Okanagancook

I regularly send cashiers into a quandary with the vegetables I buy…doesn’t take much now a days. Once while giving teenagers a class in nutrition, a few students were amazed to know that French fries were made from potatoes….who is responsible for kids knowing this?.

I just saw this. There is a whole extensive thread on this cook…just do a search for the title…sorry don’t know how to give you a link.

Can’t remember what it was last year. This year $78 for about 14 lbs. it was beautiful.

Sorry, was referring to the high cost of a fresh turkey nowadays. 🤣

We splurged on a fresh turkey (can’t take it with you) and decided to try our new bbq rotisserie. Got it all setup. Turning nicely. 90 minutes later we realized it was only turning half way due to it not being balanced properly…our fault. we had a turkey cooked on half a side.🙃 …… into the oven as diners were due shortly. It all turned out ok. The bird was not bad. Wrapped it in foil and a towel then into a cooler to rest and keep warm. I made my mom’s stuffing and a litre and a half of gravy…all good with multiple bottles of local wine and two pies for dessert. Many things to be thankful for.

salt and pepper in all of the below I like tossing roasted broccoli in a vinaigrette of garlic, anchovy, lemon juice,kalamata olives, olive oil. Dukka tossed with roasted root veggies is nice. I like to roast carrots with olive oil and chili flakes. Toss with a gremolata (orange zest, shallots, salt, and parsley). Make a glaze with reduced orange juice and honey and drizzle on top. roasted beets tossed with lemon juice, toasted cumin seeds, olive oil and chopped fresh mint. I love parsnips. Add rosemary and 1/2 inch lengths of bacon when roasting the parsnips. 5-10 minutes before done sprinkle with a little brown sugar and cider vinegar and finish off in the oven.

If you are a bit apprehensive, try going on YouTube and search for air fryer recipes. There are plenty of quick snack ideas just to get you started using it.

I use those pappadums too. I have a gas range so I just hold the pappadum with thin tongs and flip it over back and forth over a medium flame. They start to change colour as they cook. Not as oily but it does take awhile to get the hang of it. I have also done them in the microwave but you have to play around with the cook level and time other wise they get unevenly cooked.

I tried another piece of pork belly using the method from the video up thread but this time my belly was thicker…about two inches. That was the difference because it was not over done. I watched it carefully checking it every 5 minutes once I set the AF to 400F. Very easy to make.

No idea of which AF it is.

I tried this last night with too small a piece of belly. It got over cooked but I learned a lot of technique and will try again with a larger piece. My piece was only 10 oz and one inch thick and also very lean. I like cooking it at a low temp for 20 minutes to soften the skin to make it easy to poke holes in it. I also found his comment about not too many holes interesting. I like the little foil boat to hold the meat. It kept the mess under control. i don’t think I would make such deep cuts in the meat. My meat was dry. I cooked it at 400f for about 15 minutes but the meat was getting too cooked. I should have taken it out to inspect the skin at 12 minutes. We ate it

I am thankful for the many great options now available. Slowly I will find the ones I like.

Oh this sounds familiar. Many of these things have happened to us too. We decided to moved into a condo with all new high end appliances with several pages of manuals about how the operations work. Sheesh. So much to learn. So many options! I had to make a chart for washing and drying our clothes and yes, the drum is so deep I almost need long tongs to reach the clothes out of the back of the drum.

Excellent. You will love it. Somewhere they recommend potatoes chips as an excellent pairing for champagne . The Irish lamb stew and the yellow tomato soup are excellent.

The beef dip looks better than most. Preceded by a Margarita….what could be better. we have friends in Qualicum Beach. Hope the weather is good.

I have never seen instructions to remove seeds from an eggplant. Salting it for about an hour to supposedly drawing out the bitterness is the only treatment instructions I have seen. an East Indian friend of mine said choose eggplants with a round end to get a vegetable with less seeds and I do think he is right. I always get round ended eggplants.

The judges are sometimes pretty impressive also.

I am addicted to the show. I hope it’s not rigged🤪

I had a lovage plant for about ten years. When we moved, it had reached a dizzying height of 6.5 feet. It was a beauty. Harvest young leaves and treat them as a herb. They go well with leeks, celery, onion, parsley, potato, poultry (try roasting a chicken set on a bed of lovage). It is nice torn up in salads. Taste as you go because it is quite robust. I never did cook the stems but I imagine young tender ones would work best. good luck.

Thanks @KennethT i have copied your recipe here so it is easy to find. I would like to try your stretching technique. Thank you. ”For the prata, it's actually a relatively lean dough. From research I've done, it seems like the flour all the prata guys in Singapore use have 10.8% protein, which I can't find here. So for 8 pratas (4 meals of 2 to go along with the curry) it should be 600g flour with approx 10.8% protein. I made this using 118g 7% protein cake flour and 482g of 11.7% KAF all purpose. To this about 1t salt, 1T sugar, 15ml grapeseed oil, 300ml water and 1 egg. Mixed by hand and let sit covered for about an hour or so. After that, I could actually knead it without using any extra flour. I kneaded it in several sessions of about 5 minutes each, separated by 20 min of rest. Divided into 8 balls, rolled in grapeseed oil, then sit in ramekins covered for a few hours. Then sit in the fridge overnight. Then I freeze 6 and stretched 2 a few minutes before the chicken was finished. Cooked until brown on both sides on a med-high pan with a bit of grapeseed oil. I think the key is lots of kneading interspersed with lots of rest to relax the gluten. It's really stretchy - it springs back like a rubber band. To use the frozen ones, the day I'm making the curry, I'll take them out of the freezer and leave on the countertop all day to defrost and relax. To stretch, take a large section of clean countertop and spread a thin layer of grapeseed oil and oil your hands. Take a dough ball and flatten into a disk, then, working around in a circle, lift and stretch the edge away from the center and press down on the countertop. If your countertop has too much oil it will slide, but if just a bit, it should stay there. Keep going around until you can see the countertop through the dough - it doesn't matter if a couple of holes tear into it as long as you can stretch it really thin. It should be about 2 feet in diameter (roughly). Then spread a little more grapeseed oil on the top surface and roll it into a snake, then coil the snake into a disk tucking the last end underneath. Cover and let sit and rest for a while. When ready to cook, press the disk as flat as you can and fry on a medium high heat in a bit more grapeseed oil. At this point, it's really stretchy, so when you press the disk flat, it comes back to almost its original thickness, so when it hits the hot pan, I'll press it flatter with a spatula. When justbrowned, flip it and do the same thing. When done, transfer to a clean countertop or board and with a quick motionwith your hands, clap the edges towards the center a couple times, which should help separate the layers a bit.”

This is a very good video. I have not made these but have seen this technique before. She mucks around getting the dough the right consistency until about 7 minutes into the video but from then on it is pretty good. Butter makes it better. Who knew.

Adjustable metal shelving is a must. Practical, adaptable and easy to clean.

A Matter Of Taste by Lucy Waverman is a terrific book that includes lots of information about what to drink with the recipes. https://www.amazon.ca/Matter-Taste-Lucy-Waverman/dp/0002006723/ref=asc_df_0002006723/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=335136579009&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16402966807508507690&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1002451&hvtargid=pla-690551631769&psc=1

I think tenderness is also a function of the quality of the meat. I tend to experiment. I was doing pork chops at 135 to 140 f. Then someone here said they usually use 132f and get juicy results. So I thought we’ll if it is a bit rare for me then I can always sear it a bit in a pan. I found 132 F was the right temperature and I kept the time at 90 minutes. Keep a sous vide journal and document where you bought the meat, the cut, the thickness, the temperature, the time and how it came out. Very useful.

Probably too warm and/or over whipped.