Anna N

While @Kerry Beal was over at my house we began to discuss flatware and sought to investigate what Thomas Keller might be using at the French Laundry. Not surprisingly he uses something very traditional. Attractive, certainly, but not in any way “in your face”. Grant Achatz on the other hand.... Just interesting to see two very different chefs and their choice of flatware.

Cannot make out most of what is on this plate.

Rice, cucumber pickle, sous vide short ribs with ponzu dipping sauce and carrot and parsnip kinpira.

Breakfast yesterday morning was zosui ( Japanese rice porridge). Breakfast today was an onigirazu with sous vide short ribs, horseradish and iceberg lettuce. (And horror of horrors this was the last sheet of nori in the package.)

Japanese curry using up some leftover ground beef patties and served with a simple cucumber pickle.

After my rather disastrous attempt at coconut cookies last week, two members sent me links to recipes that they thought might work better. Today I tackled the recipe linked to by @JohnT (here.) My first attempt was not particularly successful. That was probably my own fault. John had said that sweetened coconut was not available in South Africa so that his mother made these with unsweetened coconut. Not having any unsweetened coconut in the house I decided to simply cut down on the sugar from one cup to 2/3 of a cup. I was able to determine from the reviews that the 1 cup flour large probably indicated a mounded cup of flour. There is nothing in the recipe to indicate doneness other than to bake for 12 minutes. My first batch came out looking like anaemic, mini drop biscuits. They barely spread at all. I attempted various things to improve the outcome including sprinkling coconut on them baking them much longer then indicated. But all in all they were disappointing in both taste and appearance. So back to the drawing board. I arbitrarily measured the flour as 1 cup +2 tablespoons. I used a full cup of sugar and sweetened flaked coconut. (The coconut had been a gift from another member earlier in the year.) This time they spread appropriately and I baked them until they had some colour. This meant increasing the baking time by three minutes. The other modification I made to the recipe was to add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. These are much closer to my imaginary coconut cookies. Next time I will try those recommended by @Tri2Cook.

Good plan. "There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters." No idea who the credit for this.

And anything else draws attention to itself immediately.

My first thought was bones retrieved from a mass grave. I vote no.

Jazzed up instant noodles. Spinach, egg, nori and beef short ribs.

I too like Scandinavian design. I own Georg Jensen tableware. Wouldn’t recommend mine though! Without flash but showing distortion to avoid shadows. With flash. Less distortion but the colour of the handles is washed out. My late husband chose these in Copenhagen. Initially they appealed to me. I am sure there are patterns I might appreciate more. But these almost left us bankrupt back in the day.

That’s what I was trying to say earlier. Should be an extension of your hands so that you can pay attention to the food.

My thought was exactly that if the cutlery catches my attention more than fleetingly then it is wrong!

Was “rehearsing” a recipe that called for crispy onion bits. Seemed a shame to bin them. So I didn’t.

Planned-over Japanese-style hamburger onigirazu.

Hambagu donburi. Japanese-style hamburger with onion and shiitake gravy over rice. Accompaniments are blanched snow peas and beni shoga.

It is a fabulous bread in my opinion.

Bubbling away on my counter since yesterday evening are three gorgeous boneless beef short ribs (a much appreciated gift). This time I decided I would cook them for 48 hours at 62°C. My Joule app tells me they will be ready at 5:18 tomorrow evening.

The frost was definitely on the pumpkin this morning so it was time to return to our favourite cool weather restaurant, The Bombay Grill. A draft beer for me. (Sorry I was thirsty and couldn’t wait for the photograph.) Chai for Kerry. Onion bhaji. (I was also hungry and devoured the first one before anyone could take a photograph.) Their very wonderful basmati rice. Their even more amazing naan. Lamb bhuna. Butter chicken.

On the left a set of four melamine mixing bowls with spouts ($.99). In the middle a book that @Kerry Beal spotted in the Burlington Humane Society thrift shop ($3). I know nothing about it. Have not even opened it as I am hoarding it for a couple of hours. And on the far right is set of quite sturdy stainless steel prep bowls also spotted by Kerry and handed to me ($1.50). She then followed me around the store as I repeated over and over again, “I don’t need these. I don’t need these. I don’t need these.” To which she responded ad nauseum, “But they’re so cute.” I now own a set of four stainless steel prep bowls which I don’t need but which I will surely learn to love.

Nah. But the thought of sharing it sent shivers down my spine.

Been done.

And staying with the seasonal theme — Mushrooms roasted in foil with sake, soy, miso and butter.

Thanks @Tri2Cook. I will definitely add them to the rotation. I think I even have some bakers ammonia around here somewhere.

Not my proudest achievement in terms of baking but they’ll probably disappear anyway. This is the recipe I used. I wanted to make cookies that used coconut but were not macaroons. I recall a small coconut cookie that I used to buy for my husband and I was hoping to imitate that. These are huge and thin. I should have included something to indicate scale! Some are 4 inches in diameter. I was hoping for something closer to 2 1/2 inches. Back to the drawing board. The Dare Breaktime coconut cookies approximate the ones I recall at least visually.