FrogPrincesse

My pleasure!

Day 2 (Wednesday) The day started with a leisurely morning as we were tired and needed the extra sleep. The house we were staying at is on a ranch near Honakaa, surrounded by pastures. We got a friendly visit by a mamma wild pig and her babies, and my daughter managed to capture this video. She couldn't get too close as she is very protective of her babies and will charge anybody who may be a threat. On another day, a curious mongoose came to observe us from outside a window but she left before I could take a snap. At some point I mustered the energy to investigate the kitchen equipment – it wasn’t that complicated, but there is always a learning curve. I made coffee and thankfully the owner had made us cashew milk using his fancy Chefwave nut milk maker, so I didn’t have to figure that out while still half asleep. Nice machine by the way. We finally go out of the house in the afternoon, and drove about 30 minutes west to the Waipi’o valley lookout to enjoy the views. It was fairly cloudy, but the good thing with the weather in Hawaii is that it never stays cloudy for very long. The valley down below has been closed to non-residents for quite some time now due to the land erosion and unstable road conditions in that area. I hope to visit it some day. Next we headed to the Honoka’a Country Market. It is a small store right outside of town which is packed full of local products, anything from bread (we grabbed a loaf of the turmeric bread fruit sourdough from Sundog bakery), chocolate from Honokaa chocolate company (we got a couple of bars), alcohol, and meat. The meat was very reasonably priced (about $15/lb) and looked great, so we got a few ribeye steaks for dinner. We decided to eat there and had a simple lunch of trip tip sandwiches for some, homemade quiche for others, while a friendly goat was observing us. We liked the little library they had there, so we had reading material while we were enjoying our lunch. Our next stop was Rebecca’s Farm Fresh market which is one of our favorite shops. This is really the place from produce, as everything is freshly picked and comes from the local farms. She also sells eggs and meats but we didn’t find out until later as it is in a fridge that is tucked in the back of the store. She also makes various little pastries, coconut rice steamed in banana leaves, etc. I find that place incredibly inspiring because I love cooking with seasonal produce and everything they have is top notch. We made a point to come almost every day to get more vegetables and fresh fruit. 😊 Lastly, we headed to Malama Market which is a supermarket. We got breakfast items and poke. This is a smaller supermarket so they sell poke that is prepackaged (larger supermarkets have giant poke counters). They have different varieties. We tried the octopus on a previous trip and weren’t fans (too chewy), so now I just stick with the ahi. This time I got the limu which is a type of seaweed. We said hello to a friendly kitty before heading back to the house. So for dinner that night, we started with snacks – limu poke with very tasty sesame garlic crackers from ‘Ulu & Kalo bakery, and a Big Wave golden ale from Kona Brewing (tasting notes: malty, lemon hay – 3.25/5). Then I turned my attention to the steaks. I used a coffee rub from Aloha Spice Company and cooked the steaks on a stove in a cast iron pan. I had forgotten to buy butter so I made do with the vegan “milkadamia” buttery spread that was in the fridge as a finishing touch (delicious stuff by the way). For the veggies, we had local bok choy (delish) with scallions, soy + a touch of local sauerkraut as my source of ginger/garlic and for an extra punch of flavor.

I am lucky that I live in San Diego so Hawaii is only a 6-hour (direct) flight away!

A lot of tourists from the mainland make the mistake of going to Costco in Kona as soon as they arrive, and stock up on whatever is available there (familiar things, and the few local items they have). I avoid that place like the plague and shop at the small local shops and markets. There is an abundance of produce etc on the island, and it would be a shame to not take advantage. Also I prefer supporting the small businesses and local economy directly. About the small grocery store in Pahoa, it may make an appearance here at some point.

Beets, lettuce, parsley, Puna goat cheese.

The lemony turmeric tea cake from Nothing Fancy is another winner. I enjoyed the texture which has a very fine crumb thanks to the sour cream / yoghurt in the recipe (I used a mix of both). The lemon flavor really comes through (I liked the technique of rubbing together the lemon zest with the sugar before adding the wet ingredients), and the caramelized lemon slices on top are delicious. Favorite part - the browned exterior. For the inside to be fully cooked, I needed to cook it 15-20 minutes more than the 50-60 minutes the recipe called for. PS: Only annoyance, the recipe is by volume rather than weight. But there are online versions of the recipe that are by weight.

Your garlicky oven roasted chicken looks great for something "bland", @C. sapidus! I had a surplus of arugula I wanted to use up and made the warm white bean salad with arugula pesto and preserved lemon from Melissa Clark's Dinner: Changing the Game. In addition to the arugula, the pesto has almonds, parmesan, preserved lemon, garlic, salt, olive oil. For the preserved lemon component, I used this condiment inspired by yuzu kosho - essentially the same thing, with habaneros for an extra kick. The beans were Marcella white beans from Rancho Gordo, cooked in the instant pot (details here). The beans are mixed with the pesto while still warm. To that is added arugula dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. I loved the peppery arugula with the preserved lemon & lemon juice, it's a good combo!

We arrived late on a Tuesday night at the Kona airport, which is on the west side (the dry side) of the island. The place we were staying at was in the north, near Honakaa (which is east of Waimea), so we had a bit of a drive to get there (especially when someone inadvertently left their suitcase behind at the car rental place, and we had to turn around to get it 😫). When we were finally able to have dinner, it was already dark and we picked one of the only places that was still open, Big island Brewhaus. This is a very casual small-ish place in Waimea (also known as Kamuela to avoid the confusion with the Waimeas on the other islands). They brew their own beers on the premises and won a ton of awards, which are proudly displayed on the walls. The brewery has been around since 2011 and was founded by the opening brewer of Maui Brewing (which I didn't know at the time, but makes perfect sense because they have at least one beer that is strikingly similar... the discussion about non compete clauses comes to mind! But I digress.). I had tried their beers during previous trips to the Big Island (they are sold in the local supermarkets), but it was my first time going to the brewery and eating there. We got some beers of course. I forgot to take pictures of the menu, so I added the descriptions from the website in italics, together with my tasting notes. PANIOLO PALE ALE PALE ALE | 5.7% abv | 40 IBU | Draft & Cans Our Hawaiian cowboy’s favorite. Refreshing and bold. American Cascade, Cashmere and Citra hops bring tropical fruit and wildflower flavors. A touch of Munich & crystal malt add depth. Quenchworthy. My tasting notes: resin, hay, lemon, malty, metallic, gravel, musty, tropical. I gave it 3.5 / 5 RED GIANT IPA RED IPA | 6.8% abv | 53 IBU| Draft & Cans Our sun will be a red giant in 5 billion years, this hoppy red ale is a Red Giant now. Brewed with a rich blend of light and dark caramel malts and a full dose of American hops, it finishes with dry hop and toffee flavors. Gold Medal 2014 and 2020 U.S. Open Beer Championships My tasting notes: very hoppy, resin, bitter caramel, sap, resinous, malty. 3.25/5 IRIE IRISH STOUT IRISH STOUT | 5.2% abv | 22 IBU | Draft Only Named for Jamaica’s all’s good feeling and Ireland’s favorite beer style, it’s a subtly rich, black ale with a light body and coffee-chocolate-like flavors; finishes creamy-dry. Served through a nitrogen faucet that creates a thick, long-lasting head. My tasting notes: creamy, tea, roasted flavors, ash, burnt cocoa, coffee. 3.75/5 I had a poke bowl for my dinner. It was not fancy by any means (and oversauced), but the ahi tuna (hiding under the furikake / seaweed) was wonderful. That's one thing about Hawaii, the local fish is always amazing. DA KINE LOADED POKE BOWL Haus-made poke with finely ground macnuts over white rice, with avocado, edamame, wakame, furikake, tomato, cucumber, carrots, wasabi aioli, sriracha aioli, and unagi sauce My favorite thing about the meal, other than the fish and the beers, was the friendly vibe of the place which was packed full of locals. There was a group of beer enthusiasts at the bar (including possibly one of the owners?) that was having a great time, and it was relaxed and unpretentious.

Sure, I will see what I can do (although the vast majority of the pictures I took are food related!).

Sure. It was about 1 cup of dried beans. I didn’t pre-soak (I was hungry and this was a sort of spontaneous meal planning). They went into the pressure cooker with some salt for 40 minutes at the high pressure setting, manual release. At that point I tasted them, added more water (they had absorbed most of it), cooked for an extra 20 minutes, manual release again.

I just instant pot- ed Rancho Gordo Marcella beans last night and it worked very well. They were older beans (forgotten at the back of my pantry), so I had to adjust the cooking time accordingly, but they were perfect. About capacity, there are reports of people cooking 2 pounds of beans in a 6 qt instant pot, so 1 pound in 3 qt should theoretically be possible.

What tonic water did you use? Many are overly sweet. I like fever tree. You can also play with the ratio of sweet vermouth to Campari & use a bit more more sweet vermouth than Campari. Or use a different aperitivo than Campari that’s lower in sugar… lots of options.

Thanks for sharing. That looks good!

I liked using the springform; the cake was very easy to remove from it (and the leak was minimal). The book just says to use a 10-inch cake pan. The pineapple caramelized just fine in the springform. Fresh pineapple is much better than any canned product, in my humble opinion. She says the recipe was inspired by a "yellow cake from a box" recipe, which sounds very typical. The dark color is from the light brown sugar. Also I used coconut palm sugar instead of the regular granulated sugar that's called for in the recipe, for another flavor boost. If anything it looks even darker in the book - see below.

Hi everyone, I just came back from a trip to the Big Island. It was not my first time there, far from it, but this time I made sure to document everything food-related so I would eventually share here. So here we go. Aloha! 🌺 The night before leaving, I made classic Trader Vic Mai Tais to put us in the mood. I used homemade orgeat of course, Denizen rum (which is a mix of Martinique and Jamaican, especially designed for Mai Tais), and Clement creole shrubb for the orange liqueur component. Perfection! Then I finished packing my carry-on for the week-long trip. We did check one bag for bulky snorkeling equipment and my trusted kitchen knife (a must-have when staying at a rental, actually bought at a kitchen supply store during one of my first trips to the Big Island, many years ago).

I made a tasty Americano the other day with the last of my bottle of rhubarb amaro. Good stuff! 1 oz amaro sfumato rabarbaro 1.5 oz Cocchi vermouth di Torino soda water

I made the quick kimchi from Dining In with napa cabbage, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, rice vinegar, a crisp (red) apple, and salt. I didn't have gochugaru, the Korean chili powder, so I used piment d'espelette instead (vive la France!). It was very easy (I used gloves to give it a thorough massage before jarring it). I tried it right away, it was already good but missing something. A couple of days later, it is better, but I think I would tweak it a bit to make it exactly to my liking (more ginger maybe). I also miss the fermented more funky flavor of the real thing, to be perfectly honest. I made another kimchi omelette with it. It's growing on me!

@Cocktologist Welcome! As others have said, @eje has done quite a bit of research on Hercules and published his own recreations on this blog, Savoy Stomp. Here is his recipe. Some people just use Punt E Mes as a substitute. Interestingly, The Savoy Cocktail book is the only cocktail book that has recipes made with Hercules. I am guessing this was some kind of clever product placement. In 2022, The American Bar at the Savoy brought it back, but there aren't much details other than it is a vermouth type ingredient that was recreated by this distillery.

I also tried this product. The flavor is exactly as advertised but I wasn't a big fan of the texture. They are hollow and very crunchy / dry.

This was the sweet corn burrata ravioli. I think next time I will just make the pesto from scratch with fresh basil. I have access to fresh herbs, nuts etc and it's not that hard to make. I just got "lazy" this time...

Here is dinner I made two days ago using all TJ's products: sweet corn burrata ravioli, pesto, ricotta, and arugula. Out of these 4 products, the ricotta is the standout for me: it tastes as good as the one I make from scratch! It's a great product. On the other hand, the pesto tastes very vegetal if that makes sense, and not very basil-y. Homemade is clearly a notch above. The ravioli is decent, good but not great.

Never mind. Amazon Produce network is the larger importer of mangoes into the US, and has no connection to Amazon. Sigh of relief!

My Trader Joe's had these mangoes a couple of weeks ago. Only got a box, and regretted not getting more. It looks like they didn't get more. They were really good. Funny now I see the fine print: distributed by "Amazon Produce network"! (odd, especially after reading this)

See this cook-off thread for more taco inspiration.

The fish taco is San Diego's signature dish, so I feel compelled to respond as a 25+ year resident. We usually see them topped with salsa fresca, shredded green cabbage, and fresh avocado. A little bit of crema and a squeeze of lime. A dash of hot sauce to your liking (cholula, tapatio). That's it. If you are feeling fancy, finely sliced radishes for extra crunch. Some restaurants make theirs with mango or pineapple salsa which is nice too. At the end of the day, it's really about the fish so everything else is there to highlight rather than cover it.