Anna N

I am just getting into this book now and I have to say if any book that I have read in the last few years cries out for photographs it is this one! There are a few photographs but many are of scenes or ingredients and very few are of finished dishes. I am not by any means laying blame just wishing that the publishers could have found the money to support a lot more photography because the food (and the author) are so deserving of it. I have the Kindle edition so I find myself flipping back and forth as it were between the book and Google images as I try to imagine certain dishes.

Might be lunch. Might be dinner. Might serve as both. If you have never considered cooking lettuce you have missed out. It is also the perfect way to avoid waste because you can use lettuce that is not in prime condition. Grilled romaine, grilled radicchio are like very different vegetables than when raw. This particular recipe called for iceberg lettuce but I think it worked perfectly well with romaine. Asian cuisine it's much less reluctant to cook salads greens then those of us raised in the Western tradition.

Wonderful article and she has some very pertinent points. I am at the stage now where I don't want to bake in the big oven because it will take me half an hour to empty it. How sad is that? Not sure how I'm going to handle that.

I remembered to take a photograph as I was in the middle of packing these up. The last treats for my son-in-law until I return in August. These are from the David Lebovitz website – – salty, deep – dark chocolate brownies.

Always the most flattering light for good leftovers.

I have the one Melissa is describing above but I preferred it when the sprayer was not part of the faucet but was separate like so.

An interesting use of cabbage.

Recommendation would be to get a separate sprayer.

Inspiration arises from many different places. Here it was a photograph of a similar meal. I was intrigued by the idea of a bowl rather than a plate.

Oh boy. Great photo of great food.

I don't know. I've always been very leery of using flavouring agents of any kind in the Sous Vide bag. I suspect this is a prejudice remaining from the very early days when it seems to me we were all warned to be very careful doing it. Now I am seeing people are adding spices and herbs to the Sous Vide bag but so far I haven't taken the plunge. I can't see sumac or much else actually sticking to the meat in the confines of the bag. It would certainly not be a bad idea to try it after you pull it from the bag. Dry it off, schmeer with just a little oil and then dredge it in sumac before searing. I don't think you would want to burn the sumac so that may also present a bit of an issue.

Inspired by a Rozanne Gold 1-2-3 recipe. My sumac is a little past its prime. Yes, that is all that I had for lunch. I like to remind myself that a balanced diet doesn't have to be balanced on a single plate.

Ah yes -- iatrogenic illness knows no borders.

And I bet it wasn't medicinal scotch. Get well.

When I looked into my refrigerator this morning to see what still needed to be used up I spotted some mushrooms. Suddenly I was transported back to my childhood when mushrooms were a rare luxury. I only knew them as field mushrooms. My uncle, the one who was a green-grocer and sold his wares from a horse and dray, would do the foraging and bring them to my grandmother's house. They were enormous, floppy, untidy things. But my gran would turn them into something magical and I would enjoy them with bread which would turn black with their juices. A poor substitute perhaps but these creminis, dry fried and seasoned only with salt, pepper and a little butter at the end, made a umami rich breakfast. Life is good.

Nice to meet someone else who keeps one of these journals.

Look forward to hearing your results. I dabbled in cheese making for a time and found it to be a very satisfying endeavour.

I spend far too much of my time with my head in cookbooks. I actually found this in Rozanne Gold's book but searched the web to find a link.

This very simple recipe floated my boat! I added the goat cheese only because this was going to be my dinner. The salad certainly did not need it. Now I will be praying that somebody will stash their excess zucchini in my mailbox. I used only one zucchini and perhaps 2/3 of a very small lemon.

I am not sure that without some acid it will actually separate into curds and whey. And I am afraid I have no clue what saltwater is without some sort of percentage of salt to water. Let's see what others have to say about this. Here's a recipe that at least gives some idea of how salty the water must be. So perhaps it will work without acid.

They look a heck of a lot more like hedgehogs than porcupines but then I'd lose my alliteration. Had some leftover rice and some ground beef in the freezer that needed using up so tossed things together with a little of this a little of that. Pepper is either a cubanelle or a banana pepper. I can never tell the difference. Either way they are quite boring but not as objectionable as green bell peppers.

Wow @patris. Glad I don't live close by. And they don't look very shippable so I think I'm safe.

Hmmm. Seems like my decision to forget the whole Hello Fresh scenario was probably wise.

Expectations and appearances to the contrary, this is not posted in the wrong topic. At least I can double dip to my heart's content.