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Leftover white grits. Heated in a pan with a little butter and a poached egg on top.
White grits are new to me, and I like them.
(BtW, eating breakfast grits with chopsticks is reasonable is it not?)
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Hey, if your skill with hashi is such that you can get a minimum amount of grits to your mouth, then more power to you!
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How lucky you are to have all this joy ahead of you! I have the same feeling when someone tells me they’ve never read so-and-so before and I’m jealous that they get to read all those great books for the first time.
Have you tried shrimp grits? Best with the little shrimp and a little hot oil, a true treat.
Cheesy grits are delightfully teeth-squeaking.
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Wow! I’ve only had grits a couple of times around NOLA a loooooong time ago as a kid and it was just so alien to me (I loved arriving at a counter and iced water placed in front of me and being asked what I wanted sugar. So exotic!) but an owner of an American diner in (of all fucking places) Limerick explained it to me. Chipper chips are, objectively, disgusting. But. There’s a good place, that do them fresh and we’ll, and it ties into your childhood in a sensation memory which is exactly what great food is actually about.
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Thai red curry with shrimp, scallops and little spicy chicken meatballs over black rice. Mom’s not so into spicy these days, so the curry is a salmon pink instead of a proper red, but she finished her bowl!
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Grilled citrus Mandarin orange. Came out very cool! Smoky and sweet. Made a Rhum cocktail muddled with it with a sprig of Thai Basil and bubbly water.
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“Cackleberry” was the one dad always used.
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I used that recipe to make a bunch of cupcakes. Very nice, although that’s a lot of sugar. I’ll probably reduce it by a third or so next time.
Fortunately, Karel has a sweet tooth. And she’s saving a few of the surplus for when her grandkids visit. 
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a little mishap has kept my activity down to almost nil this past week, but today my big deal was to make these cheesy cayenne-bacon shortbread biscuits (crackers). super easy to make and good alongside this creamy, strong “drunken” goat cheese (chevre that was rolled in wine lees and aged).
that’s all I got for right now
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Hope you heal quickly!
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I have issues with gravity. and brittle bones.
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Still playing with leftover white grits. This morning was grits, onion, black garlic, zucchini, tomato, fried egg, and red pepper sauce.
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tonight two bone-in chicken breasts with skins, freshly cracked black pepper and lawry’s seasoned salt rubbed into it, a bouquet garni of fresh curly parsley, fresh thyme and fresh sage beneath the chicken, placed in roasting pan put into a cold oven. oven allowed to heat to 500. then 6 large carrots, 5 medium potatoes, 4 medium onions, and three stalks of celery all cut into large pieces arranged around the chicken in the pan, all covered, oven reduced to 325. cooking for 90-120 minutes. making a white roux to which will be added the pan drippings and kitchen basics chicken stock to make gravy.
easy and delicious.
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Instant Pot Risotto
This method works surprisingly well. It’s currently my go-to instant pot recipe, replacing the spaghetti and meat sauce recipe I made last year.
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
3 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 3/4 cups (11 ounces) short grain rice (arborio or carnaroli)
1/3 cup dry vermouth or white wine
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (boxed is perfectly fine here.)
2/3 cup (2 3/4 ounces) fresh or frozen peas (or lima beans work well, too.)
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Step 1
Prepare the onions, garlic and measure out the rice before you turn on the instant pot, because the beginning part happens fast.
Set your instant pot to SAUTE and let it heat up. (On mine, it says “Hot” instead of just “On.”) Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil until shimmering. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until it softens and becomes translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until aromatic, about 1 minute.
Step 2
Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil and the rice. Cook, stirring, until the rice is lightly toasted and smells nutty, 3 to 8 minutes. Stir in the vermouth and cook until the wine has evaporated, about 1 minute. Stir in the broth, then cover, set the steam valve to PRESSURE (or SEALING) and turn to HIGH. After the cooker reaches high pressure, which takes 5 to 10 minutes, cook for 6 minutes.
Step 3
Release the pressure manually, then stir in the peas, cheese and butter, if using, and continue to stir until the risotto is creamy and the peas are just warmed through, about 2 minutes. It’ll seem watery when you open the pot, but it will firm up to the right consistency quickly. Taste, and adjust seasonings as needed. Divide among 4 bowls, top with more parmesan.
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Cream of mushroom soup with three kinds of mushrooms-portobellos, crimini and lion’s mane. Just a bit of cream in at the end. (It was all I had).
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Looks yum and I want to steal your plate!
I hope you’re ok.
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It should be noted that Amalfi lemons are almost half white pith and they’re not very bitter in the peel. I honestly don’t know whether limoncello really works with other varieties of lemon.
(They can get really big, too…)
(Sorry for using stock photos but they’re the only ones that would onebox for some reason)
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Like you might think there are apparently a wide variety of Italian lemons, including several in and around Amalfi.
Doing some googling the ones pictured are apparently back crossed with Citron. From what I understand Limoncello is traditionally made with various varieties of sfusato lemon, especially femminello. These are the only English pages I could find featuring cut fruit that weren’t obviously using lemon stock photos or cribbing generic lemon photos from Wikipedia.
They are apparently a pretty large lemon, around twice the size of regular American lemons. But they have a lot thinner peel and pith than the Amalfi lemons you pictured (which are a thing, and are apparently used for limoncello). They are also available as trees in California, but not recently enough to be producing fruit commercially.
Also from personal experience the Limoncello process works with all citrus. Even if it requires some hoop jumping and figuring it out. Meyer lemons are a hybrid of citron with a mandarin/pomello cross. “True Lemons” a cross between bitter orange (it self a cross between mandarin and pomello), and citron. BECAUSE CITRUS IS COMPLICATED.
But basically a different pathway to the same end result. And they aren’t directly related to each other. But meyer lemons have a thinner, more flexible peel much like a mandarins. With less pith, but more zest, and significantly more aromatic oils in the skin than regular American lemons. The flesh is less tart, and produces a lot of juice. All of which makes them pretty good for limoncello treatment, if pretty much nothing like the Italian lemons traditionally used.
Also I am sorry for turning this into the citrus nerd hour. The ins and outs of wacky multigeneration crosses from like 3 or 4 domesticated species is pretty fun.
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