blue_dolphin

California also allows sales of wine and hard liquor pretty much anywhere so I haven't run into salted Shaoxing wine but it could well be available. Now, when it comes to the serving of those products, and carrying them about, I believe California is more restrictive than Louisiana! US liquor laws are something else!

I ❤️ "too peopley" and run in to it quite a lot myself 🙃 Are the lobsters you get down there the Maine, big claw sort or more like the the spiny, big tail type like we get out here, seen below:

If you like the recipes you try, the whole Tenderheart book is pretty great. She uses a lot of interesting flavor combinations and most of the vegetables she features are readily available most of the year. The book is nicely laid out with a recipe on one side and a photo of it on the facing page. Hetty takes the photos herself as she's developing the recipes so there's no weirdly styled stuff. It's quite a big book, so an e-book format could be a good idea.

Carrot Peanut Satay Ramen from Tenderheart. Recipe available online at this link.

That looks and sounds excellent, @FrogPrincesse! Coincidentally, I have that book sitting next to me as I read your post. I'm getting black cod in my fish share today and was looking at the recipe for it with endive & hazelnuts as a way out of my miso-marinated black cod rut!

Yesterday's hash and a fat stalk of asparagus went into a little 2-egg frittata, dotted with ricotta.

I used RG Royal Coronas to make this Mustard-marinated beans with shaved asparagus and parsley from Abra Beren's book, Grist and it was a most excellent lunch, if I do say so myself 🙃. The just-cooked, warm beans are marinated in a Dijon mustard vinaigrette and served with thinly sliced asparagus tossed with olive oil and parsley. I put everything on a pile of arugula as I liked having both a tender and crunchy veg.

Pytt i panna from Roast Figs, Sugar Snow by Diana Henry, which she describes as a sort of "Swedish hash." Recipe available online here. Topped with a fried duck egg and apple & beetroot relish from the same book on the side. Good for a rainy morning. I did not peel the spuds and fried them in duck fat instead of butter & oil. I used breakfast sausage and country ham for the meat and since both are quite flavorful, I used half the amount specific in the recipe.

No, that’s what YOU need, seeking a degree of granularity that goes well beyond what EYB was set up for - as you say, you don’t want an index (what EYB is) but a full text search. I think most of users are accustomed to looking up recipes in conventional cookbook indexes and are happy to be able to do that in one go, across all of our books, magazines and websites at once. I adore EYB and use it every day but it's not the tool for the precision you need in searching for recipes. Have you looked at ckbk? It’s limited to the the books in their library (which have relatively little overlap with my own) and the search functions are rudimentary compared to EYB, but it does contain the full text of the recipes so you can certainly search on “boneless skinless” if that’s your key criteria for choosing a recipe. Of course, that will give you a different set of results as searching for “boned skinned” but that’s the price of a full text word search.

EYB is NOT for you!

Scrolling through the recipes, I don’t see any that specify skinless boneless chicken as an ingredient so I’m not sure you are doing anything wrong.

I haven’t used them as screwdrivers but they're quite handy for prying lids, etc and have protected a few of my table knives from turning up at the ends 🙄

It was 55°F in the house this morning but it looked like the sun would come out and warm things up so I didn't want to turn on the heat. Turned on the oven instead to make a quiche! Apple and beet salad with asparagus, mushroom and onion quiche

I do that, too. It's a good way to try out different sauces, fillings, etc.

MC@Home also comes with a spiral-bound kitchen manual. It's the same height and width as the big book, but much slimmer as it has far fewer pages. It's the part I use the most.

Well, I went to Total Wine to get some dry cider for a couple of recipes and, as promised, I checked out the little bottle section and brought home a bottle of this Screwball Peanut Butter Whiskey. I gave it a sniff and it smelled pleasantly peanut buttery. I took a sip and was shocked at how sugar-y sweet it is. I'm surprised it's not labeled as a liqueur. Way too sweet to sip on its own. I decided to try making a Manhattan with it. That's a pretty hilarious notion right there but I thought the vermouth might balance out the sweetness and the cherry garnish might offer a little PB&J vibe. It was not good. Not good at all. Even the nice Amarena cherry wasn't good after spending time in the glass with it. If someone were a lover of sweet drinks, I suppose this could be used in one. The peanut/honey flavor isn't bad, it's just overwhelmed by the sweetness. The young woman at the register told me that her boyfriend liked to use it to make frozen chocolate milkshakes. That's not my kinda cocktail. The helpful cashier suggested that if I liked this, I should check out the various flavors offered by another company, Skatterbrain, and specifically recommended their Dark Chocolate Banana Whiskey. Good grief! What is the world coming to?

I'm not sure if this is the place they are going, but @liamsaunt mentioned it last year. It looks way more glam than camp 🙃

Onion and Cider Soup with Melting Camembert alongside an arugula salad topped with the Apple and Beetroot Relish, both from Roast Figs, Sugar Snow by Diana Henry. The soup recipe is available online at this link. I didn't need any sugar to get the onions to caramelize so I skipped that. No camembert in the house so I used Cowboy Creamery's Mt. Tam instead. I also skipped the sugar in the apple and beet relish and added extra vinegar to tart it up a bit.

Most glass jars can handle freezing with ample headspace, as you've described. Some of them won't handle rapid thawing, like putting into a microwave or warm or hot water. If you think you'll be using it up in one go and will have plenty of time to thaw, I'd go ahead and freeze in the jar. If it was a paste I used in smaller quantities, I'd transfer it to a zip lock, smush it out and freeze flat so I could easily break off what I needed without thawing the whole thing.

I haven't pulled the trigger for the same reason. I'd like to get into a regular bread baking routine but haven't managed it yet, in spite of several good books. I figure the e-mail classes are their opportunity to sell me on their bread baking methods and the book. If I like what I see, I'll take the plunge. That said, if I'd already ordered and it was on the way, I'd go ahead and get a look at it rather than trying to cancel sight unseen.

I think you'll like it if you decide to give it a try. I really enjoyed the flavor the cider gave to the broth. Well, I went back and measured them and 3.5" is more like it. And that's the shells, the critters themselves are smaller. I must say they were very carefully packed and they're still alive and well in my fridge. At least these guys were until I rudely evicted them from their shells and turned them into lunch. They were simply seasoned with S&P, seared in butter and olive oil and given a squeeze of lemon juice. Served with grilled asparagus, polenta and topped with blistered cherry tomatoes and red onion. This recipe was on the website of the fish share I'm using. All that other stuff isn't really necessary but it helps if you're making a meal out of a few little abalone!

Modernist Cuisine said these are email courses, so as long as you save them, you could go back to them at any time. They've only mentioned them as email courses so they could be just text, no video content. We'll have to see. They also said they are available to anyone there is no requirement to purchase the book and it's not needed to do the lessons.

Well, there's a lot of variability with the fruit going in in terms of its moisture and sugar content so you're right there will be differences each time but there's science involved as well. Water boils at 100°C or 212°F and that's where you'll hang out for quite a while as the water boils off and evaporates, concentrating the rest of the ingredients. As the water boils off, the temps will increase. The wider the pan, the faster the water will evaporate and the faster the temp will get to the target. Most jams and jellies target temps in the range of 217°F - 222°F, beyond that, you're getting into candy making temperatures. Use a thermometer that's good for candy making or deep frying that can measure beyond the top range for your application. A lot of meat thermometers, like this one only read up to 200°F or 93°C. They're designed for accuracy in the temps you'd want for meat, not way above that. Make sure the thermometer you use for marmalade goes well above 222°F or 106°F.

Québécois Mussel Chowder with Cod and Cider from Roast Figs, Sugar Snow by Diana Henry. Recipe available online at this link. Seriously delicious for something so simple.

I've been asking for Seville oranges every week at the farmers market and I finally got some yesterday. Thirteen oranges weighed in at 6 lbs 4 oz or 2.83 kilos and cost $10. I've gotta give these big bumpy boys a good scrubbing and run to the store for more sugar before I get going on the marmalade.