FauxPas

And make sure all your cherries and olives are pitted! :-)

There's not much cooking involved in it (and it's not a very sophisticated cocktail), but I did make the Rhubarb-Gin cocktail referenced in my earlier post. I'm not crazy about thyme, so used some fresh rosemary instead. The rhubarb salt is lovely though it took a long time to dry. And, to be honest, it just tastes like salt - there's not much rhubarb flavour to it. The finished cocktail is pretty, but again, not a lot of rhubarb flavour. Then again, the only rhubarb I could get was at the very end of the season so maybe fresher/younger would be tastier! I still have a few stalks of rhubarb left and I'm toying with the idea of trying a rhubarb-cherrry sauce, but I suspect the cherries would overwhelm the aging rhubarb. I do have some cherries to use up though, so might just make it for that reason. Cherry, onion, rhubarb, balsamic vinegar. Maybe served with a pork tenderloin.

Ha, looks like great fun! Did it pass the Kira taste test? And how is your tooth? Hope the dentist visit worked out well.

Have you ever tried Victoria Gin? Made just north of Victoria, BC, it seemed to get some good reviews when it was first released and I know it is carried in some LCBO stores. It is pricey, though. I enjoyed it, but I am not a cocktail specialist, by any means! Here is the link. Scroll down for the link to the 'wild-gathered and organic botanicals' that are used: http://www.victoriaspirits.com/our-gin/

FrogPrincesse, these last few salads look so lovely. Where did you get your tomatoes? I hope they tasted as good as they looked! What dressing did you use for the golden beet and orange salad just prior to this one? And wondering where you obtained the Valencia oranges that were so tasty. I have some golden beets to make use of and I like the idea of oranges with them, but it's not really citrus season right now.

So glad you visited this place, and the food looks lovely, as does the restaurant exterior and interior. Love that paint colour they used, so Caribbean in feel. (Though sometimes I see this shade used as a 'Taos blue' although I always think of that colour as having more blue in it, a bit less green.) Is that the habanero sauce in your first pic - a couple of bottles on the counter table at the back/side wall and maybe another on the table in the foreground - yellowish-brown in colour? Was it hot? Is that a display cabinet along the sidewall or does it contain items for sale? Hard to see what is in there - spices, maybe?

When you say 'ongoing', does that mean you will be spending lots of time in SF in the near future, by any chance?

How much is it shrinking? Is it just falling a bit? I hope it's not going flat!

I love a bit of rhubarb also but not sure there is any local stuff left. One of the farm markets had some leftover bits and pieces a few days ago, but probably gone by now. I will check. One thing I liked was making a rhubarb simple syrup - rhubarb, water and sugar - and then use it with gin or vodka. David Ross, your infused vodka sounds lovely! I wanted to try a few different rhubarb cocktails and didn't get around to it but many good starting points on the Web. One thing I really like is this idea of making a rhubarb salt for the rim of a cocktail! Margaritas would work! http://darlingmagazine.org/rhubarb-thyme-gin-cocktail/

I hope it's OK if I try to answer this question - basically the steam oven is a braising environment, as it already has the steam that you are trying to create with the methods you mention. You don't need to cover the braised dish while in the steam oven, as the oven is generating the steam and you want it in contact with the food. You can also use more varied containers, you don't need a heavy braising dish.

I also love the steam oven for steam-baking veggies (tomatoes steam-baked at 425F were fabulous) or just steaming them. I want to keep trying new ones. Bake-steamed chicken is the one that really won me over. Seafood with steam or steam-bake, though I have mostly done salmon. Baking eggs is tricky for me, I seem to keep overcooking the eggs but want to keep playing with that. I like the shirred eggs idea. Also, want to try the slow-steamed tamales recipe from the cookbook. Braised dishes are great in steam-bake mode and I love the idea of being able to cook some of these things on warmer days without worrying about the big oven generating a lot of heat. It was warm enough to run the A/C the other day but I would not have been averse to say, steam-roast a chicken or steam-bake some ribs. Would love it if you two were able to play with some of these options, or others! Also, although leftovers take longer to heat in the steam oven, I find the texture so much better that I don't mind the wait. I hate the dry edges that can result from reheating in the microwave.

Ow, hope you can get that tooth taken care of OK. And hope it doesn't affect your ability to eat and enjoy yourself! At first, I 'liked' your last post but then it sounded as if I liked that you had broken a tooth, which of course I don't. So I 'unliked' the post, which feels unfriendly. Sigh.

There's a thread here on it: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/146617-cuisinart-combo-steamconvection-oven/?hl=%20cuisinart

Nice to see the Cuisinart mentioned!

I'm with Anna and Smithy, I have cooked beets on the BBQ and I always wrap them in foil first and then basically use the BBQ to bake them (indirect heat). I try to buy beets with tops, cut the greens off leaving an inch or so of stem attached and then rinse them well and wrap in foil. There is usually a bit of water left on them to help with steaming but sometimes I might add a tiny bit of olive oil and/or balsamic vinegar. If they are small, I will wrap several together.

I think you referenced 4-hour baguette earlier - does that mean that you basically follow Dan Leader's 4-hour Baguette recipe, by any chance? I share that D.A. baker classification with Rotuts, but I did use that recipe a few times in the Combo Oven and loved the results. Did you make just two baguettes? How large are they? I made 4 small ones, cooking two at a time. That way I didn't have to worry about them getting too close to the top element. All the same, I did occasionally put some tin foil on them toward the end of baking time if I thought they were browning a bit too fast. The resulting baguettes could be used for sandwiches if cut length-wise, else they were a nice size for bread and cheese, or for small toast rounds. And though I didn't try cooking that recipe in the standard oven, I did think the mini-baguettes had a lovely crust (from the steam at the start of the bread cycle?). I appreciated not having to try and create steam in a standard oven - the ice cubes in frying pans, etc all seems like a lot of bother to me. So I really appreciate having an oven that can do it for me! But you're much more experienced in bread-making and I'm sure you know what you like!

Bread looks delish! Any special plans for Canada Day? Or will you be on call/working?

Yay, Yay, Yay!!!! I love reading your food adventures. Looking forward to all that you will share! How old is Kira now?

How about some version of shrimp lettuce wraps? This at Simply Recipes could be adapted to use shrimp in place of salmon: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/salmon_lettuce_wraps_with_cucumber_jicama_and_ginger/ With peanut dipping sauce: http://natashaskitchen.com/2014/01/22/shrimp-lettuce-wraps-with-peanut-dipping-sauce/ Or Vietnamese style: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/vietnamese-shrimp-lettuce-wraps-with-spicy-lime-dipping-sauce-10000001203620/ Browsing some of these might give you some ideas for your own fave combo of ingredients.

Will you be allowed to take pics and maybe post some here? Their bread menu sounds lovely. The savory fold sounds like a meal. Welcome!

Looking forward to reading about your adventures! Is the Puerto Rican place you had in mind called Parada 22, by any chance? it looks like a darling little place.

Here is some rice cooked without a lid. Small casserole dish and plain long-grained white rice, 1 cup rice and a touch over 1 cup water. Cooked at 300F on SuperSteam for 30 mins and left to sit in closed oven for just about 10 mins more. Came out quite lovely, actually. Last night's salmon, cooked on Steam Broil @ 500F for about 12 mins and then another 6 mins Broil @ 500F. Perhaps a tad overcooked although it still had a moistness and nice texture. I did marinate the salmon first. It looked nicer than this pic would suggest. Served it with the Cook's Illustrated Grapefruit & Basil Relish (with some diced sweet onion added). I'd like to tweak the relish recipe a bit. I love grapefruit and it's nice with salmon but the final relish seemed lacking somehow.

What proportions of rice:water did you use, if you don't mind me asking? I noticed in the manual that they recommend cooking rice with less water than usual. For example, I have a long grain white rice which usually would be cooked on the stovetop with about twice as much water as rice, so 2 cups of rice and about 3.5 to 4 cups water. However, the CSO-300 steam oven manual recommends only using a proportion of 2 cups of rice and 2.25 cups of water. I used a little bit more water - maybe 2.5 cups - and cooked it on Super Steam @ 300F for about 25 (30?) mins in a casserole dish with a loose fitting lid and the rice was perfect. I did let it sit for a few moments before serving. Using less water means it comes to a boil faster and I guess the reduced evaporation in the oven means less water gives the same result as stovetop cooking with more water? They do say to cover the rice dish but I keep thinking that it should work out even without a lid. I'll give that a shot later.

Looks very nice! Did you use Steam Bake function? What temperature? Sometimes I finish things off with a short Broil, do you think that might have finished the skin better?

Did you have the cazeula covered while cooking in the steam oven? Why did you start the simmer on the stovetop, just curious? I did rice in the steam oven and thought the benefit was that I didn't have to watch anything on the stove top! And yes, the pan that comes with the oven warps at higher heats. It returns to flat/square after cooling down so far, but it is annoying. I would like to get a better quality one. I find the routine of using the oven is pretty easy now but it took a few times to get used to it. I have a drawer right below the oven that fits the crumb tray or cooking pan/rack so they are handy but easily stored away. Each time I use the steam function I empty the lower drip pan and rinse it with hot water and quickly wipe out the oven to remove any standing water. Then I leave the door open a bit. There's nothing to it, once I got used to it - only takes a minute. When I want to bake/toast, it's easy to put in the crumb tray.