lperry

OK, ancient font.

Roasted sweet potato and chickpea "salad" in a tahini, lemon dressing, served warm Steamed green beans from a friend's garden, tossed with butter and coarse salt

Roasted cherry tomato risotto finished with goat's milk cheese Roasted Scarlet Nantes (garden) carrots with lemon thyme

Pan-fried polenta topped with onions and crimini mushrooms in a red wine, balsamic reduction Roasted acorn squash with dates and lemon thyme I thought it would be more difficult to transition to vegan for Mr. lperry's Mark Bittman-esque lifestyle change, but it's pretty easy to leave out the little bits of dairy I usually use and add in various herbs and spices. A plate full of vegetables is more filling than one might think. This weather, however, is making me want macaroni and cheese.

A simple, vegan dinner of green beans in a sesame, ginger, soy, honey sauce, served over jasmine rice. The last of the Cháteau Bizard Grignan-les-Adhémar Montagne de Raucoule 2011. I am very sad that I have no more of this wine.

Pan-fried polenta topped with mushrooms and greens Stewed Stayman apples with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger

It seems better now on my end, too. Maybe it's slowing during higher traffic times. Edit: It's being exceptionally inconsistent. A few seconds to post this first comment, then 25 to load the "New Content," 5 seconds to reload this thread, and we'll see how long the edit takes to show up.

Somewhere (the dinner thread, maybe?) several of us were discussing rice cooker polenta. I found my notes and will be making it tonight, so thought I would share. The ratio is 1 cup of polenta to 3 cups of water for sliceable / pan fryable texture, and 1 cup polenta to 4 cups water for the porridge. Whisk the cornmeal into cold water, then use the white rice setting. There's no need to stir with a coarse meal, although a couple of times with finer meal is a good idea, and you can add in salt, cheese, chives, and whatever else your heart desires after you get the cornmeal smooth with the whisk. Happy polenta-ing!

The site is moving quite slowly again. I loaded my email, read and responded to two notes and signed out, all while a single "new content" page was loading over here. Editing a follow up to that thought: I know that you get frustrated when people post food-related reviews and photos on Facebook instead of here. It may not be insignificant that I can upload an entire album of photos to FB while that little green bar with the white dots is ticking away on DR.com.

Thanks - I'm going to try to be a little more creative, and I bought a six-pack of romaine hearts as inspiration. I've got a couple of jars of dried mushrooms on hand, too. Roasted butternut squash with sriracha yogurt, cilantro sauce, and roasted pepitas - from the Ottolenghi article in last week's Post food section Romaine in a cilantro, Key lime dressing

Pat, would you mind sharing where you get your ideas for salad dressings? I always end up making the same tarragon, Dijon vinaigrette. Last night: blistered shishito peppers tossed with sesame oil and coarse salt Broccoli in a peanut ginger sauce Jasmine rice

Someone gifted us a pound of pink Hawaiian sea salt yesterday, and I started to put it away in the salt area of the cabinets. I then took a moment to contemplate the fact that I have a salt "area" and started pulling things out. Fleur de sel and sel gris from Guérande, flor de sal de Manzanillo, Baleine coarse, the box of Morton kosher, a container of Lawrey's seasoned salt (for popcorn), an apothecary bottle of rose-petal sea salt, and a tiny jar of fleur de sel with flakes of black truffle. I'm pretty sure that, with the pink salt, I now have a lifetime supply. Ideas beyond the basics are appreciated, particularly for the rose petal salt.

11 days in, and more peppers added this morning with a bit of sea salt. I can't say I've seen any enormous amount of bubbling that websites discuss, but there has been a fine sheet of minute bubbles on the top of the brine from time to time, and it smells nice now. No issues with molding, but that could be the alcohol content. There's probably about another kilo of peppers outside, but they are green, and I don't think I can eat and/or give away a kilo's worth of sauce anyway, so I will probably fill the jar, let the last of the peppers ferment for a couple of weeks, and finish it off.

Up next in the tea rotation, this beautiful box of teas from Sichuan. I love the ancient characters on the pink tin.

I picked up some shishitos at Super H today, mostly because there was a red one in the package. Hors d'oeuvres and garden seeds in one go is something I can't pass by. For those of you who cook them regularly, would you mind sharing what sort of oil you use? Something neutral, or something to impart a little flavor?

Making dinner with what's in the pantry and in the garden. A gratin of shaved sweet potato and potato, layered with herbed goat's milk cheese (lemon thyme, chives), and balsamic-seasoned chard, topped with pecorino romano. Comfort food on a cold, damp day.

Café Caturra has been gone for several weeks now. We went in once, took a peek at the menu, and asked the hostess about gluten free options (Mr. lperry has celiac.) She said she didn't know what GF was, and she then just looked at us kind of blankly and didn't offer to go check, so we left and never went back. FWIW, the little Greek diner by the Starbucks has a solid breakfast, and I like their eggplant sandwich, too. It's one of those places where there's a set menu, but the daily specials are hand-written on a 3 by 5 card. They also did a beautiful job of taking care of throngs of people from our neighborhood during an enormous power outage last year. Diner food, yes, but good diner food, and the wait staff is really friendly, so that's an option if you're in the mood for it.

This thread reminds me of the time I found an ice crystal-encrusted burrito of indeterminate age in the freezer and, in a fit of childhood-imposed "clean-your-plate" guilt, decided I couldn't waste food, so into the microwave it went for lunch. Blech. #foodmartyr

Just to clarify, did you really just call a cabbage cheddar bagel "primal?"

Caponata theme. A spaghetti squash, roasted whole with the seeds inside, scraped and topped with caponata made with eggplant, red and yellow sweet peppers, and tomatoes from the garden. The last basil leaves made into chiffonade for the top.

I'd be more impressed if there were an interpretive dance involved.

Are you sure that's not a recipe for making hominy from corn, and not making a dish with their hominy? "Hominy" should already have been treated with the lime to hull the corn. If It does need the lime, it's pretty innocuous stuff when you buy it at the store. It will be a white powder in a plastic bag, usually in with the peppers and corn husks, at least at Grand Mart. The label will say "cal" for Calcium hydroxide, I suppose. It will be slick, sort of like bleach, so gloves are not a bad thing, but this is not like using lye drain cleaner - not even close. Here's Wikipedia's take. It might even be fun.

The presentation is significantly different.

Eggplant from the garden and tofu in a Thai green curry Jasmine rice Renwood Fiddletown Zinfandel 2008

I'm trying to decide on appropriate tags. "Manfood" "No-Cook Meals for the Undergraduate" "Bulk Eating"