blue_dolphin

I lurked here for years, amazed at the chatter of so many well known voices. I was sure I didn’t belong but happy to listen in! eG members have taught me much, cost me more and saved me from many disasters but what’s benefited me over the last few years was learning from many members that it’s fine to barber almost any recipe down to a single serving or two and knock myself out cooking up a storm....for MYSELF...if that’s what I want!

A moody Tuesday sunrise Followed by what will be my breakfast for the next few days English muffin with peanut butter and banana. Sliced apple - crisp and tart Macintosh from a local orchard. Black coffee.

It’s a small town!

Yesterday’s sunrise was lovely And was followed by the same drive to the apple orchard for coffee and donuts as I showed the day before. This time, I also bought apples and a jar of apple salsa. Today’s sun was very reluctant but eventually put in a brief appearance Breakfast was an English muffin with peanut butter and banana. Coffee at Stewart’s (gas station/mini mart/ice cream/dairy place, where I bought the muffins & bananas) was free today, courtesy of a local bank.

Yesterday’s sunrise: Followed by half a mini quiche from TJ’s freezer section: My quiche is better. Today’s sunrise - almost 60°F! A heat wave is upon us! Followed by a drive to Rulf’s, a local apple orchard, for fresh donuts and coffee, consumed out on the porch. There were 2 donuts, both warmed just a bit in the oven. I ate them both.

The other day, I popped into the TJ’s in Burlington VT and spotted this Beecher’s Flagship cheddar from Seattle. It was priced ~ $12.99/lb so not a crazy cheap bargain but it’s a delicious cheese. I used to buy it often when I traveled to Seattle regularly for work. A good cheddar to try wherever you spot it!

Don’t be too terrified of your centrifuge. Read the manual and use the machine with respect and care. Watch and listen as the centrifuge gets up to speed so you can stop the run if there are unusual sounds or vibrations. Never, never override any chamber locking mechanisms. Understand that rotors have speed ratings that are independent of the speed dial on the centrifuge itself. Just because a centrifuge can go up to 10,000 rpm doesn’t mean that is safe for every rotor so know the max rpm for your rotors when they were new and don’t ever exceed that. Rotor manufacturers tend to de-rate or lower the max rpm of older rotors so if 4,000 is the max for your rotor and you suspect it’s seen very heavy use, you may want to consider spinning a bit lower and longer to get the same result. That said, a small scratch is extremely unlikely to cause catastrophic failure at 4,000 rpm in an otherwise well balanced rotor.

I know you were asking @Shelby but I follow these guidelines from the Instant Pot website using the manual cooking times given and equal volumes of washed (wet) rice and water. I most often cook pot-in-pot but get good results directly in the pot as well and get good results with Jasmine, Basmati and brown rice.

Not quite sure what "collection" this refers to but she's long had newspaper columns, written for various food publications and has tons on her website so there are a lot of her recipes available online - a search on EYB returns a list of over 2,000. Many, but not all are available for free.

Using the same ingredients as yesterday's breakfast except I filled an omelet with the creamed spinach and topped it with the pickled vegetable and herb mix

The Kindle version of Diana Henry's recent (published in 2018) book How to Eat a Peach is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca for $1.99

I remember @Franci showed us a similar looking squash called a trombetta during her food blog from Monaco and here in the Summer Squash thread. There has also been some discussion of growing trombetta over in the gardening thread. I wonder if they are similar or related?

I'm probably the one who recommended 3 min @ 300°F on steam-bake as that's what I used to defrost an English muffin or a roll and I don't pre-heat. In my hands, at that point, the middle of the English muffin is no longer frozen but still quite cold and I can easily split it with a fork. I wouldn't say the exterior is dry as a bone, but I wouldn't call it wet either - it's nothing that's not taken care of during the toast cycle that comes next. That said, you've clearly experimented to find a slightly longer and cooler setting that better suits your needs, so it's all good. I'd guess that you might be using a slightly shorter toast setting than I do (since I'm likely starting to toast with a muffin that's a little damper on the outside and cooler on the inside) so it probably all comes out in the wash....or the CSO!

Late lunch/early dinner. Penne with @ElainaA's slow roasted tomatoes, broccoli and kalamata olives

A few "leftover" pops. I had pumpkin purée leftover from yesterday's breakfast waffles and there was some heavy cream hanging out in an iSi whip in the fridge so I made these pumpkin pie with whipped cream pops: Very similar to the recipe in People's Pops except that I just used a generous spoon of Penzey's Pie Spice instead of making a spiced simple syrup. Tastes fine and I don't detect any grittiness from the ground spices. I had some strawberry and blueberry purées leftover from the other pops so I made a few berries & cream pops: My freezer is now full. I gotta give some of these away before I can make any more. If anyone wants to swing by with a cooler, I can load you up!

Stewed Spinach Eggs (Ägg med stuvad spenat), recipe available online here. In the video about this recipe at the link above, Rachel calls this Swedish shakshuka. I had my doubts but the warm, creamy spinach is generously seasoned with nutmeg and white pepper and tastes very Swedish indeed. The cool, crisp, lightly pickled garnish of red onion, fresh hot chili and herbs provides the perfect contrast to the richness of the spinach. I had to use a jalapeño because the called for red chile that I'm sure is in my fridge was hiding. Since I was lacking that color, I cut up a bunch of little gold tomatoes and added them to the vinegar and felt they were a good addition. I'd make it again.

I've been using a hot air popper and saving up so I can splash out on the Behmor 1600. The new model is ~ $50 more than the previous one which has given me pause but I like that I could roast 1/4 lb on the regular but go up to 1/2 or even a full lb when I have guests visiting. The quiteness of the Behmor 1600 is also appealing as I hate the noise of the air popper so I appreciate your comment on how quiet the SR540 is. More to think about!

I don't know how they compare to the commercial version but the recipe that @Anna N linked to upthread in this post makes an excellent cookie that I bet would be just the thing to enjoy along with your homemade peach ice cream!

@Franci, I couldn't decide whether to click on "Like" for that gorgeous pork and amazing-looking sopressada (would you say it's at all similar to 'nduja?) or click on the sad face because this: is what you had for your own lunch while looking at the rest!

Peach & strawberry pops Seascape strawberries from Harry's Berries and O'Henry peaches from Tenerelli Orchards. Also, a serving suggestion for the roasted peach pops from the other day. Just pour a little Elijah Craig or your choice of bourbon into an icy glass, add peach pop and enjoy.

Pumpkin waffle (from this recipe) with banana and walnuts. Sausage patty in the back there next to the maple syrup.

Roasted Peach: Blueberry & Peach:

Clearly, you are a better fryer than I!

I suppose it depends on the dishes in question. The bowls I use for pasta have no problem going from the fridge into a room temp CSO, then turning it on to steam-bake @ 250 or 275°F. Usually takes ~ 8 min for one serving. The same is true for most of the plates I've tried. I don't have any fine china nor have I subjected anything delicate to that treatment. Often, I prefer to heat things separately. Say, rice in one bowl and a saucy meat or veg dish in another. In such cases, I usually store the leftovers in various Corning or Pyrex dishes that I know can handle the temp.

In an effort to be even handed here, while it's not enormous, it is a sizable unit. The diameter of the element itself is 12" but there's ~ an inch of housing around that and because of the way the legs angle outwards, you're looking at ~ 17" diameter at those widest points. It stands about 3.25" high, so it's not wafer-thin either. That design makes me feel comfortable using larger, heavier pots on it but it does add to the storage size and the countertop footprint when in use. The only outlets in my kitchen would place it below upper cabinets, so that's not ideal. I knew all of this going in and plan to store it in the garage, which will make me less likely to use it. All that said, the $69 price is very good 🙃