Heartsurgeon

something to experiment with - highly recommended make your chowder using grilled corn on the cob (strip the husks off, and put the unadorned corn directly on the grill until it is well toasted (speckled char all over). cut the corn off the cob, and make corn stock out of the cobs! corn cob stock is amazing. use some in your corn chowder recipe of choice. many possibilities for corn stock. it is tremendously sweet and flavorful.

update on gigantes beans recipe beans have aged (i bought a lot) soak 12 hours in salted solution (1 tsp/pound beans) 30 minutes at high pressure. completely let the cooker depressurize on its own. season as desired. i had been in a hurry to depressurize the pot before. it appears that mush is unlikely as the cooking time increases (at least within the limits of 18 minutes to 30 minutes) if gentle decompression is employed. decompression is a powerful tool that can be used in different ways apparently.

i roasted some turkey wings until brown in the oven, added it to a cooker within which i have sauteed some celery, carrots, onion, garlic. Added some thyme, bay leave, peppercorns, covered with chicken stock. 30 minutes at high pressure killer turkey stock. to precious to use (some of you know what i mean). later, browned some turkey thighs in the cooker, added some celery, carrots, onion, garlic peppercorns, turkey stock, cooked on high pressure for 15 minutes. cooled off, opened the pot added cup of rice, lid back on cooked for 10 more minutes. outstanding turkey &rice soup.

"Did you treat it at all before it went into the pressure cooker? " Nope. I cook'em up and season them with some lemon juice, butter, honey, salt, pepper and cumin. Served as a side with dinner. Corny, chewy, yummy. i bought some dried ones that i plan on puffing in a saute pan and making a salty/cuminy/season snake.

".Atavistic Cuisine," it's already been done... Faviken... with recipes like "broth of forest floor" and "fermented mushroom juices from last year" or "vinegar in a hollowed out birch stump" read about it here: http://foodsnobblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/faviken-magasinet-jarpen/ or get the cookbook http://www.amazon.com/F%C3%A4viken-Magnus-Nilsson/dp/0714864706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366772999&sr=8-1&keywords=faviken the book is a hoot!

most of what i am fooling around with involves the pressure cooker i recently got. Peruvian corn (frozen) - gigantic corny kernels of corn...20 minutes high pressure steam cooked..season as you wish. i tried sous vide at 185 degrees, but i was out to 5 hours, and the corn was still to chewy... turkey legs (a BARGAIN when you can find them, usually pretty cheap). roasted until brown in the oven, then make turkey stock high pressure 30 minutes....seriously good... trying out different wild rice's (I'm from Minnesota originally). I'm trying cultivated wild rice, hand picked minnesota wild rice, hand picked canadian wild rice. You can even buy single sourced wild rice sold by individual tribes in Minnesota (the Napa Valley of wild rice, so to speak). i have a frozen spanish pulpo that needs to get cooked, and I'm hoping to pick up a geoduck in Seattle this week and bring it home.

Bellwether Farms Sheep Milk Yogurt - far and away the best domestic yogurt I've found (most authentic taste) Nancy's Plain - best domestic cow milk yogurt anything with any flavoring, anything "lowfat" or "nonfat", or containing anything other than milk (like pectin, any kind of thickener, sugar, honey, fruit) - isn't yogurt. It's some kind of abomination, but for sure, it isn't yogurt. not sure what Activa is, but it isn't yogurt either. Gotta have whole cow or sheep milk as the base. Soy or almond milk - nope, not yogurt. the BEST yogurt has a thick bubbly skin on top that you can sort of peel/scoop off and is delicous (the best part). Haven't seen the peel? then you haven't eaten real yogurt.

enjoyed the burger they serve on the happy hour menu

Bar Mingo, Cafe Mingo, Serrano, Little Bird, Luc Lac (maybe its Lac Luc?), Portland City Grill, Beast, Luce, Small Wares, nostrana, Andina, castagna, toro bravo all winners

I cannot stress the global implications of what Zoe's quote (listed above), means. For every flour...the hydration level will end up being slightly different (based upon the protein characteristics). These proteins also play a roll in the rise and oven spring of the bread. So, if your looking into "perfecting" your bread, and bake it reproducibly, you need to have a consistent flour, that you have determined the optimal hydration for through systematic trial. This hydration will typically range from 75-82%. invest in a accurate digital scale, and weigh everything, and take notes.

the bread formula i use is listed in the link. its fool proof. i highly recommend an accurate digital scale to weigh your ingredients. your hydration is low. typical hydration I use with KA all purpose or bread flour is 75% (750 ml water per 1000gm flour), some people use up to 82% hydration.

"....KA is very consistent in protein level and overall quality" KA is consistent year to year, and in my experience, literally across the country. Wally World typically sells KA for less than anyone else. I have tried multiple unbleached/all purpose/bread/organic/non-organi flours, and every single one has differences in the amount of hydration needed to reach the same consistency, and none has exceeded KA in rise or oven spring (quality of the crumb). I haven't found a flour I like better than KA. I try new flours out now (Costco had an seasonal special organic, hard wheat all purpose flour that was "local", and priced out sig less than KA)...it was ok, but didn't have the rise or spring of KA. I have mixed the remaining flour with KA, and the result is good, but I doubt i'll buy it again. It would be noce to find a locally milled flour that is as good or better than KA, buit I haven't found it yet.

I have two pictorial guides on no knead bread in this thread (look about half way down this page). The second guide is on forming and baking the bread. The entire thread has many contributors, and I a great guide. This thread rekindled my bread making. http://forums.egullet.org/topic/111794-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-with-zoe-francois/page-17 Every flour is different (in terms of how much liquid is needed to reach the desired consistency). King Arthur flour is extremely consistent, across the U.S. If you follow the recipes in this thread and use King Arthur, it will absolutely work out great. Other flours (through personal experience) will act differently. I haven't found another flour that works better that KA..

add a couple of tablespoons to rice when cooking. add to bean dishes (cold bean salads) use to make goat cheese, basil, sun dried tomato pizza add to pasta add feta, olives, sunbdried tomato, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and israeli couscous - makes a great cold pasta salad. i go through a costco jar about twice a year. the stuff lasts forever in the fridge.

Peruvian corn....frozen, and dried. humungous kernels the size of your thumb. Very flavorful if prepared right (i cook the frozen kernels at 15 PSI for 10 minutes in a pressure cooker). the dried version can be "popped" and seasoned for bespoke bar food.

Seville Orange season is about to start here, and i'll be whipping up another batch of seville orange/caramel/Grand Marnier ice cream. It's the adult version of a orange dreamsicle...

sous vide at 140 degrees for 45-60 minutes. (use duck fat or butter in the bag, leave the skin on the breast) the day before, refrigerate. the following day (or within the week), remove from the frdige/bag, season at this point, score the skin/fat. render the fat and crisp the skin (and rewarm the breast) in a saute pan, skin side down, then flip over and 1-2 minutes on the other side to finish rewarming - serve.

12 x 12" 1/4" thickness steel plate for $15.00....use it to even out the heat from your electric cooktop!

diced up turkey meat, golden raisins, diced up celery, diced spring onion, mayo, curry powder curried turkey salad - serve over romaine lettuce, with bread. has savory, sweet, crunchy, creamy - great left overs.

SAVE ALL THE DUCK FAT!!!! if pork is the King of Fats, duck is the Queen of fats. fat is both the wonder and the horror of duck. the fat can be rendered, and used to saute fingerling potatoes (yumm), confit duck, turkey or chicken parts (basically poaching the meat in duck fat). read alton brown's approach to duck. read up on how peking duck is made. basically, multi-stage cooking to address rendering the copious amounts of subcutaneous fat from the duck, crisping the skin, and cooking (but not over cooking) the breast meat. me personally, I like to skin the duck, grind the skin/fat up and render the all the fat, debone the duck, (freeze the carcass for later browning and making duck stock once I have more bones), bag the breast meat with some of the duck fat and cook it sous vide, bag the legs/thighs with duck fat and sous vide them separately.

contact the company you list, and ask them if they will sell you powder without blending it.

the purists will scream...but here it goes.... lay out a square of saran wrap (about 12x12 inch) and rub a little butter on the center 5 inches crack open an egg and place the insides on the center of the saran wrap. season the raw egg, if you wish. gather up the edges of the saran wrap and make a little beggars purse out of. hold the top of the package, and lower into simmering water until you achieve the consistency you want. remove the saran wrap and serve

The best way to approach this is to identify a good sea food provider, and ask them what is in season, and currently "best", rather than asking for a specific type of fish.... Once you have the freshest, in season fish...then you decide what to do with it. At least that's they way i look at fish.

Recommendations for a nice place to eat a classic meal highlighting truffles in season. Anywhere around Alba is fine, we have a car. It's the wife, me and possibly our son. I'll be there around Oct 14-16. I'm not looking for a three star Michelin. Would enjoy something memorable, but not budget busting.

go over to ideasinfood.com and scrol down, they do an entire riff on using all the left over bits of the watermelon...