Anna N

Thanks. Works for me. Done in the Instant Pot using the bowl in bowl method.

Poached eggs on homemade brioche. What a mismatch. Never again. What was I thinking?

I was given one of those gigantic tomatoes that could never win a beauty contest. It was gnarled and mishapen and not quite ripe. I gave it a couple of days to see if it might ripen up evenly but knew that it would soon rot before it reached the peak of ripeness. So this afternoon I cut it up discarding some of its gnarliest pieces and tossed it into a pan with some olive oil and some garlic cloves. I added a walnut sized piece of butter and some salt and pretty much forgot it for a couple of hours. I was not sure what I might do with it. I had weighed up various additions but when it came time to taste it I realized it needed absolutely nothing. It was just the essence of tomatoes. So a very simple dinner of pasta, fresh tomato sauce and some grated parmesan.

I am being stymied in my effort to tackle my freezer by kind friends and relatives who are bringing me fresh produce! Oh well there will be time enough to tackle the freezer when I'm longing for some fresh produce.

Brownies yummy. Ty Text message from son-in-law. I will try to dig deeper when I see him.

Red cabbage sautéed with some onion and some bacon ends and dressed with a little sherry vinegar.

Polenta with garlicky mushrooms.

Kerry asked me where I would like to have lunch today and I told her I would love to return to Celli's Osteria in Burlington. I fancied their mushroom pizza and I recalled that their calamari was not to be missed either. So we drove to the restaurant, found a parking spot, paid for the parking and then Kerry said things did not seem quite as they should. She peered through the windows and there were no tables set, no evidence of human habitation. The notice on the front door told us why. They were closing their doors after 10 years. Further notices indicated an application for zoning for erection of condominiums. Damn. Plan B was to drive up and down Brant Street to see if anything else called out to us. And so we ended up again at August 8 (even though it was really August 29). Miso soup for Kerry. Seaweed salad for me and you can just glimpse my sake flask. A roll for Kerry. Chicken teriyaki. A tempura pickle (looking rather pornographic on its plate). We had to try it but we would not repeat it. A selection of dim sum. The dish on the right was the most interesting treatment of calamari. It was in a mild curry sauce and was cooked such that it still had some bite to it. Tempura shrimp and assorted vegetables. Mango pudding. We showed our ethnocentric bias when we sent it back noting that it was dessert and should come after. The server obliged and we felt safe in the arms of a tradition that if you don't eat your dinner you don't get dessert.

Five cookies at a time! This is why I still rely on my standard oven for cookies. Depending on the cookie I can do 24 at a time.

No picture but I thoroughly enjoyed a juicy Niagara peach.

I don't think much can match the depth of flavour of oxtail. Nor the texture. But that's just my opinion.

I wondered if we Amazon customers north of the border would be forgotten or not. Apparently not Link

Everyone seems to be back to work in the family so I am back to baking. This morning I read all the way through the Brownie Bake Off topic. I was not so much looking for brownies that I like better because I just don't like brownies. I was looking for a recipe that might give me a a bit more depth/height. These are one of the recommended recipes from that topic called Chewy Brownies. It is from Fine Cooking. I followed the recipe exactly except for using black cocoa powder (2 Tbs). I never quite understood what was meant by "chewy" as it relates to brownies. Now I do. I will be interested in the feedback I get on these because they are very different from any others I have made in the past.

Cheese, soppressata and a tomato on flatbread. Heated just long enough to melt the cheese and crisp up the flatbread.

Very nice. I bet the gift giver was someone who who knows you very well!

it felt as if mother nature came knocking at my door tonight when a friend showed up with some fresh-from-the-market/farm vegetables, peaches and just-laid eggs. I ate two peaches immediately! Dinner was roasted green beans, corn and a simple beet salad with blue cheese.

I am female so you can have mine.

Not me. I did some interesting mushrooms recently but they were definitely not from The Foods of Italy. Here you go.

Traumatized zucchini (it suffered a little frostbite at the back of my crisper drawer) sautéed and then sprinkled with cheese and broiled and a couple of fried eggs.

I was a little taken aback too. But it actually says 12 pieces EACH 1.25 to 1.5 pounds. Logic tells me that if you cut an ox tail into 12 pieces none of them could possibly weigh 1.25 pounds. So I take it it is 12 packages of ox tail each weighing between 1.25 and 1.5 pounds. That puts the cost of the meat somewhere around $13 per pound. Math is not my strong suit so I'm happy to be corrected.

I used one and a half cups of water and my batches ranged from 6 to 10 eggs and it didn't make any difference in the peeling at all. I emptied out any remaining water between batches.

My daughter asked me to make some deviled eggs and some egg salad for the family and friends. Today I cooked 24 eggs (in batches) in the Instant Pot and peeled every one of them without so much as an abrasion. These were fresh eggs from Costco. I took them from the fridge and placed them on the trivet that comes with the pot. I adjusted the pressure to low, set the timer for three minutes and let the pressure drop for 10 minutes. I then plunged them into an ice bath.

I don't want this to get lost so I am quoting it just to bring it to the forefront again as I am very curious as is the poster about these Japanese boards.

54.5 C is my chosen temperature four most beef cuts. Dunno about pork. We shall see.

I not only talk to them they have been named. The white one in the front room is Ruby and black one in the great room is Ronnie. This is not racist. They are inanimate plastic objects for crying out loud. Ruby refuses to clean the carpet and Ronnie refuses to obey the invisible wall and so goes wandering off where ever he feels like. You have to talk to them with some authority in your voice.