blue_dolphin

The Desert Rain Café and the San Xavier Festival would form the nucleus of a great road trip! And that time in the spring should be a lovely time to visit that area. I've got to make a note of this!

Yes, I was! I grew up in northern NY and still get a kick out of the novelty of my very own citrus trees out back! And IP-related, I candied the peels from some satsuma mandarins (my mandarin tree is still a baby compared with that big old lime, not too many fruit yet) yesterday. To be dipped in dark chocolate today.

And @Darienne, your orange julep talk has me wanting to make one, too! I grew up in northern New York in a town with an Orange Julep stand shaped like a giant orange and serving what were probably knock-offs of the Montreal area Orange Juleps. Always cracked me up to see that enormous orange dusted with snow for much of the year!

There are some previous threads that may give you some ideas of what people like about different solutions they are using. Evernote seems quite popular and it's not cooking-specific so you may find other uses for it. Organizing Recipes from Several Sources Organizing what you've learned at eGullet Storing, Tracking, and Accessing Favorite Recipes

Is this because you want to avoid any seeds? Sometimes navels are the only game in town but if other varieties are available, I would encourage you to consider them, even if you have to pick out some seeds. I have 2 trees, a navel and something that might be a Valencia. They tend to get ripe at different times and I use them interchangeably. The navels get sweeter when they are totally ripe but I think the others are more flavorful. I think the heavy-for-size and sniff-test are the best guides although the waxes they use can confound the nose!

Not to mention pot envy!

My laundry sink (and the washer and dryer) are out in the garage but I appreciate that sink for washing big stuff. In my last place, I had to use the bathtub!

I usually avoid serving soups at buffet-style parties as it can mean balancing both a plate AND a cup or bowl for the soup, plus the need to put out forks AND spoons but when I have done it, the soup has been a hit. And I absolutely love the idea of using a collection of Christmas mugs for the soup.

I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I figured I'd try making it first and then worry about what to do with it later! I've never had good candied lime peel so I want to taste it when it's done and see what I think. I love to nibble on good candied orange peel, either dipped in dark chocolate or not. For the lime peels, I may try dipping some in white chocolate or including them in a bark with dried cherries or cranberries and nuts. I certainly plan to finely chop some and include them in baked goods - cookies, scones, etc. And I think they will make a pretty garnish if I ever get a little springform pan for the IP and try a little lime cheesecake!

OK. I'm back. Nice thing about the Instant-Pot is that I was able to run out and leave it alone. I don't usually leave heat-producing appliances in an "on" position when I leave the house, but all was well. Here are some of the peels drying on parchment after being boiled in the sugar syrup. Reserved syrup is in the cup to the left. The recipe specified cutting the peels about as wide as they are thick so these thin-skinned limes ended up being cut fairly finely. Hopefully that helped get the bitterness out and sugar in. They taste fine. There's a slight touch of bitterness, but I like that little tingle on the tongue. Not unpleasantly bitter at all. After drying for about 15 min, these guys got tossed with regular white granulated sugar. I packed some of them into a small jar with the syrup in case I want to use them that way. The recipe says to put them in the fridge to dry for 4 hrs - overnight. Not sure why as other recipes I've read caution against putting them in the fridge. No room in there anyway so they will dry at RT. Should be OK. So Cal isn't overly dry or humid at the moment. I figure I'll shake off the excess sugar tonight or tomorrow and see if they want another toss in the sugar or look ready to package up. No final results yet, but overall, very promising. 5 lemons (or limes like I used) isn't a ton of peel so I think it would be easy enough to pilot this out with a small batch even if you don't have lots of peel on hand. You just want all the peels to be submerged in syrup for that final cook.

OK. There is really no need for these pictures since the ones on the hippressurecooking site are just fine but I took them so here you go. Limes on the tree: Note they are turning yellow and falling off into the rosemary underneath. 5 limes, weighing ~ 1 lb chosen for our experiment today. They look nice and juicy: Juiced. I got ~ 10 oz juice from these guys. I will use it to make some preserved limes. Pulp scraped out. The recipe suggested a melon baller to loosen the pulp but I found the tip of a sharp knife worked better for me. Once started, it's easy to pull the pulp off the skins. In the cooker for the first cook in water: I was tempted to repeat that step to reduce the bitterness but tasted a piece after that first boil and it wasn't terribly bitter so I'll just go with the recipe as written. Also tempted to sub in some portion of lime juice into the sugar:water mixture for the second boil to give them a little more tang but I'll go with the recipe. I've got to go out to an appointment before the pressure releases from the second boil so I'll report on my results later.

Thanks for posting that. I will certainly give this a try with some of the limes from my tree. I have read many warnings about candied lime peels being too bitter and was reluctant to go through a lengthy process to come up with nasty, bitter peels but this is quick enough to try and adjust again if they don't work the first time. Lord knows I've got plenty of limes!

In preparation for the most recent forum upgrade, there was discussion of establishing a "rating" option for Recipe Gullet entries. If that had happened, this is one I would have given my very top rating! They come out nicely toasted with just the lightest coating of sugar and spice so the nuts are the star of the show - light and crisp, not sticky or gooey. The version I printed out years ago (Spicy Sweet Walnuts.pdf) gives a range of 1/2 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne and depending on the use, I like them on the spicier end of that range. This method works great with pecans and I've tried it with almonds and hazelnuts and they are OK but those smoother nuts can't pick up as much of the coating as the nooks and crannies in walnuts and pecans. Other spices are fun to play with, too. I like a mix of cayenne and chipotle the best. I make them all year but thought I'd give them a plug now since it's the season and all! My top rating: *****!

I believe these would be best classified within the Russian Tea Cake/Mexican Wedding Cookie spectrum. There is a nice mix of finely ground (for a crumbly texture) and chopped (for crunch) nuts. Both walnuts and almonds, I think. Very nice with a cup of coffee!

I received a little tin of Christmas cookies and chocolates in the mail yesterday, so breakfast is coffee and cookies..... ....and chocolate!

My Cuisi-steam oven and the Instant-Pot. Both eG-facilitated small appliances with their own threads!

Quiche and salad: Salad is persimmon, broccoli, curly red lettuce, pickled cranberries, toasted almonds and blue cheese. Quiche is spinach, mushroom and onion with a little bacon.

Oh man! What's next? IP fondue?

Yep. Just posted about it over in the IP topic. The recipe just uses the boil function of the yogurt program to heat up the milk. No actual pressure cooking involved. But easy as pie....easier, actually!

I followed this recipe and made some ricotta in the Instant-Pot. Drop-dead easy. Had some for breakfast. It tastes very nice. I used lime juice instead of lemon because my lime tree is loaded. I don't really taste a lime flavor. The only cheese I had made before was paneer and that was under the supervision of a friend from India. We used 10 gallons of milk. A bit of a production. I have the book Artisan Cheese Making at Home and had been meaning to try making ricotta. She suggests starting with small batches of 1 - 2 gallons. When I saw the IP recipe suggested starting with just a quart, I figured it would be easy enough to try. There is no pressure cooking here, you just use the "boil" function of the yogurt setting to heat the milk and then take the liner out of the pot to add salt and lemon juice off the heat. I started with a coffee filter to strain but switched to the nut milk bag as the coffee filter was too slow. I would do this again.

Hmmm. Similar appearance to yesterday. A warm dish of that chunky applesauce and some more ricotta - this time made in the Instant-Pot and served on toast with walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup.

I must say that the beautiful fish and seafood meals that you've posted got me to look into local options for this sort of program. I found one called Community Seafood out of Santa Barbara that has a pick-up spot not far from me and I'm going to give it a try sometime next year. The offerings don't sound quite as enticing as yours but it should be interesting to get more in touch with the local seafood.

Ewwww. I wanted to click "like" on your post to show my appreciation for answering my question but with that answer.....I just couldn't!

I'm sort of curious what the "Christmas turkey salad" would be.

"Baby" lasagna report. First, let me say that I'm not sure how often I would do this, but I was curious to see how it would work. And there may be times when I have some bit of leftovers that I want to try in a lasagna sort of combination and this would be a good way to make that work. I made 2 little pans of lasagna. I used some regular Ronzoni lasagna noodles that had been in my pantry for lord knows how long. Pan #1 was made with that tasty IP ragu from Serious Eats that I made last week, thinned down with a little strained tomato, some sautéed spinach, mushroom and onion (the bulk of which is destined for a quiche), ricotta, mozzarella and parm. Pan#2 was very loosely based on the lasagna al pesto recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook (a version can be seen here). This recipe has a good bit of vegetables but no actual sauce so I figured it would be the acid test for getting the noodles cooked. Here you see them both ready for the oven Instant-Pot. I thought Pan#1 on the left might overflow and make a big mess but it did not. I put the foil covered pans on the trivet with 2 cups of water and followed the same cooking parameters @ElsieD used, also described here. In the cooker: Fresh out of the cooker: I gave the ragu version on the left a quick run through the Cuisi-oven's broiler. Below, you can see the browned top of Pan#1 and a small serving of the veg/pesto version from Pan#2 on the right: The top layer of noodle in that pesto version is a touch more al dente than I think anyone would want but it's edible. I'm pretty sure I've made that recipe without pre-cooking the noodles but I believe the Ronzoni noodles may be a bit thicker. If I made this again, I'd figure out a way to add some sauce or something over that top layer of noodle to help it hydrate better. There were a few spoonfuls of water on top of the foil when I opened the cooker so maybe trying it without the foil might work. And in the interest of reporting all results, I also sampled a very small portion of the raga-based dish: This one was all nicely cooked. Again, I know making miniature lasagnas may not be of interest to most, but it could be a handy way to use up some leftovers or pilot different flavor combos. I had the ricotta on hand because I wanted to try a version with roasted butternut squash, sautéed spinach or kale and and some blue cheese. I still want to try that.....