blue_dolphin

I'm not sure I qualify as a creator of "unique recipes" but if I come up with something different, it's usually driven by a specific special ingredient (fresh seasonal fruit, a special chocolate, etc.) or a flavor combination that I want to highlight. I usually refer first to my cookbook collection, via Eat Your Books, then to the internet to see what looks similar. I evaluate these recipes for technique and scan the rough ratios of the ingredients used. Then I'll either pick one recipe to modify or sometimes a mash-up of several, using simple arithmetic or maybe the "Units" app on my phone to calculate any adjustments. It's pretty rare that I would pull something entirely "unique" out of thin air. I'm more of an editor than an inventor and perhaps that is why I don't quite understand how I would use this tool. Here's an example. You mentioned scones, so I assume they are in scope of the tool. I have some lovely white peaches and would like to make some scones that showcase the peaches and are flavored with fresh rosemary. Would your tool help in this sort of situation? It seems that you are looking for some feedback, some "tough hard questions" but you have been unwilling to define your target audience, a piece of information that would be helpful to to anyone who might test the system. In order to determine if any "bad results" were produced from the tool, it's rather necessary that the tester know what a "good" or "desired" result actually is. If my example above wasn't a good one, would you be willing to take us through your process of creating a recipe so we can understand how your find it useful?

Beautiful garden, @Wayne - love the garlic! I my garden, I'm usually more than two weeds late !

Oh man, I want to eat this sandwich right NOW!

Yes! The ability of that steam-bake function to revive bread is incredible. Ditto for any leftovers with a pastry crust like quiche.

I could do that. I'd avoided it due to the reported long lines but that Shake Shack is less than half a mile from where I get my hair cut so I'll keep that in mind for my next visit.

This thread is making me crave a burger, something that doesn't happen often. When it does, I go to Umami Burger. It's a chain, but a small one and out of scope for this thread because it's not fast either but I like the burgers and I can have a beer, too.

You can refer to the hot honey as "faff" all you want but lay off my PB - no way am I giving that up!

Modifying @liuzhou's breakfast recipe:

Leftover roasted chicken and potato salad with fresh tomato and corn from today's local farmers market. I didn't set out to cut the corn out of the photo, but unfortunately, it deserved it - it was sweet but tough, very disappointing.

A rice salad from leftover coconut brown rice and black beans + TJ's mango salsa, broccoli and lime vinaigrette. Leftover roast chicken thigh. The salad was OK but lacking something. Not sure what, but lacking.

Ahhhh! My favorite time of the year! I am very much looking forward to the resolution of technical difficulties and your reports!

Egg salad on multigrain toast with crumbled bacon. Fresh veg.

Yep, your post is one of several here that I looked to for the method. So nice that it works for you!

Nice looking potatoes! Do you think your helper was digging for the mole, the potatoes or just the love of dirt !

Oh, it was fine. I learned something - preliminary evidence (N = 1 potato and 1 egg) suggests that I can cook the potatoes and eggs together. That should be a time saver. And nothing was wasted, the un-pretty eggs will make me some lovely egg salad sandwiches. It was just sort of comical, going through all these machinations to make few hard cooked eggs for my danged lunch ! Two observations: I put the eggs in a steamer basket instead of the trivet, so maybe that had some effect, keeping them closer together or something. Secondly, in my post, I wrote that the eggs weighed 63 - 67g, suggesting there was a range. Actually, 2 of the eggs were 63 g and 3 + the singleton cooked with the potato were all 67g.

Lunch was late, due to a failed IP eggs-periment, probably late enough that it's dinner, too. Cuisi steam oven roasted chicken thigh and IP potato salad. Fresh tomato and some corn on the cob are sadly lacking but that will be addressed at tomorrow's local farmers' market. There's more chicken and plenty more potato salad for then!

I cooked some red potatoes for potato salad today - all good. Then had a failed eggs-periment when I tried making some hard-cooked eggs for the first time in the IP. I usually steam hard-cooked eggs but I figured I'd try the IP since it's hot outside and wanted to keep the kitchen cooler. I thought I'd read a recommendation here for 5 min at low pressure with natural release so that's what I did, using 5 eggs (weighing 63-67g), fresh from the fridge and transferring them to ice water as soon as the pressure dropped. They were somewhere along the soft-boiled spectrum, not exactly sure where but they smooshed when I tried to peel them. I set up a steamer and steamed them for another 5 min, based on the one that I'd cracked the most. I could see the yolk and it looked done. This time, I was able to peel them OK but the rest of the yolks were still in a gel-like state so I put the yolks back into the steamer in a little dish. They eventually got cooked and I'll be having some egg salad sandwiches one of these days as they are not in any state to be displayed on top of a salad! I surfed around the internet and saw potato salad recipes that cook the potatoes and eggs together in the IP so I decided to give that a try. There are several that use 4 min at high pressure, followed by quick release. I didn't quite trust that and tried one potato and one egg (I know, I know...n = 1 = bad, bad experiment) following a recommendation for 6 min at high pressure, 6 min natural pressure release. Both eggs and potato were nicely cooked. Obviously n = 1 = inconclusive but I'll give that method one more go before switching back to steaming on the stovetop. Perhaps such a recommendation is actually somewhere in this very topic but my search skills aren't all that good.

I love that method of frying the zucchini and then marinating briefly in red wine vinegar. It really elevates the Pasta and Fried Zucchini Salad from Ottolenghi's Plenty (cooking thread here).

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Nice cast iron finds, @Porthos! Usually in the thrifts I find cast iron that's priced awfully high so you done good!

I bought this little OXO cherry pitter last year and it does the job. I'm not doing bushels at a time so this was fine for me.

Yes, @rotuts, there is indeed peanut butter under the bananas. And I do know a little honey isn't all that bad - just questioning my adding it since plain old PB & B has always been just fine !

How nice to go on another trip with you! Your comments about flights times, sleeping, etc. reminds me of this image from a trip I took to Beijing. I figure it's OK to post it while you are enjoying your airline food! I had to laugh the first time I saw it - I was barely awake, head down, waiting for the elevator, sort of wondering what day it was when the elevator door opened and I saw the answer, right at my feet! Yes indeed, the hotel had carpets in the elevators with the day of the week and changed them at midnight. Not a bad idea for jet lagged guests! To add a food-related note, it's possible that some of my confusion was due to sugar overload since this was the welcome gift the hotel provided in the room: Note: apologies for hijacking your thread. Just say the word and I can delete this.

That's quite a collection of tonic, @Quadriga! Must be the season for G&T!

I looked around at previous eG threads for suggestions on getting a nice sear on the scallops. I followed suggestions to cook them sous vide first, then sear to finish. I thawed and dried them, lined them up in a row on plastic wrap and wrapped them up into a little cylinder shape. I put that into a zip lock and cooked at 50 deg C (122 F) for 30 min. Then I unwrapped them, patted dry on paper towels and seared them in a hot cast iron pan with grapeseed oil. I tried dusting 2 of them lightly with Wondra flour and those 2 did get a darker crust but they also stuck to the pan a little while the ones that went in naked didn't stick.