Okanagancook

Dreamy looking beans with it's soul mate, pork.

Thanks HC sometimes simple is best. pre-salted chops in the morning, laid some sliced garlic and rosemary sprigs on top and covered with wrap...into the fridge. took them out before we left for the pub...it is a two minute drive. got back from our usual Friday night at the pub visiting with friends. heated my little ribbed cast iron pan after checking to make sure all four chops fit. Removed the garlic and rosemary and applied olive oil. high heat for two minutes first side and one and a half minutes on the second side. Perfectly cooked. The meat is of extremely high quality and we could cut it with a fork.

Lamb chops, again! If we must. Just a few packages left before our new lamb meat arrives. Broccoli: steamed then sautéed with garlic, butter, anchovies and pepper. Last of the corn and rice. Salad was jicama, cucs, cherry tomatoes and some leftover tomatillo sauce.

Thanks Anna N for the link. Other reviews I read said the one thing they didn't like was the way the written recipe was done. Most like a concise, 1, 2, 3, style where this book has more paragraph style of presenting the recipe. I don't have a problem with that. At least the ingredients are listed separately. I am looking forward to getting it...next week I think it should come. I've been to Beast for one her dinners and it was really, really excellent. And she wasn't even there! She was apparently on her honeymoon.

What in god's name is 'wet hen'? and the diet is not going so well at the moment...we have a 50 th wedding anniversary on Sunday and then the following week visitors for a few days,. Grrrrr"......but after that I can get back at it and drop a few pounds. Sheesssh. It is tough the older one gets and for me, being less active the problem..back to the gym.

It is just out. Anyone have one? i have read several reviews. overall good but for a more accomplished cook crowd such as Egullet people. great explanations of techniques and interesting dishes with great photography I must say I am partial to books with a pic of your intended finished dish. just so you have idea on whether you are on track.

OMG, my gall bladder is straining!Neah a green in sight save for a salad somewhere in the menu. each to his own. thank you for sharing and no harm intended' just my take.

Just put my Oder in. DH deserves it! it's only $

It's an Irish tinged dinner! Looks delicious.

Mmmmmpops great work. you are fearless. i don not have said appliance and will not be buying one. Oh, my I have heard this before. i should stop looking at this thread.

Great meals everyone. Lemon, sumac, cilantro, garlic grilled shrimp; grilled zuc (last one) and leftover corn and rice. The sumac is from my garden. Very lemony. See Garden thread for harvest details.

Thanks. AnnT's pizza dough recipe: 63% hydration; 2 g yeast for 500 g flour; a little salt. Mix water and yeast and let sit 10 minutes. Mix into flour. Knead. In the fridge overnight. Out of fridge 1 hour before making. Pizza metal plate preheated one hour on highest oven setting. Bake pizza for five minutes then switch to broil until nice and brown on top. Not too much topping. Red wine. Thanks AnnT

The fried sage leaves are a nice touch!

It's so sad. Slowly working on the boxes. Weeding and turning over the soil. The rest of the sumac flowers drying in the greenhouse. Maybe our Syrian Family would like some once they are dry.

Just pizza tonight. Italian sausage and caramelized onions . Oh, and red wine.

There are any number of recipes using sumac. Typically used with lamb, chicken, shrimp. Mixed in a yogurt sauce, etc. Just do some googling. Or if you like middle eastern food I highly recommend Persiana the cookbook by Sabrina Ghayour. She has 13 recipes using sumac. I will do some shrimp tonight: Shrimp with Sumac, Cilantro, Lemon and Garlic. Make the marinade: 6 T olive oil, zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1/2 lemon, 2 Tablespoons sumac, 5 garlic cloves sliced thinnly, 20 grams cilantro finely chopped, salt, pepper, 800 grams large shrimp. Marinate the shrimp for about 30 minutes. Shake off the marinade and grill or fry the shrimp. Can't wait.

Well, the processing was way easier than I had envisioned. The yield prediction of 1 cup of sumac seeds to 1 1/2 teaspoons of sumac spice is BS. First picture is my yield, sumac on the left, seeds on the right. The sumac is quite fluffy. It was very easy to separate the seeds from the 'flesh'. Second pic is in the processor. Third pic is the seeds. Fourth pic is the sumac

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! Very good. That was not easy. They are called seeds on most of the websites I visited. Yes, it's sumac. We have numerous plants around the property and I learned last year that they are the kind that can be used for spices...StagHorn. The flower heads are slightly sticky and at this time of the year they don't have a lot of bugs in them. This is a new experience for me. I decided to harvest a few of the fresh looking ones. I stripped the seeds off the flower heads and put them on an Excalibar Dehydrator matt and popped them in the dehydrator at 135 F. I think they should be dry over night. To my surprise, and dismay, one cup of raw sumac seeds will only yield 1 1/2 teaspoons of the sumac spice. I thought it was the seeds that is the spice, but no, it is the covering flesh of the seed that is the spice. So, once they have dried I will put them in a food processor and try to separate the flesh from the seeds. I will put them in a strainer and try to extract as much of the flesh from the seeds as possible. That's the instruction from several websites including Serious Eats. Once I learned about the low yield I went back outside and cut off all the new growth flowers I could reach and have put them in my green house to dry and to allow the bugs to crawl out. Once they are dry then I am sure the seeds will strip away from the flower stem much easier than what I did today with fresh flower heads. Then all I will need to do is put in the food processor, etc. Here is a picture of the fresh flower heads from earlier today.

Nope. hint....it's a Mediterranean spice.

Grape seeds was a good guess considering we have lots of vines. But not correct. The pasta was good but I think I put too much basil in the amount of dough I had. The texture isn't quite right for pasta. We just had a small sample bowl for breakfast. I think they will be fine with a sauce. We just had them with my cultured butter. ElainaA, if you are going to make some, I blanched the basil then chopped it in the food processor until it was fairly finely chopped....not pureed as in a blender. I think if you put two tablespoons of the blanched basil in with 2 cups worth of flour for pasta (and your eggs/egg yolk) that will give it enough flavour without the textural problems I have. You could make a sample batch with 1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon basil to see how you like it. The bow ties are very easy to make. That was my DH's idea after we worked on the garganelli for awhile he could see it taking a long, long time and seeing he has zero patience he switched to bow ties.

Thank you for the pasta praise! good guesses but it is neither. Thanks for playing

Ok, guess what I am making.

Sous vide lamb loin; grits from the IP; reduced lamb stock/wine/sauce (too much of it) and tomato/green beans/garlic and sauted button mushrooms drizzled with some lemon juice and truffle oil at the end. The grits took 15 minutes HP with Natural Release. Cooked in a bowl. Could have done with another 5 minutes I think.

Harvested all but one of my basil plants. Got a whole big bowl full of leaves. What to do? I have plenty of pesto. I already made basil oil. I have frozen basil in oil from last year still......Pasta! Like spinach only basil. Some hand made shapes and a few piles of spaghetti. My dehydrator was already on with plumbs in it so I put the pasta in for 3 hours and it's perfectly dry.

TFTC, beautiful quote. Thank you.. i love my garden. It gets the morning sun so my favourite place with my morning cuppa- tea is the garden chair over looking the garden. I watch the 'magic' unfold as spring turns to summer and the plants respond to sun, warmth, fertilizer and of course water. Fall is good and bad. The good being the harvesting of root veggies, the final picking of tomatoes, red and green. The bad that it's over for the year. Luckily here I will be back at planting the garlic mid-October and in early March my peas, radish and carrots. So not too long to wait without a garden. The garden is like a good friend...pretty reliable, generous and forgiving for the most part. I do not really have problems with bugs. This year it was rats eating my ripe tomatoes. i feel like I am providing for my family while not farming. Providing high quality vegetables as fresh as you can get while saving money. This is evident when one visits the farmers market and notices the prices. Deserved on behalf of the farmers who toil long and hard to bring their bounty to the market.