Anna N

@kayb I would love to know function and temperature also if you don’t mind. Thank you.

Lunch was a small slice of summer torte that Kerry left me along with a plum, an apricot and the dregs of an earlier coffee.

So I stared into the refrigerator, as one does, to determine what might be for dinner this evening. I discovered a bag of green beans which are not getting any younger. I am fairly sure I know why Kerry bought them but I’m equally sure that her plans are not coming to fruition while these beans are still viable. Since if I don’t use them fairly quickly they will be headed for the compost heap, I felt comfortable fooling around with them. (Don’t even go there.) Half of them I have blanched and I will make a salad. The other half I will stew with some tomatoes even though I really despise the colour of stewed green beans. It will prevent them from being wasted and they can certainly be eaten tonight or re-heated later. Also gives me an opportunity to use up some canned tomatoes I froze last year. This at least will give me a leg up on dinner.

I do wish it were as innocent as that. Some Canadian butter is also sold in quarter pound sticks with tablespoon markings. Even the 1 pound/454 g packages usually give tablespoon marks. The problem is that somebody decided that millilitres could be used in place of cup measurements for solid items. This ridiculous attempt to convert cups/spoons to “metric” drives me nuts and I’m afraid it is a habit of Canadian recipe writers. Like so.

Use 85 g. I think you would have to use the displacement method to get 90 mL and that is a pain in the aspidistra. Weight measurements make so much more sense.

@Shelby You are making me feel guilty with your bread. @Kerry Beal is doing low-carb so bread is not on her radar but still on mine! May have to break down and bake a couple of loaves before too long. I can freeze some slices and between me and Kira we will demolish two loaves in no time flat.

Yeah. Not a single book that I was interested in was for sale at a reasonable price on the Canadian site. But I’m not moving.

Good morning. Weatherwise we seem to have returned to sunshine and clear skies. At the moment it’s a comfortable 21°C with the predicted high of 24°C. That is still within my comfort range. Kerry has gone off to Wiki again so I shall not see her until this evening. She took some lunch with her this time which, considering her last lunch in Wiki, seemed like a very good idea. Breakfast this morning for me was a cheese and tomato toasty. As you can see the best part of the cheese is the overflow on the foil. I considered serving it on the foil but relented and managed to get it onto a plate without too much damage. I have already made my list for the day but it’s very boring so I’ll keep it to myself.

No worries. In my effort to understand I learned some Dutch and a few Afrikaans words!

Yeah. Crepes need to find their way onto my plate soon!

Sorry. You have me. Not getting it.

Over the hill to grandma’s house?

Yeah. What is this hangup with clean ovens? If it ain’t smoking it don’t need cleaning.

Dinner: Teriyaki pork balls with Morimoto’s sauce, steamed asparagus, Japanese-Canadian salad with carrot-ginger dressing.

Mais oui.

Ah. But do they come with lids? Edited to say: what I mean is can you source lids for them?

Lunch was just about as plain and as easy as it gets. Leftover beef on white bread with salt and pepper. I didn’t even use horseradish. Destined to become teriyaki pork balls. These are approximately 1 tablespoon size and I baked them in the CSO for 20 minutes on convection bake, turning them back to front halfway through. Wondering if that was too long. We shall see. One cannot uncook.

WRONG! But I still think you are fairly safe. They are Canadian product from a Canadian dairy producer. I do not think they are available south of the 49th parallel but I could be wrong! Here’s the thing. They do not come with a reusable lid. Some stores do carry the lids as a separate purchase and you can get them directly from the dairy. They are not too easy to find. Click

Ginger-carrot dressing. The mise and the end product.

Sometimes a list starts out as a messy “mind map” before it becomes formalized. Moving slowly this morning. I have one load of laundry sloshing around and I have emptied the dishwasher and sort of tidied up the kitchen. Next step will be to make a carrot-ginger dressing. I will go the easy route and bung everything into the Thermomix.

Good morning. It’s warm, humid and hazy today with a 20% chance of rain. We had a puny thunderstorm overnight. Think it must have been some distance away. Ever since Kerry brought home these tiny button mushrooms my head has been filled, not with visions of sugar plums, but with visions of garlicky creamed mushrooms on toast showered with grated parmesan. I have already tossed two blade steaks into the SV to cook for 24 hours at 54.5. We had similar steaks last year and I noted how tender and tasty they were. Not sure when these might appear on our dinner plates as we still have beef leftover from that fabulous blade roast. Kerry is working in town today at the clinic. I have yet to make a list so perhaps nothing will happen inside the townhouse!

We appear to be in the land of old Dutch as we see the truck going from place to place!

For quality assurance purposes only. You understand, I’m sure.

Many a tender steak destined for immediate consumption is lucky to get 45 minutes at 54.5°C in my house.

But were you starting each time from cold? I’m assuming that’s what the oven sensors expect.