blue_dolphin

I had some of the lime ice pop mix left over from those cherry lime pops so I added a little tequila and Cointreau and made some margarita pops. I added a few slivers of candied lime peel to each one. No salt but maybe I'll try a sprinkle or dip into sea salt flakes to see how it tastes.

I was delighted today to learn that this cookbook should be on its way to me as a premium for a public radio station donation. This post on the station's food program blog includes a photo and list of the "Lucky Peach beginner Asian pantry staples" in case anyone wants to assess what's needed. I have most everything already, except for the peanuts, how funny is that - probably the most accessible one!

I have a Revere set that sounds similar to yours, @Smithy: 3-qt pot, double-boiler insert, steamer insert and lid. First pan I ever bought. Pictured over here. My steamer insert has short handles on either side rather than a long one like @Porthos scored.

Thank you for the clear description, @shain. I've only accidentally and partially toasted spaghetti when using a too small pan and the the ends got singed before it softened enough to sink into the water ! It sounds interesting and I'll have to try it sometime.

That pasta looks really good, @shain! When you say the "pasta was lightly toasted before boiling," how do you do this? Does it affect the texture or do you taste a "toasty" flavor in the finished dish, or both? Light Lenten lunch: Tuna salad with capers on whole grain toast, bread & butter pickles and apple slices.

I'm glad Phillip is gone because I really disliked his failure to take responsibility for any of his dishes that the judges didn't care for but he wasn't by far the worst on his team. I'd argue that Jeremy's executive chef lunch decision put his whole team at a disadvantage and that risotto? Who makes risotto with water? Apparently the crispy egg from lunch saved him. Back to Phillip, I was listening to Carla Hall on Ed Levine's Special Sauce podcast and she said something like, "One of the beauties of being on any reality show, whether you know yourself or not, you will get to know yourself really well when they are playing it back." I wonder if Phillip has developed any self awareness in watching himself or if he blames any negativity on editing? I'm rooting for Marjorie and I'm sorry that her dessert failed but glad to see Isaac get a win, especially after getting picked last! I suppose the strawberry-champagne combination will have to be added to the list of Top Chef kryptonite foods after both Marjorie and Phillip got dinged! Not sure how painful the LCK injuries were for the chefs but it was certainly painful to watch - ouch!

What a great menu, you have chosen, @Tere, it sounds like fun! I'd be happy with some of that crab on toast and a glass or 3 of champagne I'll take the opportunity to share this pretty pink radish soup that I made last year when my CSA box brought me bunch after bunch of radishes: I followed the recipe for turnip soup from the Greens cookbook, using radishes instead of turnips and used the peppery radish tops as a garnish rather than cooking them. Although most of the radishes were pink or purple and I left the peels on, the soup came out a rather boring beige so I added a tiny bit of beet juice to get the Valentine's Day appropriate pale pink color. I wanted it to be pink, without conjuring Pepto-bismol and I think I succeeded.

I'm absolutely guilty of forgetting things that I intended to try. The other day, I spotted a comment I wrote about trying variations on the apple rosettes that Smithy made a while back. I said I was going to try the same idea with squash and boursin. Still sounds like a good idea ! And @Anna N, you have a much shorter window of time that calls for icy treats so you certainly get a free pass on this one!

Popsicles in February? Yesterday was the third day in a row that the local temp hit 90, so yes: popsicles in February! Cherry lime pops, but a different take than my last post above: This time around, I made the lime ice pops from Paletas and added frozen dark sweet cherries. The sweet cherries are a nice contrast to the tart lime flavor. I was surprised how much color diffused out of the cherries to tint the pops.

Sourdough toast with tapenade, cheese and apple slices: The cheese is called Broncha, an aged cow and goat milk blend from Achadinha Cheese Company that I bought at the Farmer's Market yesterday.

Over in the thread on an article about Steve Sando and Rancho Gordo beans in Sunset magazine, and related to her post above, @JoNorvelleWalker posted the following: I know libraries are a good source of hard copy print magazines and I use my library's ebook service to read books on my iPad but I didn't know about the digital magazine offerings so I thought I'd add it over here for others who might be interested. My library uses Zinio instead of Flipster and they don't have access to Sunset, but they do have Cooks Illustrated, Saveur, Bon Appetit, and others with access to the current and recent back issues and available on desktop or mobile devices. The interface is not obnoxious and there's a print function that makes it easy to print or save a page as a pdf. Thanks for the tip, @JoNorvelleWalker!

@catdaddy, in Saving the Season, author Kevin West has several recipes for mixed citrus marmalades. One of them, from Tom Hudgens, author of The Commonsense Kitchen, says that any combination of citrus would work, as long as it balances the sweeter fruits (oranges, Meyer lemons, tangerines, kumquats) with the half-sour or bitter (lemons, limes, grapefruit) so I'd think you could put together a great mix from your collection. The recipe for Tom's Mixed-Citrus Marmalade includes ginger and Earl Grey tea and sounds good. Do report back on your results, I'd love to hear how it works out.

From the Feb Fearless Flyer, here's what caught my eye: Estate bottled Calif EVOO - not new. I've been using the Greek Kalamata EVOO but will give the local product some love Organic spicy spinach blend (baby spinach, pak-choi, mizuna and tatsoi) sounds like a nice salad mix. I don't think I've seen this one before Spicy Pickled Vegetables - an escabeche sort of refrigerated product. I really should just make this up myself but don't always have the right combination of veg on hand. Maybe worth a try. 100% tart cherry juice - also not new, but the recent warm weather makes me want to make some popsicles and this might be worth a try. Or maybe I should just use lime juice from my tree and put in some frozen cherries? Organic Vodka sauce - this one, I don't need to buy, just do something with the jar that's been in my cupboard for months - I don't use jarred sauces that much and it's past it's "best by" date Mini cinnamon sugar churros - maybe a nice little treat to bake up a couple in the CSO for a coffee break treat - says they bake in 6 min. Butterscotch shortbread buttons - also sound like they would be nice with a cup of coffee. Either these or the churros, not both! Scandinavian Swimmers - I already bought these to bring to my cousin who loves Swedish Fish. These guys are softer, less chewy, stick to your teeth more but the flavors are nice Sriracha Potato chips - tried these, liked the lattice-cut texture but I guess I just prefer potato chips to taste of potato. I might pick up some of the cara cara oranges if they look good And I'll try a few of the less expensive red wines as I'm on the lookout for a new house red I'll try to remember to post back on the items that I haven't already tried

Thanks for sharing the buttermilk idea. I will certainly give this a try. Maybe nutmeg, too.

If only such leftovers were in my fridge! Scrambled eggs with green chile adobo, sugar snap peas and sourdough toast: I wasn't sure if I wanted the green chile adobo in the eggs, on the toast or in the peas....the eggs won this round and they were nice. As I put them on the plate, I realized I should have included some ham to make a Seuss-like breakfast !

In honor of day, I had a catfish po' boy for lunch at the Pappadeaux location in the Houston (IAH) airport. Better than average airport food. Growing up, we always had pancakes and sausage or bacon for supper on Shrove Tuesday and I was thinking I might do that when I got home. However, it was 90 degrees here yesterday and my power was out - planned outage but a surprise to me since the notice came while I was out of town. I have a gas cooktop so I could have done the pancakes but instead went to the store for a bag of ice, chilled a bottle of wine and relaxed with my kitty boys.

I was able to pick up a copy of this issue in the airport last week and want to add my congrats on a great article. Sunset has sort of locked down their digital so I wasn't able to find it online either but the recipes that accompany the article as well as some additional bean recipes are available here or type in sunset.com/beans There are some good ones that I plan to try.

@huiray, I love your shopping posts and often wish I could come along and see the shops and how you make your selections. Reading your posts is the next best thing and I certainly appreciate the time you take with these posts. I do hope you will continue to show and tell us about the fruits (and vegetables and ...) of your shopping trips and I would love to see or read about others like @Thanks for the Crepes duckling/fish shop story above, with or without pictures. @Deryn's 70 mile trek across the frozen tundra to Walmart is curious to me as well. Now, until very recently, the closest Walmart to me was about 25 miles away and in SoCal traffic it could probably take as long but I would have passed dozens of grocery stores and palm trees on my route.

I believe the sweet black beans traditional to Japanese New Year's celebrations are actually black soybeans.

If I was using a Blue Apron-like service to provide ingredients and recipes for ethnic dishes and received a "culture card" like the example, which seems very shallow and uninformative, I would really question the value of the entire service from the authenticity of the recipe to the quality of the ingredients. I think the general concept you describe is interesting. It can be daunting (although also part of the fun) to shop for and invest in many unfamiliar ingredients needed when cooking a new ethnic cuisine for the first time so getting just the amounts needed, presumably selected by someone knowledgeable in that area would be a plus. Including some background cultural info would appeal to me as well. As heidih pointed out, such information is readily available on the Internet, so I think it would have to be very well researched and presented if it is going to add value. Something like the example you provided would only cheapen the product, in my opinion. I interpreted the section I quoted above as asking how we have gone about preparing meals from cultures other than our own, presumably involving unfamiliar foods and ingredients. If that is the case, I think it's a fair question. I've been lucky to have had friends who invited me into their homes, fed me, taught me and helped me find supplies and equipment. I admire the fearlessness of others here who embark on a study of books and Internet research and begin to cook dishes from cuisines they have never actually seen or tasted. It can be quite an undertaking and I can see why someone might want to try something like a Blue Apron kit to dabble in an unfamiliar cuisine before diving in on their own.

@SarahLee, I answered the survey but am not sure the answers address the questions posed in your original post so I offer two observations. Many of my work colleagues who are parents of young children have good intentions of planning, shopping and prepping or even cooking meals in advance but often find themselves resorting to a fast food drive-thru dinner when a late meeting, sick kid or other unexpected event comes up and they are in the car with overtired or sick kids collected late from school or daycare. They often find shopping time most difficult to carve out and many of them appreciate the time savings that services like Blue Apron provide, knowing that they have all the ingredients ready to cook a nice meal at home. I think the proliferation of such services suggests that this is a common block to cooking meals at home. My second comment is that I think there is a pretty big gulf between "fast food" and what I consider "cooking from scratch" with products that span the gamut from gourmet frozen entrees and side dishes to boxed Mac n cheese, ready to cook pre-marinated poultry, beef and fish, prepared salads and hot entrees from stores like Whole Foods. I wouldn't call any of them cooking from scratch but many are a far cry from fast food.

@EsaK, the info that @Smithy recommended is very good. If I have older eggs, I use the Julia Child method decribed there. The particular egg in that breakfast picture was fairly fresh -not as fresh as @liuzhou describes, but I bought them at my local farmer's market last week so I didn't do anything special with them. Simmering water with a little salt, swirl with a spoon and crack the egg into the vortex. Adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook ~3 min. Today's breakfast: As of Feb, United has reinstituted free snacks and at breakfast, it's a stroopwafel, being warmed here by my coffee. I prefer the biscoff cookies they used to have, but appreciated having a little something with my coffee after boarding at 04:45 AM

Not a big sweet eater, but this was nice. Mango sorbet, vanilla ice cream, candied lime peel and a little pour of lime-cello:

I'm flying off to Houston tomorrow and will be hanging out with a relative in a hospital-adjacent hotel in where she is staying for treatment. Not exactly a wild party but this is one dish that I'm sure I can concoct in the kitchenette microwave! True confession: we are more excited about watching the Kitten Bowl !