blue_dolphin

My curiosity was piqued by a couple of Manitoulin cocktailians who made this recently over here so I tried an Arsenic and Old Lace for an after dinner drink. Very interesting to watch the color in the glass shift and change.

Thank you. Makes perfect sense as I've gotten some cooked-on rice when cooking (usually small amounts) in the pot, while the pot-in-pot method works better, though timing is sometimes different.

I do hope it results in writing as entertaining as your "Roti John" description, which entertained me entirely!

Beet greens are a treat! I usually do the same as @HungryChris described. Sometimes I blanch them first. If there are a lot of bigger stems, I'll slice them on the diagonal and add them to the pan with the garlic so they can cook a bit before adding the leaves. The best treat of all are the row thinnings, with tiny baby beets attached to fresh greens that can cook together in a pan with plenty of butter. Oh my !

Yes, I noticed that the recipe actually included cleaning instructions!

@rotuts, I know you were asking @DianaB about the UK Aldi selections but you can see some of the US wine offerings here on the Aldi website. I don't see any labels I recognize there. But if you click on the "Handpicked Wine just for California" link, there are quite a few well known brands. No prices. Apparently I will have to go to the store and report back.

Your brunch polenta was already fabulous but this one is even more over the top. Thank you for recommending the polenta method over on hippressurecooking.com. I've got to give this a try. I also tried that recipe for caramelized onions. I ended up with a large amount of liquid after the pressure cooking step and it took such a long period of stirring on the Sauté function (almost 40 minutes) that the onions had pretty much turned into a paste. I was disappointed as I'd been expecting onions, not onion purée and the claim of "caramelized onions in 30 minutes" turned out to be bogus in my hands. However, I froze it in ice cube trays and it's been great to thaw out a cube or two and get that great caramelized flavor in an instant. Smeared on a flatbread, sprinkled with grated cheese and broiled - yum!

Hmmmmm. No dragons left to guard them?

A tale of two cheesecakes.... I made the recipe on the back of the springform pan label for a gathering on Saturday. I followed @Shelby's advice and baked the crust in the Cuisi oven, main cook in the IP and back in Cuisi to bake the top layer. It was a hit at the party. For this 6" pan, I'd scale down the filling a bit so it's not so tall. Also, the Frito crust didn't hold together at all and ended up like a layer of sand on the bottom. I'd put a round of parchment paper on the bottom so I was still able to transfer it to the platter easily but next time I will add a little egg white or parmesan cheese to see if that will help it hold together. Of course, a "next time" will mean buying more Velveeta and there's no telling where that might lead ... Yesterday, I used the half package of cream cheese and some ricotta I'd also made in the IP to make a half batch of these Limoncello Ricotta Cheesecakes. Half the recipe yielded 3 little custard cups: Nice flavor, not too sweet or too rich. I'll make this again, with the full recipe in the springform pan. I used biscotti as specified for the crust but I'd like to try using TJ's Triple Ginger Snaps instead.

Thanks for the link to this work. I love maps I could spend hours and hours looking at the various iterations from this project.

Honestly, @Norm Matthews, in this heat, I couldn't fathom the appeal of a cassoulet....but after looking at your photos and reading your description, I really, really want some. Right now! @rarerollingobject, what a deliciously moody photo of what must have been a delicious treat!

It's always the ones that you don't see that get you ! Might this be another one? And thanks for the reminder to try an Eeyores's Requiem. I braved the heat to go outside and pick an orange off my tree ( <- that's some salt for @Tri2Cook.) I didn't know quite what to think after the first sip but by the second, I'm a big fan! Big kudos for taking on that goose in the middle of the summer - you deserve all the drinks!

The Cuisinart steam oven steam-bake function at 425 generally does a beautiful job with frozen breaded items of any sort, fish included. You can get a crispy, nicely browned exterior without over-drying.

That looks absolutely fabulous!

I'd make a composed grilled-steak salad. Cut the brussels sprouts in half, cut potatoes (skin-on) into similar sized pieces, slice onion into thick half-moons. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast (separately) until veg are cooked and edges are nicely browned. Prepare a red-wine or balsamic vinaigrette and toss the roasted veg with some of the vinaigrette while they are still warm. Hold at room temp while steak is grilled. Dress salad greens very lightly with the dressing and arrange on a platter or individual plates. Grill steak and cut diagonally into strips. Arrange the roasted veg, steak and tomatoes on top of the greens. Ideally, top with crumbled blue cheese, feta or shaved parmesan, romano or dry jack. Serve additional dressing on the side.

I should have noted that this laboratory routinely pre-cooks bacon in the oven, wraps it in paper towel and stores it in a zip-top bag in the fridge, Always at the ready for eggs-periments such as this. After taking the "Materials" photo, the slice of bacon pictured went into the MW for 20 sec to make it pliable, then was fitted into the muffin cup that already contained the cheese-topped toasted bread round. Next, the sautéed vegetables were placed inside the bacon ring. I was unable to craft the exact sort of ingenious egg-yolk-support system that the CI people made for their baked eggs florentine. This was due in part to the smaller size of the muffin tin (~2.5" at "egg level" with some of that space taken up by the bacon) vs the larger (3.5") ramekin and to the fact that their smooth spinach/shallot/half & half/parmesan mixture was much more uniform and moldable in consistency than my more rustic mushroom/spinach/onion sauté. In the Cuisi steam oven, total time was 5 min with the toast, mushroom/spinach/onion mixture and bacon plus another 8 min after adding the cold egg, so a total of 13 min, 400 F, steam-bake. Sorry for the less than detailed Methods section. Perhaps the author should have taken the reviewer's advice to complete the additional eggs-periment prior to release of today's data. Of course, then it might even warrant publication in a higher quality journal !

Oh man, @Ashen, I want to plant my face in that picture of your breakfast. I hope it's OK if I also request a small side order of @HungryChris's zucchini. Today's eggs-periment. See previous post and following comments for background. Materials: Method: Toasted bread round in the bottom of a buttered muffin cup, topped with a bit of cheese and some sautéed mushroom, onion and spinach (that mixture to go into a quiche, to be described elsewhere). Steam-bake at 400 F for 5 min before adding the egg, then another ~ 8 min. Results. Crispy bacon, toast crispy on the bottom, soft yolk. Discussion: The CI eggs Florentine article suggested mounding the spinach in the center of the cup so the yolk would sit up in the middle and the white would spread out. That didn't really work in these small muffin cups - the yolk slid off to the side of the little veg pile so it had rather the reverse effect, with the yolk along the edge cooking more rapidly than the white in the center. The yolk could be a bit runnier but unless additional toast is served alongside, there would be no way to contain it so this is deemed acceptable from the perspective of this reviewer. This reviewer acknowledges a significant improvement but recommends an additional eggs-periment to obtain a more centered yolk.

Thanks for the update. Sounds like a great visit. I was thinking of you on Thursday as I think that's when you said your foraging session would take place and it was hot, hot, hot. I hope you went out early!

What fun popsicles, Shelby! I love the kiwi in there, too! If you google Baileys coffee popsicles or just Baileys popsicles, you'll get some good ideas, including some two layer versions. Some used regular brewed coffee and some used instant coffee or espresso powder. One of them mixed Bailey's, nutella and milk - no coffee, but sounds pretty decadent! I read a guideline that recommended keeping the total alcohol content of the pops at or below the 8-10% range to avoid freezing issues. So for hard liquors in the 80-100 proof range (40-50% alcohol), you can add ~ 1/5 or 20% of those beverages to your mix. Bailey's is 17% alcohol so you could add more and with wine, you can go up to 1/3 to 1/2 of your mix, depending on the alcohol content of the wine. I tend to stay below the maximum recommended amounts because not only do the high test versions take longer to freeze, they also melt very quickly so you have to eat them fast or risk wearing them on your shirt ! In lieu of making coffee this AM, I had a Vietnamese iced coffee pop. I might have another......

Creamy corn pasta with basil from the NYT. The creamy sauce is pretty much just sautéed corn and green onion whizzed up in the blender. My fresh corn was a very sweet, white kernel variety so not much visual contrast and the dish certainly needed the flavor contrast from the dried chili flakes and lemon juice but the fresh corn flavor really shines through.

Per the recipe, the bacon is pre-cooked to the point that you describe. I usually cook a full lb of bacon at a time in the oven and warm up leftovers in the MW. Knowing that I wanted to try this, the last time I cooked a batch, I cooked some less than my usual super crispy so it was in the fridge, ready to go. 20 sec in the MW made them nicely pliable, though I did need to shape them in the cups quickly as they firmed up rapidly as they cooled. Thanks for the link. I see they recommend the pre-cook step like @robirdstx suggested so that seems like a wise suggestion and I will follow it. Absolutely. All the variables of egg size and temp, bacon thickness and doneness, the exact volume and shape of any additional fillings (as described in the CI eggs florentine article), may make it entirely too much trouble. But they're so dang cute, I've got to play around with it just a bit !

Don't they look cute! I'm a little concerned that the bacon wouldn't stay in the "cup" shape without the egg but if you used the mushrooms or tomato on top of the bread, that might do it. Because of all the cautions about burning the bacon I was afraid it would burn before the egg was cooked so I put the eggs in a cup of warm water to take the chill off before breaking them into the muffin tins. It's possible that just using a fridge-temp egg, plus the extra volume of some mushrooms or other veg may slow down the egg cooking enough. I can try both for my next experiment. The other thing I did differently was using only one slice of bacon. It was long enough to overlap nicely and I think two full slices of the particular bacon I used would have been too much. But having the extra volume might slow down the egg cooking.

A while back, I saw these cute little Bacon & Egg Muffins online. Aware of the folly of someone who is a fiend for crispy bacon, runny yolks and perfect toast attempting to cook all three items together, the cuteness factor overruled common sense and I decided to give them a try. First pass here: The recipe had strong cautions about over cooking the bacon so I kept a close eye on them through the glass but should have pulled them out to check the eggs as they are sadly overcooked. The recipe called for 15 - 20 min at 400 degF. This was 15 min, 400 degF, steam-bake in the Cuisi steam oven. The bacon was perfect and crispy. I pre-toasted the bread rounds and put a thin layer of Boursin on top to try to prevent it from getting too soggy and I think that was a good idea. The bread wasn't super crisp but not soggy either. The recipe recommended medium eggs so I bought a half dozen at the farmers market yesterday so I can give this 2 more tries to see if I can do better with the eggs. The recipe suggested a layer of sautéed mushrooms or a slice of tomato under the egg so I'll try something along those lines for the next one.

This is good to know. My CSO doesn't have that plug, so I assume there is no way to drain off any accumulated sediment or particulates. I wonder if they added it because that could be an issue? My water is not as bad as some places but is still on the hard side so perhaps I should follow @rotuts and use filtered water to fill the reservoir.

I know what you mean - I'm mostly cooking just for myself so I struggle to scale back and avoid over buying. And honestly, while I said the local market is smaller than the big guys, there is still a very good variety here, just not as overwhelming. I'll also try to take some photos next week. Tomatoes are really magnificent now. Melons and stone fruits, too.