haresfur

Harvested my garlic crop except for some elephant garlic that I will give a few days. I think these started as last year's crop but I just left them because they didn't really do anything. Have some more that didn't do anything this year, so I'll leave them and see what happens.

Some fermenting geeks like to make lacto-fermented mustard rather than using vinegar. I haven't tried it.

A quasi-traditional thing we like is stuffed pumpkin. Ideally you have a small American looking pumpkin, clean out the insides, cram in as much bread stuffing as you can and bake until heated through and the pumpkin is cooked. Slice into wedges to serve. You could probably do something creative with another kind of pumpkin/winter squash - might have to remove some of the flesh to make room for stuffing. Some people in Australia do traditional Christmas but a most do a cold lunch with maybe ham, prawns, salads, charcuterie, whatever. Pavlova for dessert. So you could borrow that idea, particularly if it is hot.

I think you wouldn't get proper heat transfer through the air in the container. I suppose you could fill the container with water, but that would be stagnant, not circulating. And I don't know what it would do to the texture because it would be kind of like boiling them but at ~ 60 C

Doesn't usually bother me. Use quality oil, I guess. I generally use better quality canola for this but rice bran oil would probably be better but more expensive. The biggest problem is how hard it is to clean the filter screen in the range hood

Spring rolls and egg rolls are very different beasts. Spring rolls are common here, egg rolls not so much, except for Chico Rolls that are generally sold at fish and chip shops. People seem to have some sort of nostalgia for them. I live in one of the places that claims to have originated Chico Rolls, but I can't imagine why that would be seen as a positive. Basically the nastiest egg rolls you can imagine filled with god knows what. Their only redeeming quality is that the company sponsors the local roller derby team. I was going to suggest this. Easy but time consuming. I have frozen them quite well. In terms of frying, I find shallow frying makes more of a mess than deep frying so yes, do it in a deep pot and use one of those stainless mesh covers to keep the splatter down. Ikea sells them. Deep frying isn't too bad. The oil can be strained and reused. You probably can get a restaurant to take your used oil for disposal when the time comes.

An Australian TV show about rural living and agriculture, Landline, just did a show on combating food waste and one of the segments was about a company that was making dehydrated vegetable and fruit powders. Apparently dehydrated broccoli contains quite a bit of protein.

Roasted cauli with half the cauliflower I posted about in the gardening topic. Just olive oil and salt. Served over brown rice and soy sauce.

Decided it was time to harvest my biggest cauliflower before it got away from me. About 1.6 kg. Had to pick out a few earwigs but such is life.

Along those lines and with my recent attempts to clean the garden and the fridge, eggs with leftover oyster mushrooms and chives that had volunteered into my Christmas cactus pot

I don't know their plans for their oven but from the anova site, new users will have to pay a subscription to use their app. If you already have a subscription, you are grandfathered in. The app will not be able to communicate with a number of older models. I haven't heard of any similar plans for the oven.

I don't know their plans for the oven but it seems they are disabling wifi and bluetooth on some older sous vide models and going to a required subscription on the rest. Well except for my non-wifi early model. Pretty ordinary. So there is no way I would buy anything Anova now.

For what it's worth, my experiment last autumn was successful plucking off all the leaves to get more light to ripen the tomatoes.

Clean out the garden and clean the refrigerator salad. Spinach that was starting to bolt, a single asparagus stalk, tomatoes from the farmers market, gravlax, marinated feta, and rice noodles. With a mango lime dressing. I'll be having the leftovers with leftover tom yum soup tonight.

I've done it with the bags my beef comes in. It can work but not very well. Sometimes still have a little air left but it can help for a few days.

Dried garlic is a lazy shortcut for me. Or it's for the times when I go, "I forgot to chop the garlic and I need it right now!"

I don't like the chance of a dull knife sliding on the skin but I find that sometimes I don't get a cut completely through the skin if it is on the board.

Do you do the slices with the skin up or the skin on the board? I can't decide which is better.

No empty lots nearby?

Cool! I have been holding the knife a bit differently but the result is about the same. Thanks.

There has been discussion on the best way to dice an onion and even an old reference on classical techniques for dicing etc. My thought is that it would be fun and useful to see what other people are doing. Perhaps it is a way to get a better result, a fancier result, or how you do things more easily or faster. Do you like to make beautiful radish roses? Show us! As a starting example, I have had problems with stir frying carrot slices. They stick to the pan and it is hard for me to get them to flip around. My current method is based on some illustrations from the old hippie Tasahara Cookbook. When I looked it up, I couldn't really tell from the illustrations what exactly was going on, so here's what I do. The idea is to get somewhat rounder wedge-shaped and pretty pieces that roll around better while cooking. I call it the pencil cut. You make a slice on the diagonal through the centre of the carrot, twist it around and make a slice through the centre again, twist slice, etc. I start with the bottom of the carrot and a fairly acute angle. As the carrot gets fatter I bring the knife out to form a shallower point and this keeps the pieces a similar size to the first ones. I have a lot of fun with this (ok, I'm easily amused). Here's an example:

I believe those toasters with the triangular depressions are an offshoot of the jaffle irons I recently finally saw in action camping with friends. Basically put the metal triangular bits on hinged metal rods. Assemble your jaffle in the irons, close them and cook over a wood fire or your gas camp stove. I learned a little about the creativity as to what you put into the jaffle, depending on your mood and whether you are cooking for children.

My originally American parents used to do grilled cheese on a waffle iron that I think they got as a wedding present in the 1950s. The waffle part flipped over to give you flat plates for grilling. The sandwiches would end up very squished. Also used for grilled PB and jam. Grape jelly would end up like napalm in your mouth if you weren't careful.

Yeah, grilled cheese is the most basic of the toasties that are very popular here. Often made on a panini press but with basic bread. A coworker would have the same cheese toastie every day and had a carefully calibrated system using a beer glass to hold the lid up so it wouldn't squish the sandwich too much (later replaced by a stand with a threaded rod and plastic prop that our techo made for even more precise adjustments. A friend ran a toastie shop for a long time before he turned it into a pseudo diner. I miss the toasties. I have seen Caesar salad here (not exactly authentic) and am pretty sure tuna melts.

I would probably cut the shoulder in half and freeze in two bags, but that should work