blue_dolphin

One more IP data point to report - Israeli-style couscous. After I made the IP pork roast with peaches and prosciutto that I mentioned above, I also used the IP to cook the Trader Joe's "Harvest Grains" blend (Israeli style couscous, orzo, baby garbanzos and red quinoa) that I served along with it. Stove top cooking time per the package is 10 min and I was debating what to use when I found this: Pressure Cooker Israeli Couscous describing the exact product and recommending a cooking time of 5 minutes. I cooked half a package + 1 1/4 cups of chicken broth in a pyrex casserole dish (pot-in-pot method) on manual, high pressure for 5 min. Perfect! Probably could have steamed the broccoli in the IP as well but it was just as easy to do that in the microwave.

That sounds good. I have this version of a roasted corn chowder marked to try so I appreciate the reminder to get on with it! I figured I'd just do the first step of making the corn cob broth under pressure and then either switch to a regular pot or use the IP sauté function for the rest.

More leftovers, with poached egg: Leftover couscous-grain mix, broccoli, diced pork roast and poached egg.

Over on the Instant Pot thread, I reported making a "Hasselback" roast pork loin with peaches, prosciutto and sage. I've been enjoying leftover pork sandwiches on some little slider rolls. Most were picked up off the cutting board and consumed in a few bites. I took a moment to document one of them today: The rolls were toasted and spread with whole grain mustard and some red bell pepper and ancho chili jam. Below the roast pork, you can make out a bit of the roast peach slice in the center and if you look closely, you can see the very thin piece of prosciutto on top of the pork.

I thought it looked sort of bubbly ! It's been over 90 here during the day but the last 2 nights have been even cooler than usual. Had my breakfast coffee HOT! 7 AM = 55 10 AM = 75

Yay! How nice to have company here in popsicle-land! Strawberry & cream sounds lovely. I was thinking of trying a raspberry & cream version next. Or maybe pineapple & jalapeño? I may have to start going around the neighborhood selling these things to make room in my freezer for more ! Cucumber, elderflower and tequila pops: Basic recipe is from the people's pops cookbook. I substituted elderflower liqueur for the elderflower syrup called for and dialed back the tequila a bit. I also reserved and diced some of the cucumber so there are little cubes scattered throughout the pops.

I like the candlelight part !

You have no idea how tough - I have 3 more of those roasted peach popsicles but that was the last of the bourbon !

Hot here today. Cooling down with a roasted peach & bourbon popsicle with a little more Elijah Craig for dipping:

It was Manitoulin indeed:Link

Over on hippressurecooking.com, I saw a recipe for Hasselback Pork Roast with Apples, Coppa and Sage. Looked and sounded really good but also really wintery. Instead I made this. Hasselback Pork Roast with Peaches, Prosciutto and Sage: The first step was to brown all sides but after I took it out of the Instant Pot and removed the string and skewers, I thought it could still use a little cosmetic work so I brushed the top with some ancho chili jam (too bad there was none of last year's peach and jalapeño jam) and popped it into the Cuisi steam oven for a quick broil. Not at all the sort of thing that I would usually cook but I figured it would make some nice sandwiches so it shouldn't go to waste.

Yes, that is the traditional way (ha!) of making ricotta. Much of the supermarket ricotta in the US is labeled whole milk ricotta. Also correct. As @Anna N pointed out, the curd form of fresh Indian cheese, chenna (which is used directly in dishes like Ras Malai) is further pressed under a weight to make paneer. I usually refer to the stuff I make as homemade whole milk ricotta to make it clear that I'm not using whey and because I generally use it in recipes that call for ricotta. "Homemade fresh whole milk cheese" would be more technically correct nomenclature, I suppose.

A few years ago I decided I needed to get a handle on things. I used FitDay. After I got a Fitbit activity tracker, I switched to their system. Both of them allow you to choose from a range of serving measurements, depending on the particular food. Most of these trackers pull from multiple databases for both basic foods (from USDA and other sources) and data on commercially packaged foods from various manufacturers and restaurant meals from every chain under the sun so search results can get pretty overwhelming. I tended to be cooking my own meals and entering the individual ingredients that I used but sometimes I found it helpful to be able to choose a particular brand of cracker or the like. In my experience, it's a pain to enter things in the beginning but once you get comfortable with the interface and how search results are sorted it gets easier to find what you want. Most of these trackers keep your "recently entered" foods in a list that can be accessed quickly. Once you've gotten over the hurdle of entering a few weeks of meals, it's easy to choose items you eat often from that list. I also found it helpful to create "custom foods" for some things that I ate often, like a breakfast smoothie with a bunch of different ingredients. Good luck finding something that works for you. I used FitDay regularly for about a year and found it to be a useful tool but I'm a scientist and tend to be data-driven. I know that not everyone gets as jazzed about numbers and graphs as I do !

I appreciated re-reading this LA Times piece, written by eG member @russ parsons back in 2006: The maestro in my kitchen

There were 2 big, ripe peaches in the house this morning and I decided to make peach & jalapeño pops from the people's pops cookbook. I put the peaches in the Cuisi steam oven to roast and made the jalapeño-infused simple syrup but when I took the roasted peaches out of the oven, they began calling out for bourbon. Loudly and distinctly. Bourbon! And it wasn't even 9 AM! So I turned the page in the cookbook and made these roasted peach & bourbon pops: Like the roasted plum pops above, these have a dense, almost creamy texture. I ate one already and plan to have another this evening with a little glass of Elijah Craig to sip. The jalapeño-infused simple syrup will wait in the fridge for another fruit to come along.

No, it's just a lazy person's tool! One of the functions of the yogurt setting on the Instant Pot is to bring the milk up to temp, then it beeps so the lazy person can go waste time reading 10-year old threads on eG instead of standing over the stove with a thermometer. Once it beeps, the lazy person just removes the insert from the pot so it doesn't continue to cook, adds the acid, stirs gently and strains the finished product just as one would do if the milk was warmed in a regular pot.

I'm guilty of spamming the breakfast thread with my random ricotta-on-toast pictures . I use the same method that @Tere mentioned above and make it in the Instant Pot. I throw in some heavy cream or half & half if there's some in need of using up. I've been using lime juice, just because I have a tree that usually has lots of them but I've used lemon juice or vinegar as well. I've been meaning to try citric acid but haven't done it yet.

Kinda wish I had some leftover potato salad for breakfast. There's just one potato in the cabinet. I guess I could make a small serving !

I was just searching for local dates and found this 2016 location listing from Melissa's - they're all over the damn place!

I figure any appliance labeled "smart" has the useful life of a cell phone. Perhaps that's the expected life span of "durable goods" these days but it's not what I want, and I keep cell phones way longer than average.

I noticed that one of the colors on offer for the GIR Ultimate is "Bacon"

I think it was last week when @Shelby was making some marinated eggplant which got me thinking of caponata. I was shortly sucked into this great thread on the Cooking and Cuisine of Sicily. Gotta go back and finish re-reading that one before I get sucked into something else ! Edited to add: If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, do a search for "Cooking and Cuisine of" and you will find a wealth of Italian regional cookery threads started by @Kevin72. So good! A Year of Italian Cooking thread index

Amazon has the Instant Pot silicone sealing ring on sale today for $6.99

I find most value judgements to be very individual and subjective but if one wishes to pay to read the Cooks Illustrated article on these jar spatulas, one can see they tested a bunch of similar offerings and found some too long, too short, too rigid, too flimsy, with handles that separated or were too slippery, some were good for jar corners but not sides and the reverse and some were permanently discolored by red sauce - one reason to buy red ones ! Sadly, they didn't test the brand that you mentioned but I think it pretty much covers what factors differentiate the many similar offerings. I'll also note that when the article was published (March 2015), the top rated jar spatula that @lindag mentioned was $12.95. A $5.95 OXO model and the iSi Basics model ($11.20) were also highly recommended.