haresfur

I discovered a bottle of the Maidenii I bought at the farmer's market during lockdown and then stashed away to be forgotten. It was better than their amaro but a bit citrusy. My second attempt at matching it worked pretty well. Used Four Pillars Gin and Castelvetrano olives. Four Pillars is the best Australian gin I've found so far.

I thought about letting people know this popped up when I was doing a search on risotto, but decided I'd let you have a guess 🙂

The All Clad pan is my go-to for tenderizing chicken.

Stick it paper and all in a ziplock, remove the air and throw in the SV. Pull it out after a while, remove the paper, reseal, and throw back in.

I like a 50:50 mix of blanco:reposado in margaritas. Gives some extra depth. Substituting añejo for rhum in a ti punch and using agave syrup is nice but I wouldn't use it for anything else except sipping. Reposado works for that, too.

Look up cocktails that use a particular kind of bitters and think about what other ingredients would have a similar profile to match those bitters Take cocktail recipes and think about what other of your bitters would substitute in Check out the book Bitters by Brad Thomas

I confess a few got squished. Normally have a live and let live policy for spiders except redbacks which are like N. American black widows. Catch and release outside for the monster-size huntsman spider which are harmless. The house isn't quite mosquito-proof and I need the help keeping that one mosquito from keeping me awake at night.

Sometimes I do but I'm usually throwing them in with other things that are already cooking so then they get cooked in whatever oil and moisture is there already.

A golden orb-weaver, Trichonephila edulis. According to wikipedia they are edible.

TL/DR; I will never touch rose hips again I was out mowing our neighbour's paddock and noticed how lovely the rose hips looked on a couple of wild rose bushes So I foolishly thought, "I should pick some and do something with them." Went back and picked about a kilo, trying not to disturb this sweet girl, although I ened up carrying a fair number of her offspring back to the house. The haul after trimming off most of the woody bits. I first started some rose hip vinegar, which only involved trimming then scraping off the worst of the little thorns, poking each one a bunch of times with a needle, and putting in a bottle with white wine vinegar. Then I started on some syrup. There was a difference of opinion on whether to remove the seeds which have hairs that used to be used in itching powder and apparently can be nasty to your insides. Didn't sound like fun so I got out a knife and started cutting them in half and scraping out seeds with a spoon. Never had a knife get dull so fast. I could hear the scraping against the seeds. The cut open halves were very sticky and the seed removal didn't work well. Gave up before I got very far and put what I had in a ziplock with water to go into the sous vide at 55 C to try to preserve the vitamin C. Got a couple of hundred ml of reddish looking product which I filtered through a coffee filter since I really didn't want itchy insides. Then tried the technique recommended on another site and just blitzed the trimmed hips in a blender. This also didn't work very well since the hips were too sticky to blend well. Took the resulting mass of gooey seeds and simmered in water and strained out the seeds. Made 1:1 simple syrup with the hippy juice, which I then strained and filtered through coffee filters. Took 3 filters to get most of the syrup through. This took me a few days as I pondered my next steps when things were going wrong. During this time the ring finger on my right hand (I'm left handed) started to turn into a red, painful, swollen mess. I figured it must be spider bites but now think that wasn't the case at all. Yesterday I went to my Tai Chi club and a young woman who hadn't been for a while showed up with a bandaged up hand. She had been helping a friend make rose wreaths for a wedding and got a deep staph infection that went septic. Hospital in Melbourne misdiagnosed it and sent her home. On her way being driven back to Bendigo, she literally passed out from the pain. Was in the hospital for 8 days with them doing nasty things to get rid of the infection and damaged tissue but didn't loose the finger or more. They told her that every time they have seen this it was someone who was gardening roses. I now think I had a luckily shallow version of the same infection from the tiny rose thorns. Don't know for sure. Lesson is to wear gloves whenever mucking about with rose bits. And better yet, avoid trying to preserve rose hips.

The timer on my phone is loud enough I can hear it from the back of the house after I forget and leave it in the kitchen. Didn't help me find the phone the next morning when it was still in the kitchen, though.

Soaking the cloves is supposed to jump start their growth. And SeaSol is suggested when transplanting. Gardening Australia recommended soaking in the seaweed and who am I to question them? Reckon it can't hurt.

Don't think I'll ever get used to gardening in an area with a Mediterranean climate that also gets frost. I just planted cauliflower and garlic as my winter crops. The garlic had small cloves but I soaked them in seaweed solution and we will see if anything develops. A friend has a very large garden and has planted broad beans for years so it seems he has a huge supply. He is revegetating a lot of the property so has been using broad beans as a green mulch for erosion control. Sounds better than eating them to me.

Bubbling up out of the dishwasher?

Very nice. Haven't done it since I moved away from the land of cheap asparagus. When my nieces were young, I gave a jar to my brother's family and my sister in law was complaining because the girls were eating it all. I was like, "Heaven forbid kids should eat their vegetables!" So the next year I had to give them each a jar.

I was just about to post a link to ScienceOfSharp. You are correct from his research that honing creates a micro-bevel rather than just rearranging the metal but I think the point is still that honing does only affect a localized area of the blade. Supports my use of the SpyderCo less acute bevel as a hone. Of course the issue with the SpyderCo for sharpening is that you can't change the angles. I haven't read up on honing and stropping of straight razors but that might be more akin to what could be done with a low angle single bevel Japanese blade.

And you can peel a potato in your hand old-style without slicing your thumb off

Isn't that the idea of honing as opposed to sharpening?

I've been using the fine-grit ceramic rods on my SpyderCo sharpener as a hone. I reckon the grit is the same and I'm an incompetent sharpener so a few passes at a consistent angle work well.

I would absolutely go with panko crusted and baked that has become my go-to for chicken katsu and parma.

Shun seem to be a decent, widely available brand from what I have read. I have a really cheap nakiri that has served well for decades. I think there are advantages to a softer, easy to sharpen steel that isn't as prone to chipping for people who don't want to faff around with their knives. That being said, I am learning more about hard Japanese steel. I guess because I'm willing to faff around.

Just burned leeks, too. And I'm sure my stove is wimpier than yours. Maybe they are particularly prone to burning? Luckily I was able to salvage most.

Yes you definitely need the acid, like for braised red cabbage. Mine has been sitting in the fridge for a while and is slightly blue. Needs some lemon to freshen up.

Aka Shiso Juice makes a nice refreshing drink and growing the red shiso isn't too hard. Well, getting the right amount of sun can be a bit tricky - mine needs full sun in spring and partial shade later. I grow it in pots and it self-seeds for the next year. If you want booze, it makes a nice sub for simple in a Tom Collins