tryska

word. imitation is the sincerest form of flattery imo. besides, even with the exact same ingredients - people will have different nuances to the dish. i'm confident enough in my abilities that i'm not worried about someone making the same thing as me. really half the recipes i use that are crowd-pleasers have come from the kindness of others anyway. might as well "pay it forward".

sounds fabulous cbarre!

which end is causing you problems hillvalley?

well i'm glad it helped with congestion! if you have some left drink it tonight before you go to sleep. that usually helps me by the next morning. don't know what to say about the pain tho - that's the suckiest part of the flu - and unfortunately not much you can do about it, but keep adequately hydrated. i hope you feel better soon! as for the oregon grape root - next time i make an herb run i will pick some up - do you use the capsules, the tincture or the tea?

have you had good results with oregon grape root tejon? my trinity is goldenseal, echinacea and myrrh. but goldenseal has been getting harder to find these days, it seems, or you pay an arm and a leg for it.

yeah i know....that's dedication. apparently it also kept them from being gassy so i guess it served a dual purpose. love that that article refers to it as "stink finger". *snicker*

wow tejon, just that quick, huh? definitely report back! mabelline - yeah prednisone is some scary stuff. and you ahve to love that puffy look it gives you. so they are saying it's not just a bad reaction to the vaccine? i refuse to take the flu vaccine myself - i haven't (knock wood) had the flu since i was in 4th grade, and i'll be dammned if i give it to myself just as a precautionary measure. you might want to try a course of goldenseal tea for a week or so if you're not on the antibiotics still. it's great for upper respiratory stuff, and works like an antibiotic, minus the yeast infections.

huh...look what i found mabelline: http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/asafetid.html

are you still sick mabelline? was it prednisone they gave you for the congestion? and pan - i think the food and aggressive spicing explain why you very rarely see sniffling indian people. *lol* of course the traditional cure in india for nausea (at least with my paternal grandmother who was apparently soem sort of village medicine woman) was chewing ginger, and for the runs - nimbupani with salt and sugar (gatorade) and tapioca. (i think that might gum up the works, and that's why it works so well)

it's fine without the tomato as well - but my mom used canned - i think perhaps sauce, in hers every once in awhile. for some reason i have an aversion to cooked tomatoes - so for me, using the fresh chopped and bringing it to a boil and turning it off results in the tomatoes not cooking too much and staying firm. it will result in a thicker "soup" if you use sauce - i've never used chopped canned tomato, but i don't see why that wouldn't work as well. I'd use maybe a half cup? i typically add 2 roma chopped roma tomatoes or half of one large franken-tomato from the grocery store to 2 cups water.

man does it ever - that stuff stinks, but at the same time, if that little smidge isn't whatever calls for it just doesn't seem complete. i've got a tiny jar of it that i've had for years now, and it's still pull, because i jsut use the powder that winds up on the inside of the lid. granted the only thing i make requiring asafoetida is the rasam, so i'm sure this doesn't apply to other indian cooks. i'm going to have to research the medicinal properties of that as well. it's a resin, like myrrh, so i'm wondering if it's got beneficial healing properties to it.

*lol* i use it for the morning after.

oh mabelline - i see - hmm...there are rasam powder bases out of there, but i think once you start dealing with shelf-life issues and ground spices, you lose some of the curative properties of freshly cracked and bruised everything. unless maybe packets were made of just whole spices, but then you'd still need the tamarind concentrate and fresh garlic and tomato. But by all means - definitely put it out on the bulletin board - it's great stuff. cheap and easy to do even when you are ghastly sick. one note of advice - be very stingy with the asofoetida - a little dab will do ya, with that stuff.

*lol* mabelline - it wouldn't hold up. (without preservatives anyway) besides i believe that goes everything i stand for - i am willing to share the recipe with whomever for free tho!

don't discount ginger tea, or chewing on some candied ginger as well. it's a great anti-nauseant. plus will give you some "heat"

strangely enough, busboy - this was a staple food in our house - when we were on a shoestring budget this soup would become a meal, by being served over rice, and topped with fried bits of stew beef. but unaldurated and in a mug it became a cold remedy. kind of like chicken broth i guess.

i was aware of goldenseal - that's one of my favorites for sinusitis (tastes like bitter dirt tho), but i was not aware of fenugreek. i've been studying herbalism on the side for almost 13 years now, and i'm embarassed to say i never have looked up the properties of most of the spices in my cupboard. i hope you do try my mom's recipe - i think it's very yummy. :) ooh - looking back on the recipe i forgot to add some fresh cilantro to the initial "smashed" spices as well. it just needs to be bruised along with the others, and then some more fresh unbruised added with the water.

you wanna know what kicks the ass of anything congestive? my mom's version of rasam: black peppercorns crushed red pepper turmeric fenugreek seed (methi) cumin about 6 cloves garlic and a smidge of asofoetida crush with a mortar and pestle (if you don't have that - i have put it all in a ziploc and mashed it with a hammer before) saute in oil til spices are fragrant then pour in water, a spoonful of tamarind concentrate, and a chopped tomato. add some more fresh cilantro. bring to a boil. turn off. drink like a broth. your nose will run, you'll feel hot and you'll eventually start hawking up gobs of phlegm. it's good stuff. (incidentally - i believe the garlic and red pepper are what kills off the cooties) the flavor is similar to hot and sour soup. (well made hot and sour) as for stomach issues - gatorade, and that's about it - i usually let those run their course.

thanks malawry - that's the kind of thing i need to know - so i'm guessing a butter cream would be too heavy - perhaps i need to switch to a glaze type of filling.

i love ted. thank you rachel for bringing him to us. :)

about the only tradition we really have is drinking. not lots mind you, but everyone, including my teetotaling mom, has a drink on christmas.

*lol* ludja - well i'm actually thinking along the lines of a orange-bourbon-ginger buttercream, now that you mention it. and yes the one's i'm thinkign about making are sweet - from what i can tell sort of a "sesame snap" recipe. or perhaps sesame shortbread. do you think the orange-bourbon-ginger would be a cookie with too much going on? how exactly are the texture on the wafers you've made/had - would they work with a filling or fall apart?

hear hear, busboy.

hey y'all i've always wanted to try benne wafers, and have never gotten the chance. i was thinking tho, that i would make them myself to bring to the office potluck. a question i have tho - would they work as a sandwich cookie? i was actually thinking of making the benne wafers, and then putting a ginger-bourbon cream in the middle. what are your thoughts?

Well, what I have found when gumbo, jambalaya or whatever comes out flat, the culprit is often salt. As in... not enough of it. Cajun cuisine can be pretty salty. They don't use a lot of different kinds of spices so you are pretty dependent on the salt component to bring out the flavors and bring it all together. I tend to add my salt in "layers". That means that, for jambalaya, I will salt the trinity when I am sauteing that. The raw meat will be preseasoned. Of course, the sausage is already seasoned. I use fairly rich stock so there is a little saltiness there. Then I taste the liquid before putting the lid on to cook the rice, allowing for the fact that the rice will be absorbing some of the salt and diluting it out. Brooks... Am I wrong about that? I mean, you can only use so much cayenne. i'm definitely going to give backup on this. i made gumbo last saturday, for the first time. it was a seafood gumbo, and i used andouille, shrimp, clams and crabmeat. I didn't have nay seafood stock, and it was 3pm by the time i got my hungover self motivated, and really didn't feel like makign stock from scratch, so i picked up some clam "better than boullion" (did i spell that right?) from the store. The recipe i used also asked for creole seasoning - just happened to have some Tony Cachere's in the cupboard. in any case, between the andouille, and the plugra i used for roux, and the incredibly salty broth that came from the better than bouillion and finally the creole seasoning, i was quite worried it was waaaay too salty. it tasted too salty to my tastebuds during the final simmer, so i added an extra couple quarts of water. and it still tasted too salty. until i let it thicken up and finally had it for dinner, and it was perfectly salted. not sure how that happenned other than the okra goo absorbing some of the salt, i'm not sure.