Anna N

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…

Good morning I have already posted my breakfast photo over on the breakfast thread but here it is again. The egg was fried in a cast iron skillet proving that Kerry knows how to season a pan. This is not the new 12 inch pan but an older 8" pan. So here's your challenge for today. We have lots and lots if leftover rice. Kerry wants some golden fried rice which we had at a Japanese restaurant. She swears she tasted sesame but we are coming up blank on a recipe. I want some Middle Eastern-style rice using leftover rice. Anyone?

While I doubt that I could manage 6 eggs in a day, your post did remind me that I was missing my eggs! Pure failure to plan. So this morning:

No worries. Mine turned out just fine!

Here's some more information on the future of our swing bridge for those who have an interest in such things.

Perhaps @ElainaA will pop in here and solve the mystery for us.

Exactly. But it does call for them.

I read the recipe two or three times and concluded that it called for 18 whole basil leaves +1/4 cup of sliced basil leaves. I guess I was incorrect in this interpretation. Anyway I am going to pick them off because despite that they were tiny leaves they are most unpleasant now.

After I crawled under the covers in my bedroom to try and get warm I decided perhaps something to eat might work also. So I cooked up some bacon and made an open faced bacon and tomato sandwich. Now I'm going to find a pair of socks and make myself a hot coffee and see if that does it. I could turn on the heat but I refuse to surrender that far.

Did your basil leaves turn crispy?

I hate pea soup and anything I've seen in this country is a bilious yellow colour. Maybe I'm hanging about in all the wrong places!

You can keep your temperatures. Much too high for me. But long pants and sweaters in July? The house is beginning to smell quite delicious. These are grape tomatoes rather than cherry tomato and our basil is a peculiar plant with leaves even smaller than those on a privet hedge. But it is what it is and I'm sure the sauce will still be good. My dinner plans are dependent on a good outcome!

Good morning. It is cold and rainy here on the island. Kerry has gone off to Wiki. Breakfast was ciabatta, Moody Blue, caramelized onion cheddar and some cherries. My breakfasts are becoming just too predictable. Yesterday I ran out of steam before I made the roasted cherry tomato sauce so it is the first up this morning. After that I just may kick back and take the rest of the day to do some reading. We shall see.

I usually just grill until I get some good color and grill marks on the cut side.

Dinner. Meatballs with barberries from Jerusalem and a tomato salad from Aromas of Aleppo. A minor (since resolved) crisis involving iPhones knocked me off my game and I forgot the final garnish on the meatball dish.

I bet they do. Never thought of doing them that way. Love Belgian endive for you so I'm guessing I would love romaine done the same way. Thank you for the idea.

If you can get a bit of smokiness into them they are really nice. But to my mind even better is grilled radicchio!

The mise for the sauce. As you can tell my shallots are all over the place size-wise and I came up short in the amount required. No worries I peeled and quartered an onion. I'm sure the world won't end. Aside from the shallots and the onion you can say a sprig of thyme, two bay leaves, sugar, salt pepper, wine, chicken stock and figs. The meatballs with some color on them. The dish bubbling away on the induction hob.

Not a dumb question at all. But here it really was grilled. I brushed it with some olive oil, sprinkled it with some salt and Kerry grilled it on the outdoor barbecue over a propane flame. At home, because I do not use an outdoor grill, I will do it in a grill pan on the stove top. It works equally well.