FauxPas

As I started making dinner last night, I wondered how many people were making the exact same meal. Turkey stock from Christmas bird carcass, some leftover meat, veggies and egg noodles. I look forward to the turkey soup as much as the freshly cooked bird! Tonight's NYE dinner will be NY striploin, lobster and simple salad.

I noticed that Martha Stewart's version of Instant Pot caramelized onions, she used the pressure cooker function on high for only 5 minutes, then drains the onions to reduce the liquid and returns them to the pot on Sauté for another 5 minutes. In her example, 2 lbs of onions are equal to 8 cups sliced and give a final yield of 2.5 cups cooked. That still sounds a bit wet, compared to @blue_dolphin's ratios. This is the Martha Stewart link. https://www.marthastewart.com/1540713/instant-pot-caramelized-onions

Completely agree with this, I learned to use white onions instead of yellow for Mexican cooking, unless a red is specified! 🙂 The taste is just not right with the yellow ones.

Do you do any gardening there, @gulfporter? It might not be too hard to grow some scallions.

@SmithyI'll just repeat @Shelby's comments about hoping for a mild case and short-lived! It's never fun to be sick and tough to have to cancel holiday plans. 😞

Like others, I often use the powdered or granulated forms as components in a dry rub, especially for beef and pork.

In that recipe, the sugar goes in with all the other ingredients at the start of braising, right after browning the meat. I put it in toward the end of cooking because it's easier to judge the amount required at that point. I add sugar 'to taste', I'm sure you know what I mean! 🙂

I don't use a recipe anymore, but this one is similar to what I usually do. I use pork shoulder steaks, usually use more vinegar than soy sauce and brown sugar instead of white, which I add at the end of cooking. My total cooking time is usually only about an hour, I don't even bother covering the pan at times but just let it gently simmer and turn it every 15 mins or so. It's a simple dish, but there really are a lot of variations! 🙂

I've been trying to use up some bits and pieces and things have not been that inventive lately. Chicken fajitas. Also added some sliced avocado on the side. That "famous" roasted tomato and feta cheese pasta sauce (with lots of garlic, yum). I had a big container of lovely mixed cherry tomatoes from Costco and it was a good way to finish off the remainder. I only had freeze-dried basil which is tasty, but not nearly as photogenic as fresh. Filipino pork adobo, a favourite of ours. I made a slightly darker and thicker sauce than usual. Spag Bol with some nice ground chuck and mushrooms and rather a lot of Parm Reg on top. I used Muir Glen's crushed fire-roasted tomatoes and I have to agree with @weinoo that they really can be tasty. With leftover pasta and sauce, I baked in small casserole dishes with mixed cheese topping for the following night's dinner.

Check the Sprouts Market in Yuma. The Tucson stores would carry duck, especially at Christmas, and it looks like the one there should also. https://shop.sprouts.com/search?search_term=duck&search_is_autocomplete=true Edited to add: They may also sell jars of duck fat. 🙂

When I look at the seed catalogues, the Spanish onions are usually characterized as a type of yellow onion, but a bit sweeter or milder than the usual yellow onion. I don't know that the shape looks very different though. https://mckenzieseeds.com/collections/onion/products/onion-valencia-italian Stokes classifies Walla Walla as a Spanish onion. It also has white Spanish onions. I may be even more confused than I was before. 🙂 https://www.stokeseeds.com/ca/vegetables/onion?product_list_limit=36 https://www.stokeseeds.com/ca/white-sweet-spanish-white-onion-spanish-o-p-217-group

Chatelaine magazine did a little piece on 15 fave Canadian hot sauces. They say they sampled more than 120 made-in-Canada sauces. https://www.chatelaine.com/food/best-canadian-hot-sauces/ There's an impressive store in Ottawa that sells a gazillion different sauces. They say they have Canada's largest hot sauce collection and they have online ordering if you want to try some of them out. 😄 https://chillychiles.com/ I bought some hot sauce at the local Farmers' Market last year. It was a delicious fermented sauce that I really enjoyed (my husband isn't a fan of 'hot'). It was made by some of the people that operate the local Yellow Deli restaurant, a place I didn't really know. Then I looked it up and it seems to be operated by some kind of cult. I don't really want to support the cult, but I did like that sauce. 🙂

I thought these were beautiful, but I don't see myself actually getting around to making them. Maybe I can talk a friend into doing them with me to get me motivated. I love the Isomalt clear centres in some of them. I've never used Isomalt, is it tricky? From this source: https://vancouversun.com/life/food/recipes/karen-gordon-spectacular-holiday-cookies-that-look-like-you-fussed

Wow, I thought they were pricey here. Regular price is $4.99 but they go on sale for $3.99 lately. Used to be on sale for $2.49. You have to try the Slam and see if it works with the TJ's ones! 😄

That's for sure! Have you ever tried the Slam? I did it once a long time ago, but I prefer my biscuits crispy and cold. I keep them in the fridge! 🙂

OOOHHH! Those "Aussie-style" must be just like Tim Tams. I adore Tim Tams (but only the original milk chocolate or the dark chocoate ones). I have known Aussies who do indeed love their Tim Tams, also. https://www.arnotts.com/products/tim-tam Do you remember how much they cost, @rotuts? They are stupidly expensive here most of the time, like $5 for a small box. Ooh, just checked and they are on sale at one of the stores, must make a trip over soon. 🙂

Wow, that's a good amount and so convenient to have something like that on hand. Thanks so much for sharing details of your life, it's always interesting!

I usually use a 6 qt IP, so don't know how much would fit in the 3 qt. I just put a cup or so of apple juice in the bottom, it's in place of water. I do think it adds a little bit of flavour. I do the ribs on high pressure for about 20 to 25 mins and then let them sit for a bit before I do the release. I've sometimes thought some kind of spicy apple BBQ sauce would be pretty awesome for the next step and I looked at some recipes but have never followed through on that part. Edited to add: You can still do a dry rub before the ribs go into the IP. I usually just do salt and pepper and maybe some garlic and onion powder.

Definitely an amazing deal for those ribs! And some lovely meals from them. I adore green beans. Do you ever cook pork ribs in your Instant Pot? That's my standard method for cooking them now, with apple juice instead of water. And since I have two IPs, I can cook a fair amount at once. Then they get brushed with sauce and briefly cooked in the oven or on the grill.

A really bad photo of a pretty decent dinner. My husband offered to cook NY Strip steaks for us and another couple. For a couple of reasons, it turned out to be easier to take things over and do the cook at their house.

Yes! I don't think I can get those particular ones locally (are they pricey where you are?) but I always shop around for my canned tomatoes and avoid anything with calcium chloride. Mine aren't always D.O.P. but I still find some decent ones. It's not easy to find ones that are really good. I wish @Shelby shipped hers. I'd pay a premium for those. 🙂

Having been somewhat snowed in for a few days, we worked with what we had. But it was still pretty good! Ham steak and made some au gratin potatoes to go with, along with frozen peas. Dry mustard in the potato sauce, basic mustard on the side for me, hot mustard for my husband. Mmmmm, mustard - even basic mustard is good. 🙂 Chicken Cacciatore in a tomato-based sauce. Interesting to see @JoNorvelleWalker's version, sans tomatoes. But I love the tomatoes, along with onion, peppers, mushrooms, some really lovely homemade chicken stock (funny how some turns out so much better than others), wine, and the usual seasonings. I made a lot of sauce, but there is a bit of chicken under there. 🙂 Patties from some ground chuck, local bakery buns from the freezer, cheddar cheese, a really good tomato that was luckily still in our basket, red hamburger relish (I don't have to make my own anymore because Strub's) and some CSO-baked fries. Fries were ok, mine rarely look as good as @Ann_T's. 🙂

This sounds so lovely and the resulting meal looks so delicious. Significant Eater is a lucky woman. 🙂 I did want to ask you about the Muir Glen tomatoes though. I hate the use of calcium chloride in tomatoes and I can't find a Muir Glen product without it, not even the whole tomatoes. I know you used an immersion blender for your braising liquid so it probably wasn't a real issue there, but there is something about the texture of tomatoes canned with calcium chloride that I just can't stand. They taste rubbery to me. Is that just me? Do all the Muir Glen tomatoes use calcium chloride? I kinda get it for diced tomatoes as sometimes people may want to have the tomato pieces stay firm even after cooking (not me, usually) but I really don't get the need for it in whole tomatoes. Do other folks feel the same way?

Things may be stored in various locations, but I am always impressed at how much you seem to be able to store overall. 🙂 Your meal looks like a lot of fun and you must feel great about finally making use of that venison gift!

Or if you use a grater on the onion, you get a mix of onion and juice. You can separate the juice out.