Anna N

The only way I can come up with having a knife anywhere near your inner thigh is to guess either a falling knife or to imagine a situation similar to one in which my late husband found himself. Having had a few drinks and being out at the barbeque feeling his oats and recalling something he had watched on TV, he thought it would be a good idea to wipe the chef’s knife on his jeans. Lucky for him they were very tough jeans and he ended up with nothing more than a graze (and an ear full of words he didn’t think his wife even knew).

I took some of the leftover aloo gobi (Indian spiced potatoes and cauliflower) and fried it up in some ghee before topping it with a crispy-edged, ghee-fried egg.

Grilled carrots, steak and red onion with spicy fish–sauce sauce. This turned out slightly better than I expected but it is not one that I am likely to repeat. The carrots and onions were cooked on a grill pan as I really have no access to a an outdoor grill. (I can see it there under the snow but it hasn’t been used much since my husband died back in 2011). Joshua’s argument that vegetables should be cooked without oil on a grill might have some merit but they don’t seem to cook very well without oil on a grill pan. I did suspect this before I even started. If I really had to repeat the recipe without access to an outdoor grill I would roast theccarrots and onions with a drizzle of oil and some seasonings in the oven. I quite liked the sauce. I made just a half recipe and used a quarter of the hot peppers called for since I was using scotch bonnet. This time at least I was smart enough to wear gloves! I came up a little short on herbs having access to only some rather sad basil and equally sad mint. This is the middle of winter in Ontario! I hope someone else makes it and passes on their opinion.

Aloo gobi made in the mini Instant Pot. Recipe from Indian Instant Pot cookbook.

Braised beef with lots and lots of onions. Sorry I have the Kindle edition so I don’t have a page number. If there’s a better use for storage onions I don’t know what it is. I just had a tiny taste because like any braise I bet it’s going to be even better tomorrow.

Tomato, portabella mushroom and Gruyere cheese on 1/2 of a grilled ciabatta bun.

Store-bought Jamaican patty with a salad of little gem lettuce, Campari tomatoes, scallions, cucumber and Hickory Sticks. For the first time in decades I dressed it with a commercial dressing (bought for another application). Back to homemade dressing next time.

Same here. So far only annoying.

Diogenes is more than welcome to my share of French toast which in most of its iterations I find quite, quite unpalatable. As for Modernist Bread... stay tuned.

Today @Kerry Beal and I had Kira, Kerry’s daughter, with us for lunch. It required a little more thought than usual in terms of accessibility since Kira is handicapped. We needed a place to park the van so its ramp could be extended and a place to park Kira so she wouldn’t trip up any servers with her long legs and restless arms. Two restaurants looked like they might be suitable and we chose Ichiban Sushi. The server, who looked a little dubious initially, quickly rearranged a table and chairs so that Kira could be tucked in, still in her specialty stroller. My warm sake and a noodle salad. Tea for Kerry and I guess the server thought Kira might be able to handle it also. I don’t drink tea! And Kira doesn’t know how. But, seriously, no harm done. We each had miso soup and Kira shared some of Kerry’s. Shrimp and vegetable tempura which the three of us managed shared. Deep fried vegetarian dumplings and deep fried meat dumplings. We were really hoping for gyozas but Kira still managed to enjoy a few of these. Both Kerry and I had the dolsot bibimbap. The gochujang is shown in the first photo along side the tea. Oops... Kerry had fed all of the melon and the strawberry to Kira before we remembered a photograph. Bonus photo. Just before lunch Kerry popped into Costco for a few groceries and grabbed this photo of the whole lambs for sale:

Over on this thread a few of us have sheepishly blushed when we attempt to buy a Kindle book and Amazon informs us that we already own it. Today @Kerry Beal and I popped into a thrift store looking for something that was not food related. While she searched the other aisles I lingered in the cookbook aisle. I was actually in search of Vegetarian India by Madhur Jaffery. It was nowhere to be found but I did find myself drawn to this book: When I reached the checkout and the cashier rang it up over $6 I was quite annoyed. In other thrift stores it would be less than $3. But what the heck. I am always especially intrigued by secondhand books that have Post-it notes or bookmarks in them. While Kerry was in another store taking care of a very fast errand I stayed in the car and picked up the book to have a quick look. I turned immediately to the page marked with the Post-it note: I stared at it for quite a while before I clued in. That’s my handwriting.

Texts between my granddaughter and me.

Nope. I think she meant exactly what she said. Coothless. Uncouth. If the word doesn’t exist then it should.

No matter how hard I tried and no matter which variety of kale was involved it is off my list forever. I admire those of you feel otherwise.

Well the team is once again alive and well. Shortly after I received my copy of Modernist Bread I tried to inform the team of what I felt was a error in the volume measurement of an ingredient in a recipe.Today I received thanks and an apology for the delayed response. So if you are finding errors then it is worthwhile contacting the team and pointing them out.

Darn. I did not try hard enough to discover their secret! They do vacuum seal 3 whole heads of romaine with only the outer leaves removed. It is cooked sous vide at 68°C for 18 minutes with 90 g of unsalted, cubed butter. After being sous vided they are sliced lengthwise and served with salted and dried grated egg yolk and dried broken olives as part of a dish. I shall try again.

Very simple, fast dinner yesterday evening. Sausage and vegetable roast. Potatoes, onion, carrot, and parsnips were simply tossed in oil and seasoned with salt and pepper before being roasted. Sausage was very plain pork breakfast version but it helped further season the vegetables.

The early part of the book is quite interesting but this is by no means my style of book. I think it is aimed much more at the serious restaurant chef than the home cook. It’s really the ideas behind a concept for a restaurant. I like how much it encourages one to think outside of the box and to approach ingredients with a wide open mind. I suspect I am too unsophisticated to appreciate their plating which I found downright depressing. At no time did I ever wish I could score a reservation there! Regardless I felt I got something out of the book.

Yes I did see that. But that is a fairly common technique as I understand it. I am guessing they were able to get something more by going the sous vide route. Thanks.

Well certainly my first attempt was disappointing. I went 85°C for 20 minutes. This was a small head split lengthwise and packaged in a re-sealable bag with some butter. I forced out most of the air. I couldn’t see vacuum sealing it which would just have crushed the lettuce. The discolouration is quite offputting. But I was determined to give it a chance. I squeezed some lemon juice over it and added some garlic croutons. I didn’t think it was any sort of an improvement over simply braised lettuce. Perhaps one should not split it lengthwise but attempt to cook it whole. At least it’s not foie gras so one can play for quite a time on very little gelt.

I don’t recall the brand but I do recall that it wasn’t anything I recognized. I’m sure we will be in that store again as it is one of our favourites and I will look out for the cream. I do know it was extraordinarily expensive!

Yes it did sound so very good. Cooked lettuce is not to everyone’s taste but I happen to enjoy it.

Well thank you. All I really wanted was a starting point so this is perfect.

I believe @Kerry Beal and I found 40% cream here in Burlington at Marilu’s.

Well thanks for your efforts. Very peculiar. Here is the intriguing passage from the book: “After trying a lot of different cooking techniques, we ended up vaccuum-sealing the lettuce with butter and then poaching it sous vide, and found that those crisp, juicy stems that keep the leaves together become even juicier once carefully cooked. The lettuce head’s very juicy, soft tips and crisper core combine with a subtle and grassy bitterness, making it an ingredient that very often returns to our menu.” I happen to love grilled romaine so I am intrigued by this concept. Guess I will have to try some experiments.