FauxPas

I've been making soup! It's not that hot here (though it's starting to feel warm for wusses like me) and it's a great way to use up veggies and we have a lot of veggies to use up right now. I make soup for dinner some nights and we have sandwiches and leftover soup for lunch the next day. I would call this minestrone but my husband has some irrational dislike of soup by that name. So I left out the pasta and called it tomato vegetable soup and he was happy. It's got lots of wonderful veggies. And next time a slightly chunkier version with lots of fresh peas, beef instead of chicken stock. Fresh picked strawberries for dessert, sometimes with ice cream or just on their own. I'm a fan of the quick guillotine method, off with their heads! Maybe I should use a huller. 😄 Tonight we had burgers and potato salad. I used up some of my garlic scapes, celery and scallions for the [potato] salad greens. We always get beautiful farm eggs and we have local Warba potatoes everywhere right now. Here's the fixings. This is a local Warba, I'm not sure how widespread they are, but everyone here in southern BC goes nuts for them in the late Spring/early Summer. They are never around long enough. They have a lovely texture, clear and white and very clean tasting if steamed but more complex if baked/roasted. One of those new potatoes that is amazing with a touch of butter and fresh herb of your choice. I guess many areas have their own Warbas, what is your local equivalent, if you have one?

What's your veggie dip there? It looks good.

If I was back in parts of Atlantic Canada, I'd be tempted to have one of their amazing lobsters just because it was Wednesday, forget about national holidays. 😄 Why is it so hard to get quality lobster here?

But you need your own LIME tree, even if it's grown in l'orangerie. 😃

Most of the time, I make it the same way as banana bread, just subbing mangoes for bananas. There are several recipes out there, I haven't done much other than try coconut instead of nuts or add a bit of lemon/orange zest. But I like the mango and nuts combo, too. I use my immersion blender to somewhat liquefy the mangoes, but leave a few chunky bits.

@Shelby, are you a Costco member? Both here and in AZ, they often have ataulfo mangoes in their produce sections. You have to buy 6 which isn't a hardship for me. If I can't finish them while fresh, I throw chunks in the freezer. They can be used in cooking or drinks. I like to make my own mango chutney now and then and the frozen ones are great for that. Or to make mango bread.

@Shelby, in fact, looking at the Sprouts' sales flyer for one of the KS stores, I see Red or Honey Mangoes shown, 2 for $1. That's an excellent price! Good until June 30th. https://www.sprouts.com/weekly-ad/

Is there a Sprouts store in the 'big city'? They usually carried a couple of kinds of mangoes in their AZ stores. Up here, I can get them at most of the grocery stores but I don't know what the KS stores are like. Sprouts locations: https://www.sprouts.com/stores/

Your building really should have une orangerie for you, so you can just grow your own. 😄

The ataulfo mangoes here are definitely the best choice. And I think I'm in the minority, but I do like @MokaPotdoes, I peel first (though not in a circular pattern) and then cut the cheeks off, then the remaining bits. Or I just chew the remaining bits off. 😃 That hedgehog cut with peel attached never seems to work very well for me, I don't know why. I start by cutting a bit off one end so that i have a flat spot to balance the fruit after peeling and before cutting.

I'm going to go look up that squash recipe right now. Must be getting hot in your area right now, looks like lovely hot weather food! Are the squash from your garden? What about the [unpeeled 🙀] tomatoes? 😄

We're getting a weekly CSA box from a local organic farm co-op, so we are eating a lot of green things. It's quite a lot for two people, so we always have a couple of big salads and then I work to use up the rest of the stuff in various meals and try to be a bit creative. We always get a nice batch of mixed young greens and some choices in our other selections. Here, carrots, kale, kohlrabi, spinach, green onions, radishes. Add in some tomatoes and cukes from another local farm for a big dinner salad. Purple kale, fresh sage, strawberries, spinach and the usual salad mix. I like choosing spinach because I can add a bit into a fresh salad and it's easy to quickly steam the rest and then freeze it. Savoy cabbage, basil, garlic scapes, snow peas, snap peas, spinach, cukes, kohlrabi and salad mix. Dinner salad, there's actually a lot of kohlrabi in there. We love it raw. As soon as I knew we had garlic scapes and basil, I knew I would be making Garlic Scape and Basil Pesto. I have a lot of walnuts in the pantry so used them instead of pine nuts. With a few black olives. Tonight is the pesto again to finish it off. I needed to keep clearing out the crisper boxes and wanted to use up some celery that was getting on a bit, so made Polpette di sedano (Tuscan Celery Balls) from the Memorie de Angelina blog. I served them with a simple tomato sauce made from some good canned tomatoes that were flavoured with a bit of garlic scapes and basil. We had them as an appy with a few extra left over for tomorrow. These were fun! Tasty, too! 🙂

We had a very similar meal tonight but with kale instead of arugula and probably a bit more bacon. And I added some sun-dried tomatoes. It was quite tasty and a nice way to make use of some of the kale in our weekly CSA box.

That's a great little video and some good tips for anyone who might be new to cooking/baking. Enjoyed watching it!

@Kerry Beal, were you able to get them to send you the oven in Canada? Just wondering if that is a possibility in the future. Not that I need another steam oven, I still have a CSO in the box. But still. Just in case. 😄

Amazon will ship it to Canada via AmazonGlobal but they'll charge an extra $335 US for the shipping. There are also import fees which would not be more than $113 US. So, it will almost double the cost, but it can be shipped to Canada. 😀

How about Sapporo Ichiban's Chow Mein Yaki Soba? There might be a bit to unpack here. 😄 I think the Chow Mein term might be there to gently help people who don't know what Yaki Soba is. And maybe vice-versa? The original would probably be Japanese yakisoba (should be one word as far as I know, but what do I know) but may have come from China, says some random Internet source. And it doesn't use soba noodles, which these aren't anyway, whew. (And I think yakisoba in Japan uses Worcestershire sauce in its preparation, which I think has English origins. But that's a bit of a tangent.) I like these noodles (just like I enjoy Sapporo Ichiban Original Flavored Soup, my husband jokes he doesn't know what "original" tastes like, but there's no hyphen, he is such a critic) and although I have tried using the noodles while making a vaguely Japanese yakisoba with pork and cabbage and their not-entirely-delicious seasoning packet, I prefer to use them to make a dish that my husband is happy to call chow mein when he wants me to make it. I like to sprout my own mung beans and then sauté them along with julienne-cut onions, carrots and celery and the cooked noodles and add vague amounts of ginger and garlic and soy sauce (while I put the seasoning packet in a drawer where it sits with its little friends until we sell that particular home and have to move and I finally clean the drawer out - you know that drawer, I bet you have one too!).

Whew. 😃

I've never ordered from them or been there, but I took a quick look at their web site and see they have a Spring Sale on right now.

That Onions Etcetera book jumped up in price in the US Amazon store as well. Right after you posted about the price on the Canadian site, I looked at the US site and it had risen to $21.35 for the Kindle, hardcover is $22.47. So, if it was discounted on the Canadian site, you may have just missed it.

And a lot of folks over 50 are taking statins or other meds that don't mix with grapefruit, so it's a no-no for them also!

I see that Edible Phoenix magazine had an article on SW pine nuts. It was published a few years ago, but the links they provided for purchasing American pine nuts still seem good. They include: pinenut.com wholesalepinenuts.com 801pinenut.com

Philip is the head BREAD baker, from the book's description. I would assume there is still a head baker in charge of more than just bread. 😃

Breaking Bread: A Baker's Journey Home in 75 Recipes by Martin Philip (head bread baker at King Arthur Flour) is only $1.99 on Amazon.com (and possibly on Amazon Canada as well). Seems to get pretty good reviews. No idea if this book has been featured here before. Description is:

Is there any chance the cabinet could be deeper though, maybe with a pull out shelf or shelves? Then you could fit some pots and pans in there. Just a thought, it's probably an expensive custom item.