Kouign Aman

I've read many versions of the Stone Soup story. The gist is that a village is not willing to share its food. Someone started a soup using only a stone in the water. As the villagers gathered in curiousity, the cook would taste the soup and pronounce it delicious, although it would be slightly better if it contained ...an onion. One of the villagers gets caught up in the hype, and unearths an onion previously kept stashed. the next time, some carrots, and so on, til a piece of meat or a chicken is finally contributed, and the entire village shares the delicious soup, and think! It all came from a stone! There's a telling of the story linked in this thread: Stone Curry. The "recipe" I've made most often is onion, carrot, celery, tomato, chicken, salt, herbs, served with bread or over rice. The most fun part for kids is finding the "perfect" stone and scrubbing it clean. (I boil it in other water too, first. Bless the microwave). What are your preferred stone soup ingredients? And do you prefer a metamorphic or igneous starter?

I wonder if it would be good as a skewer for chicken satay?

Its getting to be that time! I'll be getting my fix from the grocery again, because my own little plant is just not enough. Oddly, the leaves that would poison us dont bother the d*mnd snails at all.

What is the texture of the candied rhubarb ribands like? Chewy and stringy? Not stringy? Tangy or all sweet?

There is evidence of tomato pinking! Also had a couple strawberries come ripe, and inspired our <other> neighbor to plant an entire bed of them much to the munchkin's delight. Rhubarb is back, and the celery is bolting, which is fascinating to watch (we dont like celery much, so other than a snipping for a taste, its free to go its way). Its not a great year for our garden - the weather is wonderful, but we didnt get much planted and at this rate we're not likely to.

Thanks for the reminder, got to get a sungold going.

I'm noticing, now that we live in a slightly more humid area, that the marmite <gasp> slowly gets runny when stored in the cupboard! This goes against a lifetime of experience and is extremely disconcerting of a morning.

I live with a crazed in n out burger fan, but I me dont get the attraction. Its an acceptable burger with dreadful fries. The option for grilled onions is a plus. Still no one ranking Wendy's in the mix?

Interesting thought. I'll ask someone to bring me a can from the UK. I'll only get it if baggage checking is planned.

Yesterday, Katie Meadow wrote: 7 years ago, Dave the Cook wrote: I find Lyle's bland & sweet to the point of pointlessness, and never thought of molasses as 'funky', but am now itching to try some Steen's.

I suspect someone in the work cafeteria is an eG-er, because today's special salad featured 'house smoked' salmon, a first. It was very good - a nice light smoke flavor and scent, the salmon was moist and delicate. It was pinker than is shown. The dressing is lime-based, but not so sharp as to overpower.

Paneer now available at Costco. I took this picture last week.

Kay, great idea to make the mini-scotch eggs. This weekend's breakfasts: Stepford bacon, fried eggs, english muffins, and choice of chocolate berry jellies - Jackie's Jam (Chocolate strawberry) is locally made and a favorite of himself and the munchkin. I prefer the tarter raspberry cocoa jelly given us by my SIL, although I'm not thrilled with it either, so I used it up later that day, making chocolate topped tarts for work. Scrambled eggs with extra-sharp cheddar cheese (cooked by the munchkin!!! :proud mama icon:), today's jelly is black current which I made from black current juice sold at Trader Joe's for a brief time. Black current is my favorite.

The jiaozi were basic pork and cabbage, seasoned with garlic mostly. Aside from the sheer taste appeal of your food, these slices of radishes are so intensely attractive and creative for a background. Did they taste well with the chicken?

Soba - those morel dishes look divinely delicious. Why Kim, thank you. You are such a deliverer of good looking meals that is quite a compliment to receive. It started as a recipe for popover batter from Joy of Cooking but it morphed a bit due to childhood memories, and preferences. Costco sausages, baked in the pan (with a little bacon grease to start them off & keep them from sticking), til partially cooked - maybe 10 min at temp, poked the sausages to release a bit more grease. Made the batter in the meantime. Added Coleman's dry prepared mustard and thyme to the flour before mixing in the liquids. Poured the batter into the hot pan, around the sausages, and baked until done (by eye and nose). I'll look up JOC measurements, temps, times. Thank goodness baked things smell done. The munchkin is a master of it. I didnt trust her, and I think it was a bit overcooked. If you are interested, BBC GoodFood (online) has a recipe for onion gravy to go with the toad.

Polenta is good food. Last night was home made jiaozi, broccoli, snowpeas, and rice. Tonight may well be this highclass combo, because its ready in 7 min flat, and the munchkin loves it. (I dump in a bunch of extra cheese to assuage my conscience. Sharp cheddar and parmesan keep it tasting 'original' to her discerning tastebuds.) <editted to adjust pix size>

update on the hot candy - dried chilis extract nicely into alcohol, and worked to flavor the candy. The candy hits first w sweet, then a second or so later with considerable, uncomfortable heat. I took a peppercorn sized piece and had an uncomfortable 20 seconds, with at least 5 min of afterburn. My chilihead friend & tester ate a 1/4 tsp sized piece, smiled, then her eyes widened, and she ate a few nuts to help wash it down. There's very little flavor - a bit of chili flavor, a bit of the brandy I used to extract with. Overall, it accomplished the goal. And oddly, the recipient and I both prefer the onion flavored candy. So, I might combine the two, to get the heat up. First tho, I will try some other flavor with the heat, like lemon peel or loquat, and see if I can make that work. Gonna have to get some neutral booze first. The hot moves with the sugar, so its different than eating spicy food. It sits on the spot of your tongue where you placed the candy, then goes down your throat, and the more sensitive felt it all the way down their gullet. Oh my. There's no spreading around even if the candy is sucked on a while. That's kind of odd. But useful.

yam (rice dough)

This little beauty was delicious (black sesame filling), but everytime I see this picture, I think of this thread, so here it is.

I ended up with an alcohol extraction. It was very successful. Hotter than needed and fairly quick. (I gave it two days). I think now I will try extracting the capsaicin from the alcohol into oil just to see if I can. I should be able to, since I can evaporate off the ethanol, and the capsaicin, being lipophilic, should then move into oil instead of staying in the leftover water fraction.

margaritas go very well with baja mexican food (so does beer). I suspect the drink would also work well with barbecue, since the lime and tequila both work with smoke flavors.

My friend sent me these: SuperQ is the truck arm of Kaminski's in Poway. The parent store does all kinds of Q. Good stuff. I especially like the Carolina style sauce on pork. I havent eaten at the truck. These are the "Nachos". My friend enjoyed them very much.

Thats cilantro. I've never seen it sold once the frondy leaves develop. It sprouts, you get those nice spicy flat leaves, then it sort of 'bolts' in a sense, growing the mature frondy leaves, flowering etc. The resulting seeds are ?coriander? I think. Or the start of more cilantro. Pain to grow because it bolts so darn fast!

mint onion mustard seed froyo (think raita) (avoid sugar?)

Kim- pretty burgers too. I think just doing the mushrooms and bokchoy would be good, especially with garlic. All done in a frying pan w a bit of oil. I'd start with the mushrooms as they take a lot longer to cook, and add the bok choy near the end. Med high heat and lots of stirring once it goes it. Garlic at the end so it doesnt burn. If you want something only slightly more complicated, go up to my last post before (no pix). This gets two thumbs up from our mainland houseguest.