blue_dolphin

Last week, I made the mistake of going to TJ's when I was hungry. Across the front of the store, where you wait in line, they had posted photos and descriptions of all the pumpkin stuff. Once I got into the store, these pumpkin rolls jumped into my cart. I had one for breakfast today. They come in a refrigerated tube. Five rolls and a packet of icing. Baked up nicely in the CSO, no gummy middle. 330 calories/roll with the icing, 270 without. 690 mg sodium, which is excessive. Both the rolls and the icing contain pumpkin and the expected spices. They taste a little bland without at least a little icing but might be good with butter. I enjoyed it but my curiosity and limited sweet tooth have been sated.

Also tofu here. Spicy sweet pomegranate tofu, vibrant coconut turmeric rice and baby kale stir fried with garlic. All from Andrea Nguyen's Vietnamese Food Any Day.

I like Milanos too, but I haven't bought any in ages. I like the orange & chocolate and the mint & chocolate. Mint Brussels might edge out the mint Milano but I have never done a side by side. I'll have to check what other flavors are in my area. No interest in the pumpkin spice. I like Almondina for dipping in wine. Original flavor.

A recipe from Jubilee, Maque Choux (fried corn with green peppers) with the Extra Light Buttermilk Cornbread from the same book and a country ham biscuit slice

Because it often shows up at dim sum, I always figured it was a Cantonese sort of thing but maybe it's just a US dim sum oddity.

The snack that became dinner. Baked shrimp & celery toasts from Andrea Nguyen's Vietnamese Food Any Day I liked the Viet use of baguette slices instead of the white bread squares more common in Chinese shrimp toast. Brushing the bottoms with the butter/oil mix really does give them that crispy fried base without turning them into little oil bombs as can happen sometimes when frying. The celery added a nice crunch and lightness and didn't go all watery like I feared. Good recipe. Similar to this one from her previous book except for the add of chopped celery & paprika sprinkle and a quick broil to puff them up once the shrimp has cooked.

You might try Alison Roman's method for Smashed Sweet Potatoes. Roast first (no steam, I use the CSO on convect bake @ 400°F), then smash them a bit with your hand to flatten and pan-fry them in a bit of butter and olive oil to crisp them up. Her accompaniments of sour cream + lime + salt (~ crema), caramelized maple syrup and buckwheat groats for crunch are excellent but I've used the general twice-cook method with various toppings, or none. Kind of handy as you can roast ahead, store in the fridge and then just smash & reheat at mealtime. Here, I posted about making Alison's recipe. In this case, I cut the potatoes in half before roasting and just flattened them a bit instead of completely smashing. I did something similar here, except that I reheated the roasted sweet potato on the Phillips Avance grill instead of pan-frying.

I couldn't figure it out either. Looks like this item I found on Amazon. Sort of a spatula/tong combo. The reviews don't sound promising, do they?

A search pulled up a few sweet potato topics with this being most recently active (...um, almost 10 years ago 🙃) so I'll put this here. Sweet Potato and Ricotta “Cookies” from Vij’s Indian: Our Stories, Spices and Cherished. I found the recipe online here. Sweet potatoes are cut in 1/4" thick slices, tossed with chile powder, salt & oil, then pan fried and finally sandwiched with a mix of ricotta, garlic, cumin, fennugreek leaves and cayenne The ones in the back got pan fried per the recipe while the others got roasted in the CSO - convect bake, 425°F, 15 min, turning midway. The latter resulted in a little more shrinkage but is much easier and, I think, easier to control. Pan frying took a lot longer than the recipe indicated to get the potatoes tender and I had a hard time getting the temp right to allow them to cook through but not burn. I found the Indian-leaning spice mixture in the ricotta to be unexpected but delicious with the sweet potatoes. I can imagine taking this in different directions and it's nice to have another non-bread canapé base to put into the mix, whether they are sandwiched as here or use them as the base for open-faced canapés

Charred Shishito Peppers, Corn & Soy from Cook Like a Local, topped with a boiled egg. Toasted cornbread (the Extra Light Cornbread from Jubilee) and tomatoes on the side. Haters aside, the corn recipe was very good. Very similar to this one in the NYT that uses Japanese curry paste. Instead of the curry, this version uses ssamjang, butter and a little white wine to sauce the vegetables. I was out of doenjang so I used miso to make the ssamjang and it seemed to work.

Your mention of shipping to CA prompted me to look them up and I see they are just down the road a piece from me. I've got a few knives I should either get re-habbed or get rid of and wouldn't mind supporting a local business.

Cannolicchi (subbing in for Rigatoni) with Broccoli & Sausage from Six Seasons p 179 I had milk about to turn so I turned it into ricotta and then the whipped ricotta from this book p 37. I've made this pasta a few times and liked it so I figured it was a good way to use the whipped ricotta.

Who is drinking this wine and why are you concerned? Are they your customers? If whoever is consuming it is happy, that's pretty much all that matters. If this is the starting material: it's not something I've ever heard of but I wouldn't worry about it from a food safety perspective (it could turn into vinegar, which might be an improvement) and it's hard to imagine it could get much worse!

To find the sale items, go to Shop -> Read -> Anniversary Sale I'm kicking myself for not picking up a few of the books and zines that I spied yesterday but are now sold out. The prices aren't sub bargain basement level but still quite good and a way to support a small business. If you click on over to the Now Serving site, check out their event calendar and event recordings. They've been hosting some great Zoom webinars with authors and others. I loved yesterday's session with Mandy Lee of Lady and Pups, talking about her book, The Art of Escapism Cooking. The sale price on this one was $19 but it's now gone back to the $35 list price. The recorded webinar isn't up yet on their recorded listings but should be soon. Lots of other good sessions to listen to. Evan posted on IG that she's selling those books because she's still paying off debts from her shuttered restaurant. I hope it helps her out. There are some nice vintage items in her collection.

This page lists Anova's current retail partners which might give you a hint as to outlets they may choose for the oven. Best Buy is on the list. HD and Costco are not listed at this time.

@Shelby, I'm with Kim. I love the fearlessness with which you've tackled other things, even those you've never tried. I bet you could come up with a killer venison version or something like this

Today's lunch in two courses. First, crostini spread with preserved lemon aioli and topped with mussels in escabeche (from a tin) Country style paté with black peppercorns, cornichons and little toasts Both washed down with a pretty pink crémant du Jura, seen below on the left: Edited to add that the rest of the tinned mussels were used in yesterday's lunch. Or maybe the day before? Tasty, in any case.

I don't know where you are dining but in my experience, restaurants featuring food sculptures are expensive industrial food outlets: cruise lines, large resort hotels and the like. I can't speak specifically to the horrible part but plenty of people select unhealthy options even when given the choice. I worked for years at a company that used Marriott to run the cost-subsidized staff cafeterias. On-site managing chefs were CIA or similarly trained. Healthy options abounded but the long lines were for burgers, fries and the like. The vendor made most of their money from catering meals and snacks for meetings. Again, plenty of healthy options on their menu but people wanted their cookies and lemon bars. You can lead a horse to the salad bar but....he'll always double up on the Ranch!

Exactly. I would encourage the OP to provide a similar list of restaurant experiences that at least met or even exceeded expectations, I suspect more helpful recommendations to recapitulate those experiences might be forthcoming. Tipping policies differ worldwide but since US locations were referenced, I take particular exception to penalizing servers for income they will be taxed on for an entire table because their response to a single dish failed to meet expectations.

Sautéed Peaches and Shishito Peppers with Goat Cheese, Cashews and Saffron Honey from Josef Centeno's Bäco. Recipe online here. Excellent combination of ingredients. I very much enjoyed eating this. The herbs called for were parsley, chervil and tarragon. I used parsley, mint & thyme. Edited to add that the recipe calls for 5 ripe peaches, no weight given, and 1 cup (70g) shishitos for 4 servings which sounded peach-heavy for me so I used more peppers. Went over to EYB to leave a comment on the recipe and saw the previous commenter found the peppers overpowered. If you make it, just use what you'd like to eat 🙃

I thought they were quite good. I liked the combination of the fresh ginger that was the primary seasoning and the white chocolate topping. The sweet potato flavor comes through nicely. Forgot to add a nice pinch of salt to the mix as I've found that really enhances the nuttiness of the toasted coconut.

Cheese & spicy pepper potato ball from Portos bakery topped with a boiled egg

Do you have a stove or cooktop of some sort? That's what I use to boil water. Usually in a tea kettle but sometimes in a pot. I've never had a separate appliance for boiling water, though I know they are common in some places. As to the microwave, you might get better answers if you were to to identify the specific microwave capabilities that can't be lived without. This Anova thread may or may not be the best thread for that, at least at this point when no one has seen one. There has been some discussion of small combi oven capabilities when @KennethT was thinking along the same lines about the Cuisianart CSO. You could check out this post and its replies in the "Do I need..." thread and follow up with this post of his in one of the Cuisinart CSO threads and read down through both of them for some thoughts. Probably other places I can't recall, too. A small combi oven, on steam bake can do a great job reheating a plate of leftovers. Takes a little longer than a MW but the result is superior, to me. It's not ever going to be the single best appliance for boiling a cup of water in the shortest amount of time. Mine replaced the toaster and I suspect the Anova can, too. When I save up enough, I plan to get rid of my over the range microwave in order to install a proper vent hood. I don't think I'll miss it. Well, except that it's a handy storage spot for the cooked bacon one of my cats will quickly devour if I should step out of the kitchen 🤣

Sweet potato & coconut pops dipped in white chocolate and topped with chopped walnuts The sweet potato mix was very thick and I was too lazy to address it so I ended up with those unsightly bubble holes that I was also too lazy to disguise with a more artful application of chocolate 🙃 I got the idea from this sweet potato & coconut popsicle recipe although I based it more on Nikki's Sweet Potatoes from 101 Cookbooks that is a standby for me. I intended to use the macadamia nuts that top that recipe but they tasted off so I went with the trusty walnuts.

After an uproar, the county revised their Halloween guidance on trick-or-treating from "Not Permitted" to "Not Recommended" Per the local paper, the state will be issuing guidance soon that should make it easier for counties to maintain consistency with neighboring areas. I rarely got many kids. My neighborhood has no streetlights and few sidewalks so it's really not a hotbed for trick-or-treating anyway. I used to give out those lunchbox-sized packs of chips, Fritos, Doritos, Cheetos, pretzels, etc and happily scarf up the leftovers. It won't hurt me to skip that practice!