Franci

Every time I used to buy lamb brain in Monaco the butcher would politely ask if it was for my little girl...miss the offals! More often I would make croquettes out of it, but I can imagine a la Grenobloise to be really good. I like very much also lamb sweetbreads but they were difficult to source also in France, considered a delicacy in my hometown in Puglia. Lately I'm not in the mood to take pictures but we had a lovely dinner of grilled shrimps and lobster, plus corn ans some sauté greens.

I made these again. This time I used the pressured cooked bananas from chefsteps (drained, mine didn't hold their shape, taste very good anyway) and added toasted walnuts and chocolate chips Very different. Banana flavor less pronounced, less like cake more crunch. I prefer them.

Hi KeyChris, my little girl, 3 yrs old, just saw your eggs and said: I want to go over there, can I eat them? Fantastic!

I would think of making date sugar and syrup, date chutney? Then you can find many tagines dishes, salads, stuffed, with rice or other grains.

Very interesting Panaderia. Unfortunately I don't have any ethnic grocery nearby but I'll keep in mind for the future. You are lucky to be able to buy so many fresh and interesting fruits.

Hi Emmalish, the recipe is very good, as everybody already mentioned in the reviews it's like a banana bread in cookie form, my only complain is that doesn't keep that well.

Made banana cookies from Martha Stewart's website http://www.marthastewart.com/338169/banana-walnut-chocolate-chunk-cookies My son loved them. I didn't use any nuts and added some caramelized white chocolate. For my taste, I'd lower sugar a bit, pulse the oatmeal, add walnuts and dark chocolate chunks. And bake just 6 at the time freezing the rest.

We had beef liver and roasted sweet potatoes plus salad

I was looking for a good black sesame brand. I just bought the Organic Traditions and it tastes very, very bitter. I know it is supposed to be more bitter than white sesame seeds but still... Do you have a favorite brand? Do you buy already powdered black sesame, or sesame paste? I used to buy no brand name black sesame for chinese dessert (like tang yuan) and grind in a coffee grinder but I'm curious to know what do you use.

I highly recommend them, easy and so good with a cup od coffee. This is very similar to the recipe I followedhttp://www.purple-cookie.com/2010/02/nussecken.html if anybody interested. I'd like to try them with pecans and maple syrup.

German Nussecken, didn't deep in chocolate

We moved to the US in September and I really miss some stuff from Picard http://www.picard.fr: loved their shelled fava beans and artichokes hearts. Here I get edemame that are hard to find in Europe. I also used to get their potatoes pure' (or chestnut) very convenient because they cut it in batonnes and it's just potatoes, I used in my croquettes all the times. I buy canned sardines from Spain and sometimes pita bread or naan.

On the menu tonight: soup for the children, sauté napa cabbage and meatballs I also made some lamb breast. Usually I prepare it following a recipe from J. Mclagan, where she cooks it over a rack in the oven with some water prior to glazing but I was short of time, so I cooked in the PC in a bowl on a trivet, then glazed under the broiler with the glaze for char siu

I use a lot of salt. I like to bake my fish or root vegetables buried under coarse salt. I use it for kimchi. I usually buy coarse sea salt from Trapani Sicily in 1 kg bag from my local deli at 1.99 a kg. I find salt to be so expensive in the US. I was looking also into Korean sea salt as a good alternative. Looking for it on Amazon I find it still too expensive for what it is...likely going into a Korean store it's cheaper if and when it's easy to access.

My son only eats artichokes stems, I used to get them from the market in Monaco for free as well. Lovely tempura. Too bad people don't know what they are missing. Here I have an hard time buying artichokes, if you have tried the Sardinian spiky artichokes (so tender you can eat raw) or the violet from Puglia, it's really hard to adjust.

I made the nut butter scones from maximum flavor. Something must have gone wrong because the authors defined these scones as light as feather and melt in your mouth, well they didn't turned like that. I used cashew butter and the scones feel pasty. I used a scale and I'm not new at making scones in the food processor. I really like their ideas but I found their recipes to be hit or miss, definitely not foolproof.

Dcarch, I particularly like your creations tonight. You always use a variety of vegetables and the stems, which I truly enjoy and I'm very found of bitter vegetables. My picture got lost Tonight we had some good salumi from Eataly (mortadella, S. Daniele, speck), asparagus, fried rice with sun dried tomatoes and edemame, plus a roasted mackerel

I'd try some of the Brazilian stews like This or a moqueca

We had a salad, some asparagus and my usual focaccia al pomodoro

For those who use corn meal, do you hydrate your flour? So far I've always used corn flour (so very fine milled flour) to make my bread. I ran out and only had corn meal (Bob's Red Mill), and I followed one of the recipes on Crescent Dragonwagon's cornbread book. It called for hydrating only 1/3 of the flour in boiling water. I was expecting I would not like the flavor but went ahead anyway. In fact, especially the bottom came with the unpleasant feel of raw corn meal. So my question is how do you use cornmeal instead of corn flour in your recipes?

We finally turned the grill on tonight: Fleisher's grassfed short ribs, salad, braised dry shiitake mushrooms and crescentine (tigelle)

My mistake calling these rice cakes chinese...the actual brand was korean. My husband is in fact Shanghainese and a typical recipe would be to stir try the rice cakes with crabs and their roe. It has happened that I've borrowed something from shanghaise dishes that I like and turned them into Italian or French. These rice cakes I made with green beans, yellow cauliflower and cherry tomatoes, parsley; spring onion, bacon and edamame, chillies; mushrooms, bacon and shallots. I tried the sweet water chestnut cake and love the texture fried. I'm thinking on how to turn it into a savory snack. I have a korean radish in the fridge that is going to become something like a "gatto' di patate" or croquettes.

Wow, that is an expensive pasta for the home. I looked on internet Some more affordable options http://www.vicentia.net/ita/prodotti/ma-30-karina-continuazione.htm Then the Dolly from Monferrina http://www.zanonicookingcenter.com/prodotti/Macchina_per_pasta_Dolly_ Finmar http://www.zanonicookingcenter.com/prodotti/Macchina_per_pasta_fresca_MPF_1_5_KG Not sure they export to North America

We had summer rolls

It is tasteless. Maybe I'll use it to add to a crumble. But that's about it, in my opinion.