FauxPas

Campari are usually really good! Also, Allegro and some of the cherry/grape tomatoes.

And instead of scouring pads, I use these Skoy scrub cloths: http://skoycloth.com/our-products/skoy-scrub/

I use Trader Joe's Pop-up Sponges, made from natural vegetable cellulose. They work well and they are also just kinda cool - they are packaged as flat little rectangles but you put them in water and they E-X-P-A-N-D to full size. They can be sanitized the same way as other sponges.

Oh Franci, I hope they grow and produce lots of wonderful courgettes and cucumbers! I can tell you that I have had extraordinary results from Renee's seeds. I have bought her seeds for several things - tomatoes, beets, chard, crookneck squash, radishes, eggplant, Scarlet Runner beans, hot peppers, various lettuces (I'm especially fond of the "Ruby and Emerald Duet" which really is lovely grown in containers). I've had very high germination rates and the plants have almost all done well and produced as described. The courgette trompettes sound lovely, I think I will try growing them sometime! They sound much tastier than regular zucchini. We are back in Canada for the summer and although the conditions here on Vancouver Island are very good for growing a variety of veggies and fruits, we have done major construction on the house and must now redo the landscaping. I am trying to think of ways to incorporate gardening, but we have another problem - deer. Herds of deer. I can't even think of gardening until we secure the yard from the deer. I may resort to using chicken wire around a narrow bed. Bu that will have to wait until the landscaping is planned out. So I don't know if I will be able to do much gardening this year, other than a few pots on the deck. All I have for edibles right now are a couple of hazelnut (filbert) trees and a neighbouring apple tree that hangs over our yard. We lost a couple of crabapple trees and a rosemary and lavender border with the construction. We also lost some potential gardening space due to expanding the back deck and the front driveway, so I'm a bit more limited. I should have done a winter garden when we were in AZ over the winter. I've had great success with that before. If I can't garden here this summer, i will try the southern winter garden again.

I grew some lovely eggplant from seed a few years ago. I used these, from Renee's Garden Seeds in California: http://info.reneesgarden.com/seeds/vegetables/eggplant-container-little-prince/ I don't know if you want to try and grow from seed at all, but I had great success with these little plants. The plants, the flowers and the smaller fruit were all gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don't really like eggplant so gave most of them away. But i did enjoy growing them and plan to use them again. If you like smaller fruit, these are nice. She also has Italian and Asian varieties with mixed seed or color-coded so you get 3 varieties/colors in one package. I love her seeds for smaller gardens, because one package will often give you a selection, not just one type of plant.

That is odd, given that you enjoy the ingredients. Though I prefer cheese toast (melted/broiled cheese on plain toasted bread) more than a grilled cheese sandwich. I don't really like the extra butter or oil that the sandwich is cooked in. Just the melted cheese on bread is tastier to me! You once described the pub cheese & onion sandwich you grew up with (and it sounded really good, I love cheese and onion), but I can't find it now. Was that one toasted? Were the onions cooked? Would onion on the grilled cheese improve it?

I hope you had some leftover breaded tomatoes. Ever since you introduced me to them, it's been one of my fave side-dishes, but the leftovers can be even better!

I started with this recipe from PureWow, and as I recall, I used a bit less chile powder and more curry powder.

I had a problem with this recipe (or a similar one), also. Same thing - undercooked cauliflower and almost overcooked coating. I think Thanks for the Crepes is right, parboiling first might be the answer. Or I might use the Cuisinart Steam Oven and pre-cook that way. Or I might just give up and cut the cauliflower into slices or quarters or something. Ruins the effect somewhat, though.

I saw it in the Breakfast thread and 'liked' it because it looked like it would be tasty at any time of day! Though I did suspect you really had it for dinner! I hope your DIL recovers soon, never nice to take a fall.

Nothing wrong with ribs for breakfast, for any reason! And yours look very tasty. But know exactly what you mean about food that gets defrosted and then put off for some reason, etc.

Any chance of a drive up to Silver City and the Curious Kumquat to visit with gfron1???

Maybe some cheese? Swiss?

Sounds interesting! I make variations of what I call Margarita Chicken or Tequila-Lime Chicken, but never use either soy sauce or cream. (or make it with pasta). Maybe I should try adding those? Your meal looks lovely! The recipe I follow (loosely) might has a couple of hot peppers (or a fresh pepper + some red pepper flakes) and garlic and cilantro (or some other herb) and onion, with relatively generous amounts of citrus and tequila. Add some oil and marinate it and maybe add more fresh (hot or sweet) peppers while cooking. If I make wings, I often just marinate and bake. Those are really good when cooked in the Cuisinart Steam Oven.

It's a great little market! Edible Baja Arizona can be read online or via their Facebook page. It's a pretty decent (and free!) publication. It's part of the Edible Communities Publications, they publish for a whole variety of cities and regions - mostly US but there are also a few Canadian ones: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=37&Itemid=200057 Edited to add: You can pay for a subscription but they are available for free at local markets and bookstores, etc.

Fajitas, using some sous-vide steak leftovers from a couple of nights ago. This is my husband's, maybe a bit heavy looking. Peppers and onions in the pan, missed that shot!

It's been a few years since I've been in PV, but I see Cafe des Artistes and La Palapa are still in the in the Top 10 at TripAdvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g150793-Puerto_Vallarta.html But it would be nice to hear your experiences once you get back!

The woman who blogs at Inspiralizer has developed a spiralizer appliance/tool, called The Inspiralizer: http://www.inspiralized.com/the-inspiralizer/ I am very curious about this, wonder how it improves on an item like the Paderno spiralizer.

Where are you trying to go with this space? Hard to tell from the pics! But looks like some serious work underway!

Or follow some suggestions that are already here on eGullet. You've been asking about this for a long time and there have been some answers. You want to do apricot 'preserves' - but I think you really want basic jam, from what you have said. And that is the easiest recipe in the world. But maybe you want lower sugar, that's the sense I get from you. And you were also asking about no-pectin recipes before. Then add citrus or use higher pectin fruit. And you can always experiment with different sweeteners, if you want honey or something else. Anyway, you don't really need a cookbook for what you are talking about since the basics are so easy - just take good fruit, cut it up to about 4 cups and add about 1 cup sugar (which will be way less than most jam-making recipes will advise). Put it in a low-sided pan and add the juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon, plus some zest. Cook it down over med high to high heat until it is reduced and thickened to the right consistency. Put a small plate in the fridge/freezer and test accordingly, you can find the jam or jelling instructions anywhere but it is basically put some of your jam on the cold plate and see how it rolls. Start there and then decide if you want more or less sugar/sweetness, thickness or whatever. Just jump in. Try it and let us know how it goes. And then we can help you, And stop kvetching over our advice.

I have a dozen preserving books and most of them have some useful information; they all seem to be strong in one way or another. For a beginner, I think Deryn's suggestion of the Ball Canning book is a good one. It's a classic that gets updated and its recipes seem to have been downsized so the batches are reasonable even for smaller households. it will also help guide you through some of the choices such as liquid vs powdered vs no-pectin in jam and jelly making. It also has sections for chutneys and pickles and salsa if you want to expand beyond fruit jams. I suggest you first try making some very small batches for refrigerator storage before you do the canning process. It will give you a chance to play with recipes and taste and get used to the thickening process w/o investing time and equipment and energy in the canning process itself. Once you are happy with your basic approach to the recipes, then you can do the actual canning. I just find that it's a lot for a beginner to be juggling the jam/jelly/whatever recipe as well as dealing with getting the jars ready and the water bath and so forth. If you break it down into two steps, it will make it less overwhelming. I like a book called The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving, but there are lots of others that are decent. I do have the Ball Canning Book. You might like one of the other books specifically for beginners. Better Homes and Gardens has one, for example. You might be influenced by the pectin/no-pectin/home-made pectin/Pomona's pectin decision, but for a first attempt I don't think you should worry too much. Do very small batches and then you can sample and learn. And same with the sugar/low-sugar/artificial sweetener/honey decision. Jump in somewhere, give it a shot with very small amounts and then you can compare. Somewhere on eGullet, I posted my approach to very small low-sugar batches of jam for refrigerator storage. I do that all the time and it gives me a chance to play around with variations (adding nuts, liqueurs, mixing fruits, etc). Then if i run across a fabulous batch of fruit and decide I want to preserve a bunch of it, I already know my basic preferences. I might want to add more sugar for longer preservation times, but I have an idea of where I want to go before I go through the cost and effort of the real canning process.

These are new to me, saw them in the spice section today - Trader Joe's The Spice Route. About $6 to $7 for the 4, I think. It's in the pics, but if it's hard to see, the 4 spices are Sumac as well as Zhoug, Ras el Hanout and Pilpelchuma spice blends.

Thank you!

Yes, I'm totally thinking that the lower temp for fish removes some concerns! Would you thaw first, or just cook from frozen though? And how do you adjust for frozen if it's only small pieces like this? And yeah, it's a professional operation - they are using proper materials and tracking their lots and so forth. It looks like a good quality vacuum package.

Yeah, it seems right to me also but not sure if I am missing something. The water bath is only about 122F for about 30 to 40 mins. These salmon pieces are about 200 gms or so. I think the original packaging should be fine for that. It looks like a good quality vacuum pack. I'm following some ChefSteps guidelines for the actual cooking and the temp isn't very hot. But when is it a problem to use original packaging, I wonder? Also, would you thaw first or just do the water bath to thaw as well as cook - and adjust the time, in some way?