Smithy

Urrp. I just finished the last of my last Goûter panettone, the classic version I bought back in December. It's more than I normally have for breakfast, and much higher in carbs. Still, I'm glad to finally have the panettone box off my counter. The box is from the other panettone I'd ordered, and I finished that some time ago. The box is now stowed where I hope I'll remember it when/if I need a gift box. It's too cool to just throw away. Now, in order to stave off a food coma, I'll update this story to the degree I have anything to say! Yesterday I turned one of the chicken breasts from last week's supermarket roasted chicken into a chicken salad with loads of mayonnaise and some fine salted capers. These are the last of a large jar's worth that I bought 5 years ago. Last summer I thought I'd run out, and these were not available. What I bought instead isn't nearly as good. I was pleased to find this stash when the former Princessmobile was emptied. Wonder of wonders, what I bought in 2020 is back in stock! Sanniti Spanish Capers Non-Pareille in Sea Salt, 28.2 Ounce (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Now I just have to decide whether to have a fresh jar shipped to me here or at home. (Home, I think. I shouldn't exhaust this supply in the next couple of months, and it will simplify unloading when I arrive home.) In case you're wondering why I'd buy them now, when I haven't run out: it's because when I do run out they may yet again be unavailable. The chicken salad was pretty good. It appears I only took a photo of the sandwich before closing it up, and none at all of the salad. Sorry. It's only a tasty memory now. I finished the rest of that chicken salad last night for dinner, along with some of the green bean salad with almonds. Yesterday morning I had breakfast with the friends across the road: French toast with sausage, and apple juice. Another morning food overload, but good company. We had places to go afterward so I had no opportunity for food coma then either. This location is convenient for social reasons: about 5 miles' drive to engagements rather than the 35 - 40 miles from our boondocking site, but the convenience is overshadowed by noise, crowding, and less-than scenic surroundings. I am enjoying the plants in folks' yards but you can see my own views in the background to the panettone box, and here: I'm looking forward to a change of scenery in a couple of days!

Hello and welcome! It looks like you'll find a lot of kindred spirits here, and I certainly like the looks of your food! Please tell more about that slab bacon. Did you cut it yourself? Cure it yourself? It looks quite thick. We have a fair contingent of members up in your area. It's nice to see another one join. If you have any questions about how to use the forums or where to post something, feel free to ask a host (I am one) by PM. We also have Help Articles although it looks as though you already understand how to post tempting photos. 🙂 And yes, there are quite a few food-data collectors and posters among us.

Thank you very, very much.

Note to self: do not plan to do an entire day's worth of dishes all in the evening. Never mind about saving water, or holding tank space. If more than two meals (or their preparation) are involved, break it into parts. There simply isn't enough counter space for the washing-up. (At least, that's how it feels right now!)

They really do look like sausages! 😉

That worked! Thanks! And you're right about it getting tough again. Actually, I think I should have put the foil-wrapped loaves atop a wire basket atop the sheet pan, so that there was circulation around the loaves. From the moment I cut into each, I needed a big knife to get through the bottom crust. The rest was good, though. It's funny how dinner (or any meal) preparation can be a chore, or meditation. Today, nearly everything I did was more chore than meditation, and that included food prep once I'd had that salad. Truth to tell, I really just wanted bread for dinner -- toasties with cheese, specifically -- but I kept thinking about those darned green beans and how I didn't want them to go off. I told myself I needed more greens. I argued with myself that I'd had that massive salad only a couple of hours ago and that was plenty of greenery. Then I thought about the leaf lettuce I bought the other day, and the green beans, and broccoli, and asparagus all in the refrigerator. I sighed, then got busy: trimming, washing, and cooking. Same recipe as before. I do like that recipe. This time, I had feta sprinkles because I'd bought them last week. It just felt like work. (It helped to listen to The Mason Williams Ear Show, one of his many albums that have been in my library since I was in college.) (It was while I was considering what movie to watch while I cooked that I realized I still haven't rigged the CD / DVD player I bought before I left! If I can't stream it or get something over the air waves, I can't watch / listen to it. Until I get going on that connection. Yet more work. I put it off. Again.) Anyway, here's dinner. Delicious. There are leftover beans, and a lot of bread left over that will probably become a panade from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. For those of you yearning for spring, here's some local color. I doubt anything is blooming in "our" usual camping spot. No rain has fallen there since last August, and it was drier than I've ever seen it when I left.

Thanks for that. Let us know how it works out! How old are these children, and how adventuresome are their palates?

I'm curious about the duck sauce because it sounds interesting. However when I was a child the first sauce (salad dressing, really) that I ever liked was Thousand Island. I think if I'd been exposed to Ranch I'd have liked that too, but I didn't encounter it until I was somewhere in my teens.

So far, I've managed to take that pitiful chicken from a couple of days ago, use it for a couple of dinners, strip the meat from the bones, and have a couple of breasts left. I simmered the bones to make broth yesterday. There's nothing special about what's going on there, but I like the wisps of steam in the picture. 🙂 The finished product looks pretty milky. I often find that to be the case when I start with roasted (or otherwise cooked) bones, as these were. All freezer bones went into the mix also. The flavor is all right, not great, but certainly usable. It even thickened a bit by the time I'd finished cooking it down, but it won't pass for chicken jello. If you look carefully, you can see a few chunks of breast meat in today's salad, along with olives, tomatoes, very tough croutons from Whole Foods (I won't get them again), and the last of my spinach. Oh, and part of a stellarly-good avocado from last Wednesday's shopping trip. I've been waiting patiently for those avos to ripen, and I'm being rewarded now! I had to make salad dressing today, having finally used up all the dressing I made before moving into town and leaving for San Diego. That was here, when I had to deal with green beans. (I have more to deal with before they go off!) This time, as I was juicing the lemons, I realized that I might as well zest them and save the zest for other purposes. That led to a search for my little plastic condiment cups -- you know, those cups with lids that contain salad dressing or other items from take-out? I looked in the plastics storage drawer at floor level (see bottom arrow). Nope. Found a lid, no cups. That would be too simple. If I had any, it had to be in one of the upper cabinets. But which one? I didn't want to haul out that stepladder. But finally, after exhausting other sensible possibilities, I did. Found them tucked away inside my bread pan, along with a couple of funnels. Of course! Where else would those little condiment cups be? Now, the lemon zest is tucked away in the freezer in one such cup. I also finally emptied one of my mustard squeeze bottles. I have more mustard in the cupboard and the overflow coolers in the belly box. I'm trying to get the refrigerator stock down. I think I'm down now to an old jar of Trader Joe's Aioli Garlic Mustard Sauce. I'll probably open something without garlic, at some point, but for now it's nice to be whittling down the condiment creep. Speaking of letting things go too long without attention: does anyone have tips for reviving artisan bread that's sat out so long it's gone stiff? I may have to take a hatchet to the beautiful loaves I bought in San Diego, and turn them into croutons or bread crumbs, but I'd like to be able to cut slices and eat them as bread if possible. It's a shame...my maxima culpa...I really should have frozen them, as I noted here. I didn't do it.

Welcome! Since you've decided to de-lurk, you probably already know that there are a lot of artisan chocolatiers here, willing to share their experiences and help each other learn. I'm just an admirer of the work. 😀 There's a lot of other culinary discussion around here too. Feel free to poke around, contribute where you can, and enjoy the company!

I expect them to have been included with the flatware and other basic essentials...but @liamsaunt will have to say whether it's true. There's also the question of quality and variety of knives.

I belong to the Naked Wines Club. Name notwithstanding, it doesn't specify how I must be clothed (or not) to sample their wares. As far as I know it also doesn't say anything about the wineries' clothing habits. What it does do is offer a more direct sale to consumers, and -- more to the point, for me -- offer a guarantee that if I don't like something I can get a refund. No questions asked. I don't abuse the privilege, and I suppose if too many people do it will be the end of that marketing strategy, but for now it allows me to try new wines without fear. Today's wine: It's nice enough. I won't go out of my way to order it again, but I'll have no trouble finishing this bottle. My earlier discovery, and I've been a fan of theirs now for over two years, is Arabella Wines out of South Africa. I should have snapped a photo of their Shiraz a couple of days ago. It has body. It's juicy, a bit of spice and tannin. It compliments food, but sips well by itself. Heck, it even lends itself to guzzling if one is in such a mood. And that's just their Shiraz. They also put out a beautiful Sauvignon Blanc and a delightfully interesting and tasty Shiraz/Voignier blend. I'd never in a million years have tried that, but they sent it to me on a flyer and I keep ordering more.

Well, it all looks lovely (except the beached sailboat) and I don't blame you for not wanting/planning to cook. Still...this sort of selection would make me want to stay. right. there. in. my. accommodations. Gracious -- that's a better stockpile than I have at home!

The brisket itself consists of two major muscles (the interior pectoral and the exterior pectoral) and typically, one cut will have more of one than the other. A fairly deep discussion of the technical difference is here, at Texas A&M's Meat Science department. Here's a good picture of a brisket, from that web page: You can see that the "flat" will be more regularly shaped than the "point", and that has implications for even cooking and for slicing afterwards. I noted, after buying, that my point cut package says "perfect for shredding" and that isn't the way I like my corned beef. Note also that the flat cut is typically a bit more expensive than the point cut. In my case, and in rotuts' case, the difference is $1/pound. I think, in retrospect, I wish I'd gone for the flat -- but hey, I was in a hurry and feeling extravagant already. I can't remember from one year to the next which kind my husband and I have bought, and what we thought of it. I should probably keep better notes. I'm leaving the question of cure type to someone who knows more about it than I do. You may also get good information from the in-depth discussions on corned beef: In fact, if you have followup questions it would be better to post them in one of those topics -- probably the first one.

Thanks for that link. I like the interview and the associated story. Incidentally, the delicious bread at the RPCV "Taste the World" event was donated by Bread and Cie! So I've had occasion to sample several of their loaves. They've all been delicious.

I loved this comment on the menu: It sounds rather hoity-toity to me. On the one hand, it sounds aspirational. On the other hand...well, I'm guessing they don't offer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! That would be fine with me (never liked them anyway) but I wonder about folks with picky kids. Maybe they just don't go there?

This very late lunch will probably be my main meal of the day. I had an apple earlier in the day, starting at around 9 and finishing at noonish as our group played music and tried to convince people to buy things at our yard sale. We may be our own best customers! I came away with some storage containers, some musical equipment, and the nut meat picks that I contributed that didn't sell. Afterward there was the cleanup, and carting items to the donation place. Then I had to run a couple of errands. By the time I got back I was plenty hungry. The salad was the main course; the dressing is the same dressing I used on the green bean recipe back here. I had to nuke it to get it to soften quickly. You know what? That dressing, hot, is even better than at room temperature! The chicken is no better today. I think the rest will go into a chicken salad, or maybe a stew of some sort. It actually tastes a bit old...not so much so that I'd try taking it back, but it makes me think this was an old "fresh" chicken that they roasted to avoid losing it altogether.

If only I'd known! We went to an H-Mart in San Diego last week after the RPCV dinner. We were in a collective hurry -- but if I'd known, I could have looked for it there. Oh well. My jar is supposed to arrive in about a week.

No ready access to a smoker here, and I may not even have packed for sous vide. (If I did, where did I put it?) Nonetheless, you have earned some Enabler Points. 😉 My Kroger's card knocked the price down to $4.99/pound.

In that case, maybe I'm safe! 😉 Although I admit, now that I'm thinking about it, that a good supply of corned beef for reuben sandwiches would be wonderful. You enabler, you.

Dammit, rotuts, I do not need more meat in my refrigerator. Nonetheless, I think I'll have to see if the sales are on here too! Grr.

After a social event this morning (Yuma Old Time Fiddlers yard sale, with jam session) I went with some of the fiddlers to Olive Garden for lunch. I think Olive Garden is sneered at in some quarters of this forum, and I don't think it's as good as the Cafe Luna I wrote about earlier, but we had a good time and the food was pretty good. I ate about half my lunch (lasagne) and brought home the rest, along with all the uneaten salad and bread sticks. I don't like wasting food. Besides, old habits of the once-penniless die hard! So, the rest was dinner. (Actually, the bread sticks are still sitting. I microwaved one and am regretting having done so. I'll try reheating in the oven next, unless someone has a better idea.) The lasagne was okay. I've had better, and I've had worse. The salad was excellent at lunch, and still quite good for dinner. I like their vinaigrette. After that late lunch I staggered off to a Mexican market in hopes of finding Aji de Amarillo (Peruvian chile paste) for the purposes of making Aji de Gallina. I've received the recipe from the chef who made it for the RPCV "Taste the World" event last week, and she assured me that the chile paste is very particular: it must be Aji de Amarillo for the dish to taste right. She's in San Diego and gets hers at a Mexican grocer. She sent me a photo of what she uses. Away I went, in search of it. (For the record, I'm sure I have a jar of this paste from another manufacturer, sitting at home. I'm not planning to wait until I get home to try this dish! I went to this market, named Del Sol, with one of my favorite murals ever: I've mentioned before that she must be emblematic of the Sonoran desert, maybe a goddess, maybe just an artist's fancy. Every one of those creatures and plants is from the Sea of Cortez or the Sonoran desert, which surrounds that sea. The market itself has an interesting mix of household goods and food. Prices seem pretty decent, although Duke's mayo is sky-high here. It may be sky-high all over the country, though. It's a while since I bought any. There are interesting canned meats -- when is the last time I saw deviled ham? My mother used to love that stuff. I never liked it. I've never seen canned "abalone type" shellfish. Don't know what that might be, but I wasn't tempted. Lots of pastes, sauces, salsa, and so on. Excellent looking produce, which I didn't need because I shopped yesterday. Alas, no Aji de Amarillo. I even showed the photo to a clerk. She confirmed that they don't carry it. I don't know where else around here to look, and I had trailer chores to do, so I ordered some by mail (guess from whom) once I arrived back at the trailer, and before beginning evening chores.

Thanks for the reminder about chenin blanc, @weinoo. I tend to forget about it because so often it isn't dry, it isn't crisp, and it's downright disappointing. Did you get that bottle in The States, or bring it back from your most recent trip?

Thank you for your kind words. 🙂 You may be less impressed with tonight's dinner. Some background: this afternoon I only ate half the sandwich I showed above. I stopped and put the remainder away because I was full, and feeling sluggish, but knew I needed to get going with the afternoon errands. I had a pickup load of laundry to wash, some trailer equipment to buy, and groceries to buy as well. The first Wednesday of the month is Old Farts Day (10% discount for seniors! Woo-hoo!) at Fry's so of course I had to shop. I actually did pretty well on sticking to the shopping list. There's still no need for me to buy meat. Except... By the time the errands and laundry were done, and I was at the grocery store, hunger was gnawing away. I'd suspected that would happen, and have been wanting a rotisserie chicken, so I think my hindbrain was planning on it. Besides, I have plans for that chicken (see: Aji de Gallina, above) but there are other possibilities as well. Tacos. Chicken salad. Chicken sandwiches. I love chicken. For some odd reason, I don't seem to have any in this well-stocked freezer. But I was getting HUNGRY. This particular Fry's doesn't carry rotisserie chicken! This is the same Fry's with the (IMO) substandard fried chicken. They labeled this as roasted chicken. Dinner: and the last, finally, of the tabbouli I made a couple of weeks ago from an old boxed mix: (I am glad to be shut of that stuff.) A nice sunset walk. For the time being, I've traded mostly-silence, the occasional coyote, and brilliant stars for mockingbirds, cactus wrens, orange blossoms (and other flowers), nonstop barking dogs and convenience. I'm not sure I like the trade although the blooming citrus is marvelous. I'll give a bit of a tour of this particular Fry's in another post. I'm not impressed with their chicken.

In the interest of keeping old information alive, I'll note that we have two recipes for Pita in RecipeGullet, complete with discussion: There is also this discussion: Most of the participants haven't dropped by in a while, but I see some of them pop up from time to time. For those who want to see different takes on the same subject, dive right in!