If I lived alone:
I would have re-used those coffee grounds.

I’ve never made a soufflé.
Homemade hot dogs could be interesting in my kitchen (I’m thinking studded with jalapenos, or a shrimp hot dog).
I have dandelion greens in my yard I should stir fry one of these days.
And I really need to get off my butt and make bacon.

What’s tickling your noggin?

I’m excited to see how long it takes the rice to suck up some of that pepper power.

More ideas for making use of jalapeños

• Candied jalapeños, make use of these directions for making candied fruit. Instead of using oranges, submerge jalapeño slices in the sugar solution instead.
• Jalapeño jelly, which is so good mixed with cream cheese, or used as a bed for fresh fried hush puppies.
• Cream of jalapeño soup, which would be excellent served in a small glass with diced cucumber and topped with croutons. I wonder how this soup would do as a chilled soup?
• Pickled jalapeños, with a whole smattering of other good veggies: Chiogga beets, carrots, onions, and a side kick of limes
• Jalapeño vinegar, peppers with garlic in a glass jar with hot vinegar poured on top: quick and easy! You know this is going to be excellent drizzled on steak.
• Jalapeño brown butter ice cream, a special technique resulting in chewy rich spicy ice cream. Yes I said chewy.
• Jalapeño hot sauce, a handful of peppers blurred into spicy shakable oblivion that can live in your cupboard. Excellent.

Being one with very little food yard, I’m guilty of buying my jamming fruits from the market. However, if I open my eyes I can see the potential fruits in my vicinity that could be creatively used:

• rose petal jam- and having one of each color is just my sort of neurosis, you too?
• lavender jam- I can imagine this being slathered on a pork roast, or used to make a nice jam soda mixer.
• dandelion jam- they are in abundance (oh my poor bitter neighbors). I wonder what this would taste like?

Do you have nontraditional plants in your yard that you harvest? Help widen my sense of vision on what is useful…

• Salt your coffee. Either as you are grinding it, or the dairy that accompanies it. Salt enhances sweetness and cloys bitter flavors.
• Rethink the sweet. When you take your coffee sweet, consider an alternative to standard white sugar. This can be as simple as using brown sugar, a raw sugar, agave nectar, or honey instead. Or as complex as adding maple syrup, bitter caramel sauce, Nước Màu or fruit jam.
• Give the beans some friends. Next time you grind up coffee beans, consider tossing in one or all of these flavor additions: half a vanilla bean pod, some cocoa nibs, a small sliver of whole nutmeg, orange zest, a cardamom pod, a couple black peppercorns or a nub of cinnamon stick.
• Steep when you heat. Steeping aromatics in either your pre-brew coffee water or your dairy is a way to get a touch of flavor that is different from grinding flavors with the beans. This could be as simple as making your coffee with peppermint tea or lemon water, or warming your milk with sticks of cinnamon and whole cloves. Who says you have to use plain water to brew your coffee?
• Bloom your coffee grounds. As one blooms dry gelatin before use, moisten your coffee grounds to help prep them for brewing. How to: Shake out your freshly ground coffee into a mixing bowl and stir in 1-3 Tbs of water. Let sit for ~5 minutes and then scrape into your brewing apparatus. It is thought that premoistening coffee grounds results in a stronger or more flavored brew. Have you wondered about using brandy or bourbon instead of water for this step yet?
• Take your time. How about a 12 hour brew? Do those words give you caffeine withdrawal? If you add time and subtract the heat, you will have a new coffee experience in your cup. Check out the Smitten’s cold brew procedure and you’ll be looking forward to tomorrow’s coffee.
• Keep it simple. Sometimes you owe it to your taste buds to take a vacation from your habits and resort to the easiest path: straight black coffee. With the amazing amount of coffee bean varieties and roasts we have access too, there is no excuse for calling straight black coffee boring.

Or maybe I’m just bitter as I haven’t had sushi in too long…

It’s an estuary of innovative finds, and gadget-disaster rubbernecking. It’s up to you to define which is the lifesaver or which will sink your boat for the following (Like the name game: My Little Pony or porn star?):

• Slider Station: “makes 5 perfect restaurant style mini-burgers in no time flat! Everyone loves sliders—now you can make them quickly and easily right at home.” Also available in square.
• Hot Dog Toaster: “Enjoy tasty hot dogs as easily as making toast! … Just place 2 hot dogs and 2 buns into the toaster’s special slots and press the lever down. When they’re done, they’ll pop up to let you know!”
• 3-Tier Oven Rack: “Cook 3X as much in your oven! During those family get-togethers or holiday dinners, max out space with the perfect cooking companion. Innovative 3-tier design lets you bake up to 3 of your favorite dishes.”
• Ice Cream Sandwich Maker: “Homemade ice cream sandwiches as easy as 1, 2, 3! This ice cream sandwich maker set turns out perfectly formed ice cream sandwiches. Simply add your favorite cookies, scoop in ice cream or frozen yogurt and press.”
• Chicken Rack: “Cook chicken wings and legs perfectly even, while unhealthy fat drips away! No turning or testing is required—just place up to 12 legs or wings on this upright rack.”
• Silicone Roast Lifter: “Silicone lifter takes the worry out of lifting your roasts! Now you can carry your holiday turkey, roast or ham from the oven to the serving dish effortlessly. Flexible “sling” sits snugly beneath your roast while cooking allowing for easy transfer to a carving board or serving platter.”
• Rack Guards & Oven Gloves: “Rack guards help protect from oven burns. We’ve all been there: we reach into a hot oven to check on dinner when… OUCH! We accidentally brush up against that hot rack. These rack guards cover approximately 95% of the front rail of oven racks.”
• DaysAgo™ Timers: “How old is it? Now you won’t have to remember when you opened it, closed it, sauced it, juiced it or grew it! Reusable DaysAgo™ Timers count up to 99 days—so you know just how fresh your food is.”
• Electric Gravy Boat: “Now your gravy will always receive a warm reception at mealtimes! This unique gravy boat features an electric, stainless steel warming base that keeps sauces and gravies piping hot inside the ceramic gravy boat.”
• Scoop & Release Dough Dropper: “Enjoy making cookies but hate the messy fingers? Well, here’s the solution. This kitchen must-have neatly scoops and drops dough onto baking sheets—without any of the hassle.”

I happened to leave/submit/forget a handful or orange slices from my Christmas candied orange slices in their final sugar solution for an additional 3 months.

I finally pulled the remaining slices out of their unrefrigerated sugar solution to find them completely encrusted with large blocky sugar crystals.

These resulting candy orange slices are a delightfully crunchy version of the best candied orange slices in the world. The big wonky sugar crystals are gorgeous to look at, and the rind and peel of the fruit seem even more translucent and transcendent… presenting a Platonic Ideal of a candy orange slice.

I soooo need to make these again in grapefruit, lemon, and blood orange batches…

My itch for seeing information mapped out in google maps has struck again. Here’s the map version of Willamette Week’s article Hot a Chefs Cheap Eats.

Five Portland Oregon chefs list their favorite places to go eat affordable food.

The chefs making recommendations:

• MICAH CAMDEN: Chef-owner of Yakuza; owner of Beast, D.O.C. and Fats.
• JANIS MARTIN: Chef-owner of Tanuki.
• GREGORY GOURDET: Chef at Saucebox.
• GABE ROSEN: Chef-owner of Biwa.
• KIR JENSEN: Former owner-baker of Sugar Cube bake cart, now at Two Tarts.