blue_dolphin

Two new cookbooks for me. First is Chad Robertson's Bread Book. This one was published on Dec 21, 2021. Kind of an odd pub date for a cookbook. I'm guessing it was delayed by issues we've all been reading about. Last week, I listened to a Zoom author session via LA bookshop Nowserving with Chad, his co-author and Tartine bread director, Jennifer Latham, Anson Mills founder Glenn Roberts, and Carinsprings Mill founder Kevin Morse hosted by Evan Kleiman. In spite of my failures to maintain starters, I was sucked in by all the veneration of heritage grains and ordered the book. I have the Kindle version of his first bread book,Tartine Bread (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) but not the second, Tartine Book No. 3 (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). There's a chapter for each of 14 master recipes: his classic country bread, baguettes, slab breads, a white sandwich "kids' bread," flatbreads, buns, dinner rolls, rye bread, vegan bread, gluten-free bread, crisp breads, tortillas, pizza dough and fermented pasta. Compared with his first book, this one goes more deeply into particular types of wheat and other whole grain flours but does not have as many step-by-step photos of the process. Each chapter also includes several recipes for dishes to make with the bread. I have a selection of Cairnspring Mill flours in my shopping cart and we'll see if I pull the trigger and manage to actually bake anything! Nowserving generally archives these sessions on their "Event Recordings" page and I'll come back and update this if I see it. Here's a direct link to this Zoom event. If that link doesn't work, go back to that Event Recordings page and you'll find it listed on 1/26/2022. My other "new" book was published in 2019, Double Awesome Chinese Food: Irresistible and Totally Achievable Recipes from Our Chinese-American Kitchen by Margaret Li, Irene Li and Andrew Li, siblings who started Boston food truck and Asian fusion restaurant Mei Mei Street Kitchen. Kenji gave this one a shout out recently and it promptly disappeared from Amazon but their listing (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) still has a good bit of info on the book. I thought some of the ideas and flavor combinations sounded like fun. I suspect I'll use this more for ideas than actually following recipes exactly but who knows? I already made a version of their Double Awesome breakfast sandwich (fried eggs, cheddar cheese, greens and pesto in a scallion pancake) and their kimchi dog (also served in a scallion pancake will be happening here!

I agree, fun article. I like this sentence concerning the effect of the Conterno glass on younger reds:

Pulled pork and pineapple kimchi with a smear of gochujang mayo on another TJ's Taiwanese green onion pancake Cara cara orange on the side.

Just a small squeeze!

ZEFtovers*: pulled pork & pineapple kimchi on homemade whole wheat focaccia. A little gochujang mayo on the bottom. * leftovers from last week's pick-up at ZEF BBQ

I was just reading about that. What a mess! It’s good to see that at least 2 of the authors are reacting with a sense of humor.

From what I’ve read, yes. I hate to peel large amounts of garlic so I’m unlikely to try it.

Thank you so much for mentioning this in another thread when I was complaining about harsh-tasting onion powder. Since I don’t have a dehydrator and was using the dehydrator setting on my oven, I just did one onion to test it out. I used the 1/8” julienne setting on my Oxo slicer, spread them out on parchment, put them into the oven at 140F for ~ 4 hrs and powdered them in my whirly blade spice grinder. Holy cow! That stuff tastes sweet and oniony - nothing like the jar in my cupboard! Now that stuff was likely past its prime but I’m sure it never tasted that good, even when it was fresh. I put 2 more onions in the oven for now. Once I see how long it lasts, I can easily scale up.

Another TJ's Taiwanese green onion pancake, this time with a smear of Vivian Howard's Little Green Dress, a sprinkle of grated Parm and a fried egg

Sort of but I should try it again. Ottolenghi has a grape & fennel seed focaccia that gets sprinkled with sugar. I tried it but left off the sugar. I should do it again, maybe with this recipe as I think the whole wheat flavor would complement the sweetness. I also made a Tuscan grape bread from a Diana Henry recipe and liked the toppings but thought the bread itself was boring. That could be fixed.

Grains for Every Season: Wild Rice Salad with Roasted Beets, Cucumbers and Dill p 294 made with Yogo Ranch Dressing p 313 Nice, healthy-ish lunch. Peeling and roasting the beets in small chunks seemed fussy but it certainly does enhance their sweetness. I neglected to seed the cukes - putting instructions like that over in the ingredients list apparently challenges my little brain 🙃. I wish I'd had some of @Okanagancook's homemade onion powder for the Yogo Ranch Dressing. I let it sit for about 3 hours prior to plating and the onion powder flavor was still a bit harsh. Didn't bother me in the salad but I should probably have made it a day ahead and as she reported, it's very thick. I just went for small dollops here but it does need to be diluted to actually "drizzle" as this recipe calls for.

Yes. Someone on one of the Creami Facebook groups asked the company about a minimum volume and was told that it should be fine down to around a quarter full.

She estimates half a pound of berries for a cup of purée. That's what I used and it seems about right.

Upthread, I mentioned that I'd prepped a batch of the Philly-style vanilla ice cream from Baking with Dorie. It's nice but there's just a faint touch of that spoon-coating butterfat thing that I've observed with other high-fat but uncooked Ninja preps. Nothing awful, and barely noticeable when served with...say....hot fudge sauce but not quite perfect either. Here it is with some of the first strawberries of the season from Harry's Berries that I picked up at the farmers market and a drizzle of extra vecchio balsamic vinegar. Great berries and great vinegar! Focusing on those berries, I decided to try a sorbet and went with the recipe in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. So simple and built around the berries. Purée and strain the berries. Add sugar to taste. The recipe calls for 1-3 T sugar for a cup of strained purée. I used 2T. Judy suggests testing to see if a pinch of salt helps elevate the flavor. I thought it did. It can be frozen here or you can add 1/2 - 3/4 t balsamic vinegar and a little more sugar if necessary. I added the balsamic but no additional sugar. At this point, the recommendation is to freeze a small amount to test the flavor. I put it in the coldest part of the fridge and tasted than I went ahead and froze it in one of the Ninja containers and scraped a bit off the top to taste before spinning. I figured I could always thaw it out if it needed adjusting but it was good. Here is it with a scoop of the vanilla: It's as perfect as the berries. The balsamic vinegar doesn't stand out, it just enhances the flavor of the berries.

Today's breakfast is courtesy of a link that @Kim Shook shared over in the TJ's topic that included the idea of using their Taiwanese green onion pancakes as taco shells, filled with scrambled eggs for breakfast. First, I warmed up some leftover Szechuan green beans. Scrambled the eggs in the pan with the beans before piling it all on a crisped up green onion pancake. I suspect this breakfast will keep me going til dinner.

I believe you're quite correct in saying that the bulk of fresh greens sold or offered for delivery at this time of year in your area are not grown locally. That said, there are many greenhouse growers in adjacent areas providing the same. Market Wagon, an operation recently discussed here, does operate locally at this time and doesn't offer long distance shipping.

I have mostly been reading business-side articles, of which there are quite a few. I'm sure you saw this blog post, a pretty good run-down from the customer perspective. The delivery fee is indeed $6.95 but there are options to pay in advance for a month @ $14.95 or $149.95 for the full year. Obviously, those options would seem to encourage regular orders. As an aside, I can see from their map that they are not operating in my area but the website doesn't seem to have a "sorry, check back soon" message when you enter a zip code out of their area but just dumps you out on to their site. Maybe they want to keep you clicking around. I dunno.

It seems an interesting combination of e-commerce platform + service since they provide the online tools, packaging materials and delivery.

I thought the info on their "How it Works" page was relatively simple. They're not in my area (or yours from what I can tell) but this page shows where they are.

Check for the pecan in the next month or 2. These are the usual Kringle flavors and when they tend to appear at TJs: Pecan - late winter Raspberry - spring Cheesecake - summer Pumpkin Caramel - fall Almond - early winter

My TJs has them very regularly. I hesitate to say always because it’s TJs and things disappear all the time. They must be shipped frozen as they are often still in that state when they put them out.

Thanks for that review. I’m planning to make that today to go on the beet & wild rice salad. I was debating whether to make a half or full recipe and based on this, I think I’ll go with a full batch!

You can view a list of the recipes and ingredients called for over on Eat Your Books here. There's also a second volume by the same author, published in 1992. EYB has not indexed that one yet.

I think it’s the kitten and in the interests of full disclosure, the book does NOT come with a kitten 😻

Not modernist, but PBW (powdered brewery wash) can be a handy cleaner to have on hand. Also bottle cleaning brushes of various shapes and sizes and bottles for homemade gifts.