C. sapidus

I love this salad, too! It's so crunchy and delicious! I like it even more with a squirt of fresh lime and some chopped cilantro mixed in at the end. I can never get enough cilantro. ← Lime and cilantro sound like wonderful additions - I have scribbled a note in the margins of the recipe.

Kim, thank you very much. No need to PM the recipe – Molly Stevens has it on her web site: Molly Stevens Cooks: World’s Best Braised Green Cabbage. The braise takes a while, but the recipe is easy - probably a good way to settle the cabbage issue once and for all. I love blue cheese in salad with a fruity vinaigrette. Did you cook the fennel, or is it raw? Ann_T, thanks! What an odd coincidence that you posted your lovely duck as I was answering Kim. A sadly defunct local restaurant used to offer a wonderful salad with duck, blue cheese, and a fruity vinaigrette. I have seen pre-cooked duck breast in the grocery store, but I have never seen cook-your-own duck offered locally.

Ann_T, you make so much beautiful food, but your pizza and baguette in particular jumped off the page. Prawncrackers, your prawn curry is gorgeous. That does it; I need a coconut milk fix next week. The boys made deli sandwiches for Sunday night dinner. They offered a choice of roast beef, turkey, or ham, with horseradish sauce, mayo, mustard, and/or onions fried with Elder son’s “secret ingredients.” Mrs. C and Grandma C made borscht – intensely beet-red, and one of the best I have ever eaten (including two trips to Russia). Today we fired up the bullet and smoked Apple City pork back ribs and BBQ sauce (from Peace, Love, and Barbecue), and smoked sweet potatoes with orange pecan butter (from Smoke & Spice). We also made cowboy beans (frijoles charros, from Seasons of My Heart), and world’s best braised cabbage (from All About Braising). The frijoles were amazing – bacon and chorizo, together at last! Everyone loved the smoked sweet potatoes, too. We were out of carrots, but cherry tomatoes substituted nicely in the braised cabbage.

Yesterday we rubbed pork back ribs with “magic dust” dry rub from Peace, Love, and Barbecue. This morning we fired up the bullet with the Minion method, using hickory for smoke wood. Despite single-digit temperatures early on, the bullet held steady between 225 and 240 F in a light breeze. We started misting the ribs with apple juice when they were about half-way done, and pulled the ribs after about six hours. The book had a nice tip - pull the ribs when bending the rack causes the meat to pull from the bone. The ribs turned out tender, smoky, spicy, and very juicy. We served them with Apple City barbecue sauce on the side. Cowboy beans, smoked sweet potatoes, and braised cabbage are lurking in the background. Apple City pork back ribs

Yes, I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for inviting us into your lives, sharing your kitchen and family, and giving us a wonderful snapshot of New England in winter. Best of luck with your writing endeavors, and I look forward to your cookbook. Please do keep us up to date on Oliver’s progress as it relates to food. Nicely done! I suppose that King Arthur Flour will be open in summer, too.

Sorry to hear that you are feeling down mrsadm, but it does sound like it could be the winter blues. Perhaps a vacation in the tropics would help? Failures can be more instructive (if less fun) than successes, if you can figure and correct out the cause. All else equal, the more you cook the better you get. Despite limited time available for cooking, you said yourself that you have learned a lot. Perhaps your expectations have temporarily outrun your progress? If that is the case, all you need is time. When you make a recipe that doesn’t turn out, is it by an author that you trust or is it from an untested cookbook? If the latter, a dish that doesn’t taste good could just be a bad recipe. If you find a cookbook with recipes that turn out well for you, consider exploring that cookbook further rather than jumping to an untested cookbook. I like to learn an author’s quirks so I can adapt the recipes to our tastes. For example, I love cooking from All About Braising but have learned to increase the spicing and reduce the braising temperature. Making the same recipe repeatedly would drive me nuts, but you would certainly become proficient at it. If you decide to make a favorite dish over and over again, what about trying different recipes for it? That way, you would be able to compare and contrast different approaches. Good luck!

Is calamansi the same as calamondin? If so, Four Winds Growers sells a wide variety of dwarf citrus plants. We have mail-ordered from there several times, and the plants have been very healthy. Calamondin at Four Winds Growers.

Before calories or cholesterol mattered, I used to make fettucine Alfredo at least weekly. Scrounging around for a bite, I was surprised to see heavy cream and parmigiano reggiano in the refrigerator. No fettuccine, so I used angel hair pasta and Marcella Hazan’s recipe from The Classic Italian Cookbook. Served with extra parmesan sprinkled on. Yum.

We made this the other night. It is truly delicious, and does taste remarkably like grapefruit juice. This was nice, in a "put hair on your chest" sort of way.

Wow. That is awfully funny. I urge any young folks considering marriage to discuss this sort of incompatibility before taking an irrevocable step. Hubby has other redeeming qualities, presumably? Your son looks like a bright, lively child, and you have done a wonderful job of engaging his interest in the kitchen. I completely understand dialing back culinary endeavors for family. I just learned how to make tortillas, so I hope to somehow interest our boys in the production process. This has been fascinating so far. Keep up the good work!

OliverN, your caramel pork looks great, nice and crispy. Presumably all listed on your Master List of Things to Do and Not Do. By the way, your feast gave me a hankering for Vietnamese food, which let to tonight’s dinner: Minced pork and shrimp with lemongrass and shrimp sauce (thit heo xao mam ruoc), crunchy pickled bean sprout salad (dua gia), and jasmine rice. Grandma C prepared a vegetable garnish plate (dia rau song). Everything was from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. The vegetable garnish plate made the meal, releasing intoxicating aromas of basil, mint, and cilantro on contact with hot, caramel-crispy bits of pork and shrimp. We chopped pork shoulder with a cleaver, and prefer the texture of chopped meat to that of ground meat. The bean sprout salad included scallions and slivered carrots, quickly pickled in a mixture of sugar, salt, rice vinegar, and water. It disappeared quickly, and was much less labor-intensive than other quick pickles. I can see it turning up regularly at mealtime.

Ann_T, your biscuits are as beautiful as ever. Bacon, cheddar, and chives sounds like a delicious combination. Home with a hankering for shrimp fried rice, I stir-fried shrimp with garlic, Thai chiles, chile-tamarind paste, sugar, and salt. Similar seasonings for the fried rice, plus onion, ginger, peas, scallions, cilantro, and fish sauce. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and lime wedges on the side. Good fuel for shoveling the driveway.

Interesting – I usually crumble the chiles pretty small, but I have not tried leaving larger pieces. We substitute pasilla and ancho chiles pretty freely, depending on availability and whether we want a sharper or sweeter flavor. Recent meals, part three: Mexican (and sorta-Mexican) breakfasts. Camarones con huevos (this one was actually from a recipe): My first successful corn tortillas, made from masa harina, with a concoction of eggs and chipotles in adobo: Huevos con chorizo: Papas chirionas – I love the deep flavor of chile pasilla, so this is one of my favorites: Bricklayer’s eggs (huevos al albanil) – more chile pasillas, and one of my absolute favorite things to eat in any category. Huevos rancheros, usually with chile Poblano rajas (the last picture was one of my first eGullet posts)

Two of my oldest cookbooks, surprisingly clean after 20 years: The Art of Mexican Cooking (appropriately chile-stained) and a special two-volume paperback version of Joy of Cooking.

Shelby, those are sure purty quesadillas! monavano, nice! All About Braising dinner tonight: Goan chicken with cilantro, mint, and ginger; and creamy braised Brussels sprouts. Jasmine rice and eternal cucumbers completed the meal. The family voted the Goan chicken (particularly the sauce) their new favorite.

HappyLab, that sounds delicious. I would love to try that if we see monkfish at the store. We found two more favorites tonight - Goan chicken and creamy braised Brussels sprouts. The family declared the Goan chicken their favorite home-cooked chicken of all time. Adults adored the creamy braised Brussels sprouts; the boys were tolerant. For the chicken, we skinned and marinated thighs with cilantro, mint, ginger, garlic, chile, salt, and olive oil. After browning the chicken we deglazed the pan with rum, and then braised the thighs with chicken stock and the remaining marinade. When the chicken was cooked through we reduced the sauce with sour cream. The sauce was incredible. Goan chicken The Brussels sprouts were chopped into small wedges, browned in butter, braised with heavy cream, and finished with white pepper and lemon juice. They turned out sweet, tender, and delicious. Creamy braised Brussels sprouts

menuinprogress, your tortilla soup looks beautiful. Those are limes and pasilla chiles floating in the soup, yes? Have you tried toasting or frying the pasilla chiles until they crumble into smaller pieces?

faine, thank you very much. Mexican Everyday includes a recipe for Oaxacan yellow mole. We made and enjoyed it - description on the dinner thread (click). Googling turned up a similar recipe for after-school mole amarillo (click). This is remarkably quick and easy for a mole. Diana Kennedy and Susana Trilling have more elaborate recipes, should you so desire. Oaxacan yellow mole (mole amarillo)

Funny, our burners spend most of their time on very high or very low, only occasionally stopping in the middle. High heat for searing, stir-frying, dry-roasting, boiling water, etc. Low heat for simmering, braising, cooking rice. Medium heat? Hmm, I’d have to think about that.

nakji – Wow, what a feast! Please do tell how you made those delicious dishes, especially the eggplant and fish. And, um, invite me next time? Spinach with garlic and soy sauce is wonderful, isn’t it?

Try this: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/01/0081878 shel ← I did, first thing. The article is available to subscribers only, unless you can read the teeny-tiny font in the thumbnails. ← Click the link above, and then click on "Read the article in your browser." Worked for me.

Thanks, Susan. I'm guessing that you would enjoy the Poblano beef tips (probably suitable for venison, too). Thank you very much! How do you make your tortilla soup?

Recent meals, part two. On weeknights, we often turn to Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday, a cookbook that provides a lot of shortcut recipes that still taste good. Some examples: Crock-pot pork with potatoes and chile guajillo sauce, corn tortillas: Ancho-rubbed flank steak with onions and plantains (this was really good), arroz rojo: Pescado a la Veracruzana; arroz blanco with chile Poblano rajas; guacamole: Pescado al mojo de ajo, ejotes con tocino: Jicama and romaine lettuce salad with lime-cilantro dressing. This makes regular appearances at the dinner table. Green pipian with fish fillets

To feed four, Thompson recommends rice and four dishes – soup, salad, relish (with accompaniments), and a curry (possibly with a side dish). You may want to check out the relish section of Thai Food. Cucumber relish (classified as a side dish, despite the name), accompanies curries nicely. You can slice the cucumbers and make the syrup ahead of time, and mix everything together at the last minute. Good luck with your crowd, and please do let us know how it goes. I haven’t made Thai food for nearly a month. Must do something about that.

Kim Shook, beautiful dinners, and thanks for your earlier admiration of my butt. Whatever you are doing with your new camera seems to be working –your pictures here and on the breakfast thread are lovely. Grandma C made dinner tonight - roast chicken legs, dilled potatoes, and peas. Good stuff!