blue_dolphin

I know nothing of Paw-Paws but have made a number of fruit-infused liqueurs. With a fresh, ripe fruit, you don’t need a high proof spirit or the very lengthy infusion times as often recommended for limoncello. Choose your base spirit based on your intended use and personal preferences. Vodka will be most neutral and let the fruit flavor dominate. A white rum or blanco or reposado tequila might also be nice. I’d recommend this recipe for tequila por mi amante as a guide for you to use with vodka, rum or tequila, as you like. Use the paw paw flesh without skin or seeds in case they have any bitter flavors. Or leave them in to see what happens. In any case, the infused spirit will taste smoother after it sits a while after straining. You can sweeten it at this time, as one would do with limoncello but I’ve found fruits like berries or melon to be pleasantly sweet without added sugar. Edited to say that you can add some citric acid and malic acid for a bit of tang if that’s needed.

I suppose they could be pancakes...I always make all the waffles. I eat the last one, freeze the rest and enjoy resurrecting them into sandwiches or just themselves with different toppings. Do report back on your preferences. Edited to add that I guess a year is a long time to wait!

Great looking bagels, @Dave R! I know Stella Parks (aka Brave Tart) has a food processor bagel recipe over on Serious Eats. I was interested in trying that mixing method but not her exact recipe so it's good to know that you had good results with it. I've been using my KitchenAid mixer but with the smallish (6 bagel) recipes in Cathy Barrow's bagel book, the dough hook doesn't really engage the dough as well as I think it should. It kind of nudges it around the bowl and only really flings it about every now and again. I'll try the processor next batch!

I agree with @heidih. I wouldn’t think freshness would be a big issue with dried seasoning packets - those herbs and spices were at their best before being packaged and any recipe calling for them assumes that. If you receive packets long past their 'best by' dates, go ahead and return them. Otherwise, see if they match your fast food memories!

Lots of recipes online for Popeye's style chicken tenders (like this one) Which ones have you tried and what would you like to improve in them?

I don’t have a grill but wrap unpeeled beets in foil when roasting in my regular oven and in the CSO with no steam, then rub off the skins. I recently tried a recipe that specified first peeling and cutting up the beets and oven roasting. Interesting bit of browning on the edges but I don’t like to peel beets so probably won’t repeat.

I grew up on tuna fish salad sandwiches. Prickly pear fruits are called tuna but I doubt my family was wanting to make that particular distinction. I also learned cod fish at home, depending on the dish so codfish cakes, creamed codfish (both made with salted cod) but probably cod filet without the fish part. Edited to add that I did wonder if tuna fish was a regional usage. I grew up in northern NY state and this usage seems less common here in SoCal.

Added a splash of cream to yesterday's fiasco, piled it on toasted sourdough and ran it under the broiler with a sprinkle of Parm to turn it into this caramelized (ahem) leek, mushroom and country ham toastie: Tasted pretty good. Probably could have gone ahead with the quiche, even if it wouldn't have been the light, bright spring style I had in mind!

Thank you. I'll have to try making my own someday but that $2.49 price point on the TJ's product isn’t really incentivizing me! How well do they freeze and reheat? Do they maintain the crispy flakiness?

I believe that with the free version, you can also search any of the online sources EYB indexes. To do that, I choose "online recipes" under the "Library" tab, rather than the "My Bookshelf" tab which would only search the books I've added. That will allow you to play around with the search features a bit more than with just 5 books.

Maybe I’ll just make a mojito and start over tomorrow!

I feel your pain, @Okanagancook, though I'm sure I'll do something similar again. This AM, I was cooking veg for a quiche. Lots of thinly sliced leeks that I wanted cooked low and slow, with no browning. Then added a half pound of mushrooms and some diced country ham and watched closely. When all was just the way I wanted, I covered the pan andI turned the burner off (or so I thought) and stepped away for a cup of coffee and eG. Well, I was using the low "simmer" setting on my 2-stage Wolf gas cooktop and instead of shutting it off, I turned it to the lowest regular setting so the leeks perhaps no charred but deeply caramelized when I returned. Sigh. Haven't tossed it all yet but I probably should and move on!

So sweet!

Picked up these frozen cheese pastries at TJ's. Tasty little things, kinda like a cheese danish. Like the newer croissants, the box says they can go right from the freezer to the oven, no need to proof. And like those croissants, I'll say that you'll get a better result if you give them at least a little proofing time before the go into the oven. They don't need a full overnight proof like the chocolate and almond croissants but I think a couple of hours would help. Here's my little experiment comparing a direct from frozen (on the left) to one that I proofed at RT first (on the right): I'd say that I rather over-proofed that one. I set it on a tray and forgot about it for around 5 hours. Since it was so poofy, it also baked a lot quicker and was done in about 10-12 min vs the 20+ min on the box. I'd recommend going with 2 hrs or so for something less poofy!

Another day, another pumpernickel bagel.... ...and today's schmear is the olive cheese version.

Here's a link to an older topic for anyone else interested in what other eG members have had to say about The Mojito I got a big bunch of mint at the farmers market and Lent is over so I can dip my toe into cocktails again. Guess I'll be hunting down some rum and a recipe!

Yes, it does! I should have mentioned that. I had it with a cup of coffee first and it was nice but the coffee kind of overpowered it while the chamomile tea did indeed enhance the flavor.

Made Eric Kim's Chamomile Tea Cake With Strawberry Icing from NYT Cooking. Baked in 3 mini loaf pans and put 2 in the freezer. The fragrance of the chamomile infusing into the melted butter and the hot milk was intoxicating. The taste of the cake didn't quite live up to the anticipation that fragrance built up but it's still a very tasty cake.

Following @Duvel's Parisian bistro lunches, @BonVivant's asparagus extravaganza and @Kim Shook's gorgeous benedicts, I give you a bowl of pasta made from scraps 🙃 Leek top cacio e pepe:

Another pumpernickel bagel. This time, I tried the Triple Lemon Cheese schmear recipe from Cathy Barrow's bagel book. It's got lemon zest, lemon juice and salt-preserved lemon. It's was great with the bagel but would also be excellent on little tea sandwiches with watercress, cucumber or radish. Too bad I blew out the photo as it's very pretty with flecks of fresh parsley and the little cubes of preserved lemon.

Olive oil braised leeks and snap peas with feta and dill from Diana Henry's Simple. Deviled eggs, Campari tomatoes and toasted whole grain baguette Not sure if it shows up but the eggs are colored with turmeric for a little Easter touch 🐣

If the disks look nice and shiny in the photos then I don't think you need to worry about them being dull. A lot of them seem to be unused and in the original boxes. Make sure to get one with 5 disks so you get the fine one that Dave pictured above. I bought mine for my first undergrad apartment kitchen so it has been in regular use for decades. Some of the disks are less than shiny but I don't have any issues with them being too dull to crank out tons of cheese or carrots. I will say that the older, all metal ones like my mom had have a much smaller space for loading veg or cheese. One might think the all-metal construction would be sturdier than the plastic but the small hopper is a negative. The plastic type like I have came in orange (as Dave and I have), beige (like @weinoo got) and white I believe they perform equally. There was a newer white plastic model with a less angular, more curved shape that I heard was a lot less stable. I think it also had only 3 disks. I'd avoid that.

Yesterday, friends dropped off these nice young leeks from their garden: All but three went into this Tom Colicchio recipe for baked eggs with braised leeks and mushrooms. Toasted whole grain baguette slices, Campari tomatoes, fresh squeezed tangerine juice, black coffee and a glass of bubbles. Happy Easter! The recipe calls for an astonishing amount of heavy cream which I reduced but could easily have reduced further. Still, it was delicious. Decadently so. The recipe says to feel free to add other ingredients so I diced a little country ham and added it to the leeks as they cooked. I also added about double the given amount of mushrooms. Oh, and I don't have the best of luck with baked eggs so I dropped a poached egg on top after it came out of the oven.

I have all three of those appliances. Since I got the Instant Pot, the (non-Zo) rice cooker has lived in the garage. It's unlikely to break out there but if it does, I will not replace it. I am very happy with IP rice while others here are not. Key for me is being able to cook small amounts with the pot-in-pot method. In fact, pot-in-pot is the only way I cook rice in the IP. And it does a very good job with brown rice and other grains.

Not to worry, the recipe is right where you remember it: