blue_dolphin

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.

I posted over in the gardening topic about the teeny tiny oranges my Valencia tree has produced this year. I squeezed some for juice and made these Orange Coconut Yogurt Pops: I was intrigued by a Fany Gerson recipe from Paletas for Mezcal-Orange Ice Pops, dipped in a salt-ground chile mixture. She describes them as reminiscent of Donaji, a traditional Oaxacan drink with mescal and OJ, served in salt and chile rimmed glasses. However, I also had some yogurt to use up so I went in that direction but I used hot honey instead of the called-for maple syrup to get a little chile action going. I also added a few tablespoons of Clement Creole Shrubb for some extra orange flavor. I thought the yogurt might completely mask the chile flavor but it comes through nicely - a surprising little afterburn in the cool pop. The mezcal version is on my list of coming attractions.

I have loads of tiny oranges on my Valencia orange tree. Poor tree. Small fruit is a sign of stress. Partly drought, partly not being fed properly. I'm responsible for the latter but not the former and I partially blame the drought for the lack of feeding as I usually get started when there's a big rain forecast. No big rains around here in years. This one apparently went into a frenzy of trying to reproduce itself before I kill it and is absolutely loaded with these little guys. I thought they'd fall off before they ripened but they hung on. The poor navel tree had hardly any oranges at all. They are around 1.5 - 2 inches in diameter: I picked a bunch and juiced them yesterday. I think I got about 1.5 cups of juice out of 16 oranges. It was fine and orange-y, not bitter. Not as super sweet as some, but the same as the big oranges from the same tree in years past. If they weren't so seedy, I'd try to candy some. They make cute cocktail garnishes. I can make marmalade, though picking out the seeds will annoy me. Anyone have any ideas for fun things to do with tiny oranges?

Wow, @liamsaunt! Those are magnificent photographs of some spectacular-looking food - I certainly hope it tasted as good as it looks! Thanks for sharing.

CSO Story: Recently, I was at a gathering at a friend's home. We were admiring her collection of antique toasters. I mentioned that I didn't have even ONE toaster anymore since I replaced it with the CSO. Another guest perked right up and said, "Did you say CSO? You have one? We just got one, too!" He called over to his wife, "Hey, blue_dolphin has a CSO!" She came right over and the three of us had a long discussion of its marvels. It was like we'd exchanged the secret handshake and recognized each other as fellow members of the CSO society! The others could not comprehend and weren't interested. Their loss. But I will continue to promote membership in the CSO society in hopes that Cuisinart continues to manufacture them. Should I ever need another, I want them readily available!

Two things: Condensation from the steam collects in a small plastic tray that slides in beneath the oven, right under the door. If it's not emptied, it can overflow and leak onto the surface below. I've never seen a microwave with vents on the top, but something to keep in mind. Steam exits from vents that run along the rear of the oven so anything directly above ~ the left half of the oven (cupboards, shelves, hanging storage items) will get a bit of a steam treatment when using that function.

I am looking forward to seeing those molds in use !

Great looking clams and the marrow looks sublime! Bacon, avocado and tomato on toasted sourdough, potato salad and corn. Avocado, corn and tomato all from the local farmers market and all were excellent. True confession: After the photo, the sandwich returned to the kitchen to be cut in half, causing much rearrangement of ingredients with both avocado and mayo squishing through the holes in the toast. A very messy but tasty sandwich was consumed.

I must say that "Bruschetta Bus" conjured offerings rather different from those listed beneath the name. What are Pogos?

Is the corn steamed in the husk or do you peel it off before cooking? When just cooking a few, I usually microwave in the husk for 3 min/ear.

It was just such an appropriate typo for the topic that I had to comment - thanks for the chuckle!

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?