Smithy

Please add my condolences to the others'. It's good that she could have the company of loving friends and family to the end, and comforting that those friends and family could share cheer with her.

Welcome, Tea-Lover. Tell us more about yourself?

While much of the country is experiencing blizzards and severe cold, we've been enjoying sunshine - and, finally, evenings warm enough to cook over a campfire. After a few fits and starts, we've got the setup tuned: a campfire ring big enough for a healthy fire, small enough to support a cooking grate. We forgot to pack our usual grate for this trip. However, since we had to scrap our oven/stove at the beginning of the year, we kept its stovetop grate and oven rack. The stovetop grate is perfect for our purposes. The oven rack is too big to fit in our new oven! The fire ring has a break in front for adding wood as needed. Our usual view while we're cooking: Using the flash illuminates a little of the pot's contents: We're still working out how much oil, how hot a fire, how frequently to turn potatoes or fish to get them just right. One of us is pleased with the results because There Is No Such Thing As Bad Fried Food. The other is more put out when it isn't gotten right, but grateful that the smell and spatter stay outside. A few of our campfire meals: There's also a grill basket that can be used to hold burgers or, a couple of nights ago, chicken thighs. We're still using the stove and oven inside, for baking bread and cooking vegetables: We have a camp stove and will probably break it out before too long for the stovetop items. I suspect the vegetables could also be done over the campfire, but wish to get one technique "dialed in" at a time. Two nights ago we were treated to this: ...and, turning around, we had this:

I flinched when I saw it was on a Yahoo! site and had a title that began with "57 things..." So many of those articles turn into clickbait slide shows, and I just don't have that much patience. This article, from Epicurious, was succinct and short. I think it has a lot of good tips, although there are bound to be disagreements about some of them. For instance, I *like* my salad spinner, thankyouverymuch. :-)

I look at the beautiful desserts and gorgeously-done dinners, and then I look at my photos. Some of you may think this is going from the sublime to the ridiculous: Citrus and fruit-salad gelatin! Ingredients: 1 box (4 envelopes) of Knox gelatin, 1-1/2 c Minneola tangelo juice to be brought to the boil; 1/2 c Navel orange juice to be kept cool; fruit salad of raspberries, strawberries, Navel orange slices, Mandarin orange slices, grapes, pomegranate seeds and one lonely persimmon. Bring the tangelo juice to the boil, and allow it to cool slightly. Sprinkle the gelatin over the orange juice and allow it to bloom for 2 minutes. Pour the tangelo juice into the gelatin/orange juice mixture and stir until the gelatin dissolves, add the fruit salad, mix, and pour into a mold to set. In this case the mold was a simple 6-cup Gladware plastic container. I put plastic wrap on the surface to keep the fruit submerged until the gelatin set. This is a very flexible treatment, and a good way to keep delicate fruits like raspberries longer than they would normally keep in the refrigerator. The only items that can't go into the fruit salad are fruits that interfere with the gelling process: raw pineapple, for instance. As for the juice: any juice can be used, but I get the best results if I minimize heat to the orange juice. Navel orange juice has an enzyme that turns it bitter fairly quickly if allowed to sit out, and I've had it turn bitter with heating. Harold McGee says that the enzyme is deactivated with heat, but I haven't found the temperature. (This is, incidentally, a reason that most orange juice comes from Valencia oranges, which do not contain the enzyme.) The juice can be thinned with water, or not. It could, of course, be dolled up with a prettier mold, a precise arrangement of the fruit, perhaps even a garnish. Right now, I'm taking the low road.

Thanks, Okanagancook, for that post. (What you consider a crappy photo is something I'd be proud to manage. :-D) I love chermoula, and with lamb loin that sounds like a great combination. I'm behind on my magazines, but I'll be sure to look into this issue.

I don't like frying things in canola oil, because it invariably develops (to my senses) a fishy note...maybe not so bad with fish, but definitely off with red meat or with chicken. Others here have noted the same thing, whereas other people don't notice a change. Try using a different oil...safflower or sunflower, or grapeseed if you can get it. They're all neutral oils with high smoke points.

Welcome, georgetollman! You're sure to get good advice from people like jmacnaughton, above, and he's right that you'll get better guidance if you tell people what you already know you like. You may also find this eGullet Culinary Institute (eGCI) course on Evaluating Wine useful. I did.

That looks tasty, ElsieD. Please tell more about it?

Those are funny. I didn't guess a single title, but I liked them. Planet of the Aprons, indeed!

Minneola tangelo (Scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page.) Jim, that looks and sounds wonderful! You should post more information on the Citrus cook-off topic. :-)

Mine too! I'll bet that chocolate was just the right note to set everything off to perfection. Thanks for the additional notes on what you'd do differently next time. It's nice to know that tried-and-true recipes (shortbread, filling) can be better than what the published pros recommend.

I'll post later about this hard-to-find item. We stock up when we do find it. For now, here's a photo of two boxes that came out of our stores.... and another that seems to have been retrieved just. in. time. It's in the trash, unopened. I'm glad it didn't explode.

Here is the topic: eG Chocolate and Confection Workshop 2015

Those look like wonderfully dense brownies. I favor brownies that run more toward the dense, fudgy end of the texture spectrum, rather than the airy, cakish end where the line between 'brownie' and 'cake' is nearly indistinguishable to me. It looks as though you're far, far from that line. Lovely photos, Anna.

Just as dried beans get too old to rehydrate properly, I would expect rice grains to do the same...although, if I were asked to bet, I'd be hard pressed to predict whether they would go rancid first. This is speculation on my part, however. I am notorious for keeping beans and rice far longer than the optimum storage time. I usually get away with it, but I've produced some rather crunchy bean dishes and downright rancid brown rice dishes because I kept them too long. In other words, I'm no expert on arborio.

Ha. There was just enough leftover filling for one person's lunch today. Cook's privilege! Edit: the sour cream froze overnight. I forgot to adjust the refrigerator's temperature setting after defrosting it.

We drove south and east from the Salton Sea, passing more dates, acres of row crops (many of this country's winter vegetables come from this area), feed lots and, of course, towns, and eventually drove back up above sea level. If "the big one" hit (the San Andreas fault runs through here) and re-opened this valley to the sea, as it once was, there would be hundreds of square miles flooded. We've moved on into the desert, far from water except when it rains. It had rained while we were at the Salton Sea (and a slimy mess it was, getting out) but judging by the puddles yesterday there was more water here. I wish, sometimes, that the internet had ways to convey aromas. The smell of the desert after a rain is sweet, and I look forward to seeing flowers bloom here soon. One of the reasons we'd been looking forward to getting here was to cook over a campfire, and that was yesterday's plan when I set out to fix dinner. The plan was campfire fajitas. There was a lot of washing, chopping and seasoning to do before I arrived at this: Maybe it's just as well we decided it was too cool to sit out by the campfire and cook. The plan was to cook each vegetable separately and add to a plate to keep warm, while the meat was sizzling. At this time of year it also has to be done by the light of the campfire and the Coleman lantern, because the days are still so short. (I know, it's much warmer and the days are longer than in northern Minnesota and points north of there! But that's why we're here. ) In retrospect, knowing that I used every scrap of counter space and oven, I'm not sure how I'd have made it work without things cooling off too much. There were also greens to spin and whirr with garlic and oil to make a sauce: Dinner was late. I'd considered inviting our quarter-mile-away neighbor to dinner before he cleared out. It's a good thing I didn't, or he'd have had to stay over for the night!

I have a friend who decorates her home with her scarves and has been known to make clothing from her old curtains, a la Maria and the Von Trapp children. It never occurred to me that old curtains (even the sheers) could be used in cookery also! Thanks!

"Glass curtain"? Google has failed me. Is this mica? Please tell more.

When you glue together two 1mm thicknesses, I wonder whether you'll end up with cracking (due to stretching of the outer strip or compression of the inner strip) when you try to bend them. Do you plan to curve them somewhat before gluing?

That's beautiful work, David. The peeled slices remind me of the lacy crisps that one gets from baking shredded cheese in little flattened patties until it's crisp - I forget what those are called (ducks head in shame) but they always look pretty when someone gets them right. Do you think, in retrospect, that the parchment paper blocked circulation? Would these have been more or less sticky if put on a grate over a baking sheet? Would you have been able to get them off the grate when finished?

Judging by the photos, it looks like the right-hand polish/shellac set came out prettier than the left-hand polish/shellac set. Is that the one you preferred?

That looks like something I'd enjoy if someone were to serve it to me. I admire your solution to the 'name in the mold' problem! :-D

Welcome, Chef Ruby. You've come to the right place for discussions such as these!