blue_dolphin

Nice cookbook collection! You mentioned stealing from Mr. Smokey's collection. Does Mr. Smokey cook? How did you get from Las Vegas to East Hollywood in 15 min? I need that transport system!

Shelf by shelf - top. The plastic tub has various dried chiles and chile powders. The large black pouch on the far right is gochugaru. And yes, that's a 1 pound bag of coriander seeds in the back so I can make lots of Dave Arnold's coriander syrup. Middle. In the right rear, there's similar plastic tub with whole spices Bottom:

@timotb - where do you live? Larger cities in the US generally have a range of meal delivery services that cater to a range of different diets. My brother, who is of the eat-to-live persuasion, has used a number of them that provide daily delivery of re-heatable meals and snacks and suit his paleo and gluten-free notions. There is a cost associated with those services but he found it much more economical than ordering from or dining out in restaurants and I was surprised that the cost wasn't higher than it was. The pill thing isn't happening for a long time, unless it's a bunch of massive pills. Too many health benefits from having real food processed in the usual way. Patients forced to use total parenteral (IV) nutrition really struggle in the long term and I suspect a tiny pill meal replacement would result in some of the same issues.

I made the pork schnitzel from Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, which she fries in clarified butter. The crispy crust on the pork was delightful. I now want to fry all the things in clarified butter. I served the pork with the Apple Mustard and Charred Cabbage Apple Slaw from Deep Run Roots. The Apple Mustard is a kicked up apple butter and I highly recommend it. The charred cabbage slaw has an interesting mix of flavors and textures but I'm not sure I'd make it again - certainly not for a crowd as it's a bit of a nuisance to char all that cabbage and it doesn't look all that attractive.

Cheese, please!

Two lovely eggs from the farmers market and a slice of rustic country bread from a local business that grows and grinds their own grain and bakes it into bread. Should be perfection, no? No. One yolk willfully decided to swim away from its white. Or vice versa. Ah well. Still delicious.

I think a certain amount of scene-setting is always appropriate. Please carry on and thank you for taking us along!

Interesting. From this page: Since laboratory equip (and its required precision) commands a premium price, it seems reasonable that they should attempt to capitalize on it. When I was working in labs, these prices would have been bargains for immersion circulators.

That looks like a nice spread, @chefmd! Some of the salted olive crisps I baked yesterday with Silver Goat Chèvre and a cara cara orange

Salted Olive Crisps from David Lebovitz's My Paris Kitchen Kinda, sorta savory biscotti. Nice with some softened goat cheese and a glass of wine.

Tahini Cookies from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem. Not too sweet, sort of a tahini shortbread cookie. My deviations: Most obviously, I used a cookie press instead of rolling balls and flattening with a fork. I substituted an egg for 3 of the 5 tablespoons of cream because all my pressed cookie recipes have an egg & I thought it might help them hold together. I added 1/4 t toasted sesame oil because my tahini seemed quite mild. Finally, I added the cinnamon to the dough instead of sprinkling it on top. I did sprinkle some of them with a bit of turbinado sugar but most of it fell off anyway. A bit overbaked because I wasn't paying attention but still edible.

Another egg & sausage on a roll

My preference for the end of the meal is to sip a small glass of port or dessert wine. If mignardises or petit fours are offered, they're usually about the right size for me to nibble along with my port.

Kohlrabi Brandade from Six Seasons p 350. I baked some of the brandade in ramekins, topped with breadcrumbs and Parmesan and served it on toasts rubbed with garlic. I liked the sound of the recipe, where the kohlrabi, potato garlic and salt cod are simmered together gently in milk as I thought it would meld the flavors and provide a lighter alternative to other brandades that contain a lot of oil. I didn't love the result. I think there was too much vegetable (kohlrabi & potato) for the amount of salt cod and the milk didn't really provide the richness you get from olive oil. Baking with it with the crispy topping helped but it still seemed sort of watered down or diluted. Not a winner for me. The bread, however, was stupendous. I picked up a loaf of Glenn country rosemary bread from Roan Mills - they grow heritage wheat locally, grind the flour daily and bake it up into delicious breads. If only I could bake bread like that!

Rainbow Chard with Garlic & Jalapeños (I subbed orange manzano peppers for the jalapeños) from Six Seasons p 298. After the chard is sautéed with garlic and the peppers, red wine vinegar is added and everything marinates for a few hours or overnight so the topping has a slightly pickled quality.

Parsnip Soup with Pine Nut, Currant and Celery Leaf Relish from Six Seasons p 360. No cream here, just parsnips, celery and onion, cooked until almost tender with just a little olive oil and butter before adding water, simmering further and blending until smooth. The "relish" topping makes this soup special. It's currants (I used raisins, given a rough chop) soaked in red wine vinegar, toasted pine nuts, chopped celery and parsley leaves, red chile flakes, lemon zest and juice.

Spaghetti with Swiss Chard, Pine Nuts, Raisins and Chiles from Six Seasons p 301. A solid pasta dish that I enjoyed very much. No big revelations, although the idea of plumping raisins in wine vinegar, as done throughout this book, is one I will certainly use where dried fruits are used in savory dishes.

An Instant Pot baked egg with spinach & mushrooms. The method was inspired by a couple of recipes in Melissa Clark's Instant Pot cookbook, Dinner in an Instant. The ingredients were inspired by leftovers

I thought of you, @Anna N, and your potential reaction to the cheese when I wrote this and should have included a sausage roll disclaimer . No, sausage rolls, they are not. Still tasty, though!

In the category of things I never knew existed and really shouldn't be eating, I give you the Sausage Balls from Deep Run Roots p 372 with the suggested accompaniment of the Apple Mustard on p 502. Vivian says sausage balls are a clichéd party food and often disappointing. Completely unaware of sausage balls over here so I had to try these to catch up with the rest of the planet. I used the Maple & Sage Breakfast Sausage from The Food Lab plus a nice Cabot extra sharp cheddar and followed Vivian's recipe except for making them slightly smaller ~ 3/4oz instead of 1 oz. They are very tasty. Just enough cornmeal to hold them together. Most of the fat drains off so they don't seem greasy at all. Vivian says the Apple Mustard is like an apple butter with an edge. Excellent description. It's kicked up with onion, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, cayenne, star anise, cloves, thyme and orange slices. I only made a half recipe but I think I'll still pack it up in some little jars and waterbath process them.

My house was already immersed in the Sonos system so that's what I use for listening. By adding an Alexa Dot (two of them actually), I gain basic voice control over my Sonos system plus the limited smart features that I use - mostly timers at this point. Alexa has been relatively well behaved but the other night she got into a rather involved conversation with my TV involving the Australian woman who's providing the "enhanced" Olympic ice skating commentary on the NBC app. Not sure how it got started but it went on for some time. I had a hard time getting Alexa to shut up.

I agree. Though It is very pungent stuff. I keep mine in a jar, in a ziplock bag, in another jar, in the garage.

Sweet Potato Pancakes with Yogurt and Date Syrup from Ottolenghi's cookbook, Nopi. Recipe found online at this link. If only I'd checked this thread before I took the photo, there could have been radishes on my plate, too

That makes sense. It's interesting that, as @gfweb mentioned, Wylie told Chris that deep fried foods take LONGER at altitude. I suppose that could be true IF the oil temp was lowered significantly. On the last episode - spoiler alert - - Chris seemed to follow that suggestion, overcooked his quail and went home. Since they cook so quickly, it seems like he could have done a test bird or two and worked that out. On the other hand, they're so small that I'd imagine it would be very easy to overcook them whatever you do. I was sorry to see him go as he was one of my favorites.

Earlier this week, the Smitten Kitchen blog gave a shout-out to The Essential Instant Pot Cookbook: Fresh and Foolproof Recipes for Your Electric Pressure Cooker. Since the Kindle edition is currently $2.99 on Amazon.com (not on Amazon.ca), I bought it. I haven't cooked anything from it yet but it seems like a solid Instant Pot cookbook - uses the IP for what it does well, doesn't try to make it do everything, has a good section of Instant Pot basics/FAQs and a section on adapting recipes for the IP. Personally, I found some of the recipes in Melissa Clark's Dinner in an Instant (NOT on sale!) more interesting to me, but think my $2.99 was well spent on this one.