Anna N

Although I normally see Kerry only once a week, I still do not like it when she travels even for a few days. But I always love it when she comes back!!! It’s déjà vu all over again! OK well it feels like Christmas all over again. Earlier in the thread I explained how I did some virtual shopping in San Francisco while I was making my dinner in Oakville. Some of these things I chose right off the shelf then. Some of these things were a complete surprise.

Normally I would say yes — throw it out. However, in this case I would wonder how long it had been cooking and had it possibly reached pasteurization temperature internally. I’ll leave it to others more expert than me to answer any further.

Thank you I actually have a number of these —one in every room and a couple of spares to boot. But they don’t really work that well when you are trying to unearth something that is buried under piles of other stuff. They are, however, quite useful for many things.

I reserved a few mushrooms from dinner last night with a view to having them for breakfast this morning. They were foil-roasted with miso, sake, soy and butter. I reheated them this morning and enjoyed them over some rice.

So last evening showed me that even though I had inventoried my freezer drawer it was still too challenging. I have no wish to bore anybody with my physical challenges but I needed a way to limit the time needed to be bent over digging around. I knew there were two packages of lamb loin chops. I found one but had to give up finding the second one. This morning, bit by bit, I collected like things together and stored them in large reclosable bags. There is a bag of duck and a bag of pork and a bag of beef etc. I think this should largely address the problem. Each bag is clearly labelled in very large letters. There are still a few things that I need to gather into their own bags but I have made a very good start on this. I think the inventory will still work without having to redo it. I know there are others on the board who are facing physical challenges so perhaps this might be helpful to someone.

Lamb loin chops excavated in my recent freezer dig (here). These were sv’d at 54.5°C x 45 mins and then seared in cast iron. Potato salad and foil-roasted mushrooms as sides. Wished I had some bread to soak up the juice from the mushrooms. It was made from miso, butter, soy sauce and sake. When nobody was looking, which was my whole dinner hour, I slurped some.

Shrimp, mushrooms and rice from freezer. Potato salad used up the last of the little potatoes in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator.

And you could have a different can for every day. SPAM.

Me neither. Not a fan of either.

Yah missed my joke.

Perhaps they hide foie gras inside it.

Mushroom soup from the freezer and some toasted baguette slices.

I’m insulted. So do shepherdesses herd lentils?

I find it so much easier now with my iPhone and OneNote to dictate my inventory as I am going through my freezer. But what I really need is for each package in there to scream at me as I lift it out, “Update your damned inventory!” Of course it would be equally useful for the packages I put in there to scream at me in the same way.

Wondered how long it would take somebody to catch that one! But on the whole my labelling skills have improved remarkably.

Lunch was inspired by my freezer cleaned out this morning. Small lamb burgers with a Japanese inspired glaze over white rice with broccoli and carrots and tucked in the corner twp pickled tomatoes The lamb, the glaze, the broccoli, the carrots and the rice came from the freezer. (Somethings don’t show up on the inventory because they are in the shallow upper drawer which I have not yet dealt with.)

That is one lovely looking pear. How was the green cheese with the organic coconut cream? It doesn’t sound all that appetizing.

I think they are all perfectly baked it is just that the ones done on silpat seem to be much more consistent in size and coloration. Edited to add: From a scientific viewpoint it is a very small sample from which to draw any real conclusions.

I always consider it a HUGE bonus when I learn something from baking cookies. This morning I was determined to use up some odds and sods from my baking cabinet and so adapted a soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe to accommodate milk and dark chocolate chunks, butterscotch chips and some dried cherries. The top photograph shows these cookies baked and silpat. They are uniformly sized and coloured. The other cookies were baked on parchment. That was the only difference. I would’ve expected a very different result. Baked on silpat Baked on parchment.

1:2.5 by volume. Eggs to broth.

I am feeling prouder than a peacock. I just emptied both sides of the big drawer of my freezer. I tossed out anything I knew I would never eat and inventoried the rest. Really for me there was not a lot that got tossed so I must be improving somewhat. I am really excited now that I can see what’s in there and make some plans for using it up. There is still the shallow top drawer but it will have to wait for another day. It is mostly nuts and baking ingredients so it’s not a huge issue for me. Thanks for the inspiration from everyone. Edited to add the inventory Because I just love reading others notes and inventories.

Hmmm. After a 2nd cup of coffee to make sure I’m awake I’m having some serious doubts about this recipe. The ratio of egg to stock is certainly off by most other Japanese recipes. Chicken stock is certainly not the usual liquid preferred. Will do further research.

It is perfect. I just had to print out a copy to attach to my refrigerator/freezer.

Thank you for your interest. I have not yet tried Sous Vide but I’m certainly willing to add it to my list of future experiments. As for the texture analyzer, it may have to wait until next Christmas.

I think you are right.