Smithy

So was she giving you tins she was tired of, or did she manage to buy a sample pack? I'm not seeing your particular combination in one package. They do look interesting!

I had dinner guests last night and spent most of the day playing in the kitchen. I don't have pictures of the entire spread (appetizers, slow-cooked pork ribs, green salad, and wine are all out of the photo collection) but I do have photos of the Two Grand Experiments. Yes, I experiment to some degree with company, especially these particular friends. I've been wanting to cook a Washington Post recipe for Roasted Tomato Pie with Cheddar-Parmesan Crust. I had some lovely-looked heirloom tomatoes to commit to the recipe. My gift articles from the Post don't usually seem to work here, but here's the link anyway: click. For good measure, here's a PDF of the document. Roasted Tomato Pie With Cheddar-Parmesan Crust Recipe - The Washington Post.PDF This was a lot of work, but delicious. Next time (and I do think there'll be a next time) I'll either use a smaller pie plate or double the filling. (Edited to add: now as I empty the dishwasher, I see I used a larger pie plate than the recipe specifies. My bad.) I'll also be sure not to reach into the food processor bowl with my bare hands to check the dough consistency. I'm not used to using a food processor for pie dough, and my thoughtless action slowed me down. The other experiment involved making a peach pie using pie filling I'd made and frozen a couple of years ago, when the peaches were particularly good. I suspect I got the idea here someplace. Now I have to find my notes on what, exactly, I put in there: peach chunks, sugar, no doubt some lemon, and either flour or cornstarch. After I made the crust using my mother's standard recipe, not the cheese recipe from the pie above, I put the barely-thawed pie filling into the shell, rolled out the top dough and put it atop everything. I remembered to cut vents but forgot to use liquid to seal the bottom and top crusts. I also didn't think to put an egg wash on the top layer, though maybe it didn't matter. I think it's been at least a decade since I've made this style of pie! You can see in the photo that some of the juices leaked out through the unsealed edges, but nobody complained. There was plenty of good flavor in that pie!

I will never again reach into my food processor (NOT running) to check the consistency of pie crust dough. That blade is SHARP. Fortunately I have plenty of bandages and finger cots so I could contain the blood. Seriously, folks: if the material in the processor bowl isn't too runny, tip it out onto a work surface and remove the cutting blade before feeling around the dough. If it is runny, use a spatula.

I do not need to be enabled. I do not need to replace my CSO-300 (although I need to clean it to regain the steam function). Still. ...How could I find out whether I could buy one in Thunder Bay, the nearest Canadian city, and how much it would cost? Who's carrying these things, north of the border?

I'm kinda sorry I used a translation program for this. I'd expected something more colorful!

@TdeV, your sandwich ingredients look delicious! I use my panini press on the highest setting on the "Grill-Panini" side; on mine, the hottest setting for that is "Sear". I do always preheat it (with the lids open*) before I put the sandwich in. It's been a while since I bothered to time the process, but I'd guess at about 5 minutes. Keep in mind that my machine is a thrift-store special, so it may not be up to specs. I don't think I've measured the griddle temperature settings. I should do that sometime, I suppose. As I noted for my last sandwich, I have found that I prefer butter on the outside rather than mayo. I don't think the mayo adds much in the way of flavor, and it might indeed give that greasy sense that you had from yours. I do like a fairly heavy coating of butter, probably more than necessary, but it crisps up nicely and gives a good flavor IMO. Incidentally, the longer or hotter you cook the sandwiches, the more you're likely to cook the greens. I like the crispness of fresh greens, so I add them after the pressing is done. I do the same thing if I'm adding sauerkraut for something like a Reuben, though that's more to keep the "good" bugs alive than because of a textural issue. @BeeZee, your idea might work too. I've never tried that. I'm not sure I've even tried brushing the bread with oil instead of butter, much less brushing the oil on the griddle as you suggest. I'm just kindof a butter fiend. 😀 But the oil-brushing you suggest should ensure that all the bread contacted the griddle without soaking up too much. *Lids open, partly to ensure that everything is at max temperature but also to make sure that I've removed the manual and scraper. Ask me how I know.

That's quite a thick coating on the shrimp in the fried shrimp tacos in the post immediately above this one. Could you taste the shrimp? Can you describe the coating? (For instance - could you detect any breading or flavors?) I'm not entirely a purist about oysters; I'd happily eat Oysters Rockefeller any time I could, for instance. However, I agree that a good oyster doesn't need much dressing up. What did the others think about oysters with tuna? Weren't you even tempted to try one? 🙃

How do you mean the spinach "isn't traditional"? Is it something about the cooking, or simply the fact that it's cooked as a stand-alone green vegetable?

I cooked them in a convection mode; I happen to have a Cuisinart Steam Oven which has a Convection Bake cycle, so I didn't have to heat my entire oven for a single chile. I cooked them at 375F, flipped them at about 20 minutes, and stopped cooking when they were crisp and browned to my satisfaction. Total time was probably 45 minutes, maybe only 40.

Parking strategies are an interesting observation from you regulars. 😀 I just have to go on the rare occasions I have access, and worry about the parking then! But not being a morning person, I'm very unlikely to encounter the folks lined up waiting for the place to open. @blue_dolphin, I rarely buy any prepared foods these days, and as noted in an earlier post it was @JAZ who inspired/tempted/corrupted me to try some of TJ's offerings. The ingredient lists of the items I bought looked like things I'd normally eat anyway (i.e. not highly processed), so you may wish to take a peek at what they have to offer.

The other chile relleno from a package I bought at Trader Joe's and discussed here. This time, I remembered to plate it properly (that is, to put the sauce beneath the chile). It would have been delicious either way.

Oh boy, I had the other Chile Relleno from the package for tonight's dinner. I'm glad I bought two packages! I'd stock these on a regular basis if I could. This time I remembered to take better cross-sections.

Another chance, almost, at the sandwich I described yesterday. There wasn't enough chicken salad to make 2 open-faced sandwiches as I'd described, and yesterday that much food was overkill anyway. So today it's the remaining chicken salad on a ciabatta bun, with the bitter baby greens and slices of a tomato. There are dill pickle chips in the shadow of the sandwich. I like 'em but am glad I didn't put them on the sandwich itself.

Or a really low-slung offset smoker?

@TdeV I agree with @rotuts. That cooked bacon will last in the refrigerator for a while but it'll keep longer in the freezer. In my experience, the freezer also means the bacon is less visible and less likely to become a snack. 😀 I usually store it in a sealed plastic container in the refrigerator (no tight wrapping required) but it has an amazing habit of "evaporating".

Now that I've had a chance to sleep on the whole idea, I think that the "time-saving step" of cooking the bones inside the basket was counterproductive. It might make sense for uncooked chicken bones, or using a lot of fresh meat, because of the extra collagen available. But in this case I think it diluted the stock unnecessarily. Without the basket, "water to cover" would have been considerably less and would probably have produced a more flavorful product. After cooking I could simply have used a colander and a fresh bowl. (And I will absolutely, positively remember to position the strainer over the bowl, instead of over the drain. I could have sworn I'd written about that somewhere in the long history of the I Will Never Again... topic, but I can't find it now.)

I must be in Sweetie's erstwhile camp. I've never felt that the stock made from the carcasses was too salty. Granted, I don't usually put the skin in (because I've already eaten it, or shared it with my dog). I'm a bit surprised that skinless carcasses still produce too salty a stock for you; most of that salt should be in the skin, or the meat that was already taken from the carcass. Granted, in my case the wing tips and joint cartilege go into the pot; maybe there's some residual salt there? As for what I do: it's pretty pedestrian these days. Pull the meat off the bones; break the bones at the joints so they'll fit more compactly in the pot (this includes breaking up the breastbone and the spine); cover with water; pressure cook for 50 minutes. I haven't bothered with any aromatics the last few times I've done this. Then, if I've used the IP as I did this time and had the carcass in a basket, I just pull the basket out, drain the juices into the rest of the stock, and simmer the stock to intensify it a bit. Right now, after 4 hours of sitting in an open pot on the Slow Cook mode, I'm still looking at around 4 quarts of stock. I could probably boil it down more, but this will do for my purposes. Edited to add: now that I've put the stock into containers, and had a taste, I will tell you that this stuff is nothing to write home about. I've noticed before that uncooked chicken produces a thicker stock, no doubt because there's much more collagen. This stuff that I've made today won't gel, ever. The only way it's likely to be solid is if it freezes! So...concentrating it would have been better. Aromatics would have been better. Still...it'll do for boiling pasta or potatoes or some such and adding a touch more flavor. And no, I don't think it's particularly salty.

You'll have to use your imagination for this one. That's a come-down from @blue_dolphin's post immediately before this one, so if you're of the sensitive sort then just switch to another page. I've been noshing on a rotisserie chicken from my favorite grocery store for a few days. Today I'm home, so I stripped the remaining meat from the carcass, chopped it with a bunch of basil leaves, and mixed in mayonnaise. Here's a sample: Now. Imagine that atop the sliced and toasted halves of a ciabatta bun, then topped with chopped Campari tomatoes and baby spring greens. You'll have to just imagine that, because it's already gone. Pretty darned good. Pretty darned easy. And the carcass has joined the other chicken bones I've been saving, and they're all in the Instant Pot being pressure cooked for broth. I was out of broth. I won't be.

For the record: the TJ's chile relleno does NOT include Green Bell Pepper. I dislike GBP almost as much as you, and I can attest that the labels are correct. Also, with due respect to your casserole (which I'm sure is delicious), I'm not convinced that its ingredients are close enough to qualify as a CR subsitute...although i will concede that it's simpler than any of my "less is more" casserole substitutes and no doubt delicious as it is. Here are two of my CR casseroles, which contain the same ingredients but admittedly don't have the crust from frying: Dec. 2023 and Dec. 2018. Wow, difficult to believe how many years have passed since then! But I think I preferred the Dec. 2018 version. Anyway, if you really want "less is more" I recommend the TJ's version; you can consume them without GBP fear.

@rotuts, thanks for the tip on the parchment paper. In this case it doesn't matter; the non-stick plates really are non-stick, and they're easy to clean. But if I'm working on stovetop, I'll try to remember that trick. Edited to add: oops, I mean to thank @DesertTinker for the tip. Sorry about that! But thanks.

This may not be terribly different from my earlier Panini-Pressed sandwiches, but I continue to enjoy my $8 purchase. There are a fair number of appliances that I've bought over the years that, if/when they die, I won't bother to replace. This I'll replace, if/when it fails me. There's an adage, attributed to Dorothy Parker, that eternity = two people and a ham. Imagine the case for a single person! Nonetheless, my favorite local high-end grocery store commissions wonderful double-smoked hams as a holiday special, and I indulged during last year's holiday season. And cut it up, and vacuum-sealed the chunks. The strategy seems to be working well. Earlier this week I started jonesing for some of that ham. Ham with potatoes. Mac'n'cheese'n'ham. Grilled ham sandwiches. I pulled out a smallish chunk and roasted it with baby potatoes and a package of Lipton's Recipe Secrets (basically, their onion soup mix). Today was my chance at a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, using my beloved panini press. Sourdough bread, pepper jack cheese, mayo and mustard on the interior. @rotuts has mentioned before that putting mayonnaise on the outside of the bread, instead of butter, made for a nice coating. I decided to try it. To be fair, I'd used too much mayo inside and needed to do something with the extra. I did mayonnaise on one surface and butter on the other. After the whole shebang was grilled I put in chopped baby greens (arugula and spring greens). See the difference in doneness on the two sides? The bottom part had the mayonnaise on the outside. It's possible that the color difference is due to more heating on the bottom plate, but I think the composition of the mayonnaise was a factor also. All told, I preferred the buttered surface. It seemed a bit more flavorful. But the entire sandwich was good, and more than plenty for dinner.

I think you're going to fit right in here! I remember staying up until 2, 3 or even 4 in the morning during an eG seminar on braising! Then I'd go to work after a few hours' sleep! (But I was much younger then. 😆)

I think it has some tenderizing effect, but based on my husband's perceptions the "tenderizing" may have more to do with the strategic cutting (and not overcooking!) of meat chunks. It is delicious, though.

Whoops! Yes, I had intended to include this link. Thank you for pointing out the lapse.

I hope you aren't talking about the ground beef you just purchased? What a shame, if so! My mother learned about this recipe for venison marinade, which also works well on beef, pork and chicken. If you need careful seasoning, this may be of interest to you.