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Today's cook from This Will Make It Taste Good is Sweet Heat Side of Salmon p 307, in which Sweet Potential preserved fruit gets cooked into a glaze with jalapeño peppers, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce and citrus juice. The warm glaze is slathered on a side of grilled salmon which is then served with a salad of arugula, radishes and herbs. I used some of the pineapple & lime Sweet Potential and cooked a salmon filet on the Philips grill rather than a whole side. Green onions aren't mentioned but appear in the book photo and were a good addition. This was quite good. The glaze is vinegar-y enough to serve as a vinaigrette for the greens. I added a serving of rice after I took the photo although this would be fine on its own as a salad. Back to that book photo, you will see salmon with a glaze that is a light golden color with prettily colored fruit and green slices of candied jalapeño. Rather like mine looked BEFORE I added the soy sauce and vinegar: Here it is after adding those ingredients and cooking it down as directed. Not so pretty, right? It tasted fine, but the photo did a rather poor job of managing my expectations!

I don't drink soda nor do I eat peeps but those packs of pink, blue & yellow mini cans are awfully cute! Photo from Pepsi press release

and I am waiting....patiently...because I'm sure the results will be marvelous!

Thanks! Yes, that's the rice that gets Quirky Furki added during cooking. Don’t worry about the citrus, it will be good for ages!

Today's lunch was a sous vide cooked pork chop, seared off and sauced with the Back Pocket Pan Sauce from This Will Make It Taste Good p 311 This recipe is in the Sweet Potential chapter that features fruit preserves and I used the kumquat version that I made the other day. This a great template (with variations) for making a pan sauce featuring fruit preserves to use with pork tenderloin, as in the recipe. Chicken, duck or salmon would also be good. I had some boneless pork loin chops so I cooked them sous vide and seared them off to get some brown stuff going for the sauce. I served this with a brown rice version of Please Forgive Me Steamed Rice p 257 and some steamed veg. I don't cook a ton of meat but will certainly be returning to this recipe when I want a fruity sauce.

The combination of loose bottom and a deep indent seems like a recipe for leakage.

I have to admit that this got me thinking that Twinkies filled with lemon or lime curd might be nice to make. I went off to Google Twinkie pans but haven't ordered one yet 🙃

They also had a chocolate hazelnut flavor. They might be good, too.

You are right about that. As you heard, he said the pan was a last minute sub before going into production and was a big mistake. Just tell the people to buy their own damn pan!

I bought these at Target yesterday. Java Chip flavor. I thought they were pretty good. The chocolate cookie is the dominant flavor but you can certainly taste the coffee, too. Note that it says there are "chocolatey chips" in the coffee creme, NOT actual chocolate chips. Since they're about the size of a grain of salt, I was't really expecting actual chocolate chips. The amount of filling seemed kind of random. Some had a lot, others much less. Maybe those pesky chocolatey chips plug up the creme dispenser? 🙃 I read some reviews that seemed to think these weren't sweet enough. I disagree.

I don't know enough about the frequency of this particular problem to have a good sense of how many units they'd need to test before seeing it. As small company, in a niche market, I'm not surprised it was missed. Rejiggering the venting process so the tank is more protected would fix the issue but would likely be very expensive and wouldn't help anyone with an existing unit. My takeaway was Scott's comment that ovens like the Cusi CSO offer steam as a feature while the APO actually offers control of the steam. The vast majority of the time, I'm pretty happy with "steam as a feature" so I don't plan to upgrade from the CSO to the APO. I'll assess the situation when give up the ghost and I really need a replacement.

Two more This Will Make It Taste Good meals. Fast Road to Fancy Pork Scaloppine p 191 uses Community Organizer p 176 to make a quick sauce. This is indeed quick to make, assuming you've got Community Organizer at the ready, and tasty, too. I served it over orzo. I had olives with pits so I had to butcher them to get the pits out. I contemplated using kalamatas which are much easier to de-pit but stuck with the recipe. I think the kalamatas would have been fine, as would any salty, tangy thing like capers. I'd make this again. For this next one, the actual book recipe I tried is the Please Forgive Me Steamed Rice p 257 that adds finely ground Quirky Furki p 236 to the rice during the cooking time vs sprinkling furikake over already cooked rice, as one would usually do. Turns out, this is actually quite a nice way of making a quick seasoned rice. The flavors are much more embedded in the rice, rather than sprinkled here and there so it's a very much a different thing. Atop my rice is a salmon filet that I topped with the caramelized onion/kalamata olive vinaigrette that's used in the Here's to Eggplant, grilled eggplant recipe. It's a versatile sauce.

Just in case anyone missed it, yesterday's episode of Dave Arnold's Cooking Issues featured Scott Heimendinger of Anova to discuss the APO. You can listen here. He said the initial super flimsy flat pan susceptible to warping at high heat only went out in early shipments and has been replaced with a different pan which is ribbed. Anyone who got the original can get a replacement but it sounds like it's still kind of a stopgap. I'd guess one is likely better off purchasing a good sturdy pan separately. They discussed a tank issue that sounded more like internal crazing than through and through cracks. As has been pointed out here, it's largely a cosmetic defect. They are not happy with it and want to fix it but there are limited materials that are food-safe, clear and can withstand the thermal stress that part of the tank is exposed to during steam venting. They don't have a long-term fix but are working on it. As far as toast goes, Dave's general recommendation for APO owners was to get a toaster. Edited to add that Scott was on for over an hour so much more was covered. Listen

I can't imagine the trauma of going from your exquisite cooking to a college dining hall!

Yes, I think you could come up with lots of variations....in fact, Google offered up a lot of choices with just this particular brand of rolls! Great idea! The rice vinegar was a nice combo with the pineapple.

Absolutely. I enjoy Old Fashioned-type cocktails made with any rum that's delicious enough to sip on its own and a dash of most of the Sweet Potential syrups as the sweetener would be enjoyable to me. Not sure about the apple but I think the blackberry, kumquat and especially the pineapple Sweet Potential with be lovely with rum. On the cocktail page in the book, there's a recipe for a Strawberry Daiquiri, using white rum, that I think would be nice with a lot of fruits. In the book, Vivian says that most of the recipes in the Sweet Potential section can be made with other jellies, jams or preserves you might have on hand. I believe that's true for most of the recipes but the cocktails really need a lighter syrup and wouldn't work as well with a spoonful of jam from the fridge.

My adventures with This Will Make It Taste Good continue with a scaled down batch of Inspiration Strikes Party Rolls p 251, that use Quirky Furki p 236. These are surprisingly good but I will not be serving large batches them at any parties inside my house because the melted butter that helps make both the tops and bottoms crispy and delicious also leads to messier eating than I want going on. Not to mention the melty cheese, juicy pineapple and mayo. Maybe outside? With lots of wipes? I dunno. They are tasty though. I loved Vivian's "Inspiration Strikes" essay about how the idea for this recipe came to her while shopping at her local Piggly Wiggly. Bologna, cheese and pineapple on King's Hawaiian rolls, topped with butter and a furikake-inspired seasoning mix sounded so strange that I had to give them a try. I used Black Forest Ham instead of bologna and Fontina instead of Provolone but otherwise followed the recipe. The pineapple gets cut into very thin slices and marinated in rice vinegar so they're almost more like a pickle than a hunk of fruit. After whining in a post above about not wanting to make Sweet Potential p 296, I decided I might as well play around with some small batches so I can see if it's something I want to make more of when the summer fruits are in season. Instead of using 4 lbs of fresh fruit, per the recipe, I used 12 oz of blackberries and half a pound of apples and kumquats. I put Meyer lemon slices in with the apples and blackberries. Here they are after macerating overnight and simmering for 15 min for the kumquats & berries and an hour for the apples: Much more manageable than 6 quarts! I set up another small batch of Sweet Potential with a pound of pineapple and lime slices since I had plenty leftover from those sandwiches above and I'll cook it up tomorrow. In the meantime, I've already taken my blackberry Sweet Potential over to Cocktail o'Clock p 314 and used it to make a Blackberry Mint Gimlet. Very pretty. I also made a Blackberry Old Fashioned with 1/4 oz blackberry Sweet Potential syrup, 2 oz bourbon and ginger bitters, garnished with a blackberry. That last one is not in the book but do recommend it. Apologies for not taking photos of the drinks. I was apparently thirsty 🙃

I bought it because I wanted to try incorporating it into a finishing seasoning or other applications where you wouldn't necessarily want to add a liquid.

Probably yes, but it does have that fish sauce smell so maybe don't let Ronnie stick his nose in the bag. Indeed. Andrea Nguyen recommends cutting it with regular salt if you want to use it as a seasoning salt. See here on her blog. Her recipe for Red Boat Umami Mayo is on the Red Boat site. Yes, it's really excellent. I have to restrain myself from buying all the flavors as it's rather expensive, too! I save it for putting on bread or toast where I can really taste the difference. I'm not making chocolate chip cookies with this stuff!

Yesterday, on the way back from my haircut, I stopped by the fancy food shop and picked up a few necessities: Since I was famished, I immediately opened the seaweed butter to put on some crusty bread.

This morning, I finally got around to making the Quirky Furki p 234 from This Will Make It Taste Good, so that's # 9 of the 10 flavor heroes in the book that I've tried. I made half a batch and used bonito flakes instead of dried shrimp. As @Shelby noted when she made this, the recipe makes a LOT! I'll make another batch when I get the shrimp but this will last me for a while! Per Vivian's suggestion, I left some of the Quirky Furki with bigger chunks and ground some of it more finely. The toasted sesame seeds getting broken up made the ground stuff smell amazing. I used some of each to top the Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes & More p 241, Vivian's take on the basic Chinese scrambled egg with tomato This was very good. Loved the crunch of the topping, especially the salt & vinegar potato chips. Using them in the mix is pretty genius. Edited to add that the one flavor hero that I haven't made is Sweet Potential p 296, basically fruit preserved in a light syrup that can be made with the fruit of your choice. I'm not particularly excited about this one, at least with the fruits in season right now. I bought some pears to try but they're not at all as crisp as Vivian recommends so I think they'd make a mushy preserve. I meant to try with Fuyu persimmons back in the fall but never got around to it. Figs or cherries sound like they'd be good but aren't in season. I guess I could try some apples but it doesn't excite me. Has anyone else made this one?

Good luck! I still remember, ages ago, when I had my apartment recarpeted. The whole thing, closets included, except for bathrooms and kitchen. It was almost as bad as moving!

Obviously, I can't see up close, but I think the stove looks fine and your reno is looking great. I'm sure you'll get your investment back, either in actual cash or an easy sale. The associated aggravation is another matter!

Good point. I suspect that today they may be getting more from TikTok and who knows what else. I'm too old for it but can appreciate being able to follow a social media contact who shares your likes and dislikes

Your comment reminds me that when my brother moved out of the college dorms into an apartment, his first call home for cooking advice had to do with chocolate eclairs. My mom recommend he make cream puffs first and put a pastry bag and tips in his Christmas box!