BS: The other recipe thread is too long

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 09:18 AM

Sounds good, Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 06:22 PM

Now here's one you can whip up in 15 minutes and it's lovely. Using the best, freshest ingredients is paramount.

For two of us I used a jar of albacore tuna (aka yellowfin, I think) in olive oil that yielded 150g drained weight. I won't buy canned or jarred tuna that isn't in oil and I won't buy it if it has added salt.

The other ingredients are:

Two cloves of garlic, chopped (not minced)
A pinch of dried chilli flakes (to taste: I want a good lift, but not my mouth on fire)
225g, or half a pound, of the best cherry tomatoes you can lay your hands on
A big glug of extra virgin olive oil
The juice of half an unwaxed lemon and the zest from all of it
A big handful of freshly-chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper
250g spaghetti that's been made with a bronze die (DeCecco is grand)
Parmigiano reggiano, freshly grated

I cut the tomatoes cleanly in half and drained the tuna. I broke the fish into large flakes with my hands. I heated the olive oil gently in my big Le Creuset casserole pan and added the chilli flakes and garlic for a gentle sauté for five minutes. Meanwhile, I got the spaghetti on the go in water as salty as the Mediterranean Sea. Once the garlic pan was sizzling (brown garlic? Start again...), I threw in the tomatoes, the parsley and some seasoning. A few minutes later, when the tomatoes were softening and the pasta had two minutes to go, I threw the tuna and the lemon juice into the sauce and turned off the heat. I drained the spaghetti, retaining a mugful of pasta water, and threw the spaghetti into the sauce, mixing well. It needed just a bit of the pasta water just to loosen the sauce a tad. Into two bowls it went and it was finished off with a sprinkling of lemon zest and a grating of Parmesan (optional, and to be sneered at on a fish dish by true Italians, but hey ho...)

This was really quick to do and was absolutely delicious. You need to aim to get the tomatoes just softening but not so soft that they create a tomato sauce. I can't think why I haven't tried this before. My little sister (who's only 56) is coming for a week next week and I'll be doing this one again. One more arrow in the quiver!

Only the best ingredients you can lay your hands on now...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 07:45 PM

Well we've finally ditched our ancient (and in several regards malfunctioning) cooker (which had a ceramic hob) and bought one that has an induction hob. This is new to me, and I can hardly believe how good it is. No more pans boiling over, no more waiting for your pasta pan to come back to the boil for five minutes after adding the pasta. Totally controllable, totally powerful. We had to ditch a non-magnetic pan or two and buy a couple of replacements, but it wasn't too bad, as most of our stuff had magnetic bottoms (I've heard that said about me...) No more apologising to the assembled company because my massive pan of potatoes was taking forever to come to the boil. I made some cheesy omelettes tonight and I think I was a bit too cautious with the hob temperatures, but they were tasty, if a bit ruffled, and my oven chips and french beans (both from my veg plot) were superb. I'm getting there. It exactly a low-calorie repast, but sod that... I also made a massive batch, mostly for divvying up into portions for the freezer, of bolognese sauce, and that was a learning curve (I'm not a bad learner!). More of that later...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 07:47 PM

Grrr. NOT exactly...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 05:25 AM

I've never used one have liked to have tried to have persuaded my parents into an induction hob cooker earlier this year when our sealed plate hob cooker was dying. I couldn’t find a 50cm model available and widening the gap to take a 60cm one wasn’t on so I never got as far as proposing this. We would have been almost ready for one in terms of pots and pans. My frying pan is a non stick coated aluminium one but I think everything else here is a suitable stainless steel.

The ceramic hob part of the cooker we bought isn’t much change from the sealed plates. The rings do react quicker to changes in setting (preferred by me but mum liked slow hobs) but, if you are talking in terms of providing energy to boil your big pan of spuds, I don’t think it offers any improvement at all.

In other parts of the UK, I would have also looked at the gas hob/electric oven options but mains gas isn't available here.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 05:45 AM

I have three cherished stainless steel pans that are no longer any good. Not all stainless steel is magnetic. It pays to check the pan base with a magnet, otherwise you might be spending the first few days with your induction hob with not enough pans!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 06:12 AM

Sure, that's why I said "I think suitable". Never worked with them there but I learned from browsing a Dormer tool booklet on drills given to me back when I was a trainee setter operator making track rod ends for cars - early 80s - that there are magnetic martensitic alloys and non-magnetic austenitic ones. I've not put mine to the magnet test.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 10:38 AM

What the feck are you talking about ? martensitic ? what the feck does that mean ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 11:10 AM

Come on, Dave you should know: they make Aston Martins out of martensitic alloys and Austin Allegros out of austenitic ones! Tsk!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 01:59 PM

And, outside cookware, the bits (just the odd fastener) of stainless I buy now are known as A2 and A4 - routes to drive these cars along?

Back to pots and cookers. I got a bit frustrated with the time it took me to get my first attempts at jam making to setting temperature with our (old) cooker last year. I know some of this comes down to patience and, also may not be worthwhile for the limited use it would have, but, any thoughts on a stand alone gas ring I could place in the porch and run from say a small propane cylinder?

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 11:37 AM

I'm interested in your induction hob, Steve, and I've done some reading which leaves me confused.

1. Does your unit take special wiring or do you just plug it into the wall?

2. If I have a pan and a magnet sticks to the bottom, does it qualify as a magnetic pan, or do I need something specially sold for induction?

The speed and the efficiency certainly appeal to me. On the hot days of summer, we don't want to use the stove much.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 02:06 PM

We're recommended here to have a qualified person wire it in. The delivery chaps at our local shops are qualified for the job. It took him two minutes to wire it into our existing, old-fashioned cooker point. As for cookware, the magnet test is the one to go for. If a magnet sticks to the bottom of the pan, said pan will work on an induction hob.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 11:26 AM

Thanks for the info, Steve.

Other news: last night I made this recipe for Morrocan white beans.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moroccan+white+beans

I simplified it by using a can of Great Northern beans. I also used cut-up cherry tomatoes from my garden. They were good.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 11:32 AM

I have been spooning generous amounts of my fresh salsa over scrambled eggs. Good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 11:36 AM

oops I spelled moroccan wrong. This looks like a better URL, anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe50CzNcfY

I had to use a French translator to tell me that curcuma is turmeric. I suggest only 1/4 teaspoon of it for a can of beans.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 07:58 AM

Leeneia’s question got me wondering if there were plug in worktop induction hobs in the UK and whether such a thing would be an alternative to the stand along gas ring I’d wondered about about in a previous post.

We bought this single induction hob which arrived this morning. I feel it does bring water to the boil quite a bit faster than the rings on the cooker ceramic hob but I’m a bit bothered by the heating pattern I see in the water. This is most noticeable when, having boiled the water, the setting is reduced to a simmer as the hob seems to work by giving max power pulses followed by off periods. There appears to be a ring OD about 8cm, ID about 4cm that receives high power heating and not a lot else. I’ve tried two different pans of different makes and get similar results so I think the pattern is from the unit. (Are your rings similar, Steve?)

I have some ripe plums to pick and aim to have a go at some jam making over the weekend when I get some sugar. I may find things are OK but I do wonder if I’m going to find I have hot spots where the jam sticks and burns.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 09:45 AM

The four cooking zones are three different diameters, one large, two medium and one small. Almost all our pans fit very tidily on one or the other of them. From all I read about induction hobs, matching the pan base to the cooking zone is pretty important for efficient cooking. I'm not sure how well it would work for a single hob and a number of pan diameters.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 09:54 AM

Thanks. There was a customer question asking about the size of pans to which the seller replied the recommended sizes were between 12 and 26cm. The pans I tried were 18cm and 24cm with the larger one being the one I'd use for jam. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 09:57 AM

I've considered getting one of those portable induction cooktops to take outside for cooking in really hot weather. And I need to rework the guts of my barbecue grill (we live in an area with lots of mud dauber wasps and I fear there is mud packed into one of the tubes needed to make it run - the last time I used it I barely got heat.) You can still find the old hotplates with the electric coil, or the electric pad, and they're on the cheap end. And you can buy some of these induction units that come close to the cost of the entire stove (four burners on top and a robust oven below).

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 11:39 AM

Had a lot of crab at my beach week, but several had some empty legs, how is that possible?

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 10:08 AM

Yesterday I invented a new sandwich. We went to Harvesters to package food for food pantries, and I wanted to take a sandwich along. The sandwich had to fit in my belt pouch, which would get warm from my body, so it had to be meatless.

So I cut open a bolillo (a kind of bun from Walmart. Delicious) and put Smart Balance ""butter" on it. Spread on apricot jam and nestled roasted pecans in it. Buttered the top, wrapped, packed and enjoyed later after sealing packages of ham with our team of senior citizens. It was quite good.
===========
Mrrzy, that's baffling about the empty legs. I'd be interested to know why that happened.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 10:49 AM

Bolillo goes beyond Walmart - they come from Mexico and points south. As a kid I remember making a lot of picnic sandwiches on hard rolls, those were the big deal in the Pacific Northwest at the time. Down here in Texas, lots of things go on bolillos. And they're also great for making garlic bread. The local Hisapnic grocery stores often have panaderias inside. And I get tortillas in a Mexican grocery, made fresh the day I buy it and often times still warm. Life is good here if you like all of those Mexican breads! And Mexican bread goes beyond that, the biggest (as far as I know) cookie and bread maker from Mexico is a company called Bimbo Bakeries, and they own the big company from Fort Worth called Mrs. Baird's Bakery. (The big plant is near me and at night when the wind is blowing from the east I can smell bread baking.)

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 11:36 AM

Thanks for the info, Stilly. The bolillos at my neighborhood Walmart seem to be the most popular bread, and the whole-wheat bolillos sell out faster than the white ones.

The last time I was there, I bought the last bag of ww bolillos. The entire in-store bread rack was full, except for the space where the bolillos had been sold out.
============
If you can smell the bread from Mrs. Baird's, perhaps you are acquainted with a website called "Drumbeats" where you can watch the cars of silly people being towed in Deep Ellum. After the news, which so often tells of scoundrels and fools getting away with things, it is soothing to watch Drumbeats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXRAS7H52-s

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 11:43 AM

Back to recipes.

Last night the DH and I returned to the past, having spaghetti frittata for supper. I used whole-wheat spaghetti and grated cheese (six kinds of Italian) from a bag. I am not a cheese snob.

This recipe from the New York Times tells you how.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6791-pasta-frittata

When you get bored with your recipes, spaghetti frittata offers a new and different texture.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 03:50 PM

Deep Ellum is Dallas, I'm near the big Fort Worth plant. Bimbo Bakeries is huge, it owns several other name-brand bakeries. It's a baking empire that's rolling in dough. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 12:14 PM

Well I made the plum jam. The induction thing provides plenty of power to the pan, 2KW better spent..., I found it difficult to control as the seconds of on and off cycles it gives, say at 600W can bubble a drop of jam over before cooling again in an attempt to get a simmer or faster but controlled boil. Maybe I just have to learn to live with this or maybe one day, we find a better model but, overall, having one more efficient and faster ring I can pull out reasonably easily isn't a bad place to be.

On a different subject, was it someone (Steve?) in this thread who suggested Nicola potato? As well us as being late planting, I pulled the tops off because of what I think was blight on the leaves but we have been very pleased with them. It's worked out around 1 root for our three portions, parents have liked them and (I'm, rightly or wrongly, leaving them in the ground till required) have another 5 roots to go. Very firm and very tasty spuds.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 05:05 PM

As it happens, Jon, I lifted all my Nicola crop today to make way for my spring cabbage plants which are looking impatient in their little modules. I too cut the tops off, around the end of July, because of blight. The crop from just a few square yards was around 30kg of spuds. Fantastic! I've sorted them this afternoon into three batches: "premier" (big spuds with no blemishes); "chip-sized" (medium size, a touch of trimming of green bits needed on one or two); and "smallish" (best for Mediterranean-style roast potatoes with rosemary and garlic). The premiers are by far the biggest batch, and tomorrow I will put them into a mini-clamp in one corner of a veg bed, with just a touch of organic slug protection. The chip ones and the the smallish will go into a dark cupboard in my utility room, to be used up first.

They are indeed lovely spuds, of a quality you simply can't buy in shops. I grow them strictly organically and we never use them for recipes that need peeled potatoes. That would be a crime! In fact, their one weakness is that they don't make great mashed potatoes, but in a way that isn't a weakness at all. If I want mash, it's off to the shops!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 02:43 PM

Spaghetti frittata sounds great. Also saw a recipe for pizza salad, which also sounded great.

What with the no carbs thing I find I *think about* food all. the. time.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 04:43 PM

Over the years I've had the garden in the front yard alongside the driveway, and when people are walking by they sometimes stop to talk. When there are children in those groups I invite them to visit the garden - pick a tomato or an eggplant or pepper, or if it's the right time of year "what do you think grows on this plant?" and when they can't figure it out, suggest sweeping away some dirt below. Little kids are so charmed when they see things in the ground that they are accustomed to from the grocery store. Digging potatoes is kind of like hunting for Easter eggs - always a surprise!

The potatoes I have the best luck with here are the red lasoda, and Beauregard sweet potatoes.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 05:50 PM

I've grown potatoes every year since 1979, when I got my first allotment. I've had blight in every year bar one. There is no control for blight available to UK gardeners. The lesson I've learned from this is to grow first earlies and second earlies only, and to get them in the ground in good time, which generally means early to mid-April here in Cornwall. Any earlier and I risk a late frost killing off the tops. One horrible year I got blight before the end of May, but generally I get hit around late July. Maincrop spuds rarely grow big enough before the blight strikes. A double whammy is that late July is when the slugs kick in. So I want my spuds finished by early August at the latest. If I've had blight, I cut the tops off (it's safe to compost them as blight spores can't overwinter - they survive on spuds that have been missed), then leave the spuds for a couple of weeks before lifting, which allows the spores to wash harmlessly away into the soil. I've lifted my last spuds now and the bed is planted up with spring cabbages. I'm hoping that our new cat will deter the bloody woodpigeons.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 06:12 PM

I tried spaghetti frittata once and found that cutting it and eating it to be a major tribulation. I think I did it wrong.

We had Italian-style sausages (bought from Marks and Spencer) with lentils and chilli tonight and all was lovely. I can't find the Castelluccio lentils that I want in this country, but the puy lentils worked beautifully. You could just use good quality pork sausages, but the Italian-style ones, which use little or no bread and which contain fennel, are the gold standard.

I made a soffritto with shallots, carrot, celery and diced pancetta. A small sprinkling of dried chilli flakes also went in. Once that had softened, I fried the sausages separately for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, once the soffritto was done, I added to it a glass of white wine, some pepper and a splash of stock. I added about 300g of pre-cooked lentils (I swear by the Merchant Gourmet brand) and chopped the cooked sausages into bite-size chunks (you can leave them whole, but then you need to use a knife as well as a fork and sit at a table instead of in front of the telly). I threw in the sausage chunks and heated the whole lot gently to get the ingredients to blend. Off the heat, at the last minute, in went some chopped fresh parsley. Begod, I excelled meself tonight...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 10:26 PM

Congratulations, Steve! That sounds very good.

We didn't cook tonight. Instead we watched a historic steam engine go buy, then we ate a Viennese restaurant.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 10:53 PM

You can slow blight by spreading whole ground cornmeal on the soil when you plant, by making a "tea" of that same cornmeal in water and spraying the liquid on the plants, and by using store strength (3%) Hydrogen peroxide, full-strength, as an occasional spray on the foliage. All of these things suppress fungus, which is what blight is. It may not eliminate it, but it will reduce it considerably. Start this as soon as you plant the potatoes.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 07:07 AM

Call me Mr Sceptical, but I don't see how spreading something on the ground can deter airborne fungal spores (the only way blight can reach your spuds) from landing and germinating on leaves. From what I read about hydrogen peroxide, there's little evidence of its efficacy apropos of blight and at what concentrations. And as soon as it leaves your sprayer, it's turning into water and oxygen... I think I'll stick to choosing early varieties that evade the worst of midsummer attacks, and remove the tops as soon as I see blight infection. Look hard enough and you'll find myth-busting articles on cornmeal on the web.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 07:29 AM

I grew 2 potatoes this year. The other one was just 4 (2 per tub) Aran Pilot I wanted to try to see how it worked out. I'll try to organise our tubs a bit better, possibly adding another 2-4 tubs to our collection. They were a very nice new potato and worth expanding on for this easy plant way of getting a few early samples.

The planting of the Nicola was delayed due to a combination of the weather and the availability of our (usually once a week) gardener. I leave the heavier preparation and digging to him. I think that we in North Norfolk have a similar situation to Steve in Cornwall in that later plantings of potatoes are more at risk of late blight.

As for this year, a found a site that had a UK map predicting the likelihood of blight and showing where there were known infections. It also mentioned it's method of prediction and our spell of very high humidity with cool temperatures didn't look good. As with Steve, I don't think there is any protection available for UK home gardeners. I think all you can do is keep an eye on the leaves and cut the tops off if you find a problem. That should save the potatoes that are in the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 08:55 AM

I get blight every summer, but, because of my policy of promptly cutting off all the top growth (I use sharp shears), I rarely lose any actual spuds to blight. I grow tomatoes in a biggish greenhouse (I grew them outdoors in Essex but it doesn't work here), and, despite what all the pundits tell us about greenhouse toms being safe, I get the blight in there as well, every year. Tomatoes are just that bit smarter at fighting off the disease so it's still a worthwhile pursuit. My favourite tomatoes are Sungold, little orange cherry toms. The plants have the added advantage of being resistant to all the soil-borne tomato wilt diseases as well as leaf mould, so I grow them in the greenhouse soil (hugely enriched with my garden compost every spring) year after year, no problem.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 06:14 PM

I've made a determined effort to keep my veg beds filled with something or other at all times from now on. As soon as my broad beans came out, I planted the bed with purple sprouting broccoli plants that I'd raised from seeds and held in small pots. I can expect them to crop from December through to March or April. I had a bit of room at one end of the bed so I planted some young french bean plants. They may be a bit too late, but I'm giving it a whirl. I've also interplanted the big gaps (for now) with some Little Gem lettuce plants that I sowed four weeks ago. The big spud bed, now cleared, is now full of young spring cabbage plants. I've planted them rather close, hoping to be able to thin them out for some early greens in winter whilst leaving some to form large heads. My choice is Durham Early, a really nice variety. I'm going to sow some Aquadulce Claudia broad beans next month, which can go in where the early french beans are coming out and in any other gaps I have. Some of these ideas may fail, but at least I'll have even more greenstuff for composting for next year. For now, I still have plenty of runner beans, a few french beans, herbs of all sorts including an embarrassingly-huge amount of flat-leaved parsley (which freezes magnificently) and those lovely spuds. Chives and rocket are "weeds" in my garden. I never have to plant or sow them and I have bucketloads of them, which I like. My parsnip bed is luxuriant but I refuse to use them until we've had a frost on them...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 06:23 PM

Oh, and my Autumn Bliss raspberries are fruiting magnificently. They freeze beautifully too, and they don't seem to get that horrid reversion disease that afflicts summer raspberries. My raspberry bed is now 25 years old and I have to be very stern with it in order to stop it from turning into a jungle!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 11:20 AM

I like Then we ate a Viennese restaurant.

I had a thought today but when I looked it up, it is apparently a thing: Sardines and ratatouille.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 01:59 PM

To go back to the spaghetti frittata, it's easy to eat. Make it in a skillet, and cut the finished, pie-shaped frittata into wedges, like a pizza. [I forget whether I used kitchen shears or a serrated knife.] Eat the wedges with a knife and fork.

Mrrzy, I ate sardines in Italy once, and they were nothing like the sardines we get in cans. The Italian fish were fresh and delicious, and they were several times bigger than canned sardines. The fuselages were a curious triangular shape, and the scales were beautifully bright and silver. I wonder if your recipe is for that kind of sardine.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 02:09 PM

There is a great deal of research out there if you look in the right places. Hydrogen peroxide sprayed on the leaves in the 3% form (grocery store strength) will take out a lot of fungus. A spray with the cornmeal tea will also do that. The fungus overwinters in the soil, it gets to the plants later. Treating the soil doesn't hurt and it will generally help with fungal diseases.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 04:02 PM

Blight spores don't overwinter in soil. They can survive only in living tissue, "volunteer" spuds for example (the ones missed during the lifting), or in blighted tomato fruits.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 05:28 PM

Leeneia, yeah, anchovies too, very different.

My ratatouille with tinned sardines in hot oil was marvy.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 05:19 AM

I made a big pan of lovely, tangy tomato sauce last night using my glut of Sungold cherry toms (just extra virgin olive oil, a gently-fried chopped onion, seasoning and a pinch of sugar and a last-minute whiff of fresh basil). I rarely bother to skin tomatoes, and it wouldn't be practical in any case to try to skin a couple of hundred cherry toms! To avoid too much skinniness in the sauce I chopped the toms into quarters first. If the sauce still looks a bit too skinny when I check it later on I'll push it through a coarse sieve, whizz the skinny residue and put it back in. We've going to have the sauce tonight with some "meatballs" made from cooked puy lentils, those little brown ones, which I'll season and to which I might add a pinch of chilli flakes and a bit of chopped fresh parsley. The idea is to fry the "meatballs" then simmer them in the sauce, as I do with meat meatballs, then devour them on top of some long pasta. Maybe Parmesan. Never tried anything like this before, though we used to give our kids a sauce made with red lentils and tomatoes on spaghetti when they were little. That actually went really well with grated cheddar. I'll let youse know how it goes...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 06:20 AM

The skinny residue has been duly whizzed! I could have whizzed the whole lot, but I do like my tomato sauce a tad chunky...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 06:03 PM

Well the lentil meatball thing didn't work. You can't make meatballs out of a pouch of lentils. I tried a different recipe that involved adding sautéed onions, Parmesan and oats to the mix. It did make "meatballs," they did fry nicely but as soon as I added them to the tomato sauce they disintegrated. So I made it into a sauce with tomatoes and lentils and we had it on spaghetti. Not bad, but the oats made the whole dish slippery. I might make some lentil and bacon soup with the leftover sauce...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 21 - 11:36 AM

Humble but yummy. I whisk my eggs with a bit of riccota til smooth for my scrmbled eggs , no milk.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Sep 21 - 05:27 PM

Right, yanks. Just yesterday I heard for the first time in my life about creamed corn. So I made some today to go with my barbecued maple-cured bacon and sausages.

This is how I did it, for two of us:

I took three corn cobs. I cut the grains off half of the cobs with a sharp knife. I grated the rest into a bowl with a coarse grater. I then ran the back of the knife up and down the stripped cobs to get as much juice out as possible.

Next, I sautéed a chopped shallot in butter, along with a goodly portion of fresh thyme leaves. Once the shallot had softened (not coloured) I threw in all the corn. I added a good splash of water along with a touch of seasoning and simmered it for seven or eight minutes, until the grains were cooked and the liquid was thick. At the last minute I added a blob of cream.

Well I thought it was pretty good. Come on, yanks. This is one of yours. Did I do it right? Should it be stiff or floppy (I'm still talking about the creamed corn...)? Would you eat it with barbecued stuff?

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Sep 21 - 11:50 AM

It's definitely suitable with barbecued stuff, though in summer I would be much more likely to buy corn on the cob. If hosting a formal dinner, where cobs are unthinkable, I buy frozen corn.   

I have never heard of anybody preparing creamed corn. We buy a can of it and heat it up. Butter optional. Actually, I haven't seen it in years.

I'm sure your own creamed corn was much better than ours. It sounds like a lot work, though.

As for consistency, it's between mushroom soup and mayonnaise.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Sep 21 - 01:09 PM

I've seen cooking show hosts make creamed corn several times - it involves cutting the kernels off the cob and getting some of the "corn milk" from the cob as well, then simmering for quite a while.

This Southern Living video gives you the most important part of it - how you remove the corn from the cob. There are various manufactured and homemade gadgets out there that cooks use for removing corn from the cob.

But I'm with Leenia, I get it from a can (and those don't have cream or butter, just a little added salt and using corn starch as a thickener). If I have fresh corn here at the house I eat it off the cob (after 2-3 minutes in a pan of boiling water.) I grew up buttering and salting it first, but now I eat it straight, no toppings.

When I was a kid my mother used to do a once-a-summer meal with a bushel of corn and she'd boil it and keep bringing it to the table and we'd fill up on corn on the cob for dinner.