blue_dolphin

OK. This thread made me get up from my chair, go outside to pick a few oranges and make @Darienne's Orange Julep Very refreshing!

@suzilightning, not sure from your post if you are looking for something orange or strawberry. Since the title suggests orange, you might be interested that @Darienne posted her recipe for an Orange Julep a while back. I know nothing about the actual Orange Julius but having grown up in a town a few miles south of @Darienne's Montreal memories and which featured our very own orange-shaped Orange Julep stand, I can certainly understand the appeal of that drink that always reminded me of a creamsicle. Here's a rather sad wintertime photo of the Plattsburgh, NY Orange Julep stand that I remember. These photos were featured on the Facebook page of a local tour company, the Greater Adirondack Ghost and Tour Company. I dimly remember seeing cars of the vintage depicted in the photo above. This one below is a bit before my time:

Went out on some AM errands, intending to pick up bread and tomatoes to make a BLT. I got those but the BLT will wait for tomorrow as I also picked up a pre-made sandwich Proscuitto, brie and arugula with their homemade fig jam.

I pre-ordered it back in February and did so completely sight unseen because I loved DRR so much. Judging from the few sample pages available on Amazon, it looks like the new book has recipes for various condiment-type stuff which then gets used in different ways. I love that kind of stuff. From her website: I hope some recipes will start to leak out soon! Oh, and thanks on the grits - I was worried that those little red flecks were going to be hard pieces of hull but they cooked up nicely!

Received 2 mail orders this morning and used them to make breakfast. Three kinds of grits and Charleston Gold rice from Geechie Boy Mill: Red Weapons from Vivian Howard's Handy & Hot: That jar of spicy tomatoes was a seriously ridiculous splurge which I only justified after doing my taxes and ensuring my finances are in order. The recipe will be in Vivian's new book coming out in October and I wanted to treat myself to a preview of coming attractions. The little booklet contains a bunch of suggestions for using them. Breakfast was Jimmy Red grits with Red Weapons and a boiled egg:

I generally go with 2 oz/serving so that would be enough for 7 of me!

I've made a mango salsa that used tamarind, along with mango, red onion, jalapeño, cilantro, golpar and pomegranate arils. If the golpar didn't tip you off, I will - the recipe is NOT Mexican and comes from Naz Deravian's Bottom of the Pot where it's an accompaniment to fish cakes made with sardines. The leftovers were delicious with tortilla chips. The disadvantage of using tamarind in place of citrus is that it can make things look muddy even if they taste bright and fresh.

You could follow this thread on the Anova oven but who knows if it's going to be available. Edited to add that there's also a thread on the Tovala oven but it hasn't seen much activity of late.

Yesterday was broccoli mac & cheese Today was another gingerbread waffle, fresh blueberries, Greek yogurt with lemon and honey

I agree. Especially with her jam cookbook scheduled to come out next week. The timing made me wonder if someone really had an ax to grind but there seems to be enough truth to be very disturbing.

I've missed the writing of @russ parsons in the LA Times since he departed that publication so I was delighted to read this article from him in The Irish Times: A US food writer moved to Ireland. Here’s what he found Brought me back to my first trip to Ireland. I was not expecting great food and then I discovered Irish butter ... and cheese and bacon and salmon and potatoes ... simple ingredients with real flavor.

I never had tots until last week when I bought some for a recipe. My, they are quite good. I have to acknowledge the great minds in this topic for my brunch tots today: Filled with sour cream, topped with salmon roe and served with scrambled eggs.

Nice to see the tot love over here in the breakfast thread! I'm pretty much a tot novice. For sure, my first time to buy them and cook them at home. It was slim pickings at my local Walmart Neighborhood Market. Walmart brand "Taters" only, though I did have a choice of a 2 lb or 5 lb bag. Someone told me the more disc-shaped type that @Anna N pictured have a better crispy surface area:interior ratio but these seem quite satisfactory. I bought the 2 lb bag thinking it would last a lifetime but I'm making good progress and can see a re-purchase in my future! There is a whole tot topic over here although, aside from a few devotees, it hasn't seen a ton of tot love lately. It was in that thread that I found the idea for today's tot Sunday brunch special Scrambled eggs with sour cream filled tots topped with salmon roe. Cut a slit in the top of the tot, squeeze from the ends to open it up, pipe in the sour cream and, lacking actual caviar, top with roe. You may also note that's not a coffee mug in the background. This was washed down with a nice glass of bubbly - the Trader Joe's Reserve Brut Rosé North Coast Sparkling Wine that I buy when it's available over the holidays and hoard for celebrations. I realized that we're more than half way to next year's supply and with no parties, I haven't made much of a dent in my stash. These days, fancy tots are as good excuse as I'm likely to get!

Totchos with a boiled egg Tots, roasted poblano and red bell peppers, pickled jalapeños, cheese topped with a boiled egg & cheese sauce

Not surprising, I guess, with brick & mortar shops already struggling before the virus pushed everything online. I used to love poking around in their big Seattle store - always crammed with stuff. I liked that they had a set-up where you could try out the knives for fit and balance. I also liked that they regularly hosted cookbook authors in the stores. My store didn't tend to be too busy so we often were able to chat with the authors for quite a while. My local Thousand Oaks store isn't on the closure list yet when bigger nearby shopping destinations like Santa Barbara, Pasadena, Glendale and Westwood are closing. Maybe due to higher rents and more competition in those other areas.

Nice looking tomato sauce, @kayb! Hope your lids turn up in time. There was a while there when they were out of stock in lots of places and were selling for outrageous prices. That seems to have passed. I am not much of a canner put am determined to put up some of the stewed tomatoes from Deep Run Roots this year when the local farmstand does their pick your own Roma special for 25 cents/lb. That's not til Labor Day weekend so I've got time to get my jars & lids in order!

If you've got something in a glass bottle with a wire bale closure and think the contents may have begun to ferment, I'd recommend leaving the wire bale closure open or at least place the bottle into a secondary container large enough to contain the contents in case the bottle fails. I almost put this over in the "I will never...." thread but forgot. I recently had a liter of elderflower cordial distribute itself all over the inside of my fridge. It was on the top shelf, in the back and ended up all over everything on every shelf, including all the door bins. You don't want to clean up a sticky mess like that!

Tots again In addition to broccoli and red bell pepper, I added pickled jalapeños and replaced most of the grated cheddar with a drizzle of a queso-like sauce. The sauce is from Chris Shepherd's book Cook like a Local where he uses it a Chile Tater Tot Casserole and something called Lamburger Helper. The sauce has onion, garlic, Crystal hot sauce and sambal oelek in addition to cheddar cheese and heavy cream. It is very rich and very delicious. From others who have made it, the tot casserole turns the tots rather mushy. Some people like it that way. Fans of the crispy tot have turned it into something more like totchos than a casserole and I plan to try that. The recipe is available online here: Chile Tater Tot Casserole Interior view:

Are there rules for breakfast? People with purple hair don't care .....🙃 Perhaps more conforming, today, I made a scaled down, 2-egg version of this Veggie-Packed Tater Tot Breakfast Bake

Tuna salad sandwich & pickles

Phew! The green is only a sort of tinted white chocolate on the outside. I was afraid there was going to be a green peanut butter filling inside! And sign me up for a tasting of the (likely awful artificial) strawberry filled Vampire Kisses - they look quite deadly!

Last week, as reported over in the pizza toppings topic, I used the classic slow-cooked summer squash & onions as a pizza sauce. For the squash, I followed Toni Tipton-Martin's recipe from Jubilee which uses butter, olive oil and rosemary. When I tasted the sweetness of the cooked squash, my thoughts went to additions like feta, olives, preserved lemon but I wanted to stick with the southern theme, so I added red bell peppers and diced country ham.

Spiced maple broiled peach from Nik Sharma's Season with a gingerbread waffle from yesterday Nik makes a vanilla bean crème fraîche to go with the peaches. I subbed Greek yogurt with grated lemon zest and a drop of vanilla extract. The spiced maple-vinegar syrup has rainbow peppercorns, fennel and coriander seeds added to maple syrup and apple cider vinegar.

Gingerbread waffles & cream from Toni Tipton-Martin's Jubilee with sausage & fresh peach slices I get the sausages at the local farmers market. They're made by a German family and they named this variety "Irish Bratwurst" which makes me laugh. They also have an "Italian Bratwurst" and, of course, a "German Bratwurst," among their many offerings.

Polenta topped with collards, boiled egg and some meat picked from the smoked hock cooked with the collards. That's a moat of collard potlikker surrounding the polenta