Another experiment with sous vide cooking. This time I made pork shoulder (pork butt), cooked it at 140° for 48 hours. And I served it with a very tart North Carolina vinegar sauce instead of the usual ketchup-based barbecue sauce that’s more typical. Mostly I did that because my DH is a diabetic and very rarely eats pulled pork because the traditional BBQ sauce just sends his blood sugar skyrocketing.

At least once a week I’m experimenting with my SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. Not every dish I’ve made has made it to a post on my blog, as I’m not experienced enough yet. One pork dish I made was not very good (pork chops were too thin, I think, so it overcooked). I’m liking the long, slow cooking for more things – the less tender cuts. Not steaks and such – they are best with relatively little sous vide cooking. I had a big chunk of pork in the freezer – I’d purchased a gigantic pork shoulder a month or so ago, at a great price and cut it up into smaller cooking portions. But I didn’t have a sous vide cooker then. So the meat was just vacuum sealed with nothing whatsoever in it. I decided to just go with it that way. Nothing else in the pouch but the meat. No salt. No pepper. No onions or seasonings of any kind. I knew I’d need to doctor it up with seasonings later.

So I did some reading about barbecue sauces. Goodness, but there are a lot of different types. I knew there was a Memphis style, and St. Louis style, but that was about it. Referring to one of my Steven Raichlen books, Barbecue! Bible: Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes, I hunted through all the dozens of possible permutations, trying to find one that was low on sugar. We’re mostly tuned into such sauces containing lots and lots of ketchup. Then I read about the sauce that is the favorite with folks in North Carolina. It’s a vinegar sauce and has nary a teaspoon of tomato in it – like ketchup or tomato paste.

So here’s what’s in it – onions sliced thin, apple cider vinegar, water (not pictured), red chili flakes, sugar, salt and pepper. It’s not cooked. You merely combine the ingredients in a bowl (non-reactive) and stir it up. I made it ahead because I wanted the onions to soften a bit in there, which they did. Not only did they soften in texture, but the soaking takes away some of the fresh astringency from raw onions. I covered it and just let it sit out on the counter for several hours.

What you need to know about this sauce is that you combine it with the shredded pork and the meat just absorbs a lot of the vinegar sauce. No, it’s not sour (because the meat has a lot of sweetness to it). You’d think it would be sour. I was unsure enough about this sauce that I took a piece of pork and gingerly dipped it into the sauce to sample it. Oh my. GOOD. Amazing, I thought.

I cut up some green cabbage and put just a little bit of the vinegar sauce on it and served that with the sliders – to put onto the sandwich itself. The meat – so tender and juicy. I added about a cup of the onions and vinegary sauce to it and let it sit for about 5 minutes before I set out the slider buns, the meat, the cabbage. I let everyone make their own sliders. I also made a delicious cabbage salad which I’ll post in a couple of days.

What I liked: the texture and taste of the pulled pork. It was incredibly tender after 48 hours of sous vide. The vinegar sauce was outstanding. I loved it! For left overs I put out regular barbecue sauce (bottled) and some eaters had some of that too.

What I didn’t like: nothing. It was really, really good.

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. . .This recipe hardly even deserves an entire recipe box listing – it’s just pork shoulder, vacuum sealed, done in the sous vide for 48 hours. Done.

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Have you made lemon curd before? I’ve made it oodles of times, but not since last March. I wrote it up here on my blog then. I read a description of lemon curd in the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook – they called some versions teeth-achingly sweet. Gosh, yes. That’s what mine was in 2011. The folks at ATK decided to fix it, and yes, they did. This is my new go-to lemon curd recipe. I didn’t enhance the photo at all – it’s all the egg yolks that give it that deep golden color.

I’d offered to take lemon curd to a friend’s home for a St. Patrick’s Day book group meeting. Each year the hostess and her wonderful husband make an Irish repast for our group. And mid-way through our book meeting they also serve multiple desserts. They make raisin scones too, and it’s for the scones that I usually offer to make lemon curd.

Remembering that last year’s version was too sweet, I pulled out cookbook after cookbook and compared the recipes. Some had nearly double the amount of sugar per lemon juice quantity of others. Whoa! No wonder I was overwhelmed with the sweetness! I should have just gone to my well-used The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Every recipe turns out superbly from that cookbook. With copious lemons on our Meyer trees, it came together in a hurry. I really liked the addition of a few tablespoons of heavy cream at the end. It just smooths it out, somehow. I chose not to strain it (to remove the bits of lemon zest and any eggy things). I chilled it in a bowl over ice and gave it to the hostess. But not without a couple of teaspoons to taste, of course! It’ll be my forever favorite, I suspect.

What I liked: it’s easy. Delicious. Just the right amount of sugar to lemon ratio. It will keep for several weeks too, if it were to last that long. I gave all of it to my friend, so there isn’t any left over here at my house! Guess I’ll just have to make it again. I scaled down the recipe to use 4 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, FYI.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Perfection.

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Even if you don’t own a sous vide, you could make this in your slow cooker on low. And in either case, make the microwave creamy mustard sauce to serve on the side.

It seems that the only time of year I make a corned beef is in March, near to St. Patrick’s Day. Otherwise if they’re available in the markets I just don’t “see” them. I bought mine at Trader Joe’s. And if you haven’t noticed, corned beef is mighty pricey! I was shocked. My small 3-pound corned beef was nearly $17. And it would barely serve 6 people. But I wanted to try cooking it in my SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. For those of you who aren’t into sous vide, just skip down below to the sauce part if that’s what interests you.

Consulting a variety of sources about the sous vide corned beef (2 cookbooks and about 3-4 online recipes, plus a phone call to my sous vide expert, Russ), I finally decided to cook it for 10 hours close to 180°. By the time I decided what to do, it had gone past the point that I could cook it for 48 hours. I was down to 24, so obviously I did the 10-hour cook. Actually I set the temp to 178°.

To say that I had some difficulty would be an understatement. I’m new enough to sous vide that I was in alien territory when I came into the kitchen, 3 hours into the 10 hour cooking and found the lid of the Supreme standing nearly upright, tipped up at about 75°. At 8 that morning I’d pressed the corned beef into the Supreme’s accompanying rack, and placed the rack in Supreme, with the meat on the bottom rung, put the lid on top and left the house. In the interim time, somehow, fluid had rendered out of the corned beef which creates a gas, so there was a whole lot of air in the pouch. The gas/air was a lot stronger than the rack in holding the roast underwater and it had actually turned the rack upside down, hence popping off the top of the machine. So, the beef was more or less floating on top. Not exactly what sous vide is all about.

I had to manhandle the darned thing to get it turned back down-under, on went the lid and I put a bunch of book on top of the lid. No more mishaps exactly. BUT, after 10 hours I dismantled everything and lo and behold, the roast had come loose again and had pushed itself toward the top. About an inch of the roast was up above water line. Sigh. But, since I cooked it at 178° I knew the meat was done. No fluid had leaked out of the bag – at all – and no water had leaked into the roast. It’s a chemistry thing, though, about the gas. Next time I will have to figure out a way to weight-down the meat – something heavy that will sit on top of the meat and not have enough room to roll over when the gas creates inside. I have one particular casserole dish in mind that will probably work. Or maybe I’ll need to put a real honest brick, wrapped in foil and put into a Ziploc bag to place on top – except that a brick might turn on its side, so that probably won’t work. It would have to a a big cement paver just the right size as the interior of the Supreme!

The roast rested a bit while I made the veggies and the delicious mustard cream sauce. The meat was sliced (easily) and served on heated plates, along with some simmered potatoes, cabbage and onions. The SAUCE: it was quick to make – in the microwave. It’s all the usual steps to make a cream sauce (half and half and chicken broth for the liquid), but just requires opening the door of the microwave through several steps. It took about 4-5 minutes to make it, though. Easy enough.

What I liked: perfect texture, still moist, sliced easily, good red meat color. I’ll probably try it again at long, slow cooking, but I liked this one just fine. The SAUCE: oh gosh. Delicious. I liked it a lot as an accompaniment to corned beef. It was also just fine on the left overs.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. I’d make them both again.

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I know, not all of you live near a Trader Joe’s. Too bad! It is just the greatest store. We shop there for most of our food products these days. Today I just want to mention a couple of their newer items that I’d recommend. As you may know already, if products don’t “take off,” they simply stop stocking them. Period. I can’t tell you how many of their things have disappeared from their shelves – because people just didn’t buy enough of them, I suppose. So, since I want these two things to stay on their shelves, you might want to help me keep them there . . .

There are the Mac ‘n Cheese Bites. They’re little rounds (see the uncut ones in the picture) of mac ‘n cheese, lightly battered or crumbed, fried and frozen. You bake them (from a frozen state) in a hot oven for 10 minutes, let them rest a few minutes (otherwise you’d burn your mouth for sure) and serve. I cut one in half so you could see the interior. Absolutely delicious. If you like mac ‘n cheese, you will just love these little guys. They might also work well for picky children or grandchildren. Our grandson was very enamored with these, as I expected he would be. The adults were too. I think there are 10 in a package and they disappeared in a flash.

Here’s the other product. Our daughter-in-law, Karen, introduced us to these. Ordinarily I buy very little dried fruit. However, they do make a great snack item. These are pressed with a ground chile mixture. And no, the pieces are not overly hot. Spicy yes. Hot, not really. Tasty? Oh my yes. Look for the Chile Spiced Mango next time you visit. The bites were delicious with some cheese, I’ll tell you!

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A salad that’s a bit different – different because you leave the Romaine leaves whole (and you could actually pick these up by hand if you composed the salad carefully), drizzle them with a walnut oil and sherry vinegar dressing, then garnish with slices of bright orange slices (I used Cara Cara, a type of Navel), Pecorino cheese and some easy glazed walnuts.

We were going to the home of friends for dinner and I was asked to bring a salad. The only thing I knew was that we were having pasta. I could have made a regular green salad, but since I had 3 Cara Cara oranges that needed to be used, I used a Joanne Weir recipe instead. From her cookbook, Joanne Weir’s More Cooking in the Wine Country. I knew this salad would showcase the oranges beautifully, and I assumed the relatively simple walnut oil dressing would go well enough with pasta. My only deviation from Joanne Weir’s recipe was to use Pecorino cheese (she suggested Manchego from Spain, or Parmigiano-Reggiano). I had a nice wedge of Pecorino with truffles in it and it worked very well with this. I used a lot less cheese than called for – and I didn’t use all the dressing, either (great, some leftover for another day!).

The Romaine leaves (using the hearts only) were separated gently (I trimmed off the base, up about 2 to 2 1/2 inches) and sort of flattened them as best I could onto a large platter. Next I used a big spoon to strategically drizzle some of the dressing on each and every leaf. In case any of the guests ate it in hand, you’d want each leaf to be dressing-enhanced. Next I grouped most of the oranges at one end of the platter (that was the way to cookbook’s photo showed it). If I were truly making this finger food I’d have cut the oranges into much smaller pieces and placed the equivalent of about 1/2 of a slice on each leaf. I wasn’t, so I didn’t. Therefore when serving (using a pie wedge, actually, which worked well), each person took a leaf or two and an orange slice or two. Then I shaved the Pecorino cheese all over and lastly added the glazed walnuts (they’re tossed with walnut oil, sugar, salt and pepper and oven roasted) on top.

THE MAKE AHEAD PART: The walnuts can be baked ahead. The Romaine can be prepped ahead and left chilled in a plastic bag. The cheese could be shaved ahead, but really I think doing it at the last minute was just as easy. The dressing can be made several hours ahead too (and left at room temp). So it was easily assembled at someone else’s home.

What I liked: the fact that the salad was different looking; that the dressing was composed with some walnut oil (I like walnut oil); the oranges, definitely. They added a really deliciousness to the salad. Oh, how could I forget the walnuts? They were good too – great texture addition.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. I’ll be making it again for sure.

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If you’re the kind of person who likes the TASTE and TEXTURE of boxed-mix brownies, but really want to make them from scratch, to give them more chocolaty flavor, this will hit all your buttons.

Surely I’ve mentioned before that when I go to sleep at night I usually plug into my iTouch, using my earbuds, to podcasts that I’ve subscribed to through iTunes. About every 2 weeks or so I need to re-charge it and download all the oodles of new podcasts that are in my queue. Recently I heard or read that Cook’s Illustrated, well actually the folks at America’s Test Kitchen decided to start doing a radio show and podcast with Chris Kimball and Bridget Lancaster. I immediately signed up through iTunes. Each episode is about an hour (no commercials on podcasts, either). When I’m ready to drift off to sleep I generally set my iTouch to play for about 15 minutes and 99% of the time I’m asleep by then. The next night I may go back and replay it if I have no recollection of what I listened to.

Anyway, this new podcast is really interesting. I’m liking it a LOT, actually, and it was on a recent show that they talked about brownies. Through some survey they did, it was discovered that many people like the texture – the chewiness – of box-mix brownies. But the chocolate flavor is muted. Certainly not enough chocolate is contained in those mixes. So the C.I. people began a search for the perfect chewy brownie (you do have to have a free membership with C.I. in order to get to the recipe, but that’s the link) with that wonderful crackly top that is so reminiscent of those box mix types. But one that contained some really good, true flavor of chocolate. I enjoyed listening to all the steps they went through to finally discern that they were completely on the wrong track about the fats – they needed to use more oil than butter. They used a combination of Dutch-process cocoa and unsweetened chocolate in the batter and a few ounces of chocolate bits folded in at the end. They also tried baking the brownies on a pizza stone (somewhere they read that increasing the heat on the bottom of the brownie pan helped make a chewy texture). Their tests said no. Another recommendation was to add caramel sauce to the batter, to add chewiness. Nope, that didn’t work either. And lastly, they were advised to put the cooked pan in an ice bath; they didn’t find that was successful in making a chewy brownie either. It took a visit to their science editor to learn more about ratios of fat and they finally got on the right track.

These LOOK like box mix brownies. And they definitely DO have the texture like box mix brownies. And chocolate – that’s in there too. Plus some espresso powder – I just LOVE the King Arthur espresso powder – it’s a fine grind dried espresso – never clumps or spoils (as I write this, their website says they’re out of it . . . check back). What it does is enhance the flavor of chocolate – they just go together like Jamocha Almond Fudge! I watched the interior temp carefully – the directions said to use a toothpick halfway between the edges and middle. I actually took the internal temp there. At 30 minutes it was 208°. I baked another 5 minutes and removed them without taking the temp again. Maybe I should have. I preferred the brownies from the outer edges – they had just a bit of drying edges, which I liked. The interior pieces were on the wet/moist side. Dense, although they weren’t under done by any means. Kind of like in between brownies and fudge almost.

What I liked: all of the things I was supposed to like about this type of chewy brownie – texture, chocolate flavor, crumb and appearance! Will it become my new favorite – probably not (and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it, it’s just that I think I prefer a little less sweet brownie and one with a slightly drier texture). I do like those box-mix brownies, although I’ve only made one of them once in many years, so I’m glad I tried these.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really, if you prefer this type of brownie. That almost sounds like it’s a negative comment – it’s not meant to be. I might possibly bake them to 212° next time just to see what happens since at 210° the interior pieces were still very moist for my taste.

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A so-very refreshing salad made with some grilled Cara Cara orange segments, some of those ultra-thin rice noodles, crab (or you could use chicken, or shrimp even) with a tangy citrus, garlic, lemon grass dressing. Add veggies of your choice (this one contains cucumber, carrots and mint).

It’s really quite fun cooking when somebody else has done all the sous-chef work, the grunt work. At the class I attended (sponsored by Sunkist, to introduce me to the cara cara oranges), they set up little work stations including one of those free-standing induction cooktops for each group of 3, so we grilled the oranges for this salad (I’d not done that before), made the dressing and put the salad together right there. We added in cucumber, a bunch of julienned carrots, a bunch of fresh mint and topped the salad with some chopped peanuts.

The oranges are drenched in a bit of the dressing, then grilled just long enough to get pretty grill marks on them, then they can be removed. This could be made ahead of time as the oranges don’t need to be served hot. The point is just to make them attractive! The rice noodles could be made an hour or so ahead of time too, although when they sit, they start getting sticky and it’s much harder to separate the strands. You don’t want big clumps of noodles that are very hard to eat. When you toss the dressing into the noodle mixture, mix it around – best method is your hands, although we didn’t do that!  – and separate the noodles as much as you can.

Over the years I’ve learned that it’s best to mix the main ingredients together and leave out the protein (crab, shrimp, chicken) and put those on each serving, so each person gets the same amount. Put a little bit of dressing on the crab too so all of the salad is dressed. You could add some sugar snap peas, some snow peas, some blanched asparagus cut up in pieces, even some very small florets of broccoli. It might not be quite so authentic, but it would be good! Put the pretty oranges on top, decoratively and you’re set. A bunch of green onions would be good in this too, including some of the dark green part.

What I liked: It was such a beautiful salad – the color contrasts were gorgeous (I suppose that’s the artist’s eye in me). The taste: really yummy. I liked the different textures and particularly liked the addition of the citrus.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. We don’t eat many carb-centric dishes, however, so it would be a special treat. I liked the crab and also think shrimp would be a great alternative. Worth making.

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Shall I just tell you that if I’d had a spoon, mine would have been in the pot of sauce, eating spoonful after spoonful of that balsamic and goat cheese combination; it was THAT good. What you see on the right front is a grilled cipollini onion – a VERY grilled cipollini. You might think it’s burned – nope! Absolutely meltingly tender.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a cooking class with James Clark, the chef at Croce’s Restaurant and Jazz Bar in San Diego. He was a very charming man and had all of us 50+ students nearly eating out of his hand (well, not literally). With a few stories interspersed throughout his monologue, this recipe was a real standout. And as I mentioned above, if I could have had a little BOWL of the sauce on the side, it would have been eaten straight. It was just addictive. The class was busy – well, I mean HE was busy. First he made soup, the Croce’s Mulligatawny Soup. Then he made twice-baked potatoes (I probably won’t write up that one just because it’s so simple: to the whipped potatoes, just add butter, goat cheese, parsley, salt and pepper and half and half and put them back into the potato skin; bake them about 15 minutes, along with the cipollini onions), he prepped the asparagus and the cipollini, made the glaze, the marinade. And he made the salad – I’ve written that up already: Pear, Arugula and Fennel Salad. That one was so good. I have one more recipe to go, as well, the dessert. You’ll get all the recipes from this class eventually.

The pork is marinated for 2-3 hours (no longer, no overnight marinade), grilled, then baked in the oven. It rests 5 minutes then it’s sliced and served with the cipollini onions and asparagus. AND the fabulous balsamic goat cheese glaze drizzled all over it. Make it, okay?

What I liked: the sauce, the sauce, the sauce. And the onions too. Pork was lovely too.

What I didn’t like: nothing – it looked easy to do, and some of the work can be done ahead.

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This creamy asparagus soup was our dinner the other night – ‘tis the season for asparagus and I had a big bunch to use up. Nothing very different about it – just a good old-fashioned thick and creamy soup with some crème fraiche and fresh chives.

What I needed was an asparagus soup recipe that didn’t require me to go to the market, so I went to Eat Your Books and found one right away, in Dorie Greenspan’s book, Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. I didn’t cleave to her recipe exactly, but close enough that I can say my recipe below was inspired by hers. But then, asparagus soup can only have so many ingredients, right? Asparagus, either onion or leeks, maybe garlic, maybe not, some cream or half and half (I used both), chicken broth, maybe shallots. This recipe doesn’t disappoint. Our fresh chives are just growing to beat the band lately, so I used a bunch for garnish. And the crème fraiche for a little blob of goodness on top.

Her recipe called for 2+ pounds of asparagus. I didn’t have that much – we’d already had one or two meals with asparagus, so this was about 1 1/4 pounds. But you know what? Soup is very forgiving. If you have a pound – use that. If you don’t have garlic, eliminate it. No leeks? Well, use more onion. No chicken broth? Use vegetable broth or water. Wing it – that’s what I do all the time. This recipe also uses the asparagus root ends to add extra flavor. I liked that part – asparagus is such a subtle, delicate flavor that it’s nice to have more of it! It’s a bit of a nuisance to do because those parts gets scooped out and discarded. I re-arranged the recipe to make it easier. I think Dorie’s recipe has you make the entire soup in one pot, but I wanted to speed up the process and used two.

What I liked: the consistency – I didn’t strain the soup, so it had plenty of texture from the asparagus, leeks and onions. It is whizzed up in the blender (I used my immersion blender in the pot) so it’s a smooth soup. Loved the dollop of crème fraiche too.

What I didn’t like: nary a thing. Just that I didn’t make enough of it! Wish I’d had more asparagus.

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First I must tell you I actually haven’t read this book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil . I have 3 books going right now and there’s definitely not time in the near future for me to add another. But I would like to read it (I’ve ordered it actually), especially after reading the review of it in the Los Angeles Times  last weekend. It’s the review that prompted me to go searching further on the subject. And to write up this post about it.

If you do a search for the title of the book you’ll find any number of links, to amazon of course, but also to NPR who did a review of it. Also a couple of naysayers who have olive oil blogs or websites. And I’m no expert – I’m only telling you about what I read in the article in the Times.

Russ Parsons (the Time’ reviewer), a long time writer for the newspaper, and major food/recipe contributor, is someone I trust. I like the way he writes. I like what he writes. In this article he talked about how, in 1985, he heard from a friend who had just returned from Tuscany, that there had been a major freeze there, which cracked most of the producing olive trees in half, killing them. So Parsons jumped to the conclusion that there would [surely] be a deep shortage of Tuscan olive oil the following year. Indeed, the Tuscan trees were devastated. But that next year, using a little-known fact about the agricultural system in Italy, the olive oil producers in Tuscany merely imported oil from Spain and Algeria. It didn’t matter how much “real” Tuscan oil was in the can or bottle – they could use mostly Spanish and Algerian for that matter and still call it extra virgin Italian (Tuscan) olive oil. It’s also supposed that there was a lot – a LOT of cottonseed oil added to the olive oil too (also okay by Italian regulations).

What we may know as “light” olive oil is actually (most likely anyway) low grade olive oil mixed with cottonseed oil to thin it out, making it less olive-y, less pungent. So why not just use vegetable oil? Indeed!

So based on that, I’m paying heed to Mueller’s points. So who is Tom Mueller? He’s a writer for the New Yorker,  but he lives in Liguria amidst his large olive tree farm. Over the years, he obviously has done a lot of research about olive oil – probably a real eye-opener when he discovered that the Italian rules are rather lax about the derivation of their olive oil. And incidentally, that phrase about “first press” or “cold press” oils – that’s all bunk, because really nobody actually uses an olive press anymore – they use more modern equipment.

I did a bit of sleuthing and found this quote from his very interesting website.

[During the writing of the book, I] immersed myself in olive oil. I’ve traveled on 4 continents, meeting olive millers and oil-bottlers, lipid chemists and fraud investigators, oil-making monks and oil crooks, chefs and government regulators and oil sommeliers, as well as countless eager consumers, some of them life-long experts, others enjoying their first taste of great oil. In the process I’ve learned a lot about one of humankind’s most magnificent foods, this essence of health and flavor. I’ve met olive growers and oil-makers whose divine nectars deserve to be celebrated around the world, treated with reverence and gratefulness. And I’ve seen that they’re losing their shirts.

The book, I’m supposing from the article, tells you which olive oil producers are the fraudsters (his word) and which are reputable. We all know we can buy very expensive olive oil, and we can buy the cheap stuff at the grocery store. Those cheap brands likely contain a significant amount of cottonseed oil and little actual olive oil. Price doesn’t always indicate quality, either, although it should go some distance that way. If I paraphrase the article, it does indicate you should choose an extra virgin olive oil that indicates an expiration date – the better producers do that – they’ll provide a lot number and a use-by date.

Until the book arrives and I have time to read it, I’ll just have to use my trusted brands. I think I read recently that Costco’s Kirkland brand is a fairly good olive oil – I use it for some things. I have several others than are better oils. I also visit a little olive oil store about 20 miles from our house (they carry just oils and vinegars, under their own labels, mostly infused with herbs, spices, and fruits). You probably know already that you don’t need to use EVOO for frying – you never garner the flavor from it for frying – use a vegetable oil (in fact my most recent Cook’s Illustrated, they tested brands of oil and Crisco’s Natural Blend was the clear #1. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in any market. Anyway, their test was preparing home made mayonnaise and using the oil for frying. All the oils preformed differently depending on the use, but this one, the Crisco Natural Blend, brought the best flavor to the mayo, as well as frying. Anyway, don’t waste good EVOO for anything unless the flavor is going to come through. You’re paying for that flavor, be it bland or peppery, herby or floral, and you might as well taste it. So that would mean relatively plain salad dressings or drizzles on things. Don’t use it for frying, for baking, or in your favorite carrot cake. Use a very bland oil instead, like the one above. So there’s your olive oil lesson for the day!

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