blue_dolphin

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

Peach & Buttermilk Top layer is 2 parts buttermilk, 1 part heavy cream, vanilla extract and a little simple syrup with chunks of fresh peach, bottom layer is roasted peach purée Peach, buttermilk & bourbon Roasted peaches, roughly blended with the same buttermilk mixture as above plus a little bourbon.

Along the lines of @heidih's question, I have been enjoying a lot of summer salads but none with gelatin and it sounds like that is key to the theme you are proposing. Is that correct?

Thanks for mentioning this. I just borrowed the ebook through my library but haven't started reading yet.

Another tomato & bacon here: Father's bacon and a pretty heirloom tomato from the farmers market. Galia melon on the side, unseen.

I'd made 5 each of the above jalapeño and paprika peach pops. I sampled one of each and the remaining 8 pops went down to the folks manning the peach stand at yesterday's farmers market. They gave me a bunch of free peaches so I can make more In the meantime, Galia melon & lime Galia melon & blueberry

I read several positive reviews online before I tried them so maybe I'm overly picky but I do have a thing about uncooked dough and I can't see how these will cook through following the package instructions. I'll report back after I try thawing them O/N

They are really lovely melons, aren't they? I bought this one from a local farm stand. The fragrance of it was absolutely intoxicating when I picked it up out of the bin! On my way home, I stopped off at Trader Joe's and saw that they had some organic Galia melons as well. They were a better price than at the farm but they didn't smell nearly as good. My favorite of the other melons these folks grow is the Saticoy melon - sweeter, more fragrant and nicer texture (to me) than a cantaloupe. Haven't seen them yet this year.

A so-so ham & cheese pastry thing that I reviewed over in the Trader Joe's thread with excellent Galia melon and blueberries.

I tried the awkwardly named Trader Joe's Uncured Ham & Swiss Cheese Flaky Croissant Dough Squares . They're sold frozen in a box of 4 and each one is individually wrapped. So far, I am not greatly impressed. I could perhaps improve my cooking method but the texture of the ham wasn't great so not sure it's worth the effort. They're frozen squares of a laminated dough, topped with small cubes of ham and shredded cheese. They don't need an overnight proof like some of the other croissants but the directions say to unwrap and let them sit out at RT while the oven pre-heat to 350°F. In my case, that was 10 min. Longer time or an O/N thaw in the fridge might have helped it cook more evenly. They're supposed to bake @ 350°F for 16-20 min. The first one I did at those temps in the CSO for ~ 22 min on a parchment-lined baking sheet. It was getting overly brown on top but still raw-ish looking on the bottom. Second round was @ 325°F for ~ 25 min with the parchment directly on the rack, no pan. Here it is out of the oven: The bottom looks much better than the previous one, though still a bit underdone: I've done a dissection here so you can see that below the top layer, only the edges are nicely cooked and the middle is still quite doughy. This was edible, except for the very middle but I like such things to be a treat and this was not. Since I've got 2 more left, I will try the O/N refrigerator thaw and also baking one on a pre-heated baking stone but I probably won't purchase more.

Nice tribute from Jonathan Gold's brother, Mark: He bridged cultural divides and saved the sharks: Jonathan Gold's brother remembers his impact

Sounds like your bean situation is well in hand but should you find yourself with more of them, I highly recommend the Roasted String Beans and Scallions with Pine Nut Vinaigrette from Six Seasons that I posted about yesterday. If you don't have pine nuts, I think you could use most any nut in that vinaigrette. Both the sauce the the finished dish are excellent but if you didn't want to bother with the roasting and scallions, it would still be good on simple steamed, roasted or grilled green vegetables of any sort, either as a dip or thinned with lemon juice and used as a sauce.

@kayb & @Thanks for the Crepes - thank you for the compliments! Greek yogurt, fresh July Flame peaches from the farmers market and some of the Spiced Pecan and Pumpkin Seed Crumble from Deep Run Roots. The crumble is seasoned with cayenne, fennel and Worcestershire sauce so it adds a savory contrast to the sweet peaches.

I made up a half batch of the Spiced Pecan and Pumpkin Seed Crumble from Deep Run Roots p 135. The header notes say this is like a savory granola, meant for a snack, salad or cheese plate. The savory spices (cayenne, fennel, Worcestershire sauce) appeal to me and I thought it might take my ordinary fruit and yogurt up a notch. I encountered one oddity in the instructions. You're to whisk 2 egg whites until "quite foamy" then add additional ingredients, including 1/4 cup grapeseed or sunflower oil, and continue to whisk until you have stiff peaks. I'm not sure who can get egg whites to form stiff peaks with that much oil in there, but it's not me. No matter, it seemed to come out fine anyway. After baking and crumbling: With Greek yogurt and fresh peaches:

Hmmm. This stuff just popped up on a website I follow... He certainly looks happy!

Two more peach pops. Peach & Jalapeño from People's Pops These use a jalapeño-infused simple syrup so I saved some of the chile slices to decorate the pops The Paprika Peach Pie from Four and Twenty Blackbirds has been getting a lot of love lately in a baking group I follow so I used the same spices to flavor these pops: paprika, white pepper, allspice, ginger and Old Fashion bitters I'd probably just call these spiced peach pops as the paprika doesn't really jump out head and shoulders over the rest.

Roasted String Beans and Scallions with Pine Nut Vinaigrette p 205 The recipe for the Pine Nut Vinaigrette is in the go-to section on p 39 and the header notes say it's an Italian version of an Asian peanut sauce. Whatever it is, it's very delicious. The recipe above is the only one in the book that specifically calls for it but it would be very good with any number of vegetables and very worthy of being called a go-to! Back to the string beans. I used a mix of green beans and yellow wax beans. Along with the scallions, they get tossed with olive oil, S&P and roasted until softened with a bit of char here and there. They're tossed with a little red wine vinegar and allowed to cool down before being mixed with the pine nut vinaigrette, mint, basil and pine nuts. I thought the portion size was on the large side (1.5 lbs beans/4 servings), but I gobbled them all up and look forward to making this again.

A note beneath the Tonnato recipe in Six Seasons says to spoon it on bread and top it with soft-cooked eggs, tomatoes and capers so this is what we have here. I made it because I couldn't imagine what it would taste like. Turns out it tastes very, very good. I prep'ed the tomatoes as he does in other recipes in the book by cutting them, seasoning with salt, pepper and some red wine vinegar and letting that sit whilst the eggs cooked.