blue_dolphin

I think foraged (the food finding word) and forged (the blacksmithing word) are distinct and have different origins. Edited to add that you probably don't need to get your brain to do anything, just straighten your glasses 🙃!

I was perusing The Zuni Café Cookbook towards lunch time when the phrase, "An easy, hearty soup that can be ready in half an hour," caught my eye. It leads off the header notes for the Lentil-Sweet Red Pepper Soup with Cumin & Black Pepper on p 167. Thirty minutes was perhaps a stretch, mostly because I had vegetables that were not long for the crisper drawer and required some attentive butchery but also because even Rancho Gordo's Black Caviar Lentils don't quite cook through in 15 minutes flat. But the timing was not off by a lot so I was shortly enjoying this bowl which is garnished with some of the braised bacon (p 205) that I made earlier for a pasta dish. I wouldn't say this was a revelation but it made for a nice quick lunch and I enjoyed it. An even quicker dessert from the book is this plate of Oranges with Rosemary Honey p 456. This is barely a recipe, just orange slices, drizzled with rosemary-infused honey but like the mandarin/stuffed date recipe I posted about yesterday, it's a simple, fresh fruit dessert that works well in the winter months. Since the orange slices are more sturdy, this one can easily be served on a big platter. I strained the pounded rosemary leaves out of the honey before serving because they can be unpleasantly pointy and added an easily-removed rosemary sprig to garnish.

The writing in the reviews has been the big draw of the Piglet for me. I probably have a selective memory for some gems but I haven't seen quite the same sparkle this year. Like Susan Orlean's 2011 review of The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual vs Ottolenghi's Plenty, in which she says this about Plenty: The phrase, "Yotam Ottolenghi -- a mellifluous vowel parade which I'm sure is an anagram for something," delights me! And Gabrielle Hamilton's earlier round review in the same year where she frames the match up of Plenty vs Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table as a horse race and takes particular exception with the photography in Greenspan's book:

I took a peek at Bottom of the Pot at the library and will have to go back and borrow it one of these days. Today's quarterfinal review made me want to purchase both Todd Richard's Soul and Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad's I Am a Filipino, which was already on my list. I like books organized by ingredient as Soul is and while I initially thought it might repeat too much of what I have in other cookbooks, a look at the contents over on EYB makes me think there is still much of interest. Since it's close to $30, I think I will request that the library purchase I Am a Filipino so I can get a look at it but those little buns that Kyle MacLachlan pretty much sold me!

I agree! I've got some crisped prosciutto already made and was tempted to sprinkle it on yesterday but decided to just enjoy it as written but I will try that variation while I've still got everything handy. Thanks! The little mandarin slices are prone to falling apart so it's the kind of thing that's worth taking a few minutes to plate individually.

Looks like a Japanese konro grill of the sort that usually burns binchotan charcoal. I guess they must have the ventilation to use it inside? I've been tempted to get one of the little fellas as a first step into outdoor grilling.

Mandarins & Dates Stuffed with Mascarpone, Pomegranates and Pistachios from The Zuni Café Cookbook p 457 This dessert follows the pattern of the simple Zuni starters or salads that consist of a few perfect ingredients layered together and allow you to experience every combination of them as you choose with your fork - delicious! A friend stopped by yesterday with a few Satsuma mandarins from her tree and I had some nice dates from the farmers market AND mascarpone leftover from the Zuni risotto so this was meant to be. I didn't want to waste any of their flesh or juice so instead of cutting off the peel with a knife, I peeled them and carefully scraped off as much of the pith as possible. I often find dates too sweet but they were perfect here. I think one could turn this into a starter by adding some salty prosciutto but it's pretty perfect as is.

I do think salmon would be good this way. I might consider bumping up the temp a few degrees for salmon, depending on what you'd like to do with it. The tuna starts out pretty firm but 45°F salmon might be a little soft for some uses.

Well, I really shouldn't have made a full pound of it as I'm not sure how long it's good for and I'm not the world's biggest eater! Some recipes say 2-3 days, some a week or even 2 weeks. It's absolutely lovely stuff and I don't want to waste it so I've been on a mission to use it up. It's been a fun exercise. I'll certainly make it again but will probably make 1/2 lb at a time. Thanks! I was kind of messy at wrapping it up, but luckily it doesn't really show. They make a great little breakfast, don't they?

Jumping on the onigirazu bandwagon with attempt # 1 Confit ahi tuna (mixed with a little mayo and yuzu hot sauce) and avocado. I sprinkled a little furikake on top of the avocado. Obviously, practice is needed!

Thus far, I am incapable of producing shatteringly crisp bacon in a skillet but I can pull it off in the oven, including with Wrights. I put the bacon on a rack, on a sheet pan. In my hands, the thicker the bacon, the lower the temp I need to use to get it perfectly crisp. Not sure if I could carry that observation over from oven to skillet.

Crostini of white beans and confit tuna with lemon vinaigrette, capers and preserved lemon

Those look amazing - I just made a cup of coffee and really wish I had one....or two!

Today's tuna confit deviled eggs are closer to Kenji's as I mixed the yolks with some of the olive oil used to confit, no mayo. Same mix-ins as yesterday - capers, preserved lemon and red bell pepper. Topped with pickled onions. Kenji's recipe calls for 1 oz tuna/egg AND he adds extra egg yolks. Not sure how one could get all that back in the eggs. I skipped the extra yolks and still had enough extra to spread on a small slice of toast.

Avocado stuffed with confit Ahi tuna, capers, pine nuts and preserved lemon. The greens were lightly dressed with a lemon vinaigrette made with some of the olive oil used to confit the tuna

I went out to lunch today with a few ladies to a pub style place, White Harte Pub. Two of us had the fish & chips and we both chose the salad as our optional side: I had a 21st Amendment Blood Orange IPA, which was neither red nor orange in color and didn't particularly taste of orange but was an excellent partner to the fish & chips. My friend had a Harp Lager. The lady to my left ordered bangers & mash which came with a side of garden peas that didn't make it into the photo. She chose a Strongbow Hard Apple Cider. The lady to my right ordered the 1/2 lb White Harte Burger with sweet potato fries, accompanied by a glass of Austerity Cellars Monterey Pinot Noir. She declared this the best burger she'd ever had. The last member of our group ordered the Windsor Scramble from the breakfast side of the menu. No photo but it included scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, smoked ham, potatoes, toast and roasted tomatoes.

A riff on Kenji's tuna confit deviled eggs. He uses olive oil instead of mayo, I went with a dab of mayo but I'll try the olive oil method next to compare. I added capers, preserved lemon and red bell pepper. Extra filling went on little tomato halves.

What? No warm nuts? I used to tell the FAs to just keep bringing me wine and nuts 🙃!

Info on this page about broccoli harvesting explains how the broccoli is chilled right in the cartons.

Wow! those are some seriously international dumplings!

First, your entire dish sounds incredible! Not sure I'd be up to the challenge of making it but I'd certainly order it if it popped up on a restaurant menu near me! I will absolutely try the pickled avocado. I understand why you thought of using it with tuna. I made some sous vide tuna confit yesterday for a pasta dish. I made some of the leftover tuna into a tuna salad, using the same ingredients to the pasta dish - capers, preserved lemon, pine nuts and just enough mayo to bind. The tuna itself is well seasoned with lemon zest, bay leaf, dried chili, black pepper, garlic and fennel that were added to the oil used to confit it. I took a bite of the salad to see what would go well and it basically begged for avocado. I'll make up another batch and stuff it in an avocado but since I already had some little sandwiches in mind, I continued with that plan and just added some little slices of avocado. Salad of ahi tuna confit with pine nuts, capers and preserved lemon on gougères with arugula, avocado and pickled onion: The recipes for the tuna confit, gougères and pickled onion are all from The Zuni Café Cookbook but I assume responsibility for the avocado and for putting them together in this way.

Pasta with Preserved Tuna & Pine Nuts from The Zuni Café Cookbook p 211. Here's a link to the canned tuna version of this recipe. Much earlier in this thread, @trillium called this out as a favorite recipe and "more than the sum of its parts," and I agree. I've made it before and loved it with oil-packed tuna belly but this was my first time making the tuna confit. I used the same seasonings that Judy calls for but packed the tuna into jars and used an immersion circulator to cook them for 90 min @ 45°C (113°F), following time/temp guidelines from Chef Steps. Here are my jars, packed and ready to go: The tuna itself is decidedly more flavorful this way as it's had plenty of time to absorb all those flavors and I'm looking forward to using it in other ways. Also, you are rewarded for your earlier effort by not having to measure the seasonings out for the pasta as you can just scoop them out with the tuna. Though I have to say that the canned tuna belly I used previously was absolutely silky in texture and nicer in that regard than the leaner cuts that I used. Once the tuna is prepped, this pasta dish comes together quickly and for something so easy, the flavors are remarkably complex - I especially love the preserved lemon here!

It's possible that in some cases, they are selling to wholesalers rather than direct to stores so they may not have a complete list, though I'm sure more could be done. In another thread, @Smithy mentioned a Bimbo bakery product, Doraditas, and when I entered my zip code, the website was able to return a list of local stores that had received delivery of that particular product in the last 3 days. I didn't really want one but I was impressed.

If you do that this year, please do post some photos. I would love to see what a roasted peep looks like! Edited to add that I did Google "Roasted Peeps" but most of them looked skewered and toasted, as one would toast a marshmallow for making s'mores. Roasting sounds like something that would be done in an oven, rather than a campfire, though I've never seen one, hence my curiosity.

Following up on the polenta, I poured the leftovers out to make firm polenta and decided to try a test portion of the Sage & Onion Polenta Gratin, one of 3 variations on using firm polenta. The notes say that it takes some care to steer clear of stodginess so I wanted to see if I could manage that and indeed, I did. I'd certainly make this again. The firm polenta is to be cut into 3/4" chunks and arranged in "2 loose layers" in a baking dish, sprinkled with "a lacy layer" of grated cheese and baked until the high points are quite brown. Even though I probably made closer to 1.5 layers, it still took about twice as long as the recommended baking time, perhaps because my polenta was a bit wet. The result was delicious with the contrast between the crispy, cheesy exterior and creamy interior of each little chunk. Not stodgy! I think the creamy texture of this polenta may be an even better asset to the firm polenta variations as when it's fresh in the bowl.