Smithy

I continue to be amazed at your energy and appetite for breakfast! This looks excellent. No way would I want to face making it before, oh, 3 in the afternoon. 😅

It's nice to see someone else do that recipe, and apparently without the liberties I took with it. Did you have any trouble with burning the eggplant slices in the oven after you'd brushed them with oil, or are you attentive enough to avoid that particular problem? If you have a special tip (other than to pay closer attention) I'd love to hear it.

Okay, this is a good time to bring up our dear departed Fat Guy's story about rosemary: click.

That's fascinating! Thank you! I got a laugh out of this bit:

suzilightning would have gotten it for sure. We'll see if anyone else pops up with it. I think thinning the batter would be a good start...either with water or with more beer. Maybe the beer had too much fizz? Yes, please do let me know what you figure out.

One more comment, for now, on the "spätzle" (which is still more fun to say than "tenkasu"): On the left is the first batch, from the shrimp. On the right is the second batch, from the fish. The ingredients and proportions were the same, except that the shrimp batter contained vodka and ale, whereas the fish batch contained ale only. The other difference is that I thought the fish crunchy bits were pale at first, and I cooked them until they got darker. The darker ones are slightly harder, but we already know that the shrimp batter is more feathery. Is the difference in color only due to cooking time? I'll know after further experimentation.

Lunch today. Tenkasu: the new croutons!

Smoked salmon is (heh) another kettle of fish altogether. We can both eat that out of hand, on crackers, in pasta, in spreads, on bread with or without cream cheese...that's a favorite. But my favorite smoked salmon is still a couple thousand miles and at least a month away. My parent's best friends used to go on fishing trips in Alaska. I don't think he much cared which fish he got (assuming it was legal) but she always joked that she'd put a sign on her hook saying "Halibut only. Salmon need not apply." The upshot of that was that one glorious year when we were visiting, they gave us several packages of salmon they'd brought back and didn't want! My best friends also only like salmon one way. It's a grilled salmon recipe from the Alice Bay Cookbook (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), with a sauce that includes something like ketchup, ginger, soy sauce, some sort of oil, and seasonings I've forgotten. I shuddered at the idea of ketchup but it works in this particular recipe. What a shame that the poor fish isn't getting more love! OTOH I'm reading that the Pacific salmon fishery is in trouble this year, so maybe it's good that more people don't want it.

It was sort of a desperation measure. He almost always complains that salmon is dry. I think the only way I've prepared it that he genuinely likes is pecan-crusted, then pan fried and served with sauce. I like it too, but would like to find some additional way of cooking it that he'd like. Also, I wanted to try doing beer battered fish and this is what we had.

Last night it was fish and chips, using the @JAZ method of potato frying and @Dave the Cook's instructions. I used their sturdier beer batter, since I was doing fish. In case you don't want to look back, the difference is that the beer quantity is doubled and there's no hard liquor. To recap their methods and recipes: Here is the method for frying potatoes: Here is the recipe for their beer batter (I used the second recipe, this time, for the sturdier coating): Here is the tutorial, with instructions, for frying. I began with our last two pieces of Coho salmon. I forget how many ounces each weighed, but I cut them into 3 pieces each after skinning. I don't have any pictures of the batter or the fish-battering process. I think I needed to thin the batter just a bit with more beer than I used, because it didn't coat the fish evenly although it was well mixed. You'll see the clumped batter a few photos down in the finished fish. It was interesting to see that the bubbles and oil seemed more viscous than before. The bubbles had a glossy surface that was a lot of fun to watch while I cooked the fish, then the potatoes, then the remaining "spätlze" (okay, tenkasu but that isn't as much fun to say). It reminded me of a syrup at the boil, and I wonder whether the ale caused it. Further tests will be needed. All the while, the just-past-full moon was clearing the clouds/smog layer over Phoenix. Dinner. Finger food again, although we did use forks to cut into the fish. It was all delicious. We thought the fish batter had a delightful crunch but was a bit too thick; the interior seemed doughy as though it wasn't fully cooked. On the other hand, the fish itself was moist. I think this is the first time even that he hasn't complained about salmon being dry. This is a shot from this morning's breakfast. I really only needed to have cooked one of those filets, but I'm glad to have finished them, and we have two more cooked pieces remaining. I stored the uneaten fish overnight in an open, broad bowl in the refrigerator. It wasn't quite as crisp as last night, but it still has a bit of crunch. That's definitely the way to go, rather than enclosing it in plastic as I've usually done. There were a couple of casualties. Last night when I was stacking things to bring them inside, a plate slid off the stack of used equipment. No food was harmed, but the plate lost its argument with the concrete. I'm not crazy about plastic plates, but I rather liked this color and design from Target that I acquired when we bought our first Princessmobile. Oh, well. When the plate hit the concrete pad and broke, it added to the mess I'd already made on the pad. I must remember to put an old cereal box or other bit of cardboard down in the future. This morning, my darling did a doubletake: "what, did you smash a tarantula?" Then he got a better look. I actually have a spätlze maker at home that I bought at a cooking class in Duluth and have never used. Henceforth it will get good use!

My darling got a rude and amusing surprise with his last beer purchase. His preferred "cheap stuff" is Busch Light in cans. It's inexpensive, has relatively low alcohol and calories, and generates less waste than the bottles I prefer. The other day he couldn't find any at the little store we'd visited, so he picked up a case of his second choice: Bud Light. (It's all safe from me.) That night, when he opened it up, he couldn't believe the size of the bottles. "Who puts beer in a 7-oz bottle?" he exclaimed. He looked enviously at my Kilt Lifter. We hadn't noticed that it says "mini bottles". He'll get through them, but they won't last as well as the 12-oz cans and it's a lot of glass for that small amount of beer!

I still haven't heard back from Antonia and her friend, but a few links I checked out elsewhere on the internet said that peas, grated carrots and grated onions are characteristic of Slovakian potato salad. The unusual seasoning wasn't as evident in the leftovers, but I could detect mustard. It wasn't as sweet as many American potato salads, but it didn't have dill pickle either.

Living in large cities does have some advantages! When I followed your link, here's what popped up: The drive would have been a bit much.

All-Clad is having a 2-day factory seconds "VIP" sale. I haven't scoped it out this time, but all my beloved All-Clad has come from the factory seconds sales and I've always been pleased with my purchase. All-Clad VIP Factory Event (ends April 9)

Thanks. I hadn't noticed the proper spelling until you noted it.

How much would you expect to pay for 750 ml of the "cheap stuff"? (And thanks for the compliments!)

My favorite brand, when I can get it, is the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Hand Harvested Wood Parched Natural Wild Rice. The link goes to Bemidji Woolen Mills as a supply source, but I usually buy it at the grocery store when I'm in the town of Cass Lake, MN. I also have enjoyed the Singing Pines Hand Harvested Wood Parched Minnesota Wild Rice, and have some with me in the Princessmobile, but to me the Leech Lake stuff is just a bit nuttier and more full-tasting. I haven't had much luck with the cultivated wild rice; it never seems to cook and fluff up as thoroughly, but maybe that was my technique. The parching is a requirement for my tastes. I've never tried Bineshi. The suppliers certainly are proud of it, based on their prices! What do you especially like about it?

Cooler weather is moving in, despite the forecasts, and it's more humid than it has been. Whenever I see contrails like this I think of Joni Mitchell mentioning hexagrams in the sky, in her song "Amelia". Some of the contrails looked like fine tatting, with little loops hanging from below the trail at regular intervals. Too bad it didn't come out better in this photo. We HAD to go to a grocery store yesterday, and based on the mayhem of driving to Casa Grande (about 30 miles away) to go to the Fry's there, we drove to Maricopa (20 miles in the other direction) to their Fry's. It too was a madhouse: way too many shoppers, way too few checkout clerks, way too little help at the self-serve lines. We have lost our tolerance for traffic and big cities. We're too close to Phoenix for our liking. We didn't buy this, because we really didn't want or need any meat. It caught my eye, though. I took pictures as another example to show how their digital app and their Loyalty program can produce some really good deals. Just before our campground neighbors left for their next destination, we became friends and discovered a mutual love of food and cooking. What inconvenient timing! They're from Slovakia, and bestowed upon us a pork schnitzel and chicken schnitzel, ready to cook. Antonia sent me a video tutorial on how much oil to use and how to know when it was ready. They also gave us some Slovakian style potato salad. I sent them off with a package of last year's crop of hand-harvested, hand-parched wild rice from Northern Minnesota. The good stuff. I'm not sure what makes the potato salad Slovakian style, and have written to ask. It seems to have peas, maybe grated carrots and grated onions, and a seasoning we can't identify. It's good. It cannot be confused with any potato salad we purchase commercially here in this country. If anyone here knows the secret, let me know. If I hear back from Antonia, I'll let you know. I posted more detail on the schnitzels here, in the eG Cook-Off devoted to the topic. In this topic, I'll simply celebrate our dinner. Crisp outside, tender inside. Delicious! We toasted our new friends, and hope to see them along the way again.

*bump* Some campground neighbors who became friends gave us a couple of schnitzels -- pounded, breaded and ready to cook -- with instructions. Their instructions on how to cook them were not terribly different from what we've seen uptopic here, but it gave me a chance to try again. It's been a while since I cooked schnitzel. They gave us one chicken and one pork schnitzel. These had been pounded quite thin, then dusted with flour and coated with what they referred to as panko crumbs although they described getting a bread roll or baguette, toasting it to make it stale, then grating it on a box grater. Homemade panko. As far as we could tell, there was no other seasoning. Look how thin these were! Antonia also sent me a nice (although slightly blurry) video tutorial on cooking them. The instructions pretty much match the instructions described in this topic. Put enough oil into the pan to come up about halfway on the schnitzel, and heat over medium heat until a very small piece of the coating (sacrificed for the purpose) will sizzle in the oil. That funny little star thingie in the picture below is the sacrificial sizzling. Put the schnitzels into the oil. Leave them alone for a few minutes, then check on the bottom. When they're browned, turn them gently to finish. (This is a difference between instructions given earlier in this topic; there was no discussion about washing the hot oil over the top of the schnitzel.) Serve and enjoy. We didn't make a sauce for these. We had no leftovers for the morning, more's the pity. I'll have to revisit this procedure on my own. Here's a reminder to the rest of you: Cook-Offs never die!

I received two schnitzels, ready to cook (one pork, one chicken) and some Slovakian-style potato salad today. I'll post more about it later, but right now have to cook it!

It's been windy and blowing hard all day. We couldn't even see the nearby mountains, thanks to the dust, for the first couple of hours. We mostly hid inside or ran errands. I finally got around to putting the Rancho Gordo Royal Corona beans (well, half of them) to the use I'd originally intended: making the Gigantes Plaki Greek Giant Beans I linked before, from the website The Mediterranean Dish. It's dead simple. It would even more simple with canned beans, but since I had the cooked beans and a lot of their liquor it wasn't difficult. This would have been better if I'd bothered to make a Good Crusty Bread, but I didn't. We'd polished off the remains of my eggplant parmesan for lunch, so neither of us was terribly hungry. A meatless dinner was just fine. There's a freeze warning for tonight! We ran the batteries down last night even with the thermostat set to a fairly low temperature. Tonight it's supposed to be at least 10F colder. I'm staying up a while longer, to keep the generator running and give the batteries a chance to keep some heat in the place overnight. The weather folks say it's going to be 90F+ by this weekend! 😕

I think it's wonderful. The label has a warning that there might be some crystallization. I've noticed it: it's the same crystallization / textural bubbles I associate with truly good Parmeggiano-Reggiano when I've been willing to spring for it.

I'm thinking the same thing. When I get back to Duluth I won't be far from the Canadian border...

This price is shocking to me, but if you're an oatmeal lover Amazon.ca can help you out: Quaker Oats, Old-Fashioned, 42 oz. Check this out! https://a.co/d/a8Hqudr How are oats packaged in your stores usually?

I love the story about the squiggles! To this day, if I'm treating myself to fried chicken at a grocery deli, sometimes I'll ask the server to throw in a few of the loose cracklings. This is the Costco Coastal Cheddar I'm talking about. We don't have a Costco membership; until a couple of years ago, the nearest Costco was over 100 miles from home. Now that Duluth has a Costco we may reconsider.