blue_dolphin

Over in this post, I shared the recipe for the butternut squash filling that Evan Funke has in American Sfoglino. He simmers the purée with butter and sage leaves to reduce it, making it thick and also very flavorful. Edited to add that in my hands, it reduced in volume to about half of the original. I think you could easily adapt that to a canned purée.

I made this Kabocha Vanilla Chai Ice Cream with the Ninja Creami, using canned pumpkin purée instead of the kabocha squash. It was good. With praline pecans, it would have been even better!

Thanks for the recommendation. Dave Arnold had Benjamin Lorr a few weeks ago on his Cooking Issues podcast: The Secret Life of Groceries with Benjamin Lorr

Thanks! Cauliflower mash is up next! I wake early and have more energy and ambition in the morning than the rest of the day so it's no effort for me. And what I make is never particularly involved, unless it's compared with a bowl of cereal. Breakfast and lunch (sometimes closer to brunch and linner) are my two main meals though I enjoy a cocktail and nibble in the evening. That nibble could even be a small bowl of Grape Nuts 🙃 Pan-roasted cabbage tossed with mustard and apples with Toulouse-style sausage and cheddar from Ruffage This was quite good. The crumbly Cheddar that @Smithy showed us recently would have been great. The Cabot extra sharp I had was too soft to curl. Should have planned ahead and made it into frico chips.

I think @Margaret Pilgrim described it very well here: I just take a quarter lemon and use my fingers to separate the mushy pulp. If I'm making something that might need seasoning, I set it aside so I can use it to add extra salt/acididity if needed. Then I rinse the rest of the peel and slice, dice or whatever. As Margaret said, some slow cooked or braised dishes will call for a whole lemon. Some people like to blitz the whole lemons to make a paste to be used for seasoning. For my taste, and the way I make them, it comes out too salty to be useful but I can see why others might like it. I usually make a fresh batch once a year but sometimes I've used them for several years. Between the acid and salt, and assuming they are submerged in brine, they are a rather inhospitable environment for spoilage organisms. Any pieces sticking up out of the brine or right at the surface can discolor from oxidation and I see some people here have seen some sort of mold growth. I haven't seen the mold.

Parsnip mash with smoked paprika chili oil, baby kale & pecans from Ruffage with a poached egg on top. I gotta say this was a pretty good combo of flavors. The mash is flavored with onion, star anise and orange zest. The greens were supposed to be arugula, uncooked and dressed with that chili oil but I think the cooked, more bitter greens might be better. This would be great with seared scallops or roasted chicken thighs. The egg was a bonus so I could call this vegetable side dish breakfast. Also, yesterday's poached egg was overcooked so I had to reclaim my poached egg mojo 🙃

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.