blue_dolphin

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!

I’m on board with those guidelines and if the time can be stretched to allow for pasta cooking, I think most, though not all, of the ideas fit the bill. Absolutely. It even means different things to me depending on the weather, the time of day and how hangry I am 😉

Please, please be careful. I evaluated knife edges in the lab with the knives immobilized in a holder at the correct focal distance from the stereo microscope eyepieces and a light source easy to rotate for forward or backlight illumination without any body parts coming anywhere near the blade. Thinking of you doing this freehand with multiple moving parts makes me very nervous!

I knew we were kindred spirits! Or maybe just silly 🙃

Ok, now you made me Google “jacket topping” - eGullet endlessly enriches my vocabulary! I should add that Google presented me with some recipes involving baked potatoes and quite a few places to shop for trendy sportswear so it was still up to me to figure out what you were talking about!

I’ve never heard either phrase, in regards to sandwiches or otherwise. Edited to add that I’m aware that a “tuna mayo” sandwich is what I would call a tuna sandwich or tuna salad sandwich so I’d guess egg mayo might be something along those lines. Never heard of it though. Never heard anyone say tuna mayo either but have read of it in books and on the internet.

Of course, I should have thought if that! It's likely to be liverwurst week around here so I appreciated your ideas to kick it off!

@Kerala, what are the orange-colored bits on the 4 and 8 o'clock muffins? Inspired by recent discussion in the Liverwurst topic, I picked up a jar from these folks at the local farmers market and Inspired by @Kerala's breakfast, I made my own assortment. Left: Dijon mustard, liverwurst, drunken raisins, pickled shallot and pickled Fresno chiles Middle: Grainy Dijon mustard, liverwurst, tomato, onion, capers and cornichons Right: Grainy Dijon, liverwurst, peach chutney, crispy fried onions All on toasted sunflower seed rye which I sliced thinly because it's fairly sturdy stuff.

Two spins yesterday. Mint-Basil Chip Ice Cream It was not my original intent but I added a little food color to this because the deeply colored yolks from my farmers market eggs made the mix noticeably yellow. White mint ice cream, I can get behind. Yellow? Not so appealing to me. I prepped the mix-in chocolate (a dark chocolate mint bar from Aldi) per the instructions in Hello, My Name is Ice Cream: melt with a bit of coconut oil & salt, pour out into a sheet, freeze, chop and keep frozen 'til use. Nice melting mouthfeel to the chocolate and the basil adds complexity to the flavor of the ice cream. I want to compare this to the fresh mint ice cream from HMNIIC but I'm not sure if there will be any of this left by the time I get around to it. Pink grapefruit & Campari sorbet with a slice of candied pink grapefruit rind: I used fresh grapefruit from the farmers market and used a pestle to bash the grated zest in with the sugar to release more flavor. This seems to be a popular sorbet combo here and for good reason. Kinda like a dessert and after dinner cocktail in one!

I suppose. My Bug-A-Salt rifle (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) requires fine table salt and jams up with Diamond Crystal Kosher and I’ve always gotten the 3lb box of it. Never seen a 5 lb as the OP is accustomed to.

Yesterday's polenta was nice and it was another chilly morning so I had it again today. Topped with Ottolenghi's Burrata With Grilled Grapes & Basil

Eat Your Books tells me there's a recipe for "Walnut bread from southern Burgundy" in Good Things and the ingredients are pretty much the same as the Beard on Bread recipe. They also list a Granary Bread with Walnuts in her book English Food and Walnut Granary Bread in her Fruit Book. Neither of those last 2 books have bargain Kindle versions.

That’s the horseradish sauce. Just sour cream, horseradish, S&P. The bread was bought and paid for by me so I own it fair and square 🙃

Here's the Oxtail Terrine from Sally Schmitt's Six California Kitchens. I've been reading the amazing Terrine topic and this simple, rustic dish isn't at all in the same category as the fanciful creations shared over there but it's delicious. Gotta give Sally, French Laundry founder, big props for distilling this down to its simplest iteration - basically, just braised oxtail meat in its own jellied jus. The braise itself is very simple, just brown the oxtails and braise with onions, chicken stock, red wine, S&P. No lengthy list of spices and seasonings. She serves slices on arugula with a simple horseradish sauce, fleur de sel to sprinkle, balsamic vinegar to drizzle, crusty bread and red wine to wash it down. Perfect summer supper. I did have a hard time getting good slices and might break the meat up into smaller pieces and pack it in more tightly to see if that helps. That and sharpen my knife 🙃

Braised oxtails on polenta Yeah, I know. Not exactly a summer breakfast. But I cooked the oxtails to make a terrine and wanted to try them as is, too. I wouldn't want this late in the day but it was around 63°F this AM so I popped a serving' worth of polenta in the Instant Pot, warmed up a little of the meat and dug in!

I've been reading through the amazing Terrine topic and one of the oft recommended books is Jane Grigson's Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I was pleased to see the Kindle version available for $2.99. Most of the line drawings appear without figure legends (not sure if that's the case in the original or not. They are labeled, just no descriptive text. There doesn't seem to be an index, although the table of contents and referenced sub-recipes are hyperlinked. Three of her other books are also available at the same price. Sadly, these prices are on Amazon.com but not .ca

Bean By Bean: A Cookbook: More than 175 Recipes for Fresh Beans, Dried Beans, Cool Beans, Hot Beans, Savory Beans, Even Sweet Beans (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)by Crescent Dragonwagon Beans: More than 200 Delicious, Wholesome Recipes from Around the World (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)by Aliza Green Heirloom Beans: Great Recipes for Dips, Spreads, Soups and Stews, Salads and Salsas and Much More (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)by Steve Sando and Vanessa Barrington. Kindle version currently $2.99. I've had this one the longest and used it the most. The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Heirloom Beans, Vegetables, Grains and Grains (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)by Steve Sando and Julia Newberry. There are 2 volumes of this. I only have volume 1 The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide: An Illustrated Manual for Cooking, Growing and Enjoying Your Favorite Varieties by Steve Sando and Julia Newberry.

You didn’t ask me but a few celery soup recipes that I like from the times when my CSA was bombarding me with celery the size of a baseball bat: Creamy Celery Soup - Most of the celery gets cooked with onion, leeks and garlic before being puréed. A smaller amount gets braised gently in butter and added at the end and adds a nice bit of textural contrast. "Creamy" is in the name, but the recipe uses 4 cups of chicken stock and 1/4 cup of cream so it's not a heavy soup. Celery Soup with Cashel Blue Cheese from Delia Smith's Christmas is very yummy. I've made it with a variety of different blue cheeses I was drawn to this Celery and Pear Bisque in part by its use of dark green leek tops which I always hated to discard when they were lovely and fresh. Like the first recipe, I like the contrast of the smooth soup and the garnish, in this case, finely chopped fresh pear.

Ditto what @Okanagancook said. Instructions for peeling? Yes. Salting? Yes. Do I obey them? Sometimes.

@DianaB, after I had my machine for a while, I decided to order 2 extra containers so I have 5 and haven’t needed to try this but a fellow on one of the Facebook groups posted about lining the container with a plastic bag and storing the frozen contents that way. He ran a bit of warm water over the bag to release and popped it into a cold container before spinning. The bags he used came in a roll and looked thin so they conformed nicely to the container without deep folds. He said the were the type grocery stores have available in the produce section.

Very late returning to this topic but I finally picked up a few pounds of oxtail to try this terrine. They were $4.99/lb on special. Not super cheap but not bad either. They cut them up for me but they’re still frozen so I probably won’t get started til tomorrow.

#8 is my favorite, too, though I also like the winner and #10.