blue_dolphin

I have Dorie's Cookies on order as well and am also interested in My Two Souths. Sigh....so many cookbooks!

A couple more M&M flavors. Crispy S'mores M&Ms: I have never had regular crispy M&Ms so I don't know how these differ but I didn't detect any burnt sugar or graham cracker flavors. To me, the center of these is like a malted milk ball without any "malt" flavor. White Boo-terscotch M&M's I had hoped these would taste like butterscotch morsels. I should have been tipped off by the word "white" being placed first in the name - they mostly taste of white confectionary product, with just a little butterscotch. I tasted both of these flavors but have no desire to eat more, unlike the coffee version which was rather nice. They'll be OK to add seasonal color to cookies or something like that.

Before this thread goes off the first pages, I have to call this out as one of my favorite eG lines: Love it !!!

Egg, bacon and cheese on a mini croissant: Had a few of those little croissants leftover from yesterday's brunch so I refreshed this one in the Cuisi steam oven and decorated it up for breakfast.

Quiche du jour chez blue_dolphin: Spinach, onion and red bell pepper. I tried @kayb's trick of blending a few oz of softened goat cheese into the cream before whisking it with the eggs. Very tasty!

Quiche is my most requested pot-luck dish and something I make a lot. I remember being pleased to earn the approval of my former boss, a Frenchman, for its proper custard - he used to complain about people turning it into a "cheese pie." One trick I picked up recently is to brush the crust with an egg wash immediately after blind-baking and return it to the oven for a minute or two to set it. Cuts down on leaky crusts and I've always got the beaten eggs handy for the custard so it's no extra work. Looks purdy and shiny-like, too ! I will try give this a try tomorrow. Two quiches on the docket for tomorrow - one for brunch guests and one for a cousin bringing a new baby home from the hospital.

This is my experience as well. I picked some up the other day to try making some little stuffed beets. They were pretty tasteless. Sort of makes me wonder if there are any nutrients left in them?

I went ahead and pre-ordered Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South, due out on Oct 4. This is a cookbook by Vivian Howard of the PBS series A Chef's Life. Many of the flavor combinations she uses on the show interest me, I enjoy the way she explores an individual ingredient on the show and the book is similarly organized by ingredient so I decided to spring for it sight unseen.

@sartoric, I love your little "quiche-like things" Since reading @ninagluck's post over on the dinner thread, I've been ever so intrigued by the idea of stuffed beets. For my first test, I took the easy way out. I picked up a packet of cooked baby beets from Trader Joe's, sliced one in half, scooped out the middle with a melon baller and filled them with some of TJ's jalapeño and honey chèvre. Steam baking in the Cuisi steam oven for 10 min @ 400°F left the tops only slightly colored so I raised the rack, switched to broil and left them in rather longer than I intended - I was going for golden brown, not char-broiled! Still, kind of cute to put into a salad for lunch:

Not just fine-grained but fine-grained, medium-moisture sea salt! Now I do not know about you but I keep my salt in the salt pig so it is readily available and I know many others to keep their salt in an open container near their prep area. So I ask you how long will that medium-moisture remain? The more I think about it the more amusing/annoying it appears I was thinking the same thing. After a week of triple-digit temperatures with single-digit humidity, I don't think there was medium-moisture anything in all of Southern California!

I'm still planning to try to get my hands on a copy. The small print isn't a deal breaker for my very nearsighted eyeballs. I thought the admonition to use a doubled towel to remove a hot pan from the broiler (in the brussels sprouts recipe that was printed in the EYB review) was a little more babysitting than I usually want but overall, I've read some good reviews, too, and am very much looking forward to the thoughts of those here, when they've had the chance to try some recipes. As @rotuts posted here, the NYT has published their fall cookbook roundup. The header for Taste & Technique is "The Best Kind of Bossy," and they go on to say, "In the spirit of Judy Rogers’s “Zuni Café Cookbook” or Paul Bertolli’s “Cooking by Hand,” the chef Naomi Pomeroy, of the restaurant Beast in Portland, Ore., doesn’t want to show off. She wants to hold your hand and take you there — “there” being a land where demi-glace and soufflés are actually cool, and where teaching is preferable to telling." Full review, including recipe for fennel gratin is here: ‘Taste & Technique' makes French Cooking Cool

I bet they'd be just the thing with some Scotch quail eggs !

It was 105°F here yesterday so I made more popsicles. Thomcord grape with ruby port They are very purple-y!

I really wanted a bagel this morning and was thinking that smoked tuna plus some cream cheese would make a nice spread for a pumpernickel bagel but I was too lazy to go to the bagel place and made this instead. Smoked tuna salad sandwich with yellow farmers market tomato, bread & butter pickles.

Thanks for the quick responses! I'm a newbie to the ecookbook world and I was curious if the iPad Kindle app was dumbed-down in some way or if there's just a range of features, depending on the book. I noted that within the River Cottage book recipes, there are active hyperlinks to common methods, etc. which is very helpful but the index (on my iPad) is just a list. Sounds like it depends on the book and the device since @Smithy's tablet shows a hyperlinked index but my iPad and @rustwood's Kindle do not. A brave new world!

@rustwood, I have a question for you about this one. Is the index hyperlinked and if so, are you viewing it on a Kindle or another reader? I also got this yesterday and am somewhat disappointed that the index appears as just a list - no page numbers (obviously) but no hyperlinks either. I don't have a Kindle and am using the Kindle app on my iPad. The other two ebooks I ordered appear on my iPad with hyperlinks in the index, something I find quite beneficial in ebooks.

@Anna N, not sure if you noticed this in reading the Eat Your Books review that @chefmd linked to but if you go to the main EYB listing for Taste & Technique, you can view a list of the recipes that includes the ingredients for each. Basic pantry items are often not listed but it should give you a little data for your decision process.

Very lazy person waiting for the Sunday NYT to be delivered. No homemade bread nor homemade cultured butter. Trader Joe's frozen pumpkin waffle with goat cheese, walnuts and maple syrup. Black coffee.

Thanks for the tips, guys! I don't have a Kindle but I've been reading a lot of ebooks from the library on my iPad so I figured I should try out some ecookbooks to see how I like them. I bought Dorie's book, the Masumoto Farm Perfect Peach book and the River Cottage Preserves book.

Please thank the hunters for taking us with them via the photos. I love getting a sense of the place and especially seeing your sweet Chum at work (food-related work, at that )!

Scrambled eggs, tomato chutney, broccoli, roasted red potato.

Interesting. I look forward to seeing it when they get around to publishing some images. This led me to some Amazon browsing that turned up a couple more observations: Amazon has an Instant Pot-branded circulator listed for using the IP as a sous vide vessel. I think we all know that @Anna N published that application here some time ago. Perhaps royalties are in order??? Amazon is presently offering the Instant Pot replacement silicone rings (for $6.99) and the little red silicone mitts (for $5.21/set of 2) listed as "add-on items" for Prime members. I find the mitts very helpful. I probably use them as much for the Cuisi steam oven as the IP. Finally, I noticed Instant Pot has a blog post on their web site titled, "Unapproved Sealing Rings Sold By Unauthorized Dealers." I have no idea whether there is any actual risk in using them or not. Instant Pot could be trying to protect their market or felt they needed to issue a CYA statement but I thought it was interesting.

Free backyard citrus comes in handy sometimes

Thanks, @scubadoo97! I have a Blendtec, so I should be able to approximate that.

Sounds like an excellent lunch - I would have to add some cornichons.....and, ideally, champagne but I realize it is mid-week! That said, I appreciate your mention of this recipe. Do you follow it as written or make modifications with the spices or the use of a fine sieve at the end? I have not tried making liver pate but would like to give it go.