Anna N

When you say dried black fungus do you mean cloud ear/tree ear mushrooms?

I think the secret is the bread needs some sugar. I tried toasting Kerry’s bread the other morning and I ended up with very pale rusks. Commercially made white and multi-grain breads seems to toast wonderfully but anything that is low in sugar does not do well.

You know Shelby they did sound good. But the bottom line is the cheese did not really cling to the potato chips. I am glad I tried the recipe but it’s not something I would do again. It occurred to me that it might work better with something like a cheddar cheese. It’s possible I might try that. I’m not a great fan of kettle chips to begin with so maybe I’m just prejudiced.

Thanks for sharing. Nice but it won’t persuade me to give up my Joule.

So I decided to do something with the pork loin we got from Max last week. It was frozen but that didn’t deter me from vacuum packing it and putting it into the sous vide bath at 58.3°C. (This time I could find no logic in waiting for the water to reach temperature before adding the meat!) I will let it cook for about four hours. This time I did a fair bit of research before settling on a time and temperature and that included my own experience. Before we come up here each year Kerry and I try to send each other links to recipes we want to try while we have the time. This was one of them. Of course Kerry is doing low-carb so it’s not entirely suitable for her. But I had sent her a text on another matter entirely and since she didn’t answer it as is her wont, I decided she was extremely busy and unlikely to come home for hours. Ha ha! She walked in just as I was putting them into the oven. Oh well. They are somewhat over cooked because I did them in the Cuisinart Steam Oven forgetting that it automatically uses convection and that it always cooks faster than a standard oven. Still they are interesting but one really needs a couple of craft beers on hand to counter the bite of the pepper.

Good morning! The day started out cloudy and dull but it is now sunny and pleasant. 21°C currently and headed to 25°. Quite pleasant. I woke up some hours ago and was very, very hungry! I didn’t want to disturb the rest of the household so waited until Kira went off with her caregiver before raiding the ‘fridge. Leftover Asian-inspired chicken and carrots. Presently I have no plans for the day. Kerry is on call so we won’t be going anywhere. Might just spend the day reading. We shall see.

Rebel.

My dessert yesterday evening which I forgot post. Kerry made sure to grab her jar! Escargot Without Those Pesky Snails. The town house smells intoxicating. Hoping these will reheat reasonably well. I have had the recipe for many years and got it originally from gourmet.com but I see it is on the Smitten Kitchen site, too. Click

That beef shank was $6 something.

A braise was my first thought but I wanted to do something different so it got sous vided. I still want to see if is workable as sous vide.

That doesn’t explain why we can’t find soda water or tonic water. It is a puzzlement.

No worries and most certainly not your fault. We are both big girls with many, many hours of experience doing meat sous vide. I usually look at at least a dozen recipes if I’m doing something new before deciding on the one to use. Perhaps I was just too tired to think it through. But there’s always another day and it’s not as if beef shank costs the moon.

Perhaps that is why we cannot find decent soda water no decent tonic water in any of our local stores. I thought it was just a European issue.

Oh my! Very sad.

I would have to call this an abject failure. Even as it was steaming away my instincts said this is just wrong. The temperature is far too high and the time far too long. And then when I was ready to remove the shank from the vacuum bag the amount of liquid it had extruded confirmed that this was not going to be a juicy cut of meat. It was quite tender but beyond that really a sad waste of a shank of beef. I’m hoping we can get a couple more and see if we can do better at a lower temperature for perhaps a longer time. We need to go back to see Max this week because we have pork on order as he should have dispatched a pig yesterday.

Good morning. Chicken soup. It’s what’s for breakfast doncha know. The broth had set into a solid block of gelatinous goodness. Don’t expect it to be a particularly exciting day today. There are chores to be done. Even on vacation clothes require laundering. Kerry is working in town today. She will be seeing people in the Manor in the morning and in the Little Current Clinic in the afternoon. At the moment dinner plans don’t require a great deal of effort. We are going to try Max Burt’s sausages. Kira will have hers on a bun and Kerry and I will have some grilled with a side of roasted cauliflower. Of course things could change in a heartbeat.

I always love your many blogs and always learn so much from them. But of course I know all about Bali. I watched South Pacific.

Thanks for the link. Fascinating website. Will be wasting a lot of time over there.

If it comes naturally to you I have no problem whatsoever. This just didn’t seem to belong somehow to the server or the region. Was it an affectation? Perhaps. A habit she has picked up and is perhaps even unaware of? Who knows. I should be more generous and forgiving.

A beef dip is a beef dip and a prime rib sandwich is a different animal in my books! Kerry has a somewhat different take. Any way it a moot point—neither of us ate the bun.

I’ve probably gotten my regions mixed up. I just found it somewhat annoying.

We had lunch at the Pinewood Motor Inn in Espanola (Click). We both ordered the prime rib sandwich. I had mine with fries and gravy and Kerry chose to have hers with a Caesar salad. At least this time there were croutons and I believe some dressing in the salad. Now I feel I have to tell you when I read the words “prime rib” on a menu this is what I visualize. What arrived was something that I suspect closely resembles the burnt ends so beloved by BBQ fans. Apparently our server, too, thought that she came from the Deep South where such things might be appreciated. Her “youse” sort of grated on the nerves in Espanola. But she was pleasant enough. The coleslaw was delicious and we ended up enjoying our lunch anyway as we always do.

I have and was amazed at how good it was. It was a long time ago and I’m sorry but I don’t have a recipe. But do give it a go. I doubt you will regret it. Here’s a link to a post by @jackal10 on this very subject.

OR.

Back from Espanola just in time for Kira to return from her days with the caregivers. We managed to do a fair bit of retail therapy but otherwise we stayed out of trouble. Kerry just had to have these little jars!