lemniscate

I've had this pizza at Bianco's a few times. In fact it's the only pizza I covet. I have no problem eating the whole thing and dreaming about the next time I can have it. Pizza is never my "gotta have" comfort food. I rarely order it and pass it over if at get togethers if there are other things to eat. But THIS version is in my top 5 foods desired.

I tried my first "salad kit" from Costco. Creamy Dill Pickle Chopped Kit . Chopped cabbage, kale, leaf lettuce and cauliflower with the dill pickle centric dressing, croutons, and seasoning. Feta cheese to round out. Lots of plastic bags with each layer in it. Dill pickles are very popular here in the house, so this was a pretty big satisfying veg portion. I'm stealing the idea and made a dill pickle forward ranch knockoff, and will get leaf lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, NOT kale, probably look for beet greens, pea shoots, or something similar to sub. And some good strong feta. I'm adding pepperoncini to the mix too. I think crispy onions would be good instead of croutons. But it's a good kit if you need a quick salad side or main.

I found a great deal (to me) on White Lily flour thru Amazon Fresh and bought a lot. I decided to try out biscuits with it using the ATK Absolute Easiest Biscuits Ever technique. I had whipping cream, I had to make baking powder using cream of tartar and baking soda. I also can't leave well enough alone and added some pulverized leftovers of hard cheeses, freeze dried chives and black pepper to them. It was easy, drop biscuit dough with a formed biscuit look. I think it needs a touch more salt though for my taste. They are very tender but hold together when applying butter, thank goodness. Someone regifted me a quick beer bread pre-pack for Christmas. "Sourdough" flavor, you add the beer (and shredded cheese). I add half a good beer (I drank the other half) and some club soda to make up the 12 oz. I used all my cheese in the biscuits, so I add a bit of yogurt instead. And threw some everything bagel seasoning in the batter. I am skeptical of this type of product. I tried it, no discernible sourdough taste, good beer taste, but the everything seasoning sure shines though. I have no history with quick breads, but with that seasoning mix, I'm in.

Did two quarts of yogurt in the dehydrator and it did a great job. I had a bit of some existing homemade yogurt in the fridge, so I heated a combo of some partial containers of 2% milk and half and half. The 2% was ultra-pasteurized, so I added about a 1/2 cup of Nido powdered milk to the mix. Cooled it down, stirred in the leftover yogurt and set it 105F overnight in the excalibur. The final product was very nicely thick (no visible liquid) and quite tangy. That's how I like it. I had been doing yogurt SV and didn't get the result I liked. Dehydrator FTW on yogurt. Next up: sour cream.

There were ostrich "ranchettes" all over here years back. Was some kind of get-rich-quick agri-scam. Then everyone moved onto the Alpaca agri-scam. I'm waiting for the Bactrian camel version, then I'll bite. I love Bactrians.

P.S. What you did looks a lot like Tortilla soup crossed with Albondigas Mexican soup, Italian fusion?

If you get a chance, try a can of Cento Italian Wedding soup. We used to like the Progresso, until we tried the Cento.

I was planning to freeze most of the packs for future road trip food or quick snack. Pancakes freeze well, and I think thawing these would be quick. I did the same re-use action on leftover doughnuts in bread pudding a while back. It was excellent and I highly recommend using up stuff that would normally go stale and get tossed in this type of dish.

Another run to Costco to get milk, butter, cheese, veg, eggs....staples. There's a "hot buy" on pork shoulder that I brought, I picked one of the smaller packages, but its still 13ish lbs of meat. I will do the Chefsteps pork shoulder 24 hour version and portion for the freezer this weekend. I did have 1 impulse buy. I have a 'meh' relationship with pancakes. I never order them at restaurants. Making them at home is useless because more batter is made than desire for pancakes in our house. Crepes are a different matter and there's a couple great creperies not too far away to scratch that itch. However, I found these La Marie Patissier (origin France) mini pancakes, pre-packaged. Each small package has 2 soft and slightly sweet pancakes, maybe 3". So far I just ate them right out of the package, but I'm sure heating them is no issues. I think $9USD for 25 packs of 2 at my Costco.

@Shelby According to some twitter posts; Imperfect has been doing same thing to other users. Apparently Imperfect's explanation is they are only wanting to use their own delivery drivers, no 3rd party deliverers. So areas where no Imperfect owned delivery system are being phased out.

Today is zucchini slices marinated in Marmite and a fruit vinegar. Also sliced white onions that were soaked in pepperoncini juice are in a couple trays.

I got a 9 tray Excalibur. Split and dried cherry tomatoes are excellent. But, don't put black pepper on them as a prep because somehow it becomes bitter. Still edible, but a bit bitter. Salt is best prep I have found so far. Win. Cooked cubed carrots. I ate them like carrot flavored jelly beans. Win. I saw a recipe in the Excalibur book for eggplant parmesan chips. Basically eggplant slices brushed with tomato paste and garlic powder. Unfortunately found I had no parm, so did it without. Win, with reservations. With parm would be a Win. Ate these with a pesto dip. Saw a recipe for dehydrated dill pickle chips. Someone gave me a jar of spicy pickles for Christmas I hadn't opened. Sliced them and dehydrated. Big mistake. The spicy is now 100x concentrated and these little green bits will blow you head off. LOSE. This was a dumb idea in retrospect. I bet sweet pickle chips would be fine dehydrated. I did barbeque sauce leather for adding to sandwiches. That works well. Makes the sandwich less gooshy while adding the sauce flavor to it. Works well on grilled cheese. Win. Since I bought the thing to maximize beef jerky production, these veg experiments are just a lark. But I have found there are some value to some of the techniques.

My guess is relays.

The stuff I like is OOS @ Total Wine and Bevmo local to me. . I find it hard to believe there are that many Danes and saunas soaking up the supply here. There's a very good liquor store called Trevor's in Scottsdale. I will go there to see if they have it, they stock nice stuff.

Your IKEA sells alcohol? Damn. I just finished my last bottle of Aquavit at a polar plunge last weekend. I will miss it. I haven't seen it on the shelves here for a couple years, even pre-C&^*&&((d.

I don't normally buy any prepared entrees at Costco, except the rotisserie chicken. They were demo-ing these lamb shanks and I made the mistake of going Costco shopping hungry. Lamb is not high on my protein list, but the Household holds it in high regard. My sample was superb. I submitted to the siren call. These are very good, lots of meat on the shanks, in our usage = 2 people 1 shank is a good meal. The sauce is great, there are the tiny fig seeds in it. Not cheap, ~$24 per lb.; each shank is pre-bagged so could be reheated sous vide. I used microwave method and it was very good. Any leftover sauce I'm saving for use in other dishes. Bones will go for a stock.

Trying not to get too off book topic, one of the reviews of the Rancho book mentioned "California Tamales". <snip> "Genuine Rancho Cooking. Receipt for early California Tamale is Included. It is not a Mexican Tamale, But the Genuine "California Tamale" Like the Kind Made in the Central Valley in the 30',40's 50's. And kind made at Warburtons (Out of Business), the Kind still made a Rosevelts Tamale parlor San Fransico. The California Tamale is Big Round when you break into it after un-tying the strings you break the Corn masa shell and Dip into the Chili Gravy with a Spoon." This interested me and I looked up that style of tamale. Turns out Norcal/SF had a lot of tamale parlours, which made a huge round tamale style. And some made their tamales in coffee cups, steamed, without the use of a corn husk. Very regional. I went down a tamale rabbit hole with just that one review. I may get a bag of harina and some ramekins and try that type for a lark.

That Rancho book looks intriguing. I read some reviews and now I want to know what a "California Tamale" or "Cup Tamale" tastes like.

I have quite a collection of the Viancin lids (and bowls). The smoked oyster stories are great. Years ago I was sending care packages to Armed Service members in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was putting in soap, pillows, candy, jerky etc usually, but one day I started including in cans of smoked oysters on a lark. I got letters back from the recipients with excitement over the smoked oysters. Who knew? Lots of smoked oyster fans out there it seems.

3 Kings/Epiphany today, and yesterday was the last of the 12 Days of Christmas (those drummers drumming). Tomorrow is Orthodox Christmas. I have a friend of that faith and will wish them well again.

Same! We did bison tenderloin and poached shrimp and Bottle Logic Redeye November beer. Watched "The Last Picture Show", which it really was the last picture show of 2021.

Thanks, that's what I thought. I do eggs for 3 min QR for soft, and 7 min QR for hard and have always been good with the results. I did notice if during the cooking process one of the egg shells touched the side of the IP, it would crack. I switched to using a silicone cooking mesh bag (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) with a silicone trivet (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) I rarely get cracks. Those eggs were probably cracked already in the container. So I'm pretty happy with the IP pressure way. I will say sometimes I get an egg or two in a batch that refuses to peel easily. I just chock it up to egg tolerances, not the cooking. I'm so used to how easy the IP eggs peel that when one is difficult, I remember how boiling was awful and inaccurate. I used to have a little plastic egg thingy that would sit in the water and change color for egg doneness. It never worked well. And before IP, there were so many old wives tales on the internet and youtube "guaranteed easy peel" eggs versions that it was mind boggling.

Hello @JAZ Does this mean you don't use the IP at all for eggs? I was under the impression that even the steam button on my IP is pressurized. Am I incorrect? How do you steam without pressure in an IP?

I did a whole small jar with the bone spoon this mid-morning all by myself. It was good. But I'm good for a while for the caviar craving.

targeted heat gun or hair dryer?