blue_dolphin

I agree there's a good argument for the thicker lemon pith providing a better barrier to the acidic juice vs limes and the acid should inhibit mold growth. Additionally, your average lime sold in groceries is picked when quite underripe. Most limes will turn yellow when completely ripe. At that point, they will be more sweet, juicy and also more prone to damage. I have a lime tree, generally let them hang on the tree until fully ripe and I feel like I've had some go moldy when I've picked big batches to give away but I usually just pick what I need so maybe I'm misremembering the mold situation. I'm attempting to make some dried limes (black limes, Omani limes, limoo Omani, etc.) using the recipe in The Food of Oman. I think smaller limes like Mexican limes or Key limes tend to be used for this vs the bigger Persian or Bearss limes that I have on my tree. It's only been about a week but no mold, so far. I threw in a couple of lemons and they're not moldy either but we'll see.

I got it from @Kim Shook, who shared what daughter Jessica dubbed “Trashy Benedict” with hash browns subbing in for the English muffins. A most excellent idea!

A few recent breakfasts. Today's sardines on toast featured one of yesterday's sardine shopping purchases: The artwork on this brand of French sardines cracks me up! They are tasty, though! The fellow in the shop told me to make sure to have extra bread on hand to sop up all the juices from the tin and that was good advice! The other day, I was admiring the poached eggs shared here but was lacking any suitable bread. Poached eggs on hash brown patties topped with sautéed greens and blistered tomatoes. That was a good combo but too much food for me so the next day, I modified to this with a scrambled egg. This was OK but I didn't quite find the right condiment. Tried tomato chutney and ketchup, neither was quite what I was looking for - maybe something more pickle-y? I dunno I have one more hash brown in the freezer but it's not going to keep me up at night!

In my post above, I mentioned the entertaining artwork on some of the sardine packaging. My shelfie wasn’t sharp enough to clearly show the cartoon designs on one of the brands from Portugal but this link to their website does. Notice the skinless ones are changing behind a screen or taking a shower or sauna while a smoked sardine is popping up out of a chimney:

Their canned fish selection has been expanding and really exploded recently with the addition of those big lines from Portugal and France. There was a previous business in the same general area called Epicure Imports. It had very limited shopping times for the public and it shut down ~ 2015. I was told that employees partnered with an investor, bought out the business and opened as Epicurus Gourmet. If you go, read the driving directions on their website. The entrance doesn’t face the street, you have to turn in between 2 nondescript warehouse buildings to see it.

Epicurus Gourmet is in the SF Valley area of LA and is very much worth a visit if you’re in the area. All kinds of good stuff and they're very nice people, too. If you click on “In Stock,” you can access and search an updated PDF to see what’s available. It doesn’t have prices, just sizes & quantity but is handy if there’s something in particular you're looking for.

Out shopping today and picked up some canned sardines. Lots of options. Matiz: And others: Most of the top shelf are from Spain, both brands I like. The middle shelf are from Portugal and the bottom shelf are from France. Both of those last have entertaining labels. This is the other end of those 2 bottom shelves. Portugal above France. My rather small selection: Most labels are fairly clear. The 3 French tins are sardines with: ratatouille - lavender chorizo - red pork liver - tan That last one was purchased because I couldn’t imagine it 🤣

There's a Facebook group (Fine Cooking Community) that has digitized all the past issues on a Google drive and has a searchable recipe list in an Excel file. You can also search for recipes on Eat Your Books. Either way, you then download the issue PDF from the Google drive and get the recipes from there. The FB group started a while back when Taunton sold FC to Meredith and the FC website went dark. It was ultimately revived but the group continues.

I like this idea a lot. Start with a platter of mostly vegetable antipasti and your focaccia and leave that on the table in case anyone wants to continue to have them along with their pasta dish.

I think you could use any cooked vegetable that goes with whatever you're filling and saucing the cannelloni with. My preference would be for something with a touch of bitterness like dark, leafy greens, broccolini, broccoli rabe etc. sautéed with a bit of garlic. Zucchini would work, too. You could throw some roasted mushrooms in with any of those or just have them on their own. If you're not doing a tomato-based sauce, some blistered cherry tomatoes would be a nice contrast on the plate.

Over in one of the Facebook Creami groups, someone wanted to make up a bunch of flavors but didn't have access to extra beakers. He reported using plastic bag-lined Creami beakers to freeze the mix and just storing it in the bags, freeing up the beakers. He did roughly what @Kerry Beal describes, running a bit of warm water over the bag, pulling off and sliding it into a cold beaker for spinning. He showed a photo of his freezer with stacks of different mixes, frozen and ready to go. He was using a relatively lightweight bag that came on a roll and conformed nicely to the beaker. I'd think a heavy weight bag might form folds that would make it difficult to get the bag off. I don't really have the freezer space for that, although it is more space-efficient than storing in the beakers, but I can see it being handy for some purposes so I figured I'd mention it over here.

If you haven't already done so, I'd encourage you to try roasting the nectarines, especially if they are early season varieties that aren't free-stone 'cause it's so easy to remove the pits after roasting. I leave the skins on, they add color and pretty much disintegrate in the blender after roasting. I got the roasting thing from the People's Pops cookbook where they recommend it for most stone fruits. That book is about popsicles but a lot of its wisdom can be applied to sorbets was well. Roasting both concentrates the flavor and improves the texture from a bit icy to luxuriously creamy. Or roast half and use unroasted fruit for another batch to compare. It's fine to go down to ~ 1/4 capacity of the Creami containers which makes side by side comparisons easy. Other popsicle learnings I've applied to sorbets are: Thoroughly chill your mix before doing a final taste test and adjusting sweet/tart balance if necessary. Tasting at room temp or warm can get you in the ballpark but it's going to be eaten cold and should be tasted that way. If you don't have time to chill the whole batch, put a spoonful on a plate in the freezer. At this point, it's easiest to use simple syrup and fresh lemon juice for those adjustments. Using simple syrups infused with herbs or spices is an excellent way to add those flavors to sorbets and peaches and nectarines are wonderful partners. Ginger, mint, tarragon, basil, vanilla, bourbon....the list goes on!

When we were kids, we always wanted to stop there - how could you not after seeing all those build-up billboards for miles and miles! My parents never obliged either. They used to be well known for selling fireworks, if I recall. Ooooh! I'd be happy to follow along for that thread here! Could we have dueling Princessmobiles one day??? Thanks for taking us along!

Fine Cooking has a note on their website saying the site will shut down at the end of July and giving instructions for saving recipes.

No, they don't ship. Nor is that a regular item for them so neither of us can get one easily! It arrived at fridge temp courtesy of my friends who picked it up for me. We usually message each other when we head out to Roan Mills bakery in Fillmore to see if anyone wants anything. Those beef cheek pies were a special, made by the son of the Roan Mills & Kenter Canyon Farms owners when he was in the process of testing out recipes for a restaurant he was getting ready to take over He'd previously had a restaurant in Los Angeles which was a pandemic casualty and is now the chef at Sear Steakhouse in Solvang. I figure if I really want one, I'll ring up the restaurant and ask if he'll make me one 🤣

Oh man, that beef cheek pie was one of the best things I’ve eaten with mind-changing potential. Too bad I couldn’t have shared it with you!

Tuna mac After a nice cool weekend, it's warming up again so I mixed up a bowl of this to take me through a few meals. Maybe I'll go pick up some corn on the cob to go with it for the next round.

Thanks! I ordered a copy. The recipes in the article are very appealing and it sounds like a book I'll enjoy both reading and cooking from. The hard copy won't be out in the US until October (what's up with that?) but the Kindle version will be available on June 23. I decided on a hard copy from a UK source so I won't have it on the 23rd but it should be here before October! I'm also anticipating delivery of three books that were part of Amazon's recent 3-for-the-price of 2 promotion when I ordered but not necessarily now. Melina Hammer's A Year at Catbird Cottage (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) after listening to her recent convo here, Rick Martinez'sMi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico: A Cookbook (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and Lukas Volger's Snacks for Dinner: Small Bites, Full Plates, Can't Lose (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

Yep - we had a high of 71F. It was a delightful 51F when I got up and since I’d left the windows open, my thoughts turned to baking, too!

I’m sorry. This AM was so delightfully cool and perfect for baking!

I have long wished for a nice Sorvall RC-2B and rotors in my garage/kitchen annex. What centrifuge do you have at home?

I don't have any molecular solutions but I have seen this in my popsicle-making escapades where I get that pulpy foam from a number of different melons. I usually either let it stand in the fridge for a few hours and skim off the foam or strain it through a fine mesh sieve, or both. As you indicate, giving it a shake periodically early in the freezing also works. Shaking doesn't work for popsicles but if the mix is cold, they freeze pretty fast so it's not horrible to give them stir every 15 min 'til it's thick enough to hold up the sticks, usually 45 min to an hour.

This is the recipe booklet that came with mine. Also this safety info and a Quick Start Guide. It’s been a while since I read them but I don't recall any admonition against using normal ice cream recipes. Maybe it’s there and I missed it. I suppose he has a point that the recipe booklet lacks complete instructions in developing your own recipes for the unit but they do mention how to adjust sweetness, an area where he wanted more handholding. Their recipes tend to be quite simple and perhaps that’s why he figured he could wing it but there are dozens of Campari orange sorbet recipes online that could have suggested appropriate ingredients amounts.

Alex on YouTube recently struggled with making dried pasta. Maybe this will help….or not…

I think the way the Creami blade attaches to the lid rather than directly to the shaft is very smart. Any spatters on the lid are easy to rinse off at the sink. Totally agree! Maybe they hope to partner with other companies to offer branded pods. Not that I'd be interested in that either. More fun to make my own stuff!