ElainaA

@HungryChris You inspire me. I haven't made pickled mushrooms in years. I think I need to. Now.

Baby artichoke plants. I'll eventually thin them to one to a pot. @KennethT I am following your posts with fascination and incomprehension. I called in my plumber/mechanical contractor husband to explain - now he is following them too. I hope you will post pictures of the final structure.

A somewhat over done chicken thigh, done in the CSO, with quinoa, black beans (the very last of the coco noir from last summer's garden ), tomato, scallions and corn. Almost the last of last summer's corn too. Unstuffed cabbage (a Mark Bittman recipe from an old NYTimes magazine) over rice. With salad.

I find the blanket 'hatred' of the customers very disquieting. If, as the OP says, he is no longer working in the restaurant business, I think that is a good thing. I worked as a waitress in several restaurants for quite a few years - none of the wait staff in the restaurants where I worked had this attitude and if the kitchen staff did they hid it well. Sure, there were obnoxious customers and we all complained about them. But they certainly were a minority. And, as a customer, I have had more than a few obnoxious servers. Also, obnoxious receptionists in doctor's offices, obnoxious students when I was teaching, obnoxious store clerks - etc.,etc. etc. There are obnoxious people everywhere. To focus completely on them and ignore the others - who are cooperative, possibly friendly and, at the least, completely neutral, is a really negative and unhealthy attitude.

Normally Sunday is my main shopping day but yesterday I looked out the window and decided to stay home. There was a pork tenderloin in the freezer that I seasoned (salt, pepper, coriander) seared and then roasted. Served with a Marsala sauce. I also had peas in the freezer that i cooked with shallots and garlic. I had a whole 'sweet meat Oregon homestead' squash given to me by a friend (we grow different varieties and trade). I roasted half of it and mashed it with orange juice, ginger, a little brown sugar and salt and pepper. I liked the squash a lot - good flavor and a smaller than usual cavity - so more to eat - so I saved some seeds to plant this summer. o day is actually worse than yesterday so still no grocery shopping. I'm going to have to dig around in the pantry and freezer for tonight's dinner.

All the seed catalogs and websites list artichokes as either annuals (in zone 6 or lower) or perennials (in zone 7 or higher.) Here is what Territorial says about the variety I am growing: Thornless, meaty and astoundingly productive, Emerald has everything an artichoke lover could ask for and more. At our trial farm each plant produced about a dozen flowers the first year from seed. Many varieties have been developed for annual fruit production. All the varieties offered by Johnny's, Territorial and Pinetree will (or at least, are bred to) produce the first year from seed.

I've had very mixed experience. About every other year I get lots of small artichokes - then the next year I may get none. I gave up on them for awhile but last year we put up a hoop house. I'm going to try putting a couple of plants in there as I have always suspected that it is our short growing season that is the problem. We are in hardiness zone 5b. I don't know where you are in NJ but NJ ranges from 6a in the north to 7b in the south.

I've grown artichokes from purchased plants before but this year I decided to try starting them from seeds. The variety is Emerald from Territorial Seeds. I could have done with a bit less help.

I was home all day yesterday so i baked bread and made Marcella Hazan's Bolognese sauce. A slightly adapted Poulet a la Normade from a NY Times recipe of a couple months ago. Chicken, onions and apples flambeed with brandy (it was supposed to be Calvados or cognac but I have neither) and cooked in hard cider. With rice and a salad that is not in the picture. I imagined my mother looking at this with disapproval as one of her mantras was "Never have an all white plate of food." Maybe the browned chicken skin would save me?

Ditto

@GlorifiedRice You made me curious so I pulled out some books. La Varenne Pratique - (Anne Willan) lists 3 herbs: tarragon, chives and chervil. She adds that parsley may be added. On Food and Cooking (Harold McGee) - again three - tarragon, chives and chervil. No mention of parsley. Joy of Cooking (Erma Rombaur) - 4 - tarragon, chives, chervil and parsley. No one mentions cress or sweet cicely.

I agree with Shelby. If the seal is intact and they were initially processed as long as they should be AND they smell fine - I would use them. Be sure to boil them. I am sort of squirming as I type this - I am a bit of a fanatic on food safety. But If they pass the above tests, i would use them.

Tonight, pork schnitzel with warm potato salad, a very simple green salad with lettuce, endive, apples, cucumber and red onion and a little left over squash soup from a couple of days ago. Yesterday, a probably inauthentic but delicious version of kung pao shrimp ( from a very old Food and Wine recipe) with rice and stir fried asparagus.

I use capers regularly but only the ones in vinegar. I add them to pasta sauces and tuna salad. Thanks to Shelby I will now try them in potato salad too. Trader Joe's capers are really good and a really good deal (Sorry @liuzhou - Somehow I doubt that there is a Trader Joe's in China. Yet. )

@Shelby We were on the same wave length last night. Venison stew here too. With a salad and some bread I baked yesterday.

This looks a bit like train wreck but it tasted good. Budin Azteca from Diana Kennedy's Cuisines of Mexico. I used this book a lot about 30 or more years ago and then sort of forgot it. For some reason I recently pulled it out and started reading - so, dinner tonight. Layers of chicken, tomato sauce, chili peppers and onions, cheddar cheese, sour cream and tortillas. With salad. Last night - what I call "Polly's pork chops" - this being how my mother always cooked pork chops. Pork chops browned, then braised with thyme, tomato sauce and lots of onions. She served them with rice - I prefer mashed potatoes. But the "glop" (her term) has to go all over the accompanying starch. With roasted broccoli.

I got my confirmation email on 12/22 - no blade yet.

Speaking of reduced balsamic - Pork tenderloin with a reduced balsamic and mustard sauce, roasted squash, onions and garlic and roasted broccolini with sauteed mushrooms. I planned on something completely different but it's been snowing lightly but steadily here for a couple of days and I decided not to make the planned trek to the store (about 7 miles). I had everything for this in the freezer or fridge. Earlier in the week - a chicken fricassee with porcini mushrooms and marsala (Marcella Hazan) with pasta with garlic, parsley and olive oil. And a salad. Cocoa noir beans cooked per Dinosaur BBQ - which means with lots of additions - garlic, onions, hot sauce, brown sugar and probably 6 or 7 other things I forget - with brown rice, a salsa of fresh ginger, hot pepper, lime zest and lime juice, feta, coriander and avocado. With tortilla chips for scooping.

The sides of my tube pan slant out a bit so the diameter at the top is slightly larger than the bottom. I always make the smaller diameter (the bottom in the pan) the top to serve. But that is just me and my pan.

When I lived in Maine what I called a hero or a sub was called a grinder. That is also the term used in the area of Massachusetts where my daughter lives.

In various places where I have lived (Vermont, Maine, upstate NY) a sub or a hoagie or a grinder or a hero (what we called them when I was growing up) is any type of sandwich in a long roll. An Italian sub or hoagie or whatever is Italian cold cuts, cheese and various other things in a long roll. A roast beef sub or hoagie or whatever is roast beef in a long roll. Turkey, ham, whatever. The terms were geographically specific but, in my experience over 60 some years, they refer to the bread not the filling. What ever form they initially took (whenever that was) by the very early 1960's, I have fond memories of sneaking out of school at lunch time to split a roast beef hero for lunch with a friend. (I don't think there were any peppers on it though.)

Years ago, a good friend who worked as an appliance salesman advised me to use Finish - in his view it is much better than Cascade. Except what I heard was that I should use "Finnish dishwasher soap". I asked him what brand of dishwasher soap was imported from Finland. I thought he would never stop laughing. Finish works just fine for me. I once bought a box of a local supermarket (Tops) brand. It was useless. I threw it out.

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one here that loves all colors of peppers. It was feeling a little lonely for awhile. I prefer red, yellow or orange peppers cooked - preferably roasted. Green peppers I prefer raw. It is an entirely different taste from red or yellows - much less sweet, more astringent and to, me, very fresh-from-the-garden. I like it a lot. I do use them cooked in many dishes. One of my nephews can not eat green peppers raw - they make him literally sick. Cooked is fine and other colors are fine raw or cooked. I assume there is some physical explanation for this. I don't know if this is a common issue for other people but it may explain some of the negative reactions. I grew purple bell peppers one year - they looked beautiful when raw but turned a nasty grey color when cooked.

Now I want one.

A favorite one dish meal (well, with a salad too) - pork loin marinated overnight with lots of garlic and a little cayenne, roasted red peppers, capers and peas cooked with saffron rice.