blue_dolphin

No kidding! I've got plenty of petty grievances WRT usage of food and cooking terms but this thread makes me feel very chill in comparison!

If I saw that on a menu, it would be my first choice and if I saw that photo, I'd buy the whole thing!

This isn't exactly a recipe from the book but I treated myself to a brunch of shrimp & grits, Little Green Dress-style Cooked the shrimp in a bit of bacon fat, added a splash of chicken broth to make a little "gravy" and stirred in some LGD. Excellent!

In my opinion, it loses flavor over time. Just rummaged through the cupboard and found a bottle of Nielsen-Massey orange flower water with a best by date in 2016. There's not much to it, but what's there is delicate and pleasant. I've been using a bottle of Cortas brand, purchased in the last year, with a best by date in early 2022 that's about 1000% more aromatic. I don't believe it should be dangerous so go ahead and give it the sniff/taste test and see if it's got anything left.

Definitely watch the flour. Using less will make it easier to press. A side benefit is more tender cookies. My "bible" for pressed cookies when I was a teen, Betty Crocker's Cookbook, recommends testing the dough for consistency before adding all the flour by putting a small amount in the cookie press and squeezing it out. Edited to add that I always hold the last 1/2 cup of flour aside and start testing. It should be soft and pliable, not crumbly. Betty says to chill only if the recipe recommends, otherwise use at room temp. If the dough seems too soft, Betty recommends adding the yolk of an egg. If it's too stiff, a tablespoon or 2 of flour should do the trick. She says if the dough is of the right consistency, it shouldn't be necessary to exert a lot of force on either the press or the handle. I'm sure you have plenty of experience with all of this but as long as I'm sharing her tips - don't lift the press from the cookie sheet until enough dough has come out to form the cookie. She says that for some cookies it may be necessary to wait a moment to allow the dough to adhere to the sheet before lifting the press. With some doughs, I find I need to pull up briskly to ensure the cookie stays behind on the sheet. Good luck and keep us posted. I'm thinking I need to go make some!

I'm in awe of the dedicated bitters shelf. The whole thing sounds like a work of art. Mine are crammed into a low spot in my pull-out pantry. Last night I was rummaging for Peychaud's & mole bitters with one hand while trying to keep 4 curious kittens from sneaking in with the other.

I hope you get some helpful info here, @Gayle28607! I love making pressed cookies, too, and really wish I would have stolen my mom's old one. It had a ton of shapes and she never used it. I have a Marcato Atlas biscuit press and it works fine but I miss some of the fun shapes, like the little gingerbread man! I can imagine using a pastry bag to pipe out S-shaped cookies or little "kisses" but, like you, I can't imagine how it would work with all the shapes so I'll be curious to hear how people do it.

The other day, Eva on Pasta Grammar put her own Italian twist on a Thanksgiving dinner. You can read the recipes and watch the episode at this link. I'm intrigued by her cranberry relish, Caponata di Mirtilli Rossi. Pretty much everything you'd put in a caponata with cranberries and apples subbing in for the eggplant. Ingredients are: cranberries, apples, celery, onion, tomato, capers, pine nuts, raisins, kalamata olives, tomato paste, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, S&P. Sounds like it would be good with cheese or sandwiches. I'm not having a turkey but I think I'll try it.

I liked LGD on pasta but, as I mentioned earlier, it turns into something more like a pasta salad than a conventional pesto. I was in the mood for grits this morning so I made the the Tomato Gravy to Me p 215 that features Herbdacious. All those herbs add a lot of flavor to something that's otherwise pretty quick and simple. Cook a sliced onion 'til slightly caramelized then move them to the side, throw in a bunch of cherry tomatoes and let them blister and start to burst. Then add some water or broth, cook until it starts to thicken, then stir in the Herbdacious, a pat of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Between the brown of the caramelized onions and the bright green Herbdacious, the gravy is rather the color of baby poop but it tastes good. I put it over white grits cooked per Vivian's Foolproof Grits recipe in DRR.

Continuing my exploration of This Will Make It Taste Good, I made the Do Try This at Home Tartare p 117 which features Red Weapons p 104 I used black cod (sablefish) and it was excellent. I bought a piece of fresh, local black cod at the farmers market and trimmed it into 2 slabs to be cooked later and the thinner tail portion that I used here. I followed the recipe, except for using cilantro instead of mint. Served with homemade whole grain crackers. I had a little more cod than the 2 oz/single serving I planned for this recipe so I tossed the rest with some Little Green Dress. That was good, but the Red Weapons version, per the book, was great!

Sorry, I remember you asked about this in another thread and I meant to make some so I could take photos to answer with. I suspect they are more properly called roasted onions, though I take them a good bit farther than my starting recipe does. Not entirely interchangeable with pan caramelized but they work in many applications. I've got onions, a bit of time and weather cool enough to turn on the oven so I'll respond in a day or so and you can decide if they suit.

Per the IP Ultra manual, the time range for the on the slow-cook function is 2 - 20 hours so you are correct there. It looks like you can program something longer, but I'm not familiar with that. I caramelize onions in a pan on the stovetop or in the oven. Since trying Kenji's (no longer recommended) pressure cooker method, I've stuck with the basics!

I enjoyed this recent NYT article and thought others might as well: Kimchi Making at Home Was Going Out of Style. Rural Towns to the Rescue. I liked enterprise of the rural folks in passing along a tradition of kimchi making that's dying out in urban centers and doing it in a profitable way. I also liked their Covid-pivot of setting up in single-family tents in a stadium to keep the festival going this year.

I was going to suggest spot cleaning only 😂

Not all of us sleep in a gourmet foods emporium 🙃 Vivian mentioned making sure ingredients specified were widely available. No salt packed anchovies at my Walmart, though they do stock black garlic. Food stylists can run amok but I took the photo that accompanies the LGD recipe as a suggestion as to an acceptable hot sauce brand. I used Crystal brand (which always makes me think of its regular appearances on @HungryChris's breakfast table) in my first batch and Inner Beauty in the second. Inner Beauty is rather distinctive but with everything else going on in there, I didn't taste a huge difference. Making no attestations as to the rightness of my mind, I used a food processor to make LGD. Huh, I thought, as I read the recipe, I'd normally just use a knife but, just this once, I'll follow the recipe and use the food processor. And, dang, if I didn't think it worked a treat. So much so that when I made my second batch, I used the processor again. My first choice was slightly influenced by the ginormous bunches of herbs laid out next to a chef's knife in need of sharpening but the second batch was all about the ease. And, sane or not, I'm one who will happily use a knife to cut dozens of carrots into fine julienne rather than shred them with any device. Do tell, why did she create them? Edited to add that while I was happy to use mine for LGD, I honestly think that food processors are the work of the devil. They are such a pain to clean that I'll almost always turn to a knife or blender instead. I believe that if God herself had been involved, we would have something much better. Last night's dinner was a variation of the Naked Burgers with a Cheese Toupee & Spinach Crown p 21, featuring LGD These are pork burgers, distinctively seasoned with cumin, topped with Swiss cheese, charred red onion and spinach that's sautéed in olive oil and butter with garlic, mushrooms and mixed with a scoop of LGD before it goes on the burger. The recipe makes 8 oz burgers and serves them on a plate. I went with 4 oz and put mine on a bun. I forgot to buy mushrooms so I melted a slice of the double-mushroom butter from Six Seasons into the pan with the garlic before wilting the greens. I subbed arugula for spinach as it needed to be used. I really enjoyed this. Loved the charred onion. The combination of LDG and butter is just as green vegetable-friendly here as in the asparagus recipe. The cumin in the burger was interesting and made me think these would be good made with lamb. Vivian suggests turkey or beef as alternative meats. I've got another burger shaped so I'll try to get some mushrooms and have that one without a bun.

More commonly stirred, rather than shaken: Kangaroo Cocktail is apparently an earlier name for the drink but I can't imagine you'd have a lot of success ordering one by that name! Edited to add that I guess your version would actually be a Shaken Dirty Kangaroo 😂

Or just click the link in the post immediately prior...🙃

Based on articles like the one below, I'm hoping things will even out more quickly this time. Grocery store rationing is back, but relax: The supply chain is doing fine

Nice segment on CBS Sunday Morning today: Heirloom Beans from Napa Valley to your mailbox

I've had it for way more than 3 years but almost never use my stick blender. The Blendtec gets used all the time. More recent purchases that I don't use are the vacuum sealer and the Phillips Avance grill. I really need to find a handier storage location for the grill as I used it the other day and wondered why it's been so long.

I spied a serving's worth of fresh pasta that I'd stashed in the freezer. Cooked it up, tossed with zucchini, sugar snap peas, roasted red pepper, a dab of Vivian Howard's Herbdacious pesto-like stuff made with mixed herbs and roasted garlic, and a sprinkle of feta. Hit the spot!

Good suggestion, @rotuts! I've watched every episode of Deep Run Roots and Somewhere South several times but now that I have the book, I should watch again. I'll say that I was delighted to see that This Will Make It Taste Good features Vivian's own spin (using her Citrus Shine) on Von Diaz's recipe for coconut-braised collards that appeared in an episode of Somewhere South. I'm looking forward to trying it soon!

Oooo...LGD grilled cheese...yum! I listened to an interview with Vivian on a recent episode of the Radio Cherry Bombe podcast the other day. It reminded me that unlike so many restaurant chefs who use (credited or uncredited) co-authors, Vivian actually writes her own books. I very much enjoy her voice so find the new book and interviews like this to be very much like catching up with an old friend. The podcast is available here.

A bit chilly here this AM so I warmed up some leftover soup and bread Sweet potato, sauerkraut & bacon chowder and a monkey bread sort of thing made with caramelized onions. Both from Vivian Howard's book, This Will Make It Taste Good

Can't wait to see how you use that, @Shelby! Speaking of Herbdacious, last night I followed one of the "No Brainer" suggestions to use it on a pizza: I added zucchini, red onion and Taleggio cheese. Very pesto-like in this application.