blue_dolphin

Here's a review of Jam Session from Marissa on Food In Jars. Generally quite positive with a couple of fairly minor concerns.

Kind of makes sense with your aversion to oily (non-pickled) fish but given that fish sauce is made from anchovies, it's surprising that the flavors are distinct enough to trigger the dislike. I don't think I've ever eaten an intact anchovy ... well, not intentionally...there was a pizza incident but I'm pretty sure I spit it out .... but I do love the umami hit they add when they dissolve into something!

I figured you would like the ginger but wasn't sure you'd try it for breakfast. That salad looks gorgeous. Thanks for that article link, too.

I think it would be wonderful on grilled or roasted eggplant! If anyone else wants to try it, the recipe for the Caper-Raisin Vinaigrette is available online here. As indicated in the header notes, the book recipe uses one 2 oz tin of anchovies, drained, which they omitted to make a vegetarian version.

Grilled or Roasted Summer Squash with Caper-Raisin Vinaigrette from Six Seasons p 211. That caper-raisin vinaigrette - not sure why anchovy isn't in the name since it uses a whole tin of them - isn't the prettiest sauce but it sure packs a lot of flavor and turns a simple dish of grilled squash and fresh tomatoes into something very special. I'll certainly make this again and put that sauce on everything! I had lots of tomatoes but no Sun Golds or other cherry varieties so I cut up a few nice heirloom tomatoes. I quartered the zucchini instead of just cutting them in half and rinsed and blotted it after salting. They picked up a lot of color before they were tender so I transferred them from the grill pan to the CSO to cook for a few more minutes. Edited to add that this is supposed to be topped with dried breadcrumbs, which I forgot to add even though they were right in front of me. I put them on my next plateful 🙃 and they add a nice crunch, but the dish is good either way.

Melon, Blueberry & Feta Salad with Ginger & Mint from Diana Henry's Simple. The recipe is available online here. The recipe calls for 3 kinds of melon, which is a little excessive for my fridge, plus cucumber. I used pink watermelon, green Galia melon and orange Ambrosia melon and the colors do look lovely. The dressing uses the vinegar from a jar of pickled ginger and the book photo looks like there's some of the pickled ginger itself in the salad so I added that too and it's delicious. How come I never thought to put pickled ginger in a salad?

A mash-up from Six Seasons. Leftover frittata and a big pile of zucchini salad.

Squash Ribbons with Tomatoes, Peanuts, Basil, Mint and Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce from Six Seasons p 210. I loved the Asian flavors in this - it's spicy, salty, sweet....a little of everything. I was out of cherry tomatoes so I cut up a couple of regular size heirlooms. I gave the squash ribbons a quick rinse to remove some of the salt and was glad that I did as the Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce is pretty salty. Salting and draining the squash helps it retain a lovely crunch without falling apart.....at least for a while. I don't think this is likely to make good leftovers but that's OK - it's so light that I had no problem gobbling down a big bowl!

Red Pepper, Potato and Prosciutto Frittata Topped with Ricotta from Six Seasons p 248. I made a slightly more than 1/2-sized recipe in an 8" pan. Very nice. Makes me wonder why I don't eat more potatoes.

Warm slices of broiled peaches, topped with a spicy pecan & pumpkin seed crumble and a drizzle of cream

Yes, unpeeled.

I just cooked some smallish Yukon gold potatoes ~ 50g each, 6 min @ high pressure, 10 min natural release. I put them in a steamer basket with a cup of water underneath. They are tender but not mushy.

Tomato, Melon and Hot Chile Salad with Burrata from Six Seasons p 265. Perfect for a hot evening. I used a super sweet and ripe Galia melon with red, yellow and gold heirloom tomatoes and a mix of purchased pepperoncini and Manzano chiles that I pickled per Six Seasons. I'd love to try this with a mix of different melons.

Also, last week's episode of Evan Keiman's Good Food on KCRW was a tribute to Jonathan Gold. It's available on the podcast. I love the part about his speech style and deciding how many of his long aaaaaaannnnnnds to include or edit out of his audio pieces. The second hour was a compilation of his restaurant reviews and a guest DJ piece he did for KCRW. That part wasn't included in the podcast but some of it appears in the Good Food blog on this page.

For a jammy, slightly runny yolk, I like to steam eggs in a pot, direct from the fridge for 8 min and right into ice water so I can see the CSO timing you used to be very close to that. I thought of trying the CSO but I'm usually toasting something in there! Another steam oven site I happened on recently: Cooking with Steam In their Tuna Niçoise recipe, they use 8 min on steam (100°C) for an egg that looks like I'd be happy to eat. They do 15 min for hard cooked eggs in their Curried Eggs recipe. They also make "fried" eggs in a pre-heated tray for 2-4 min on a steam bake type setting @ 220°C (~425°F) in a recipe for bacon and eggs. Not sure that would work well in the little CSO but I guess I could try it if someone shut off the gas and stole all my pots and pans.

Grilled Wax and Green Beans with Tomatoes, Basil and Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce from Six Seasons p 208. Just 'cause I like to say, "Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce" 🙃 The few ingredients not named in the recipe title are scallions, that get grilled along with the beans, mint and hazelnuts. It may sound like a bunch of random ingredients thrown into a bowl but it works very well. I especially like the charred flavor on the beans and scallions.

If you want to see what the 21 min hard boiled eggs look like, you can see a photo in this post. I got the time from a Wolf Combi oven manual (also linked in that post). I think I cooked them straight from the fridge. They may be a little overdone but generally the way I like them for making deviled eggs or egg salad, places where I don't care for a jammy yolk.

I'm not sure if you are located in a place where this book is available but I recently borrowed Mark Bittman's recent book, How to Grill Everything, from my local library and thought it did a good job of explaining things for a beginner. There are a lot of BBQ and grilling websites with much good information, some of it quite specialized. If you can share what foods you'd like to start with and if there are specific styles of grilling that appeal you, some of the folks here may be better able to guide you to resources that would best suit you.

More peach pops using the peaches the farmers market guys gave me last week. Both of the pops below are based on a purée of roasted peaches and also contain small chunks of fresh peach. Roasted Peach & Basil These are flavored with basil-infused simple syrup Roasted Peach & Manzano Chile I love the fruity flavor of manzano chiles and wanted to see how they would work but was disappointed that the fruitiness of the chiles just blended in with the peaches and didn't really stand out. They taste like peach pops but spicy. Not bad, but the bright green flavor of jalapeño in the pops I made a few posts back makes for a more contrasting flavor. Below, you can see how pretty the slices of manzano chile looked after being simmered in the simple syrup to flavor it. I added some finely minced bits of candied chile to the pops and I think I'll try making a chile preserve or jelly with these chiles at some point.

When I want an egg like this to plop on top of something, the idea often comes to me at the last minute (like after everything else is ready to go 🙃) so grabbing a pan and getting that inch of water boiling is the quickest means to my end. I know everyone loves the IP for hard boiled eggs. I haven't had the best of luck but I should probably give it another try someday. Edited to add that somewhere or other, someone said they used the IP to cook eggs for egg salad by just cracking the eggs into a bowl and cooking them pot-in-pot. No peeling necessary, just break it all up. I do plan to try that one of these days.

Thanks! The nicely colored yolks are probably due to whatever my nice farmers market people feed their hens. They pasture them in an organic orange grove so I suspect they are happy chickens! I have found these 2 methods give comparable results with large eggs. Boiling: Direct from the fridge into boiling water for 6.5 minutes, then into ice water. Steaming: Direct from the fridge into a steamer insert (~1 inch of water already boiling) and steam for 8 min, then into ice water. Steaming is quicker because I only need to boil a little water vs a whole pot.

This started out as some new potatoes dressed with tonnato and lemon, as suggested by Joshua McFadden in Six Seasons. Then I threw some green and yellow wax beans into the pot when the potatoes were just about cooked, cut up some red bell pepper and small tomatoes for color, added some flaked, oil-packed tuna, a few capers and an egg and it became lunch.

Thanks for sharing that! My concern is that the addition of some sort of electronic control to the release valve create a potential source of malfunctions vs the existing simple mechanical valve but I'll certainly be watching to see how other people feel about them once they get into use.

The best salads I've made lately have been from Joshua McFadden's book Six Seasons. The three summery raw corn salads have all been stellar. He often uses raw vegetables that are more often cooked, as in the Beet Slaw with Pistachios and Raisins that I posted here (recipe is available online at this link) which is kind of a riff on the old classic carrot and raisin salad. He regularly employs interesting combinations of raw, pickled and cooked vegetables. A recent example was the String Beans, Pickled Beans, Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Olives on Tonnato that I posted here. I don't think all the recipes necessarily hew to this cook-off's theme of updating old classic salads but I highly recommend Six Seasons if you're looking for ideas to update something you have in mind.

Father's bacon, egg & cheese on a roll