blue_dolphin

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 !

I concur. I think the peanut version wins with me because of the sweet-salt combination, plus I can tell myself they have some protein ! I like the almond, too, but agree they are too big.

The first one is a thyme of some sort. Lemon verbena is very different looking. Edited to add: here's a sprig of lemon verbena from my garden: My plant is about 5 ft tall.

The recipe for Spring Onion Gratin appeared in the first episode of this season's series Season 4, Episode : Onions . It does not appear in the book. In the episode, Vivian uses the terms interchangeably, but confirms with the farmer that the onions she is using will "bulb up" if left in the ground. This article from The Kitchn says that scallions, "are either harvested very young from the regular bulb-forming onions we are familiar with, or they can come from other varieties that actually never form bulbs," while spring onions, "come from the varietals that produce bulbs and are basically more mature versions of scallions. They are planted as seedlings in the late fall and then harvested the next spring, thus the word "spring" in the name." From the video, it's clear that the ones that go into the dish haven't formed bulbs yet so I would think that in this particular recipe, scallions would be a good substitute if you don't want to wait for Spring. Edited to add: I think a leek gratin made like this would be delicious but scallions would be more similar to the spring onions.

I received my copy of Deep Run Roots yesterday and have already spent a few enjoyable hours reading it. As @rotuts points out, it's a big book - I was a little surprised at just how big. I haven't started cooking from it so no recommendation there but if you enjoy reading a cookbook, I absolutely recommend taking a look at this one. If you find essays and background information in a cookbook to be unnecessary fluff or filler, then steer clear. Vivian says the book is as much a storybook as a cookbook and I've very much enjoyed reading it. I'd like to plow through and read the whole thing before I start cooking from it but on the other hand, I'm savoring each chapter and am tempted to slow down to make it last longer. It's organized into chapters by ingredient, beginning with an informative essay, a collection of advice or tips that Vivian calls, "Wisdom", then some classic, Eastern North Carolina recipes before moving into recipes where Vivian has added a more modern twist, as she does in her restaurant. For example, the first chapter, Ground Corn, starts with recipes for Mom's Cornpone, Grandma Hill's Hoecakes, Lillie's Fried Cornbread and Foolproof Grits before moving into Charred Spring Vegetables with Creamy Scallion Dressing and Hushpuppy Croutons, Grits & Greens with Hot Sauce and Pork Rinds, Pimento Cheese Grits with Salsa and Chips, Cheesy Grit Fritters and Spoonbread with Sausage Ragout. While the chapters are organized by ingredient, some recipes appear in unexpected places. Fried Green Tomatoes are not in the Tomato chapter but in the Peach section, in a recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes with Curried Peach Preserves and Whipped Feta. I think it makes the chapters more interesting to read but less useful if you are looking for, say, salad ideas. There is a "Recipe Guide" at the front of the book to address that issue with a listing of recipes by type and the index in the back seems to be useful for finding things. The chapter essays, header notes and recipes are all written in a consistent, authentic voice, the same voice that Vivian uses in the PBS series "A Chef's Life." If you like the show, as I do, you will like the book. If you find her annoying in the show, you will likely be annoyed by the book as well. It's clearly her book and not a celebrity chef-ghost-written product. There are many recipes that were featured in the show and quite a few new recipes. In the show, we're introduced to one of the home cooks doing recipe testing for the book and the credits list several more, giving me some confidence in trying the recipes. The photos were shot by the fellow who is the director of photography (in his words, cam dude) for the show, who had never shot a cookbook before. Someone in an Amazon review dinged the photos for not being clear. I'm not sure what that means, I find they contribute very positively to the experience of reading the book. While there are abundant, beautiful photographs that illustrate both the essays and recipes, in at least one case, I wish they had either more or different photos - the recipe for Sweet Potato Onion Bread is illustrated with 5 photos of ingredients being added to the dough but no photos of the dough being shaped or of the final product. That's an exception, as there's a photo of almost every finished dish. Like @rotuts, there are quite a few recipes that call out to me, including the Pork and Red Curry Braised Watermelon that he mentioned. On my list so far: Jalapeño Peach Chicken - this starts with the recipe for a Jalapeño Peach Glaze that should yield several jars to can Sweet Potato Onion Bread Fried Chicken Livers with Balsamic-Marinated Figs Roasted and Fresh Tomato Pie A number of the blueberry recipes appeal to me, like the blueberry chutney, a salad of blueberries, cucumber, pistachios and yogurt, Crab Hoecakes with Blueberry Corn Salsa, and a Blueberry, Buttermilk and Lime Parfait that has layers of a blueberry jelly, buttermilk panna cotta, lime curd and buttermilk whipped cream assembled in half-pint jelly jars. Like the watermelon dish, that will likely wait until next summer. I'll probably try the simple fresh sausage recipe since it's used in several dishes that interest me, like the Spoonbread with Sausage Ragout. I will not be making the Tom Thumb sausage - a local speciality of fresh sausage stuffed into a pigs appendix and aged for a week or 2 but the Dirty Faro and Rutabaga Relish that it's served with sound pretty good. I'll post back after I try some recipes.

I used to make one of these smoothies every day before work and decided to make one for old times' sake. Tofu, beets, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, flax seeds, oat bran and a little yogurt. I feel so healthy, it's making me sick!

Unfortunately, I have not seen an advance copy of the book so I can't answer that. My guess is there's probably not a named "cocktail cookie" recipe but in the interest of enabling, once I get the book, I volunteer to recommend some excellent cocktail-cookie pairings - sounds like an entertaining research project !

As you do? These are so beautiful! It's closing in on 10pm on a Tuesday night here and I'm ever so sad that there will be nothing so stunning turning up within the next hour or so. Sigh.....

Believe it or not, they are Black & White Diamond COCKTAIL Cookies ! Nice little shortbread cookies. I posted about them over here in the Trader Joes thread.

Nice try! I concede your first point but beg to differ on the second....

Years ago, I cooked and enjoyed a hairy melon dish stuffed with pork, following a recipe from a Chinese friend. It was similar to this one for Steamed Hairy Gourd Stuffed with Minced Pork and should adapt well to the IP. Edited to add that my friend's recipe used a mixture of pork and shrimp to stuff the melon and she used the same mixture on green bell pepper squares (I know, I know) and steamed them. Or, give it to Kerry to turn into a baked good for her rounds: Hairy Gourd Bread

The boo-terscotch is very sweet, as is the case with many white confectionary items. In my opinion, there's not enough butterscotch flavor to make them worthwhile. For baking, I'd say they're an OK substitute for white confectionary morsels but not for butterscotch morsels. The s'mores are a bit less sweet, because of the crispy, cracker-y center so they do add texture, even if they lack a distinctive s'mores flavor. I'll probably use either or both in a dark chocolate cookie or brownie that's not too sweet.