KennethT

hilarious!

Please cross your fingers for me.... after 4+ weeks, my sawtooth coriander finally sprouted and is in my bucket nursery! Unfortunately, my daylight CFL died in the middle of the night last night, but I think it'll do fine in the ambient light for a few hours until I can pick up another one.

I would use raw rice and cook it like a pilaf - first sweating the aromatics in a little oil, then toast the raw rice and then add water or stock, cover and cook like normal rice. Or, you could do it like a risotto, and add water/stock gradually, simmering away uncovered.

@Pham Tat Thanh Thanks for your comments. I try very hard to learn the names of different foods before we travel to any place. Besides, I love the food in Vietnam, so it is easy to learn! I am sorry if I mis-named the beef stew. I can only blame the hotel, as they called it Bo Kho on their menu! Thank you for the fried noodle dish link. Very interesting! It seems like it is a pancake made from noodles. Looks very tasty!

I still dream about that last banh mi... the flavors were explosive - everything so fresh.. and the bread there was incredible. There have been a lot of people trying to figure out how the bread is done - some people add some rice flour to the dough, but I don't think that is traditional.. according to Graham Holliday in his book, the dough uses just plain commercial flour (no rice flour), which has some kind of additive (called 'dough conditioner') already added. I think he discussed the additive a bit, but I forget the details.

hi Pham, and welcome! My wife and I recently had a wonderful holiday eating our way around Saigon, which I wrote about here: I look forward to your comments!

I love quail - typically I will partially debone them (removing the rib cage) which renders them flat. Then I'll cook SV to 140 for enough time to pasturize. Then I'll chill it down to about room temp before torching or searing because they're so thin, they overcook quickly.

@Anna N I understand you completely... but I think these packaged meal companies don't have eGers in mind as their model customer. I think their model customer is someone like my friend who I described upthread - someone who does not consider his/herself a cook in any sense of the word, and has limited time for shopping. To us, a thin pork chop is not very agreeable, but to many Americans, it may be a good choice as we have been victims of the years of advertising pork as "the other white meat" - so it is perceived as healthier than beef, lamb or other red meats, which appeals to many people, but it is not as 'boring' as chicken... it is something different, and maybe something people who don't cook often wouldn't consider on their own.

@Anna N I agree with you completely... a thick pork chop is awesome - but, I think it's much harder to cook 'safely' than a thin one. I'd imagine that these boxed meal companies have to assume that their customers don't have sv at their disposal... so to do it traditionally, you'd sear and then pan roast in the oven, which A) would take a lot of time and B) would require the use of a thermometer at some point to make sure that the chop is cooked through, which these companies probably assume their customers don't have either. One thing to consider for these companies is food safety and liability - they'd much rather err on the side of a meat being overcooked than undercooked and getting someone sick. That would be horrible for their PR. And kale is just horrible... whoever started the kale trend should be strung up by their toes...

My wife took this picture and posted it to Instagram yesterday... this is the yu choy - ready for harvest!

I have been researching making some Nyonya dishes at home... one of the dishes is kari ayam - curried chicken. I have looked at probably 8 different recipes recommended by Mr. Google. They're all pretty similar with a few exceptions - some use a curry powder and make a curry paste, some use a curry paste but incorporate a few pre-toasted and ground spices, some use galangal, some leave it out, etc etc... 6 of the 8 have used shrimp paste (belacan) in the the curry paste, and I am sure that that would be traditional.... but some of the recipes instruct to toast the shrimp paste before adding to the curry paste, and some do not. So, the question is, to toast or not to toast.... keeping in mind that the curry paste will be fried in a little oil prior to the addition of water/stock/coconut milk. Previously, I have always heard you had to toast shrimp paste prior to using it... but, if it's going to be fried anyway, does it really make a difference?

For those of us without chamber vacuums, you can also fill zip lock bags with water, seal them using the displacement method, and freeze them. Works just fine....

Can you vac/seal and freeze them for a longer shelf life? If so, take out a small amount, that would last a month or two, then freeze the rest.

Make curry paste!!!! I was under the impression that kaffir limes don't have much juice, and are mainly used for their zest, which is used in thai curry pastes.. I don't know if it's use in curry pastes from other locales...

One of my friends has been using this service for a while now and loves it. She is a single, NYC lawyer working ridiculous hours and is sick of eating restaurant delivery every day. She doesn't really have time for grocery shopping, but this way, she gets delivery of just the right amount of ingredients so she can cook a couple times a week (healthier than restaurant delivery) wihtout that much added time or effort. With regards to packaging, for her, it's not much different since she'd be getting all that packaging associated with delivery anyway.

I haven't made ice cream with LN, but I have done small quantities with dry ice (the ice cream comes out carbonated, which is what I wanted), and I made the small quantities with a hand mixer. But I was thinking, for larger quantities, you might be able to get good results from an industrial paint mixer - which is sort of like 2 helixes (helixi?) on a stick that you attach to an electric drill. We use it industrially to mix several gallons of thick epoxy, so I'd imagine it would work well for ice cream as well.

@btbyrdHave you tried using NO2 charges instead of the CO2? We had a discussion about this back in 2012: If you've tried both, I'd be curious as to your opinion on how they compare....

I've been looking to get back to growing a tomato plant in my apartment - specifically, a Goose Creek heirloom variety. I grew it once many years ago using a start from Laurel's and had pretty good success - the fruits were probably the tastiest I've ever had, but I lost about half of them to blossom end rot (BER). A couple years ago, I tried again but started the plant from seed since Laurel's didn't carry it that year. Unfortunately, I lost every fruit to BER and after a month or two, I just decided it wasn't worth the effort. Most people say that BER is caused by a lack of calcium - which is technically true... but in my hydro environment, I know that there is plenty of available calcium - I think my problem came from my root system not being able to supply enough of the calcium to the plant as the plant was rapidly growing. So, now I've been thinking about grafting a Goose Creek scion to a more efficient rootstock... It seems that there are quite a few rootstock seeds on the market, and they all seem to have similar claims to vigor, mold/mildew resistance, disease resistance, etc... Can anyone recommend a specific rootstock plant for me to try? Rootstock seeds seem to be quite a bit more expensive than standard seeds, so I'd hate to just buy some at random to try....

Rau ram rooting update: check out these roots! (also, btw, check out the thai and genovese basil... these guys are ready for the main garden whenever I get around to putting them there!)

Chris, where did you get your ladybugs? Do garden shops near you carry them, or did you get them online?

Here's an update on my garden. So far, the Yu Choi, Genovese Basil and Thai Basil have sprouted. I am waiting for the sawtooth coriander to sprout (the package says it usually takes 3 weeks), and the lettuces have not sprouted - but that may be because the seeds are a couple years old, or I may have overwatered the rockwool cubes and drowned them. I'll try them again next week. Here's a photo of what has sprouted so far: The Yu choi is in the back, then the thai basil, then the genovese basil. After taking the photo, I thinned the basils by plucking the smaller ones out of the cube. Even as infants, they are both extremely aromatic! Here's a shot of the yu choi that shows the roots. Next week, I'll transplant it into the main garden: Today I also clipped a stem of the rau ram starter plant I have in order to propagate it. The first thing you need for good results is this: This is rooting hormone. This bottle is a few years old... hopefully it's still good! So the basic steps are as follows - first prep: prepare the rockwool cube and sterilize your sharpest knife or scissors with isopropyl alcohol. Then cut off most of the leaves below the top few, keeping track of the node locations - this is because you want to cut the stem just below the bottom node. Then dip about an inch of the bottom of the stem into the rooting hormone as soon as it's cut so you don't allow air to get in. Then insert the stem into the cube, and sit in a ziplock bag (to maintain humidity), keeping the bag open just a little bit at the top so you don't get mold. The cube will hold enough water to support the stem for about a week, by which time you should have some roots. At that time, you can moisten the block with a spray bottle and over the next few days open the bag more and more to slowly get it used to a lower humidity environment. Then into the bucket garden at a nutrient level of about 350-450ppm nutrient.

PanaCan, I'd love to hear about how you handle making product for a celiac client while making wheat based products also... very excited to read this week!

@Anna NLike others have said, you can definitely do it a few times, but as you start collecting root mass that has no plant attached, some of it may start to rot causing problems for the next crop... If it's possible to remove as much plant matter as possible during your harvest, then your soil will last a lot longer!

@kbjesqI think those are rambutans, not lychee... regardless, I'm looking forward also! @TereI'll second Deryn's comment that we would love to hear about your travels, and see photos! You don't necessarily need to ask a host to do one - although I'm sure they appreciate it and have good ideas on how to keep people interested.... but I've done a few in the past (Saigon and Singapore over the last year...) just after I got home from my trips while everything was fresh in my mind, and I really enjoyed doing them. Not only is it fun to share the info with people who are genuinely interested, but it also helps to relive some of the great moments.. plus, I now have a record of my travels that I can re-read when planning stuff in the future!

@gfron1It seems that Pok Pok got rid of their webcam... I used to visit it all the time, back in the day when the did not accept reservations. Maybe they don't need it anymore now that people can make reservations through OpenTable...