kayb

I use capers a lot, most recently chopped in a sauce with anchovy filets and olive oil, seasoned with Aleppo pepper, that I used on cauliflower I roasted (see recent post in Dinner thread). The vinegar ones are generally easier to find than the salted ones, but I agree with the above assessments on difference in taste. I like both. The vinegar ones, particularly used in a tuna salad, remind me of the taste of cornichons. @teonzo, thank you for the description/method of the cantaloupe risotto. I dearly love cantaloupe, so I will be trying this!

@rarerollingobject, I always love to see your breakfasts.

Never been a huge prune fan, but I will eat my weight in dates.

I don't know that my input will be of much help, as I don't NOW frequent Whole Foods, since there's not one nearby while there ARE two other natural grocers in town. But when I did, I often found bargains in two areas: the seafood, which was at worst no more expensive, and often quite a bit less expensive, than other grocery specialty seafood counters (particularly for shellfish, which was what I generally bought). I could routinely buy large shrimp for $12.99 a pound at Whole Foods when they were $14.99 at Kroger. Tuna and salmon were also about $1 to $2 a pound cheaper. The other bargain area was cheese. This was at a point when I was first beginning to explore the world of cheese outside the packaged and deli-sliced varieties, and Whole Foods always had a basket of small pieces of cheese priced at $3 or less. It was a wonderful way to sample all kinds of cheeses without sinking a lot of money into a cheese you might not like (not that there are many of those for me!), and they were just the right size to put two or three kinds on a cheese board for two and have no leftovers. I still head for the cheese basket when I visit a Whole Foods.

@liuzhou -- what a stunning array of food!

But ricotta is so easy to make! (Ravioli apparently not so much. I confess to using egg roll wrappers to do so.)

There's a town a couple of hours from me called Helena. I always wanted to start a catering service specializing in picnics, and call it "Helena Handbasket."

Truly reached in the freezer randomly today, and pulled out a package of tenderized round steaks, labeled cube steaks by the butcher, and always known to me from childhood as minute steaks. I believe they will get seared and then simmered in onion gravy, with a package of frozen c-for-cube caramelized onions. as well as m-for-minute mushrooms Berkeley (sans the peppers; sue me). And maybe some mashed potatoes for good measure. I shall report.

Looked at that yesterday. I wound up bookmarking the whole collection; going to definitely try the short ribs and the Thai pork. H'mmm. May go back to Aldi and pick up another couple of those $1.79 a pound small Boston butts for the freezer, since I'm working my way through it....

I LOVED Miss Shari and Lambchop! Oh, come on. Lambchop and Charlie Horse were cool. As were the Stooges. And perhaps my all-time fave, "Car 54, Where Are You?" Back on-topic -- has anyone used this tray for seed germinating? It appears to be reasonably priced and fairly convenient.

"Rooster dainties" used to be a common menu item in restaurants across Arkansas. Can't say I've ever tried them, or mountain oysters, either, but I'm certainly famliar with them. Can't say that I ever recall bull or any other male animal's penis being served, though. In general, I tend to lump all that with organ meats and other offal, which I don't tend to eat (though I did have sweetbreads at a restaurant once, and enjoyed them). Sort of like chitterlings, or tripe. I accept that they're a prized and well-loved food group for many. Those folks are welcome to my share of them.

@Dejah -- I kept the capers and anchovies!

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I went to Aldi today, and now my freezer is laden down with things that Were Not There Before. 1. A Boston butt roast. At least, given the Melissa Clark NYT column on the Instant Pot, there's a good chance of me cooking it in the near future. And it's a good size for me, a 2 1/2 pounder, which will make a nice dinner without enough leftovers for the next month. 2. A 12-oz bag of ahi tuna steaks (three of 'em). I really do like the 12-oz bag size; I can use them before they get old. Poke in my future. 3. A bag of green peas, because I was out. And one needs green peas in the freezer. On the other hand, dinner tonight got rid of things that had been in the refrigerator side of the house -- pork chops and a head of cauliflower that was nearing the end of its useful life. Oh, and a bunch of homemade ricotta. Do I at least get an "attagirl," if not points, for that???

Found a keeper of a recipe for cauliflower in the NYT Cooking section, here. Yeah, it says broccoli; I had cauliflower, a head that needed using. I went with the capers and anchovy filets and olive oil, and used garlic confit instead of minced garlic. I used Aleppo pepper instead of regular red pepper because I love the flavor of it. I didn't have fresh mozzarella, but I did have some homemade ricotta I needed to use. Kalamata olives, and parmigiano instead of pecorino because that's what I had. It's good. It's a keeper, if it is a strongly modified version of the NYT recipe. Baking time was 20 minutes on steam bake at 375 in the CSO, after the cauliflower had parboiled for 2 minutes. Had it with pork chops I had actually cooked Sunday and decided I didn't want. I'd seared them and then simmered them in hard cider. I warmed them back up, pulled them out and then reduced the remaining sauce. Cooked egg noodles and tossed them in the reduction, with a little added butter. Kinda monochromatic meal, but it was good. Broccoli would be good this way, too, and I'll try it.

Made a swing by Aldi today -- alas, no pork belly, nor any sign there ever was or would be any pork belly. I started checking when it was first mentioned on here. I did pick up a 2 1/2 pound boneless Boston butt, which went in the freezer, which of course did not win me any freezer clean out points, but it's a good size for me. We shall see how it manifests itself later on. Also found ahi tuna, 12 ounces for $5 and change, in the frozen foods, so I grabbed a bag of that; one four-ounce portion is enough to make a nice bit of poke, and I want to try to make the preserved tuna in oil that @ProfessionalHobbit referenced a few weeks back and I saved. Oh, and sea salt caramel chocolate covered almonds. Aka crack. I would seriously buy those things from a street corner dealer if it was the only way I could get them.

I've been eating them just sliced...with blue cheese. Haven't bothered to roast OR poach!

Demands of the schedule mean my game cuisine, never expected to be elaborate in any case, now inclines toward minimalistic. I get home from a weekend out of town not long before kickoff, and will leave for a business trip early the next morning. I am thinking cheese and charcuterie that's already in the fridge, pickles and olives, a bottle of wine, and perhaps an ice cream sundae from the ice cream place down the street about halftime. I will likely be asleep before the game is over. Really don't have much of a dog in the fight, other than hoping New England will lose.

I was craving Mexican, so dinner was Enchiladas de los Arcos from my favorite local Mexican place. The enchiladas were beef, with a cheese sauce on top. I gravitate between them and the basic Enchiladas Rancheras. Hit the spot.

The biggest single improvement I ever made in my mashed potatoes, according to my family, was when I went to using Yukon Golds almost exclusively. I had always gone with redskins for mashed potatoes. I peel, cut, cook (in salted water), drain; then either mash with a potato masher or into the stand mixer. I add butter (lots), cream (less), and if I'm in a garlicky mood, garlic.

Must order seeds. Like, immediately.

@HungryChris -- inquiring minds want to know -- what kind of dressing on the wedge?

Was going to ask the same thing as @FrogPrincesse asked, above. Google failed me. I have learned something new today. It is a successful day.

@ElsieD -- Your freezer looks like mine! Albeit the one in question is the left side of a side-by-side fridge-freezer. The bottom-freezer styles were not readily available when I bought this one 10 years ago, so I didn't get one. I also have a 7 cu foot chest freezer which holds, mostly, my beef and whatever chickens and pork I pick up on the side, and the freezer in the extra fridge, which holds a lot of what I froze last summer (peas and corn) plus stock and some frozen dinners in foil trays. The pork chops were cooked, but not eaten; salted, peppered and seared, then simmered for 20 minutes in cider. Neither Child A, home from a biz trip, nor I were hungry. They are in the fridge (at least not the freezer!) awaiting cooking/warming with sweet potato fries and frozen red cabbage tomorrow night.

I grabbed, albeit not randomly (I knew they were there, and having found one, searched for the other) a couple of pork loin chops. I suspect some sort of potato will join them tonight.

Dinner tonight, with a second glass of old vine zin. Clockwise from 12 o'clock -- half a Bosc pear that should have ripened a couple of days; homemade sweet lime pickles, hard salami, capicola, castelvetrano olives, Rougette, a very creamy, very tasty Brie-ish cheese I tried for the first time, a Rogue River blue, a Stilton with mango (marvelous!) and a hard Spanish cheese that reminded me of a young Manchego. More pickles. The brown stuff is quince paste. I'm full, and the dog got a piece of cheese and one of capicola. Contemplating a third glass of wine for dessert, but...nah. Last night was a carryout from the barbecue joint a few blocks away. Guess I'll cook tomorrow.