Smithy

Well, you've come to the right place. Dive right into the forums and start learning with the rest of us! Do you have any particular foods that you like to eat and would like to try to cook?

FOB = Far OutBack?

No, I'm not talking about what happens when an Aussie gets angry. Here in the podes we have a baked good called "Aussie Bites". They look like mini-muffins, are slightly larger than bite-sized, and are made of various seeds, ground nuts, chopped dried fruits and a bit of oil. My best friend found them at Costco, but I see they're available from Amazon and a quick Google search brings up recipes for them. We baked them from this recipe, more or less. They are delicious! My question is what makes these Australian, if they are. Is this some Australian delicacy that's made its way to our side of the pond, or some marketer's dream? If they're an Aussie specialty, does anyone here have a favorite version?

Whoops! Sorry, @Okanagancook - credit where credit's due, and I apologize for the mistake. Anyway, that way of cooking shrimp is a keeper. Many thanks.

Bless me! Isn't language fun and fascinating? I'm glad to know the shrimp preservation wasn't my imagination. I'll use that method in the future. I didn't much enjoy baking inside, but wanted that pita and the dough was impatient as well. I thought about cooking it on the camp stove, but it was just as hot outside as in. I did use the camp stove later on to steam the potatoes before grilling them. These little fingerling potatoes are perfect for skillet or campfire dishes. The last of our bacon went to wrapping the cheddar-stuffed shrimp per @ElsieD's recommendation, with a little left over to wrap asparagus for the grill. We had eight shrimp. Four were treated with cheddar and bacon; four were left in the shell and butterflied. All were grilled over the campfire. The steamed potatoes were tossed with olive oil and garlic, and grilled in a basket. I've read about grilling shrimp in the shell and peeling afterward. It was a tasty nuisance. Now that I've tried it, I'll stick to shelling them first. Although both treatments were good (the non-bacon shrimp got garlic butter) I think ElsieD's version was the winner. Thank you, Elsie! The shrimp was overcooked but delicious. The asparagus was less overcooked and wonderful. The wash, blossomless when we arrived, is breaking into shouts of color. Nonetheless, we'll be glad to get our darned truck back and clear out to cooler areas. "They hope tomorrow," they said today. We think it will be Thursday if we're lucky. Edited to add: as noted in the next post, @Okanagancook deserves the credit for the shrimp recipe.

Lunch:

Bacon is coming out of the freezer, right now. Thanks!

TriSodium Phosphate. It's a powdered cleaning/scrubbing agent available in hardware stores.

The other thing I did yesterday morning was mix sourdough pita dough. I set it in the refrigerator to rest and develop overnight, with an eye to baking it this morning. This morning, when I pulled it from the refrigerator, a packet of cheese was stuck to it. Overnight it had become the Monster that Ate the Refrigerator. Perhaps it's because in yesterday's heat the refrigerator was up to 54F. This morning it had crawled down to 42. I took the silicone lid off and cut the overflow away. It's a bit on the dried and crusty side. I have it under a damp tea towel to see whether I can moisten it enough to make it pliable again. The remainder of the dough, that stayed in the container, seems okay. Any advice about what to do with this mess? I'm going to clean up my breakfast dishes and then start rolling the pita. Edited to add: The dried stuff on the right was successfully rehydrated and also made into pitas. We're set for snack / sandwich breads for a few days.

The 8 that I held back weigh 268 grams (91/2 oz), which works out to 33.5g apiece. That makes them "Extra Jumbo" according to this chart. They were more expensive than the smaller shrimp, but not as exorbitant as $23/lb. Maybe we paid $15 or $16/lb? I wouldn't have bought them if they hadn't been so gorgeous and fresh, but they passed the sniff test at the shop and I'm glad I bought them.

That's kinda what I was getting at. Just wanted to make sure I understood the message. So yesterday while many of you were dealing with cold, snow and winds, we awoke to an outside temperature of 70F. The peak temperature in the afternoon - both inside the trailer and out - was 95. I had done all the necessary prep work for dinner and lunch during the morning hours. Tabbouleh was the plan for lunch, yesterday and today - and if it lasts, tomorrow. A couple of days ago I began defrosting our last package of shrimp from somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico. I've been saving these huge beauties for butterflying and grilling, or some other treatment ideal for large shrimp. Despite those plans, ceviche seemed in order. (As a side note: freezing shrimp with the ice in which they were packed seems to be an ideal method. It took a couple of days for that interior ice to melt, so the thaw was slow and gentle. These shrimp still smelled delightfully briny and fresh. I felt guilty for tossing the shells, but I already have shrimp broth in the freezer for which I have no plans.) We're out of Mexican limes and didn't have any regular (Persian) limes, so it was nice to have a jar of frozen juice from last year's(!) batch along with us. I reserved a few of the shrimp whole for grilling, and that's going to happen tonight. There was still plenty for the ceviche. Shrimp ceviche and chips: that was dinner, sometime well after dark. There are no dinner pictures. I'll write about my exciting bread preparation and the mess it made later; we're going for a walk before it gets too hot. In the meantime, here's a bit of the local color. If you look carefully at the shoe, in there for size, you'll see a lot of mustard-yellow. That's pollen. The desert is blooming!

Got a more detailed description? My meatballers are my hands.

That sounds like the Duluth (Minnesota) Farmers Markets. They'll also probably have some preserves, honey candles and baked goods - those things that are locally produced but not relying on this year's growth. I'm surprised that Yuma, Arizona doesn't seem to have a farmers' market or three. There's widespread industrial-scale agriculture here (maybe that's a clue) but the markets that I saw 3 years ago seem to have deteriorated (for my purposes only) into giant flea markets. Maybe there's produce sold but I'm not interested in wading through the crowds and traffic to find out. I called the number listed on a website for another local farmers' market and got a restaurant!

A quick search of members from Poland turned up a few, but they haven't posted in a long time. I don't have full information about member locations, though. Here's hoping that if there are others, they make themselves known!

My grandmother's version was "well, bless your gizzard!" She usually was joking but we grew up knowing what it really means.

Welcome, Kasia! It's nice to see someone from Poland join us. Do you like to cook for yourself, or do you prefer other people's cooking? What are some of your favorite foods?

Thanks for those notes. The book is so big it's hard to know where to start, especially among all the pickle recipes. I'm glad to see some recommendations.

I knew I'd seen a microwave method somewhere, but couldn't remember where. Thanks for that; I'll have to compare methods when I have regular microwave access again. Thanks also for posting the page number.

Ah, then perhaps I won't give that one a try? I spotted The Complete Asian Cookbook on Amazon when I was linking to the vegetarian book. Have you cooked much from it?

What a great idea! For those who don't know about the above-referenced post, here's a summary of my first foray into this book. Her Dieter's Eggplant Salad, Italian Style gives a new (to me) treatment of eggplant: cube it and boil the cubes, then drain thoroughly when they're soft. She says to boil it in water with a little lemon and salt, and twice now I've forgotten. I think the lemon would prevent the eggplant from browning. The result, even without the lemon and salt, is a silky, soft (but not mushy) and almost sweet bunch of eggplant chunks. Mix the drained eggplant chunks with other ingredients: chopped tomato, celery, onion if desired, garlic, parsley, chives, capers, salt and pepper, mixed with red wine vinegar. Oil is optional, but if you leave it out you have a filling meal with a trivial calorie count. Put the whole thing over salad greens. Here's my first result: I don't have the book in front of me at the moment. When I can get to it, I'll edit this post to add a page number.

@sartoric, I count myself lucky to have scored this Charmaine Solomon book. I'd never heard of her before, but I like her writing style. I was a bit taken aback by the Hunza Pie recipe, which opens with "Remember when every "alternative liefstyle" resaurant was serving Hunza Pie?" I certainly didn't...and that's when I realized she's from the opposite side of the globe. @kayb, I have to ask: is "God love you" the equivalent of "Bless your heart"? If so, I'll laugh and apologize. Dinner last night was more of the salad, meatballs and adzika, this time all in one bowl apiece. The mess from frying was as bad as before, but fewer dishes needed to be washed.

It is indeed delicious. I've written more about the sauce and the process in this post in the Meatball Cook-off topic. The recipes specifies 4 red chilis (nothing more specific) and I substituted half a jalapeño, some red chili flakes and Aleppo pepper. I think that accounts for my making a multicolored sauce instead of the red paste they describe, but we had no complaints here.

I've been enjoying the cookbook Samarkand: Recipes & Stories from Central Asia & The Caucasus, and my copy is bristling with bookmarks for recipes to try. This topic has spurred me to stop bookmarking and start cooking! There are several recipes for meatballs in it. I chose to begin with "Spicy Meatballs with Adjika and Yogurt". (Those of you still in winter's grip take note: this recipe is in the chapter titled "Warming Food for Long Winters".) Adjika is supposed to be a "spicy and fragrant pepper paste from Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia". Mine came out more like a sauce than a paste, probably because of substitutions due to a shortage of ingredients: this dish calls for 4 red chilis, which I'd forgotten to buy. Instead I used a combination of half a jalapeño, some red pepper flakes and Aleppo pepper. The heat was right for us, but the texture may not have been chunky enough. Even if it isn't quite as the authors intended we liked this condiment very much. I expect to make it more often. The other ingredients are tomatoes, garlic, celery, cilantro, basil, dill, mixed with a small amount of oil and vinegar, then balanced with sugar and salt. Here it is, after I'd finished processing it: The meatballs have an interesting mix of meats and seasonings: ground pork and beef, onion, garlic, barberries, sumac, ground coriander, ground pepper - where they used cayenne I used Aleppo - and salt, bound with a paste made from bread and milk. (I loved finding a recipe that uses barberries!) Shape them, let them rest, then fry. Serve with the adjika and, if desired, yogurt. My photography and presentation skills leave a lot to be desired here, but believe me when I say this is well worth cooking and eating. We discovered that the meatballs and adjika also went well atop the salad shown above, and that constituted dinner the next night: I think these would also go well as a pita filling with greens, the adjika and yogurt. They might cook well over an open fire instead of being fried. I intend to try it.

The trailer is stifling, the dog is puffing like a steam locomotive at high pressure, the cats are flattened heat dissipators, and this human is enervated. (The other human likes the heat, but admits it's a bit over the top.) In a few short days the temperatures have gone from the 60's (F) to the 90's. It's almost as hot inside as out, and when the breeze dies it's nearly unbearable. We can't move yet: our truck is in for repairs, and we're using a loaner. All of this means an abrupt change to cooking strategy. I've lost track of the glasses of water, tea and lemonade I've consumed during the day. Any food prep needs to be done in the morning before the kitchen gets too hot. I'm not usually an early riser unless it's demanded by circumstance, but this weather has taught me a new reason for an early start! We've used the campfire for cooking some nights; we've used the kitchen stove others (with my language as torrid as the trailer) because it's too warm to want a fire. The camp stove is set up and may be pressed into use tonight. I'm out of my sourdough bread and pita, but it isn't likely to happen for a few days. We'll use the store-bought soft whole wheat loaf. Salads are playing a prominent role. Charmaine Solomon's Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, included in a goodie basket I won in a silent auction last December, has a surprising treatment of eggplant: dice it, then boil it, then drain it and use in salad. I'd never heard of this treatment before. I love eggplant but have trouble controlling the oil intake when I fry it. When I brush it with oil and broil, all too often it ends up with charred or toasted slices. Roasting, then stuffing it or creaming it has been my usual method to cook it. This looked new. Solomon's recipe for "Dieter's Eggplant Salad, Italian Style" calls for eggplant, treated as above, mixed with chopped tomatoes, onion, chives, herbs, celery, garlic, capers, salt and pepper. Mix with red wine vinegar - and a bit of oil only if desired. Pour over greens, and serve. It's very good. Boiling the eggplant collapses and sweetens it in a way I hadn't expected. It has a nice texture: soft and almost silky, but not mushy. Overall, this is a very good salad (we're having it again tonight). Here's one iteration: We worked out a way to make it even better. Naturally, it involves meat and fat. Read on! I've been looking at meatball recipes in light of the eG Cook-off 75: Meatballs topic, and several recipes from the beautiful book Samarkand have caught my eye. One in particular, Spicy Meatballs with Adjika and Yogurt, looked good. I have bought and enjoyed barberries many times, but this is the first time I've seen them specified in a recipe. In this heat it took me 2 days: mix the meat ingredients and the sauce on one day, then form and cook the meatballs the next. The adjika is a spicy red pepper paste (it says in the book) that looks more like a sauce to me, but I had to make some ingredient substitutions. It is delicious, and I can easily see it becoming part of our regular condiment selection: chiles, tomatoes, garlic, celery, cilantro, basil, dill, oil, red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. Here's a top view: The meatballs are a mix of ground pork, ground beef, chopped onions, barberries, sumac, coriander, pepper, salt, and a binder of bread and milk. Form them and fry them, with or without florid language. Top with sauce... ...and yoghurt, if you like it. I do. We discovered, about halfway through dinner, that these meatballs and sauce are good on their own but BRILLIANT on the above-mentioned eggplant salad.

Those are pomegranates?? They look unlike any I've ever seen. Please tell more about them. Are the green lemons green as in 'unripe', or is that their ripe color? Can you describe how their flavor might differ from that of standard sour (Eureka or Lisbon in the USA, not sure about in China) lemons?