haresfur

When I lived in asparagus country, my coworkers were quite competitive about pickling asparagus. Someone in the lunch room would casually drop, "Yeah I pickled 30 lbs of asparagus this weekend."

If the New York Times stuck to classics, they would have run out of recipes years ago

Well, I've never had Marmite because I'm afraid of being seen buying it 😄. Stick with the home team. They do sell Marmite here for the foreigners.

Shiso pesto from this recipe with some substitutions. I liked it as a nice change from normal pesto. Partner wasn't so impressed and missed the cheese.

@liuzhou Do you get mustard greens in China? I randomly picked up a bunch at my Chinese green grocer here. Of course it was when my very different looking mustard greens were going gangbusters in the garden.

Or Aussies are really tough

One of my in-town geology jobs (Hammering drill-pipe down through the street in a residential area on Sunday morning? Sure) the drillers liked to have lunch at the same working class pub (cute waitress who kept the aerobics show on the big screen to distract the patrons). The lunch specials all came with mashed potatoes. My favourite was spag bol, garlic bread, and mash with gravy. Good way to get your carbs.

Those leaves look bigger than the Thai basil I've seen

I think this is their second year. The are from pups off another plant. I have quite a few succulents because they are hard to kill.

Brief garden report. Not too successful this year but a few things are working out. My Warrigal greens are happy since I transplanted them to a bigger pot. Green shiso is looking ok since I rolled it out to get more sun But the artichokes are sad. There was one in with the shiso that didn't make it, too. Seems to be an ok year for peppers. This plant is 2 years old. The lime tree in the background got a bad case of scale but I may get some limes.

If only we could get people to eat more camel

try it and report back if you do

If having a pie warmer at your workplace isn't ultimate Aussie, I don't know what is. 🙂

Do they have a toasty press in the work area for lunches? Back, pre-covid, one of my coworkers had it down to a science - propping up the top with a glass so it didn't get squished more than he liked. A techo then made him an adjustable prop out of some threaded stock and some nuts so he could dial in the perfect level. The round things could be arancini.

Kangaroo is very lean so pretty healthy, and low impact on greenhouse gases so I feel kind of guilty. I might try harder but my partner is not much of a red meat fan. I wouldn't say it's gammy, more like congealed blood. Steak is best cut thin and cooked fast.

I'm really not sure why there is a shortage. Maybe it isn't economical with the expense of covid control in the abattoirs

They cull wild kangas and I believe the meat mostly comes from Queensland, which irritates me because there should be a local industry imo. There is no sport hunting season, you have to be a professional or a farmer to kill them with approval. They really fill the same ecological niche as deer - browsers that like to jump in front of cars. Take extra care driving at dusk and dawn. Most of the meat goes to pet food because most people don't eat much if any. I'm not a big fan. Do like having them behind my place, though.

Oh, I forgot. There is apparently a kangaroo meat shortage and the cat is pissed! He will eat beef in a pinch and the dogs will eat anything. Their food mostly comes in by contactless delivery.

About the only covid-related food thing for me is wearing a mask in the grocery and my continued avoidance of most indoor dining, even though it is allowed with reduced seating capacity. But the new outbreak management style of short lockdowns to get ahead of contact tracing is a good reminder to keep enough staples on hand, anyway.

try a couple of these puppys

I don't know anything about the grade system but it looks like the system primarily includes the pungency/hot flavour: sweet<slightly pungent<pungent<hot and the colour: light brown to orange<pale red<bright red<vibrant red. It is interesting that it doesn't seem to include smoked paprika, but maybe that's what they mean by pungent. So if you are using it primarily for colour, not flavour (like deviled eggs) then go for something red. If you want a lot of heat use erős, and something in between then go for pungent. Aside from that I think you just need to try them to see what you like. I would guess the different pungency just means you have to adjust how much you add. I don't think I've ever seen paprika for sale or a recipe that called for anything other than sweet, hot, or smoked. I do see sweet smoked and hot smoked, though.

Sugar, water, soybean paste, modified tapioca starch, salt, MSG, garlic, caramel, spices I didn't see anything labeled tianmian sauce, at least in script I could read.

I bought some "Peking Duck Sauce", and to me it tastes pretty similar to hoisin but better than many of the brands available here. ... and it goes pretty well on pierogies but not quite as good as mango chutney.

I have a vague recollection of someone on the forum claiming that dried leaves tasted stronger than fresh. Or maybe I was dreaming. I think the flavour is a bit different, not just stronger/weaker. The dried ones I have now are similar to the fresh because they came from the same tree and I just air-dried them and they still look pretty green compared to the ones you buy. In any case I tend to use more fresh in a dish.

Ok, a hijack into a tale of two cooks. My second year in mineral exploration after graduation (not counting my undergrad summer jobs), we had a cook who had absolutely no experience as a commercial cook, as far as I could tell. She brought a thick book on how to run a restaurant kitchen that included tables of portion sizes for various dishes. Needless to say, it was not written to address cooking for a crew of mostly young men out walking many miles a day. I particularly remember her being dismayed when the tray of (cakemix!) cake that she thought would last a few days wouldn't even touch down as it was handed around the table until it was gone. I was sent to a camp in Nova Scotia in the autumn when our work up north was finished. Pretty plush - they had rented out the buildings at a ski area (as an aside, the year before it turned out the place they rented was a recently closed brothel and they got some irate visitors). About the first thing the cook told me, with pride, was that she had gone through 3 cases of chocolate chips because the boys would come back from the field and eat her cookies until dinner. She didn't have much if any professional experience either, but she was a real cook.