Anna N

Yes it is.

Good morning. Beef! It's what's for breakfast, don'cha know. Delicious. Going to attempt Ottolenghi's Lahmacun (here) today but I know nothing can top last night's dinner. Think we are staying put today so Kerry can get some paper work done. Again it is very cold here.

Nothing green in the yorkies. Must be the lighting.

Now that is a ribeye from Cumbrae's. It was a gift from a benefactor. And we are most grateful. And these are Kerry's yorkies. I rate them the best yorkies I have ever had! And that is saying something. A finished plating. Steak, mushrooms, yorkies, broccoli and gravy. I do not think there were any complaints from either of us about tonight's meal except perhaps that we wished we had room for more. The steak was done SV x 3 hours at 54.5°C and then quickly seared on a little green egg.

So we did indeed make it to the famous Flee Market but left with only a sheet of acrylic on which Kerry hopes to do her pate de fruits and small carton of chicken stock which we are going to taste test.

Thank you. Yep I think you hit the nail on the head. Was one of my first suspicions. Using relatively fine corn meal here but did my testing with coarse meal. This stuff is lumpy and gluey.

@blue_dolphin I know you used my recipe for the pot in pot polenta in the Instant Pot. I believe it was successful. Do you still have the recipe and can you share it back with me? Thanks.

So I attempted the polenta again. This time I used someone else's recipe. It is only slightly better. However, Kerry has made her lunch with it.

Good morning. A late start posting this morning although I have been up for many hours. I was hoping to sample Kerry's pastries for breakfast but I was too impatient to wait. So I made myself some bacon, an egg and an English muffin. No sooner had I eaten this than the pastries came out of the oven. It was a hard job but somebody had to do it and I managed to cram just one small one down. Now I can barely move. Kerry can be a very bad influence at times. She has gone off to deal with some business at the hospital but sometime later today we have plans to make it to the flea market. Finally we have some sunny weather but word is it will be short-lived and we are back to rain again tomorrow.

@JoNorvelleWalker Claggy basically means clings the roof of your mouth. This polenta would've made a very respectable adhesive. I thought I followed my own directions for making polenta in the instant pot but something obviously went wrong. I have many perfectly adequate ways of cooking broccoli so that it stays green and toothsome. This time I thought I would give the CSO a chance to show its stuff. Whatever else it may be good at steaming broccoli is not its forte. The sauce was perfectly good but I tend to side with Kerry that very little should be done to scallops. But up here the name of the game is to try new things and have fun. No regrets. No repeats. P.S. Thank you for the compliment on the orange slices. I was being paricularly cheffy in anticipation of a cheffy meal and cut them and placed them on the plate before dinner. Too bad they became the only cheffy element.

So this was dinner. Claggy polenta, khaki-coloured broccoli and some scallops in an orange rum sauce. The polenta was cooked PIP in the Instant Pot, and the broccoli was cooked in the CSO. Really not 100% sure what went wrong.

After we left the farm I mentioned to Kerry how much the two of them (husband and wife) must love their work. It surely is a lot of hard work and they seem to be right into it.

Sorry. Things have been a bit hectic since we got home! That is a blade steak.

An illusion of an Illusion of Victory. Check the Tepache topic for more detail.

I will let Kerry answer the questions about the horrors of caramels touching one another but in my defense I have lined up some on occasion. On our way down to the Max Burt farm we saw a baby fawn on the side of the road and a little further on an adult. Both moved too quickly for us to get photographs. Whike Kerry and Max chatted and caught up with news I shopped! Max raised his own cows and proudly showed us a photo of his latest calf on his iPhone. He operates his own fully licensed and regulated Abattoir and makes all his own sausages etc. he also has a smoker and does his own smoking of meats. We asked about Copper the dog who was nowhere in sight but he is apparently still alive and well and doing his own thing. After our visit with Max we drove down to Gore Bay for lunch. Lunch was at Buoy's. A chicken club for me. and a pizza for Kerry. After lunch we drove over to Mindamoya to do some grocery shopping. Given that this is Friday that was not a good move. The place was packed and the aisles are narrow. but we still managed to do some damage.

Good morning. Another rainy, cold day on the island. I am starting to get most annoyed. It's garbage day today which wouldn't be particularly noteworthy anywhere else. But here it's an amazing experience. The garbage collector picked up anything that had fallen or blown out of the recycle bin and carefully replaced it. He then emptied the garbage can and carefully turned it upside down on the edge of the road as if he were handling his grandmother's china. He carefully placed the garbage can lid on top of the upturned can so that neither would catch any rain. My garbage collectors at the house destroy more garbage cans and recycle bins than is imaginable and they wouldn't dream of picking up anything that fell out of the recycle bin. Kerry suggested it is because it's such a small town and everybody knows the garbage collectors! Now back on topic. I decided not to have breakfast today because I'm not quite sure how the day is going to unfold. Kerry has been busy already before she went to the hospital making chocolate. I know we are planning a drive out to the Burt Farm for a visit with Max and family [and the dog of course] and to see what he has in the way of pork and beef. It is a fairly long drive as the farm is down by Gore Bay so I suspect we will find someplace for some lunch. Stay tuned.

Perhaps not the only one but close. I am out of my usual environment and therefore out of my routine. Breakfast tends to be much later than usual and when lunchtime rolls around I'm not hungry.

Yes. Next time I might go 24 hours just for the hell of it. You can have my share of the mint jelly.

Kerry said her meat wasn't tough but I am so dentally challenged that unless it melts I consider it tough so perhaps it's a subjective thing. Certainly it was not inedible but for me I found the "eye", as it were, the most challenging.

Unfortunately it appears that Kerry is in emergency for the time being. I will usually wait for her but tonight the hunger pangs won. I did not eat lunch so not surprisingly by 5 o'clock I was getting just a little peckish! The lamb surprised me by being tender in places and tough in other places. It is quite a small chop so I would not have expected so much variation. I thought the rice was good. I fried a very thinly sliced onion in some olive oil until it was just beginning to colour, added some nice fat Thomsen raisins, added the rice and some Aleppo pepper and some Baharat. That Aleppo pepper sneaks up on you! ( just got a text to say she's on her way home !). The braised romaine lettuce would have benefited from more seasoning. And because I am still a Brit deep down I had to have mint sauce with my lamb chop. Edited to fix multiple typos and to say that I topped my rice with some purchased crispy shallots

Well you could start right here Click

We are about to find out! I have often treated shoulder lamb chops just as I treat loin chop. I have found them to be remarkably tender. As I was researching time and temperature for shoulder chops, I found quite a discussion as to whether they should be treated as a tender cut or a tough cut. I think just because a cow, a much older animal, has tough meat around the shoulder region does not necessarily mean a lamb is the same. I will let you know later this evening.

Up here (on Manitoulin) it is obviously a work in progress. Things are jotted down as they occur to either me or Kerry. At home I tend to be a bit more organized. I have tried to adapt to the digital way but in the end I go back to a loose leaf notebook for most things.

Looking at the recipe (for mejadra) I'm not sure how well it will lend itself to leftover rice. I suppose one could cook the lentils and add the rice after. Would definitely need to adjust the liquid accordingly. Still debating this one.

Let me take another look. I am certain I have made it before and didn't specially like it. Probably because of the lentils! But I'm trying. So tonight the plan is, vaguely, lamb shoulder chops which are ready to be SV'd (57°Cx120 mlns from frozen), braised romaine, and leftover rice in some form or another. Since Kerry is on call in the emergency room one knows already that the best laid plans…