blue_dolphin

Never discard! I either blitz it with the immersion blender or, for something less smooth, chop it up and return to the sauce.

After what seems like months of gloom, the sun is out this morning! Still only 62°F in the house so I'm wearing a fleece jacket but in celebration of the sunshine, I had an apricot and orange blossom popsicle for breakfast. Now for some coffee to warm up!

That’s what I aimed for but may not have achieved. I believe these guys have been purged or fasted as there is just the tiniest thread of vein but I still thought it might help get more even cooking. And it was noticeably better than the grilled ones where I just slit the shell and looked for the vein but I still overcooked the tails both times. Still an interesting experiment!

I got no picnic table, no sprinklers and no kids here and it's gloomy and in the 60's so I gotta go with it as the shrimp aren't waiting around for me to create a better setting!

Both deep fried and grilled had deliciously crispy shells and sweet flesh. It was just a bit tough towards the tail because of my inept overcooking. But speaking of good bread for dunking, I used some of the shrimp to make Kenji's Sous Vide Shrimp With Garlic, Sherry, and Smoked Paprika from Serious Eats. I cooked these at 125°F and they were delicious. Clearly, these guys were beheaded before I cooked them so it's not quite on topic but from tasting the earlier preps, I knew they were nice and shrimpy and could stand up to the garlic and paprika. I find peel & eat shrimp to be awfully messy and I feel like I need to go take a shower and change my clothes

I was listening to a podcast the other day and Eric Kim mentioned this weird toast so of course, I had to try it. He described it as toasted milk bread, spread with peanut butter, sprinkled with flaky sea salt, drizzled with honey and then sprinkled generously with nutritional yeast. The jury is out. I think it needed more honey. If you make this, be careful not to exhale while taking a bite or you will send a shower of nutritional yeast all over yourself and the room.

This Is Taste, a podcast from the people at tastecooking.com has been around since 2018 but was new to me. I listened to an interview with Eric Kim and Ali Slagle recorded recently at Rizzoli Bookstore and an episode with Wylie Dufresne and enjoyed both.

Me, too. I just hope the review didn't spill all the beans and there is still more to learn!

Here's one of my little critters: So far, I have not done well with cooking them Or maybe I should say that I did them too well! I tried grilling them (Philips Avance indoor grill) and deep frying and have overcooked the tail end both times though the head end has been good. Here they are grilled per the recipe for salt grilled shrimp in The Japanese Grill. I cut down the back but not too deep for these. The cook time recommendation was 1.5 min/side. I shortened that up to a little over 1 min but that was still too much for the tails. I was a little surprised as the photo in the book shows very charred looking shrimp and mine were barely colored but still too cooked at the tail. Temp near the head was ~ 125°F, near the tail ~ 150°F. I cooked these as soon as I got them so they were only off the ice for as long as it took me to trim their spears and slit the backs. The second round was deep frying and I cut about 1/2-3/4 the way through the back of the shrimp in hopes of more even cooking. Heads good (temp ~120°F) tails over cooked (temp ~150°F). These were fridge temp when I cooked them so maybe letting them warm up might make it easier to get a more even cook. I did peel and sauté one in butter as I would normally do and they were very nice. Next up is sous vide and an aguachile. For the sous vide, I plan to take off the heads and reserve them for stock. I'll also take the heads off for the aguachile but will deep fry them and serve them along with the marinated bodies.

National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Anya von Bremzen (author or co-author of multiple cookbooks) sounds like a book I'd enjoy reading. It's out next week on June 20. Here's a gift link to the NYT Book Review piece on the book: How Do Certain Foods Become National Dishes? Excerpt from the linked review:

I've always thought of quick pickles as fruit or veg that's flavored with vinegar +/- other seasonings and intended for consumption in the short term but NOT a method of preservation for long term storage. In that scenario, it seems like you could just dilute the vinegar to suit your taste. I suppose the higher the acid, the longer they may keep but if you don't like the taste, that doesn't really matter!

Further down in that article, you will find: Perhaps a reason botulism is rare in fermented foods is due to people actually following recipes that reduce its ability to grow...you know... using appropriate amounts of salt! You are correct that the risks in fermented foods are very low, in part due to high salt and acid levels but they are not nil and the consequences (um, death) are so devastating that many here choose to follow guidelines. I can't believe I'm devoting keystrokes here but there is absolutely nothing correct in the assumptions below. Nothing. Choosing to incubate food stuffs in conditions (anaerobic, low salt, low acid) that allow C. botulinum growth and then cooking or adding acid, isn't a preventative as neither of those treatments will inactivate any botulinum toxin that might have been produced during your merry low-salt fermentation. But, do carry on!

If your ultimate goal is a notebook, then the 3-ring binder is going to be your most economical choice as they come in all thicknesses and cover colors with many page options from just punching holes in your printouts to using various protector sheets and dividers. The world of scrapbooking offers all sorts of fancier options but both the books and pages are going to be more expensive and some are rather cumbersome to add pages. Another way to organize them is in file folders, stored in hanging file boxes (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). They come in different sizes, colors, and patterns with and without lids. That doesn't suit your need for a notebook but it could be a good way to start organizing your collection before placing things into the notebook(s).

Two apricot pops from People's Pops that I don't think I've tried before. Both apricot with floral notes. Apricot & lavender These are sweetened with a lavender simple syrup. I used a drop of the leftover syrup to adhere a few lavender buds to each pop. Thinking back, I wish I would have dried the lavender buds that I use to make the syrup and crushed or ground them with sugar. It would have made a pretty and tasty sprinkle for the pops. Apricot & Orange Blossom These are just basic apricot pops with the addition of orange blossom water to taste.

Looks like croissant perfection! I still remember the wise pronouncement from the 6-year old daughter of my long-time French boss, "It's good if it leaves a lot of crumbs on the plate!" Renee Erickson's Getaway includes a recipe for Dates and Manchego where the dates are sautéed in olive oil to lightly caramelize the exterior and served with crumbled Manchego, a drizzle of olive oil and crunchy sea salt. We are instructed to serve with toothpicks. The contrast between the chewy/crisp, caramelized exterior and soft interior of the dates is lovely and I enjoyed eating this. But these are big, multiple bite dates and it's a good thing no one was watching. If I were to serve it to others, I'd either seek out smaller, bite-sized dates or maybe pit and quarter the dates after sautéing then skewer each piece on a toothpick with a chunk of cheese.

I have used them to make lazy person fish tacos. The fake fish doesn't appeal to me either but the whole fishing industry is so fraught with concerns, I can see why some people might want to give them a try.

Too funny! I wasn't going to say anything because you sounded quite pleased with the deal that I didn't think was much of a deal!

Ditto that. I wanted a quick slaw to put on a pulled pork sandwich. Shredded some cabbage, added chopped kimchi and a spoon of mayo. Voila, kimchi slaw!

This episode of the "This Is Taste" podcast features Wylie Dufresne and he gives a pretty good description of that salad. They are buying the kettle chips and putting their own vinegar powder on them so they're probably amped up over what we can buy in the grocery store. dressing the greens with lots of olive oil. Talk of the salad starts around 19:30 if you don't want to listen to the whole thing. Edited to add that vinegar powder can be purchased or you can make it yourself. Here's an article that sketches out some ways to go about it: Vinegar: Now in Powder Form

A little of this, a little of that. Tots, baked beans, scrambled egg, tomatoes, broccoli

Wow, it's been a while! We haven't had a lick of popsicle weather yet but I decided to get ready anyway. I made a Strawberry and Black Pepper Gin & Tonic from a cookbook recipe and decided to turn it into a poptail. I made a black pepper simple syrup, using tonic instead of water to dissolve the sugar and blended that with the berries. I added a bit of tonic syrup to up the flavor and a tot of gin. I gave them a sprinkle of black pepper after unmolding. Had to make a few classic strawberry & cream pops, too.

Sounds pretty grim!

That's good news! Maybe I'll pick up another bottle to last me 'til then!

For a while, Trader Joe's was selling a bagged salad mix that came with a packet of their dill pickle flavored potato chips and a creamy dill ranch dressing. Those chips were pretty much like salt & vinegar chips with a bit of extra seasoning. It was a limited item and no longer available but I tried it and it was pretty good. Kinda fun to put chips on a salad! Edited to add that they were a kettle-style chip, which I think helped them maintain their crunch better than some others might.

Very good price but probably not worth a cross-country trip to pick up!