FauxPas

Cochinita Pibil for dinner tonight. I used banana leaves to wrap the pork, used achiote paste from a really reliable local spice merchant and mixed some fresh orange and lime juice with it for the marinade. Somehow it just didn't work out that great. Not sure why. 😟 Does anyone else do this dish? My pork was super tender, cooked for 4 hours at 300F or so. I didn't make my own achiote paste, but maybe that's the missing link. Or maybe I just don't like annatto, though I'm pretty sure I've enjoyed it before. Also, had an epic fail with rice and that hasn't happened for a long time. Used a different brand of rice and decided to do it stovetop instead of Instant Pot. The rice was so bad, I just threw it all out and we had the pork on tortillas instead. OMG 😞 The fun part was unwrapping the banana leaves and the pork really did smell good and was so tender. And my pickled red onions were good! Shredded so nicely. With some queso fresco crumbled over top and also added some sauce after the photo.

Maybe it's just another Sunset-type avocado salad but we love this one! Our grapefruit are finished but we were gifted some from a neighbour's tree. We really like citrus and avocado, here combined with some butter lettuce, cucumber and a grapefruit juice vinaigrette with local honey, diced jalapenos and red onions. The bit of bite from the hot pepper makes it for me, though they don't seem visible in this photo. I am not ashamed to say that we also enjoy a shrimp salad with avocado and various greens and a horseradishy seafood dressing.

Or @kayb, sometimes the needle piercer or whatever it is needs to be cleaned. Insert a paper clip to remove any errant coffee grounds or whatever. Like this:

@Shelby, you are a ⭐! And you deserve a ⭐! Good job, girl! And I hope your steam boy will continue to steam along for some time. 🙂

Same here. And I'm not really sure why that is, though I didn't think much of some of the challenges or the way they evaluated them. For example, that challenge that had them cooking something from their own (usually mixed heritage) plus Chinese or Macanese was a bit off, I thought. For someone like Michelle, that gave her Mexican, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese plus maybe a bit of Spanish. That's an awful lot to try and combine. They seemed to be critical of taking a dish and subbing in Chinese ingredients and yet Sara got praised for doing exactly that. I didn't understand their logic there. Did you, @gfweb? Or you, @Toliver?

You folks still have snow?

Well, right now it's on sale at Best Buy Canada for $199.99 CDN ($150 US?) and free delivery (within Canada). Do you have any Canadian friends who are planning a visit? I'd offer, but I travel along the west coast side of the two countries! https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/cuisinart-cuisinart-steam-convection-toaster-oven-0-6-cu-ft-brushed-stainless-cso-300nc/10406509.aspx?

NY Times article - I hope the emphasis on growth and expansion doesn't preclude innovation! https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/business/dealbook/instant-pot-corelle-pyrex.html

Perhaps you haven't seen this Instant Pot version yet? 🙂 (not very pretty, in my eyes, but I'm sure some people would disagree) Or this one?

I saw this earlier and wondered the same thing! 🙂 Maybe give them more money for R & D?

I love this style of can opener! I can't use any other kind now, especially since I am left-handed and traditional hand-held openers are torture for me to use. I've tried a few different models over the years and most have been great, though I'm not sure if I've used @Shelby's model or not. My current one is made by Zyliss, I like it because it's more compact than some. It's about 5 inches long. I see @DiggingDogFarm's preference is for traditional openers though, so I guess that rules out this type? Edited to add: Maybe I shouldn't say most of these have been 'great', but they have been mostly decent. I did have one that went through batteries like crazy and one that was stupidly slow and ended up donating or returning those.

This Salbree steamer basket with silicone handle for the Instant Pot is a Lightning Deal today, only lasting a couple more hours, I think. Usually $14.90, it's only $10 right now. I bought one. Same price for 3, 6 or 8 quart.

They are having some issues because of the recent shutdown though. I couldn't find some of their sauces in the local stores and thought I would order online so I could get a full selection. But the company that handles their online shipping advised me of this: So, depending when you are back in the area, they may not be too easy to find. 😞

The link that Anna provides does give a pretty good explanation on why this grape thing works. 🙂 Check the video at the end of the article or even better, go to to The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where the Canadian researchers published their paper, Linking plasma formation in grapes to microwave resonances of aqueous dimers

I like various hot sauces, including the Tucson-made Poblano brand. Nice family story, they've been making their hot sauces here for a long time. http://ediblebajaarizona.com/the-power-of-poblano https://tucson.com/news/local/neto-s-tucson-a-salsa-patriarch-passes-on-his-secret/article_d72a2a30-a6d9-541f-af93-05bad33a27f1.html

Yes, perhaps not my cup of tea, but people really love it! And for anyone who's into that series, a very small cost for a companion-type book. How did you discover it?

Some really cute/funny ones here - Animals Cleverly Created out of Food

I share your fondness for a decent pork chop. 🙂

People in 19 states infected with brucellosis after drinking raw milk Emphasis is mine. More reading at the above link.

It's a bit like the Chinese cousin of aglio e olio. They are both amazing dishes, each requires slightly different prep and ingredients but they both have a similar base - wheat noodles with garlic and chilies cooked in oil. Aglio e olio cooks the garlic and chillies gently in the oil before mixing with the noodles, biang biang noodles (or at least the oil splashed ones) have the hot oil added to the cooked noodles with fresh garlic etc.

I'd never heard of ruby chocolate before. I wonder if the local TJs have this product!

yes, they were huge! That's why in my 'after' photo, you can see that I had to rely on a fork to help me deal with them, ha. 🙂 They must have been 50 or 60 cm long, at least. And wide. But delicious and toothy. Oh so delicious, with all that lovely oil and heat and garlic and green onions. My mouth is still 'singing' a bit. Funny about the Chinese character and Xi'an city. 🙂

There's a new restaurant in Tucson that I was eager to try and my friend's birthday was the excuse to visit today for lunch. Fatman Kitchen has two chefs, one is Sichuan and one from Shaanxi. We ordered Xi'an Oil Splashing Noodles, Pork Belly with Garlic Sauce and Stir-Fried String Bean. The wheat noodles are made fresh in-house and were delicious with lots of minced garlic, chili oil, bean sprouts. I believe they are sometimes called Biang Biang noodles and an interesting article with recipe and video here advises that the Chinese character for 'biang' is one of the most complex characters, requiring 42 to 71 strokes to fashion it. But here is a copy of their menu (no website yet) and the characters don't look complex, so I guess they aren't actually calling them Biang Biang noodles here? @liuzhou, if you are inclined to help, can you advise? Thank you! Edited to add: I also read this in the article, maybe that's the explanation. Is it literally "oil splashing noodles"? Biang Biang noodles is also called You Po Che Mian (油泼扯面) which literally means “Oil pouring over hand-pulled noodles”. This name explains a particular method of seasoning “You Po”: place chilli flakes, chilli powder, ground Sichuan pepper, minced garlic and spring onion on top of the cooked noodles, then pour hot oil over. The heat immediately releases the full flavour of all the herbs and spices. Noodles before mixing, lots of fresh minced garlic! After mixing all that lovely topping into the noodles and oil. This dish is quite spicy, but in a very mouth-pleasing way. The noodles are huge and toothsome! Sauteed beans with the option of adding some nice hot chilies to each bite. 🙂 And pork belly, served cold with cucumbers and more chili oil. Sorry, we had already made good progress on this dish before I remembered to take a photo. The food was amazing and the price very reasonable. Leftovers went home with my friend. I really want to return here but need to remember to go early or late, as it fills up fast.

Have we talked about seed libraries before? The local libraries here (Pima County Public Library branches) have a seed library, which includes a selection of heirloom and open-pollinated seeds that can be "borrowed" to grow at home. It's pretty cool. I have no idea how common this is. They have lots of information and book recommendations tied to the seeds provided. They give growing timelines, organize classes and events and so forth. https://www.library.pima.gov/browse_program/seed-library/

I'm sure @gfron1 posted somewhere about it, but I can't find it. Maybe it was on his FB page.