blue_dolphin

I'm thinking that @Tropicalsenior may be speaking of Plattsburg, MO. I grew up in Plattsburgh, NY and did my time working at the local McDonalds, serving many Canadian shoppers and beach-side campers.

I second @C. sapidus's suggestion to investigate IKEA cabinets. My house came with an IKEA kitchen, installed just before I purchased it in 2009. It's held up very well. They have a lot of good organizer units that fit inside their cabinets and drawers, a very good on-line design tool for planning and can certainly be installed by a handy homeowner with sufficient time and a good helper. My personal complaint is that my seller chose cherry finish, Shaker-style cabinets, which clash horribly with my mid-century modern home. The seller's agent couldn't stop apologizing for the kitchen!. Not a disaster, as there are a lot of companies like Semihandmade and others that make cabinet, drawer fronts and trim pieces for IKEA kitchens if their options don't suit your preferences. Along with the recommendation to inventory for cabinet planning, if you need a new dishwasher, absolutely bring some of your most-used dishes when you got shopping to make sure they fit. I use a lot of pasta bowls and they don't always fit efficiently. Lighting that not consistent in color temp annoys me greatly so I'd want to make sure it's all going to work from ceiling fixtures to recessed cans to under-cabinet fixtures and that under-cabinet lighting is very key for me. A kitchen re-fresh was at the top of my list when I ended up leaving my job earlier than expected to care for my mom. I still want to do it one of these days!

These were frozen, raw shrimp. I rinsed them briefly to get rid of the ice coating, patted dry and put them on mostly frozen. It’s a bit of a balancing act, depending on the size of the shrimp, thickness of the dough and oven temp so they get cooked but don’t turn into erasers. I've sometimes used frozen, cooked shrimp and put them on part way so they just get nice and hot but not overcooked.

Used the rest of my TJ's pizza dough blob to make this one: Pesto, shrimp, red bell pepper, red onion and feta.

Leftovers for breakfast can be a good thing. Yesterday's breakfast was the leftovers from the previous day's lunch: Today's breakfast was a halibut sando with some of the slaw from yesterday's lunch. I saved the beaten egg and seasoned panko from yesterday so it was quick and easy to coat and sauté another piece of fish.

Thanks! I followed the book recipe for seasoned panko (onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, S & P) Dipped the fish in beaten egg, then the panko and sautéed in avocado oil.

Ditto that!

Riffing on a recipe in Nik Sharma's Veg-Table for Chicken Katsu with Poppy Seed Coleslaw, I subbed a piece of halibut from this week's fish share for the chicken. The slaw has cabbage, red bell pepper, apple, scallions and cilantro, dressed with rice vinegar, maple syrup, poppy seeds, Aleppo pepper and black pepper and worked well with the fish.

Also curious what makes it a good double boiler but reviewers on Amazon seem to like it for melting chocolate in the microwave. I guess you could easily remove leftover chocolate by letting it cool, then flexing the bowl to release.

Welcome to eG, @puzzledcook! I'd say you should be looking for a 3 to 4 quart saucepan. Would something like this Farberware (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) saucepan work? Or is it crucial that the width (here, 7.18 inches) exactly match the 7.5 inch rim on your silicone bowl?

I don't have a Breville but I do the same thing with convection in my CSO and I use a pizza screen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) instead of a baking sheet to improve air circulation and make turning or flipping unnecessary. The small size of the CSO is a benefit here because it only needs a few min to pre-heat. I have struggled to understand how much better a dedicated air fryer would be for the sorts of things that I cook regularly.

One day when I was sick recently, I had a notion that a pepperoni pizza would taste good so the other day when I went to TJ's I picked up a blob of their pizza dough and some pepperoni. Today, I used half of the dough, sauce from the freezer, mozz, pep and made myself this little 10-incher.

I'm another farro fan. I love the chewy texture. I use it mostly in salads/grain bowls but also in soups or as a simple side. This cabbage and farro soup, adapted from Josh McFadden's Six Seasons is super easy, very warming and comforting.

This was my most minimal version for lazy people. Put some kimchi and kimchi juice in a bowl. Use kitchen shears to chop it up fairly finely right in the bowl to avoid a stinky cutting board and wastage of kimchi juice. Add mayo to make a dressing. Can be mostly mayo with a little kimchi or mostly kimchi with a little mayo. Toss with finely sliced cabbage of any sort. That's it. Less minimal would include julienne carrots, multiple types of cabbage, or even Brussels sprouts, thinly sliced green onions, sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, gochugaru, etc. but minimal gets the job done. Today's lunch. Spaghetti with tomato sauce and hot Italian sausage. Hit the spot.

A small dish of ACV with a drop or two of dish soap makes a fine trap for fruit flies.

Salmon sando with red cabbage kimchi slaw

@gfron1, this is more Singaporean than Chinese but have you looked at Christopher Tan's books, The Way of Kueh: Savoring & Saving Singapore's Heritage Desserts, Nerd Baker: Extraordinary Recipes, Stories & Baking Adventures from a True Oven Geek and his most recent, Nerd Baker 2: Tales from the Yeast Indies or reached out to him with your query? He's @thewayofkueh on Instagram and seems like he might be receptive to such a question. Edited to add that I started following him on IG a couple of years ago, when Elizabeth Haigh's cookbook, Makan, was withdrawn amid charges of plagiarism. I don't recall whether his work was involved or he was just speaking out at the time but he's been interesting to follow.

First cup of coffee of the new year! Toasted English muffin with peanut butter & banana and prunes

First thing I've cooked this year, actually made a couple of days ago but it's the breakfast that keeps on giving 🤣. InstantPot apple cinnamon steel-cut oats with a sprinkle of sweet-spicy pecans. I used this recipe, that starts with toasting the oats in a bit of butter before adding the liquid. I omitted the brown sugar but subbed a cup of TJ's spicy cider for some of the water. I tend to more savory breakfasts but this was pleasantly warming.

I've got a lot of limes falling off my tree and am planning to try this dupe of Roses lime marmalade. I may have to do the chopping in stages but that should be fine. A few years ago, I made and very much enjoyed David Lebovitz's pink grapefruit marmalade and I should make another batch this year. There's a farmer at my local farmers market who grows Seville-type oranges and will bring them to market on request. Haven't been up to going to the market lately but I'll try to hit him up next week. Later in the season, I'll go up to the Ojai farmers market some Sunday AM for some of the more speciality citrus varieties. I know you've got this sorted out, or nearly so, but I'm curious about your comment that no matter what temp you use, it doesn't set. I always use David Lebovitz's guidelines of 218ºF/103ºC and haven't failed to get a good set. What's the top temp you've targeted?

My plan was to make Accara, the West African fritters that, similar to falafel, are made with soaked beans, ground, seasoned, shaped, fried and served with a dipping sauce. If I don’t feel up to making the fritters, I’ll at least cook up a little dish of BEP!

My oven goes to 550°F when I'm making pizza on a steel that's about 5 inches below the broiler. If I left the parchment in the whole time, the exposed edges would surely disintegrate. My parchment is unbleached so it starts out brown and gets browner but retains enough strength that I can pull it out from under the pizza after somewhere between 10-30 sec. I agree about giving it a try. It looks like one could pick up that ceramic stone by the handles and remove it from the oven quickly with sturdy mitts if it seemed like ignition was likely.

I'm not sure exactly what that is, how high the temps are or where the paper would be with respect to the heating elements but I sometimes do what you describe - shape the pizza on a piece of parchment on the peel, deposit it on the steel in the oven and pull the parchment out after about 5 sec.

Yes, thanks for the update, @HKDave! Coincidentally, I was listening to an interview with the father-son duo Jeffrey and Kevin Pang, who moved from Hong Kong to Canada years ago and now make YouTube cooking videos and have published a cookbook. The younger Pang described a dish of Hong Kong-Style Portuguese Chicken with origins in Macau: As you might expect, it’s quite different from the recipes you shared, no chile, no peanut, with curry powder and condensed chicken soup, but clearly a version with good memories for one family. Edited to add that their family recipe is at the interview link I shared above and here in their video:

The eggnog is not blue. Apparently I need better lighting in there by the fireplace. Since I was sipping the nog slowly, I placed 2 ice cubes into the glass to keep it cool and you can see one bobbing on top. I'll consider this creative advice and see what I can do though it sounds like a potential choking hazard!