blue_dolphin

Ditto!

I suspect this has been discussed in previous iterations of "eG goes to Manitoulin" but I was wondering how your provision costs compare to prices you are familiar with in the Toronto area. Are prices higher across the board or does it vary for different categories or items? I was thinking about this yesterday when I went to the local liquor store here in small town northern NY and paid $33 for a 750 ml bottle of Campari vs $20.99 on special at Hi Time Wine back in So Cal - I really wanted a Negroni ! They were selling a handle of Beefeater's for $46.99 (vs $19.99 at my local Total Wine) but also had Laird's 100-proof at $23.99, less than my local price of $29.99. The 375 ml bottle of Carpano Antica was $15.99, about the same as at home.

I use the Fishing Vessel St. Jude tuna that @Dianabanana recommended in this post, upthread. Nice solid pieces of tuna, sustainably caught, cooked once (in the can). Looks just like the photo on their website. I usually order 27 cans to fill a box and get the 10% discount. Shipping adds 66 cents/can, to my address anyway. Last year, they offered a free shipping promotion around the holidays. I appreciate that the big brands are trying to maximize yields and minimize waste but the methods they have chosen (precooking and blasting every scrap of meat off the fish) seriously degrade the product and adding a salty, soy-containing vegetable broth does nothing to repair the damage.

Toasted English muffin, cheddar cheese, sautéed mushrooms, onion and zucchini topped with a too-poached egg:

Yes, same here. I also get quite a few Amazon deliveries via OnTrac, a regional delivery service. They're the only ones who leave stuff at my back door, rather than the front. Back on topic, I'm glad that you like the CSO toast, @lindag! I love my CSO but I don't have a Breville and I would have been wary of recommending the purchase of a second small-size oven. I'll be interested in hearing more as you get using the CSO more.

I have a smallish cast iron fry pan that fits in the CSO. I use it for chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on), so I can transfer it to the stovetop and use the browned bits to make a pan sauce if I want.

I've never had a Slurpee and always meant to take advantage of the annual 7/11 freebie sometime. I'm away from home at the moment and the website tells me the nearest 7-Eleven is 143 miles away so alas, another 7/11 will pass without a Slurpee for me! Maybe I will swing by Stewart's for some Adirondack Bear Paw ice cream instead.

No light here. I've greatly amused my guests by strapping on a headlamp to go outside for fresh rosemary

I have this stainless mesh basket that I purchased to use as a steamer insert for the Instant Pot. If I put the CSO wire shelf in the lower position, that basket will fit. I assume this is for steam only as food in the bottom of the basket would be quite close to the lower heating elements.

The things one learns on eG !

Out of the things you bought, I've only tried the shrimp nuggets. As @rotuts reported above, they crisped up nicely in the Cuisi steam oven. I liked them. They'd be nice to keep on hand for impromptu happy hour visitors but I'd know they were in the freezer and eat them all myself ! I think I bought the frozen sweet corn when I needed it for something. Sort of a generic commodity item but I keep the roasted corn kernels on hand all the time as I use them in bean salads, black bean salsa and other dishes. I'd never noticed the shrimp toasts before you mentioned them but I picked up a box last time I was there. I agree that I could probably eat the whole box in one go!

Lunch feast. Old school macaroni salad with leftover roasted chicken (plenty of celery for crunch and for @rotuts ), deviled eggs, sliced tomato, avocado and corn. I suspect the above plate has taken care of dinner as well.

Thank you. It really was a treat. I could appreciate the flavor of each ingredient separately and the combination, too. I'm always teased by photos of beautiful grilled stone fruits at this time of year but lacking a grill, I haven't been able to try my hand at them. Cuisi steam oven to the rescue - obviously not a grill, but a way to get that caramelized fruit flavor without heating up the big oven so I'm looking forward to trying other variations too.

I bet the mascarpone (especially very nice mascarpone) & hot honey would be delightful. Although that freshly made ricotta is a lovely thing. I'm always looking for ways to use it and I might just give it an edge over some of the mediocre supermarket mascarpone I've gotten around here. Oh yes -so many good ideas! I was tempted to add some rosemary to the honey and lemon juice I brushed on the nectarines and sweeten the ricotta with honey but since I went into the kitchen after a quick chicken sandwich and ended up making a chicken pasta salad, deviled eggs and broiled nectarines, I figured I should just eat breakfast before it got to be lunchtime !

So I went into the kitchen thinking to pick the meat off the last roasted chicken thighs and make a sandwich with avocado and tomato. That's what I had for breakfast yesterday but didn't photograph. Then decided to make the chicken into a salad. While chopping the celery and onions, I thought maybe a pasta salad would be nice. So I cooked the pasta and some eggs for deviled eggs to go with. Everything is nicely chilling but not there yet so apparently that will be lunch. What about breakfast? Hmmm.....how about some honey broiled nectarines? With homemade whole milk ricotta, on toast and not, drizzled with a little more hot honey: Edited to add: after taking the photo, I went and added some of the sweet spicy walnuts I posted about yesterday. Ahhhh. The perfect complement!

I refrained from comment on the above post. Can I assume that this (sans toppings) is what you meant by "bake it naked"? Not entirely sure what goes on up there !

Some nibbles. Sweet & Spicy Walnuts, 3 ways. Clockwise from upper left are crispy lemon candied walnuts, spicy orange candied walnuts and @JAZ's spicy sweet walnuts. The spicy sweet walnuts are delicious as always. The lemon walnuts are quite nice with a delicate lemon flavor. The orange version was pretty much a bust. I don't think the orange syrup added anything more than some bitterness. Perhaps the citrus flavor was masked by the cayenne. I dunno, but I was disappointed as I'd hoped they would be more interesting. Over on Serious Eats, Stella's been touting a lemon syrup made from leftover juiced lemon rinds and used it to make citrus candied pistachios. After juicing some nice big lemons to make hummus the other day, I decided to give it a try and made lemon and orange versions of the syrup. The lemon is nice. The orange yielded much less syrup from the same weight of peels and it was more bitter and less fragrant as well. Perhaps that was due to the citrus that I used. The oranges were fresh off my tree and had sweet juice but they were small fruits. I wouldn't go too far out of my way to make these syrups again, but maybe if I'm making limoncello I'd go for another round. Syrups in hand, I went ahead and used both to make a small batch of candied walnuts. I followed the general method for the spicy sweet walnuts because I think that initial bath in boiling water hydrates the walnuts so the sugar syrup coats them more evenly and allows them to withstand enough baking time to cook the syrup without burning. I included cayenne in the orange as I thought the orange-spice combo would be nice and I tossed the lemon version in confectioners sugar as in the Serious Eats version.

Another Anova amusement: The Anova made an appearance in an NYTimes tech column from last month, "Devices That Deserve to Go Along on Vacation" I laughed to see a piece of kitchen gear pictured in the suitcase illustration along with the usual collection of phones/tablets/drives/sticks.

@lindag, the 11 inch diameter version of these aluminum pizza screens works well in the CSO. The 12 inch is just a bit too big.

In honor of the holiday, I tried the frozen G&T recipe featured over on Serious Eats. I'd been meaning to try the Small Hand tonic syrup and figured this was as good an excuse as any to pick up a bottle. I expected this to be a fail as I consider carbonation to be a key ingredient in a G&T. For a slushy drink, this was surprisingly and unmistakably a G&T. 3 ounces Beefeaters (instead of Hendrick's) 1 ounce Small Hand Foods tonic syrup 0.5 ounce 2X simple syrup 2 dashes orange bitters 1.5 ounces fresh juice Mix the above and chill in freezer for 1 hr, then into the blender with plenty of ice. This makes 2 drinks of the size pictured. I drank both of them. It's a holiday.

I'd read about the new features and they sound good. I really like that they added them to the base model without a price change instead of rolling out a new-improved-pricier version. Yes, listen to @kayb and cave. Or just wait for a deal and then pounce on it. If you find a pressure cooker at all useful, but maybe not always worth the fiddling to adjust the heat and start timing, then you will love the IP. I'm personally responsible for at least 5 IP purchases among my friends and they are all happy with them.

I would like one hot dog, but 70 ? I wouldn't even want to watch! I went to a family holiday celebration over the weekend with grilled burgers and all the fixins. Neighborhood little kids parade this morning, followed by a pancake breakfast that I skipped. I'm thinking I might try my hand at some of these frozen gin & tonics later......

That's good advice. I've been rather mystified by these little fruits and wanted to check and see if they were edible at all so I picked some to have a look-see. I was pleasantly surprised that they were OK and not terribly bitter but also wondering what to do with the little guys. Not a great photo due to the angle of the sun but you can see there are plenty of fruits there: I'll give them some more time.

The other day, @liamsaunt posted a fabulous looking Spanglish sandwich over on the Dinner thread. Although I saw the movie and a search reveals multiple mentions of it here on eG, this sandwich never registered with me. Maybe I thought the BLT was perfect the way it is and adding a runny fried egg and melted cheese was too much over the top. Perhaps, but it's also extremely delicious: I'm out of lettuce so I added some slices of avocado for a green component which just added to the over-the-top-ness of the whole thing. And the messiness ! I will try this again when there is lettuce in the house but this one will be pretty hard to top!

Very pretty! I like the ice cube idea. Eating a lukewarm soup that should be served quite cold is much worse to me than one that should be hot.