Okanagancook

Romain Lettuce leaf with a bed of celery root remoulade, micro greens from my greenhouse topped with baby shrimp and a little hot sauce. Nice and fresh tasting. Not as difficult to eat as hard shell tacos . There were two of them, after one was eaten, I realized I should take a picture.

Sadly I have not been to the rock. The Canadian Culinary Champion representing the rock was Aqua Kitchen & Bar in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, it’s Chef MARK McCROWE. That should be good as I have been to the finale in Kelowna and all the city champion chefs are very talented. Have a great trip.

I am of two minds about tender meats done sous vide also. However, the most impressive thing is the convenience of sv meat. Especially when you have guests....with the same doneness preferences. If I had a nice 1 1/2 inch ribeye or tenderloin done on a smoking hot charcoal grill producing a crusty layer of grilled goodness and an almost blue interior I would be more than happy.

Oh, my goodness, that looks sublime! And everyone, the last couple of pages of dinners are fantastic. Thank you for sharing.

I will be interested to know how the tongue turns out seeing I have one in the freezer.Did some head and shell on medium shrimp at 132f for 20 minutes. Quite nice, juicy but perhaps a little overdone. I tried a bag at 125f for the same time but once I cooled the 132 bath down to 125 I forgot to turn the thermometer down so had another forking bag of the same thing. Serves me right for trying to watch the Masters and cook at the same time.

I shall have to try some when I cook my garden sorrel which turns a terrible colour when heated.

Weedy, your duck sounds wonderful! I'm making a note this recipe in my SV file! cheers and thanks :-))

Having a timely "Income Tax Cocktail" today. Sweet and dry vermouth, A. bitters, gin and orange juice.

This is always a good website as is her dumpling cookbook: http://www.asiandumplingtips.com/2010/02/how-to-roll-out-asian-dumpling-wrappers-video-version-2.html

Yes, I have tried that technique also. The way they are rolled, the edges are thinner than the middle so that when you fold and seal them that area is as thick as the centre. Makes for even cooking. With practice this technique is faster than using the pasta roller. There are lots of videos of people make them this way. So, yes, practice and that means more pot stickers to eat.

Gfweb, wonderful looking meal and table! Complete with candles too.

Chris, I agree about all the peanuts in the chicken dish. Having said that I always like making the recipe as written the first time trying it and then making adjustments second time around. Sometimes one gets surprised. I LOVE pot stickers and have always made my own dough. But, yes getting the thickness the way you like it takes some practice. Not sure how you rolled out the dough. A pasta roller works well and I use an empty can from canned tuna with both ends taken off to punch out my rounds. The dipping sauce is one part white vinegar and two parts soy sauce then we add chili oil mixed with chili flakes for some heat. These are definitely the realm of 'my last meal"

Well, we shall see. I am looking forward to the gardening section for sure.

Organic Life is James Oseland's new magazine. I just got a two year subscription for $30 Cdn with free shipping. Must be an introductory offer. Here is the website. Looks very interesting. http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/organiclifemagazine/index I subscribe to BA but I am growing tired of it. Not a lot of interesting content besides recipes which I already have plenty of. I also get Fine Cooking which I am or a fan of the reasons rotuts mentions. I used to CI but now I just have a couple of their books on Meat, one on Poultry and one of the 'Best New Recipes" which work well for me. Before I got Eat Your Books I had trouble finding recipes in magazines but with EYB it would be a breeze.

Hummingbirdkiss.... lovely to read about your gardening endeavours. You must be in California or somewhere like that. We are just north of the US/Canada border in one of the mildest climates in Canada (save for Vancouver/Vancouver Island). The rest of Canada is under snow cover. Our ground is warming up slowly. There is wild asparagus around the orchards and we have a little patch that came up by our raspberries. It is starting to poke out too. I have tried to grow fava beans here but they get black mould/ mildew on them every time. So I have given up. The sea kale looks interesting but have not seen any seeds or plants in the garden stores. With regard to regular kale and swiss chard I always get a worm that nests in the leaves so have given up on that too. Even my beet tops get that worm. I plan on buying these from the wonderful farmers' market we have in Penticton. I have also tried to grow okra but I don't think it is hot enough for long enough here. My husband is going to try a couple of plants in the greenhouse to see how they go. We have good luck with tomatoes, potatoes, peas, carrot, leafy greens (with a shade cloth over the top), peppers, squash, corn, onions and eggplants. Smithy, looking forward to trying the Cherokees. From the TV show It's a Chefs Life, they look fantastic. I was thrilled when I saw the seeds. I looked for them last year in the stores but they did not have them. Happy gardening everyone.

Nice. I've got my seeds in the germinator. So far I'm trying some new tomatoes for us: Cherokee. Recommended by Vivian from "A Chef's Life". I also have some other favourites going as well as my peppers. I think that's a good idea about having some peppers in the green house. I usually have cucumbers (the lemon cucumbers seem to do well in a well fertilized/watered pot) as well as sweet 100 tomatoes. Both of which we get early fruit from. I have also started a tray of micro greens. Supposed to get something in a week or so. My arugula and other greens are poking out of the ground. And those garlic plants are really doing well. The ones that were a little yellow are now all green. I have a few that have come up from where the garlic was planted last year so I think I will harvest them as 'spring garlic'.

Today was a potato pancake made in the waffle iron, eggs, mushrooms and a baked tomato.

Sous vide pork leg (from What are you cooking sous vide today thread) topped with mushroom gravy, Modernist Cuisine polenta and steamed veggies. Delicious pork. The 2.5 lb roast was cooked at 135F for 4 hours and the final temp was 133F but we were hungry. Luckily we liked it that rare and it was so juicy and tender.

Followup to my previous post. The pork leg roast was cooked for 4 hours at 135F. The internal temp when I took it out was only 133F but we were hungry. It was beautifully moist and rosy and extremely tender. Served with Modernist Cuisine at Home's pressure cooked polenta (without the cheese.....on a diet), mushroom gravy and steamed veggies. Delicious. So for my dinner party roast which is a little bigger I think we will go with 6 hours at 135F so it is not quite so rosy (guests may not like it that pink). Thanks for everyone's feedback. The first picture is the butcher 'sock' that I took off only to find the meat was in one piece so I did not need to glue it together. I brined it in 2.5% salt brine for 8 hours and as it turned out we thought it a tad on the salty side so next time I will use a 2% brine for 3 hours.

Rick Bayless Tortilla soup with a salad.

Shelby, your pizza is me kinda pie! Did you use a stone and baked with the broiler on to get the nice golden top? And nice touch with broccoli....looks like it's raw? Even better.

Edward J, that's a great idea. Sounds easier than using cheesecloth. But my rice would stick to the diaper material as it does with cheesecloth. The Polyester fabric was perfect for this job.

I'm still here. No funny odour from the material and not ONE grain of rice stuck on it! Success. Love the texture of Thai teamed sticky rice.

Well, I have boiled the cloth in water and then soaked it in vinegar for 30 minutes. It is rinsed and will be used today. Seeing that Darienne is still posting after all those years of use, it should be fine. If you do not hear from me on Egullet, I'm dead!

I recently purchased a Thai rice steamer basket. The first time I used it I put the soaked rice in cheese cloth to steam it and a lot of the rice stuck to the cloth. I was in Fabricland today and purchased some polyester drapery fabric called "voile". It looks like it will work out perfectly since I can cut it to the correct size. Now the catch. The sales person said it will probably have 'sizing' on it which would not be food safe. I have googled how to remove it and haven't really found a definitive answer especially seeing I don't know what kind of sizing was used. I have boiled a piece of it in water for about 10 minutes and think that perhaps I should add some acid to help remove the sizing.???? Does anyone know if I should do anything else other than toss the lot and pay through the nose for a 'jelly bag' which may be too small for my purposes. Help? cheers