blue_dolphin

Thanks for mentioning this, @Thanks for the Crepes. I recall seeing it recommended in a Serious Eats note last month. Regardless of the author's credentials, I'm usually wary of any food book or article that starts off proclaiming, "The One True....." but this sounds like it would be a good read for anyone interested in food culture, even those like me who have no intention of ever cooking a whole hog! I will check my library to see if they get it. Here's an eG-friendly Amazon link for anyone interested in ordering by that route: "The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog"

BLT on sourdough:

Inspired by the bravery of @HungryChris and his consumption of unfamiliar chicken products, I paid my first visit to an actual Chick-fil-A store and picked up a late lunch: Honestly, I had my first Chick-fil-A sandwich a couple of months ago while I was staying in Houston and the hospital cafeteria boasted a Chick-fil-A station so this was actually my second sandwich but my first visit to one of their restaurants. I don't plan to make it a regular thing but I may have to go back at least one more time as I didn't see the peach milkshakes on the menu until after I paid and a peach milkshake sounds very nice. Probably too sweet, but I'm curious.

As @Toliver mentioned, there's a link in the article to the General Mills recall notice. At the bottom of the notice, all the recalled items are listed and identified by "use by" dates. My Wondra flour has a "best by" date of sometime in 2014

Another quesadilla. Instant Pot pork - pulled and moistened with red chile adobo (from More Mexican Everyday), sautéed spinach, mushrooms and onions, a little cotija and jack cheese, garnished with crema and more red chile adobo. Served with slaw and some of the Yucatán-Style Pickled Red Onions in Sour-Orange Juice I saw on Serious Eats the other day. The onion are a tasty condiment. I was going to put some of them inside the quesadilla but wanted them cool and crunchy rather than hot and limp. I'll try incorporating some next time as I can always have more on the side. And there will be a next time as there's plenty more of that pork in the freezer !

I think we got a little peek at it over in the ice cream topic with some lovely looking homemade vanilla ice cream and fudge sauce. I was going to ask, but didn't want to take the ice cream people off topic ! Did I spot that correctly, @Shelby?

I should say so! And if I had any idea that meal was ready, I'd eat it for breakfast!

2nd breakfast. Ricotta, dark chocolate and dried cherry quesadillas: Topped with powdered sugar, red bell pepper and ancho chile jam, fleur de sel caramel sauce and naked. I liked the plain naked or powdered sugar versions best. The caramel sauce was also pretty good. I think the jam would have been better inside the quesadillas, maybe instead of the cherries. Served on the patio, with a third cup of coffee, after the sun finally decided to show up on this May gray day.

Yogurt and raspberries:

The piece you linked to is hilarious. I think I've seen it before but still hilarious!

Crisper drawer breakfast quesadilla. Broccoli, mushroom, onion, bell pepper, roasted corn with scrambled egg and a mix of cotija and dry jack cheeses. Green chile adobo and tomato wedges on the side.

That is pretty funny. This Amazon UK listing for the product includes all sides of the packaging and each side has slightly information on the serving size, no doubt driven by the need to comply with different labeling standards. At least the cooking directions on that package are quite clear: 1 volume of lentils + 3 volumes of water. Use your own cup.....or glass

@Okanagancook, thanks for mentioning those 2 recipes. When I saw Zahav's recipe on Serious Eats, I meant to give it a try but forgot all about it. I thought the idea of blending a lot of garlic with the lemon juice and then straining it out was very interesting. When I saw Thanks for the Crepes's query, I was wondering how a bit of preserved lemon would work so I was interested by the Fine Cooking recipe you linked to as well. Finally, my own suggestion would be to include some lemon zest in the dressing along with the lemon juice. I love that extra hit of lemon flavor that comes from freshly grated zest. edited to add: @Thanks for the Crepes, apparently you are not the only person to have found that dressing memorable: Serendipity & Lemon Tahini Sauce

I would have! Unless there was a lot, I guess I'd be stuck for lunch! Looks lovely!

Quesadilla with pulled pork, spinach, mushrooms and cheese:

Thanks! I have not tried the Oaxaca Negroni (love the Oaxaca OF) or a Negroni Sbagliato. I'm currently in need of some specific, measurable, attainable, yada yada goals so perhaps a different Negroni variation for each day of Negroni Week would fit the bill . I recall you had some great Negroni Happy Hours planned last year. Are you doing something this year?

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.