blue_dolphin

Thank you! I've been trying to get more veg into my breakfasts.

Poached egg on roasted cauliflower, tomatoes, parsley and kalamata olives The veg recipe is from Ruffage and should have been topped with garlic bread crumbs. I had a slice of toast instead.

Another Abra Berens cauliflower salad, this one from Ruffage. Shaved cauliflower salad with smoked whitefish mayo, lemon, radicchio and herbs. Plus a bonus sandwich below. As in the barley salad above, I subbed smoked trout for the whitefish. Had this as a main dish salad and ate it all up. I thought this was quite good and would make it again. And, in fact, I did make it again! This time, I made enough for a side salad and planned leftovers. Here's the salad: This time I used a mandoline instead of a knife to cut the cauliflower. Both were fine. Now, about the leftovers. In the intro to the cauliflower section in Ruffage, Abra mentions how her cooking is sometimes similar to Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal cooking and describes using the leftovers from one of the raw cauliflower salads in a sandwich. I did the same, adding more smoked trout to the leftover salad and tucked everything into a pita for a bonus lunch the next day. Gingery quick-pickled beets and citrus carrots from Snacks for Dinner on the side. Everything recommended.

She seems to have had a pretty good sense of humor in that regard. One of her quotes that often comes up was:

My thought as well. I might consider buying peeps for holiday decor purposes but marshmallow vodka??? I think not!

Slightly more inclusive:

Bad writing may be part of it but because of how widespread it is, even in relatively recent books, I tend to suspect poor editing, stuck with restricting ingredients to those available in every town, fifty years ago!

Thanks! Wikipedia took me in another direction entirely. Egg War. Fascinating but I couldn't figure out how any recreation of the event would relate to Easter or lead to egg salad 🤣

What's an egg war?

It may be meaningless but I have found this usage very common amongst cookbook authors in the UK, where Talati resides. Ottolenghi, Sami Tammy, Diana Henry, Meera Sodah, Nisha Katona and others all use similar wording, sometimes not even mentioning the size. In another cooking group, we have often speculated whether there is really only one green chilli and red chilli sold over there. In this context, though, it seems perfectly adequate as the OP can choose the from the chillies available to get the desired heat level.

Aside from using it as a shortcut to related green sauces from multiple cuisines, I might: Toss with pasta and cooked veg and top with crumbled queso, feta or Parmesan Mix into eggs before scrambling or use in an omelet filling Smear on bread for a grilled cheese sandwich Mix into mayo for a sandwich spread Whisk into a vinaigrette or creamy salad dressing Drizzle over roasted sweet potatoes or any roasted vegetables Spoon into a baked potato Mix into potato salad or egg salad or deviled eggs Add a swirl on top of a bowl of soup, polenta, cooked rice or bean dips Mix with sashimi-grade fish and lime juice for a ceviche or pickled shrimp Blend into meatloaf or meat balls before cooking Dollop on any grilled meats or seafood Spread on pizza dough instead of a pizza sauce Edited to add that I should have mentioned the recipes where Bayless uses it in the book. He uses it as a sauce for shrimp, beef or pork in his recipe for skillet tacos, tosses it with roasted chayote, and uses it in a risotto-like green rice and beans dish. What uses do you have in mind for the green chilli paste that you are requesting a recipe for?

Sounds like @Alex absolutely nailed your request! You can make it as smooth as you like and determine the heat level by your choice of chile peppers. My go to green chile stuff is the green chile adobo from More Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless. I find it neutral enough that I easily scoop some out and tweak it into a zhoug or green chile chutney. I wouldn't call it chilli paste though because it contains so much cilantro and parsley. More chili herb paste.

In case you wondered….A Visit to the Peeps Factory (gift link to NYT article with some great photos)

Those pita breads in last week's lunch look great....well, everything else does, too 😋 Sorry about this week's food, though I'm sure the company was excellent!

Not Margaret, but I have always used the whole thing.

Roasted asparagus with marinated mushrooms and crispy fried buckwheat from Grist, topped with a boiled egg.

Yes. The recipe says the raw cauliflower is to be, "shaved into thin vertical cross pieces, leaving the core intact," whatever the heck that means 🤣 At first, I thought it would have been better to slice the cauliflower similarly but roast it instead of raw. Turns out the texture of the thin, raw slices works quite nicely here. Though roasted, crispy bits have their own charm!

Late reply here. I know what you mean about the icky silicone. I ordered one of the Mastrad spatulas and I see what you mean about it being sturdy. I really liked the iSi slim spatulas (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) but they have disappeared from the market. RIP. I've had one of these Tovolo spatulas with a stainless steel handle (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) for about 3 years and it's been OK. Like the iSi, the blade is very thin but it has a bit of curve. They also have an all silicone one (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) that is cheaper but looks otherwise similar and wooden-handle versions. The downside of those very thin blades is that they get nicks in them easily if someone (aka cat sitter) uses them to scoop stuff out of pull-top cans of the sort that leave a sharp inside edge.

Barley salad with cauliflower, smoked whitefish, marinated mushrooms and arugula from Grist. Kind of a strange combo of ingredients that I only tried because this recipe is in the "Week's Worth of Barley Without Any Boredom" section of Grist and I decided to work my way through these "weeks" as a way to get more familiar with the book and these grains. I wasn't prepared to love it but it grew on me and I ended up enjoying it. I used smoked trout instead of whitefish and baby kale instead of arugula. The dressing is just pickle liquid (I used spicy dills) mixed with mayo and seasoned with S&P. I added some crisped barley from one of the other recipes for a bit of crunch. The marinated mushrooms are first pan-roasted, then tossed with garlic, thyme, rosemary, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil and red wine vinegar. They're quite good - more umami than pickle-y.

Per the instructions in the book, you separate the leaves from the lettuce and toss everything together so any lettuce would work. Seems to me the point of little gems is how cute they look when halved or quartered so that’s what I did even though the dressing doesn’t coat every leaf evenly.

A riff on the barley cakes underneath lamb chops with roasted carrots and ras el hanout apricot almond rig from Grist: No lamb chops at my farmers market vendor. The recipe just seasons them with S&P and grills or pan fries them so I subbed a couple of meaty baby back ribs that I cooked in a hot oven per Eric Kim's Salt & Pepper Ribs recipe. The barley cakes are a little bland but not bad. The given quantities would have made a thin batter, not a thick one as the recipe describes so I added more barley and less water. I think they'd be better if I'd seasoned the batter with some of the ras el hanout spice mix that went into the apricot almond relish. I used baby kale instead of spinach for the green and added more lemon juice and olive oil to dress it. A fine lunch, even if I barely followed the recipe!

Little Gems with Lemon Cream, Spring Onion, Radish and Mint p 101 The Lemon Cream p 41 is an interesting dressing, with garlic-infused heavy cream whipped into a light, airy sauce flavored with lemon. This is the only recipe in the book that calls for it and I rarely have little gem lettuces but figured I should take advantage of the opportunity and mark this one off my list. I used the torn croutons instead of breadcrumbs and forgot to add the mint. Ooops. This one is light, bright and spring-like.

Eric Kim's Gochujang Buttered Noodles from the NYT. Dead easy and quite tasty. If you try it, I recommend reducing the honey from 1 Tbsp to 1 tsp/serving. Eric does have a sweet tooth. I added sugar snap peas and red bell pepper.

Buckwheat with asparagus and radishes in a citrus vinaigrette

When I'm in Ibericaland, I always start off with a classic Pan con Tomate y Jamón