TicTac

Bit of a family secret - some details I have to leave out (you can figure them out fairly easily) in fear of being removed from various Wills.... Basically a soft meringue with a layer of chocolate ganache and a layer of whipped cream. We call it cloud cake because literally it melts in your mouth and has the feel of what a cloud might taste like! (we can hope, at least!) Thank you. That would be a truffled 18 month manchego. Quite sharp!

Cooked for a large family birthday dinner- home made gravlax / garden sorrel sauce - smoked trout mousse w pickled ramps i called this spring explosion- rarely do I make things that I think are amazing (some strange thing about your own food); but this was one of those rare occasions: the liquid at its base is acorn stock, which has been infused with multiple layers over a number of days, primarily with smoked duck skin, asparagus ends and foraged dried mushrooms. In it is foraged morels, asparagus, baby shiitake and smoked duck. Deconstructed pizza risotto forgot to take a pic before we hacked the manchego apart. to wash it down the ultimate dessert- cloud cake

If 'science' wasn't a good enough excuse to make a grilled cheese 'toastie' - I do not know what is!

Or you could have really thrown her for a loop and said "I want to warn you, in a few minutes I am going to start pumping; you see I donate to families whose mothers cannot produce milk and cannot afford formula, we ship it from the Island every morning at 7AM sharp and I am on a schedule, you see.....can't mess around with blocked ducts!" Great photos & our thanks, as usual.

Unfortunately no more pics (this time) but the chicken came out really nice and crisp, it stayed perched above the rice on the inverted bok choy. rich chicken stock flavored with ginger. Wraps = rice paper rolls, typically I pan fry them but was feeling lazy and the oven was on, so I thought I would give it a go. Brushed with oil. Tops came out nice and crispy, bottoms were a tad soggy, all the fat/liquid from the raw meat. Next time I will either pre-cook the meat or flip them part way through. Trial and error.

Food: (great single dish meal, albeit directionally challenged - there’s haiga rice in the liquid) took a stab at baking ‘pan fried dumplings’ - worth exploring further tis the season

Grated cheese is up there (though still behind) with pre-chopped garlic on the 'if you are too lazy to do it yourself, you get this shitty end product instead' list.

Staff note: to maintain topic focus, this post and the reponses to it have been moved from the My Deep-frying Journey, and Gluten-free Breading Issues discussion. Unless you wish to end up in the Cardiac ward, I am not sure a deep frying journey is well advised.... Save yourself the hassle, the mess and the dauntingly negative health implications and invest in an air fryer instead! Seriously though, I have enjoyed great results with one (I don't own one, but have had great wings pumped out from these beasts!).

Turned into this: so far my favourite prep for collars - stock (in this case double chicken), sweet and regular soy, smoked duck skin, green onion, last years dried boletes.

pics are high res'ish - zoom in (you can ID most of the fish that way), $65 CDN....so about $4.50 USD 😛 (or at least it feels like lately!!!) Kanpachi - my favourite! I have not had tuna collars myself - bet they are big! @Senior Sea Kayaker - awesome selection. Often changes.

Wasn’t sure where to put this and was too lazy to research the merits in starting a new thread (mods feel free to do so if you wish!) but I wanted to share some of the offerings from my favourite Japanese fish monger who recently opened a location not 10 minutes from my house! Figured you folks might enjoy…. (practice your hand stands) picked up collars and some king salmon and belly for tonight.

Absolutely. But for my Mexican application, I wanted solely tomatoes, onion, chili's, oil and a bit of lime at the end. My 10 year old could not get enough!

Did something similar'ish to what @Senior Sea Kayaker did with the roasted tomatoes, recently. I had a glut of cherry tomatoes that were starting to shrivel, so I sliced em up, cut up some green onions and tore a bunch of dried chili's up (various types) all that went into a pyrex with some olive oil and slow roasted at 300 for about 4-6h - caramelized goodness that absolutely shined on tacos.

French/Japanese style braised kanpachi - pulled and served with haiga rice and reduced braising liquid. Unctuous!

He's testing his metabolism rates, referenced above Purely for science, of course.

Kind of like my Oct-Jan Lee Valley Catalogue obsession

I am like you and enjoy to strike up conversation with strangers while shopping for food (its pretty much the only form of shopping that my brain will tolerate...lol!). It's so enjoyable to run into another foodie and learn about a new method to prepare something or another. Not to mention the overall health benefits that talking to strangers offers! - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202109/why-you-should-talk-strangers

When temps hit about 15+ out I take her outside to full sun, once temps go below 5, she comes in and sits in a South facing window. Indirect light for a couple hours a day, she definitely sheds a lot of her weight over the winter and I collect lots of leaves, summer bulks up, etc. They liked to be starved of water, just like my bay leave, so they sit together. Maybe a newly found symbiosis!? So far, just saved and admired them. I have not looked up uses, besides further germination which we might try this summer.

Second time this winter that the curry leaf plant is flowering. Produces the most amazingly intense seeds!

Wife’s 40th bday dinner party - 6hr black peppercorn gravlax tuna duel bone marrow fat duck style grapefruit/lime/bourbon ice corn/black truffle risotto - smoked duck 8 week aged rib eye deckle end

Then you might need to add some soap into the equation

1 pot 1 tray dinner: oven roasted bbq chicken - sweet n sour cabbage w dried blueberries, roasted zucchini. Kids wanted it fancy….so I let them paint with the remaining sauce! said leftover cabbage as a pizza topping = highly recommended! If I had some blue cheese it would have thrown it over the edge!

@Senior Sea Kayaker - do you keep those plastic soil bags closed until germ? I do something similar in a self watering sprouter with plastic wrap on top. Little late to the game, I still want to order some new orange cherry variety. Will most likely start seeds of Toms/Peppers in the next 2 weeks. Cloth pots are amazing. I have 100gallon ones made out of recycled bpa free water bottles, they drain and breath really well. I'm working on going full LSO in them.

Have fun! Peppers I get, tomatoes seem a bit early though (I learned that lesson the hard way last year having to transplant 64 plants......TWICE!)...

Realizing your innate artistic flare, my imagination goes in various directions with those potato 'buns' and whatever is coming out from between them! 🤣