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Smithy

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Everything posted by Smithy

  1. *Sigh* more enabling! Until now I didn't know about the All-in-One Dutch Oven Cookbook for Two (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Now it's in my collection. It's a good thing Kindle cookbooks don't weigh as much as regular cookbooks.
  2. Janet was good enough to post her recipe for Chili con Carne here after I asked. It obviously isn't the entire book, but it gives you an idea of what's in that book.
  3. If I understand the question correctly, there are a lot of cookbooks out there that produce an entire dinner dish in a single pot. Here are a couple by our own @JAZ: Dutch Oven Dinners: A Cookbook for Flavorful Meals Made in Your Favorite Pot (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) has The Best Chili recipe I've ever eaten (although my husband prefers his own version) The Ultimate Instant Pot® Cookbook for Two: Perfectly Portioned Recipes for 3-Quart and 6-Quart Models (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) She's done a lot more Instant Pot cookbooks, and as far as I know most or all of them use only that one pot. Is that the sort of thing you mean with your question?
  4. I've mentioned before that pork is probably my darling's favorite meat. He's been jonesing for a pork roast...old-fashioned pork roast, the way he likes it. We've had one from home in the freezer, vacuum-packed, about 3 pounds. We finally hauled it out and cooked it the time-honored way: atop a layer of potatoes that had been nuked to give them a head start, covered with Lipton's Onion Soup mix, and cooked low and slow until the meat was done. Oven temperature was around 275 - 300F, which is as low as I can get on the bottom rack. We let it go a few hours until the meat reached 165F, then turned the oven off (it stays warm due to the pilot light) and let the meat coast until we were ready to eat. I have been quietly working to shift our meals toward more vegetables and less meat, but I must say this was FABULOUS. Unctuous. Delicious. Yes, fatty. Note that there were a few vegetables, but they weren't the focus of last night's meal. We carved the meat off the bone this morning and sliced it. The potatoes are in another container. We figure we have at least 2 meals each, maybe more. Since we still have leftovers from previous dinners as well, I don't think there will be much proper cooking going on for the next few days. Oh, except I need to cook more beans! Last night's sunset:
  5. I'm very glad you tried the recipe and reported back! I like it when people try something I've written about, whether it's my own invention (quite rare) or someone else's. Besides, your link prodded me to go back and find where @lindag had said I could subscribe to her emails. I've done so.
  6. My current batch of kefir, in a pop-top milk jug, has blown its lid twice already today. Pretty funny, but I think it's time to put it into the refrigerator. 🙂
  7. Some of last night's leftovers for lunch. The stuff is dry, probably because the potatoes soaked up the bacon grease and moisture. It's also bland. Or it was until I added kimchi. That's livening the dish up! But I don't think it's really the desired flavor profile...at least I'm getting in some fermented food.
  8. Smithy

    Dinner 2024

    I've never tried the Kitchen Basics brand; my go-to purchased stock has been Swanson's low-sodium broth but I never use it all at once. Thanks for this recommendation. I'll have to try it.
  9. Thanks, @OlyveOyl. I think I understand it now.
  10. That looks like a huge room. Is it all one room in those photos, or are you showing us more than one kitchen? What's this in the foreground, if you remember? And is this a long-handled wok with a lid on? Is it set into a recess atop the stove?
  11. Last night's dinner wasn't inspired by anyone's recipe: I just wung it. Chopped chicken thighs seasoned with Italian herb mix, chunks of potato, onion, and bacon; a jar of Trader Joe's marinated grilled artichoke hearts, and a few cherry tomatoes. Not bad, but it needed...something. I put the last of my tahina sauce on it (a Clark recipe, there) but it needed something more. We won't have any trouble finishing the leftovers, but it wasn't one of those dishes where he said "I hope you wrote down what you did!" This morning I've broken into a jar of rabbit rillettes I bought at a favorite restaurant at home before we left. Pretty good stuff, but quite rich. I think I'll cut it with something...green onions, perhaps? Chopped parsley? Quick! If you're a cake baker, wouldn't you love to be able to put a finish like this on your chocolate cake? It's actually mud drying and flaking in a nearby puddle. I can't help thinking it looks like chocolate curls atop chocolate glaze.
  12. Thanks for that recommendation. I'll bite, so to speak, particularly because I'd like to see Ms. Clark get some money from me for her hard work. Granted, the Kindle version (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) won't give her much, but it'll ring something at the cash register.
  13. You raise a very good point. When I cook rice from scratch I don't salt it either, so why would some of those pouches contain salt? I'll have to see if I can find a pattern to the salt/no-salt packages.
  14. I had to look this up. Is this Chinese water jar (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) similar to what you have? I can't figure out how the water seal works. I'd appreciate photos and an explanation.
  15. I'm not sure yet what I'll do about dinner tonight. He began agitating for pork roast. A large (3 - 4 lbs) pork roast came out of the freezer today, but no way will it be thawed in time. I remember that @Pam R, way back when, discovered Cooking a Frozen Roast Without Thawing but I don't think I'm going to try it today. So the pork roast is thawing for tomorrow, and I pulled some chicken thighs out for today. How exactly I'll cook them remains to be seen. Strange...sometimes I can't wait to try out new recipes, and other times it just seems like too much work to read, process and follow a recipe. I've had Melissa Clark's beautiful book Dinner: Changing the Game (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) checked out from the local library for a while. I'll probably use her for inspiration instead of following one of the recipes I've bookmarked. This is, incidentally, a gorgeous book. I usually find Clark's recipes in the NYTimes to be reliable. I may spring for my own copy of this book, but it seems a bit silly if I haven't cooked from it in a month of ogling. I'm still benefiting from all the washing and chopping of broccoli, onions and cauliflower I did last week. I had tossed the cauliflower and onion chunks with oil, turmeric, cumin and salt in preparation for Melissa Clark's cauliflower shawarma, then not used all of it. Some of the remaining uncooked vegetables went into a pan dish last night, along with coins of Polish sausage and yet another simmering sauce. Thanks to @rotuts' questions, I looked this time at the sodium content of the simmer sauce and the rice package. The sauce had a fair amount of sodium, but the rice had none! I noticed the other day when I was shopping and looking at the Ready Rice packages that some at least have no salt added. Their basmati and jasmine both are salt-free. I wondered how my darling would like a coconut curry korma sauce, and whether I'd like it with Polish sausage. We both were happy. Last night, before I began cooking, we saw the Wolf Moon rise. This morning, we had a good clear shot of the sunrise.
  16. I looked at spring-loaded jar lids to take the place of weights, but users noted that finely shredded items would come up through the spring, so a layer (like a cabbage leaf, or FauxPas' mesh) was still necessary. I have a bit of leaf under the weight in my jar. I didn't save an entire leaf as I should have.
  17. Thanks. I'm happy with either regular or wide mouth jars. I had some giant jars, but gave most to my great-niece.
  18. Thanks for that information. I'd never heard of cheese mesh before! I'll look into it, because the jars' shoulders are a problem. I also appreciate the proportions and the quantity expectation. I had 359g of cabbage. That's pretty much proportional to your 1 kg per 1L jar. I'm surprised the fermentation would work with such a low percentage of salt. I thought more would be needed to suppress the bad bugs.
  19. It was 3 poms for roughly 500 ml. (I'm sorry, I just remeasured that glass jar. I was misremembering its size; it's only 250ml. I'll go back to edit and correct that post.) Poms do vary in size, but the ones that have been showing up in stores lately are pretty big. The juicer is wonderful. It's a vintage aluminum juicer made by Wear-Ever, and I consider it a family heirloom. My mother rescued it from a Navy wife's trash when that family was getting ready to leave Okinawa in the early 1950's. We grew up using it to squeeze lemons in particular, for summertime lemonade or my mother's wonderful lemon meringue pies, but at some point she realized it was also great for pomegranates. If you ever see one in a secondhand store or online (they turn up on eBay from time to time), buy it. You won't regret it. I have one for the Princessmobile as well as one at home (I think The Heirloom is at home). I've bought several and given them to friends who like to cook. Edited to add, for anyone interested: there are several on eBay right now, at various price points. Make sure it comes with the strainer.
  20. We dodged a bullet this morning: the refrigerator was flashing an error code and up to 44F. Couldn't be frost this time! The code indicated a propane error, but we have plenty of propane and the furnace was working. I remembered a helpful service man a couple of years ago who wouldn't/couldn't come this far out to help, but told me what to look for. Quick! Which has more influence on desert landscapes: wind or water? If you answered "water" then you're right. Those flash floods, and the water streaming down mountains when it rains, do more to shift the landscape than wind and its transport mechanisms. Similarly, rust -- of all things -- is the most likely cause of refrigerator tube blockages out here in the desert boondocks. Much more likely than dust. He told me he'd seen it so many times: rust develops in the burn chamber and prevents proper ignition. Bless him for telling me (he wouldn't take money for the phone call) and bless my memory. We took things apart, blew them out, and tested. Ignition!! The refrigerator is merrily bubbling away. 37F and cooling. Meanwhile, all that water from recent rains is beginning to turn the desert green. The last time we looked we couldn't find any desert lilies in the nearby patch. Now there are 7. That's dew decorating the leaves. (The farmers closer to town probably aren't as happy about the rain as I am. The broccoli and cauliflower fields are sloppy messes, and it's harvest time. The workers are out there slogging away in the mud. I'll add a picture if I get a chance.)
  21. I may have to buy more pomegranates. And juice them before they're months old. The juice has beautiful color.
  22. Nice ideas! How would I go about doing either one? I think the molasses is simply cooked down to thicken, but I might not be right. No idea how to make grenadine!
  23. Lots of errands yesterday, started late because...well, because. The upshot was that we had pea stew for dinner. There really is a lot of it, and it's handy and easy. Quite good too, without the pepper. This shows just how much it's thickened since cooking and cooling. (You can't tell from the photo, but this had already been heated in the microwave.) I think a little water to thin it to a smoother consistency will stretch the dinners even more. As I reported over here, I got a fermentation kit...having given most of my stuff to a great-niece...and despite my fatigue decided to tackle the half cabbage in the fridge. I really expected it to make 2 quarts of kraut. Surprise! A pint jar would have been adequate. 4% fine sea salt by weight, in case you're wondering. I thought I remembered 3%, but the book I was using had it closer to 5%. I split the difference. Yesterday morning I decided finally to deal with the pomegranates taking space in refrigerator or coolers for the past month or two. I love the idea of pomegranates: their jeweled look, their tart sweetness. But extracting those pips...even using the easiest way ai know...is time consuming. Worse yet is that the seeds seem to disagree with me. So why do I buy them? I love the idea...their jeweled look...(lather, rinse repeat 🤷‍♀️). I juiced 'em. Pomegranate juice in kefir isn't bad. Made a nice switch from a banana. And I still have 250 ml of juice for some other purpose!
  24. Smithy

    Dinner 2024

    If my nightmares were as bad as that "crime scene" I'd be a happy person indeed! It looks delicious!
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