blue_dolphin

Like @Anna N, my breakfast was also a layered leftover - in my case lasagna al pesto from yesterday's lunch: If there was leftover carrot cake in my house, I suspect I would have scarfed it down with a cup of coffee before the lasagna was reheated!

Yesterday's lunch was the result of a freezer clean-out. My freezer yielded a container of collard green pesto, half a package of shredded mozzarella and frozen spinach. The fridge had some homemade ricotta, parmesan and mushrooms that needed using up. TJ's no-bake lasagna noodles were at the ready in the pantry. The result was this small lasagna al pesto, baked in a loaf pan in the Cuisi steam oven:

I had half a mug of tarhana soup left from yesterday's lunch. Added toasted ciabatta topped with tapenade.

For @rotuts - I know you were bemoaning a lack of reliably good beets. My TJ's had small bags of organic beets. Have you tried them? Looked like 5 or 6 beets for $1.69, I think. No tops. They were a modest size, not as tiny as the pre-cooked ones but certainly not big honking tubers either. Might be worth a try since you can always take them back if they're no good.

So this afternoon, I was snacking on the roasted chickpeas leftover from my lunch. So much so that I didn't want any dinner. But around 9 PM, I did want a little something. A little pot of baked ricotta seasoned with garlic, rosemary and lemon zest, drizzled with olive oil, crisp toasted ciabatta and a handful of kalamata olives: And a glass of dry rosé. Just hit the spot!

@Anna N, that looks so good! I was just thinking about trying some sort of savory apple and caramelized onion pie or tart with cheddar but decided I'd put that one away until the fall. Your lunch captures those flavors but seems much more appropriate to the season with the fresh red onion with just a hint of char. Nice!

@Tere, are "tomberries" tiny tomatoes? They do look awfully cute! My lunch today. Tarhana soup, salad, roasted chickpeas (inspired by @ElainaA's post over here in the Dinner thread), TJ's whole wheat flat bread: I thought I had seen some mention of tarhana recently on eG, but I couldn't find it but I did find the small packet of tarhana that had been stashed in my freezer for ages. It was homemade in Turkey and shared with me by a good friend. After hearing how much effort is involved in making it, I was apparently afraid to use it but shouldn't have been - sounds like it was the original "instant soup" and the flavor was great. I had cooked up some chickpeas for hummus this AM so I scooped some out and roasted them with just olive oil and salt. Then tossed half of them with rosemary and lemon zest and the rest with zatar so I could try both. They are both really good! I brushed the TJ's flatbread with olive oil, sprinkled with dukkah (also from TJ's) and heated in the toaster oven. I was surprised that it came out looking like a poofy flying saucer:

I'm certainly not the first person in this thread to say this but It's almost impossible to keep yeast or any sort of culture at the stage of growth where they are "multiplying like mad," particularly in a home kitchen that lacks the sort of mixing apparatus to ensure uniformity throughout the container used to maintain it. For this, you need a means of continuous supply of nutrients and removal of metabolic products and without that, growth of the primary yeast will slow and that will allow either yeast variants that have developed in your culture, wild yeasts or bacteria to grow, any of which can overwhelm the original yeast and "take over." Meticulous adherence to a specific feeding/splitting schedule is necessary to maintain a culture where the primary (in this case, commercial) yeast remains active and dominant. Generally speaking, yes. A wild yeast is likely to be at least somewhat adapted to the conditions of the place where it is growing while commercial yeasts are accustomed to a more controlled and ideal environment. If you've managed to supply and, more importantly, maintain that ideal environment then the commercial yeast will remain dominant in your culture but any variation from the ideal is likely to favor development of wild or naturally occurring variants that may have different characteristics from the original commercial culture. There is no need for these rogue yeasts to kill off the original yeast. Unless you have a very complex system to supply nutrients and remove waste, some percentage of your "patriotic american yeasties" will be giving up the ghost of their own accord and those dead cells will block their neighbor's access to nutrients and space to grow, creating areas where other organisms may flourish and take over. I hope you will. Sharing our experiences is the best part of eGullet! Edited to add: You've already received generous input from some very knowledgable and experienced bakers here. I am not an expert baker in any way but have answered the questions you posed above from a basic microbiology perspective.

I've seen some that use ground nuts in the sauce. Here is one that calls for ground almonds: Jamie Oliver's chicken tikka masala

That makes sense to me as the whites in the eggs that got the longer chill have a little more time to firm up around any air pocket that was inside the shell as compared with the eggs that were peeled immediately and can relax more as they cool. I usually bash the eggs around in ice water enough to crack their shells, then leave them to cool at least a little as I noticed how easily the still hot egg whites deformed (just from contact with a plate or each other - no wonder those cute little egg molds work so well) when I peeled them right away. Sheesh, how many variables can there be in something as simple as a hard cooked egg !

Wow, what a cake! But I gotta ask. @Panaderia Canadiense - ICBM? Surely not intercontinental ballistic missile, but what?

Yes! I had the same thought after reading @Lisa Shock's post. To my taste, strawberries give just the perfect amount of sweetness to Tequila por Mi Amante - no additional sweetening, and I'd bet your ripe raspberries would do the same. An ounce or so of that, from the freezer or over ice, with a squeeze of lime is like summer in a glass, anytime of year!

Over the years, I've very much enjoyed your insights and "behind the scenes" views into an aspect of the Ren Faires that I was completely oblivious to. I look forward to those posts continuing. It sounds like you have planned a wise transition into a role that will afford you much involvement but shift some of the more physically arduous tasks. I hope you'll find that altered role as fulfilling as previously, though relinquishing partial control is potentially a uneasy situation. Since you've been responsible for so much for so long, it may be rather a shock to the organization as they realize how much you have been doing. I hope all goes well for you. When the So Cal Ren Faire was in Agoura, I used to attend pretty regularly but I haven't been since they moved down south. I think that was in 1988, so it's been a while!

Seeing this thread pop up again piqued my interest. I've enjoyed tiny bites of these pâtes served at the end of a meal and wondered if I could translate my lime and ginger marmalade into this sort of confection. Reading through this thread from beginning to the present convinced me that this is sticky business indeed and I am quite unqualified to jump in! That said, I came upon this Lucky Peach recipe for a 2 layered Grapefruit-Campari Pâte de Fruit and especially this related article, "Opusculum: Pâte de Fruit" by Michael Laiskonis that I (as a competent scientist but confectionary bonehead ) thought offered solid, concise coverage of many of the points around pectin, acid, etc. discussed in this thread so I thought I'd post and add the link here. If it was mentioned earlier, in this thread or the many other eG confectionary threads, I apologize for the repetition. I'm not sure I am up to the task of making pâtes de fruits, to be added to my little homemade holiday gifts, but if I do, I certainly appreciate all the expert guidance shared here.

Thanks to @Lisa Shock for posting about this. I saw the headline on Serious Eats, "How to Make Rich, Flavorful Caramel Without Melting Sugar," and assumed it was about either candy or a sauce and didn't click through to read it. I will certainly give it a try next time I have the oven going for a while. I'd love to play with it for cocktails and have some on hand for other things. I know you indicated no disrespect, but Stella's piece did cite the original research authored by Prof. Schmidt and co-authors. She mentioned that she had been playing around with it before then but without understanding the underlining science. I very much appreciate her attention to citing original scientific publications.

Tuna salad with capers on a leftover mini croissant (nicely revived in the Cuisi steam oven), raw sugar snap peas, jicama and carrots and few bread & butter pickle slices: I could have the same thing for lunch. Or not. We'll see.

Grilled sandwich with pulled pork, spinach and Swiss cheese: I debated: cheese on one side or both? Hmmm. I hate it when the sandwich contents squirt out between 2 layers of cheese so I went with one side. Next time, I'll try both as I think the pulled pork would hang on OK. Still plenty tasty!

Thank you, @Shelby! I was worried that stirring would mash my already tender beans so I probably did the right thing last time but this gives me a good guideline for the next round.

@Anna N, I don't keep milk around either but I had both whole milk and half & half leftover from the brunch I hosted last week and I've been enjoying this batch. I'd sent my brother out for the smallest container of milk and he came back with a 2 qt carton so I have lots! I know real ricotta is made from leftover whey from sheep's milk cheese in Italy, not from leftover cows milk in my kitchen but I think it's still a treat !

@Shelby, can I ask how long you simmered the beans + combined ingredients and what Instant Pot setting you used? Last week, I made some delicious baked beans, roughly following this recipe, which calls for soaking beans overnight then cooking them in water until tender before adding the rest of the ingredients and baking in the oven for 5 hours. I cooked a pound of unsoaked Rancho Gordo yellow eye beans in the Instant Pot for 20 minutes (manual), expecting to simmer them for a while longer after releasing the pressure but they were already done and some were already splitting. I'd planned to do the rest of the cook in the Instant Pot but when I saw how tender the beans were I was afraid I would end up with an Instant Pot full o'mush. I have more confidence in my ability to simmer beans in the oven so I transferred everything into a covered casserole, into the oven @ 275 for 4.5 hrs and ended up with very tasty beans. I have no complaints with the results but I'd like an oven-free method to use in the warmer weather. I have never pushed the "Slow Cook" button on my IP....is now the time?

@Anna N's breakfast got me thinking of marmalade so...toast (sadly not from homemade bread) topped with homemade ricotta and homemade lemon-rosemary marmalade. The sun should eventually come out later today but the marmalade added some early sunshine to an overcast morning.

Yes, 6 tablespoons sounds like a lot of mustard, doesn't it? But the recipe is written for 2 lbs of dry beans so that's a LOT of beans, too ! Turns out to be just the right amount to balance out the maple syrup and molasses.

Pulled pork sandwich, baked beans ( @janeer's wonderful recipe over here as recommended by @patrickamory, thank you kindly), mixed vegetable slaw enjoyed with a Lagunitas IPA. And yes, it's barely 11:30AM here. I waited as long as I could. The other half of the sandwich already has a couple of bites out of it !

Wow, it's so impressive to see those beautiful old machines in regular use today! Thanks for sharing!