Smithy

Different flavored brats would absolutely work. Since you aren't in a hurry for tonight, I'll wait until he's around so we can make sure I have it all right.

When there are leftovers, he'll cook an egg with them in the morning. The potatoes are never still crisp, though, so he's working to cut the batch size down and eliminate leftovers.

I'll be sure to share your praise with him. He'll be delighted! Incidentally, you could whip this up in a heartbeat. Got onions, potatoes and some sort of sausage? Want the proportions?

This morning's sunrise was lovely in both directions. We could see the sunlight crawling down the shrubbery, and I was able to catch them still halfway in shadow. Last night, he edged even closer to his Gold Standard of hash. The potatoes must be crisp and golden, but (please, say I) not charred. The sausage must be lightly browned. The onions must be crunchy, not soft. There must be enough oil to achieve all these things, but not enough to give an oily feel. I'd say he hit the mark last night. He was very proud! The final two keys to hitting his target seem to be: (1) Dicing the potatoes, not slicing them as he did all those years. In order to dice them, he slices them into rounds and uses an alligator chopper. That was last year's revelation. (Incidentally, if he also has to dice onions he does that first, because the potatoes clean the grid nicely.) (2) Measuring all the ingredients, INCLUDING THE OIL. It's taken me months to persuade him to try it. I think he's finally convinced!

I haven't had both. Sounds like a nice excuse for a taste test someday!

They appear to be understaffed along I-8, but yes - they're there. Thanks for the info on the white flies. It doesn't sound like something I could have done inside my house, either. At any rate, those large potted plants are gone and the only living things are a couple of Christmas cacti and a peace lily that thrive under the care of our house-sitter.

My mother once poured hot coffee into her cereal instead of her cup. She had the grace to laugh. 😄

I didn't know Trader Joe's carried them. I've always gotten them from Lehman's Danish Bakery, who claims to have been the first in Racine to provide them. Gosh, it's been years since I bought one! Maybe I should change that. Does Trader Joe's usually carry them?

It could be the insect that carries Citrus Greening Disease (HLB) instead of Medflies. The friends who bought my parents' ranch have been worrying about that for several years, watching it progress closer to Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. "Please," they begged us, "don't bring citrus up from Southern California or from Florida when you come visit!" We wouldn't, of course. How did you get rid of the white-fly? I've given up trying to keep plants alive in our house, since we started traveling during the winter, but they wrecked my young Meyer lemon and a dwarf tangerine / orange / something (I've forgotten). I'd love to have known how pruning could help.

We've been eating a lot of slaw, and occasionally sandwiches or leftovers from dinner, for our midday meal. Today I decided to switch back to lettuce salads for a while. Part of my motivation is to use items that have been trundling along in our refrigerator since we left home. Last August we had the opportunity to go shopping at a huge Middle-Eastern food store in Minneapolis. Holy Land Deli is a great place to visit, once you're there, but a pain in the neck to get to due to the traffic. I don't know that I'll want to go again. But I picked up a bunch of olives, some of their tahini, and some cheese that we can't get elsewhere until / unless we go through Tucson. Problem is, my darling isn't a big olive eater, so we've been carting these things around with me occasionally picking at them. Ditto the lebnah w/ chili. Actually, if we think of that we eat it, but it's been sitting forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. The chili gives that tart cheese quite a kick! At the bottom of the "family photo" above are two salad dressings I made: at left, a buttermilk ranch dressing from the cookbook Buttermilk & Bourbon (eG-friendly Amazon.com link); at right, a Meyer lemon vinaigrette I made from lemons I harvested last December. The finished product: Now, here's the weird part: the buttermilk ranch dressing has an unpleasant bitter note (perhaps because I used dried dill?), the Meyer lemon vinaigrette has something not-quite-right (too sour because the lemons are old?), the Lebanese green olives with lemon have an unpleasant, rather bitter taste, and the lebnah is just a bit too hot to please me. I brought both salad dressings to the table, not sure which would be more compatible with those olives, and that's when I rediscovered the bitterness of the ranch dressing. Wonder of wonders, the mixture of all those ingredients is a mutual redemption! Somehow, the tart lebnah and/or the Meyer vinaigrette cancel the bitterness of the ranch dressing; the chili heat from the lebnah brings something wonderful to the party, and the entire mix is delicious. I have left the components separate still, but may start experimenting: mix a lebnah ball into that ranch dressing? Mix the ranch and the vinaigrette?? Sounds horrible, but I've just had an enjoyable and surprising lunch!

This is fascinating, stuff! Thank you very much for the photos - bewildering, intriguing, delightful.

Last week I went to what's become my usual laundromat, and (as usual) found myself getting peckish. It was time to explore the eating establishments in that strip mall. The first thing I learned was that the taco place I'd been eyeing is no more. I don't know its story, but we can probably blame the pandemic, at least in part. This place has also caught my eye, many times, so I decided to check it out. I've never been able to see inside because the windows are specially coated and have a perforated black screen to block out most of the sunlight. At this time of year it may not be necessary, but for much of the year it would be. I'm sure it's a good selling point. The interior looked dark and inviting. Unfortunately for them - fortunately for those of us still trying to maintain some sort of distancing - there weren't many customers. One or two tables' worth came in while I was there. The place is clean and nicely decorated. The TV screens over the bar were playing sports shows but the sound was off. The TV screen in the dining area was playing the Country-Western version of MTV. I don't remember its actual name, but some of the pieces were hilarious ("I love my job with the Highway Patrol, you better not be speeding" with all kinds of driving shenanigans) and some were beautiful and touching. None was intrusive. I hate loud music in restaurants and bars. This was just loud enough to hear if I wanted to listen. Oh, the choices!! I'm not sure how I managed to miss the Desserts, sorry. It was all academic to me anyway; I had no more than a half hour. I selected the Crab Cakes appetizer. Go back and look at the sign out front on the window. A-HOOAH! They weren't joking! The remoulade sauce had a sneaky-Pete element of horseradish that kicked in about 3 seconds after taking a bite. It was wonderful. The crab cakes were excellent, the sauces great, and even the greens under the crab cakes were nice. The horseradish bite was so delayed that I wondered whether it was the greens underneath: arugula, perhaps? But they said no, those were just baby greens. I think they enjoyed my reaction and questions. I ate every bit of it, gave them a generous tip, and got back to the laundromat just as my wash loads were finishing. I'll be back, I hope. For more information and better pictures, here's their web site: Zydeco Grill. (The web address says "Icons" rather than "Zydeco". I don't know whether that's history or a glimpse of the future.)

The wind came up in the night and rocked the trailer most of the day, so it was a good day to mess around in the kitchen. I wrote about it here in the Wings Cook-Off topic. Note to self: do not mistake 4t of salt for 4T of salt! Aside from that, it was pretty good. I just had to put in the joke here.

After @Steve Irby's post I'm almost embarrassed to show this...but today I went for the Peruvian flavors (minus the Asian influence) mentioned in @Duvel's post here. As it happens I *do* have Aji Amarillo paste, and pretty much all the other ingredients listed in this Serious Eats recipe he used as his basis. I learned some things, most of them good. As the SE recipe notes, the dipping sauce itself is a real keeper. I spent some fun time in the kitchen chopping the jalapenos, cilantro, and garlic, then measuring out the other ingredients and mixing them in the food processor. The resultant color was actually somewhere between these two photos - isn't it funny how light messes with the color balance? After I had that mess cleaned up I proceeded with mixing the rub and coating the last of the frozen "party wings" I'd purchased for this Cook-Off. I should explain that these wing sections come individually frozen and ice-glazed. The package says they can be thawed first or cooked from frozen. Last time I essentially precooked them in oil, then marinated, then dredged and fried. They were very crisp, very good, and a lot of work. This time I wanted to bake them from their frozen state. This rub: went onto the frozen wing sections, which were then baked at 400F for about an hour, turning once and trying to re-coat them in the rub that kept falling off the damp surface. This is how they came out of the oven: That hard crust on the parchment paper is the rub that didn't stay on the wings as they cooked. As it turns out, that was a good thing, because the rub was much, much, much too salty. I think I mismeasured. The other spices (cumin, garlic, paprika, etc.) were good to the degree we could taste them, but the salt overwhelmed everything else. My mistake, I think. (To be honest, I think I used tablespoons rather than teaspoons for the salt! ) Now, for the critique: The wings were wonderfully tender, and that dipping sauce is as excellent as the recipe implies. I'm glad we have a lot of that sauce to put over other things! I think the wings were as tender cooked this way as they had been from the previous method, with a lot less work. However, the skin was really quite soft. If I had wanted a crackling skin, could I have gotten it using this cook-from-frozen method?

Yeah, makes me homesick!

If you saute them first, you'll get browning (maillard reaction) that adds depth to the flavors. The saute gets those vegetable surfaces hotter than boiling water can. Whether you use butter or another fat is another question; the fat will change the flavor, but any fat will generate enough heat to cause browning.

Not in my household.

I'll be honest, I've never even heard of a Honeybell! That's probably because so much of my citrus knowledge came from our citrus-growing neighborhood in the San Joaquin Valley. We have relatives in Florida. If we get out that way to visit I'll see if I can find the Honeybells. Of course, there will still be the problem of finding them fresh. Interesting that you should say that about white grapefruits. That's all we ever had (a backyard tree only) and the neighbors we visit have both a white and a pink grapefruit. I've always thought the pink grapefruits insipid, as did my parents and one half of the couple with the pink grapefruit. I'm surprised that the California grapefruit culture seems to have changed from white to pink. Thank you for the compliment on the photo. I took that from our camping spot, about 40 miles outside Yuma, AZ. You can't see the Colorado River from here but it isn't too far away. We're far enough out in the boondocks that light pollution isn't much of a problem.

There are things I miss about not making the loop up to the Pacific Coast, and then inland to where I used to live, before heading off to the hinterlands again. The first and most obvious is not being able to see friends and family face to face. Another is having to buy citrus like other mortals. The orange picking season is upon them now, and the minneolas will be getting ripe! The mandarin orange tree in our erstwhile back yard will have been producing like crazy, I think. How I wish that really good oranges, minneolas and mandarins - the orange-colored citrus - could make it through the packing house and into grocery stores with their good flavor intact! Once in a great while I run across a good Cutie (a patented hybrid of mandarin) but it's rare. The mandarins on my breakfast plate are a dry, sad version of what they once were; in fact, I wonder whether the crop froze before picking. I also bought "Heritage Navels" (those are probably the original strain of Washington Navels, of which our friends still have a grove or two) and Cara Caras, a Navel orange with more red than usual but not a Blood Orange. I bought them for my darling's breakfast fruit salad. He thinks they're fine. I think they've lost all the vibrancy and tang that proper oranges should carry. They're safe from me, now that I've tasted them. At least - and this is a good consolation - lemons and limes pack, ship and store well.

Apologies for following up days after the fact, but this beautiful dinner caught my eye and I'd like to try it. How did you go about coating and cooking that halibut, please? Guidance on the potatoes would not be amiss either, but it's the fish I'd especially like to try making.

We went to town yesterday to run errands while the wind was howling, and our errands took us into an Albertson's grocery store. Albertson's was our store of choice for some years, until we discovered Fry's with their good selection, much lower prices, and "loyalty program" fuel discount. We never looked back. Until yesterday. I had forgotten how spacious and luxurious that store chain is! The produce line is much more expansive and extensive than at Fry's; now, when I'm ready to start stir-frying I'll know where to find Japanese eggplant. i'm sorry I don't have interior photos, but I suspect I'll have more opportunities to take you on a better tour sometime. Their pork prices and selection were about the same as at Fry's. Some of their beef was surprisingly low, given the sticker shock we'd had last week. I'm still pricing chicken wings for the Wings Cook-Off, although I haven't used up the ones I had yet. This brand won't be helpful. (I just realized I cut off the price for the Flats and Drummettes in this collage. They were $4.49/lb, and that package was priced at $6.15.) They also had interesting "convenience foods" that I'd never seen before. None of this was what we came for, but we couldn't help looking - and of course, I needed photos. He wanted to look for other brands of breaded fish for oven baking. Sigh. We came home with a different brand. I'll show that to you later. That and other errands took up most of the afternoon. We indulged in Burger King whoppers and fries for what turned out to be a very late lunch...hence early dinner. I cooked up brussels sprouts with oven-roasted tomatoes, topped it with balsamic vinegar (and emptied that bottle) and called it done. There are no photos of any of that. Now I have to see whether I have more "run of the mill" balsamic in the Princessmobile somewhere. I have some very good, very old balsamic from Zingerman's, but I'll be much more sparing of it than I am of the stuff I used up last night!

I spotted this a few days ago and it tickled my funny bone: a Magnum Mini! (No, I didn't buy any.) Forgot to include the moonrise photo from a few nights ago. There won't be anything like that tonight; the dust is too thick!

The northward march of the sunrise is accelerating. I didn't get a picture, but this morning the sun came up at the tippy-top of that leftward peak. This is yesterday's sunrise. For those of you in the far cold north, take heart! The days are getting longer! I wrote about the oven-baked breaded fish success a few posts ago. On the one hand they were quite the hit with both of us; on the other hand he kept wishing I could find ocean perch - which is even thinner, he said, and which came out crispier. I wondered whether he actually wanted to taste any fish between the breading, but I went looking during my last trip to town. I couldn't find although I'd gone to the local Walmart. (Incidentally, they also had large gaps in their stock.) I came away with what I thought was a different Gorton's coating on the pollock. It, er, turned out to be more of the same as I'd bought before. No matter! We both like it, we'll get through it... ...except this time, I wasn't as crazy about it. I can't imagine what might have been different. Maybe last time around I just had lower expectations! The hash browns were good, though, and got a package of shredded potatoes (from last October!) out of the freezer finally. The wind is howling today, and we'll either hunker down in the trailer or go on a road trip. Whatever we cook will be inside tonight. Last night was calm, clear and beautiful, and I finally got my strata! I cooked the chorizo and onions on the camp stove outside, then assembled and baked everything inside in the oven. It seems I forgot to take a money shot. Trust me, it was good. The leftovers will be good too.

Thanks for the explanation about the Johnny cakes; I'm glad to know my memory of the New England version wasn't off. Thanks also for these beautiful and inspiring photos. So many interesting and delicious combinations of food! Coconut mango panna cotta! Now why didn't I think of that? Chimichurri with fish! Why haven't I thought of that? and so on. I need to come to topics like this when I'm looking for inspiration.

I've never had (or seen) Johnnycakes, but from a New England contact I thought they were much flatter than what you show! Can you describe the Johnnycakes in your last post more thoroughly? What was a the exterior like? Was there a filling?