Shelby

Fair to say the point is to make totally clear ice - it's the holy grail of ice it seems. Crystal Clear Ice Blocks The Ice Topic DIY Ice Ball Maker Ah, Ok. Cool (pun intended lol)

Ok, I'm soooo enjoying this. How cool to be able to just cook what and when ever you want to. I'm going to ask a reaaaaallllly dumb question, so please, don't hold it against me if the answer is glaringly obvious: I love the clear, round ice cubes. I really do. But, is the point just to make totally clear, round cubes or is there another reason I'm not seeing?

You guys are my kind of people.

Yay!!!! A double team

Thank you, Franci!!

Wow! Over 2 hours for lunch! Do some students eat at school, or does everyone go home?

Thanks for the videos, Franci! I love the second one and I'm going to save it. I want to try my hand at making my own. That woman is FAST! I agree with Kim and Melissa. Your city looks so lovely and glamourous.

Franci, your pasta is truly beautiful. I buy orecchiette from the grocery store. I find it to be a bit "stiff" or hard even after cooking for the right amount of time. Yours look exactly how they should. How do you form the "ears"?

That looks like a tick that's full of blood off of my dog--except it's green blood.... *faint*

Great looking food, everyone! Roasted asparagus pizza (asparagus overload here....asparagus has been going on everything) Chicken enchiladas Stuffed strawberries I was trying to be like DCarch and failed....but they sure tasted good.

I'll never forget the first time I was introduced to ceviche. I was in 3rd or 4th grade and living in a tiny town up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. My friend's mom--I'll call her Mrs. F--made a huge bowl of it. I couldn't tell you what kinds of fish she used, all I can tell you is I was wowed by the flavors. Spicy, cool, crunchy, salty. It was very exotic and fresh to me. To my friend it was like "Aw, mom, ceviche again???" I thought it was so cool that the fish "cooked" in the lime juice. I still think it's cool. Mrs. F also introduced me to prosciutto wrapped melon...but that's a story for another time. Freshly caught walleye and white bass filets: Marinating in fresh lime juice (don't use the bottled kind, it just doesn't taste right): After marinating for a little over 4 hours: You can tell the meat is whiter and looks "cooked". I've seen recipes that range from leaving the fish in lime juice for 20 minutes to over night. I don't like leaving it over night...it's too limey and cooked for my taste. The rest of the ingredients: The ultimate best time for me to make ceviche is when the tomatoes are ready in my garden. What a difference a Kansas, garden fresh tomato makes! Sometimes in the winter I'll crack open a jar of my canned tomatoes, but since all my tomatoes burned up last summer, my 3 jars are precious commodities. So, I made do with a yucky store bought tomato and some Hell On The Red salsa (the best store brand, imo) Anyway, along with that we have celery, jalapeno, green onion,(I like to use red onion the best, but I was out)black olives, green olives and fresh cilantro from my garden that survived over the winter. OH and not pictured, a few squirts of Sriracha hot sauce because the jalapenos were not spicy at all, unfortunately. Salt and pepper to taste. Add some tortilla chips, and you're good to go!

I have to go get some squash from the garden center--the ones we grew from seed up and died. Also, they were out of basil, so I gotta go back for that. Watermelons that sprouted from seed on their own: Kind of far away, but that's another melon patch next to the wheat. If the racoons stay out, we should have a lot of cantaloupe and watermelon:

WOW is it an early spring/summer, or what?? We've been working on the garden for a few weeks now. It doesn't look like much from these pictures, but, I swear, the garden looks decent. I really hope that we get more rain and less heat this summer, though. I think we're up to around 25 tomatoes planted so far. We're going to have a total of 40. I'm staggering the planting. OH, and my husband ran across a bunch of old windows on a property of ours, so he built a greenhouse on to the back of the garage! He used some of the windows for shelves so that the sun gets to everything. It wasn't finished quite early enough to have a lot of things started this year, but we'll have a ton next year. Greenhouse: Asparagus: Garden from afar: Onions, lettuce, spinach--that didn't hardly come up for some reason, cilantro from last year that stayed alive all winter: Tomato that we had inside the house. We got a whopping 4 tomatoes from it over the winter lol. It's not doing so well now: Tomatoes, eggplants, Peppers--banana, bell, anaheim and jalapeno:

That makes sense. The appeal to the kit for me is that it's all together in a package and it seems less "scary" to a new person. BUT, like Tri said, I don't want to waste money when I could go to the site recommended and get it all there. I read the modernist cuisine thread all the time--Chris H. is never afraid to try, along with many others--but I'm nervous about it for some reason. I'm really wanting to wow my husband with the mac and cheese....I just need to get some cohones....or rather put my big girl pants on and try.

That's EXACTLY what I wondered, Tri. THANK you.

I ran across a Molecular Gastronomy Kit in a catalog. What do you think? Is it a good intro for people, such as myself, who are completely new to the concept?

Ohhhh, Cali, thank you! I get those coupons all the time. For some reason it never crossed my mind to use one for those.

I can't get over how much we use our Soda Stream. I drink SO much more water, now. That's the upside. The downside is that I'm getting up twice a night to pee. The canisters came with a self addressed return box using UPS as the carrier. Come to find out, it wasn't a label that allowed them to pick up at my house. Rather, I would have to find a UPS drop-off station--which is way easier said than done where I live. Anyway, I packed up my 2 empty canisters and drove the 45 minutes to town to a Bed, Bath and Beyond. You just go straight to the check-out register, hand them your empties, they hand you full ones. You pay and you're outta there. Very convenient--especially if you live in a city.

I'm loving this topic. I have ZERO experience in curing fish except for making ceviche. My husband went walleye fishing on Saturday and brought home a huge catch. It includes some white bass. I happen to have a bunch of limes that need using up, so I'm going to contribute to this thread this afternoon (as soon as I'm done planting some tomatoes etc. in my garden). David, I'm in awe/love of your Bradley smoker. We (and I use we verrrry lightly lol because my husband does all of the meat smoking) have a run-of-the-mill Brinkman smoker. It does fine and I'm pretty sure that it's the only type of smoker my husband has ever used. I'd like to get one like you have and branch out a bit. I'm wondering if they make smaller versions or if the size you have is what we would want. We are a 2 person family and we don't smoke a huge amount at a time. I have a feeling I would have a hard time convincing my husband to go for an electric smoker, so I gotta do research to re-butt any arguments lol. Also, and this might be a stupid question, do you leave your smoker outdoors at all times?

That scenery is so beautiful that it almost looks fake. Absolutely breathtaking.

I look forward to each installment! I think it's exciting and I'm enjoying it a lot!

Thanks for posting these great pictures! Looks like a great trip. I'm now drooling.

What's the difference if the container is ultimately placed in the recycle bin? By reusing the containers, you ultimately use less of them, thereby reducing recycling and waste. Well, if your sports water bottles looked anything like mine, you wouldn't want to use it again.

Just trying to recall the last time we knew that the power was going to go off. Just one of the extra benefits of living in the middle of nowhere...you don't count either. Now storms are another issue... That's what I was meaning...storms, high winds--which in Kansas means anything over 70 mph....oh and the always entertaining ice storms.

Why not refill the water bottle from the tap at home or another trusted source? What's the difference if the container is ultimately placed in the recycle bin? Ditto. Well water here, too. No power=no water. And, yes, we also have a generator but that isn't used unless we have many, many hours without power. And, yes, if I think the power is going to go out, I fill many containers, including the bath tub, with water.