blue_dolphin

Sunday brunch cocktail, a Breakfast Martini. I substituted my homemade lemon rosemary marmalade for the orange marmalade called for and dropped a sprig of rosemary into the shaker. It's sweet, sour, bitter, herbal and goes down all too easily!

Lorna Doone's and Social Tea's are my favorite grocery store plain cookies but I might prefer a snappy ginger cookie like Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Snaps. If you don't want ginger in there, the French butter cookies, La Grande Galette would be a treat.

Honestly, even when I was purchasing these some of these convenience items, that I was quite delighted to find, I wondered if the check-out clerks were thinking that I had more dollars than cents sense, if you know what I mean.

I, another non-professional, also think it's unlikely to be any more unsafe than the same cocktail would be made from fresh ingredients. It seems more likely that the flavors may have gone off but that's easy enough to test.

Having had the opportunity to spend a good bit of time over the past year helping elderly or sick relatives with meal prep, sometimes in places without good kitchen facilities, I can say that I have purchased and paid the attendant, inflated prices for such items. Sometimes it's only a small hurdle that separates one from a satisfying meal, but if it's unsurmountable to me some day, I will purchase them for myself as well. It's often less expensive and more nourishing than options like fast food or delivery.

Quiche du yester-jour (spinach, caramelized onion and ricotta) and a green salad dressed with this crème fraîche and preserved lemon dressing from Saveur. The dressing's tangy-salty-creaminess played well with the slightly bitter greens. I will try the leftovers on steamed broccoli.

Yes, that's exactly the one. @Anna N used that recipe for a batch of lemon and lime marmalade using the Instant Pot that she described here and here. The recipe I've used for lime marmalade is a rather more involved 2 or 3 day procedure and it may be that's what's needed to tame the bitterness of limes but I was encouraged by Anna's results to give this a try when those pretty lemons came my way. I liked the result and am looking forward to trying it with oranges or maybe a mix of citrus.

I tried these frozen crab cakes recently. I don't recommend them. They are $6.99 for a box with two 3 oz crab cakes. Unlike many frozen crab cakes, they are almost all crab, very little in the way of filler. Most of the crab is very fine shreds but each cake has a 4 or 5 larger pieces on the top and bottom surfaces. All crab! Large pieces! Sounds good, right? Not so, in my experience and I suspect it's almost impossible to cook them in a way that achieves a little surface browning without drying the crab into sharp splinters. When I cooked the first one, I followed the package instructions (which caution against overcooking) 425 deg F for 10 minutes, flip and cook 2-4 minutes longer, until golden brown. I got this: which looks OK but like I said above, the bigger pieces on the surface of the cake were basically sharp little splinters of crab. The middle of the cake was fine, with moist shreds of crab, the flavor is good and they really taste of crab. For round 2, I went for 10 minutes at 400 deg F on steam-bake in the Cuisi steam oven then into a saute pan with butter to get a little color on them but they weren't any better. I think a good crab cake should have a lightly browned, crisp exterior and moist interior filled with small to medium pieces of crab. I don't think there is a good way to get some surface browning on these guys without overly drying those larger pieces, which should really be the best part! If anyone else can report better success, I'd consider giving them another try but for now, I'm giving them a thumbs down!

@chefmd, there's some discussion of this item started in this post and those following.

Lemon-rosemary marmalade, made in the Instant Pot and on the left, a batch of salted, preserved lemons with about 3 more weeks to go before they are ready: The lemons were a gift from a friend and are a variety called "Pink Lemonade" that has variegated leaves and light pink flesh but is otherwise like an ordinary normal Eureka lemon.

A friend gave me some pretty 'Pink Lemonade" lemons so I followed @Anna N in making a batch of Instant Pot lemon marmalade, using the method she described here and here. I made a lemon-rosemary version by putting a couple of springs of rosemary into the the Instant Pot for the pressure cook step. I removed them before adding the sugar but put a tiny, fresh sprig into each jar before processing. The rosemary flavor does come through but next time, I think I might pound the rosemary a bit to bruise it and put it in a mesh bag during the PC step. The leaves of this particular variety of lemon tree and the lemon skins are somewhat variegated and the flesh is a pretty light pink color but they taste like a regular Eureka lemon. I sliced the lemons with a V-slicer (aka Oxo mandoline) I also included 2 limes and cut them thinner in hopes of tempering bitterness. The finished product is unfortunately not the same pretty pink of the raw fruit but I think it's more golden in color than I'd get with regular Eureka lemons. Quality control assay here, on a little piece of toast with homemade ricotta:

Great report, @fledflew! Thanks for taking the time to pull all of that together. Too bad about the 1/4 sheet pan - so close and yet so far! I'm not a backer as I already have the Cuisi steam oven and it doesn't sound like this offers any significant advantage. If I was backing, I would hope that they would add a countdown timer display (or allow the user to switch between time and temp) as I find that part of the Cuisi display very helpful. As @Deryn & @Shelby noted, this part does sound a little creepy: But, for heavens sake, I post photos of my meals here and I suspect part of the target audience would like the oven to auto-Tweet all that info to their followers ! @rotuts is correct about the potential damage to your wood cabinets from steam release in that cubby.

It was chilly here this AM and that photo of your duck and veg lunch helped warm me up! Nice show of teamwork here on the lunch thread: I like it!

Your thinking is correct. Olive oil blends are a mix of olive oil and another vegetable oil. I usually use such a mixture in salad dressings or mayo where the flavor of pure extra virgin olive oil is too strong. But I do that by adding the right amount of EVOO to the neutral oil of my choice rather than using a purchased blend where it can be difficult to know what's really in the bottle.

For the last 5 years, I've gotten lettuce in my CSA box every week. It keeps very well since everything is picked just the day before delivery so I usually enjoy having a few varieties on hand. I think my favorite is "Lollo Rossa" lettuce because of the way each leaf has tender, curly red tips that gradate to crisp, light green bases.

As a lover of crispy, crispy bacon, this doesn't quite appeal to me but I thought the comments were hilarious. Thanks for sharing!

I'm with @liuzhou, I'd pour some into a pretty little glass and serve after dinner with some walnuts, dried fruit and maybe a shortbread or other not too sweet cookie. You could use a splash to deglaze the pan and flavor a sauce when cooking pork or poultry. Maybe soak some raisins or prunes in it and include them in a dish. Pour a little over a scoop of vanilla or cinnamon ice cream for dessert. Maybe pour a little into a flute and top with a nice sparkling cider. Of course, you could also try it in a cocktail that calls for apple brandy like a Jack Rose or Apple Cart, but that would be sort of a waste if it's lovely by itself.

That one has the non-stick pot rather than stainless steel like the IP.

I see the new 8 QT Instant Pot Duo is supposed to be released on March 30. $179.95 at Amazon. Did anyone pre-order one? Or two?

@rotuts, back in this post, you said: a couple of things Ive noticed after two uses, both for Bliss potato salad. unless I see and read otherwise here, Im using " Hip Pressure Cooking" by Laura Pazzaglia as my as my guide, both for timings, and perhaps Rx's i done two sets of BP for eventual salad. Its a 7 minute Rx w a 10 minute 'natural ralease' pp 80 in the book. this is for 2 lbs of potatoes.

Hey @Alex, obviously, I'm not rancho_gordo but I think it would be OK for me to share the recipe that was included in the recent email newsletter from Rancho Gordo. It sounds really good and I'm dying to try it. No detail on the bean cooking spec but this should at least get you started: Coconut Brown Rice and Beans (From Rancho Gordo March 25 eNewsletter) Note: to make the dish more Caribbean, you may wish to add some fresh, minced habanero chile. Serves 4 as a side dish 3/4 cup cold water 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk 1-inch piece Rancho Gordo canela 3 cloves 1 cup Massa Organics Whole Grain Brown Rice 1 teaspoon Rancho Gordo Sal de Mar sea salt 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger 1 cup cooked Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojo beans Cilantro or watercress for garnish (optional) In a pan, add the water, coconut milk, canela and cloves. Bring to a boil and then turn off heat, allowing it to steep for 20 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid and discarding the solids. In a medium saucepan, add the rice, the reserved liquids, salt and ginger and bring to a full boil. Allow to boil for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to very low and cover. Cook for 45 minutes, undisturbed, until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Turn off heat and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Fluff cooked rice with a fork and gently add the beans and cilantro or watercress, if using.

Adding my thanks. It's hard to fathom how much effort you put into this wonderful week. So, so much work for you but so, so appreciated by us - it's been a great treat!

This is perfect! I will be on the lookout for a spare shaker at the thrifts. I usually only use this trick, using a pot & lid, when I have to peel a lot of cloves but don't usually bother for just a few.

Leftovers from yesterday's lunch, the pasta and fried zucchini salad from Ottolenghi's Plenty. I could have put an egg on it but instead just warmed it up enough to take off the chill and decorated with feta and preserved lemon.

I must say the brand name seems quite appropriate to your blog!