FauxPas

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.

Shelby - WOW! That's a garden and a half. Lovely. Fifty-seven tomatoes? Sounds like the perfect number! No green beans?

Shelby, I bet your mom felt honoured. What lovely food, such a nice mix of items. I adore peonies also, they are incredible blossoms. I understand they are edible, do you ever use the petals in salads or anything?

True enough for more processed stuff, but really - if a tomato is grown in Canada, picked and packaged, I think it's safe to say it's a product of Canada, don't you? We could argue that the TFW program may step over the Canadian labour qualification though. From your links: The origin of this thread was about the taste of the out-of-season tomato and I believe that greenhouse developments have made tomatoes that are quite tasty almost year round, even in Canada. However, I do think we need to look at greenhouse gases (funny to say that at that level, but it's true). I think we are on a planetary roller-coaster in terms of weather and temperature so I think we will be increasingly dependent on greenhouses and controlled growing conditions.

If it says 'product of Canada', I would think it was actually grown in Canada also. I know the company does have some US greenhouses, but their BC operations are pretty large. Huge greenhouse complexes in Delta/Abbotsford. Here's a very interesting article on the life of BC greenhouse tomatoes: http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/03/04/b-c-s-booming-greenhouse-tomato-industry-definitely-not-in-the-red-these-days/ The size of the greenhouses are surprisingly large. ETA: Your comments on energy sources got me curious and I saw that another BC greenhouse grower, Houweling's, has implemented some new technology in its California greenhouses and plans to upgrade the Delta, BC location: More here, if interested: http://www.houwelings.com/files-2/energy-project.php The Air Quality Studies are interesting. The newer technology reduces air contaminants significantly.

South-western British Columbia has some very large greenhouse operations and they do produce some decent tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The climate is mild and days are fairly long for most of the year. The greenhouses can produce for 10 months of the year w/o much in the way of extra lights, I believe. They usually use boilers to heat water that runs through pipes to heat the greenhouses. Those are usually heated by natural gas or biomass (wood chips). Hydro-electric costs are lower in BC than in some other parts of Canada and the US, but I don't know how they compare to natural gas in the greenhouse options. Windset Farms is a large greenhouse BC greenhouse grower and I have seen their products in the US. They are based in Delta, BC but they also operate greenhouses in California and Nevada. However, the packages will say 'distributed by Windset, Delta BC.' Windset tomatoes: https://www.windsetfarms.com/our-products/tomatoes More on BC greenhouse growing (if interested!): http://www.bcgreenhouse.ca/the_gh_environment.htm http://www.bcgreenhouse.ca/documents/BCGGA%20Agriculture%20Advantage%20Brochure%202007.pdf

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.