Okanagancook

Curious as to how this turned out for you. I've got a beef tongue in the freezer which I want to do like this. Thanks, if you have time to post. cheers.

Welcome and ditto to what everyone else has said about the amazing people who contribute here. Beware of topics in the "Kitchen Consumer" category. There are loads of wonderful cooking devices which are reviewed and their use experience shared here. I figure I have bought around $10,000 worth of them since joining! However, I must say I don't regret buying any of them and am thankful to have learned about them here. Ditto goes for the "Cookbooks and References" category. Cheers, and don't be timid about joining in.

I have made asparagus soup with blanched tips in the pureed soup. Frozen it then when eaten I found the tips really 'mushy' and they weren't blanched for long so still 'crisp'. So, now I just made really concentrated asparagus soup thickened with either rice or potato and blended. Hope that helps.

Meant to say, "not quite enough liquid" (so much for trying to post in a hurry). I think I will dilute it with more chicken stock when we eat the other half. I like the texture of the rice. Oh, and I used home made pancetta which I think made it probably more "pancettay" than using commercial.

Roast chicken with a 'gazpacho' sauce; grilled asparagus with honey-sherry vinegar dressing and rice with a hint of cumin and clove with pine nuts and raisins. I really liked that rice. The spice was in back ground and I used a short grain rice and kept it a little el dente

First radish of the year along with some more spinach.

Asparagus soup from Zuni cafe. Minced pancetta, onions, asparagus, rice and parsley. Quite not a lotos liquid so quite filling. Good flavours. I used some of the small asparagus for the soup.

Two lamb chop dinners. First one is with grilled zucchini, eggplant,and onion with Ted Reader's spicy sauce and fingerling potatoes. The marinade for the lamb is from Global Grill and has herbs de provence, etc and a compound butter with shallot, honey and vinegar. Didn't much care for the butter...too acidic. Second is roasted cauliflower with vadoulvan and the rest of the eggplant. For the eggplant I use Modernist Cuisine's method of microwaving the slices on high for 3 minutes. Then they get a light spray with oil and then grilled.

Emeril's lemon pepper dressing with fresh greens and cajun shrimp.

I really like the sound of those. Probably messy to eat with crumbs of filo shattering as one bites into it. Wonder if a thin strip if prosciutto wrapped around the asparagus before the filo would work? Or perhaps put the meat on the outside.

Thanks Huiray, both dishes look good especially the andouille with asparagus.

Over on the dinner thread we had a little flurry of activity on the subject of asparagus. Well, we have the Armstrong asparagus ready here in the Okanagan. I just bought two bags full. Some pencil thin and some nice and fat. They are always shipped in boxes so they are lying down and as you can see from the photo, some of the tops are a little bit bent but the heads are tight. Armstrong is about 100 kilometres from here. It just arrived according to the store. I am going to make a salad with some of the big ones, dressed with a tangerine and pistachio vinaigrette from The New Spanish Table. For dinner I'm looking for a recipe with scallops or shrimp to go with the asparagus and some ricotta dumplings I have in the freezer. What is your favourite way of eating asparagus?

Have not used the thicker stalks for salad. Will try that when the spring crop arrives. Asparagus grows wild in the Okanagan. Used to be more of it before the use of herbicides wiped a lot of it out but the older farmers have their secret patches! We get farmed asparagus from north of Lake Okanagan. Lasts about three weeks at which time we gorge on it. I don't buy imported asparagus because it just doesn't compare to what we get locally.

I have to agree about thicker asparagus for cooked. I do use raw in salads where of course thinner is usually better. We have some wild asparagus which is thin and tough unless you take just the tips and use them as a base for soups.

Recently discovered the best tortilla chips, well, to my taste. There are various flavours but I like the sea salt: President's Choice Kettle Style Tortilla chips. Delicious. Bubbly, crispy surface with the right amount of salt and the right thickness AND they are packaged in a sturdy waxed paper bag so that aren't all crushed. Tortilla chips are one of those foods that if they are in the house, I eat them. Even four of these beauties can stave off cravings.

mm84321: beautiful dishes. I have a question for you seeing that our asparagus season is coming up. Thick or thin stalks? Last year I went for the thick stalks. Snapped off the fibrous end and did gentle peel on the stalks.

BBQ's lamb chops, Texas toast, yogurt/cuc/garlic and Ted Reader's BBQ vegetable salad. I hovered over the chops on the grill with Thermapen in hand and cooked them perfectly....really, just as good as sous vide without all the waiting and I got to drink wine while I was cooking them and enjoying the view of our spectacular surrounds

Made the paella last night. Really good. I used a very good stock. Pictures of the mis en place; marinating rabbit and chicken; the bubbling rice and the finished product. After baking the paella it needed to go on the stove to get the bottom crispy......love my brother who cleaned the paella pan this morning

Patrickamory: that spread looks stunning. I bet it all goes!

Does look good. As it happens I am making a Valenciana Paella tonight. Chicken thighs, rabbit, snails, butter beans, green beans, artichoke and I'm putting in a little optional slices of chorizo. Never made paella before so hopefully I can get the crispy bottom.

EliseD, yes if the books you have in your library have been indexed in EYB's library then when you search for a recipe it will search those books in your library. But the search engine is quite sophisticated so you can search on a number of criteria, ie, chicken breast, mushrooms, Asian. It is well designed. They have most popular books indexed and are active at indexing more. In fact you can index books yourself. I find that I am using my books much more. There is probably a topic on EYB. Plus, their daily blog has the latest food news and it will index the magazines you subscribe to automatically each month.

I joined Eat Your Books at the very beginning and have a lifetime membership for $50. Now, that was a great decision because I use it all the time. The one thing I have not been doing is keeping track of what I make using their bookmark feature. I do that the old fashioned way with a spiral notebook always open in the kitchen where I jot down the date and what I made from which cookbook. Took me awhile to find the name of that tomato sauce above but I only have 10 months of notes. So, looking back at the books I have been using has been fun. Lately: Frankies A Matter of Taste Local Flavours Global Grill D. Thompson's Thai Cooking Will it Waffle Foods of the World Series: Germany Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook Ted Reader's Gastro Grilling.....baked sweet potatoes that are then injected with "butter love" which is a combo of spiced rum, maple syrup and butter...that is a great combo

A16 Meat Balls.....to die for Flour & Water egg pasta....simply amazing dough Marcella's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking...Tomato, pancetta tomato sauce These three got raves from friends we had for lunch. One person, whose son is a chef, said that this was THE BEST pasta meal he had ever had...and he is almost 65 y.o. Nice comment and made the half hour I spend kneading the two batches of pasta dough worthwhile.

The local Superstore had some fresh farmed trout. En Papillote with chopped shrimp, parsley, herb butter and lemon slices between the fillets and a row of thinly sliced cremini mushrooms on top then baked at 375 for 14 minutes; steamed mashed potatoes (a little brown 'cause I used some concentrated chicken stock for moisture); steamed carrots and snap peas. A nice lite meal.

Size 18/23 head on shrimp packed with a little oil, cooked at 132F for 20 minutes. These pictures go with my post #342. Just found them.