Anna N

There is so much wrong here but it’s not a beauty contest and we all have to start somewhere. First attempt at pressed sushi. Need to curb my garnish fetish. There is enough wasabi paste here to clear a whole ward of ENT patients.

I don’t believe it. Kerry and I have hunted high and low for this condiment. I may have to send her on an emergency run to Buffalo and Trader Joe’s. 😂 (She barely has time to breathe these days. I hope she knows I’m just kidding.)

Geez, I hope celery doesn’t become an endangered species.

Wow. If you could find a way to replicate that consistently I think you could retire with a very healthy bank account.

I’m guessing these are very similar to the pikelets that I recall from my childhood. Those however were much larger and almost paper thin. Interesting. Thank you for sharing.

I find that absolutely incredible and would take it with a grain of salt. If I or a member of my family or a friend was truly suffering from coeliac I would not take them into some of the restaurants where I have been that claim to serve gluten-free dishes. YMMV. Glance at this! Gluten friendly! What the hell does that mean? I know someone who visited this restaurant and explained that she was gluten intolerant and they were extremely sympathetic. Her meal was gluten-free but it was her birthday and they presented her with a lovely piece of birthday cake. She was wise enough to ask. No. It was not gluten-free. They apologized and brought her ice cream. Do you really want to trust anybody’s health to that? Fortunately gluten-intolerant is a very different condition than coeliac disease.

Try this. You will be given an opportunity to skip the ad.

Did indeed sous vide the chicken breast. At the moment I am staring into my refrigerator and see some of the bacon from Burt’s Farm which I might add next time. These are fun to make and fun to eat. Like sandwiches, there is not much that doesn’t lend itself to being included.

The plastic goes down first. A sheet of nori goes on top of the plastic. I assemble the filling in a snap lock container before turning it upside down onto the nori sheet. It is wrapped in the nori and then in the plastic and it should be left for about five minutes. I then run a knife under some water before cutting it apart through the plastic. I retain the plastic peeling it back to eat the onigirazu. If you do a search you will find lots of YouTube videos explaining how to do this although very few of them use a mould.

Chicken breast, lettuce and tomatoes with kewpie mayonnaise.

Even if you don’t care for celery you should try this. Trust me. I am guessing gochujang would work but so would almost any dried chilli or even dried chilli flakes. The paste seems messy way to do it to me. I have a safety issue (which is absolutely personal) about pickled eggs. But if you were going to use eggs then I think a Ziploc bag using the displacement of water method would be better than attempting a vacuum. Your mileage may vary.

If you can’t figure out how to pronounce it then you shouldn’t be eating it. So I don’t.

Thank you. But I am becoming more mellow in my dotage: “Don't let inflexible ideas of authenticity get in the way of deliciousness.” Nick Kindelsperger (Chicago Tribune). But I think that only applies to authenticity as it relates to other people not to me. So I’ll just take another Valium and calm down. I just can’t get that picture of cheese and sausage roll out of my mind.

Flourless (gluten-free) brownies courtesy of Anne Byrn. They are intended for someone who has an objection to corn starch so I subbed in some potato starch.

Surely not when one could have corn instead. 😁

Doesn’t matter to me whether you call them eggplants or aubergines, chickpeas or garbanzo beans they do not belong in the food chain. They belong in the compost heap.

We need to recognize that gluten-free does not equal coeliac-safe and those with the disease or their guardians surely recognize that difference. Restaurants are catering to a fad. (Since one of my sons was mis-diagnosed with coeliac disease almost 60 years ago I know something about the disease. I had to treat him as though he had it until the diagnosis was changed some years later.) And another child is “gluten-free” but by no means coeliac.

It’s a little early to get creative in the kitchen but I have to keep busy so that I can keep my excitement in check. (I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of a houseguest who has been away recuperating from an injury.). Chirashi sushi - sushi rice mixed with sautéed shrimp shiitake and oyster mushrooms and topped with a shredded omelet and scallions. There is also a little pickled ginger on the side.

Once again I forgot the damn chilis. But when I open the bag tomorrow I will add some Korean pepper threads as I did last time and I’m sure they will be fine. Nice thought on slicing them so you could add them to rice. It’s not often that I find a recipe that is so simple and yet so good.

Me too! The only recipe that I recall that I still make occasionally was the cucumber salad. Cucumbers, onion, sour cream, vinegar and sugar as I recall. Very simple but it hit all the right notes.

Sesame Chicken salad. Hot sesame oil is drizzled over poached chicken. Inspired by @liuzhouI used raw baby bok choy as the green.

Just when I thought you could do no wrong I learn you’re just like me! Artichokes are low on the ROI scale!

Finished up my first batch as a snack this afternoon and then did a whole bunch of celery and this time I vacuum sealed using the FoodSaver. The ones I finished seemed crisper, a little hotter from the chilli and a little more tasty so they do seem to improve with age.

Onigirazu with ham, green tomatoes, romaine and kewpie mayonnaise.

“That was the first of three stints in prison - including New York’s famously brutal Rikers Island prison. Each time, Coss existed on “prison burritos”, a regular makeshift snack for US inmates. “Instant noodles, potato chips, Cheezits. If you get lucky, you steal an onion from the mess hall,” he says. “You shuffle it up, you throw in a little bit of ketchup, mayonnaise maybe. I’ve had people tell me it tastes like Taco Bell.”” Here.