FauxPas

Wow, looks so beautiful and so tasty - I bet your son loved it! We started with a really simple cucumber and radish salad. Persian cukes in a simple vinaigrette dressing and then radishes added, with a bit of feta cheese and fresh parsley. Then we had fresh local halibut - done Veracruz style! Black olives instead of green. Not sure you can even see the halibut in these pics, which is a shame. It was a fine piece of fish and very tasty.

Good comment. Hot dogs are all over the place with add-ons, aren't they? I tried JapaDog in Vancouver when their food carts first became popular there. Way too salty for my taste, but I think they are still popular. And we tried Puka Dog on Kauai, which I really wanted to like ( Lilikoi mustard sounds so lovely), but I found their sauces and relishes were way too sweet. But Puka Dog was kind of original in the way they worked the buns. And I'm sure there are tons of others!

Sonoran Dogs are the best! Bacon-wrapped weiner in a bolillo bun with beans and various mixes of avocado, mayo, tomatoes, onions, hot sauce or hot peppers, salsa verde. Maybe a bit of cheese. Here are a couple of versions - from Serious Eats or from Everyday Southwest. If we make quick dogs at home with regular buns, I like to toast the buns and melt a bit of cheese on them and then add sweet pickles (bread & butter or Yum-Yums) and lots of regular mustard. We occasionally have a dog at Costco if we are hungry and in a hurry. I love that they have sauerkraut, sometimes that's all I use.

rotuts, the CSB is really wonderful for root veggies, isn't it? A warm potato salad with Warba potatoes, green beans, onion, tomatoes and feta cheese. A tiny bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Maybe some basil or oregano or parsley on top. And a simple spinach and strawberry salad with feta cheese and hazelnuts, balsamic vinaigrette and fresh basil. Should have added a bit of sweet onion.

We started with a salad, based on what I bought at today's farm market. I forgot to get a sweet onion, that would have been a nice addition. I made a basic balsamic vinaigrette and added a bit of fresh basil as well (not shown). Simple classic spinach and strawberry salad with some local hazelnuts.

Darn. I missed it!!! ETA: Wait! No I didn't! They still have some!!!!! Off to order now. Thanks Shelby!

My husband never gets tired of grilled cheese. I wish this was at least home-made bread but it did come from an excellent local bakery. And a simple side salad of Persian cukes and sweet peppers. A bit boring.

We bought a few basics today - spinach, beets, radishes, red butter lettuce, lunchbox tomatoes. Also some lovely snap peas. There were more peas, but we ate them on the way home. Mmmm! Annoying to buy some things that I could so easily grow myself. I really need a garden again! The star of the show today was the local strawberries. Quite early for them, but they are delicious. We bought them direct from one of the farms. I wanted to go to a U-Pick farm, but my husband opted for a pre-picked place. And honey, there were a few different producers at the market today. This man also makes mead. And some hazelnuts. I hope they have been stored properly since they must have been harvested in late Fall. Then again, they only cost a couple of dollars.

I saw instructions for this (Country Living) and thought it seemed a bit odd, but I guess it's got quite a history? Have you done it before? Did the hay infuse a nice flavour? Is it a method you would use again?

Tonight's dinner was chosen partly to use up some produce from the farm market. More of the lovely nugget potatoes, sweet onion (not sure where it was grown), local greenhouse tomatoes, green beans and some feta cheese. It's a warm potato salad that I like to make anyway but we had all the ingredients on hand and it was a good choice because we had a meeting that ran late. I like to organize mine. My husband likes to mix his up more.

No, they just cooked along with the veggies. I cook them fairly low and slow. 300F for 60 - 75 mins. Depends on what is in the pot. The carrots get very well cooked but my husband sometimes likes them better that way. I prefer chicken thighs but needed to use up the drumsticks. I rubbed some crushed garlic and thyme and a tiny bit of olive oil on the chicken and let it sit for a bit before cooking. I love the CSB.

Last night was a one-pot meal, utilizing some chicken drumstricks and creating just a little more room in the freezer. Heh. Lemon-garlic roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots and onion. Not bad for quick and easy. Used the Cuisinart steam-oven to steam-bake.

I used my immersion blender and it did hold together quite well. Nice pun!

Also posted in the Salad thread. Lunch today was steam-baked baby beets and Warba nugget potatoes. Loosely based on this Beet & Potato salad. On a bed of fresh beet greens. Potatoes and diced onions dressed with a vinaigrette and garnished with beets and feta cheese. Not sure about the cooked egg yolk in the dressing, is that familiar to anyone?

When we cook steaks these days, we always seem to have some left over. But that's OK, because we make steak fajitas the next day. Sauté some peppers and onions (maybe some garlic), throw in rare/med-rare steak slices at the end with a bit of lime juice and prepared or home-made salsa. Wrap - today was store-bought whole wheat tortillas which were not too bad, though I have occasionally made my own. Top with fresh green onions and a bit of salsa and sour cream on the side. Not elegant, but a good use of a small bit of leftover steak. Forgot to take picture after they were wrapped. And no green peppers, so as not to offend rotuts' tender sensibilities. Heh. Truth is that sweet green peppers are my least fave pepper, though I can eat them. And they do make a sauté look prettier, to have that third colour!

Jaymes, I will add my hopes that the family emergency can be resolved and that things work out for you to take this trip soon. It looks like a fabulous little trip! The cooking classes looks like a lot of fun. I'd love to hear more when you do go!

Definitely salad weather these days. Steam-baked some local Warba nugget potatoes and small beets. Some diced white onion and feta cheese, served over fresh beet greens with a vinaigrette. Loosely based on this recipe for Beet & Potato Salad. (You might have to scroll down to find it.) It seemed odd to use hard-boiled egg yolks in the dressing, but it was tasty enough! I used feta cheese in place of the cooked egg whites and just the plain beets instead of pickled ones.

NY strip loin, quickly seared on the BBQ. I am not sure that sous vide is better, if you are only cooking one or two steaks to eat right away. I bought an Anova and maybe should use it more. Local Warba nugget potatoes (steam-baked) and green onions and some mushrooms that needed to be finished off. We adore these potatoes, so creamy and fresh, in season during late Spring/early Summer. For UK people - someone asked me if they were similar to Jersey Royals, but I have never had those, can anyone tell me more about their taste and availability?

We are salivating for Okanagan cherries down here, can't wait!

Can you give any further details on the sous vide cooking time and temp? I'm a novice to skirt steak (and sous vide, really) but would like to try making a similar dish. Thanks! Edited to add: Thank you so much for this thread and all your lovely photos.

One of our fave markets just opened, Sieffert Farm. They pick from their own fields and greenhouses but also bring in excellent produce from other local or regional BC growers (such as Okanagan fruit). Here are a few things we bought - green onions, young carrots, greenhouse Persian cukes, beets, potatoes. Also some small greenhouse tomatoes, not pictured. They call them Lunchbox tomatoes. The star item for us is the new batch of local Warba 'nugget' potatoes. These small new potatoes are so fresh and creamy and are wonderful when steam-baked in the Cuisinart Steam Convection oven. We'll have some tonight with a grilled NY Strip Loin and some green onions. Side of sliced tomatoes and cukes. And not from a farm market but when I visit the farms, I sometimes stop by some of the nearby wineries, also. These are two of my faves. I love rosé wines in the summer. The little stained-glass hummingbirds are made by a man down in Victoria BC. I adore them, but can't decide where to hang them, so I thought I would share them in a photo or two. Interesting side note: Beaufort Wines was recently bought by James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic.

Heidi, I was thinking of that series also. It's a great read! The Arrogant Swine, in Brooklyn. This link shows all the installments, makes it a bit easier to browse the topics http://www.seriouseats.com/building-a-bbq-restaurant The most recent one, on being a boss, had some pretty powerful stuff.

Yeah, not many sale prices anymore for the Steam Oven. I think jrshaul is in the US, where the best deal is probably Bed, Bath and Beyond (as rotuts will tell you, you can always find a 20% off coupon). Amazon used to have it priced around $240, I think, but no more. But with BB&B's coupon, that's the same price. If you are in Canada, The Bay used it have it on sale for $225 to $250. That's a great deal for Americans (given the current exchange rate), if you are visiting in Canada and if they actually had that sale price again! But a couple of other choices for Canadians or for mile/points collectors. I acquired a 2nd steam oven (for 2nd house) through Aeroplan miles - Air Canada frequent flyer plan. I had some orphaned miles and redeemed them for the steam oven, but I'm not sure that they are still offering the Cuisinart oven through their rewards. However, Air Miles is also offering it, for 2400 Air Miles. That's not a bad option if you can't make better use of the miles through travel.

If liquor sales are considered essential, that might contribute to TJ's reluctance to enter the Canadian market. Liquor sales are controlled by each province in different ways. In BC, we are only starting to allow liquor sales in grocery stores and the licenses are not easy to come by. So that might be part of the reason. But I still think they could be profitable here even w/o liquor sales. When I shop at TJ's in the US, the majority of carts are filled primarily or completely with grocery items. And in Vancouver, an enterprising guy makes a living by reselling TJ items, in a business called Pirate Joe's. http://www.piratejoes.ca/ It's got some interesting background to it. Trader Joe's has sued the owner/business and lost, but is appealing. Read more here: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pirate-joe-raids-trader-joes-shelves/ Strange that they want to sue, as Pirate Joe's only increases their popularity and brand recognition. And the owner of Pirate Joe's says he will close his store, happily, if a real Trader Joe's opens in Vancouver! ETA: Target was a 'how-not-to' story. I think they could have made it here, but they planned it poorly and couldn't deliver what they promised. I was in a few of the Canadian Target stores and they were not well-stocked at all. Lots of empty shelves even after the stores were up and running. The selection of items at some stores was poor, even if they had been stocked. And prices were not particularly competitive. In the Comox Valley, the Target store opened only a couple of blocks from WalMart, so all too easy for people to do price comparisons.

rotuts, It's not because of corporate tax rates that Trader Joe's has not come to Canada. Corporate tax rates in Canada are now generally lower than in the US. From: http://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-much-lower-are-canadas-business-taxes ETA: However, it might be US taxes that are a problem - that repatriation tax, perhaps.