blue_dolphin

I’m not really up on what’s “a thing” these days but I know people use it to make black cocktails like a “spooky margarita” but that’s just for looks, not any other benefit. When my cat Patrick got into some lily pollen, he and Michael both got a charcoal gavage and a charcoal enema. Poor guys! A charcoal michelada sounds much more pleasant than either of those routes!

Yes, in my area it’s not unusual for Mexican-style restaurants to have lengthy Michelada menus and shrimp versions show up often. This list from Alta Baja Market in Santa Ana, CA where I had lunch recently is more fruity than fishy, but gives an idea of what’s offered.

I’d suggest putting the chiles on some sort of screen to improve circulation. This 11-inch aluminum pizza screen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) fits conveniently in the CSO and I use it often in lieu of an air fryer. They come in all sizes though. In my CSO, the lowest plate warmer setting is 125°F but mine fluctuates from 115-130. It will run with the door slight ajar but probably not long enough to really dehydrate them. I’ve had little Thai chilies dehydrate themselves nicely on my counter!

From Six Seasons of Pasta: Garlic Butter p 27 Garlic Bread p 47 Pasta with turnips and turnip greens with anchovies and garlic butter p 200. The pasta was the main event, so I’ll start with that. I thought this was absolutely delicious! The salty, funky anchovies melded with the sweet, tender-crisp turnip slices perfectly. Everything was bathed in the garlic butter and brightened up with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. So easy to toss together if the garlic butter is on hand. I will certainly make this again. Six Seasons sold me on compound butters so I was happy to add this little log of garlic butter to my freezer stash. I only made a half batch - one stick of butter. It’s got plenty of garlic, fresh parsley and oregano and a pinch of red chile flakes. I don’t make garlic bread often but once the garlic butter was made, I figured I’d try it out with a few slices and it was very good. Just a schmear of that garlic butter and a sprinkle of a Parm/Romano mix. Could become addictive. The oregano and chile are a nice touch.

I missed the edit window but wanted to add that I made a half recipe of the recipe above with artichokes, chicken and preserved lemon ricotta and it made 2 ample servings.

From Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg: Pasta with artichokes, chicken and lemon ricotta p 152 This was not on my radar screen but I had some of that preserved lemon whipped ricotta left and everything else was on hand so I tossed it together and it was excellent. I used leftover roast chicken instead of cooking it from scratch, frozen artichoke hearts and a lemon flavored pasta. The use of chicken broth in the sauce was very effective. I will most likely repeat this as a veg version with mushrooms instead of chicken, maybe with the addition of red bell peppers. The chicken was very good, I just wouldn’t cook it specifically for this. I’d also take the time to cut the artichoke hearts into smaller slices. The book doesn’t recommend flavored pastas but I had it on hand and thought this was a good use of it. The recipe seems to add the whipped lemon ricotta and lemon agrumato oil as toppings but I’d probably just mix them in.

I went to TJ’s this morning, spoke to the guy who orders the wine, and he has not seen that Josh Cellars Zin available to order in our area. They carry a Josh Cellars bourbon barrel aged Cab @ $19.99 which he says is a very slow seller. On the upside, the TJ’s Napa Valley sparkling Blanc de Blancs and Brut Rosé have made their appearance in both Reserve ($9.99) and Platinum Reserve ($14.99) versions. I always stock up so I’m ready to celebrate all year!

Back on the egg bites that @Shelby suggested (which might be easier to bake in muffin cups whether you have an IP or not) have you considered any other “breakfast for dinner” meals? Not sure how they’d be received but something like an egg bite (maybe with ham, bacon, sausage, cheese or veg like spinach, mushroom, etc) hash brown patty and fruit would be a decent meal that I’d be happy to eat at room temp. I see a lot of online recipes for breakfast sandwiches made with whomp biscuits that might work …though I never trust them 🙃 A big pan of polenta you could cut up and fry would make a good side or dipper but the frying part would be messy. Little disks in muffin tins might be easier, but they’d still need to be fried or toasted in some way…sorry…thinking while posting!

From Six Seasons of Pasta: Basil pesto p 33 Carrots with Basil Pesto p 211 This was fine but I’m not a huge fan of cooked carrots so I’m not in love. We had a mild summer and no big cool down yet (soon to change, no doubt) so lots of “summer” produce like corn, tomatoes and basil still at the farmers market. I picked up a couple of big bunches of basil and used the book recipe for basil pesto. I don’t normally follow a recipe, just use what I have and taste as taste as I go but this worked fine and I have plenty to freeze. On to the pasta dish, we are instructed to cook the carrots until fully tender, not tender-crisp, and certainly not crunchy. This makes them basically the same texture as the al dente pasta. The breadcrumbs help out with a bit of crunch but I would prefer tender-crisp carrots. And I’d add some additional seasonal veg (broccoli, snap peas, bell peppers) for both texture and color but that’s just me! If you love carrots cooked completely tender, this might be perfect as is. In any case, don’t skip the lemon juice, it's a perfect balance to the rich pesto.

Much better to have people salt the water so it tastes like soup or broth. Plenty of people have never even tasted sea water but everyone’s had soup and knows how they like it. And yet, that “tastes like the sea” business continues to be flogged! If that “seawater” were only used for cooking the pasta, it might not be awful but most recipes use the pasta water to emulsify or finish a sauce….or salt bomb! I was pleased to see Josh McFadden recognize this in his recent book, Six Seasons of Pasta. He recommends 1 T Diamond Crystal salt/ quart of water. That’s a little more than I like but much closer than seawater!

Novice here. How exactly do you make this request? Does “Please divide this into 3 roasts?” get what you want or are further instructions needed? As mentioned above, my previous request got the meat cutter in trouble for apparently doing it wrong so I’d like to be as specific as possible, given we don’t share fluency in a common language.

Wow! I haven’t even been to my TJ’s to see if they had any!

I agree it does seem rather odd. There was a recall of pistachio cream in the US early in the summer but nothing since. It was a rather limited issue with few affected. The US is the world’s largest producer of pistachios (followed by Iran and Turkey, I believe) and the largest exporter but we also import them, presumably from the same places as Canada so you’d think there might be some of the same issues here.

It really is a hoot and I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I should get back to it as I’ve quite enjoyed the silly sandwiches I made!

Two new pasta shapes Haven’t tried the radiatore yet but the rigatoni is nice. Some rigatoni is awfully big and this is a nice bite size. The cooking time on the bag is 13-14 min. I tasted at 10 min and it was ready to go into the skillet to finish another min or two in the sauce.

Turnips with Lemon Ricotta and Hazelnuts from Six Seasons of Pasta p 203. Since I made enough of the lemon ricotta for 2 recipes when I made the cabbage recipe just above, I had my eye open for Hakurei turnips at yesterday’s farmers market and was pleased to find some nice little guys with very fresh greens to make this recipe. I used a square rigatoni I picked up at Trader Joe’s that’s a nice size - I don’t fancy big 2-bite rigatoni 🙃. The combination of sweet turnips and their slightly bitter, peppery greens, preserved lemon ricotta and toasty, crunchy hazelnuts, finished with a drizzle of lemon agrumato oil is excellent.

What a wonderful thing you’re doing! I’m impressed how appealing everything looks and sounds. As someone who mostly cooks for one and has banished much of my larger cookware to the garage, scaling up to 24 servings would be quite a challenge!

Good question. I’m pretty sure I lack the wherewithal to divide one of these up myself but I’d love to know what would be the best way to ask the meat counter to portion it. The one time I did, the guy who cut it was berated by his coworker for cutting it the wrong way. It didn’t really matter to me as I mostly wanted to make a big batch of pulled pork but needed to use 2 pots and grind some for sausage but I’d be curious what else I could have requested. Some pork shoulder steaks seem like a good idea.

That looks good! Your choice of farfalle made me laugh. A quote from McFadden in Six Seasons of Pasta:

Yes, preserved lemon paste is basically puréed preserved lemons. The book recommends the stuff from New York Shuk which he says is available online or in specialty stores. I usually make my own preserved lemons so I looked up recipes for making the paste and did that. Some recipes say to rinse the lemons first, others say absolutely don’t rinse. I made small batches each way and my unrinsed lemons made a ferociously salty paste so I used the rinsed version. I tend to be generous with the salt when I make the lemons! The lemon agrumato oil is made by crushing lemons along with the olives when they are milled. It’s pretty expensive but lovely, usually used as a finishing drizzle. I recently purchased this from Katz Farm here in California so that’s what I used. It’s delicious stuff. He recommends olio2go.com as a source for Italian brands.

Today I made the pappardelle and cabbage with whipped lemon ricotta and chile crisp on p 360. The whipped lemon ricotta (separate recipe on p 35) is made with ricotta, preserved lemon paste and lemon agrumato oil. I took a stab at making the paste with salt preserved lemons I made a while back and it worked out OK. The cabbage gets cut into wedges, coated with olive oil, dotted with butter and roasted. In lieu of chile crisp, I used some chile morita salsa macha with peanuts from Taco Maria that I picked up recently. This was very good and should be fun to play around with different chile crisps as I’ve got several on hand.

That’s what I really loved about my golf club restaurant job. The chef was really good. A big cut above most anything in the area. The place had gorgeous views and did a lot of catering for weddings, brunches, luncheons, dinner events, etc. so he was constantly working on custom menus that he’d try out on the kitchen staff. It was interesting to get to taste everything but also to hear the feedback and troubleshooting about stuff that might look and taste great but be a nightmare to prep or plate. Might have been uncommon for a chef to be so collaborative but fun to watch.

I’ve had this recipe for a lemony tuna salad sandwich marked to try for quite a while and finally got around to making it. The tuna salad is made with celery, lemon zest, Kewpie mayo, Dijon mustard, a bit of toasted sesame oil, S&P. It’s spread on a ciabatta roll, topped with a layer of sliced pepperoncini, followed by a layer of salt and vinegar kettle-style chips. Not my mom's tuna salad which is a go-to comfort food but I quite enjoyed it and would make it again.

I think Ridge still makes some excellent zins. As you note, the prices are on the high side and they make so many single vineyard zins that vary quite a bit in character that you run the risk of paying that premium price for something less than stellar. That’s no fun!

Wow, Carrol’s - that’s a blast from the past! There were two in my little Northern NY burg, well before McD’s came to town. I believe both locations are still Burger Kings. First food-adjacent job was really a babysitting gig for a couple who had a seasonal (summer) lakefront restaurant. When the kids were put to bed, I’d go help out in the kitchen with little stuff like salads and desserts. Other times, I’d get called over to be a spare pair of hands when the kitchen was in the weeds. I also worked as a dishwasher at the local golf course restaurant where I also helped out with plating, etc when they were catering for group lunches or dinners. Then I did my own fast food stint at McD’s. I continued to work there even when I was in college because they were happy to give me as many hours as I wanted and work around my schedule. They have corporate processes, training materials and templates for everything and we had a manager who wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box and happy to turn tasks over to someone else so I volunteered and learned how to do the ordering, rotate stock, calculate waste & reject, man-hours and scheduling. I also did tours for school kids and scout troops, arranged birthday parties and donations to local nonprofits with insatiable thirsts for McD's orange drink. I also learned to do arithmetic in my head really fast so I could total things up while stuffing the bags, add the sales tax (I used to know 6.5% of anything without looking) and calculate the Canadian exchange for our guests who wanted to pay in CDN. Then I graduated, moved to California, and worked in labs where we weighed our ingredients but didn’t produce anything edible!