dcarch

Thanks. That wonderful bread was store bought. Delicious and not too expensive. It does not show up regularly, only once in a while. dcarch

Still BLTs. Just Sungold was giving the last of fruits in the garden. Sungold is a very different tomato in flavor and texture. So I made bacon bits and used Turkish bread. Not bad end result. dcarch

As far as I know, there is no machine to harvest figs. It is not easy to harvest by hand either. The other problem is figs do not all ripen at the same time. dcarch

Not a fig ment of your imagination. dcarch

Thank you. That's balsamic glaze and mayonnaise.. Thanks. Let hope for a better tomato year next season. dcarch

B.L.T. = Better Late Than never Bad bad year for tomatoes this year. Weather, diseases, critter damages ---------. Still, got to have BLTs. Not too many days left for BLTs this year. B.L.T. on pizza bread. dcarch

I do want to point out one thing with my sous vide setup. It is a very good and practical large scale sous vide system. An ice chest cooler is not expensive, very well insulated and everyone may already have one around. The sous vide setup requires no modification to the cooler. But you do have to watch out for one thing. Many coolers have a drain plug for you to drain water out. The drain is plugged with a rubber plug from the outside. You need to find a way to plug the hole from the inside out. The rubber plug is not that secure, and the plug can get soft with high temperature. Combined with 48 quarts (my cooler. yours may vary) of water pressure, it is not pleasant to have 48 quarts of hot water all on your kitchen floor in the middle of the night. dcarch

Actually the water is not as dark as the picture seems to show. It is just the way lighting worked. You can tell the water on the other side of the insulating foam. Same water, much lighter. dcarch

Custom made racket to separate bags. Another custom made device, an adjustable sous vide cooker holder for many types of water containers.

Everything went well as planned for all the parties. All except one thing. I never considered how much time I had to spend to explain to guests what is "sous vide cooking". So there was no time for taking pictures. 😛 dcarch

The board divider is a great "invention" by me. If you use a 48 quarts of water cooker, that's a lot of water to heat up for some shorter items for sous vide. The board is a 1" thick foam board, a very effective insulator. It is adjustable depending on what you are cooking. For instance what you are looking at is the whole bone-in pork butt, which is very big but short. Sous vide ribs is also a must for me. I don't understand "falling apart tender". Falling apart only makes meat chewable, not tender. Sous vide makes meat tender. This sous vide setup makes it possible to sous vide 4 full length back ribs at the same time. The water is dark because I used the same water for almost the whole summer season. Too busy cooking for many parties to keep changing water. All the bags were sealed well so no problem for the food, and some cooking were done at relatively high temperature, so nothing was growing in the water. So far so good, this summer. By the way, the pandemic is not over. All people to the parties were tested negative before coming, and I equipped my air conditioners with home made HEPA filters. dcarch

Massive nonstop cooking since July 4th. Practically one party every weekend. Friends and family members whom I have not seen during this entire pandemic all decided to come. I can't remember how much I spent on food. I don't want to know. Three pork butts, 6 slabs of ribs, 8 dozens of wings, steaks, lobsters------!!!!. The challenge is how to have food more or less all ready at the same time, and how to do it without ending up in the kitchen cooking and no time to talk to guests. So I had two sous vide setups, two BBQs and a smoker going at the same time. One sous vide cooker is a custom home made 48 quart cooler, large enough to do 4 full slabs of ribs. One of Labor Day dish, soud vide, BBQ, smoked whole 10 lb pork butt. dcarch

I am talking about big thick tough bones. Bones like in pork butts. Bones you need a bandsaw to cut. Cutting big bones using an electric saw, in addition to easy cutting, it also makes clean cuts, which gives you bone marrow to enjoy. dcarch

It may also be weather related. I have a few Okra plants in the garden, may be three or four varieties. This year, they are all very "woody" even I do pick them not too old. I figure this is because we are having no rain at all for a long time here in NY, and there will be no rain for the next 10 days. dcarch

Safer? Way safer! I bought a big pork butt from ShopRite this morning ($1.24 lb), making pork and peanuts. Too big for the pot, so I used my table saw with a 10" carbide blade. It took about two seconds per cut through the big bone. So the big butt is in three pieces in the pot. Messy and dangerous. Please do not do it my way. dcarch

Someone told me that those earmuffs can cut out the noise completely. Well I wasted my money. My Vitamix is just as loud as before. dcarch

Is that special fingernail polish for farmers? dcarch

Stir fry, pesto, pizza topping, dumpling stuffing, etc., etc. ------- dcarch

Life is good. Garlic scapes are here. a once-a-year treat. dcarch

I don't understand why you guys have problems finding things. My solution is simple. I have at least three of everything I own. That immediately increases your chance of finding missing things three times faster. dcarch

I took a few weeks travelling. I am still behind trying to catch up. This was what I had done for Mother's Day. dcarch Perfect timing from the garden for Mother's Day Also from the garden, hostas are coming up So I made stir fried hostas Also Blanched white hostas shoots salad with asparagus, also from the garden. Main dish was SV short ribs, but no pictures. People took bites while I was cooking. Happy very late Mother's Day to you all. dcarch

Best way to deal with supply chain and inflation problems. dcarch

I have been doing some travelling the pass few weeks. Let me tell you, international travelling during this pandemic was a huge mess. Rules, rules rules, mask, no mask, vaccinations, quarantines, tests tests test -----. I had been tested 8 times, all negative. Lots of eating and cooking. I was in charge of one Passover dinner for 12 people. Main dish was brisket. Wow, not cheap! Happy Easter, Passover to you all. May you all tested negative. dcarch 72 hour SV brisket, Fork-tender, not "falling apart" tender. Not "slice thin" tender. With Pearls and 24 Karots , and veggies.

You can make your own spot welder using broken microwave oven transformers or go for hooking up a bunch of super capacitors. Check out youtube on DIY. dcarch

Yes, crisp pork rind from another dish I made. Great for dipping into Louisiana Cajun sauce. dcarch