ElsieD

This rice blend is really, really good. I plan on picking up a few more bags when next we go. The first first time I cooked it, there was a lot of water that had not been absorbed. I cooked it again tonight and cut back a bit on the water. Much better. Does anyone else buy this?

Sous vide chicken breast stuffed with Italian sausage with marinara sauce, green beans and TJ's rice medley (long grain brown rice, black barley and Daikon radish seed).

Is there a recipe for these somewhere?

Shredded pork stir fry with sweet bean sauce, rice and cucumber marinated in seasoned rice vinegar. The pork recipe came from The Woks of Life website and oh my, was it ever good.

I had never heard of putting salt in coffee until I met my husband. As I was growing up, my parents always drank coffee twice a day, using beans my mother ground before she made it. He insists on a pinch of salt in with the coffee before brewing. We buy coffee that is ground for us when we buy it. I can't tell the difference between the salt added and no salt added.

Strip loins on the rare side of medium rare with a red wine pan sauce, roasted potatoes and asparagus and red pepper sauté. The potatoes did not take over the plate as much as it appears.

Couscous salad with corn and red pepper, sweet chili sauce, sriracha and ginger glazed chicken and a small tomato and cucumber salad. I seared the chicken a tad too long but it didn't affect the taste.

I've been working on getting my recipes together in one place, from two tablets, a lap top and the main computer. While doing this, I came across a recipe for Indonesian-Style Ham Stir Fry which I had not made in ages. I had the ham and here is the dish. Underneath the stir-fry are Shiritaki noodles. I made a flan today so I figure having the Shiritaki noodles means there is room to indulge in dessert.

When I read the first couple of words I thought you were referring to the man who met saw. My first reaction was "wow!".

They sure look good, though.

Here is the third and final meal, pork chops with a maple/mustard glaze, oven fries and rapini. I was worried about the pork chop drying out as it wasn't very thick but it actually turned out rather well, nice and pink and fairly juicy. I remembered from the dinner thread to soak the spuds which I did and the fries were excellent. They were tossed with olive oil, s & p and rosemary. The rapini was okay, we liked the stemps best. We find rapini bitter so are not particularly fond of it but that is a personal taste thing. It was tossed with olive oil and s & p and roasted. I would rank the dishes as 1) pork chops, 2) salmon and the Kofta last. I thought the freshness of some of the ingredients could have been better and a bit more care taken with the packaging. The quantities were bang on. I may try a couple of other meal services and if I do, I'll post about it. I have found only one such service in the city I live in but they charge $40 which is more than I care to spend. I know Montreal has another one so may give that a whirl.

We had a pre-lit Christmas tree that we bought at Costco. We used it for three years but in the 3rd year the lights stopped working. They took it back and gave us a full refund. The same thing happened with a PVR that stopped working. They took it back as well. I love Costco.

Well, now, this was interesting. I was at a store today to pick up yogurt starter and they had kefir grains right next to it so I know where to buy that should I decide to give this a go. I have never had keffir (I really should get out more), does it taste anything like buttermilk?

I just heard back from Costco and there are no problems with any of the other Nature Touch products. They are making the Hep A shots available through to the beginning of next week.

So here we are, the beef and lamb Kofta. I did as Kenneth T suggested for the rice. That is, the aromatics went into some oil in a pot, the rice was toasted and then cooked. The recipe said to put some of the taztziki over the Kofta but I served it in a bowl alongside. Uncooked, there was 10 ounces of minced beef and lamb. After it was cooked, I poured just over 1/3 cup of fat into a measuring cup. The fat weighed 2 7/8 ounces which is a lot of fat coming from that amount of meat. Also, we both love lamb and eat it fairly often but I did not care for the smell of this while it was cooking. I'm wondering if it was mutton dressed up as lamb. It had a peculiar fatty smell, which I have not noticed when I cook lamb. The taztziki was very good, and the rice saved the meal. I missed having some veg. My husband liked the meal, me not so much. As far as the plate goes, it wasn't much to look at. I don't think it would have looked any better with the chick peas instead of the rice.

Thanks again. I'll get some starter as I just found a store not far away that carries it. I'll be curious to see if it makes a difference in the finished product.

Dinner last night from one of those meal kits. Mustard crusted salmon with basil and tomatoes on top, roasted asparagus and roasted potatoes.

This is what I have been doing: 3 3/4 cups 1% milk plus 1/4 cup whipping cream plus 1 T dried milk powder plus 1 Vanilla Bean. Bring to boil. Cool to 115. Add yogurt, usually 2 T or so. Press yogurt for 9 hours. When finished, remove bean, scrape out beans into yogurt. Stir well then strain. I do the vanilla like that as my beans are dry and this reconstitutes them enough to get at the innards. Do you do something differently?

Looks good. What were the "fries" like?

I'm sitting debating which one to cook up tonight. There's the maple-glazed pork chops which looks pretty good except for the fact the pork chop is thinner than I would like. It is about 1/2 " and since it is done in a frying pan, I'm worried about the thing being dry. The bigger problem is with the lamb & beef Kofta. It came with a tin of chick peas which we both loathe. The treatment for the chick peas is to cook the aromatics (ginger, spice blend, shallot and garlic) then add the chick peas and some lemon juice. I'm thinking about substituting the chick peas with rice. I could use either cooked rice or raw rice and cook it on the stove. Any thoughts?

Tonight we had the salmon. We normally do not eat salmon as neither one of us cares for it so we were not looking forward to this meal. I should mention here that they "chose" our meals. If I had been choosing, 2 of the 3 would not have been picked. Anyway, this was a pleasant surprise. One thing I noticed right away was that the fish was very fresh without any fishy smell whatsoever which probably explains why we liked it as much as we did. So basically, it was preboil all 7!!!! of the very small potatoes, cut them in half, toss with olive oil, garlic, s & p and into a 450 oven. The asparagus gets the same treatment, the salmon gets a spread of grainy Dijon mustard. After the initial 10 minute potato bake, the asparagus and salmon go in for 10 minutes. I think 8 would have been better. While that was happening, I diced the tomato that was sent, then threw it out as it had gotten a bit squished in the packaging and had a mealy texture to boot. So, I did up some small ones I had. To this was added chopped basil, white balsamic vinegar and some olive oil. This was put on top of the salad. Unlike Anna N, my garlic was not in it's own little bag, but loose in the big bag the meal ingredients were packed in. No problem there. I think the asparagus could have been fresher and a better tomato could have been sent and packaged better. All in all, though, we were pretty happy with our meal. Oh, I did pull out the smoking gun and smoked the fish a bit before it got the mustard and oven treatment.

When I came back today from running some errands, I found a message on my answering machine to say I had a delivery. The only thing I could think of was that some tax stuff had been dropped off for people I do tax returns for. Instead, it turned out to be a delivery of 3 meal kits that I had (totally inadvertently) signed up for. To say I was surprised is an understatement. This is a company called Goodfood. The kits are pictured below. I'll report separately on how they are.

Thanks, Shelby. I gave some of my last batch to my polite sister who said "your yogurt is a little tangier than I am used to" and didn't ask for any more. I'll shorten the time when I next make it and see how that works out. I was under what seems to be the mistaken impression that the longer you let it incubate, the thicker it got.

How thick was it compared to an 8 hour incubation?

I wrote to Costco, but haven't heard back yet. Won't open the mango until I do. I did note that Costco is providing Hep A vaccines to people who brought the product.