blue_dolphin

Ahhh, this visit has been short, but certainly sweet thus far. I always enjoy going along on these trips. Before we leave, I have to say that every time I see this thread, I read it as "Meowing in Manitoulin" - guess I have kittens on the brain !

Ditto what @Anna N said, @Shelby! I don't know what the occasion was, but you have my congratulations and sincere best wishes for many more dinners like that one!

The watermelon chapter.....part 1 BLUF - that Pork with Red Curry-Braised Watermelon is a keeper! Here's my little 5 pounder watermelon, purchased in October because of my desire to try the recipe for Pork and Red Curry-Braised Watermelon. I wanted to try it since the Watermelon episode aired a few weeks ago but haven't seen a watermelon in the stores or farmers markets in ages and figured I'd have to wait until next year. Then I picked up this puppy at Trader Joe's last week and figured I'd have a look-see before committing to the recipe. As you can see, the skin is quite thin, so I wasn't sure if pickled watermelon rind will happen or not. I remembered that in the TV episode, there was mention of watermelon preserves made with rind chunks the size of a biscuit, to be served on a biscuit with a slice of country ham. So I went ahead and cut the thickest parts of the thin rind into slabs and I'll try making a mini batch of the pickle. The melon flesh is certainly not as flavorful as a summer melon but the texture is good, juicy and crisp with a sweet watermelon flavor. Not mealy at all. Here's the watermelon rind ready for an overnight in the fridge in a salt brine. At least I should be able to see if I like the flavor balance in Vivian's pickle recipe. Given the strong flavors (vinegar, honey, red curry paste, fish sauce) in the pork dish, I don't think a slightly toned-down watermelon is going to detract from anything so I'll go ahead with that as well. The cookbook calls for pork shoulder or blade steaks while the recipe from the TV episode used country-style pork ribs. All the pork shoulder steaks at the stores I visited were cut very thin so I went with these country-style ribs, which are rather bigger than I usually see but I believe they will be good for a braise.. The top 2 here are boneless and ~ 12 oz each. The bottom one, with the bone, is 16 oz. I decided to use the one with the bone in a half-scaled recipe and freeze the other two for later. I browned the meat in a cast-iron skillet and put the whole thing into the Cuisi steam oven instead of cranking up the big oven. Here we are out of the oven: And on the plate, atop some IP-cooked brown rice for a late lunch: Very nice balance of flavors - spicy, sweet and tart. Yum! Vivian said everyone would think the watermelon was a tomato. To me, it's sweeter and has a different texture than tomato but I would never guess watermelon! Put this one on your list to try when you find a good melon.

I thought that sounded good as well. Last year, I made some pickled winter squash and was rather ambivalent on them. I'd certainly give these a try to see if I like them better.

I do hope you won't make us wait that long to hear the results !

That fried zucchini looks great - I'd be happy with a plate like that any time of day! Open face BLT on toasted ciabatta. This was about the delicious Cherokee tomato. The crispy bacon served as the perfect garnish.

Today, I set out to make the Jalapeño Peach Chicken, essentially either chicken wings or drumsticks roasted with a jalapeño peach glaze. I was delighted that the recipe made enough glaze for several jars but I was very peeved by my peaches as at least half of them had gone brown in the middle. I know late season peaches are a crap shoot but I figured a recipe for a glaze like this could tolerate fruit that lacked perfect texture. I just didn't expect so many totally crappy peaches - yuck! Luckily, I had extra peaches and salvaged enough for the recipe. It came out OK but would probably be better with perfect fruit. Here's the peaches, jalapeños, onion and ginger ready to go: And a few wings, cooked in the Cuisi steam oven. I put them on broil just a bit too long at the end . They were OK - moist, well-cooked chicken with a sweet-spicy glaze. I'd probably prefer regular, crispy-skin CSO thighs served with some grilled or broiled peaches that had been brushed with the glaze. I also made a deconstructed version of the Pecan, Pepper Jelly and Stinky Cheese Panini that appears in the pecan chapter. The recipe calls for spreading the bread with the glaze, a layer of cheese and some chopped Salt & Butter Roasted Pecans and cooking it like a grilled cheese sandwich. The triple-crème Brie I used was so melty that I figured it would ooze out all over the place if I tried to make a grilled sandwich so I just topped it with some of the jalapeño peach glaze and nibbled the salted, roasted pecans separately. The spicy-sweet-tart glaze is a perfect partner for the rich cheese.

Welcome to the club !

Maybe check out Modernist Cuisine at Home - no weird ingredients in that mashed potato recipe.

Me three. Growing up, we had yellow wax beans from our garden and called them butterbeans.

I've never had fresh-picked baby limas and will give Vivian the benefit of the doubt that they are somehow different from the frozen baby limas I've had. I have no plans to try and obtain them or try any of the recipes, with the possible exception of the butterbean hummus.

Did you read the whole section? She explains how she learned that her beloved butterbeans, something she thought unique and so very special to her home, are indeed immature limas, picked very young, before they mature into the dreaded limas. Sounds like she was rather crushed to learn the fact.

Thank you! It is very tasty. It's rather a lot of cooking for a summer recipe, between the caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, pie crust, etc. I usually keep caramelized onions in the freezer (assuming I can find them ) and I think this dish could be made successfully by roasting good canned tomatoes and using some really nice cherry or plum tomatoes for the fresh ones. Of course, I haven't tried it and it might not be as good, but I think it would still give a good tomato-y flavor!

Me, too. Trader Joe's had some small seedless watermelons so I picked one up yesterday. Not sure if it's any good or not but we are having summer-like weather at the moment so if I decide it's not worthy of cooking with, I can make another batch of watermelon and parsley popsicles !

I made the Roasted and Fresh Tomato Pie, scaling down the recipe by half for a 6-inch pan. It's very good! This dish was featured in an episode of A Chef's Life and the recipe, in a slightly different form, appears on the show website. Thanks also to @cyalexa for sending me a recipe that was adapted from the TV show version. I scaled the recipe down because the 3.5 lbs of tomatoes called for, assuming I'm purchasing farmers market heirlooms, is a healthy investment for something that I haven't tried and may or may not make good leftovers. Also, I wanted to use the Cuisi oven as my big oven puts out a lot of heat as it cools down and only so many pieces of diced tomatoes will fit before they are steaming rather than roasting. It's still cool in the house but currently 95 outside and I'd like to preserve the coolness as long as possible. First off, I went to my local farmstand and bought a mix of Cherokee, Celebrity and Pineapple yellow tomatoes. This is about 4.5 lbs, including that already cut yellow one from my fridge. Aren't they pretty? I have leftovers earmarked for that Elbow-Lick Tomato Sandwich . I had to order some wood chips so I can rig up a stove-top smoker to make the smoked corn mayo for that one. Chips should arrive on Monday so picked the ripest guys to use today and the others to save for sandwiches. Here's my little pie ready for the oven. I mangled one edge of the crust at some point: And the finished product: It's very rich. I think a small wedge with a green salad would be a fine lunch. I tried it both warm and at RT and both are good. There is a fair bit of liquid in the filling so I expect the bottom crust will not be as crisp after a trip into and out of the fridge but it held up as it cooled to RT. I made an unplanned deviation from the recipe when I thawed a brown blob labeled "onions" from my freezer, assuming they were pressure-cooker caramelized onions and instead they were roasted onions with sage and balsamic vinegar - same texture of onion but different flavors so thought it best to omit the fresh basil and let the sage shine. I will probably make up a mini version with the plain caramelized onions and fresh basil.

Absolutely. There are 3 Trader Joes, 2 Targets, a couple of Walmart Neighborhood markets and a Smart & Final that are closer to me than Costco. If I were a larger household, it would be worth going out of my way.

I'm not a big meat eater but when I have guests and pick up a tri-tip, I cross my fingers that there will be leftovers for sandwiches with horseradish mayo. Often my guests helpfully offer, "Oh, blue_dolphin, you don't eat meat, let's package this up for someone to take home. That's when I need to jump in with, "Please let me wrap it up for you," assuring that at least some of it ends up in my fridge!

I bought a membership one year and made it back on a set of tires. As a non-meat eating household of 1, it was otherwise not worth it.

How have you adapted it? Do the leftovers keep for a bit? It's on my list and I was thinking I should really give it a go while we still have plenty of good tomatoes here. I'd like to scale it down a bit as 3.5 lbs of farmers market heirlooms will put dent in my wallet!

Well, there's no egg in the recipe on the website, so it appears the "too much egg" issue in the her first attempt was addressed by removing egg entirely in the final version.

Good that you were able to pick that up in the sample so you know it's not a book for you.

Oh dear, I hope someone will come by with a cocktail soon!

I'm of the same mind as @rotuts. There's only one yeast bread and a handful of other baked items. I haven't come upon a recipe where the lack of weights annoyed me, and it sometimes does. Nonetheless, a fair question - I know many have sworn off purchasing cookbooks that use these old timey measurements.

This is my experience with hairy melon as well. A really slow braise in a flavorful broth will allow it to pick up some flavor but I haven't had one that brought much to the table on its own.

Indeed, this is a cups and spoons book. Weights and count measurements show up here and there - a pound of scallops, ears of corn, sleeves of Saltine crackers . I suspect most of the traditional recipes had to be converted from juice glass, handful, pinch and jelly jar measurements so it wouldn't have been that difficult to include weights as well but this is still the backwards old US of A, clinging to the measurements of our founders !