blue_dolphin

Heirloom bean and escarole soup from Ad Hoc at Home. Beans are the Mogette de Vendée Bean from Rancho Gordo. I have some issues with the recipe but some of it was my own fault. I made a half recipe but used a whole ham hock as they're terribly not easy to bisect. As a result, it came out too salty. I'll go get another head or two of escarole and add more beans. And have soup for months 🙃. The recipe has you first sauté leeks, carrot and onion until tender, then add the smoked ham hock and chicken stock and simmer for an hour, then remove the hock and shred the meat. I'm not an experienced hock cooker but IMO it takes more than an hour to get truly shred-able meat from a hock and indeed this was true so I strained out the veg and put the broth and hock in the Instant Pot for another hour. Much better. But also saltier. Secondly, I think using chicken stock to simmer that hock is a bit of a waste as the smoky ham along with the aromatics is more than enough flavor for this soup. Not sure exactly what order I'll do things in next time but it will be different from the book.

This one is still $2.99 on Amazon.com and $2.51 on Amazon.ca. As @MelissaH pointed out, it's not a Kindle single, it's the full version of the book. You can check out a review of it and a sample recipe over here at EYB.

I'm not certain what the article author was referring to but if one chooses to make a risotto-like dish in the instant pot vs the classic stove top method of stirring in one ladle of broth at a time, then indeed, one is relieved "of most of the stirring."

I see some glassware in the photos, was your Mission successful?

Last week, Ben Mims shared a recipe for California Persimmon Torte in the LA Times, his variation on the Marian Burros Plum Torte from the NYT. I baked a half-sized recipe in a 6-inch springform pan. His changes were to reduce the sugar to 2/3 cup, increase the lemon juice to 1T and add ground ginger & turmeric (1/2 t each) and 1 t vanilla. I'd prefer to let lovely crisp-sweet Fuyu persimmons shine in a salad rather than baking them like this but it's nice to have another fall-winter option for this cake.

I put a Zuni Café Cookbook fried egg on top of the leftovers of the Three Sisters Bowl I made the other day for lunch. The crunch of the breadcrumbs and tartness of the vinegar were good additions, though I would never have turned down one of @Ann_T's magnificent biscuits!

I only drink beer (or wine) with food. If I manage to get my bites and sips out of sync and end up with a bit of pizza or fish & chips, or a bite of burger on my plate and an empty beer glass, then I will certainly wish for another splash to wash down that last bite. But once the food is gone, no, I don't want another beer.

If I were shivering and wrapped in blankets like @heidih, I'm not sure I'd want one but I find them quite pleasant whenever it's over 85°F or so and I've noticed that kids seem to like them most anytime. Edited to add that last year, I made some eggnog popsicles and I'm kinda looking forward to having those again over the holidays!

Extra points if you can make that into a rebus that will fit on a beer cap!

It is cloudy and chilly this AM and the high will only be in the mid 70's today - quite a change from last week and the weekend!

Hmmm. That no-touch method of juicing that @FauxPas shared looks pretty good. Maybe I should bring a pair of tongs out on my walks and grab some of these. I could make some prickly pear popsicles, no?

If you look around eG, you'll find fans and haters of this method. In her book, The Savory Way, Deborah Madison, uses wonton wrappers to make delicate ravioli which she says are more suited to a first course of 3 or 4 ravioli. She recommends taking care to stretch the wrapper over the filling to avoid air pockets, using a ravioli crimper to seal the edges or wrapping and sealing as you would a wonton. I remember making little triangular mushroom ravioli with mushroom sauce from her recipe. They were more like a delicate dumpling than pasta but still nice. In my recent adventures with pasta, I've found it helps to keep the heat at a simmer rather than a boil with any of these filled pastas.

It's kinda like leftover pizza - OK at room temp but better warm so the cheese is a bit gooey instead of congealed. I'd bake them at home as you want a good hot, preheated oven to get that nice crust on the bottom. I had good luck freezing them and reheating so you could certainly do that if you want to make them ahead.

Another apple pop, this time Apple & Salted Caramel. Another recipe from People's Pops. The book also has a recipe for Apricot & Salted Caramel which I made a while back and didn't care much for. These are much better. First, make applesauce by cooking chopped apples in just enough water to get them steaming, then purée and strain. I used McIntosh apples and was surprised at how much of the color from the skins transferred to the applesauce. It was the prettiest shade of pink: I kind of hated to add the brown salted caramel and considered making cinnamon-apple pops instead but that will have to wait as I continued with the recipe. Not as pretty as before adding the caramel but still OK. I think the book describes the texture of these as velvety and they are. Very nice. The applesauce was pretty thick so I got some bubbles. Should have whacked the molds a bit. I also made a batch of Coconut, Lime & Thai Basil pops with some of the bounty of basil I was recently gifted with. Coconut milk, lime juice and Thai basil-infused simple syrup. These are a little icy but not bad. Some of the coconut pop recipes I have use sweetened condensed milk, which makes for a creamier texture, but I thought that might mute the Thai basil flavor. The best herb pops I've made have been watermelon and parsley and cucumber and mint so I'll pair one of them with the basil for the next round.

Three Sisters Bowl With Hominy, Beans and Squash from Sean Sherman (aka The Sioux Chef), one of the 10 Essential Native American recipes he included in his recent NYT piece. Made with Rancho Gordo Brown Tepary Beans and Hominy. I used a carnival squash instead of acorn.

I have Oaxaca al Gusto also. It is indeed beautiful but the index is by region, of which there are many) and within that by the Spanish name of the dish. No index by ingredient or recipe type. Eat Your Books can help a little there but it was indexed at a time when they were not including page numbers so it's still a treasure hunt to find recipes even when you know the name and ingredients. And, of course, it calls for many hyper local ingredients, though some are more widely available than when the book was published. I should volunteer to add the page numbers to the Eat Your Books indexing of the book - I started some discussion with them about that but never too the next step.

I bought Amá, too, but haven't delved into it yet. Bäco always makes me want to cook, even I don't exactly use his recipes. I'm hoping Amá will be the same. From that list, I also have American Sfoglino, which I expected to be mostly aspirational but I might actually use and Oaxaca, which I bought after hearing an interview with the authors on Good Food. Too. Many. Cookbooks. 🙃

I got them all except for the peas in a pod. I'm guessing those black, rectangular shapes are P's, although I still can't really make them out. I've certainly heard people say the first part of that phrase, "A bird in the hand...." and let the rest be implied but I've never heard anyone say, "Two in the bush," alone. That last one was something my mom would say. As in, "I only had time to give it a lick and a promise."

I thought that one might appeal to you! The US Kindle price is $24.99, and I thought that was high!

While it's November, it's been over 90°F for the last couple of days so still popsicle weather here. Cranberry & Apple Pops from the People's Pops cookbook. The fruit gets cooked together, with just 1/4 cup of water to help them steam, then puréed and sweetened with simple syrup. I used McIntosh apples which were tart enough that the recommended lemon juice wasn't really needed. I used it anyway so these are quite tart pops.

'Tis the season for holiday cookbook lists. Here's The 10 cookbooks you’ll want to give — and get — this holiday season from the LA Times. For those who don't have access to the website, here's the list: Fuchsia Dunlop's updated version of “Land of Plenty,” titled "The Food of Sichuan." "American Sfoglino: A Master Class in Handmade Pasta,” by Evan Funke and co-author Katie Parla “Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen,” by Adeena Sussman, who co-authored Chrissy Tiegan's cookbooks, among quite a few others. Josef Centeno’s “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen.” Like his first book, "Bäco", this is co-written with his wife and former Los Angeles Times deputy food editor Betty Hallock Raquel Pelzel’s “Umami Bomb: 75 Vegetarian Recipes that Explode with Flavor.” “Lasagna: A Baked Pasta Cookbook” by Anna Hezel and the editors of Taste "Oaxaca: The Food of the Region, and of LAs legendary restaurant Guelaguetza" by Bricia Lopez, who grew up in and currently co-owns the restaurant founded by her parents and co-author Javier Cabral Sonoko Sakai’s “Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors.” From what I can tell, her first book was "The Poetical Pursuit Of Food: Japanese Recipes for American Cooks," published in 1986 under the name Sonoko Kondo. “Alpine Cooking: Recipes and Stories From Europe’s Grand Mountaintops” by Meredith Erickson “Canal House: Cook Something — Recipes to Rely On” by Christopher Hirshheimer and Melissa Hamilton

Have you perused the Salt Cod Diary topic that @LindaK started a while back? In spite of the fact that salt cod on boiled potatoes was one of my most hated Lenten dinners, I also find the topic interesting.

The documentary film I mentioned above, The Biggest Little Farm about a local business, Apricot Lane Farm, is now available on Hulu.

Apparently she did write an intro to an edition of the Jackson Symphony League Cookbook that contained the original recipe. See here.

Neither. It's reportedly a family recipe that Welty included in her Christmas card one year and it went on to be published all over the place.