Okanagancook

Thank you AnnT, looks like your roasts :-)) I followed the Cooks Illustrated slow roast method: Meat is well seared; I put some steak spices over the meat (afterwards I saw somewhere to brush the meat with egg whites so the spices stick better which I will try next time); popped it in the oven at the requisite 250F; the temperature was going up really fast so I reduced the temperature to 220F; it was a 4 lb roast and the recipe said it would take 3 to 3 1/2 hours which I a bunch of bunk because mine was done (124F) two hours. I wrapped it in foil and a towel and put it in a cooler until the Yorkies were done. Red wine reduction over the Yorkies.

Roast Prime Rib with Yorkies done the slow way: 210F for about 2 hours.

Chris, I have to thank you for doing this documentation. I have ALL the books but some how I shy away from making much. They see to be labour intensive recipes and the ingredients usually need to be acquired with making a recipe in mind. I too will get out Plenty and cook more from it. cheers to your diligence and your descriptions are very informative.

cakewalk, you HAVE to make the hummus and do take the time to take the skins off as she directs. Her method is quite good....put on some tunes to help dull the tedious task. I toasted my cumin seeds before grinding and I used aleppo pepper flakes.

I have 8 lamb shanks in the freezer from our two beauties we got in October from the Organic Farm north of here. I want to sous vide them all together and then freeze what we aren't eating. There are various recommendations regarding cooking them. I would like them to be a little on the medium rare side but of course tender. Douglas Baldwin says 175F or 80C for 12 to 24 hours. That sounds a little too high a temperature to have them on the pinkish side. Modernist Cuisine: 144F or 62C for 48 hours. I am favouring the latter. Any thoughts on that? If your sirloin is on the tough side maybe try cooking it like a flank steak. I get grass fed beef which tends to be on the chewy side. I have had excellent results with 55C 131F for 24 hours. I've done the flank steak this way twice and it turned out perfectly tender but medium rare both times.

Sorry Anna, I didn't note the complete title: Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jew by Poopa Dweck. A truly stunning book. Excellent narrative and photography. I bought some lovely eggplants today so I'm going to try the baba ghanooj. Couldn't resist. My only dislike about the book: Very big and heavy like Thomas Keller's books but well made so hope it doesn't come apart. I scored some marinated Lebanese olives at the superstore today complete with lemon slice and chill! While there I had a chat with the meat man. There was only halal chicken out so asked if they get other halal meat. To my delight he said they were getting some beef in this week and they often have lamb. The 'ethnic' isle had a lot canned Lebanese products. I checked out the whole sale club here and they had nice big bags of chick peas/lentils and a big selection of rice. All will be good. Still no word about their arrival. It is so beautiful here at the moment: sun on the mountain tops which still have a dusting of snow, no wind and some nice puffy white clouds scattered about. If they only knew they were coming to paradise, should they choose. Some rumour that some are afraid to leave the city for the unknown. Easy to understand given what they have been through. cheers

Thanks everyone. We are still waiting to here if they are coming. I still know nothing more about the event but I did make 2 litres of hummus from the book Aleppo and it turned out to be the best hummus I have ever made. It is sitting in the fridge melding it's flavours. We also made pitas from the book Flatbreads and they have turned out very nicely and are in the freezer. We made a second batch of dough which the recipe said we could keep in the fridge for a few days for more flavour development so will bake them up in another day. I can always freeze the hummus. We have local walnut trees so I am going to bake some cookies show casing the nuts and some brownies as well. I think the event will not be as grandiose as some contributors are envisioning. More of a gathering to introduce everyone who will be helping so finger food and coffee. So some veggie crudities, olives and a few more baked Canadian items should do the trick. Cardamon offering for the coffee is a great idea.

That's the kind of meal I like to eat. Nice combo! I have some smaller russets in the pantry and you just gave me a recipe and I like the idea of parm and garlic.

M

Thank you all for your thoughts and ideas! We are a small village of around 2000 people except in the summer when we swell to around 5000. We are surrounded by vineyards and orchards. Penticton is a city of 45,000 and is a 15 minute drive away. We have a small grocery store for essentials and a couple of restaurants/pub. I don't think we are getting more families. We were scheduled to get 21 people but that got changed to 13 and I am not involved in this negotiation so don't know why but I think it is also the decision of the families as to where they want to settle. Apparently many are scared to leave the city and they certainly don't know Canada at all so they have no clue that the Okanagan is very desirable mainly due to it's lifestyle and climate. The families we are getting are apparently farmers but that's all I know at the moment. They have been given houses to live in for 6 months (free). So they have adequate cooking facilities and the stores in Penticton have pretty well every ingredient they will need including Halal meats! At this point I am not even sure what cooking facilities we will have for the welcome tea so I am thinking we just bring stuff for the table. I think the tea is just meant as a small welcome, low key affair. I have done research about their food and I even found a website that had a PDF of pantry items listed in English and Arabic which will be invaluable when helping them to shop. I don't know how much English they know. So, it's an adventure at this point. I will know more soon. I have some helpers so will run the idea of a mixed food table by them. Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this topic. We will have plenty of sugar out for the tea and coffee! I am thinking of taking my Jura coffee machine to the event and we can make beautiful shots of good coffee for them :-)) cheers

Our little village here in picturesque south okanagan, British Columbia has applied to help settle these despite people. We do not have confirmation just yet that we are allocated families. Canada is settling 25,000 refugees and they have all arrived in Canada. Our families are staying in hotels in the big city of Vancouver awaiting settlement allocations. Not a great situation. Anyways, I digress. I have been put in charge of organizing a welcome event for the 13 people who are HOPEFULLY within the week coming here . There will likely be the volunteers who have been working to get them here attending, so a total of 30 people. My question is what should we serve as a snack. I am thinking we have some sweets of the Canadian bent. Maybe some brownies, some cookies with nuts such our local walnuts, something light like an angle food cake with lemon frosting. Also thinking maybe some savoury items like home made pittas (I can make those) with hummus drizzled with olive oil, some olives, maybe some babba ganoush, cucumber and yogurt. Coffe, tea, and fruit juices. i would appreciate any comments regarding this. Apparently our settlers are from farming areas in Syria but that is all I know at this point.

Ramen. Never ate, never made it. David Chan's recipe, very involved but not a lot of active care. Delicious! Just added fresh noodles and shaved scallions so we could appreciate the amazing broth. Nine more portions in the freezer

And what are Padma's qualifications for being a judge?

liuzhou, most of the Lorne sausage recipes I found on the net were all heavily spiced with the three spices: black pepper, nutmeg and coriander. The main difference amongst the recipes was: the amount of bread crumbs and ground pork versus pork sausage meat. I went with the sausage meat because the fresh ground beef I got from the butcher was lean. Thanksforthecrepes, I thought the same thing about the nutmeg but it was fine. You could detect it was there but the other two spices complemented. I cooked up a patty for my DH this am (I am still dieting so grapefruit for me!) and he thought it tasted better after an overnight rest. So if you make your own sausage do rest the meat before packaging and freezing. I thought it looked a little dry and the bread crumbs I used were quite fine so absorbed a lot of the water that was added. Next time I will add another 1/4 cup of water for sure. The mould is supposed to be 10 x 4 x 3 inches and you press the meat into the mould. If it was any thicker it would be hard to slice off the 1 cm slices and putting it in the freezer is a must which much knife blade wiping between slices. I'm glad you are going make your own sausage. Dead easy, really and the product is so much better. Definitely cook up a tester to see if you have your spicing/salt the way you like it. I haven't heard from my friend yet as to what she thought of them. Cheers.

Thanks Tere. Here is a picture of the loaf being sliced .

Yesterday at the pub I had a discussion with a Scottish friend who told me about 'Scottish Sausages'. I had not heard of them before and she raved about how good they were. In fact so good one of her cousins brought some from Scotland to Canada when he was visiting. So, I decided I had to try making some. Looked up various recipes on the internet and settled on this one: 1 lb ground beef 1 lb pork sausage meat 2 cups fine bread crumbs 1/2 cup ice water 2.5 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons each nutmeg and black pepper 1 tablespoon coriander (all spices were freshly ground) The batch was mixed with the paddle attachment on my Kitchen Aid as we do when we make our other sausages. I pressed the meat into a terrine mould and it is in the freezer for 1.5 hours to firm up so I can slice it into 1 cm slices. I cooked up a couple of patties before moulding and they taste pretty good. You can definitely detect the bread crumbs. From what I have read, this is how they are supposed to be. Any Scots out there want to comment on the recipe and ultimate taste of these 'Scottish Sausages'. I will take a few patties over to my friend once I have sliced and packaged them. cheers

An AK with the calamari! Doesn't get any better than that. The other dishes look very nice and freshly made. Sure wish we had a good Thai restaurant around here.

This sounds familiar....my advice, STAY AWAY from the InstantPot thread I have to admit though, I do love my little oven.

I think I use EYB everyday! It makes accessing recipes in magazines easy. i try to post notes on the recipes I make and I always check the note section before making a recipe. I also like the news items they put together each week. i got in at the very beginning with a lifetime membership for $50. Best $50 I ever spent

All great ideas. The thing about using the waffle maker is that you are making a signature item that customers will remember. 'Have you had the waffle sandwiches at .....' you can make crispy potato cakes with the waffle maker, needs some experimentation but you could have the potatoes ready for heating and crispening in the waffle makers. You could put various spices in them and/or serve with different sauces. good luck and do let us know how things turn out.

My mother used to make cabbage and carrots endlessly! However, and unfortunately they never looked anything like yours Anna.

Your waffle iron could be used for all kinds of creative salty goodies. Take a look at this: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/behind-the-scenes-waffle-iron-frenzy

I uncovered my garlic which is about eight inches tall. (It was covered with leaves and burlap.) Planted my peas and some salad greens. Then came inside and checked the weather, bloody hell, it's going to -6 C tonight. I will be covering the garlic I guess.

I am dieting, for the 7 th week and my dinners or not noteworthy, at all, sheesh. One day soon I shall have something to post. in the mean time I am soooo impressed with everyone's dinners which are swoon worthy .

Glad you enjoyed seeing the process. The four outlets are on springs. You push the empty bottle's neck up with the outlet inside and that opens the spring strung outlet and wine shoots into the bottle. The bottle bottom wedges on the lower shelf which is adjustable for different sizes of bottles. The bottle on the far right was put on first and is full which stops the flow of wine. Then you just tilt the full bottle off the shelf and that's it. Pretty cool really. It's Italian made from high quality stainless steel. We put a pump from the main tank to the bottle filler tank and pumped in more wine as needed. Really easy to clean and we did almost 20 cases in 1 1/2 hours. There was one glitch. I turned the pump on to fill the bottler tanks and the hose wasn't secure so I showered our friend with Pino Gris for about a bottle's worth before I could point it back into the tank