JAZ

Some years back, Kenji Lopez-Alt wrote about measuring by mass v. volume, using onions as one specific example. While he didn't discuss onion size, he made some interesting points about using onions in recipes. This is part of what he said: I'm currently working on an onion soup recipe. In my final recipe, I'm going to be calling for "4 large onions, finely diced (about 6 cups)"—a relatively imprecise measure. A quick search for onion soup recipes in the UK reveals this one from the BBC, which calls for "1kg onions," a far more precise measure. So precise, in fact, that unless you're really lucky, you're going to have to use some fraction of a whole onion in order to land right at one kilogram. What does this level of precision get you? I'd argue that it doesn't get you better food, and in fact gives users a false sense of precision, which, in reality, doesn't even exist." He goes on to point out that in some recipes, a difference in the amount of onions of 20% (by weight) doesn't actually make much difference in taste. I'm not sure he's right, mind you, but it's an interesting view. (Scroll down about halfway for the onion discussion.) https://www.seriouseats.com/why-mass-weight-is-not-better-than-volume-cooking-recipe

Thanks, @PatrickT. The crumb is exactly what I wanted; I just meant that I sliced into the bread when it was still a bit too warm, so that slice tore a bit. The taste is good, not terribly complex, but perfect for toast, which was my main goal.

I haven't baked bread in decades, but I decided to try my hand at pain de mie. I used a recipe from King Arthur's site and was pretty pleased with it. I was probably too impatient to slice it, so the crumb is a bit mangled, but I think it's going to be fine.

Or (as is the case with us currently) if your dishwasher is broken. Seriously, some one-pot recipes seem to go through so many hoops to stick with one pot that they take forever. In my one-pot Dutch oven cookbook, for instance, my editor was adamant that I only use the Dutch oven, so some of my recipes there are a bit convoluted -- I have pasta recipes where I call for cooking the pasta, then draining, then finishing the sauce. Of course it's faster if you cook the pasta at the same time you're making the sauce, and I made sure to note that, just so readers were aware of possible shortcuts. But it was kind of fun to see just what I could do with only a Dutch oven.

And now for something completely different . . . We've discovered that we really like deep fried lobster; in fact, that's about the only way we prepare it anymore. These chunks were served with remoulade (which looks oddly green in the photo; I think I added too much parsley) and Gruet Brut rose sparkling wine.

Thanks. This is a very specific question, which you may or may not be able to answer. Apparently, my bother-in-law wants this mostly to open cans of coconut milk. In my experience, some brands of coconut milk don't work well with safety openers. Do you have any experience with your opener on coconut milk cans? (I know, weird question.)

Any updates on safety can openers? My brother in law has asked for one for Christmas. My Rosle is still working fine, but they apparently doesn't make them anymore. I usually have good luck with OXO products, so I feel confident with that choice, but is there something better?

I'm not sure about cream of mushroom soup, but I've developed a few Instant Pot recipes that use milk with no problem. I use milk and butter for cooking potatoes that are going to be mashed; and milk and water in oatmeal, mac and cheese, and tuna and noodles. I also have a recipe for pork loin in milk. In that recipe, the milk curdles a bit, but I call for pureeing the sauce with an immersion blender, so that takes care of the texture.

I found, when I was developing a recipe for Instant Pot stuffing, that an egg together with broth made for dressing that was more moist. It seemed to me that the consistency was more like stuffing that was cooked inside a turkey, which is what I was aiming for. Over the years, I've used several different recipes for dressing/stuffing; some use eggs, some don't.

I just saw this from the new editor and CEO: https://www.saveur.com/culture/print-is-back/. From the announcement: "Today, I’m so delighted to announce the pre-sale of our first new issue, which will drop in March of 2024—just in time for SAVEUR’s 30th anniversary. . . . This doesn’t mean we’re diving right back into printing monthlies. In starting from scratch, we had the opportunity to reconsider the old print model and land on one that will allow our publication to be the best possible version of itself, in 2024 and beyond."

I don't think anyone has mentioned TJ's grilled olives. My sister told me about them (we are both big olive fans) so I picked up a jar on my last visit. They're great -- very unusual, with an actual grilled flavor. Rather than a brine, they're packed in an oil-based liquid. I'd never heard of this variety of olive before, but in my opinion, they're a winner. This photo makes them look huge -- they are large, but the plate is a very small tapas plate.

I just saw this on Twitter. I thought it was a joke, but apparently it's real. There's a hilarious review of it there -- my favorite comment is about the green bean flavor: ". . .it is unforgivable. If you left a cup of green tea on the porch in bad weather for a week, during which time it attained sentience and promptly began plotting your demise, and you hate green tea, that’s what this tastes like. . . . Raw, unholy green in flavor as well as color, with a single, 1-note foghorn taste, like mowing the lawn with your mouth open."

Sorry I'm late to the conversation, but I developed a potato salad recipe with eggs and potatoes cooked at the same time for my book Instant Pot Obsession. (I can post it if anyone is interested.) Like@OlyveOyl, I cooked them for 4 minutes. In my case, I used smallish red potatoes quartered. To make the salad, I crushed the potatoes into smaller pieces.

In addition to the spinach and feta, we tried the steak and stout, chicken and bacon, and the chicken tikka masala. The steak and stout tasted great. The steak was cut into fairly big chunks so if you were truly trying to eat it out of hand, it would have been a mess. Since we were using forks and knives, it was fine. The chicken and bacon was a hit with both of us. We didn't make it to the chicken tikka masala for dinner (too full), so I had it for lunch the next day. The filling was excellent, but you're right, it was a little odd inside a crust. Although to be fair, since it was reheated, it probably wasn't at its best. The crust was pretty good. The pies are made with puff on the top and short crust on the bottom. The bottom crust was a bit thick and would have been better, I think, if we'd taken the pies out of their foil pie tins halfway through cooking so they could have gotten more crisp and browned.

For my birthday, my sister sent us a selection of savory hand pies from a place near us in Atlanta. This was the selection (not sure why the chicken and mushroom pie didn't get a fancy label): We chose four to bake a few nights ago for dinner. They recommend basting with an egg wash, so we did that. We only ended up sharing three that night, with one left over for lunch. I liked them all; Dave was not a big fan of the spinach and feta.

I love the combination of aged cheddar (or aged gouda) with roasted red peppers, so I can see that working quite well.

I was intrigued with the idea of fried saltines so I tried them, but topped mine with pimento cheese instead. Definite keeper.

We stayed in our place during our renovation, but a couple of things made this tolerable for us. First, we didn't change the location of any appliances or the sink, so there was minimal plumbing work. We had some electrical work done, but it was pretty minor and we were able to get that done ahead of time. The actual renovation involved a new floor, new cabinets and counters, and new appliances. Once the floor and cabinet bases went in, we set up a few pieces of plywood on a couple of the cabinet bases and cooked for a couple of weeks with an induction burner, Breville countertop oven, an Instant Pot, and a microwave (we moved the old fridge out into the hallway so we could still use it until the new one arrived). The main problem was the lack of a sink and dishwasher; we used a lot of disposable plates and utensils since we were doing dishes in the bathroom sink. As I recall, that stage lasted for about 2 weeks, so it wasn't terrible. Second, we didn't run into any big snags with anything major -- our appliances arrived and were installed on time, the countertops fit, etc. We had a lot of finishing work that didn't get done for months, but we could live with that.

The Instant Pot Failed Because It Was a Good Product Interesting explanation from Atlantic magazine -- nothing that hasn't been said already, but a good recap: "A device developed primarily to address a particular food-prep inefficiency has a natural ceiling to its potential market, and when one catches on as quickly and widely as the Instant Pot, it can meet that market ceiling in pretty short order. . . . From the point of view of the consumer, this makes the Instant Pot a dream product: It does what it says, and it doesn’t cost you much or any additional money after that first purchase. It doesn’t appear to have any planned obsolescence built into it, which would prompt you to replace it at a regular clip. But from the point of view of owners and investors trying to maximize value, that makes the Instant Pot a problem."

A couple of cocktails in our usual evening rotation include orange twists (or, in non-cocktail terms, strips of the zest from oranges). Thus we regularly find ourselves with denuded oranges, which we sometimes struggle to use up. We use the supremed segments in a couple of salads and in a dish of roasted fennel and onions with Italian sausages, but we're always looking for new recipes that call for segments or lots of juice, or both. Anything interesting out there? Note that while we can usually eke out a little grated zest, recipes that are heavily dependent on zest are out.

In my experience, pretty much any canned diced tomatoes contain some pieces with skin. Some more than others, but I don't think it's unique to fire roasted tomatoes.

That is the thing with pressure cooking eggs, I've found. If you find a time and method that works, then do exactly that, with no changes, and you'll be fine. Change one thing -- amount of water, number of eggs, height of the rack, whatever -- and that's what seems to cause problems.

I agree. Even though I included hard cooked eggs in most of my Instant Pot books (and tested them successfully each time), I never use a pressure cooker for eggs unless I'm testing a recipe for a book. Regular steaming is just as fast and much more reliable.

@TdeV, the bags reseal quite well, and we try to squeeze as much air out as possible, plus the drawer where they live is dark and pretty cool, so I think that helps. But we don't buy bags of everything -- just the spices we use a lot. Also, you can't see this, but many of the bags contain whole spices -- cumin, caraway seeds, fennel seeds, and peppercorns. So overall, we've found that they keep pretty well. Finally, Penzey's seems to pack very fresh spices. I don't think I'd want the typical jar from the supermarket to sit around as long.

We got a pound of sliced Iberico and a pound of manchego for Christmas, and one thing we made was croquettes, based on this recipe: Martha Stewart croquettes. Probably wouldn't have made them if we only had a bit of it, but the croquettes were excellent. We served them with a dipping sauce made with piquillo peppers and smoked paprika.