Smithy

I too am on a tomato kick. Tonight's dinner, despite my attesting in today's lunch post that I probably wouldn't want more than a salad, was a slice of tomato-cheese pie and a salad of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peanuts, and barberries tossed with a salad dressing based on the dressing from this recipe. I posted about the first effort at this pie in an earlier dinner post. This time I did things differently. About a week ago I roasted the sliced tomatoes per the recipe, then stuffed them in a container and froze them until I could use them. I thawed them yesterday, thinking I'd get around to baking the pie, but all I did yesterday was prepare the elements: made the pie dough, shaped and blind-baked it, then refrigerated it; made the cheese / mayonnaise mixture and refrigerated it; put the thawed tomatoes into the refrigerator. Today was assembly and baking day. I pulled the blind-baked pie shell out and let it warm in the oven as the oven preheated. The tomatoes had thrown a lot of liquid out. I left the liquid out of the pie and drank it instead. (By the way, it was delicious!) I loaded the tomatoes into the barely-warmed pie shell, topped them with the cheese / mayo mixture, and baked. Before baking: After: And garnished: Marvelous! How much of that was due to the intensified tomato flavor because of freezing and thawing, the use of the proper pie pan size so the tomato layer was thicker, or sheer luck? I don't know, but I won't hesitate again to have everything prepared and ready for assembly. If I can lay my hands on more heirloom tomatoes before the season ends, I'm going to give them the same treatment and post about it in the Preserving topic. Then, later, I'll groan at myself for adding more stuff to the freezer. 🙂 As far as the salad goes...well, it's edible but won't win any prizes. It's based on this recipe: Healthy Broccoli-Cauliflower Salad from theplantbasedschool.com. I have only myself to blame. I cringe at the use of "healthy" when somebody means "healthful"! But I forged ahead and made their recipe to the best of my abilities. The dressing isn't very different from my basic broccoli salad dressing, except that it's heavy on Greek yogurt and light on mayonnaise; mine is heavy on mayonnaise and thinned slightly with milk or cream. The difference seems to be crucial. I'll eat the salad, but I won't repeat that dressing. But the pie, now, that's a keeper. For reference, here's the recipe one more time: Roasted Tomato Pie with Cheddar-Parmesan Crust (WaPo gift article, I hope) and here's a PDF of the recipe in case that link doesn't work: Roasted Tomato Pie With Cheddar-Parmesan Crust Recipe - The Washington Post.PDF

I'm on a serious tomato-and-cheese kick right now, probably trying to cling to summer's glory for a few more days. I've consumed all the bacon I cooked a few days back, so today's lunch was an open-faced alternative. Toasted sourdough, slathered with mayonnaise and Zatarain's Creole mustard, topped with several slices of Margherita Brand Thin-sliced sandwich salami and some sliced cheddar. That went into the microwave for, oh, 25 seconds to melt the cheese and slightly melt the salami. The whole was topped with a slice from my last heirloom tomato, then a good-sized lettuce leaf. It was messy but delicious. I probably won't want dinner beyond a salad. (I must say, Amazon's price for this salami is lot more than I pay locally! I hope it isn't a sign of times to come. Maybe it's because it's a new batch? To be released in October (eG-friendly Amazon.com link).)

The waffles do look crispy! Thanks for the video, but thanks also for summarizing the ingredients and weights in this post.

I will never again forget that my food processor has a dough blade in addition to a chopper blade. It worked fine for mixing the same pastry dough as before, with no hazard to my fingers.

At last, the BLPT sandwich I set out to make here for dinner a couple of days ago. The supply of bacon I cooked then has dwindled in other sandwiches, salads and little snacks, but I managed to save enough for this delicacy! It's a good way to use the heirloom tomato, too.

I wonder if you might want what often is referred to as a Chef's pan. In looking for links I've found that those are wildly variable in size and shape too, but in general they're something between a wok and a saucier. Here is the closest example I could find, but I'm not advocating this particular model: HA1 Nonstick Chef's Pan. My own workhorse is a 3-quart roundish pan, with a long handle and helper handle and a nonstick finish. (I don't worry about nonstick finish, despite pets; I don't heat it when it's empty.) I'd recommend the brand, but (a) it's several miles away and I don't remember the brand and (b) I got it for $3 at a garage sale. For what it's worth, here's a photo of it, turned over after washing. It gives an idea of the geometry.

Any idea what that filling tastes like? I agree that it looks jade-ish due to its color and semi-transparency, but I'm curious about the flavor. There was a glassware form, popular (in the USA at least) some decades ago, called Jadeite. I'd be surprised if there's a connection, but I'm ready to be enlightened.

? Your photos look like delicious food...but what are Brazi bites, please?

Dinner was going to be a BLT: Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich, probably augmented with pickles because I usually do make mine BLPT. It all started because fall has set in with a vengeance up here, and the heirloom tomatoes are probably done for the season. But I still have (or had) two. What better use could I put one to, than make it into my favorite sandwich? But first, I had to cook bacon. I had a half-pound package that I've been planning to cook in advance, then set aside for ease of use later. But how? Skillet, oven, microwave? I went back through my notes on bacon cooking. The most productive discussion seemed to be around here, in the Camping, Princess Style topic, where each method was advocated by various eG members. I seem to have preferred the oven-roasting method. It's been a cool, wet, windy day. Oven roasting seemed like a good kitchen-warming activity. I loaded most of the bacon onto a rack on a jelly-roll pan, and put it into my big oven at 350F. I know from experience that the oven doesn't actually maintain the set point properly. (Parts are on the way.) I loaded the remainder into my CSO, on Convection Bake, also at 350F. Would there be a difference? Not much. The CSO cooked the bacon more quickly, probably because it really was at the proper temperature. It also generated more smoke. Both batches are satisfyingly crisp. I got rendered bacon grease from both batches. Both batches are still a bit overdone. Maybe 300F would be better. In the meantime, I remembered why I don't usually cook bacon in advance for later. It's too easy to snack on it. I still have most of it, but I really didn't want a sandwich when dinner time came! It's a delicious salad.

I have a followup question: is there a correlation between the mooncakes and the lunar year? For instance, we're in the Year of the Snake right now. Are the mooncakes different than they would be during the Year of the Horse?

If I recall correctly from past years, you aren't generally impressed with moon cakes. Do I have that right? And are these particularly outlandish? I think the mulberry sounds good, but I've no idea about how compatible the sticky rice would be.

I love the economic sound of this process! Can you elaborate please on the rest of the process? I'm sure you have it somewhere earlier in the topic, but if it isn't too much trouble please spell it out again. The preferment, with its 55g of water, 55g of flour and the small amount of previous scrapings, then gets used for the dough. How much flour, water, salt (if you use any) do you use with that preferment to make the baguettes you show here? The business of having too much starter to use, and having to discard it, has been one of the reasons I stopped baking sourdough bread. Oh....and is this a rye starter?

That's beautiful-loooking chicken stock, @rotuts.

Is the salt saturated with chicken juices after the final baking? That's been my experience when I roasted a chicken atop a bed of coarse sea salt. Cleanup has been easy, but I've never thought about reusing the salt unless I was planning to roast another chicken soon.

Those elements look delicious! I'm not going to poke fun at you for not photographing the finished result. I'm dining on a failed (as in, unsatisfactory flavors and texture) potato salad microwaved with the leftover jelly from my last roasted ham. It's actually pretty good for semi-mashed potatoes, and much better than the potato salad, but it won't win any prizes for looks. 😅 <We now resume our normal programming of delicious-looking and delightfully photographed dinners...>

I think the first one I bought, which is still going strong, was something along the lines of a prototype or loss-leader. It's the one shown in the video I linked above. It may have been only $15 but when I went to order another it was no longer available! The cheapest I've seen since then is $25. Of course, it's possible I haven't looked hard enough. I do know however that I want the auto-shutoff. That adds a few bucks although my initial inexpensive one came with it.

@rotuts, be sure to check out this post before you pull the trigger. Right now a red-and-black version is on sale for half price; it's $25 rather than the $35 I paid! Same company, still auto-shutoff and safety cut. I don't know how long the sale will be good. Oh heck, here's the link to the red-and-black version that's on sale (eG-friendly Amazon.com link).

I was just rhapsodizing here about my latest purchase of a portable, battery powered safety can opener. Now I see that the same brand has another version on sale for $10 less than I paid! Kitchen Mama One-to-Go Electric Can Opener: One-Touch, Auto-Stop, Smooth Edges (etc). (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) $24.75 at present.

We've talked before about can openers. They aren't needed as often as they used to be due to easy-open cans, but there are still times when they're critical equipment. Imagine my surprise when I realized that my favorite battery-powered electric can opener was nowhere to be found in the house! I was sure I had one in the house and one in the Princessmobile, which is away at the shop. But I couldn't find one in the house, and had to resort to the old-fashioned EZ-DUZ-IT hand-held opener. After I found it. (It was hiding and sulking in a drawer. Almost, I thought I'd gotten rid of it!) I wanted a hit of Fun Stuff, so I ordered a new opener for the house. It came yesterday. I get absurd satisfaction from using this thing! Kitchen Mama Side-Cutting can opener with Auto Shutoff (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). It does a nice of job of leaving smooth edges, and it does shut itself off after the lid is free. Note that not all come with the auto-shutoff feature. A minor quibble: the red isn't as vivid as the original can opener's red. I wish I'd gotten the teal color. But that's small potatoes. Amazon says I've ordered this thing before. I wonder where and when it will turn up? If you're interested in seeing one of these things in action, see this post. They're pretty nifty.

I am loving this variety of physicians' ways to end an on-call all-nighter! And I can promise you that when my husband was stuck in hospital (as a patient, not a physician) he'd have been deeply envious of rotuts. 🙂

Tonight I cooked half of a package of Pork and Red Sauce Tamales I'd bought back here. Perhaps I should have taken a closer snap of the package, but I didn't; it's in the upper left corner of this image. The preparation is certainly easy: steam it in a basket for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the interior is 165F. My thermometer registered 189F after 12 minutes, so I pulled them, unwrapped and ate. I really didn't need three! They look small but they were filling. Pretty good, too. I thought the red sauce just a touch hot for my tastes, so toned it down with sour cream. Then it was too calm, so I added some of my salsa. Very good. The "bite" photo in the lower right is the best I could get, but it doesn't do the tamale justice. I think I'd buy these again. Tamales are a pain to make, like chiles rellenos, and I've learned over the years that they're all a mystery package. I've bought some tamales that were almost all masa with little filling. These were a nice balance of masa to filling. I'd been grazing during the day, and had already had a large green salad. Two of these tamales would have been plenty. If I'd eaten the salad at the same time, one tamale would have been enough. Still, that raises the question: what does one usually serve with tamales? How should I enjoy the rest of this package, when I get to it?

This entirely-unexpected package arrived on my doorstep today, in a box from Flowers.com! An old friend just wondered how I'm doing and thought I might need cheering up. We're scheduled for a good long phone call tomorrow, after months of missed connections.

Now that you mention it, I remember going into a Walmart one time and passing a Boy Scout or Cub Scout group with signage, a shopping cart and participating scouts and adults. The idea was to "fill the cart" for the local food shelf. My husband and I bought a bag's worth of non-perishables for the purpose and dropped them in the cart on the way out. I'd forgotten about that. It was years ago, but it was a Walmart so that particular manager was open to the idea at the time.

Another question is how to spread the word. Is there a local online forum (like Nextdoor, for instance) that would be useful for spreading the word? Or put up flyers at strategic locations?

That's funny. When I spent a summer and autumn in England (and other parts of the British Isles) I stayed at my share of B&B's and never encountered it. It was always buttered toast at those lovely breakfasts. But I agree that it's exactly the sort of thing that would ring my chimes after a long night!