Smithy

Don't they scorch? That was always my experience, and I didn't like the smell.

In which case, it truly might be someone's last eggnog!

Yesterday was our day to go dump the holdings tanks, refill the water and propane and gasoline tanks, and dispose of garbage. It's normally a 3 hour operation, start to finish, but we decided to go to a different place in the misguided belief that it would go more quickly. Not only were we badly mistaken about the time and simplicity, but the paved road was actually worse than the dirt road we take to the other place. Note the position of the pot lids. These pots were on the floor, with their lids on, before we started! Still, we got it done and got back in time for a walk and a fine sunset. We finished the last of the beef ribs from Christmas for dinner last night. I'm not sure which planned-overs we'll have tonight, but we have plenty of choices.

No. I could tell the difference in short ribs by size, but not by flavor. The back ribs were slightly tougher and I only managed to remove the bone from one of them, but the flavor was similar.

Well. The dust has settled, many phone conversations with family and friends have been enjoyed, the dishes have been washed and put away and our Christmas feast is behind us. (In my case, increasing my behind.) Now I can tell about yesterday's Christmas dinner. Last week when I had to go to town and barely made it back before the flash flood warnings, it was partly because Nothing Would Do But We Had to Have Short Ribs for Christmas Dinner. We had talked about all the food in the freezer and how we shouldn't buy anything special, but I wanted short ribs. I had to go to town anyway for other errands, so it wasn't really a special trip. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I knew I was buying too much meat, but I didn't think the one package available at Fry's would be enough. So I went to Albertsons, got more short ribs, and while I was at it added beef back ribs to the mix. I was curious about the difference. When I unwrapped these, I thought the Fry's ribs had a strongish smell (note the darker color) and wondered whether they were spoiling. I washed them -- actually, I rinsed and patted dry all the meat -- and then coated them with this rib rub: It was a gift from my sister a few years ago. The Spice and Tea Shoppe has been a source of some fine gifts over the years! I browned the ribs on all sides, then added perhaps a cup of water -- enough to come halfway up the smaller pieces -- slapped a lid on the pot and put it into the oven as low as it would go. I think they braised in there for around 1.5 - 2 hours, but lost track of the time since I was working on other dishes in the meantime. I was following the technique I learned during the eGullet Culinary Institute's weeklong seminar and labs titled The Truth About Braising. I must say I've always been delighted with the results, but I don't think I've cooked short ribs this way for at least 10 years, due to changing family dynamics and, probably, laziness on my part. I bothered to take the extra steps: defat the sauce after the ribs were done, let them cool, remove the bones, then reheat the meat in the juices. It's more work, but makes a better presentation at the dinner table. In addition I learned from @Wolfert during the course and subsequent discussion that it helps add even more tenderness to the meat. In this case, I made gravy from the defatted juices, then rewarmed the ribs in the gravy just before serving. While the ribs were braising, I mixed up scalloped corn and a wing-it attempt at potatoes dauphinois using paper-thin slices of potatoes interspersed with butter and poured over with cream. The idea was to get a crispy base and tender potatoes. I think it went too long. Flavors were good, but there was quite a lot stuck to the bottom of the pan. Earlier in the day I'd used the food processor while the generator was running, to make a cranberry salad. It's based on his family's recipe: fresh cranberries, a whole orange or two, toasted walnuts, a bit of sugar. It was to be an accompaniment to dinner, or a dessert, but we never got to it. It's been breakfast this morning, and will be for a few more mornings. It took 3 loads of dishwashing (counting the food processor in the morning) and I wouldn't want to do this often any more -- but dinner was tasty and we have plenty of leftovers. I don't think we'll need to cook anything this week, beyond reheating things in the microwave. A nice GSM accompanied the dinner. He isn't usually a wine drinker, but made an exception last night. (He abstained from the barbecue sauce last night on his ribs, but has already noted that he'll probably put it on his next portions. 🤷‍♀️)

Those cat mugs are adorable! Too bad about the chipping.

Here it is, working on a very small can of jalapenos -- about the diameter of a can of tomato paste. It worked like a charm. @Maison Rustique. I think the angle of the cylinder is necessary so that the cutter is going halfway from top to bottom of the top seam. Note the angle of the body of the opener while it was in action. Even on this small can, when it was done I had a smooth edge on both the lid and the can.

The writeup says there's a small hole drilled in the base so that air can get in and out of the insulating layer as needed, to avoid fracturing. My guess is that it's possible to get water into that insulating layer, but I doubt that would cause any breakage. If you've been putting it in the dishwasher with no problems, then I'd say you don't need to worry!

They're lovely, but i must say that at home "practical, no-nonsense" would exclude "hand-wash only" dishes from our everyday use. 😉

I like your style, @blue_dolphin! I also like that mug. I have one or a few, packed away at home. It's nice to see it, vicariously.

Funny, I hadn't noticed it before! But yes, the cutting wheel has a slight angle. It's most noticeable when looking at the gizmo end-on. If it dies in the next few uses we'll know it isn't supposed to be like that. 🙂 But it's been working fine so far.

Over here, @Pete Fred showed a picture of his figgy pudding, and quoted the requisite lines from the Christmas carol "We wish you a Merry Christmas". It reminded me of a story a friend told a few days ago. She watches the TV game show "Password". The premise is that teams have to provide the missing word from a phrase. The theme on the night in question was "holiday" (or maybe specifically "Christmas"). The clue was "pudding". The teams were apparently clueless. Somebody guessed banana pudding, another guessed chocolate pudding, yet another guessed Jello pudding, and so on. Eventually the light dawned, and a team member shouted "Friggin!" She really thought the line was "Now bring us some friggin' pudding...." We had a lot of fun singing it that way during the subsequent caroling session. 😀

I had the chance to use the magic can opener twice for tonight's dinner; on a can of refried beans, and a can of red enchilada sauce. The can opener is ridiculously fun to use, just as a FoodSaver is ridiculously gratifying. The dinner was enchiladas. The ingredients: good local pork chorizo (none of that pale nonsense from Duluth), a red onion, refried beans, some tortillas left over from a visiting guest last fall, grated cheddar, and cherry tomatoes whose time had long since passed. I cooked the chorizo and onion outside on the camp stove, partly because the poor stove hasn't had much use yet and partly to keep the mess outside. I brought the cooked stuff in and went to work on the enchiladas. This is a dish I don't do often enough for efficiency, much less to make it all neat. Still, once everything was assembled it went into a 375F oven for an unattended hour. That left time to do other things. The served enchiladas looked, well, messy and not very impressive until we garnished them at the table. There was chopped lettuce, chopped parsley and cilantro, sour cream, more shredded cheddar (which neither of us used) and salsa. Each of us had only 1 enchilada. We'll have another dinner and probably another lunch from the leftplanned-overs. Someday, maybe I'll remember that I really must line the pan. I baked this in my enameled cast iron dish. I put enchilada sauce on the bottom before adding the enchiladas themselves, but the tortillas still stuck. The pan is soaking as I type.

Done. At 59MB I doubt I'll be uploading many videos this winter, but "I" now have a YouTube channel! 🙂

@FauxPas suggested elsewhere that I upload a video of my can opener in action to YouTube. Here it is.

...or stress from being rootbound? I was wondering the same thing.

That sounds delicious! Thanks for the suggestion. Come to think of it, walnuts would be good too. I bet I can make that chicken last twice as long and be 4 times as good!

Dessert time for my darling (and later for me): a bit of Christmas self-indulgence. The Yuma Optimists Club has its annual fundraiser selling See's Candies from a stand. For the last year or three I've bought a big box for the badly-overworked, underappreciated staff in our post office. They know us, even though we're only part-timers! This year I got particular thanks because they feel so overwhelmed and mostly hear complaints. While I'm at the stand, I buy a small box for us. Hey, the money goes to a good cause. 😉

Crisping the skin to make a salad topper would be excellent! This time, though, I just chopped it all together. Then I chopped celery and parsley and added that, bound it together with mayonnaise and a touch of dill pickle juice, and called it good. It IS good. The pieces perhaps could have been chopped more finely; this wouldn't spread nicely on bread for a sandwich. However, it's fine wrapped in lettuce or loaded onto a (large) celery stick. I may try adding kimchi later, at least to a small bit, to see what that does.

When I went to town yesterday, the clouds were lowering and it was clearly already raining in Yuma. I needed to go anyway, and decided not to let the storm get any worse. It's a good thing I did it that way: by the time all the errands were run and I was on my way home, roads were beginning to flood. After I got home and unpacked most of the groceries, flash flood warnings started up on our cell phones: don't travel unless absolutely necessary. We hoped to get a flood in the nearby stream bed -- it's a beautiful sight -- and that never happened. However, we did get a spectacular double rainbow just before sunset. It glowed almost neon-bright. Truly gorgeous. This morning, I checked on the artificial watering hole about a half mile away. The water level had been as low as I've ever seen it: at least 4' below grade. Now it's full. The folks who situated it did an excellent hydrologic study when deciding where to put it. So far today I've made whomp sweet rolls for my darling. Last night I did NOT make the enchiladas I'd been planning. I'd been so hungry at the second grocery stop (Albertsons) that I bought a bucket of fried chicken and ate 2 wings before leaving the parking lot. We ate more last night. Now what we have left is most of the breast meat. I swear these chickens must have been built like sumo wrestlers! i'm going to make chicken salad from it. Have you ever made chicken salad including the skin from fried chicken? I think I'm going to try it. And maybe I'll get to those enchiladas today.

I had to go to town yesterday for prescription drugs, and nothing would do but that I had to visit the grocery store. Two of them, in fact, to get everything I wanted. Sheesh. What a zoo! Our plan is not to go anywhere by car until after Christmas. Maybe I'll be able to do something more satisfying than the last few days have provided.

Too bad I didn't know that last night! I found a bunch of leaf shards, frozen in a bag in the freezer, and decided they had to be bay leaves instead of the curry leaves I sought. They would have been at least 10 years old, harvested from a state park in Texas. There were too broken and I didn't want to mess with all those bitty sharp pieces. They're gone now. But I'll remember that substitution the future, against the time I once again have fresh bay but not curry leaves. BTW I need to know how you pronounce "curry" and "bay". 😉 It was another long, long day. Before we left for town I'd taken the trouble to rinse the green beans I'd bought nearly 2 weeks ago. Would I trim and cut them when we got home, or ignore them again? With great fortitude I rinsed, trimmed and cut them after we got home. The Cookie & Kate recipe for Green Bean Salad with Toasted Almonds and Feta (in this case, pecans rather than almonds) is one I can do in my sleep. (This is what I aspire to with Indian cookery, but I've a long way to go.) I even have live basil for garnish! It was dinner. It was enough. There's more for tomorrow. Now, I'm off to bed.

I hope you like it. So far we love ours for its utitlity and compactness. As a bonus, there is the giggle / startle factor when it's accidentally activated in the gadget drawer. "What's that?" exclaims my darling. It deactivates quickly when it doesn't sense the proper pressure.

So far I'm still at the stage of trying to get ONE dish together! The planned-over idea is a good one. I think @sartoric may have reported the same process when she was posting about Indian food. Her schemes often looked quite elaborate and literally marvelous.

Thanks, @blue_dolphin! Incidentally, the book is Recipes from an Indian Kitchen, by Sunil Vijayakar (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Here's the overleaf from the dust cover. Note the instructions to "prepare your ingredients, set out your equipment..." and Bob's your uncle, you'll have tasty Indian food. This is of course what one always does: mise en place. I don't know why the mise always fuddles me with Indian food. Maybe this will be the year I get over that? (Nah, probably not. 🙄 ) Happy Solstice, everybody!