blue_dolphin

The Kindle version of Sally Schmitt's Six California Kitchens: A Collection of Recipes, Stories, and Cooking Lessons from a Pioneer of California Cuisine (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) is currently $2.99 on Amazon in both the US and Canada. £2.48 in the UK. Sally Schmitt founded and ran the French Laundry with her husband for 16 years before they sold it to Thomas Keller but this isn't fancy restaurant cookery. Sally's not above doctoring up jarred mayo with a bit of toasted sesame oil to make a delicious and simple sauce for fresh asparagus. I had more to say about the hard copy of this book over here. It's a delight to read and everything I've cooked from it has been quite good.

They are black soy beans so there is a little bit of earthy, bean flavor but mostly salty, umami with a little funk from the fermentation. They’re usually used in small amounts for seasoning so it’s not like digging into a bowl of beans. A little like anchovies where they can be overpowering on their own but add a nice umami boost once incorporated into a dish. You may even have had them as they’re used in a range of Chinese dishes even when they’re not a named ingredient in the title of the dish. They're kind of a unique flavor and you may not like them but I think worth trying. The first Chinese recipe I learned to cook was squid in black bean sauce. I was amazed that a spoonful of those shriveled little beans added so much flavor to the dish - I've been hooked ever since!

Grilled albacore sandwich with pickled radish, wasabi-soy mayo and arugula. Based on this recipe. Pickled veg and potato chips on the side. This would have been equally good without the bun as a salad.

Me, too! I suppose a resurrection of the print magazine is too much to wish for but I have my fingers crossed that something interesting may come of Saveur after this announcement last month.

In hopes of encouraging myself to cook more fish and seafood and know that it's local and sustainably caught, I signed up for a weekly fish/seafood delivery service called Get Hooked. They serve Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Ventura counties. I really liked that they have a small share option ~ 12 oz or about 3 meals for me. I can always bump up my order if I'm having people over. The timing also works out well for me. I get an email on Wednesday evening, telling me what my "catch of the day" will be for my Thursday pick-up. That gives me time to give some thought to what I'll make and pick up any missing items at our Thursday farmers market. I could get home delivery but chose a less expensive option of picking up at a local drop-off. In addition to that catch of the day, they also offer other fresh and frozen fish and seafood that you can get in addition to or instead of their choice. And they have an on-line pantry shop of items from other local small businesses that can be delivered along with the fish. So far, I've been quite pleased. The first week was ahi tuna loin that I used to make poke and tacos. Last week was rockfish, nothing fancy, but nice and fresh. I cooked it with a fermented black bean sauce and bok choy and also made more tacos. Today I got some nice albacore filets. I think a grilled albacore sandwich will probably happen. Wasabi poke is on the list and I'll sous vide whatever's left into a tuna confit type thing using the Zuni Cafe Cookbook recipe. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they gave me this cute little insulated bag to use when I pick up the fish - I now have a dedicated fish purse 🙃

One pound of dried beans (which is about 2 cups) will yield about 6 cups cooked beans. If a recipe calls for canned beans: 1 15-oz can of beans equals about 2 cups cooked beans so you'd need 3 15oz cans. I don't know what size tins are common for beans in your part of the world but maybe that will help.

@Ann_T, I could use a bowl of that soup to warm me up this morning - looks delicious! Kimchi & avocado toast with a fried egg

Curiously, I can’t see any macaroni visible in that photo! I did look it up though. a variety of pasta formed in narrow tubes. Sounds like bucatini? Maybe penne?

By my read of the title of the topic, we are being invited to define that "generally accepted pasta shape/type" and perhaps to push the boundaries so please do share your definition and the boundaries you draw! From what you said, the shape is not: So what pasta shape is mac & cheese for @AlaMoi? Growing up, my mom usually made what she called mac & cheese with elbows. Though other shapes often stood in so I've never defined the dish strictly by the pasta shape. She also added tomato. She may have called it tomato mac & cheese. I don't remember. I do remember that it was baked with breadcrumbs and Parm forming a crispy crust on top. My personal favorite uses any chunky pasta shape and begins with setting a large bowl over the pot of water as the pasta cooks to warm a thinly sliced clove of garlic, a bit of butter and some crumbled Gorgonzola. Once the pasta is ready, scoop it out and toss it and the water that clings to it with the contents of the bowl. Add a grind of black pepper and enjoy!

Only 54°F in the house this AM and I refuse to turn on the heat in May so I turned to a savory oatmeal from Grist to warm me up. Steel-cut Oat Porridge with Cheddar, topped with a steam-basted egg in a nest of sautéed greens.

Diana Henry's Boozy Mushrooms on Toast from Simple over pan-seared asparagus

Fried garlic noodles from Cook Real Hawai'i with asparagus and egg I made that noodle recipe yesterday as a side dish. Once that crispy garlic for the topping is fried, they take almost no time so I made them again, this time with asparagus and and egg.

I read somewhere that was the best way to cut limes. Maybe here?

Seared scallops and baby boy choy with black bean sauce and fried garlic noodles from Cook Real Hawai'i Kind of a repeat of the last lunch I posted but with scallops instead of fish.

Sausage, egg and pepper jack again

These little guys? I'll have to look for them.

Dry ice isn’t without hazards. It doesn’t melt, at least at atmospheric pressure, it sublimates: solid -> gas. In a properly vented dewer, all should be well, but don't think of putting dry ice into anything like a glass jar and think you’ll seal it up once the solid CO2 is no longer visible because as it warms, the gas can move out of solution and BOOM!

Looks like the Cloverdale bacon is 3 lbs for $18.99 or $6.33/lb and the Farmers Pride is 5 lbs for $22.99 or $4.60/lb. I haven’t checked recently but have seen prices in that ballpark over the last couple years.

Yikes! That would scare me away, too! My local farmers market has big heads of cauliflower for $4 - 5. Higher than in previous years but they are big and very fresh. The garlic and citrus seem more within reason. I usually get 4/$1 lemons at the farmers market, though they are huge. Limes have pretty much gone out of season locally so I'm hoarding what's left on my tree but when in season, they were also 4/$1 for big juicy limes. I paid more than the pictured price (3/$1) for organic garlic yesterday, though the stuff in the picture looks to be Chinese or another import as the roots have been scooped out. I paid $1.79 for 3 heads of California organic garlic. I don't buy much meat so I don't have a point of reference there, though I do enjoy snooping through the markets with you!

Not everyone's cup of tea but dolphins (or at least one @blue_dolphin 🙃) apparently like fish tacos for breakfast. Edited to add even dolphins can have sensitive stomachs so I deferred this meal to around 9 AM. From Melissa Clark's Dinner: Changing the Game with a red cabbage, lime and jalapeño slaw, rockfish from the fish delivery I picked up the other day and a yogurt/garlic/lime crema.

Yesterday's lunch was Crispy Black Bean Butterfish from Cook Real Hawai'i I've always used fermented black beans in a stir fry prep where everything comes together in the wok so this method of making a the sauce separately, frying the fish and blanching the baby bok choy was interesting. I used rockfish instead of the butterfish (black cod) specified in the recipe so it was a bit less luxurious but still good.

I admit to being mesmerized by this video showing the making of 7 Eleven's SPAM Musubi in Hawaii. https://www.instagram.com/p/CreOxmjNAqN/ (click link to watch) 2000 lbs of rice/day and can after can of SPAM!

I'll add that the nicest breading I've gotten on fish is with Vivian Howard's rice-crusted catfish recipe from her book Deep Run Roots. She submerges the fish in buttermilk for a hour to overnight in the fridge. Her breading is 1/2 cup long grain rice, ground in a spice mill to the texture of coarse cornmeal, plus 1/2 cup cornmeal, seasoned with salt, cayenne and paprika. After draining and dredging the fish and knocking off the excess, she puts the filets on a rack in the fridge for at least an hour. She contends that the ground rice behaves differently from rice flour. Maybe does something similar to the potato flakes you are using. I dunno but the result is shatteringly crisp and not heavy at all.

You might want to check out @Dave the Cook's method for a batter using rice flour along with your KA all purpose substitute. There's a fairly long discussion that starts around here and continues on an off for some time.

They do make cake pans with removable bottoms (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) though I suspect leaking could be an issue with thinner batters. When I was shopping for an angel food cake pan, not long ago, I saw some that came with 2 bottoms, one with the center tube for an angel food or tube cake and one regular flat bottom. I didn’t buy one but it sounded like a good idea.