blue_dolphin

Or capers or shallots, or hot sauce... I do like the sound of preserved lemon where LGD uses zest and juice.

What did you think of the Castelvetrano olives? Do they get tossed into the same bucket of unpalatability as other green olives? Edited to add: Nevermind, I went back and saw your comment! Since you've got the stuff in your fridge, and if you are still open to trying it on a few other things, I recommend that green butter on asparagus or another green vegetable of your preference. Given @Kerry Beal's positive potato experience, you might try that, either hot, or per Vivian's suggestion as a potato salad. Finally, I think you've made the Momofuku ranch dressing so I'd be very curious how the LGD goes ranch version compares. I think the butter, potato or ranch dressing components might mellow the flavors a bit. Ditto for a cheese toastie or grilled cheese type thing. I didn't think LGD was going to be of much interest to someone with rather selective tolerance for 2 of the main ingredients but I'm glad you were able to try it out through the efforts of the good Dr. Beal and to report back on your findings!

Amazon has chosen to share it via their “look inside” feature

OK. Here's my first big LGD failure: Vivian says this stuff keeps in the fridge for a month and it's gone already! But, not to worry, I made more. I wanted to use it as a pizza topping, as Vivian suggests on the LGD "No Brainers" page. Alas, my kitchen was only about 60°F this morning and my pizza dough looked dead so I took my pizza ingredients and @rotuts pasta idea and made this LGD-dressed cavatappi with asparagus, red bell pepper and feta: This was very good. I tossed the pasta and veg with some of the LGD-green butter and added a few extra spoons of LGD. I sampled it with Parmesan, goat cheese and feta. Feta was the winner for me and while I had this warm, the acidity makes it very well suited to a room-temp pasta salad sort of thing. Maybe even with the dreaded bow-tie pasta 🙃 Moving into the afternoon, with some warmth from the sun, my pizza dough began showing signs of life so I shaped it and spread some LGD over the top: I added a sprinkle of mozzarella, asparagus, red bell peppers and, near the end of baking, a sprinkle of feta: This was very good, too. The mozzarella and LGD made friends in the best possible way!

It is very much the traditional way and they do look pretty that way. It also makes sense if you're making big crocks full and cooking large batches that use a full lemon but for smaller jars, cutting them through is much easier so I was surprised that Vivian stuck with tradition!

These Asiago and Walnut Shortbread Cookies or Asiago Lemon Thyme Shortbread or this Cornmeal and Cheese Shortbread would likely work well with Parmesan as would the many versions that call for Cheddar.

I've never done that, mostly because I thought it would be a nuisance to be sorting through the jar, looking for a new vs old one to take out for use, but I don't see any problems with it. Over in the Preserved Lemons topic, @andiesenji described a great crock set-up and again here, that allowed one to add new fruit and remove the older ones. The second one says they dump the brine and replenish with fresh every 6 months. At least one person in that older topic said they routinely added more fruit, salt and juice to keep a batch going. I'll probably end up adding fruit over time if I go for a truly mixed batch of Citrus Shine as all the varieties don't appear in the market at once. I haven't done that either. I feel better when the fruit stays submerged rather than exposed to air. But I have no evidence of harm if that happens. I haven't re-used the brine either. I figured salt was cheap and felt better starting a fresh batch with fresh salt but my last jar of lemons is getting low so I will try that. It usually gets super thick by the time the jar is empty. And I'll definitely save the brine from the preserved kumquats as they really had a different flavor. Edited to add that I routinely fully quarter my citrus instead of trying to hold them together. It's easier to pack the jars full and when they're done, I tend to use a quarter in a recipe so I don't need to remove and replace a partial fruit, just easily remove a quarter.

Kashi used to sell a mix of whole oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley and sesame seeds. I think it was called a 7-grain pilaf or something like that. It took a good while to cook but made a great sweet or savory porridge with a ton of texture. I used to cook up a batch and store single-serving portions in the freezer. Sadly, it was discontinued some ago.

Have you read through everything that's available on the Amazon "Look Inside" feature? It's quite a generous sample and should give you a good idea of that the book is like. As @Shelby described, Citrus Shine is a fairly standard salt-preserved lemon recipe but she makes it into a mixed batch by adding limes, orange, grapefruit, etc. Sounds like a fun variation to me. We get all sorts of interesting citrus in the winter months so I'm going to wait until then. When I make preserved citrus, I always need quite a bit of juice to cover everything. On the second day, when the fruits are starting to soften, I push everything down and add more citrus and salt (and juice, if necessary) to fill up the jar and make sure everything stays submerged. I keep mine out at room temp for the first month. Not sure about the fridge, but at room temp, you'll get a little fermentation going on so I loosen the lid to vent then retighten and flip the jar over every day or so to mix the brine and ensure that all the fruit is exposed to the same amount of salt and juice.

@souphead, is what you are looking for anything like Lao Gan Ma's crispy chili in oil? That seems similar to what's sold here as spicy chili crisp. Here's a recipe for a homemade version of that: Homemade Spicy Chili Crisp Recipe My personal favorite version of this type of sauce is the Yank Sing Chili Pepper Sauce made by the San Francisco restaurant of the same name and previously widely available but apparently, due to a family feud, no longer available, at least in my area. The closest thing I've found is this recipe by esteemed eG member @hzrt8w: Homemade Hot Chili Oil Recipe

DRR is a tome, isn't it! Lots of good stuff and good reading inside. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Today's breakfast was the Asparagus Bathed in Green Butter from This Will Make It Taste Good p 22. The "green butter" is another Little Green Dress trick - LGD gets puréed, then mixed into a compound butter that gets tossed with lightly cooked asparagus. Vivian calls for a bunch of big, thick asparagus and says to blanch them in boiling water for "one minute only." My asparagus weren't particularly big or thick but I still thought they needed at least 2 minutes, maybe 3. They were still nicely al dente. Next time I get big thick asparagus, I'll try eating one after a minute. I added the uncalled for jammy egg. Love the green butter. It's delicious on the asparagus and I'm sure it would also be good on other vegetables, too. I also also slathered some on my toast. I'm going to make up some more of that compound butter to keep in my freezer stash of compound butters. Along that line, I picked up supplies at yesterday's farmers market to make another batch of LGD. Like @Shelby, I've used up more than half of my first batch and don't want to run out. This collection also puts me in good shape to make a batch of Herb-dacious p 206. I was going to buy fruit to get a batch of the Citrus Shine going but it's still kind of early in the season for the best citrus and I've got jars of preserved lemons, Meyer lemons and kumquats in the fridge already. Hopefully I can sub them into some of the recipes from the book.

Or access to a functional kitchen and safe food storage. Sadly lacking in many of the substandard housing options available to those without financial resources.

Yesterday I used the LGD in the Cherry Tomato Baked Feta...Surprise! on p 25 in This Will Make It Taste Good. In the recipe, Vivian serves this over swordfish but the header notes suggest toast, grits, puréed cauliflower, couscous, fish or chicken as good partners. It's kind of like @ElainaA's slow roasted cherry tomatoes dressed up with that Little Green Dress and crumbled feta. No slow-roasting though, this just gets heated up in the oven for 20 min. Here's what it looks like at that point: This smelled amazing and it was all I could do to avoid eating it all with just some crusty bread. Another case where that scoop of LGD adds a ton of flavor without having to assemble a dozen separate ingredients. I combined a couple of Vivian's suggestions: cooked some polenta in the Instant Pot, roasted cauliflower in the oven next to that pan of tomatoes, spooned it over the top and called it dinner. Easy peasy.

Aside from the crispy bits on top, I'm not a huge fan of the breakfast casserole but I decided to give the Does Not Disappoint Breakfast Casserole from This Will Make It Taste Good a try anyway. This is a fairly standard example of this type of thing. Sturdy bread, sausage, some vegetables (spinach & roasted red peppers), cheese and a custard mix of eggs, milk and cream. The twist here is chopping a cup of Red Weapons and mixing that into the custard mix for a flavorful, vinegary punch. I really liked that and I'll add them to the egg mixture next time I make a frittata. In fact, I'd switch out the bread for potatoes and turn this into a frittata. I also very much liked the cheese cut into 1/4" dice rather than shredded. Before baking: And after: I made a half-batch baked in an 8-inch pan and baked ~ 45 min instead of a full hour. I also cut the sausage back from 8 oz to 5 and the cheese from 5 oz to 4, both for the half batch and that was plenty. If you like breakfast casseroles, this is a good one to try and if not, Red Weapons are still an excellent ingredient for other egg dishes.

I know you said the How to Make Jelly Out of Almost Anything posts are vague but that one at least gives fairly specific quantities to jump off from. Salt level is going to be a potential issue with many dill pickle brines. A savory note is nice but it doesn't sound like you want a completely non-sweet aspic-sort of thing. Or maybe that IS the goal?

Looks gorgeous, @lindag - I envy so many things! Wishing you many years of happy cooking and enjoying life in your beautiful new home!

Here's my 2 cents on the LGD. Aside from anointing the jammy eggs, you are unlikely to end up with a mouthful, or even a significant taste of this stuff on its own. It's like a pre-prepped mix of flavorful ingredients that can be a shortcut in recipes with complex flavors like the punchy tuna salad or excellent ranch dressing/dip with no need to chop anything. You've got shallots, garlic, red wine vinegar, olives, capers, anchovies, parsley, mint, lemon zest and juice and hot sauce but this is an ensemble cast, not a series of solo performances. As such, all those ingredients contribute something but none of them take over the show. Unless there is something guaranteed to make you hurl, I'd suggest giving it a try, maybe a half recipe or even less, if you have doubts. On the Castelvetrano olives, here's an article that sings their praise: Castelvetrano Olives Are the Best Olives, Hands Down. I do find them more mellow, rich and creamy than the inexpensive pimento-stuffed Manzanillas from the grocery store. I think the color and firm texture of Castelvetrano olives sold with pits is superior to the pitted version but everything's getting pretty mashed here so I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of de-pitting them. I bought a jar of Mezzetta brand pitted Castelvetranos at Walmart but I used a different brand from Whole Foods for the LGD so I can't comment on the former. I'm sure LGD would be good with most any olive. Obviously, kalamatas or the like are going to impact the greenness but the flavor will still be good.

I totally agree and always bless Ottolenghi for providing weights for everything, even herbs. I'm fine with making my own decisions on how much to use but very much appreciate when the original intent is clearly defined.

For today's breakfast, I made the Tomato Pie for Dough Dummies on p 48 in This Will Make It Taste Good, one of the recipes that makes use of the R-Rated (aka deeply caramelized) Onions. These are quite good. Kind of a nice, all-in-one side dish. I'm not sure the caramelized onions are a must here but they do add a nice depth of flavor and save the step of chopping and cooking an onion. The recipe calls for 1" to 1.5" thick slices of tomato. I suspect the days of getting tomatoes big enough for more than 2 such slices are over for much of the northern hemisphere until next summer but I think even smaller slices would be nice. I used beet greens instead of spinach, Mahon cheese instead of fontina and some sort of Trader Joe's crackers instead of Ritz, all because they were on hand. Still works.

I was going to pickle them as I've done with kale stems but remembered a recipe for roasted chard stems in Cooking with Scraps by Lindsay Jean Hard who writes that she was inspired by this recipe and decided to just roast instead of blanch, then grill. Just cut into the desired length, toss with olive oil, sprinkle with pepper and roast @ 425°F for 7-10 minutes. The picture in the book shows a bit of leaf left on the stem that gets prettily crisped. I neglected to leave any leaf on the stem so I don't have that. They had a pleasant tender-crisp texture. I'd do this again.

Here's the LGD Goes Ranch dip/dressing from This Will Make It Taste Good p 18. I recommend it highly. Vivian suggests adding some chopped Red Weapons and I'll try that with the leftovers but, as is, it was really good. Much better than any ranch dressing I've had - though I haven't made the Momofuku version yet. I've dipped into it with raw carrots, celery, cucumbers and snap peas and a Triscuits or two. All excellent. Below is a crappy photo of this stuff with roasted beet stalks. That was to have been served as a salad on mixed greens but the greens didn't look so great. Tasted fine but in future, I will avoid trying to photograph dark purple food on a black plate when the featured ingredient is pretty much white 🙃

Walmart Neighborhood Market is the closest grocery store that carries name brand stuff so I stopped in there the other day to get Ruffles chips to have with the caramelized onion dip. I neglected to check for endive but while I was there, I picked up the Castelvetrano olives (the Mezzetta brand), a container of black garlic, Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce, Chaokoh coconut milk and Crystal hot sauce. And more onions to caramelize 🙃

You can find that one and most of the recipes that use it via Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. Today's lunch, featuring LGD, was the Tuna Salad Snack Crackers on p 26 This was really good, assuming you are a tuna eater. If not, consider salmon or sardines. You can put it in the avocado or a tomato or on a plate as a salad. I consider onion a must with tuna salad and didn't think the 2 shallots in LGD were going to do the job. I fully expected to go back and add more but this was just fine. I also mixed up a half batch of the LGD Goes Ranch dip/dressing and thought it tasted pretty fabulous when I licked the spoon. Looking forward to trying that later on.

Epicurus Gourmet in North Hollywood. A bit of a drive for you, but it would get you out of the apartment for a bit 🙃