blue_dolphin

Yesterday, I made this Tuscan Grape Bread from Diana Henry's How to Eat a Peach (recipe online at this link) and it was a fail for me. It looked nice and the crust was crisp and tasty from the olive oil, rosemary, sugar & grapes but the interior was just flabby, soft white bread with little texture, flavor or chew. I've never had Wonder Bread, but this is what I imagine it being like. I took it to a party last night and it made a nice presentation but very little was eaten, though the cheeses alongside were a big hit! I'm not an experienced baker so I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it. I'm sure it could have used more salt - the recipe called for only 1 tsp (3g) for ~ 500g flour. It also seems like the dough might not have behaved as expected. There was no way it was large enough after proofing for me to put all 1 lb 2 oz of grapes on top - I used less than half of them. The finished loaf was ~ 12 inches in diameter.

Yesterday's breakfast was another round of Shakshouka, identical to the previous day's lunch. Today, I used up the last of that cooked veg mix alongside some scrambled eggs, zhoug and the last pita, nicely rewarmed on steam bake in the CSO

A 9 x 13 inch pan is a little less than 1.5 x as large as a 9 x 9 inch, not twice as big. Either multiply your recipe quantities by 1.5 x (or 1.44 to be precise 🙃) for the 9 x 13 or use 2 pans.

This was going to be breakfast but the cilantro I planned to use for the zhoug turned out to be a second bag of parsley. I put things on hold until I could run out to the store so I didn't sit down to eat until close to noon. Lunch, it is! All from Shaya: Shakshouka served with Zhoug and Pita. The Shakshouka has Jerusalem artichokes and fava beans along with the usual suspects. For this batch of pita, I used half regular bread flour and half whole grain Sonora Red Fife wheat flour from Roan Mills. I was pleased that they still have good flavor and chew.

Here's what Amazon shows me when I search for "adhesive backed distraction marks" Nada. I have a lot of floor to ceiling windows so I'm interested in options compatible with a modern home.

When you're stuck in steerage, I've found the usual trans Pac mid-flight noodle service to be a breath of civility for those who can't sleep and the ready availability to make your own isn't bad either!

Most of the airlines list the options on their websites, like this one on United. And if you google the name of the meal and the airline name, you can usually find a bunch of photos. None of that is going to help keep the eggs away from your seat mates though

This reminds me of a time, back in the '80s, when after traveling to several meetings with colleagues from India, my meal preferences were somehow recorded by several airlines to match my friends': Hindu Vegetarian. Even when traveling on my own, I'd be served that meal and since meals were served on most longer flights, it happened pretty often. I don't remember ever getting curry though. It was more often a haphazard mix of the non-meat components of the normal meal plus extra slices of bread, cheese, hard boiled eggs and random pieces of fruit. I never bothered to call and request the change by phone so that preference followed me for years until sometime in the '90's when it became possible to access that info on websites. I think I left it because it was often entertaining to watch the flight attendants walking the aisles looking for the person getting the Hindu meal and never suspecting that it was me, who certainly didn't look the part

I think focaccia gets a free pass on the "cool before cutting" guidelines! Looks great.

I've been wanting to try the Dates, Turnips and Bacon with Gorgonzola Dressing from Shaya. He describes it as a riff on the appetizer of bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with Gorgonzola. As vegetable dishes go, it's pretty decadent and I made it even more so by putting an egg on it. Edited to add: Here's how it looks as written, without the egg running all over the place

@wabi, My before photos of my recent DARTO shipment are in this post above. And afters here in this post. I've been using them regularly and am quite pleased with them.

The Kindle version of Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables is now available to read for free for Amazon Prime members. Looks like this is the case on Amazon.ca, too. I am a big fan of this book and there's a thread here on cooking from it.

A few more 50 cent cocktail glasses for my collection. I purchased 2 each of three glasses - a big $3 investment for 6 glasses. These tulip-shaped glasses have an etched leaf and dot pattern that matches the smaller glasses that I purchased a while back. I suppose they are sherry glasses or something like that. I see the pattern on eBay and Etsy but haven't seen it identified. The larger ones will hold a 3.5 - 4 oz drink and the small ones accommodate a 2 oz drink. I tried but couldn't get a good photo of the pattern. The shop had 8 of those glasses but they weren't packaged together so I felt OK taking 2. I like the pretty shape and small size of these. The stem is not frosted glass, just frosty from the freezer! I thought these little coupes were a coup for 50 cents:

No, not from a Brazilian pepper tree (Schinus terebinthifolius), though I do have annoying sprouts popping up here and there from that invasive one. I harvested these from my Schinus molle, aka Peruvian pepper, California pepper.

Quoting myself here to say that this brut sparkling wine and its brut rosé sibling, which I prefer, are back in stock at TJ's again. They are both $9.99 but taste like more expensive bottles. Last year, the rosé disappeared promptly after New Years on Jan 2 so if you want to stock up, now is the time. I've got one case of the rosé now and I think I'll pick up another as it's so nice to have some bubbles on hand to celebrate unexpected occasions....like Wednesdays

There's a lot of agriculture here in Ventura county and the other day a kale spill snarled traffic on an onramp to the 101 Fwy. Of course, I though immediately of you Today's breakfast was a variation on the Avocado Toast with Smoked Whitefish from Shaya I used smoked trout instead of smoked whitefish and slices of a whole grain baguette instead of pumpernickel. Not a fan of biting into the pink peppercorns though, to be fair, they came from the tree at the end of my driveway so perhaps not the best source 🙃

Or maybe Russian Tea Cakes aka Mexican Wedding Cookies aka Snowballs?

I'll be interested in hearing what you think of the book! I kinda wish I would have gotten the larger Paella pan that you got but I'm OK for now. They certainly are useful as roasting pans in the CSO - no worrying about that thin little pan that came with it warping in the heat!

Yes, Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel is the book and I commented on it over here in the cookbook thread. It's a great read and a solid cookbook that gets 2 thumbs up from me! Edited to add that the recipe is available online at this link. The DARTO is the N 20 Paella pan. I also bought the N 25 Paella. Both are quite shallow but very good for cooking for one or two.

I love thinly sliced roasted cauliflower, all on its own, so I've been putting off trying the Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Feta from Shaya. I finally gave it a try, with just half a head, and I'm sold. Prior to roasting, the cauliflower is first boiled/steamed in a broth of white wine, salt, lemon juice, butter red pepper flakes, bay leaf and a bit of sugar, a step that infuses it with extra flavors. Edited to add that the cauliflower recipe is available online at this link. Per the book, it's served with a whipped feta/goat cheese/cream cheese mixture. I added some crostini topped with Matbucha, a rustic mix of tomato, roasted red bell pepper and onion, cooked together with spices, also from the book.

Half price Humboldt Fog always sounds good to me, as so some of the others!

In one of the early chapters of his book, Alon Shaya writes about going fishing with his father who always brought along turkey & cheese sandwiches on white bread that was usually soggy by the time they were ready for lunch. He also includes a recipe for a much better version: He calls for mincing some Castelvetrano olives and mixing them into the mayo before spreading it on one side of the bread, a trick I'll use on other sandwiches. From there, we have turkey, tallegio cheese, roasted red pepper, tomato and avocado. This is supposed to be built on slices of crusty whole grain bread, rather than a baguette so I ended up making quite a mess while eating but it was good.

I am no help at all but I'm impressed at your efforts to make it work and get something edible out of it!

Before 2018 is over, I want to give a shout-out to Alon Shaya's book, Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel. It's as much a memoir as a cookbook so it's very much worth a read even if you don't plan to cook from it. The recipes I've cooked, quite a few now, have all worked well. They are clearly written and offer substitutions for unusual ingredients. Because it's written as a narrative, recipes don't appear by type. I noticed at least one Amazon reviewer complaining about this but there is a category listing in the back of the book and I didn't have a problem with unconventional organization. There are color photos of every dish while watercolor sketches and photographs illustrate the stories. Weights are given for the baking recipes but most of the book uses conventional US volumetric measures, my only nit to pick with the book. Each of the 26 chapters begins with a personal essay, beginning with a difficult childhood in Philadelphia punctuated with sweet memories of cooking with his visiting Safta (grandmother), rebellious and delinquent teenage years where he was rescued by a committed Home Ec teacher, culinary school and time as a rather obnoxious young chef before moving on to New Orleans and Katrina recovery, a sojourn in Italy, opening the modern Israeli restaurant Shaya and closing the loop with hosting his parents at the restaurant. All the stories are woven together through food memories and the recipe headers often continue the stories and weave the recipes into the narrative. In the acknowledgments, Shaya credits co-writer Tina Antolini with suggesting he read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking when he was struggling with how to make the stories he had written flow together with the recipes and he says that suggestion greatly helped him with the book. I don't know whether he went to therapy or whether writing these stories WAS therapy but his descriptions of his (occasionally unpleasant) past selves are personal, insightful and honest. The book was written prior to Shaya's split from the Besh group which owned the restaurants, Shaya, Dominica and Pizza Dominica, where he was executive chef and it was published while Shaya and Besh were in the midst of their complicated corporate divorce. He seems to have landed on his feet, forming his own restaurant group and opening his own modern Israeli restaurant, Saba (grandfather) just down the street from Shaya and a second restaurant, Safta, in Denver. I borrowed Shaya from the library when it was first published in March or April of this year. Flipping through the book, one of the first chapters I read was titled "Family Meal." It describes a Thanksgiving dinner Shaya cooks with and for his family after a family tragedy and it touched me deeply. I knew that I wouldn't be able to part with the book in just 2 weeks. I quickly tried a couple of recipes to make sure they worked and ordered the book. No regrets on that purchase and I'd encourage you to give it a look if it's at your library.

I haven't thought of them in ages, but I remember baking similar cookies when I was a kid, for school bake sales. This was back in the day when peanuts could roam freely in school corridors though I'm sure the nuns would have had a plenty to say about them absorbing into anyone's soul. Ours were just regular PB cookie dough, rolled into a ball and smushed with a kiss. I think I put the kisses on before baking as I recall their tips getting dark and caramelized. Or maybe I intentionally overbaked those so I could eat them myself .