Smithy

It is beautiful!

I've been doing quite a bit of that 'scientific research' myself. A spoonful at a time, where's the harm? 😁

While we're waiting for @kayb to answer, I'll share what she wrote a few years ago about that tomato cornbread cobbler. I'll admit that my first attempt at it didn't go well, but it carries lots of promise. I think it was operator (me) error. The description Her photo

One of my current faves, if I were to go to a potluck, would be one of my current faves at home: bean salad. Canned dark red kidney beans; garbanzos; navy, great northern, cannelini or some other white beans; wax beans and green beans (yes, canned) in equal proportions. Dress liberally with a vinaigrette. Now, I should disclose that my bean salad is nonstandard because of the vinaigrette. I do not like the classic 3-bean or 5-bean or whatever salads because the dressing always has sugar in it! Most folks might feel disillusioned because they'd be expecting a sweet dressing. I've been known to bring duds to potlucks before. 🙂

Thanks! I find the title "Haute Dogs" quite amusing. 😁

I took another crack at the Cheesy Smashed Red Potatoes (page 42) using all the correct ingredients, and being careful not to oversmash. It still doesn't look anything like Dave's photo from the recipe's original version up here, but it also wasn't gluey. The flavors are great. This dish is going into our regular rotation. Delicious!

I could forgive a LOT for a slice of that cherry pie!

I used the rest of the blanched scapes this evening. If anyone wants more discussion they can read it in the Dinner topic. The scapes worked well. I have a lot to get through, but this pasta dish is a great use for them!

I've been wittering on about garlic scapes here and earlier in the Farmer's Market topic, but it's appropriate to report dinner here instead of there. Ingredients: some carefully-hoarded "New York Style Calabrese Sausages" from this winter; blanched and chopped garlic scapes; a couple cans' worth of diced tomatoes; a handful of chopped onions from an earlier dinner prep; nearly a tube worth of sun-dried tomato paste; finely grated parmesan; barely-cooked Cavatappi pasta that I discovered thanks to @gfweb when I was trying to cut back on the variety of pasta in our household. I'm not sure the reserved pasta water counts, but I did add some back in while everything was cooking down. This is one of those never-the-same-twice dishes in our household, but we were especially delighted with this iteration. The sausage chunks were okay, but seemed to have given much of their flavor to the rest of the dish. The pasta corkscrews were utterly delightful: flavorful, delicate, just a bit of chew, delicious. (I did boil them in heavily-salted water, thanks to a comment from @heidih some time ago. That probably helped.) Did the garlic scapes actually add anything? Maybe. Was it different than if I'd added chunks of garlic? I dunno. But we're happy with the outcome...and that's a Good Thing, because there are plenty of leftovers.

This was excellent on my burger last night. Since my beloved but benighted husband doesn't believe in tomatoes or lettuce on his burgers, it was ALL MINE! I see more tomatoes starting to ripen, so soon we'll be able to have a Caprese salad from time to time. Our basil is doing nicely too.

Preliminary report on my garlic scapes. For better or worse, I blanched (about half) or steamed (the other half) what I still had because they really are potent. I used some of the blanched scapes for this dressing. It's delightful! I'll be posting photos with it drizzled over things, I'm sure. Then there's this suggestion... I'll be interested to see what folks say about pickling. I still have some pickled ramps from last year and am hesitant to add to the jars of pickled substances in our cupboards. However, I can see that I have a LOT of garlic scape paste! I'm not sure I did it any favors with the steaming. I just realized that I have neither walnuts nor pine nuts, and I'm not crazy about it with pecans or almonds. (Yes, I've tried it.) So it'll have to go into the freezer for now. If I don't like the way my pesto comes out (once I've found walnuts) I can always make more of that dressing! I'll try that, thanks - except the food processor or immersion blender will have to be my option. There's no mortar and pestle in this household big enough for them. I understand that the end result is different, but it's what my time and equipment will allow. I like the assorted flavors you suggest. So far, clockwise from upper left, I have: scapes, cut and steamed for a few minutes, then shocked with cold water; @FauxPas's dressing, made from blanched (and shocked) scapes; steamed scapes spun up with olive oil, a touch of salt and a touch of lemon; the remaining blanched-and-shocked scapes. Some of those will be in tonight's dinner. While steaming and blanching both tenderized them slightly and brightened their colors, I think the quick blanch and shock produced a slightly better flavor. Whew, it's still pungent though!

Here's what Serious Eats has to say about Hasselbacks, and why he's underwhelmed: Kenji's modification is to make it a gratin instead. I've done that a few times and needed to tweak the recipe to suit myself, but been pleased with the final result...and @FauxPas did her own version here. Getting back to your original point, we didn't need a special gadget for it.

I love crumpets. They aren't difficult to make, but as with so many "easy" things they still take time. That one makes me hungry, and I just finished breakfast!

In fairness to this In fairness to this grocery store, there wasn't a fish odor at all. I've been in some places (especially along the Gulf Coast) where it smelled truly fishy, and not in a good way. I generally walk right back out of those stores. This place is clean and bright and well-controlled...except for their prices. 😁

Oh, I think that was a GREAT price! I was referring to the extra pints, not the original purchase.

Me too. After having argued with them about it, I decided to wait until there was a sale elsewhere. Of course, Ninja still gets it money but any extra proceeds will have gone to Amazon or Walmart or wherever I bought them.

@rotuts, that's a very good question. I wonder how much they sell too, and what they do with the unsold. The market in question was remodeled a couple of years ago and expanded its meat / seafood counter accordingly, but this still isn't a ritzy part of town. Snow crab legs have always looked to me more like a party / finger food than a serious dinner. I keep remembering the fun group we saw in Mississippi, snarfing down the "all you can eat" snow crab legs for $25/person. That was almost 6 years ago, and no doubt times have changed there too. At the time it looked like that group got a great deal. My husband and I haven't tried dealing with all that shell!

We've noticed a slight rise in grocery prices in our area, but it hasn't been huge except for beef (which we skip) and dairy (which we buy anyway). However, the seafood counter 2 days ago was a real eye-opener.

Tonight I cooked an impulse buy from our local grocery store: stuffed scallops and stuffed clams. They were in the same case as the Maryland-style crab cakes, and looked like a fun novelty that might be delicious. I bought two of each for us, for a grand total of about $10. (This was quite an attractive price, given that the snow crab was $49.99/lb!) The store clerk was good enough to include cooking instructions for each on the labels, and the two were compatible on time and temperature. Here they are, unwrapped but not yet grilled: And here they are on our plates. I guess the extensive ingredient list on the packages should have been a clue. Neither of us could taste seafood as such; there's a great deal of bread, some spices, a few other additives. Nothing like the briny delicious seafood I'd been hoping for. The cross-section at the bottom of this next collage tell the tale. Welp. You win some, you lose some. At least it was only $10 for that experiment, and the asparagus was good! 😄

It's gotten hot in northern Minnesota too, by our standards, but nothing like what's happening farther south. And there's been rain, rain and more rain. I'm not complaining, but the upshot is that what passes for our garden is later than usual. I do container gardening, basically. I dislike weeding, so there are 6 pots of assorted tomato plants and one of Italian salad greens from a seed packet I found earlier this year. Three of the tomatoes, and the greens, are in this photo. Behind it is our pond, with tall weeds awaiting our weed whip. Or a scythe! If you look carefully you can see a few tomatoes in the bottom row of closeup pictures. So far we've collected one paste tomato - quite good - but we're still waiting for the rest. The salad greens are very productive, with a good strong flavor. Oh, I have herbs planted in pots too: dill, parsley, basil, cilantro. The mint has taken over the flower bed, and I've let it.

This could have gone into several different topics, but it's been fun for us...so here it is in this topic. The story begins with my husband's passion for hash, and his insatiable desire to perfect it to his tastes. The potatoes must be crisp but not oily. The sausage must be cooked, and slightly browned. The onions must keep their crunch. I could go on, but that tale has dragged on in the Camping, Princess Style topic for years. A year or three ago, his daughter gave us (him) a used pan that met most of his needs. it had a huge base. It had straight sides, so he could run the spatula under the ingredients and turn them. He is not of the "do that pan flippy thing with the contents" persuasion, so rounded edges are contraindicated. Two problems: the interior non-stick became sticky, and -- much more important -- the bottom was no longer flat. When he put oil into it for his beloved hash, he had to deal with an interior island. Think of a reversed wok, and you'll have it about right. I loved this pan. I loved its (original) shape, its very long and strongly angled handle. it was a wonderful traveling companion, and it hung without complaint on the wall of our house when we were home. But its contents stuck, and its warped bottom made an island in the oil. I looked for Vollrath (the parent company) and Ameriware, and various offshoots, to no avail. I looked at World Market, where I'd purchased a smaller but similarly excellent pan. No luck. Enter Amazon, of course. I found several candidates, based on size and shape. I ordered several candidates. For this purpose, GreenPan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) won.* Our GreenPan skillet made its debut tonight. The sides are right-angled. The bottom is flat. The entire interior is as slick as an Antarctican ice rink in winter. My darling is used to measuring oil with the interior island in mind, and there may need to be adjustments. Still. The potato layer perfectly spread across the bottom of the pan. There was a bit more oil than necessary, but not much. All went well on this maiden voyage. "All went well" is, in truth, an understatement. He's in ecstasy! *The other candidates found homes here too, but they won't be his hash pans.

Yes. You might want to sweeten them more than "to taste" because, according the manual (and things I've read here) the sweetness is damped a bit by cold. At a first guess I'd suggest using the same amount of sweetening you'd use if you were canning in a simple, light syrup. I've only done it with canned mangoes, though, so I'm not speaking from experience.

There are some great ideas listed between when you posted and this response, and given the bagful I bought I'm sure I'll be trying them all! I tend to simply cut and cook them, just enough to soften, in skillet dinners and sauces. But I bought a LOT. I used a handful in this dinner salad on the first night. I sliced them finely and sauteed along with the onions and peppers, just as I'd have done with garlic except that I've have cooked garlic for a much shorter time. These do have some garlic punch to them, and they can be crunchy! You can see them in this picture of the untossed dinner salad, looking like chunks of green onions or giant chives.

I like feta with spinach. Darienne's spanikopita idea goes in that direction, but mixing them together in an omelette or a quiche also works well. We also like the combination of feta, canned tuna and tomatoes - with the snack scoop of choice. (We use pita, or crackers.) Nice that yours isn't too salty!

Interesting: if I'm reading it correctly, McConnell's is in Santa Barbara, CA yet you could get it quickly in New Jersey. I, in Minnesota, don't even see it listed on Amazon!