Oh thank you so much for identifying it!

Thank you freecia for finding them!

They are my wife's grandmothers. We have stacks of them here and use them for everything. No wear on them whatsoever after almost 45 years. We have far too many so I'm exploring paring down our stacks to 12 of each (We have about double that currently). If we do decide to offload a few evergrn, I'll be sure to PM you. I'd rather give you a better deal and know where they end up!

Thanks for the offer. I went to Corelle's website and they have similar new plates at the desired size. Different pattern, which doesn't really matter to me. So appreciate your offer very much, but I think we will just order new ones. They are pretty inexpensive anyways. I really like the texture and the fact that they never seem to chip or scratch. I too inherited mine from family. Those plates have been around our home, probably since before I was born.

Once the shiso plants’ growth really took off this month, I made the transition from finely shreddIng the leaves and adding them to pasta and salads to grinding them into a pesto type paste.

Oddly, despite the pesto having way more leaves in it, the shiso taste is much more subdued. It is extremely delicious and makes a noble alternative to pesto made with basil.
What I really love about it, is how much easier it is to maintain grown shiso and produce it in copious quantities. The basil I have is like lace from the attentions of slugs/snails and caterpillars, the shiso gets assaulted also but is far more robust.

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Here are my suggestions for shiso pesto. Shiso does have a slight bitterness, I’m fine with it, but have to consider a 10 year old’s palate. Adding umami to the paste does round out that slight bitterness and tame it.

Shiso - between 10 and 20 leaves (a good handful), washed, stems removed and sliced just before using.
Half a small clove of garlic, minced (add more if you prefer)
A heaped teaspoon of nuts/seeds* - pine kernels are lovely but expensive, sunflower seeds are cheap and work very well in this. Pistachio nuts would be good. Walnuts, but particularly if you are using miso as they are great together. Ground almonds? Why not?
A measure of umami* - two tablespoons of dashi, or a teaspoon of miso, or a tablespoon of grated cheese (doesn’t have to be Parmesan) - or any combination of these
A measure of something sour* - a tablespoon of lemon juice, but you could use umeshu or the flesh from a couple of umeboshi
Oil* - quite a lot, I use olive oil but add whatever you enjoy
taste first before adding salt - will depend on what umami ingredients you’ve added
Black pepper? Your choice (I don’t bother)

* as-you-choose ingredients, or whatever you have in the cupboard

I don’t have a food processor and put the ingredients in a “liquid” blender. I start with the nuts/seeds and turn them into a powder (you can use a coffee grinder for this) and then add the other ingredients.

The surprise is how versatile it is, perhaps because it is a little milder than the basil kind. Can be heaped on toast or tofu, mixed with tomatoes and or cucumber for a quick salad, you can change the umami component to go with other foods - more cheese if you are making a dish with bacon, dashi if you want to eat it with soba. Since I’m reverting to low carb it allows me to make pasta for my family whilst I’ll mix it up with some sliced palm hearts or avocado, eggs, sliced cabbage or tofu. Even tastes good with kimchi.

Since I am usually in Japan in the Spring and in Spain in the summer I hadn’t really fully explored the potential of shiso before. Sure, I’ll remember a lot of the awfulness from this year, but I’ll also look back at it being the year where I better understood this plant as an ingredient.

FORGOT TO ADD - there is a discernible difference in aroma and intensity between growing-shiso early in the morning (when it does look more vigorous) and later in the day (as sunset closes in it noticeably droops). There’s a South London shop selling Gifu grown shiso pesto where the website suggests picking it before 7am. Will make my next batch extra early.

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Little pods of death, getting ready to be made in to hot sauce.

What kind of pods are they?
My kid has finally developed a taste for chilli and is doing a lot of experimenting, but nothing hotter than an árbol based sauce. Her favourites are jalapeño/chipotle and dried puya with lemon, the main component of Valentina dried chilli powder which she has discovered goes well with cooked rhubarb, even in drinks. Turns out Mexican Valentina chilli powder is an awesome Furikake stand in.

This has also been the year where Mabo-Doufu become a family staple. Mine started off tasting Japanese but have gone somewhere different, even substandard Sichuan pepper”corns” make a huge difference. I add extra aubergine/eggplant for myself and don’t miss the rice. I find it strange that after eating Mabo-Doufu we feel similar to how we feel having been to an onsen/sento.

Am jealous of the pool - am sad we couldn’t spend the summer in Spain, instead of swimming with friends every day, poor kid has daily language lessons with me ☹️

These are all ghost peppers. My anchos and banana peppers were in-ground and we had a 50 degree cold snap that ruined them completely, yielding 7 peppers between 7 plants. There's 3 scotch bonnet plants to the right of those with ~40 pods coming along but they're verrrry slow to finish fruiting. I have a vinyl-sided greenhouse ready if they don't start to ripen by mid-September or the first days below 65.

I'm going to ferment one batch and do the other normal. Going to use our local blueberries and a not-so-local mango for two different bases.

The pool is the only thing keeping me sane up here.

I’m back to making obento in the mornings. Today I made pork shogayaki and finally figured out something I had never realised before. You can use a daikon grater to turn onion into pulp. Peeled onion grates easily, simple to clean and the pulped onion cooks in no time.

I was very pleased with myself earlier this year when I ditched the vegetable knife and started using the edge of a cheap teaspoon to peel ginger, and this newest discovery is just as satisfying.

I have a double sided Marna Oicia and used the side shown on the left - it even does garlic and ginger (which until today I was using a small Muji wasabi grater for)
Shogayaki sauce just got a heck of a lot easier, all with an implement I barely remembered I had.
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Spicy simmer
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Finished ghost pepper hot sauce.

I made some hot sauce, it's about a 8/10 spice level for me.

I also still have a few dozen scotch bonnets and another dozen ghost peppers I'm going to prep and freeze to make chili and jerk chicken later in the year.

My plants are still fruiting and producing. I have another round of poblano, hot cherry, and banana peppers due before things get too cold.

I need to ask you about “prep and freeze” as I am looking after some plants for some of my nice neighbours who have gone away for a while. They have habaneros in a communal greenhouse which rapidly went from green to red last week. I’d like them to have their own crop, what’s the best way to preserve these peppers? Is there a best way to freeze them?

I've been told to destem and slice in half, remove seeds, lay flat inside a ziploc and suck out the air. If you have a vacuum sealer that will work as well.

You can also dehydrate them and make chili powders but that's far too complicated for my tastes.

This works well, but frankly I just cut them off the plant, rinse them, and then put them on a platter to freeze individually. Once frozen. I vacuum seal them together (in small packages), and then open / use each package as necessary. A couple minutes of thawing time on the counter is sufficient to handle them, including destemming / deseeding as desired.

Either way, IQF, vacuum seal, and refreezing has worked best for us for long term storage.

I don’t have a vacuum sealer but feel much more confident about freezing our friends’ peppers. Thank you both! 🙏 Made the mistake of trying one the other day. Boy was it hot!

Reigning back the subject of chilli toward the on-topic trail:

Every now and again I stumble onto a popular “make at home” food that my sporadically expat husband missed out on as it disseminated through his country. Having taken on and conquered Taco Rice, it’s now the turn of the Spicy Soup Curry. Have learned that soup curry is a BIG THING in Sapporo and that there is a lot of tinkering going on, particularly in Tokyo, as curries from all over Asia are being adapted for Japanese homes. Last night’s discovery was the fact that miso soup and curry/curry powders blend together in surprising and satisfying ways (but use any red/dark miso, not the sweet white kind). It’s good with dashi, but curry powder does make a vegan miso soup more interesting - like a British Mulligatawny.
Pumpkin season is fast approaching, lots of recipe tweaking opportunities await.


This is what I tried first, but without the pork - https://www.hotpepper.jp/mesitsu/ent...kuo/2020-00376 Since I was curious about curry and miso I withheld the dashi concentrate until I got to sample it without. This website has quite a few genuine curry enthusiasts who have contributed a load of curry soup recipes. Apparently dried basil is a required ingredient for a popular chicken version - https://www.hotpepper.jp/mesitsu/ent...ancho/17-00116 (My next project)
Have added a new restaurant onto my Tokyo “places to go to” list - スープカリー屋スパイス太郎

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I was really feeling my lack of quality ramen since we moved out of New York so I went all in and make some. Ichiban noodles, grilled chicken tenderloin, soft boiled egg, scallions, and a pork/chicken broth with a miso/soy sauce/vinegar/garlic tare.

The shiso I have been growing is coming to the end of its season (alas no sign of any seeds). So the plan I’ve had for the leaves at this point has been put into action.

A Northern (Sendai?) speciality called Shiso miso, where you make a sort of walnut/sesame/miso/sake caramel and stiffen it with flour. Refrigerate/freeze it for a day, cut into thin rectangles, roll in shiso leaves and deep fry them.

Just completed stage 1. Recipe here: https://hiratsukaspice.com/shisomiso/
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