding. A keeper of a recipe! And we have leftovers! Many thanks, Anna! Spring is springing here. So far the heat hasn't been brutal, but when the afternoon temperature pushes 80F outside the Princessmobile gets unbearably hot. I want to lie around and do nothing. Yesterday we went out for a stroll and found that a light breeze, and shade, made things better for both of us. It also gave us a chance to admire the flowers, which are coming out more by the day. One has to look carefully, though: many of them are tiny, and require careful attention to where one steps. There are exceptions, of course. The prickly pears are conspicuous. One still needs to not step on them.

rotuts, many thanks for that suggestion! In fact I did some whisking last night in the pan, and all I have with me is a metal whisk. I worried about scratching the surface. I'll buy one of those silicone whisks, pronto.

I grew up slathering butter (margarine, really) on saltines as a snack. Sometime in my adulthood when I started thinking about fat, I stopped - but really, it isn't very different than cheese on crackers! I may have to try some today. Mmm.

This beauty cost me $2 at a yard sale. It's in excellent condition, of the style that might be called a wok pan or an everyday pan. I like the rounded sides and the anodized nonstick surface. The bowl is about 12" across at the top. It's pretty heavy: my scale says 3lbs 2.2 oz, and I'd have guessed it to be even heavier. That may be why somebody no longer wanted it, since the sale was in a retirement community. I used it last night and delighted in its heft.

I've never bothered to reseason my unglazed clay cookware after long disuse. So far, it hasn't seemed to be a problem.

Welcome, Steve! I wish I lived near enough to come try your Key Lime pie or the Swingle; based on your description and your attention to the juice they both sound delicious. You're right that this is a welcoming and informative forum. Feel free to wander around, ask questions, and let us know about other aspects of your culinary life. Do you cook at home, and if so, what? You should also feel free to ask questions about how to use the forums, if any questions arise: either by sending a PM to a host (I am one) or by asking in the Moderation and Policy Discussion forum.

I should probably follow up with what we tried, given available materials: mixing par-cooked potatoes into it and finishing the cooking; cooking rice in the dish (with additional water, and additional tomato paste). Neither helped, and in fact succeeded in diluting the flavor without diluting the heat as FeChef suspects immediately above. It has been pointed out to me since this episode that cooking the rice (or noodles, or potatoes) separately and putting the stew OVER it, as kayb had suggested, might have had different results because of having two distinctly different flavors in each bite. We did not have yogurt available, and couldn't make a cooling drink such as lassi to tame it by accompaniment. Sour cream in the dish helped, but not enough. In the end, we fished out the pork chunks -- which were still delicious, although hot -- and put them on tortillas with chunks of avocado and a touch of sour cream. Perfection! The avocado turned out to be a nice accompaniment that cooled the spice-heat; the pork still tasted great; the flavor was not diluted. Thanks for the tips, folks. If I ever overdo it again I'll have some better ideas of what to try. The best option, of course, will be not to overdo the spice-heat.

Hello and welcome! What sorts of foods do you like to eat and/or cook? What was the book in which you found eGullet?

That's a great collection, Alex, and a great offering. I hope someone avails themselves of it. I'm interested, but not terribly surprised, at the overlap in our collections.

That may be true of us also, although we've been known to enjoy ribs and, of course, bacon. Breakfast this morning was the last of the earlier piece of this pork butt, which had been used to make a delicious, but far too hot, green chile stew. We've tried adding potatoes, rice, more tomatoes, cumin -- almost everything suggested in this topic. The last effort, adding rice, only diluted the dish so that the pork chunks were hard to find and the overall flavor was still too hot! A couple of days ago my darling sneaked a bunch of chunks of pork out of the leftovers, and ate them. They were delicious. Today, I finished the job. Pork chunks, avocado, sour cream breakfast burrito. Tasty. Nice spice. Not too hot. Incidentally, I hadn't thought of trying avocado as a garnish in the stew, but it seems to be a perfect taste and heat balance. Something else to remember if I ever overdo the spice-heat again. Too bad about the rice, tomatoes, potatoes and peppers left behind, but at least we rescued the pork. If I weren't headed out of town for a few days I might try to do something with the rice mix, but I think they'll go into the garbage instead. (I'd compost them if we were home, but here we don't want to feed anything wilder than hummingbirds.) As was suggested elsewhere, sometimes it's best to just cut one's losses.

I did not, but I didn't need to add salt at the table. It may be that the quantity of meat and potatoes for that one packet of mix was enough to dilute the salt to my preferences. It may also be that our salt tolerances are different.

We used Lipton's Onion Soup mix on a pork shoulder roast last night, in what has become one of our favorite ways to treat this cut of meat. Cut potatoes into smallish chunks, maybe 1-1/2 inch diameter. Microwave them to give them a head start on cooking, then load them into the bottom of a heavy pot (we used enameled cast iron). Last night we added carrots, but we don't always do so. Coat a pork shoulder roast (this one was boneless, 3 or 4 pounds) with Lipton's Onion Soup mix. Load that into the pot, making sure that potatoes insulate it around the bottom and the sides. Don't add water. Cover and put in a low oven. Last night, "low" was about 250F. We pulled the pot out 2.3 hours later, when the internal temperature was 171F. In truth, we'd meant to pull it sooner, knowing it would continue to get hotter after the pot came out of the oven, but we'd gotten distracted. It went up to 184F after that, and we feared it would have overdone the roast. No need to worry. The roast was done perfectly, and the flavors excellent. Onion Soup mix. It isn't just for brisket and dips any more.

With all this lovely and inspiring shrimp talk going on, we still had a date with the pork roast and Lipton's Onion Soup mix. It rained much of yesterday -- a much-needed blessing -- and the weather was cool. I managed to get the oven to maintain 250F, something it isn't always willing to do. The pot went into the oven while it was preheating, and we went on about our business. 2 hours and 20 minutes later, we realized I hadn't set a temperature alarm for 150F internal pork temperature. My darling had wanted to try that, knowing the temperature would coast upward and not wanting to overcook the roast. The interior was at 171F. We turned off the heat and pulled the pot out of the oven. Then we watched, keeping the cover on to prevent any evaporation, and watched as the temperature climbed to 184F before it started back down. We don't think it did any harm, and in fact we're thinking that 150F (coasting up to 160F) might not have gotten the result we wanted. This meat was not dry despite the suggestion of the pot juices that clearly came from the meat. I can't show it in a still photo, but there's a sort of gelatinous jiggle that comes when a brisket is perfectly cooked. This was like that. We were happy. We also think that pork shoulder may be a very forgiving cut of meat. Note on the potatoes: he nuked them before loading them into the pot to give them a head start on cooking. We thought that step paid off. The potatoes were softer and more mashable on the plate, and they had absorbed more of the juice and the onion soup flavor. I noted earlier that he doesn't always bother with that microwaving step. After last night, we think he will.

Thanks, all of you! I'll know what to do next time, and maybe the texture on this one can be saved.

So do I!

The clouds are gathering and there's rain in the forecast today and tonightt. It will be lovely if it happens, and we're planning a cool-weather inside dinner, probably pork roast. Yesterday, however, it was pleasant weather for walking and continuing our search for flowers. A nearby velvet-mallow has opened its first blossom. The velvet-mallows grow nearly to my height and can be pretty showy, for the desert, in a good year. Last night we sat out by the campfire and admired the moon, while he cooked hash. It's his kind of cooking: simple ingredients, simple methods, tasty and filling.

I made spanikopita the other day, and it was delicious. The top layers of phyllo were crisp and flaky, just the way I remember the dish from the last time I had it. I stored the leftovers in the refrigerator, covered. The next day they still tasted good, but the crisp top layers had turned soggy. This got me to thinking about other dishes that use phyllo: baklava, for instance. Surely it hasn't been made fresh that day, every time I've eaten it. Why does the crust stay crisp? How should I have stored that spanikopita? Since it has cooked egg in the filling I wanted it refrigerated, and the cookbook said to do so. More broadly, how does one store phyllo-based pastries to keep them crisp? Finally: once cooked phyllo has gone soggy, is there a way to make it crisp again?

Yes, I too liked Good Earth...both the restaurant and the tea. Thanks for the link to that tea.