blue_dolphin

Dishoom toasts whole spices for their garam masala at 50 C or th slowest gas setting for 2.5 hours. Limited setting options here so I used 125 F. Then poppy seeds and rose petals are added to the pan, oven is switched off and the mixture sits in the oven to cool for 30 min before grinding. Seems on the low & slow side of things but I did it and was happy with the results.

I like to fold or hang each item as I take it out of the dryer while I marvel that I have my very own washer and dryer and don't need to go to a laundromat or a shared apartment laundry room so I'm not averse to the task and can't speak for @kayb, but people who have large families and especially with small kids, the sheer volume of laundry can get pretty overwhelming and I'd imagine it could leave a negativity that would persist even after those little ones are launched and on their own. Growing up, our neighbors had 8 kids. It was the job of the youngest to do the laundry on Saturday. They dumped all the clean laundry in the living room and each kid was expected to collect and fold their own items from the massive pile. It was a sight to behold but surely would have put me off!

This is the current state of my "recently purchased" cookbook shelf: Some are new releases, others older editions but new to me. I like to keep them here until I've gotten to know them fairly well either through cooking or lots of reading. The book between Black Food and Zoe's Ghana Kitchen is Mumbai Modern. A 2022 resolution is to limit new purchases until I've cleared this shelf and these books are all filed by subject. I reserve the right to make exceptions 🙃

And don't forget volume 2 of that set: The use of full color, step-by-step photos on almost every page of these books was a truly lavish choice at a time (vol 1 came out in 1987) when color illustrations were often still limited to a few sections and demonstrates his commitment to teaching. This set is a treat!

I like that one, too. If I remember correctly, this book also contains his recommendation to use the NYT Sunday Style section as a clean and hygienic surface for draining bacon as one can be assured no one has ever touched it.

I plan to treat myself to a copy, too. Nice interview with co-author and chef Diep Tran on Evan Kleiman's Good Food: Fish sauce: One man’s equivalent to a midlife crisis Maserati

I don't despise hand-washing dishes as much as @SLB but I've become quite accustomed to the convenience. When I moved into this house ~ 12 years ago, I installed one of the 2-drawer Fisher-Paykel dishwashers. I just love it and run it almost every day. If I do a round of baking or anything involving the big food processor, I can just fill up one of the drawers, turn it on and be done with the mess. More importantly, it uses WAY less water than I do washing and rinsing by hand which is important here in drought-land.

Yum! @Smithy, those cinnamon buns look great and your recipe sleuthing is truly impressive! When I pulled out Deep Run Roots the other day, I spied the recipe for Sausage-Stuffed Honey Buns that has long intrigued me. They look like cinnamon rolls but with caramelized sausage in the filling. Vivian describes them as being like a side of sausage with pancakes. Your post gives me a nudge to see how well I can reduce the recipe to a reasonable size for a single-person household! Edited to add that that recipe makes 20 buns!

I made a big batch of this salad for Christmas Eve dinner with my cousins and thought I’d give it another mention because it holds up so nicely on a buffet table. I used a colorful watermelon radish instead of the regular ones and subbed in shallots for the green onions. This morning, I piled some of the leftovers onto a smoked turkey sandwich and it was delish. Made me think you could easily toss in some cooked chicken, turkey or ham and make this into a great main-dish salad.

I totally agree with Gabrielle's voice (which I love) coming through in Prune and that it seems like her instructions for her restaurant dishes. I borrowed it and Blood Bones and Butter from my local library to read and probably will do so again until I break down and buy a copy. I also enjoyed BB&B. Do keep an eye out for Prune. I suspect you'd enjoy it, too.

In her recipe for a Lemon Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Carla Lalli Music uses a method she calls "reverse creaming" that she says will reduce the aeration of the butter and result in a more tender cake (due to less gluten development) with a denser crumb (less aeration) that rises evenly, with no dome. Obviously not the thing if you are looking for super light and airy but could be worth a try if it suits your goals. A video of Carla making the cake is available here on YouTube. Below the video, there's a link to a page where you can download a pdf of the recipe. It's from her recent book, That Sounds So Good.

I make preserved lemons and other citrus every year and consider them a pantry staple. They are generally very salty as the preservation relies on the level of salt (and the acid) to deter the growth of any wee nasties. I only purchased them once and they were a bit less salty than the ones I make myself. I usually make up a small jar of a purée for seasoning but most often I use just the rind: rinse the lemon, remove the pulp and cut into dice or julienne. They look like little jewels! There's a recipe for preserved lemon aioli in Alon Shaya's book, Shaya, that is absolutely fantastic. In the book, he uses it on crab cakes but it's delicious with all sorts of seafood and vegetables. Recipe online here. That book also has a great preserved lemon vinaigrette. Preserved lemon hummus is great. I use a recipe from The Moosewood Restaurant Table. I've made a couple of compound butters with preserved lemon. One with capers from Zuni Cafe Cookbook and another from Prune. The latter recipe is available online here. I freeze it in logs so it's easy to cut off a disk to put on vegetables, broiled fish or seafood. They are excellent in rice/grain pilafs or salads. The Yellow Indian Woman Bean Salad with Bulgar and Preserved Lemon from Heirloom Beans and the New Leaf Pilaf from This Will Make It Taste Good are fine examples. Also in the latter book is Collards Break Character that includes preserved lime (lemon would work fine), green curry paste and coconut milk. Really delicious but watch the salt as both the citrus and the curry paste can add up. Fans of the dirty Martini may like to add a little preserved lemon brine instead of olive juice. In This Will Make It Taste Good, Vivian makes a Margarita with Salt on the Inside by making a simple syrup with preserved lemon. I've got this recipe for preserved lemon ice cream on my Ninja Creami list but haven't made it yet.

'Tis the season for "best of" lists. This one from The New Yorker brought a couple of books to my attention. I'll seek out Tables of Contents Community Cookbook: Notes and Recipes from Writers’ Home Kitchens, and Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). They both sound like good reads. Neither seem to have e-editions and both are currently out of stock at the places I've checked. Two others caught my eye (and ear)on Evan Kleiman's KCRW Good Food best books list, once again, maybe more for reading than cooking. Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Mayukh Sen and The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Danielle Dreilinger. I said they caught my ear because Evan interviewed both authors on her radio show/podcast: Mayukh Sen interview: Reflecting on the immigrant women who shaped how America eats Danielle Dreilinger interview: Beyond stirring and stitching: The women behind home economics I really liked the way Kitchen Arts & Letters bookshop crafted their lists: Really Popular Books that Deserved to be Popular Wonderful Books You May Not Have Heard About Great Reads Lastly, Eat Your Books asks independent cookbook shop owners from around the US and other countries to choose their own top picks. These are just lists, no commentary, but I always enjoy seeing the similarities and differences. The EYB list of lists is available at this link: Best cookbooks of 2021 by the experts And here's EYB's overall picks: Best Cookbooks of 2021

These are more in the small appliance category than "gadget" but eG is certainly the cause of their purchase: Cuisinart combi steam oven (and spare and accessories), my most used appliance Instant Pot and various accessories Paragon precision induction burner Philips electric grill Ninja Creami ANOVA circulator Vacuum sealer (2 of them!) Ooni pizza oven (still not set up because I haven't gotten a cart and gas tank for it) Smaller items: Refractometer (just arrived, haven't used it yet) Edge-Pro knife sharpener Darto pans (six, maybe?) iSi silicone spatulas & bowl scrapers (sadly no longer available) Danish dough whisk Stainless steel and silicone ball whisks Magic spoon (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Zyliss corn cob scraper - rarely used and I'm kinda afraid of it Manual spiralizer - rarely used but kind fun when it is Tall skinny "asparagus" pot that I use with the Paragon for frying Many, many bargain ebooks resulting from @Toliver's posts over here and lots of paper cookbooks, too.

I'm not sure which recipe you are using. The one I recommended, Clyde Common’s Tequila-Sherry Egg Nog from Jeffery Morganthaler, calls for 12 eggs, uses a stand mixer and has an estimated yield of ~ 1 gal. I suspect an immersion blender would work if that's what you prefer. Edited to add that now I see you may be following the 1/6 scale recipe he gives for 2 servings. Sorry I missed that.

I mentioned elsewhere that I planned to get myself a treat from TJ's after getting my Covid booster and flu shot at the nearby drug store. I'm now vaxed and boosted and am home with my treat: I think I'll work on my hydration a bit before I sample it. Plus, it's a little early!

Yes, I believe it was. I gave it a good squeeze over everything and the flavor was still bright but more mellow and not as sharp as a fresh lemon. The whole business was packed in a plastic bag that was knotted so everything stayed submerged. I ate it as soon as I got home and was glad that I did because I'm not sure how everything would have held up to reheating.

I think you should have won for creativity! Thanks for sharing with us.

Saturday's lunch that I forgot to post, a seafood boil that I picked up from ZEF BBQ: I didn't have high hopes for corn at this time of year, but it was very tender and juicy and everything was cooked perfectly. I also got an order of shrimp and grits which was so amazingly decadent that I split it into 2 meals and an excellent oxtail with rice and beans that I had for yesterday's late lunch and neglected to even photograph.

I received an unexpected gift of Wolferman's English muffins yesterday... ...toasted with almond butter and a cup-o-joe. I cut the muffin into 3 slices so there's one more that could become second breakfast.

I made this one and highly recommend it!

I assume the cancellation is due to Covid and that could be prudent, especially if there are high-risk individuals involved. On the other hand, it's a respiratory virus, spread largely through the air. Gatherings with lots of people sharing the same air brings orders of magnitude more risk than dropping off a plate or basket of homemade treats. There are many reasons to refuse home-cooked food gifts but, to me, Covid isn't one of them. If your food gifts have been enjoyed in the past and you feel up to and have an interest in making and sharing any this year, I'd go ahead and ask. I mentioned bringing a gift of eggnog. I can imagine many reasons for turning that down. Raw eggs? Dairy products? Personal preference? I kept the bottles in an insulated bag and when Anna came out to take names to match with orders, I asked if she thought anyone inside would care to try some eggnog made by me and she assured me that it would be well received. They have plenty of experience with the spiked popsicles that I share with them during the summer so maybe they trust me. Or they are all young and foolish. In any case, I'm pretty sure yesterday's "tip" will be enjoyed and not go to waste. I also understand being reluctant to go to a lot of effort to prepare something that's not going to be appreciated at this time.

I offered 2 bottles of Jeffrey Morganthaler's eggnog with añejo tequila and Amontillado sherry to the peeps at ZEF BBQ when I went to pick up my order yesterday. They happily accepted.

It's time for the annual Christmas Bird Count and with every local news article I read about it, thoughts of @IowaDee come to my mind. Miss her voice here!

While I've had the book for a while and have read it cover to cover, I haven't cooked from it yet, so you can take this with a grain 🙃 of salt. Bottom line: if your giftees were happy with Six Seasons, I'd say they're likely to enjoy this as well. I plan to give it to a number of friends that I gave Six Seasons to previously. My caveat would be towards people who are already all-in on whole grains. With Six Seasons, even cooks very experienced with vegetables could find a lot of fresh ideas in the book. I'm not sure this one would be quite as much of a revelation for people who already cook with a lot of whole grains. That said there are still fun new ideas like adding the crunch of quinoa to a tempura batter and a millet streusel that he uses on a butternut squash quick bread but sounds like it would be fun to sprinkle on other things. It's not an encyclopedic grains reference book but the background on most of the featured grains is adequate. The whole wheat flour chapter is mostly baking recipes. I think it could benefit from a discussion on different types of wheat but he tends to include some AP or white bread flour in most recipes so parsing out the types may not be that important. Most of the featured grains are represented with a nice assortment of different recipe types, others, not so much. For example, the oat recipes sound appealing but they are all sweet. I would have liked to see a savory oatmeal or something to mix up that chapter. There's a "Go-To" chapter with dressings, sauces and the like. They sound good but they are not as fully integrated into the rest of this book as in Six Seasons where I felt that prepping some of them ahead really streamlined the other recipes. Some people would disagree and hated that recipe-in-a-recipe trick so they'll be happy. There are just a few go-to's that are repeated like the brined, roasted almonds and torn croutons. The well known kale sauce also reappears here but with lots of variations added so it's worthy of the repeat. Speaking of variations, they pop up regularly in the book. There are several fold-out sections (pilafs, grain bowls, stir-fries and pizza) that offer a basic how-to template and six seasonal variations. Others, like the kale sauce and the 6 variations on focaccia could have fit into that same framework. I like the concept but have yet to put it into practice. This book is the year-long book for the Facebook cookbook group I belong to so I expect to start cooking from it shortly. Maybe today....the Super-Crisp Flatbread That Tastes Like Cheez-Its has caught my eye!