blue_dolphin

I'm certainly not an expert with that recipe. I think the flavors would work very well with green tomatoes but I wonder if all the spices and long cook time would result in an unpleasant grayish color? Depending on how tart the tomatoes are I might use less cayenne and give it a taste to see if it wants a little more sugar. I've been getting some lovely yellow tomatoes from a local farmstand. They are very sweet and I was thinking I might use some to make a less-hot version but had the same concerns about the pretty yellow tomatoes turning muddy. Maybe I'll just get enough for a small batch and try it out.

I wasn't able to find it with a quick search. I do recommend the book, if you happen to see it. Here's the basics of the plum liqueur recipe: 1 lb small dark plums (I used Dapple Dandy pluots, also marketed as Dinosaur Eggs) 1 bottle Chilean Sauvignon Blanc ( I used an inexpensive dry Chilean rosé) 3/4 cup sugar (I used ~ 1/2 cup because those pluots are so sweet) 1/4 teaspoon allspice berries, crushed a few black peppercorns, crushed 2 cups gin (for the pluots I used, I was very tempted to use tequila and substitute a de arbol chile for the allspice and peppercorns, but I stuck with the gin and it worked very well) Optional: the cracked plum pits or 20 blanched apricot kernels. (I set the plum pits aside, got lazy and threw them away) The recipe calls for halving the plums (I cut them up a bit more, as you can see in the photo) and simmering them in the wine for 5 min, along with the sugar, allspice and peppercorns. Add the gin (and cracked pits, if using), cover and set aside for a week. Double strain (the recipe says to use a colander and fine mesh sieve, I used a colander and nut-milk bag) and bottle. The recipe says the liqueur will throw sediment so I just put it in larger bottles for now and will strain it again before bottling up small gift bottles. There's a note that suggests replacing the gin with Irish whiskey and the white wine with something like Cabernet Franc. I plan to check out today's farmers market to see if there are any late-season plums left or maybe just try the black plums from the grocery store.

Thanks for the reminder that this series has started up again. I watched the first 2 episodes of season 4 and spent quite a bit of time catching up older episodes that I'd missed. Maybe I wasn't paying close attention but I don't recall anything terrible in the new episodes. Over the years, I've heard a few cringe-worthy comments from Vivian and Ben when they've voiced frustration about restaurant staff related issues. What in particular caught your attention? Vivian's cookbook, Deep Run Roots, will be out in a few weeks. I enjoy cookbooks that explore individual ingredients, assuming it's well done and I appreciate that this her own book and not strictly a TV-series tie-in, although it will certainly benefit from her exposure. I think she's very ambitious and comes close to biting off more than she chew so I hope she had the time to do a good job of the book. I thought that sounded interesting, too. I wonder if there is still good watermelon around....

This is from a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to post then. I used the last of the Dapple Dandy pluots from the farmers market to make some pluot and ginger jam. I love the brilliant color of these fruits. I used both grated, fresh ginger and little cubes of candied ginger in the jam. On the left is a jar of pluot liqueur that I made using the same fruit and a recipe for plum liqueur from Kevin West's Saving the Season. It calls for a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, 2 cups of gin, a few allspice berries and black peppercorns and some sugar. Sounds like a hangover waiting to happen ! Its supposed to sit for at least a month but I tried a little the other day and it's pretty smooth already. I need to find some pretty little bottles for it. I wish I had made more of both of these. The jam is tart and sweet and goes really well with cheeses. I've already given quite a few jars away.

Yesterday, 8 lbs of tomatoes became 8 half pint jars of tomato chutney: I hope the seals will hold up OK. I have never processed something so oily and was worried there was some oil on the rims of the jars, even though I wiped them before putting on the lids.

Apparently the Coffee Nut flavor bested Honey Nut and Chili Nut and has been declared the winner. This morning's breakfast of champions: Edited to add: This is not a breakfast I plan to repeat but they did go well with a cup of hot black coffee.

Thank you for sharing your kitchen .... and field and stream ... adventures with us! I look forward to seeing what you get up to!

Sadly, my neighborhood is lacking in pasticcerias of any sort so I'm very envious of @HungryChris but appreciate the glimpses of the trip. Here at home, I'm having multigrain toast with goat cheese and some pluot and ginger jam that I made a couple of weeks ago:

@Anna N, this sounds great! Scrubbing out the pot wasn't all that bad but I'd rather not do it either. Plus, it's a waste of whatever sticks. The IP polenta recipe I used called for bringing the stock to a boil using the sauté function before adding the cornmeal. What temp was your stock when you added the cornmeal?

Quiche du yester-jour: zucchini, mushroom and onion. Lightly toasted ciabatta and a few Thomcord grapes.

I like beans. I saw your dish of beans and greens and thought it looked great - assuming I had some crusty bread to go with it. I'm not sure I could come up with anything better so I don't imagine I will change your mind That said, bean dips or spreads - hummus and the like - come to mind. I would certainly start a bean hater on Heidi Swanson's white bean spread with rosemary and toasted almonds. I love the way the garlic and rosemary are warmed gently with the oil to impart flavor but are strained out to avoid bitterness. Continuing on the white bean theme, I've had a number of bean haters try and and come back for seconds of white bean and pesto crostini. Toast some rustic bread, rub with a garlic clove, top with white beans tossed with pesto and either drizzle with olive oil or sprinkle with grated parm and broil or toast to melt. Some people who don't like a dish full of beans will go for them in a salad. The Christmas lima, beet and quinoa salad from Rancho Gordo's cookbook is really good, with or without the avocado. Finally, the black bean seems to be a gateway bean for many. The black bean chili from the Greens cookbook is so, so flavorful and can be served as a soup, a spread or smashed onto a quesadilla or crusty bread.

That menu was a fun read - thanks for sharing! I know ! But with a menu like that, I like to share the burden with my liver and wash it down with a beer or some wine but I don't see anything alcoholic listed under "Beverages" Well, you might spy a little green on the fried okra if there was a gap in the batter or breading, not to mention the jalapeño popper

You want the pan or the flan?

Wow! Great score - I'd go back, too!

Toasties! Toasted ciabatta topped with sautéed zucchini, mushrooms and onion, farmers market tomato and grated Vella Golden Bear Dry Monterey Jack.

What other spirits do you like for mixing cocktails? If you like gin cocktails, Intro to Aperol is a good one to try. If you like tequila, try Cuatro Naranjas If bourbon is your favorite, the Paper Plane is delicious (though it does call for Amaro Nonino, which is not super common and a little expensive but worth looking for) If you have a favorite Campari cocktail, maybe a Negroni, you can try substituting Aperol or using a 1:1 mix of Aperol and Campari. There may be other ideas in this older Aperol thread: Aperol in the US

Perhaps this: Breville Control Freak

Rummaging in the fridge turned up a couple of hard boiled eggs and some hot dog buns in the freezer that are unlikely to see a hot dog anytime soon. Inspired by @rotuts recent egg salad breakfasts, I did the same. Egg salad with crisp bacon crumbles on a lightly toasted roll with some lovely backyard tomatoes from a friend: I remembered this egg salad recipe that called out blue cheese as the "secret ingredient" so there's a just a bit of blue cheese in there, too.

My first thought on seeing Cotton Candy grapes at the market was - YUCK! I don't want to eat cotton-y grapes! In fact, the texture is not cotton-y at all. As the article @Yiannos linked to describes, they taste very sweet and have distinct flavor profile, similar to cotton candy and without much acid or sour flavor. I applaud the efforts to introduce or re-introduce more flavorful grapes to our markets since most of commonly available grocery store grapes are pretty tasteless. Personally, I prefer the varieties that have a bit more tartness, like the Thomcord (a seedless hybrid between the Thompson seedless and the seeded Concord grape. I like the pronounced grape-y flavor of them but so far, I only see them at my local farmers markets, while the Cotton Candy variety seems to be at all the grocery stores these days. I'm afraid the buying public has been trained to expect sweet, but otherwise flavorless grapes. At least the Cotton Candy grapes have a bit more flavor.

I've also had good success with the pot-in-pot method for small amounts of rice. For a cup of rice, I use a glass pyrex bowl. Back in this post, I also tried a small volume (~1/4 cup) of TJ's brown rice medley in a small Corningware dish. Both containers were placed in the pot uncovered and in both cases, I rinsed, but did not soak the rice, and used an equal volume of rice and water (plus 2 cups of water in the pot) and the same cooking times I use for larger volumes (for this brown rice, I use 23 minutes, manual, high pressure.) Picture from the old post showing the 1/4 cup rice + water ready to go into the IP on the left and the 1 cup volume already cooked in the pyrex bowl on the right.

I think the percentage will vary depending on the heat stability of the nutrient being measured, the cooking time and temp and characteristics of the vegetable that would encourage plant fluids to either "leak" into the cooking liquid or be retained in the vegetable. Exactly. As this article concludes, "Vegetables, pretty much any way you prepare them, are good for you,..."

You're on the right track. Cooking with less water, for a shorter time will preserve more nutrients so steaming is better than boiling and microwaving (with little added water) is even better.

Did your emails to them bounce back? They have a Facebook page with recent posts that lists this phone #: (802) 365-1056

My understanding is that the benefits would accrue primarily to the food service industry as it would enable them to package those bagged sliced apples without relying on the more expensive inert gas packaging that @Lisa Shock mentioned. Cut apple slices for restaurant salads or buffets could be prepared hours ahead without the need to bathe them in acidulated water or the like that affects flavor. The slices will still dry out, shrivel, lose their fresh appearance and eventually rot so the benefit is likely in terms of hours to a day for restaurants and days to weeks for packaged sliced fruits. The company also says that the non-browning apples won't display the superficial bruising that occurs during picking and packing and they promote that as a benefit to farmers, wholesalers and stores who currently suffer losses due to blemished fruit. It's not going to prevent fruit damage caused by hail and harsh weather, insects, fungus, or other diseases. The company, Okanagan Specialty Fruits, already has varieties of these GMO non-browning apples approved for sale in the US, the "Arctic Golden" variety of Golden Delicious and the "Arctic Granny" variety of Granny Smith but there's been significant anti-GMO backlash against them resulting in several companies who sell lots of those pre-sliced apples (McDonalds, Wendy's, Gerber, others) pledging not to use them. Several apple growing groups have expressed concerns that if production of GMO apples becomes widespread, other countries may ban import of all US apples.

Reading @chefmd and @rotuts comments about dried kalamata olives over on the TJ's thread made me want to open up the packet I bought yesterday. So breakfast was this plate of nibbles: Grape tomatoes, toasted ciabatta, Greek sheep's milk feta and those olives.