blue_dolphin

Thanks for the review. I've spied this cheese at Aldi but haven't tried it. I will now!

I used 1 Tablespoon Campari for 1 Creami container For the grapefruit sorbet, I roughly halved a recipe in Deborah Madison's book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Bash together with a mortar & pestle: Microplaned zest from 1 grapefruit 75g granulated cane sugar I also added 1/8 teaspoon Modernist Pantry's Perfect Sorbet cellulose gum stuff, not called for in the original recipe. Probably not necessary. Juice enough grapefruits to yield ~ 375 ml juice Put the sugar mixture into a small saucepan, add a little of the juice (~ 60 ml), warm to dissolve all the sugar and strain the syrup into the rest of the juice. The recipe calls for adding the juice of half a lemon. I used about a tablespoon, plus 1 tablespoon Campari Freeze and spin.

I mentioned that I order coffee from an LA area roaster, Yes Plz. They sell blends, ship out a new one each week (or whatever interval you choose) and the cost I pay is right about that $30/lb level, inclusive of shipping. I am a micro-consumer of coffee. I drink one cup of Aeropress coffee per day using 20g beans/cup so an 8.8 oz bag lasts me 2 weeks. At $17/250g bag, that's ~ 1.20/day. I get a small amount of fresh beans delivered every 2 weeks and use them up in that period of time so this works nicely for me.

An inexpensive wireless doorbell can be handy, though it takes some advance planning. I put the button part on a lanyard that my mom could wear. I could hear the ringer anywhere in the house or bring it outside if I was working in the garden. That's overkill for @Darienne's cellar freezer trips but a relatively low cost option should the servant call bell system go out of commission at the manor 🤣

Good advice, assuming there’s a cell signal where you will be and that whoever you plan to contact is equally equipped. At my late mother’s house, there is barely any cell signal and certainly none in the basement so we needed other alternatives.

Garlic bread egg-in-a-hole with mushrooms from I Dream of Dinner by Ali Slagle

You are also right as I probably wouldn’t be posting anything so awful even if I did get a photo!

I usually snap a photo before digging in but I’ve usually tasted for seasoning so wouldn’t be so surprised by an inedible result. @liuzhou! I am curious, were there no available options to the inedible choice? How long were you forced to go without sustenance?

Oh no, I think it's quite nice. The stuff I have is spreadable, and like liver pâté, I think it’s great with pickle-y things so I’d be very much on board with pickled beets. My own cookbooks didn’t offer many options beyond using it to make quick pâtés, as a pâté sub in banh mi sandwiches or as a sub for liver in bolognese-type sauce. That dearth sparked my I’ll-fated exploration. I think simple is best here!

Over in the breakfast thread, I mentioned that I recently purchased some liverwurst and started playing around with it. I suspect the classic combo as seen in the middle of my breakfast plate is likely best. That didn't stop me from exploring other options. Many rather unfortunate but it was fun looking. Read on, if you dare! For starters, I found a recipe for Mrs. Murry’s Liverwurst Sandwich from A Wrinkle In Time. Just typing that makes me sound like the Sandwiches of History guy 🤣 I have no memory of this from the book but apparently young Charles Wallace made his mother cream cheese and liverwurst sandwiches as a midnight snack in the very first chapter. I made one for breakfast, modified to include a smear of Dijon and my cuke slices are somewhat less than thin. Better than I expected. I'm kinda curious about a recipe for Bacon-wrapped Liverwurst sliders which makes little patties with liverwurst, onion, horseradish and cornflakes, wraps them in bacon and cooks them in the oven. The link to that recipe is broken but I took it over to the wayback machine and found it. Here's the link in case anyone else wants to look: https://www.cupofzest.com/bacon-wrapped-liverwurst-sliders/ It appeared on that blog in Aug 2016. Food.com offered me Wurst Onion Cups, appetizers that use whomp crescent dinner roll dough to make little cups that get filled with a mix of liverwurst, sour cream, lemon juice and French fried onions before baking. I can see doing something like that, maybe with mushrooms added, maybe using puff pastry? I found a recipe for Hidden Liver Meatballs that are 1:1 liverwurst & ground pork. Just mixed together pan fried. Kinda seems like there should be something like breadcrumbs or something in there. A Pastured Egg & Liver Bowl with celery, avocado and spinach makes me cringe and piques my curiousity. Speaking of cringe, a community cookbook from 1979, San Francisco a la Carte offers a recipe for California Deli Quiche that I thought sounded interesting. Maybe until I tracked it down. It features a layer of 3/4 lb liverwurst mixed with small amounts onions, garlic, bread crumbs and nutmeg topped with an egg & heavy cream custard seasoned with cinnamon, grated Parm and sherry. I found the recipe via Google books and rather wish I had not. I like quiche but NO! I'll report back if I decide to try any of these - don't be holding your breath waiting, especially on those last two!

And, here it is: As mentioned above, the flavor from the Sichuan pepper is fairly subtle. I get some warm, earthy notes that contrast nicely with the chopped Amarena cherries. Very pleasant but not sure I'd be able to place it as Sichuan pepper if I didn't know.

Might be a new batch of bargains starting tomorrow on the first of the month so if folks are interested, it would be wise to act soon!

Some iteration of this needs to happen in my house soon! All the fries from that Winslow's Tavern lunch look deliciously crispy. Were they hot as well? Not sure why that's such a difficult combination to deliver. Crispy and tepid ✔️ Hot but flabby ✔️ Crispy and hot? Please!

I agree 100% on timing. Also the value of boiling some (not all) veg in salted water vs steaming.

I tend to prefer less salt as well, generally starting with 1/4 to 1/2 of cookbook specs for salt, soy or fish sauce, miso. If a finished dish needs additional seasoning, I might go for a sprinkle of crunchy sea salt but am equally likely to add a salty ingredient or condiment: feta, preserved lemon, olives, Parm, etc.

Same. Graham crackers used to be both flavorful and delightfully crisp. I wonder if they're intentionally making them softer to minimize breakage. No flavor and they seem stale right from a new box.

Just above, I shared a mint-basil chip ice cream and said I wanted to compare it to the Fresh Mint Ice Cream from Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream so here it is: I added the same dark mint chocolate as a mix-in. This one is a Philly-style base which I kinda prefer with the mint because it avoids the yellow color from the egg yolks and I didn't have to turn it green to cover that up. Without the added chips, the flavor is clean and simple. It doesn't scream MINT, but it's there. I do like the chocolate in there but if going without them, I'd pair this with a scoop of David Lebovitz's dark chocolate sorbet, which is really a sherbet as it does have some dairy in it. I think that would be an elegant dessert. The flavor of the mint-basil chip ice cream is way more complex and interesting and would certainly be my choice if serving it alone. Definitely a synergy between those two herbs in combination. As a preview of coming attractions, I just prepped a container of the mix for the Sichuan peppercorn with cherry compote ice cream from Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream. There's a version of this recipe with a brown sugar-sesame swirl over on the Mala Market website where they recommend using their Sichuan Tribute pepper which I do not have so I used their regular stuff instead. The VL book doesn't specify a pepper type but does say it should be cracked, which I forgot to do. The MM recipe doesn't mention cracking the pepper but uses a longer steep time, which I did. A comment on the MM recipe says they used the pepper I used and the flavor was very faint. Going into the freezer, mine doesn't taste particularly strong either. I don't have sour cherries to make the compote and I'd only need 1/8 cup so I'm going to chop up some TJ's Amarena cherries, perhaps with a bit of their syrup as the mix-in. We'll see. I ordered some of the proper pepper so I can try that later.

So true!

Sounds like a fine way to spend the day! Beautiful food and photos, as usual!

I was confused. I’m always up for a big bowl of popcorn. Just wasn’t sure how they are combined. Soup poured over a bowl of popcorn like milk on cereal? A handful of soggy popcorn bobbing about in a bowl of soup? Popcorn topped with a smear of salty red Campbell's goo instead of butter?

Thanks, that was fun! I’m impressed that they included photos of every dish.

Thank you for making this recommendation. I ordered a used copy which arrived today. I've only flipped through so far but I can tell I’ll enjoy it. I love seasonally oriented books and menu books so two points there and there’s a wealth of wine info that goes well beyond the well reasoned suggestions. Thanks!

No effort at all in taking it out but the bulk of your reply was about all the cooking you do to get in INTO the freezer. Now, I understand your answer is “when I’m pressed for time or don’t feel like cooking, I grab a quart of deliciousness from my always-stocked freezer,” but what I read was mostly pretty lengthy cooking prep.

Make sure to get the one with the laser sight!

Excellent food prep suggestions for those who want handy frozen meals but not really an answer to the question posed. At least for me - if I’m hangry, I don’t want to meal prep. I just want to eat. When I was working, I did all my cooking on the weekends, enjoyed the fresh meals and stocked my freezer with frozen lunches, which I also enjoyed. I understand the value but when I got home late, tired and hungry, the last thing I wanted was another frozen meal. If I’ve got the luxury of a fridge and freezer full of condiments, a pantry stocked with tinned fish and dried pasta then I can do better in the time it takes to reheat something from the freezer. Vive la différence!