TdeV

For many, many years I have cooked beans from their dried state. Recently I was reading about the wisdom of having a couple of cans of beans available, and so I bought two cans each of kidney beans, navy beans and chickpeas. To my surprise, all three types of beans were surrounded by a thick viscous clear-ish "sauce". Nothing on the outside of the can described the sauce; I was expecting water. The ingredients are listed as: bean, water, salt and calcium chloride; or, bean, water, salt disodium edta; and the kidney beans add sugar. Is this how canned beans are now sold?

For a surprise birthday party for MIL, I needed to make dishes before hand. I was unaware of my neighbours' tepid taste buds and made one quiche with goat cheese and roasted garlic, and the other with slices of roasted beetroot and Gruyère. Everyone ate slices of both quiches. They said they enjoyed them. In retrospect, they may have been behaving politely, rather than honestly. 🙁

Many years ago, I was having a party and decided to make fondue. A friend of mine had recently quit drinking, and I wanted to support her, so decided that in place of using wine and kirsch, I would use yogurt. There were 2 Swiss and 2 Germans at the party. Who were appalled! One of those people has been my friend for 35+ years and still complains about that fondue! Nowadays I have a stand for a cheap fondue set, but have thrown out the other parts. I use an ordinary saucepan on top of it, a restaurant sterno set, and some decent long forks.

My parents were both in London, England during the war, so canned corned beef was a treat for us. So were sardines. Both on toast. The former with mild mustard, the latter with watercress. I'm interested in your recipe, @Thanks for the Crepes, though I'd likely substitute modern corned beef (meaning recently made, not canned).

I had to leave town in a hurry and left some carefully prepared lamb stock in the fridge. There's a layer of fat covering the stock in each container but there's definitely mould growing in the fat. I know I'll be throwing out the fat, but is there any way to save the stock?

I bought Bamix NSF Commercial Pro Series Model G200 Pro-2 today! Interesting that I just found this comment by @DouginCMH from 2014 which was exactly my problem with my old KitchenAids (2):

Most of the time I eat with a dessert fork--it's lighter and easier. I find big heavy knives very awkward.

@Norm Matthews, how did you marinate the ribs?

@shain, yes please. Recipe, please.

@shain, could you please tell us more about that quick bread?

Dinner for 6 last Sunday night First finger food prep: cherry tomatoes, sliced in half, then roasted at 275F for several hours to become Cherry Tomato Chewies from Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven p. 60 And after On left are finished Cherry Tomato Chewies. On right are Roasted Pecans which came from farmers' market and rinsed in warm water a few times and then drizzled with a little oil, some brown sugar and cayenne pepper based on post by @JAZ and p 56 Of Katzen's Vegetable Heaven. Next were crostini with thin slices of pear topped with a dollop of mixed cheese: Point Reyes Blue, Taleggio and Italian Fontina which was then broiled for a few minutes (sorry no photo) Shaved fennel, grapefruit, and red bell pepper matchsticks with mint and parsley salad with a sauce made from fennel seed, sumac, honey, lime juice and zest from Dining In by Alison Roman p 103. Barley and pomegranate salad from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty p 238 included celery, pomegranate balsamic vinegar, allspice, dill, parsley, pomegranate and barley. Carmelized Squash with Toasted Coconut Gremolata from Dining In by Alison Roman p 48. I used butternut squash. Also herbs, lemon zest and juice, coconut oil and chips, honey, and a Turkish cayenne pepper. Here is the squash before the gremolata. and Turkish cayenne pepper (some of which were very hot!) and presto! Carmelized Squash with Toasted Coconut Gremolata Roasted Chestnut mushrooms (from the farmers' market) Black beans and slow-cooked carmelized onions topped with Whipped Ricotta. Carmelized onions came from egullet. Can't remember where I saw whipped ricotta so ended up googling it. Used ricotta, cream cheese & cream. Sprinkled with and black sea salt flakes. The black beans came from one of my favourite persons at the farmers' market, so nice and fresh. Sous vide leg of lamb at 131F for 24 hours (from egullet, with a check from Douglas Baldwin Sous Vide for the Home Cook) Creamer potatoes and tiny sweet potatoes (cooked sous vide). In the beginning I perused a few recipes and made lists of possibilities, went to the market and bought fresh items which looked good, came home and assembled a timeline for making dishes. Actually I had the makings of, and started, a couple more dishes than I ended up finishing. I had roped in DH to assist and he pointed out that I had much too much food, so some of it's still in the fridge! . . . and my friend brought dessert. I was comatose on Monday!

Here is a leg of lamb done 24 hours at 131F last Sunday.

Better and better!

I know there are many threads on egullet about Instant Pot and read many of them some time ago. Some threads are quite old–there's a sense of delight and discovery about the new device (toy). What's harder to determine is the comparison between Instant Pot and a true pressure cooker. Is there anything which a pressure cooker can do which the Instant Pot cannot? I know the Instant Pot Ultra model can cook at high pressure as well as low pressure. Also I'm interested to know how many features are used by experienced owners? (Everyone on Instant Pot's website has owned the device for 2 weeks). I'm concerned that the Instant Pot has a whole lot of buttons which I may never use. How many different cooking methods do you use? Do you customize any of the settings? I'm wondering why one is focussed on migrating away from the stove; is there a reason to prefer an Instant Pot?

@Okanagancook, thanks. I vacuum sealed the partial leg in a food safe bag already, but I'm going to bring it out for a dinner party this weekend. I've already paid for the bag and would be disinclined to spring for a second one, but I get very anxious around dinner parties and try to do as much in advance as possible. Question: Is the fell easier to remove when the meat is cooked? (Hence I should wait until after cooking)

Does anyone else keep spices in the freezer?* I've been looking at these freezer safe jars from Lee Valley but I can't see any reasonable way to organize my inadequate freezer space. Edited to add: * Could you post some photos, please?

Here is my new spice cabinet. It is 4.5" deep, 41" wide, and 87" tall.

I am unable to link to another post, so here is my former spice cabinet:

@paulraphael, could you please post a photo of this arrangement? I keep my nuts in the freezer but I have just been reading that I should be keeping seeds there too. Many of my spices are in glass jars, and maybe I'll need to change that.

@liuzhou, what volume is this container?

Looking for something else, I came across silicone seals for canning jars, where the silicone replaces the metal + rubberized lid, but not the band. They're all reusable. Some might be BPA free. I've never done any canning, but I keep thinking I should try it. I have a lot of canning jars which I use for other storage. Are these a good idea for canning? Any caveats?

The bones were on a rack above the pan, not in the water. The pans were tricky to move, so I removed most of the water. The bones got quite charred, but there wasn't very much water at that point. Edit: I have edited the original post to reflect this.

Yes, no carmelized fat. I also couldn't move the pans around, so I have poured most of the water off.

Somewhere I read that one should put a little water in the bottom of the baking pan so that the fat doesn't stick to the pan. I've put in about 1 1/2 cups in a half sheet pan. Will that prevent the soup bones from developing a grilled flavour? Edited to clarify that these bones were on a rack above a sheet pan partly filled with water.

If I'm understanding what the fell is on lamb, should one remove it prior to cooking the leg sous vide?