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I made this slow-roasted tuna with harissa and olives from Melissa Clark's Dinner: Changing the Game yesterday but wasn’t hungry so breakfast it is! She suggests serving it over baby spinach for a light meal or over farro to bulk it up. I went with both. The tuna is basically oil-poached in the oven and comes out pink and perfectly silky. I've got more of this which will show up later in either a pasta or sandwich.

A quick snacky lunch. The other day, I picked up a container of peach chipotle salsa and a bag of lime chips from Aldi. Both quite decent so I cubed up some raw ahi tuna and a ripe avocado, tossed that with the salsa and a good squeeze of lime juice

I got big eye tuna in my fish share this week and used some in this Tuna, egg and caper salad from Greekish: Everyday Recipes with Greek Roots by Georgina Hayden. Nice Niçoise salad variation. I liked that the onion was very lightly pickled by sitting in the vinegar as the potatoes and tuna were cooking and I was searching the fridge for the avocado.

Beans & greens topped with fried eggs and goat cheese. Warmed up some leftover borolotti lamon beans, stirred in baby spinach to wilt and topped them with these burnt butter eggs and goat cheese from Georgina Hayden's book Greekish. I unintentionally broke both yolks but still managed to have breakfast 🙃

So far, I’ve focused on fish recipes because it does such a nice job of keeping the fish moist and preventing it from drying without diluting the seasonings as can happen with steaming. I haven’t tried the same recipe in parchment vs a combi steam oven so that could be similar with both at 400°F + steam.

More black cod today. This recipe for Gochujang-Marinated Alaska Sablefish With Shiitakes is one I’ve made several times. It got me into trying more “en papillote” recipes. I thought they were all about the presentation but I quite like it for cooking fish, even just for me! Here, I used creminis instead of shiitakes and served with sticky rice and broccolini. Edited to add that the recipe amounts of 2 T gochujang and 1 T soy sauce/serving are a bit too salty for me. Easy to taste and adjust. YMMV

Sadly, I got rid of them when I realized all the recipes were online and were indexed on Eat Your Books so I was very disappointed when publication ceased and the website was taken down. Happily, there’s a Facebook group called Fine Cooking Community that have assembled PDF copies of all (or nearly all) the old issues on an Google drive and have created some search tools. I think they have all the regular issues and most of the special issues. The group members post their cooks and bakes from FC recipes and there's an issue chosen for a cooking “challenge” every 2 months. They encourage members to download the PDFs and store them locally. I haven’t done that but I should in case someone makes them take it down.

Crispy skinned black cod with a sea bean and daikon salad from Fine Cooking (Jun/Jul 2019) The fish was lovely. Not a fan of the salad. I think I’ll pickle the rest of the sea beans.

The last 2 days, I had this Cranberry Beans with Mussels and Chorizo from Ari Kolendar's book, “How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea.” Kind of a bowl-o-brown but lots of flavor and texture. Creamy RG Borolotti Lamon beans, tender, savory tinned mussels en escabeche, crispy, chewy cubes of chorizo and sweet, tangy cherry tomatoes. I bought the book after listening to his author interview on Evan Kleiman's Good Food and I have a few more marked to try: Shrimp with Lentils, Two-Bean Salad with Squid and some version of fish en papillote will happen soon. Not so hungry today, I used 4 oz of halibut cheeks to make a small plate of the (not)Sand Dabs with Sea Beans, Shallots and Sherry Vinegar from the “Zuni Cafe Cookbook.” Edited to add that this was my first time cooking halibut cheeks. I wasn’t sure if I should treat them like scallops or what. This was a basic dredge in flour (I used Wondra) and sauté in butter. They were lovely. Any recommendations for halibut cheeks?

Another fruit & cheese fest: Trader Joe’s strawberry and jalapeño crisps, Silver Goat Chèvre, and Seascape strawberries from Harry’s Berries. Seascapes are my favorite variety. Not really big or showy but super tangy and flavorful. I put the cheese in the CSO for a few min on the plate warming setting to make it nice and spreadable.

I’ve used Al Arz and it was good but I have to admit my favorite thing was that the jar was oversized- packed only about 2/3 x3/4 full so there was ample room to stir without sloshing oil everywhere. Speaking of oil, my best tip for getting a good, toasty sesame flavor is to add a small amount of a good quality toasted sesame oil. I like the Kadoya brand from Japan. I add 1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil to the tahini cookies in Ottolenghi's book, ‘Jerusalem.’

I was in the mood for something fruity today so I made this Whole Grilled Halloumi with Apricots from Greekish by Georgina Hayden which is the cookbook of the month in the online cookbook group I participate in. This was one of those dishes that the more I ate, the more I wanted! My apricots were quite ripe so there was lots of juice to soak up with the bread. This would be a great addition to a charcuterie spread for wine o'clock.

Kimchi grilled cheese I had some extra kimchi/onion/Chinese sausage mixture from yesterday’s fried rice, so I used it up this way.

Kimchi fried rice with scallion salad from Julia Turshen’s Small Victories I made this with a mix of pineapple kimchi (which has cabbage in it) and radish kimchi plus a sliced Chinese sausage

I dunno about the provenance of that particular strand but I've spotted any number of cat hairs in my own photos and suspect I’ve eaten (and probably inhaled) quite a few!

Kimchi & avocado toast, topped with a fried egg and a drizzle of kimchi mayo: I need to get back to this topic but didn’t think of a photo til it was half gone!

$3.29 at my local Whole Foods

I’ve used my Creami very infrequently of late but I detect no odor. After use, I remove the blade, wash everything in hot, soapy water and air dry. I don’t reassemble until I’m ready to use it again. If I noticed an odor from the lid, I’d suspect something, even moisture, trapped under the big ridged O-ring in the lid and I was a bit surprised that Mr Water-Pik, in all his thoroughness didn’t address that. I didn’t try to see if that can be removed and replaced but if not, I’d try a scrub in hot, soapy water, a rinse in a dilute bleach solution and a nice sun bath outside for a few hours…or days 🙃 If you mean the threads on the shaft that retract back up into the upper motor housing, I’ve run the machine with just water to see if there was any obvious debris there. This was after I used it to make chicken liver pâté and was concerned about carryover. I can’t say there was none but there was no hint of turbidity, cloudiness or foaming you’d expect to see if there was any protein in there. Good luck with your troubleshooting and keep us posted!

I haven’t seen DeCecco around here for $2.00 in forever. I used Instacart to check prices in my area and most are in the $3.50-4 range. Sprouts has it on sale for $2.61 (regular $3.49) Walmart has a similar sale price. Ralph’s has a sale price of $3.72 with their loyalty card (regular $3.99) The fancy places are $4.99 or more

Sounds interesting. The water tank is fairly small, 600 ml, but as long as it’s easy to access, that wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. I couldn’t find the interior dimensions. On the exterior, it’s bigger than my Cuisinart CSO, so I’d expect it’s adequate. Let us know if you get one!

I would 100% recommend considering a combi steam oven even if it doesn’t have the temp control desired for sous vide. It’s hard to explain what a difference steam can make in roasting at higher temps without drying things out, getting that perfect crackling crust on a loaf of bread or (my most used function) reheating leftovers. The steam combi oven I have doesn’t have the temp control I’d want for sous vide cooking but it’s enormously valuable all the same so don’t reject the concept out of hand. I think Gaggeneau makes the most desirable combi steam oven that offers good sous vide temp control. It’s frightfully expensive, but I’d economize on almost everything else in a remodel to get one!

The other day, I cooked up a pound of RG Marcella beans and made the Lemony Shrimp and Bean Stew from NYT Cooking. Very good. The header notes suggest a flaky white fish or seared scallops as alternatives to the shrimp so I made it again with some petrale sole filets from my weekly fish share. They’re so delicate, I just put them on top of the beans and added some sugar snaps and some tiny, bean-sized tomatoes.

Is Yucan the name of the restaurant or of the soup? Did you live in Lomita or Lomia? Edited to add that this is a bit of a leap as it doesn’t match with anything you’ve asked, but on the outside chance that you lived in Lomita and went to the Yucatán Grill in Seal Beach, they offer a Sopa de Lima made with chicken. Coincidentally, @Smithy recently made a Sopa de Lima recipe she got from a chef in San Diego. You can find a link to the recipe she uploaded and her description of making it in this post.

If you want to try making your own maple vinegar you could check out this post from @Nyleve Baar and the following discussion. Also, in this post in the 2017 Recipes that Rock topic, @Anna N shared another recipe link.

Fresh produce prices would be the canary in the tariff coal mine and they can be volatile anyway as seasons change across the globe. And the use of varying package sizes tends to obscure the unit price.