blue_dolphin

The pork industry in China and Vietnam has suffered significant losses recently due to African swine fever: African Swine Fever Is Spreading Fast and Eliminating It Will Take Decades “Pig Ebola” is spreading uncontrollably in China and Vietnam

Prior to the advent of those apps, the only delivery option in my area was pizza. And not good pizza, either. I have never used app-based delivery but I don't loathe them either. In the days after surgery on my right hand impaired my cooking and cleaning abilities, I came close to ordering but I don't fancy the idea of paying restaurant prices for food that's been driving around in boxes for 20 or 30 min. That said, if I'm really desperate someday, I like knowing there are some options out there.

Yesterday, I spied the Vault No 5 Cave Aged Cheese from Jasper Hill featured again as the "Spotlight" cheese at my local TJ's. $10.99/lb.

$2.99 on .com and $15.99 on .ca for me. I wasn't going to, but I caved for the corn cookies.

Roasted Young Onions with Sage Pesto from A Girl and Her Greens over polenta with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I was disappointed by the bitter aftertaste of the sage pesto but it was still a satisfying meal.

It's still showing $2.99 for me on Amazon.com but not on Amazon.ca

One more thing to add in case you want to give it a try with reduced investment. For the Ginger Rye Shortbread, I made the full recipe but for the Juniper-Olive and the Salted Rosemary Shortbreads, I made a half batch. I did the same this morning and mixed up doughs for Rose Pistachio Shortbread and Buttered Rum Shortbreads. That leaves me with the Fresh Mint and Lime Shortbread left to try. Maybe I should set up a half batch of them, too. Or maybe the World Peace cookies if I start acting cocky and need to be knocked down a peg 🙃

I vote for calling it Strawberry Surprise 🙃

I'm also interestedly following along. I've been buying whole grain flours from a local place (Roan Mills) that grows the grains then mills it locally at their combined mill/bakery. I've been using their Sonora/Red Fife blend for easy stuff like pita, focaccia and English muffins (also used their rye in the English muffins). The straight Sonora flour is good for pastry or biscuits. Since I can buy freshly milled grains, I don't need to get into that yet but I'd like to branch out into baking some other breads - I've been buying from them since they do such a good job! The general guidance the Roan Mills people gave me when adapting a white flour recipe to whole grain was to increase the liquid by 15%. Of course, I don't have enough experience to know anything myself 🙃 Love this!

So far, I've made 3 slice and bake shortbreads from this book and they all sliced quite easily. The only minor issue I had with crumbling was when the knife encountered one of the inclusions (crystalized ginger here, olives and juniper or rosemary leaves in the other cookies - posted over in the savory topic) very close to the edge of the cookie, a little crumble tended to break off. It was easy to pat the little piece back on the few cookies where that happened. They didn't deform too much, although I noticed that after a while, the bottom started to flatten out a little so I tried to rotate the log after a few slices and put the log back in the fridge between batches so it wasn't sitting on the warm board. The other versions I made were square and triangular logs so I didn't have an issue there. In all cases, they were in the fridge overnight and quite firm. I followed Dorie Greenspan's method for making a tight roll but needed to chill the dough a bit first because it was too squishy at room temp. Put the roughly shaped log in the center of a piece of parchment paper and bring the far end of the paper over the roll Pull the bottom layer of parchment towards you as you use a bench scraper or some straightedge tool to push the top layer of parchment against the bottom of the roll. It took me rather more pushing and pulling than shown here but was still fairly quick:

Just pull the princessmobile around to the end of my driveway and help yourself. This once magnificent tree was badly butchered at the behest of the electric company a few weeks ago But there are still plenty of pink peppercorns within easy reach.

How are you transporting all this heavy deliciousness? Entirely on your own on foot or are vehicles or a driver involved?

I had a haircut appointment this morning and brought along this Blackberry Peach Coffee Cake from Sister Pie. The recipe is available online at this link. The base layer is not too sweet, with oats, spelt flour and whole wheat flour that give it a nutty flavor and good texture. The fruit and streusel add sweetness and chunks of cream cheese add a bit of richness. I subbed white nectarines in for the peaches because they had the most delicious floral fragrance and flavor when I sampled them at the farmers market and used kefir instead of buttermilk because it was in the fridge. I didn't have any spelt flour and it was $14.99 for a 5 lb bag at Sprouts so I whizzed some spelt into flour in the old Blendtec and used that. The recipe has you cut 6 oz of cream cheese into 12 big chunks but since I planned on cutting it up into smaller pieces, I went with 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes. I think I counted 40 of them (you can check that in the photo below 🙃)and was happy with that. Most of the prep for this can be done ahead - the batter is supposed to sit in the fridge overnight and the streusel can be made a couple of days ahead and stored in the fridge. However, the cake needs to cool before you remove it from the pan and that takes a while. If you try wrestling it out when it's still hot, you'll squeeze juice out of the hot fruit and risk a soggy bottom. I ended up driving it down in the pan and cutting it up after I arrived. The recipe says to cut it into 16 pieces and that it serves 12 - I guess someone gets more than one! I think I cut it into about 30 pieces.

I wasn't sure where to put these two shortbread cookies but decided they lean sufficiently in the savory direction to make this the most appropriate place. Both are from Sister Pie. On the left are Juniper Olive Shortbread which the header notes say are an homage to the classic gin martini. On the right are Salted Rosemary Shortbread. Both were formed into logs, sliced and baked. The book specifies a pre-bake sprinkle of flaky sea salt on the rosemary verision. I liked it on both. I found the recipe for the rosemary version online at this link. The juniper olive version is almost the same. It calls for an additional 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, omits the rosemary and adds 1T crushed juniper berries and 5T finely chopped Castelvetrano olives, squeezed gently to remove excess liquid. Per the book, the rosemary version should have been rolled and cut with a square cookie cutter and the juniper olive version was to have been formed into the triangle-shaped log. I decided to use a square log for the rosemary version and fussed with getting the two shapes before I realized that I'd mixed up the doughs. I like the rosemary better than the juniper and olive but they're both good cocktail cookies.

Ginger Rye Shortbread from Sister Pie p 150. These are delicious gingery shortbread cookies. The recipe calls for both ground ginger and chopped, candied ginger and uses half all purpose and half rye flour. I found a blog post that includes the recipe here. That blogger dips them in white chocolate. I followed the book and topped them with a pinch of turbinado sugar before baking. Not sure it was enough to make any difference but I added about 1 T of fresh, grated ginger. I also took the lazy slice & bake route instead of rolling and using a cookie cutter. I'll cut rest of the dough log into lengths that make about a dozen cookies and stash them in the freezer.

A16: Food + Wine cookbook. The salad recipe is available online here: Cook the Book: Raw Zucchini Salad with Green Olives, Mint, and Pecorino

I know it is said that man does not live by bread alone, but with all those delicious bakery delights (especially the savory ones), I'd be a happy camper eating nothing but! Are you still doing all your baking out of your home kitchen? I think one of your previous blogs mentioned that you were considering a dedicated space for your business.

I liked them. The large flakes of Maldon salt I used in the sugar/salt/paprika sprinkle were too much salt for me, on top of what's already in the dough. I made a half batch of these and only baked half of that so I'll adjust that when I bake the rest. Due in part to the way the book lists the ingredients and in part to my own inability to read directions carefully, I put extra smoked paprika in the dough and I'd do that again. I think 1T would be good for a full batch. I noticed that David Lebovitz mentions using chipotle as an alternate to smoked paprika and I think that would be fun to play with, too.

No, it's not hard-wired so I can move it and will give that some thought. I like that it does such a good job detecting kitchen smoke but wish I could reach it more easily. The wall it's on is almost entirely windows so I can't just move it down but there may be another location I could use. I'm due to replace them since the new requirement for non-wired detectors is to have a 10-year non-replaceable battery. That would be a good time to move it.

Peanut Butter Paprika Cookies from Sister Pie. Recipe available online here and in several other places. There's smoked paprika in the dough and a smoked paprika/sugar/salt sprinkle on top. Edited to add that these are a bit less than half the size the recipe uses. They're still about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter.

My 5-burner Wolf cooktop has the burners in a staggered arrangement which I guess makes sense so you don't have big pots bumping into each other but it makes it impossible to put a griddle/grill pan over 2 burners of the same size. Otherwise, it's fine. I like the 2-stage burners with a separate low flame for simmering and the continuous grates for shifting pots around easily. When I bought this house ~ 10 years ago, I put in the 2-drawer Fisher-Paykel dishwasher and am still very happy with it. I rarely used the full sized one I had in my old place but can run these small loads often. The over-the-cooktop microwave/fan unit is a sorry thing. The microwave is loud, takes forever and shuts down if it gets too hot. It's not vented outside and doesn't even recirculate air as it should. The house inspector said he'd never seen anything like it. I'd like to replace it with a proper vent hood but I don't have the same fancy job/paycheck I had when I bought the cooktop and dishwasher 🙃 The smoke detector in adjacent family room is perfectly positioned to detect the smallest wisp of smoke that drifts away from the stove. That is a wise and safe thing. It's also so high that I need to go out to the garage and haul in the big ladder so I can climb up and silence it. Sometimes I try standing on the top step of my step stool and hitting it with a broom, while trying to avoid breaking the clerestory windows right next to it but that just prolongs the situation. I hate the narrow freezer shelves of my side-by-side refrigerator and the fact that so much space is taken up with the ice maker and water dispenser but it's an early '90s model that's still soldiering on without complaining so I shouldn't either. The previous owner built the cabinets around it and put a small island right in front of it so replacing it when it dies will be a pain. The design of the carafe on the Bonavita drip coffee maker is obnoxious in so, so many ways. The only positive is that it drove me to put it away in a closet and switch to my Aeropress on the regular unless I have guests. I like the Aeropress coffee better. I should get one of those Lee Valley can opener things that @Darienne mentioned. I usually whack the edge of the lid with the back side of my biggest chef knife hard enough to dent the lid and release the pressure. It works fine but alarms my guests.

One of today's pita breads

I'm sure @Panaderia Canadiense will have much more to say, particularly since things may have changed, but in the meantime, I'll point you to this post from her previous blog where I asked her about an article I'd read, "Meals and Wheels on Avenue of the Volcanoes" and she kindly responded:

Same on Amazon, less an additional $4.70 coupon, at least for the moment: click Looks like that's Amazon's lowest price on this current model: Hmmmm. Do I need a back-up CSO for my back-up? 🙃

For a creamy slaw, I'm rather fond of Bobby Flay's recipe. I like that the onion is grated so it adds flavor but you don't bite into big chunks of them. I usually add a good dose of celery seeds, too.