HungryChris

Poached eggs, Italian toast, scrapple and fresh salsa. Scrapple is one of those items that only goes in the grocery cart when I shop alone and only appears on the menu when I cook for myself. I suspect that I am not alone in this "scrapple purgatory". I believe that, given the opportunity, Deb would replace my feelings of persecution with shame. HC

Poached eggs, home fries and a "monkey dish" of kimchi. HC

Thanks very much, Ann_T , I appreciate it. HC

rotus, My plan is to build a fenced in patio for outdoor cooking, eating and entertaining in the warmer months and I want this wood burning oven to be a center piece that is both effective and aesthetically pleasing. I am thinking that it will be a half barrel type, but squared off to look like a small brick structure. Kind of along these lines, but with more muted colored bricks this one is by Hearth Masters Inc, Kansas City, Missouri, who's president, Marge Padgitt is the host on Wood Fired Radio http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9824205.htm :

Pepperoni pizza (kalamata olives on my half): The dough: Into the 550 F oven:

paulraphael Why does the time it takes to bake a pizza seem so important? If you can get a great pie out of the oven, that should be what you want. Looked great, tasted great, but didn't cook in four minutes? I don't get it. I do admit that I plan on building a wood fired brick oven outdoors in the future that I expect will get much hotter than my electric range can, but still, it's what comes out of the oven that I'm most interested in rather than how much time it spent in there. HC

After breaking my second pizza stone, I went to a local metal fabricator that I first went to for a custom heat shield for my wood stove. I had them cut me a 1/4" steel plate 16" X 17" to fit the rack in the small top oven of my twin oven range. They cut it while I waited and it cost about $20. With the oven and plate preheated to 550 F, it does a fine job with most pizzas in 11 minutes and I could not be happier. I estimate the plate to be about 20 pounds and care must be taken when moving it as it would do a number on anything it was dropped on. HC

Veggies and pickles . HC

TJ's pork & red sauce tamales. I buy them fresh, but freeze them. Six minutes of steam and PR seems about right for four frozen tamales. Served with nachos, pico de gallo, sour cream and fresh salsa. HC

RRO, we need your full attention to stay on track here. Get well soon. HC

Begal with cream cheese and homemade gravlax. HC

One of our favorites: Korean BBQ rotisserie chicken with fresh potato salad, Brussels sprouts (I don't know if it is my Irish genes, but I am compelled to serve my sprouts soft, not mushy and with a little bit of butter and cider vinegar). This is a meal we have at least once a month. I look forward to cooking it as much as eating it! HC

Anna, It is something I have been doing for many years and is a very simple refrigerator pickle. The basic recipe is this: to a quart jar add 1 TBS kosher salt, 3 large peeled cloves of garlic , 2 bay leaves and a TBS of dill weed. Pack whatever you are going to pickle into the jar and fill to the shoulder (where it starts to curve to the lid) with white vinegar, top off with water, secure the lid, shake to dissolve the salt and refrigerate for 3 days. When I do zucchini and onions, I will sometimes add a dash of crushed red pepper and a splash of Kens Italian dressing to give it a slight marinated flavor. I do the same with cauliflower, sliced frying peppers, par boiled pearl onions, par boiled asparagus, sliced, roasted beets and sliced raw turnip. For cucumber pickles (I grow the picklers) I omit the dressing. Green tomatoes, take about 6 weeks, but just about everything else is ready within a few days and never lasts very long in my fridge. When the pickles are gone, I will taste the brine and add salt, vinegar, dill and or garlic, based on what it seems to need, and more veggies go in. Piece of cake! HC

Anna, Pickled zucchini and onions and capers, yes. The pickles are something that takes a few minutes to make.I have come to use them in salads, sandwiches and as sides. They keep a nice little crunch. I am just about ready for another batch. HC

Found some fresh, small, Point Judith squid today and made fried calamari. A fresh potato salad side and spicy kimchi tartar sauce makes it a favorite. HC

1/4 begal and cream cheese, orange supremes and an espresso. I intend to try my hand at making lox in the next few days. That would make a nice complement here. HC

I used to work in a medicinal chemistry research lab that had a Rotovap that we used regularly to work up reactions. Typically, we used it to remove solvent reagents from whatever step in the process we were performing. I can see how it would be interesting to concentrate flavors, like the centrifuge, but having a small kitchen, myself, I couldn't justify the rather big footprint it would take up, not to mention the expensive collection of round bottomed flasks you would need to support it and their storage requirements as well. That doesn't even begin to take into consideration the setup time involved and the need for a vacuum aparatus. I can think of so many other items that would bring in many more miles of culinary adventure at much less expense. Just my two cents. HC

Chicken and dumplings? Well, yes and no... wings and gyoza, well, yeah. Greek salad rounds it out. We had a huge wind storm last night that downed a bunch of trees and power lines. Still running off the generator here, having lost power around 3 am. It sounds like the power will be out until around 11:00 pm tomorrow night. I was able to do the gyoza on the gas stove top and the wings on the gas grill. HC

Kimchi Bokkeumbap kicked up with a few items like last nights kielbasa, baby bok choy, onions and chili peppers. Major victory, as Deb will not touch kimchi, but actually put some of this aside for lunch! HC

Last nights scalloped potatoes, a fried egg and Russian rye toast. HC

Watercress, endive and avocado salad with a lemon, rosemary and caper vinaigrette. I have two rosemary plants that I am trying to winter over indoors. They seem to like the western exposure they are in. They have long spindly new shoot that are not at all woody and lend themselves quite well to the vinaigrette. HC

I just spread some mushroom compost on my little asparagus bed. It's 4 years old this spring and I hope this is the season that it actually puts some on the table. Fingers crossed. HC

Mortadella with zucchini and onion pickles on Russian rye with a side of pickled green tomatoes.

I am surprised that on the first Friday of Lent, I had to search so hard for fresh fish, but I covered a lot of ground before I found some. I had my heart set on fish and chips and finally found some fresh Stonington fleet cod. I spent one summer working for a local fish market and would often be sent to the fish docks to buy boxes of fresh whole fish. As part of that experience, I would see older individuals buying whole fish off the boats and that is what I want to do. I just have to work my way into that schedule. Anyway, we got our fish and chip fix tonight.

I normally open and eat these one at a time at the kitchen sink, but this time I changed the format for the sake of posting. Noank Oysters.