blue_dolphin

I did that over here with cheddar and blue cheese. I preferred the ones without cheese, but with some olive tapenade stirred into the polenta. But mine were baked, not fried.

That's what I like, too. The contrast of a crisp/crunchy crust and tender inside. A while back, I made some little polenta balls that I baked for the same sort of texture without frying. I must do that again.

Wow, @chefmd! What a coup! I have one of those and use it all the time. I'm always on the lookout for a replacement but I've never seen a full set with the box, let alone at such a good price!

I know what you mean. Especially since the rookies keep getting eliminated. I have to say that the most recent episode was one of my least favorite so far. I'm not a fan of quickfire eliminations and I was a fan of poor Jim! I will miss his goofy smile. The whole pirate treasure map, running all over Charleston in a rainstorm to find their ingredients was a silly waste of time. The case of Jamie offering to give up his immunity was an interesting turn and Emily trying to throw John under the bus at judges table was surely meant to stir the pot for upcoming episodes but actual cooking was surely an afterthought in this round.

Mmmmm...oatmeal. I like to top it with some toasted nuts for crunch and some fruit. I should make some. But not today. Po yegg on toast:

My experience is pretty much the same. The first time, I put a few slices into a ziplock and cooked them right after the sv step. My second run was an unopened 24 oz package of supermarket thick cut bacon (Wrights). I snipped a corner and drained off the liquid after sv and easily peeled off 2 slices to cook but once it chilled down in the fridge, it was impossible to pull off an intact slice. I resorted to standing the slab up on end in the skillet in order to warm up the end slice enough to peel off. I put the bag with the rest of the slab in some warm water and cooked off the rest today. I won't bother doing it again.

Fish sandwich on a toasted whole wheat bolillo roll, slaw, carrots and celery: The fish was some sort of TJ's frozen battered halibut pieces that I found disappointingly dry on their own. They were rather tasty here, doused with some TJ's sriracha ranch dressing.

My extremely high tech set up - Igloo beer cooler with a piece of styrofoam insulation cut to fit snugly. The foam is coated so I can push it down to the water level but generally, I leave a little space. This is a very small cooler. I have a larger one also.

Ahhh...so close!

Good point. I should probably just replace the usual Rittenhouse as I'll be using it almost entirely for mixing. I've already got a bottle of Angel's Envy rye that's for sipping and I rarely pull it out. Always curious when I see something different at TJ's

Has anyone tried Masterson's Rye? It's a 90 proof, 100% rye from Canada that I saw it at TJ's the other day. I am wondering if I should try this or Pikesville 110 ($50 locally) Like Pendleton, it's distilled in Canada, branded and sold by a US company. The reviews I read were mostly a few years old and said it was good, but not worth the price, generally cited in the $70-80 range. It's bottled and sold by 35 Maple St. Spirits, a venture out of Sonoma, CA headed by August Sebastiani of the jug wine world. Edited to add that the name of the venture has changed from 35 Maple to 3 Badge Mixology. They is also behind a few spirits I've seen recently at TJ's, the Bib & Tucker Small Batch Bourbon and the cucumber-y Uncle Val's Botanical Gin that @FrogPrincesse mentioned picking up there a few months ago. Not sure if the fact they are dumping stock to TJ's is indicative of the health of the venture or the quality of the product or maybe they want to get rid of product labeled with the old name. Curious if anyone here has tried it. Any opinions?

There's a link at the very bottom of the article to this one: How Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey Lost Its Way

This is my experience as well. BKF is my friend, too! I believe it was @GlorifiedRice who had an IP cleaning problem and I believe it was resolved but I can't remember the details.

Pressure cooker mac & cheese with broccoli and red bell pepper. I saw mac & cheese over on Serious Eats the other day and got it stuck in my mind. I like this Instant Pot version from Dad Cooks Dinner.

Mac & cheese from the Dad Cooks Dinner site: I made a half recipe with a mix of cheddar and jalapeño jack cheese and added broccoli and red bell peppers at the end. As I did previously, (thanks to @Anna N,s report), I adjusted the first cook to 6 min - I know this particular pasta takes a good 12+ minutes to cook conventionally. Panko topping broiled in the CSO.

This 14 cup lock-top flour container from King Arthur Flour was recommended in another thread. I bought it and the similar 10 cup sugar container from Amazon, as the prices were lower at the time I ordered. Not so at the moment.

Yes, indeed! She was still active here when I first joined, and of course in the prior years when I lurked regularly ! I'm currently reading her very food-related novel, Karma and the Art of Butter Chicken @SobaAddict70 @ProfessionalHobbit posted a version of this using turkey eggs in the breakfast thread a few years ago but the link in his post no longer worked so I was happy to find the recipe on her site.

Something I have heard mentioned here but never tried - Fried eggs on potato chips: Per the recipe, the pan is to be tightly covered once the eggs are added. A glass lid would have been helpful as I ended up overcooking them a bit. Tomato chutney on the side.

The banana bread and spicy mango relish really appeals to me. Perhaps with cream cheese? Or goat cheese? Maybe Brie? But cheddar? No. But I know I've supplied enough peanut butter and banana combos to horrify the sensibilities of some people so I won't say more.

I enjoyed the last episode of Top Chef. Great Charleston tie-in to feature Edna Lewis as a "Southern Legend." It seemed like the chefs all really took the work of Edna Lewis to heart and tried to make dishes inspired by her philosophy. Apparently these chefs weren't the only ones so inspired as sales of Edna Lewis' cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking, received a nice boost after the show aired. It was up to #5 amongst Amazon's cookbook bestsellers and is now out of stock! It was clear that frantic whirlwind Amanda was going to be out soon but I'll miss her. I liked that her exit interview was positive. I was sorry to see both Sam and Silvia out so early and from the preview photos of next week's episode, it's not looking good for another of my favorites. Time will tell. This season, I've been enjoying the episode reviews (and comments) over on A.V Club

I would think the impact of preparing half portions would depend very much on the type of dish. As John Gibson, one of the chefs interviewed for that article stated:

That sounds good. What kind of vinegar are you using to start with? My first thought was apple cider vinegar but I pulled out Ideas in Food and they recommend red wine vinegar over that, though they say that both work.

There is a wealth of vinegar making information in this thread but it can be a challenge to comb through and assemble it all. I found this How To Make Vinegar guide from Sunset magazine helpful to pull things together. An interesting note to close the loop back to eG is that the authors of that Sunset article got their vinegar mother from Paula Wolfert (@Wolfert) who got it from @Abra, who shared much vinegar making information in this very thread and in her eG blog and also offered, years ago, to share that old French mother of hers with other eG members.

The question of the appeal of cooking sous vide is curious. I have two brothers. One is a fabulous home cook who regularly turns out perfectly timed and cooked multi-course extravaganzas for friends and family. I thought an Anova or Joule would be a perfect gift for him but it turns out that he attended a demo that featured a bunch of 48-72 hr meats that were certainly delicious but caused him to dismiss the process because of the time factor. He's an airline pilot whose schedule can be unpredictable. I have tried but have yet to change his mind after that first impression. The other brother does not cook. At all. He gets most of his food delivered from a service or restaurant of the moment in his urban area but has recently expressed displeasure with the quality of the re-heated dishes. While visiting over the holidays, he watched me use the circulator to quickly thaw some previously SV cooked chicken breasts to put into a pasta dish (I told him how I'd cooked them with the same system) and use it to easily prepare perfectly cooked salmon filets and scallops. His reaction was, "Wow, I could do that!" Ironically, the non-cook was the easier convert!

You would win that bet! Nor did I practice the recommended "aerial salting technique." I don't have the book and don't know what "aerial salting" involves but images of a trapeze, safety harnesses or perhaps drones come to mind !