lemniscate

I par-baked pizza shells today with a sourdough that included chopped olives added to the dough. They are very small, like 6"-8" size. I got 8 or so. I plan on freezing them to be ready for quick meals. I brushed them lightly with a sundried tomato oil before baking. Not pretty now, but when dressed out with toppings should be pretty good eating. No pics due to flour everywhere and multiple oven trips (I bake outside on the patio), it was a mess. I have another batch of dough doing the slow rise aging in the fridge.

A friend of Armenian origin via growing up in Iran (amazing cook/host) recently brought me a mix of foods from a trip to SoCal. There are lots of Armenian grocery stores and they sound wonderful. I received a mix of olive, some large, some small. Green,black,red,cracked,uncracked. So happy. Spiced string cheese. Very good with cold beer. Jarred walnut stuffed eggplants. A mezze on their own. Turkish Antep pistachios. Smaller and darker than American pistachios, and a much, much deeper, richer flavor. They should be labeled with a Binge Eating warning. Dried white mulberries, what an interesting surprise. Sweet and chewy and equally dangerous to Binge Eating. Big folded pile of lahvosh.

I delivered the Chefman air fryer to the intended recipients, along with my in-person training class. Big success. Demonstrated the Chung's vegetable egg rolls. 12 min at 400F with NO flipping halfway. I have found the flipping unnecessary for my tastes and the recipients agreed. They asked about cooking other stuff, which I thought was a great sign. Frozen fries, dumplings, sausages/brats (thanks @Anna N), roasting cauliflower/vegs, chicken thighs and wings, pork chops, etc were discussed. I liked the little Chefman (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) while I had it. I'm thinking about adding one to my travel kitchen to go along with my A4Box.

There are expiration dates on packages of salt. Ancient seabed salt is labeled with expiration dates. If that doesn't break your brain, I don't know what will.

Went to N. New Mexico for a too short getaway. Came back with no fresh chiles, but grabbed a bunch of local produced jarred sauces and stuff. Costco ABQ is a great place to get some local flavors. Cervantes sauces (red and green) in 3 packs. A gallon of Sadies hot salsa. Believe the label, it's hot! Reminds me of the old school macho table salsas you used to get with your bowl of chips if you asked for it special at Mexican restaurants. 2 Costco packs of frozen chopped HOT green chiles. I would have preferred med heat but I grabbed what they had. Each pack has 12 smaller envelopes of chopped roasted chile. Looks very nice and conveniently portioned. I have never seen frozen chiles in Costco in AZ. (Also bought 3 2023 Balloon Festival calendars, ~$4 bucks each. Cheap and pretty to look at, that was my tourist purchase) Adult beverages: Atapino. Nice for campfire sipping after eating green chile stew. 30 lbs of my beloved NM Pinon coffee beans right at the roastery on Comanche. I know in the past on eG it's been disparaged as "tourist" coffee. I've loved it for decades and will continue to love my "tourist" coffee. I get the med roast beans and I just enjoy that buttery undertone of the pinon nuts in it. Here's a delicious hot mess of Christmas smothered hash browns in Taos. I was late taking a pic because I was hungry.

It's a bit more than that. It's just a 1 stop shop envelope of seasoning (like Hidden Valley ranch dressing or Lipton onion soup). I like it because it doesn't add liquid to the sous vide bag, as a rub. Here's the list of ingredients. Cane Sugar, Salt, Powdered Soy Sauce (Wheat Soybeans Salt, Maltodextrin), 5-Spice Powder (Ginger, Aniseed, Fennel Cinnamon, And Cloves), Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Spices, Red #3.

Some of the pork shoulder char siu (Noh powder) meat off the charcoal grill. Pork was sous vided and then grilled.

Costco has a "Hot Buy" on pork shoulder for a few days. Picked up a pack. Each pack has 2 shoulders. One is cooking as char siu using Noh Chinese BBq powder recommended by @mgaretz multiple times It's shockingly pink. One is cooking in a pepperoncini based marinade, dried shallot, shredded carrot, granulated garlic. I picture an Italian beef but with pork for slicing for sandwiches.

More meat preservation. I think this is the last of it. Beef Jerky. This is a 4 qt Cambro filled to the top and there's another one like it. Eye of round, marinated in soy, marmite, white pepper, Red Boat salt and liquid smoke. I freeze the eye and then slice it thin using a manual meat slicer (eG-friendly Amazon.com link).

The old Grey Stripe watermelons were/are the best watermelon. So sweet you were sticky down your forearms to elbows at the picnic table from the high sugar juice that escaped the wedge you were chomping into. I can't recall a seedless that made my elbows sticky at all.

Sorry, no photos. Recipe? Kinda. Cubed watermelon, maybe 1"x1", but I don't care too much about the exact shape. I use a basketball sized seedless watermelon because it's easy to handle. Place the pieces in a single layer in a vacuum bag(s) and pull a vacuum seal cycle on them. I've done this with a Foodsaver, but now a use a vacuum chamber. The pieces with shrink a bit, and turn a deep red, like salmon sashimi color. You can add balsamic, or lime juice, mint or salad dressing into the bag before the vacuum pull and it will infuse into the watermelon. Open the bag, drain the pieces. Keep the juice as cook's treat or maybe use as a dressing(?) I toss the pieces with a goodly amount of feta crumbles and black pepper. I don't use a dressing, just let the sweet and salty mingle as is. I've sometimes sprinkle shredded fresh mint over it if I have some. I've done cilantro over it, but at potlucks there are too many cilantro haters to risk it anymore.

I do something similar with frozen wet (NEW) kitchen sponges (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) vacuum packed in a flat configuration. These work great under dishes and in coolers, lighter than ice packs. Very reusable. YES, and double YES! TSC is always a big hit, especially the one with the chocolate fudge and pecan icing. Pasta salad made with cheese tortellini always is a go-er here. Also, caprese salad with cherry tomatoes and marinated mozz balls tossed with balsamic and basil. For fruit, I've been doing a compressed watermelon cube and feta toss that gets attention and gets asked for again.

BIG batch of Biltong. Eye of round cut in strips, marinated in vinegar/soy sauce/Red Boat salt/Marmite. Rolled in toasted coriander and cumin roughly ground. Hanging in the Excalibur until done to my preference doneness, on the softer side.

I've done that to myself. Frozen bags of backyard lemon juice in freezer (unmarked). Pull one out, thawed and mixed with sugar/honey. Nice sweet chicken broth beverage. Learned my lesson about assuming things by color from the freezer.

First test cook in little air fryer was TJ's Kahlua Pork Spring Rolls. The 4 ct. fit perfect in the small basket and I did a 10 min 400F (per box instructions), turning in the middle. I think I will bump to 12 min next time since the insides could have been a smidge hotter for my tastes. The outside was plenty crispy crunchy. I thought the taste of the filling was fine, a little on the mushy side in texture. The others in the Household were more positive on them. We ate them for part of breakfast. I bought TJ's Gyoza sauce on a whim and THAT I really liked as a dipping sauce for the spring rolls. Today, my goal is to find the Chung's pork egg rolls, and the Pagoda's.

Great info! Now I'm hungry!

I just entered the Air Fryer generation on a tangent. I have relations who are averse to overly fussy controls on kitchen equipment. They are still using a Toast-R-Matic toaster oven and dial control crock pot. Also, they love frozen egg rolls/spring rolls but the toaster oven doesn't seem to do great and also doesn't have a safety shutoff timer. And using the range oven (big) is just too much for small amounts of that type of cooking. I purchased a 2 qt. Chefman (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) to test drive myself so I can pass it along with real world use on those items. It just has dials on it. Looking for tips/tricks on frozen egg roll type things to help make them successful. Anyone done egg rolls/spring rolls/dumplings? They would be using the versions from HMart, Costco, TJ's, local Asian supermarket. I'm kinda looking forward to trying the frozen items myself. They also like a handful of fries now and then, so I gleaned that frozen fries are the way to go with a shake in the middle.

That was one of my choices. New to me.

Bunch of different flavors. It's the best price I've seen in a long, long time on Tonnino jarred. (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Pack of 6, (buy once, cry once.)

Added several jars of Tonnino Tuna to my Prime Day purchases.

So far for me, Amazon Happy Belly trail mix (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and Korean Honey Butter nut mix. (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) I like the Happy Belly trail mixes and wanted to give the honey butter stuff a try. It's road trip season and these are great road snacks. No other kitchen/food stuff yet on radar.

Regarding lemons (backyard tree): I have only really experienced mold on stored lemons that were bruised/bounced/touched the ground. I have found that untouched lemons with go soft, but not moldy.

I forgot, I also had Hangikjöt, which is a kind of smoked lamb meat. I don't really like lamb, but this was pretty good and unusual. Very thinly sliced. Gull and Thule beer were pretty nice, on the lighter side. I also remember there were a lot of open faced sandwiches, the Danish influence. I love those.

I stayed in Hofn for the Northern Lights a few years ago. Ate a lot of Icelandic lobster, caribou, and pylsa. Had an unfortunate encounter with Lysi at a breakfast buffet. In my defense, it was served in a shot glass, so I thought liqueur at breakfast was a reasonable thing, it was not liqueur . Iceland also is a black licorice lovers paradise. Brennivin is an acquired tasted, I actually liked it and keep a bottle of aquavit in the freezer now. Iceland looks and feels like another planet than Earth, the iceberg lagoon and black sand beach were right out of a sci fi novel. I did not mess with the rotten shark or the sheepshead in the Viking tourist restaurants.

Bison burgers grilled with fixings, beef hot dogs grilled with fixings, chicken legs and thighs (skillet sauteed with onions/mushrooms), cole slaw (old school Betty Crocker recipe version), Hawaiian potato mac salad, canned B&M baked beans, tomato salad, pineapple upside down cake, a sliced watermelon. Straight on down the line traditional 4th menu. Belgian beer served at the right temp, not icy cold, for me as my beverage.