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I made the shrimp variation of Nigella's Smoky Squid and Beans from Cook, Eat, Repeat. Recipe available online at this link. Rancho Gordo Royal Coronas for the beans.

French toast made from December's bread of the month from a local bakery. Ingredients for the bread are: Flour, Stiff Levain, Rye Flour, Dried Apricots, Dried Black Mission Figs, Dried Cranberries, Pecans, Hazelnuts, Walnuts

Chicken isn't a particularly unusual flavor but this package of Bluebird brand chips featuring a cute little penguin embracing a cooked chicken drumstick is interesting. Kind of a triple bird snack! Bluebird is a New Zealand brand and this photo was sent to me by a friend visiting there. They feature the penguin on most of their branded products but the chicken leg is most disturbing image to me!

Congrats on your new gear! This temp table made by @CanadianHomeChef doesn't address your specific query about simmering water, but may be helpful for other things. I keep it bookmarked!

Or peas…

I got squid in my fish share this week so I combined that with my Rancho Gordo bean club shipment and made this recipe for Smoky Squid and Beans from Nigella's Cook, Eat, Repeat. Recipe available online at this link. I also made her Scandi Cucumber Salad to go along with. The book recipe calls for jarred, Spanish judión beans so Royal Coronas might have been the closest sub but I went with Christmas Limas so everything wouldn't be quite the same color. This is a very quick and easy recipe. In the header notes, Nigella gives options for using different beans, different seafood or leaving it out for a vegan version so I'll be playing around with it in the future.

That one was my go-to olive oil for quite a few years. Before I switched to the kalamata stuff. Maybe time to try it again!

It's on Monday this year. Exactly 2 weeks from today - yikes! Advent seems so short this year. The 4th Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve are the SAME DANG DAY!

I like those Snowdonia cheeses a lot, especially Black Bomber! Whole Foods is rolling out their 12 Days of Cheese again this year. The discount is a bit less than previous years. 28% off, 35% off for Prime members. Sadly, no Harbison cheeses listed this year. I'll probably start with some Humboldt Fog, a Mt. Tam and go from there. Dec 13 - 24.

Steak and mashed potatoes Fried chicken and mashed potatoes Pork chops with apples & onions Is mac & cheese considered to be "pasta or anything fancy"?

For more guilty pleasures check out this topic. Should Cheez Whiz enter my house, I will surely try this! Sounds better than those little vending machine packets of cheese crackers with peanut butter!

Beans on toast I made a batch of the roast red peppers with anchovy dressing from Nigella's Cook, Eat, Repeat, stirred in some Rancho Gordo large white limas and spooned it over a slice of toast.

I saved this screen cap yesterday when someone said the post was no longer there. I still see it on her Facebook page.

It's from Diana Henry's book, Simple. I can message you the recipe if you don't have the book.

So the candies are buckeyes, from state tree of Ohio and similar to horse chestnuts, that are shelled and dipped in chocolate?

What are buckeyes? I have a bag of these buckeye beans but suspect that's not it!

It's persimmon season here so I decided to try Andy Baraghani's Persimmons with Torn Burrata and Fresh Lemon, from his book, The Cook You Want To Be with some nice crisp Fuyus. Kind of a fall take on a Caprese salad. I made a big platter of this for a ladies lunch yesterday and it was well received. Very easy to put together and looks bright and sunny on the table. The finely cut lemon pieces and juice get tossed with a spoonful of honey, a pinch of salt and toasted pistachios. A drizzle of olive oil goes on at the end.

I'll be joining cousins for a big Christmas Eve dinner. I was asked to make the same caraway and blackberry slaw that I made for Thanksgiving. It's bright and colorful and holds well. And they asked for the banana pudding that I ordered from ZEF BBQ so that's easy peasy. I added some smoked turkey to my order to make the minimum!

I also had a rare, sweet breakfast. An apricot fruit pocket (aka jelly donut) from Viktor Benês Bakery was amongst the leftovers from a holiday gathering yesterday. I was going to have just one quarter but I've just made another cup of coffee to have with a second one!

I still see the Facebook post in my feed. The venue mentioned for the service doesn't have an obituary published for her yet. Like @Shelby, I noticed that @heidih hasn't been around, mostly because she almost always expressed interest or asked a question about my breakfasts, as she did across eG in all topics. I've been hoping she was OK and just dealing with all the "stuff" she's had on her plate. Peace to you, @heidih, peace.

So far, all lids have released after one revolution but I’ve only had it for ~ 2 years x ~ 2.5 cans/day = 1825 cans, so quite a limited sample. Oh wait. I think there may have been a little oval tinned fish can that didn’t release on the first go round.

Guess I shouldn't have spoken so broadly. The manual safety opener that I own, when used on the cans that I've tried it on, leaves a smooth edge on the lid and the can that is not sharp. The OXO opener was out of stock when I ordered mine so I ordered the Amazon Basics version, which was around $11 when I got it a couple of years ago. I open two or three cans of cat food per day, along with the occasional tin of tomatoes, coconut milk, etc. I don't routinely run my finger around the lid and can top but I did today with the three cans I've opened and none were sharp. The cat food cans all have a ring-pull but they leave a very sharp lip on the inside of the can that nicks the spatulas or my fingers when I'm scooping out the food so I prefer just removing the top.

Another of Nigella's anchovy musings prompted today's breakfast: Scotch Woodcock Toast, spread with anchovy butter, topped with softly scrambled eggs and more anchovies.

The side-cutter/safety can openers leave a smooth edge on the lid and on the can.

Poached egg on toast slathered with anchovy butter Credit to Nigella, who manages to squeeze at least half a dozen variations of this into a single paragraph in the, "A is for Anchovy" essay in her book, Cook, Eat, Repeat.