blue_dolphin

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.

I stopped in yesterday for some wine and got a rosé and a vermentino from Italy, a chenin blanc/viognier from South Africa and an albariño from Spain. All were at their usual prices though I suspect have been in the US for some time. I’ll add that throughout this egg shortage and the last big one, the TJ's in my area have not increased their egg prices. They ran out from time to time and limited purchases but the prices stayed the same. California eggs are always higher than the national average and TJ's weren’t the lowest around but they stayed in the $3-4 range when the big groceries were $7-9.

It’s a nice flavor combo. I was thinking of trying it as a sorbet, without the dairy. Need to think about that.

I haven’t experienced any warping. I have a gas cooktop and the flame comes up the side a ways (unnecessarily wasting energy and heating the room, of course) so it’s not as concentrated on the bottom alone which might contribute to warping.

I have the carbon steel, flat bottom wok with the metal side handle from wokshop.com. I got the 12” size which is good for me as I’m usually coking for 1 or 2. The 14 inch would be more versatile for some things, for example, I’ve made a few recipes where some ingredients were to be moved up to the side while something else got cooked in the bottom and the bigger wok offers more real estate for that sort of stuff. I already had both flat and domed lids that work so I didn’t need to buy them. Edited to add that I’m very happy with that wok.

That particular All-Clad pan is big and heavy so it’s challenging to toss or flip stuff around. If the kid is beefy and regularly cooks for a crowd, it might be a good pan for him. IMHO, the mother of all pans would be either a wok or a cast iron skillet. Both are inexpensive and would teach the kid about how to season a pan and how to cook in a way that respects that seasoning. You could get him both of those and a copy of Kenji's The Wok for a lot less than that pan. I've ordered quite a few items from that factory sale website and haven’t been disappointed. It’s great if you happen to spot something you’d like but not so much when you have something specific in mind. My only miss was a pan that turned out to be both bigger and heavier than I needed. Nothing wrong, just a bad choice on my part.

Last week we had some hot weather so I mixed up half batches of the Blueberry + Omani Lime Ice Cream from The Flavor Equation by Nic Sharma and the Lemon Verbena Sherbet from Bestia by by Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis. Both are good but don’t really complement each other. The blueberry and Omani lime is a favorite and a repeat. I’ve also made it as popsicles. It’s made with kefir or buttermilk for a light tang. The lemon verbena sherbet came out right on the edge of being too floral/soapy. Likely operator error as I always think more herbs are good and might have packed the leaves more than “lightly” when measuring. I think a straight fruit sorbet would be a better partner for it than the blueberry ice cream. I was thinking mango but The Flavor Bible recommends apricot with lemon verbena so maybe I’ll repeat it when apricots are in season.

Resurrecting an old topic as I think there have been a number of books that fit this category and while I also used to scoff at many of them, I’ve found they can be useful for me when I’ve gotten into a cooking funk. Ali Slagle's 2022 I Dream of Dinner (so You Don't Have To): Low-Effort, High-Reward Recipes (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) comes to mind. I cooked a ton from it when it was the book of the month in a cookbook group I participate in and I continue to pull it out when I’m looking for ideas for something quick. The real reason I was looking for a topic about “Easy” cookbooks was to mention Easy Weeknight Dinners by New York Times Cooking and Emily Weinstein (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). It happens to be the cookbook of the month in my cookbook group and is a compilation of ~ 100 easy recipes from NYT Cooking, all of which can be accessed on line if you subscribe. I’m a subscriber so I didn’t purchase the book but have been cooking along. I've been pleasantly surprised with the results and wanted to mention it. It would be a good option for newer cooks or anyone looking for some low-effort but tasty recipes. The Amazon preview contains all the intro material, including a “recipe type” listing for those looking for help deciding what to cook and almost all of the chicken recipes. Here’s a page from that recipe listing, for review purposes: Here are some of the dishes I’ve been pleased with. Coconut fish & tomato bake (made with black cod): Blackened fish with grits (recipe calls for quick grits, I used regular) Chile crisp fettuccine Alfredo with spinach (I added mushrooms): Baked cod with buttery cracker topping (made with fresh ocean whitefish filets): One-pot pasta with ricotta and lemon (I added veg): Sheet-pan chile crisp salmon and asparagus (recipe cubes the salmon, I left whole):

Can you get by with a silicone lid? I have a 1 qt All Clad saucier that's one of my most used pans but didn’t come with a lid. I don’t have any lids that fit so that’s what I use. I’ll note that might not work as well with the arched cast iron handle on the Falk pan pictured above.

@Shel_B, I answered your question over here in a tuna topic you started ages ago!