dans

Mapo tofu tonight (and lunches for a couple of days). My first attempt. Next time a little more sauce and medium tofu. I could only find firm or extra firm.

I’m a little late with this. Last week I was craving a roast beef. I went to the butcher and bought a small (3 1/2#) rib roast which most people would consider a 3” thick delmonio steak. I S&Ped it and the next day I cooked it up. For sides I made ratatouille, lentils, and mashed potatoes. sorry that didn’t take a photo of the roast right from the oven. Here’s a photo of the plated dinner. ETA: I got 2 dinners and 2 sandwiches from it.

I've got a couple of heirloom tomatoes (Prudens Purple, Gold Medal, and Brandywine Yellow) sitting on my countertop waiting for something to use them with. I'd follow your lead on the breakfast BLT but I had a 1/2 ham and cheese omelet left for yesterday. Probably have a simple tomato sandwich for lunch and maybe a caprese salad for dinner.

Picked up some sourdough English muffins at the farmers market. The local abattoir has ham pieces (even when they don’t, they’ll cut you some if you ask). I sliced some of the larger ham pieces thin and cooked them up. Cooked the EM and a couple of eggs. I forgot to get a photo before eating one. Here is the second.

See update in first post

I have a set of Fine Cooking bound annual books that I no longer want or need. Make me an offer. I would prefer they went to someone local to North Central Mass but I might consider shipping on your dime. I found that the Fine Cooking FB groups can get me any article from any issue that I might want. These books have to go. They only produced these for the years 2002 through 2009. The weights are listed below 2002: 4# 6oz 2003: 4# 5oz 2004: 4# 5oz 2005: 4# 2006: 4# 5oz 2007: 4# 5oz 2008: 3# 10oz 2009: 3# 12oz

I used to buy those containers whenever they went on sale. Sizes didn't matter. The idea was that when I had guests over for say Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. I could package up the food in these and send them home with my guests. Each 'family' would get either a bigger container or several containers. If one family didn't like on of the veggies, I prepared, they didn't get a container of that. I kept some for my own leftover dinners. The beauty was that I told everyone that they didn't have to return the containers.

$5 for the lot.

Panini presses are a tool of the devil. Too often I've ordered grilled cheese, tuna melts, etc. only to find they been put through the devil's press

I found some large pots under the steps to the deck and decided to torture myself with a container garden. I planted some radishes, carrots, a lettuce blend, and some tomatoes. The radishes and the lettuce are doing well. The carrots have just started to trou=w some green shoots. I also found a spot where some ornamentals weren't doing very well. It is maybe 6 foot by 4 foot. I plated some asparagus crowns, some peas, and a few more tomatoes. There are 3 tiny asparagus shoots coming up - in a couple of years I hope they will be ready to harvest. The peas are sprouting and the tomatoes, planted from store bought flats in both locations, are still alive. We will see.

There is only one restaurant dish that my wife said was better than mine. The Bolognese from out favorite Italian restaurant. For all other dishes, she said mine was better.

My refrigerator ain't refriging anymore and they can't some until Thursday so I'll be eating my way through some food that is currently thawing in coolers packed with ice. Yesterday I saw a small piece of corned beef and made some baked beans with it. In no particular order the line up for the next few days are: Sausages, peppers, and onions (with baked beans) Seafood chowder (need to buy some seafood) Roast chicken Baby back ribs (with more backed beans) I'll try and take some pictures if I remember.

We were going to a potluck dinner many years ago and brought the Meatball Lasagna we found in Cook's Illustrated. Boy was it a big hit. We wound up making it a couple of times after that before we revolted at making tiny quarter sized thin meatballs and sauteing them. The process took forever! The next time we made it we just made regular sized meatballs and sliced them. Just as good.

Halibut, potato salad, and baked beans.

These pans are meant for pizza. Maybe they will fit your needs. https://lloydpans.com/

I was doing most of the cooking before my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She was an executive at a company and rarely had time to cook. At one point before her diagnosis, I had to travel and as a joke, I bought her a package of those individual cereal boxes (https://www.amazon.com/Kelloggs-Breakfast-Cereal-Single-Serve-Variety/dp/B07MTSNGHP) that she laughed at hysterically. Anyway, when she got sick I still did the cooking but had to change things up a bit. I had to put more thought into her nutritional needs. Tastes changed, lack of desire to eat, etc. One thing I learned was that you can't just keep making her favorite foods - she will fall out of love with it. I had to fortify things that she could eat adding eggs to clear broth etc. When she lost her battle, I found myself not cooking as I did before. My repertoire now is simple meals that I can cook quickly and have cleanup be simple. It's rare that I will cook an elaborate meal. Mostly when I have guests for the holidays.

I'm sure with the right equipment you could measure the size of the crystals. However, I don't think that most people will have that equipment at their disposal. That said, if one product has smaller crystals than the other, there will be more of them in a given volume. So, the product with smaller crystals will be heavier than the other. As an experiment I measured a tablespoon of the "old" DC salt and compared it to a tablespoon of table salt. The table salt was significantly heaver. I repeated with several times with consistent results. If you send me a box of the "new" DC salt, I'll gladly repeat the test.

My scale measures down to 1/10 of a gram.

Measure a specific volume of each then weigh them

This weekends WSJ had an article about pasta and what chefs are doing with it. It was pretty interesting. Here's the link One of the most interesting to me was the Tortelli from restaurant Wildweed. They make sheets of pasta the have tiny lines of yellow and red in it. I've seen pasta created like that but it was always wide strips cut and placed side-by-side to create a sheet. Wildweed's looks like it's about 1/8 inch wide. If they are doing it the same way, they are artists with the patience of Job. I'd never be able put it together. Here's a photo of the pasta and another showing more typical sheets.

I stooped by the local second hand so and found this book. it brought back memories of a trip my wife, mother, and sister took to see a concert my sisters daughter was in. She was studying opera and her class was invited to put on a concert in NYC (sorry, I don’t remember the church). after the show we all (minus the rest of the choir) went to Cafe des Artiste for dinner. It was a great time.

My wife and I always had Rack of Lamb with Potatoes au Gratin for special dinners. Since I've been feeling a little nostalgic lately, that's what I'll be making.

One Thanksgiving my wife and I went to my sisters for a visit. We brought the recipe for Cranberry-orange-nut bread from Cook's Illustrated and made it a few days before the event. Everyone fell in love with it and we made it every day we were there.

NY Times Wirecutter named TJ american cheese slices the best. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-american-cheese/

It's chanterelle season and I've been craving some. I will occasionally see some in small packages for a dear price at one of my local farm stands. I bought once or twice but they were the tiniest little things, and I needed several packages to make a meal. Does anyone have a mail-order source that they like? I used to buy from earthy.com (fresh morels, never fresh chanterelles) but haven't since they were acquired. Today, they only had dried.