What's for Dinner #59 - the Summertime Covid Blues Edition - July 2020

I live in the PNW, and the only kind of salmon I enjoy is hot smoked or cold smoked. I don’t otherwise like it whether raw or cooked in any way. I’m surprised they haven’t kicked me out of WA yet!

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Did you smoke your chicken while whole, and then take it apart? Your chicken breast looks so intact! Mine would look mauled. Can you share your method and whether you brined/seasons? On another note, I adore dill, and it is the one herb I reliably can’t grow. I’ve tried for a few years, and nothing… Sadness.

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I would be literally dead with 2 habaneros. Did you always eat spicy food, even as a kid, or did you work up to it? We went to a Portuguese resto in Oakland a while back where I ordered a delicious sauteed fish with peppers dish. Nowhere on the menu did it indicate that some of the peppers weren’t bells but were in fact (probably) habanero. I didn’t get those until maybe the 4th bite but then I cried my way through the meal after. And it was literally the tiniest slivers of them, intermixed with bells and sauteed onions.

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My rhubarb plant is just the same. Part sun part shade. I can get maybe 10 stalks from it per season. I’m thinking of getting a second one, though, because it’s so delicious! The only way that I prepared it this year was strawberry rhubarb crisp x2. Got the recipe from a friend who brought it to a cookout potluck last summer.

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oh no! that sucks. weird, i didn’t think Portuguese food was at all spicy. Where is the resto in Oakland, do you remember the name? I only know of one Portuguese place, in San Francisco, and that one is only 3-4 years old, maybe. But no, definitely, I worked my way up to this. I probably didn’t eat spicy food until my early-mid-twenties (late 50s now). But I definitely tried spicier and spicier as I grew older

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:rofl: :rofl: what does a gal have to do to push it over the edge? :smiley:

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I don’t. It wasn’t pre-planned. We walked from our BNB over a highway bridge and were in a downtown-y area, and this was on the edge. Funny how people work their way up. I always wonder why, because if something is spicy and painful and makes you cry/nosedrip, then why persevere? I am clearly not getting something, since so many people love them some spicy food!

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Portuguese food can be spicy, but I think more pleasantly spicy. Also, it depends on the cooks.

One time in a small town called Ericeira, eating at a seafood restaurant (small local place, not the likes of Lisbon) where the boss gave me his house-made chilli-garlic sauce to eat with the seafood. He and some employees were watching as I was tasting the hot sauce. He thought it would blow my head off and was disappointed that it didn’t. It was very spicy in any case. These days I eat a lot of dried chillies brought back from Mexico but normally I only eat scotch bonnets/habaneros.

Bought a big bag of these (in Tavira, Portugal) and ate them throughout the 3 week trip. I made chilli oil with leftovers which were completely dried by the time I got home.

A meal at a fish restaurant on the same trip last year. At first I thought it was tomato sauce.

Then I saw that they brushed chilli sauce on the bread!

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Sure! I followed this method for time and temp. I’ve found the temps listed are very forgiving, but for a 5-7lb whole chicken, count on around 1 hr at 225°F and 30 more min at 325° or 350°. My DH rubbed it over and under the skin with Spicewalla honey & herb rub and a bit of Badia Adobo. We like to pre-season and air-chill if we can, but I don’t think he did this time. I smoked it whole.

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Our dill grows gangbusters - move to Western NC :laughing:

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Veg-centric meal tonight - CSA cherry tomato, cucumber, and pole bean salad in a basil and shallot red wine vinaigrette, half a buttered COTC, doctored up black beans leftover from a meal out, and (not shown) garden greens with chimichurri ranch. Oh yeah, and smoked wings with FM peach and mustard sauce.

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People always think heat obliterates flavor, but once you accustom yourself, it enhances it. It’s a rush, it’s like a high, to some extent. And I didn’t challenge myself to eat hotter and hotter food, but I like cuisines that have typically spicey dishes, so I just kept eating them. My sister always says (jokingly) that I’m just showing off, but I really love it. I’m not extreme, I don’t have 50 bottles of Ghost Pepper hot sauce or anything like that. By I do love me some heat.

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If I did, it would only be to hang out with you. I’m not the biggest fan of the South :frowning: Climate. Politics.

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Spicy food has endorphins and gives eaters the same type of high that runners get. I’ve tried, but it just pains me. My H likes spicy, and my littlest little is training himself in that direction. I think for “man props” as he is currently 5’9"ish and weighs a buck soaking wet.

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110% hear you. Asheville is a bit of an outlier as a mostly intentional community. But even here, things are really weird right now.

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What you’ve said pretty much describes me :grin:

I did once eat a piece of ghost pepper at a pepper eating contest. :laughing:

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They’re really weird here too, in my little blue corner. The other side, albeit a clear minority, is getting louder and louder. They are finding each other on social and, finding that they do have some allies, getting more and more vocal in their retorts and less pleasant in their conversations.

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exactly, re the endorphins. my sister is the same way, she doesn’t think the pain is worth it. My mother thought black pepper and ketchup were spicy. :slightly_smiling_face:

too funny about the “man props”!

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i actually do have ONE bottle of ghost pepper hot sauce, but it doesn’t get much use!

once at work i took a small dollop of some a co-worker brought in - yeah, super hot, but no problem. the second time, i took an even smaller dot, and for some reason I almost died. i was literally on the floor of an office clutching my belly, gasping and panting. it went on for like 20 minutes. never had that experience before, nor since.

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well they have piri piri which i don’t think is all that hot. maybe i just never ran into the spicy food there. next time! (whenever that will be… sob)

that bread looks fabulous!

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