Rachel Perlow

Hmm, it worked for me, only now it changed to a different recipe. There's a list of a dozen or so Witch's Brew type recipe here: http://recipes.pocketspoon.com/all/list_505.php (page down a bit). Most are for some type of drink, but there are a few ground beef recipes, two of which are similar to what snacky_cat described.

Perhaps he's supposed to be using Tomato Soup rather than sauce? Yeah Google: Witch's Brew recipe Another one: Witches Brew

Kris, I can't tell from the picture. Is that taco as in octopus or ground beef with tex-mex seasoning?

I haven't even needed the drain hole when defrosting. Get a PLASTIC scraper from the hardware store. Remove contents as above. Lay a junk towel on the bottom and use a hair dryer and the scraper to loosen large chunks of ice and melt the smaller ones. Wrap the ice in the towel to dump into the bathtub to melt & drain away. I do this once a year or so, whenever the ice is getting in the way of shuffling the baskets. Edit: I just looked at your link. That model looks a little small. If you have the space, I'd opt for a larger model, or at least a size up from that. It won't be that much more expensive, and I'm sure you'll outgrow that model quite soon. Also, check out scratch & dent stores in your area to see if they have any cheap floor models. This is an appliance destined for the garage, it doesn't have to be pretty.

Just to clarify, the prices for the identical items they offer at lunch and dinner are the same prices. But there are many dishes offered at lunch that are not offered at dinner that are not expensive, rice plates, more soups, stews and grilled things over rice vermicelli for $7-8; whereas at dinner there are more sauteed dishes and casseroles and seafood selections for $11-20.

Captions added for Jason's pics above. My comments: my mom got Jasmine Tea, which came in an individual Bodum French press pot, very nice. I really liked the Baby Clam Rice in Clay Pot. They also have Seafood Rice in Clay Pot, which I'd like to try next time. The service of this item reminds me of Bibimbop -- the bottom got a little crunchy, I liked it a lot. Some items were better than at other places, like the beef salad (better than Saigon R's version) and I liked the crispy noodle combo dish, or at least it's better than Little Saigon's version. However, Bing Duong in Bloomfield's calamari is way better, and almost every other place we've mentioned on eG has better/bigger/cheaper versions of Goi Cuon and Cha Gio. And, no other Vietnamese place as yet to best K.T.'s versions at Saigon R or Mo Pho. So, it's a good, serviceable, Vietnamese restaurant in an area without any other Vietnamese restaurants (except for the small take out stall inside Kam Man, just up Rt 10, near Home Depot), so it's a welcome addition to the neighborhood. However, the staff seemed overwhelmed, so try it on a weeknight if you live in the area. Edit: I was reviewing their lunch menu, there are several more soups offered at lunch versus dinner, although the prices for most items are the same at lunch or dinner, if you want to try a soup other than Hu Tieu or Combo beef pho, you'll have to check it out for lunch.

Just wanted to note that I did notice someone receiving a martini when we were at the Iron Horse last night.

Which makes it a non-food, off topic issue, IMO. The only part of this discussion that belongs on eGullet is how it could affect restaurants/bars, not the political ramifications and loss of freedoms, etc.

Exactly, so, like Jason mentioned above, there are several restaurants we DO NOT GO TO because of the smoking. These are places with separate no smoking sections, however the ventilation isn't that great, so I am still bothered by the smoke, or there is usually a wait in a smoky bar, so we don't go to these places often, if at all. What I am saying, is that these establishments will benefit from the smoking ban by an increase in patrons like me, who don't go there because of the smokiness. While they aren't likely to lose many patrons because every restaurant/bar is affected by the smoking ban. And, actually, most restaurant and especially bar owners, DON'T (currently) have the right to ban smoking in their establishments, not really. OK, they have the RIGHT to, but do they? No, because it is expected that a restaurant big enough to have a smoking section will have one, and all bars allow smoking, don't they? (read a little sarcasm here, please) So, therefore, this will free up owners to ban the smoking they don't want anyway (besides workers and patrons air quality, smoking increases the amount of cleaning a place needs, doesn't it?), while it is unlikely to negatively affect their business.

What happens to the food when no one comes home to eat it? I'd assume the staff eats it, but presumably, you make a staff meal too? What do you do with leftovers? Do you live on site?This is very interesting to me, don't be afraid to go into details. Obviously, you can't reveal for whom you work, but as much as you can divulge, please do.

For the glistening finish, you need to add some cornstarch slurry.

We went to Kinchley's the other night and would have been willing to eat at the bar were it not for the chimney sitting next to Jason. This can't go into effect soon enough, IMO. It's about time!

Route 80 East to exit #68A onto I-95 SOUTH toward MEADOWLANDS SPORTS COMPLEX (I believe that sign also mentions Rt 46, I'll double check next time I drive that way) - go 1.0 mi , Take exit #68 onto US-46 EAST - go 1.1 mi, to Grand Ave turn around.

There's a lot of discussion of poached above, I thought I'd point you all to the eGCI poached egg class. Poached egg comparison:

The U-turn is not that complicated. Yeesh! You take the Tpke to exit 18, towards the GWB. There is a large turnoff for Route 46, head east. Quite quickly, looking to your left on the other side of the highway, you will see China 46. Take the next exit. Turn left at the bottom of the ramp at the light. Go under underpass and turn left to get back on to Route 46 West. You do have to be careful in moving over to the right as the restaurant's driveway comes up quickly. There are three driveways, the first is for the motel, the second is the C46 entrance, the third is the C46 exit. Oh, and there's a fourth, just after that for some type of truck or auto repair. You can turn into any of the four, just try for the second and be careful. Steven's right about the road work though, are they ever going to finish that? Hmm, coming from Westfield, if the Parkway is more convenient, you can take the GSP to Route 80 East to Route 46.

He's referring to the carosel or kaiton. We've been there many times, but our stack of little plates does add up! I have been there a couple times w/out Jason for lunch with officemates. It is a good lunch place, they have great bentos.

Stan, what is a "cutting diet"? I've heard of the term "reducing diet" to lose weight, but I've met you and you hardly need to lose weight! In fact, you could use a few belly bombs! If you don't want to use the fattier ground beef, you could use extra lean or ground chicken or turkey. However, if using the leaner meat, add extra onions for their moisture content (and/or additional vegetables, like grated carrots or red bell pepper).

A lot of the quotes above are wrong -- the saffron jason pictured cost $40/ounce or $1.41/gram (not $10/.35 cents). Still, a good price if you are going to use that much saffron. I use a pinch a month or so, before having this big tin, I probably bought two of those itty bitty containers of saffron (available at grocery stores for ~$10) per year

That's it exactly, they have attorneys on staff. For a private individual without a lot of money to hire an attorney, receiving a C&D letter is enough of a deterent to have the individual comply rather than hiring an advocate to assert their rights. Besides the whole 1st amendment thing, professional journalists working for big media outlets have legal departments to check on legalities with and defend them if they are within their rights.

Anticipating some questions... - Ketchup was only added to sandwich #3, we both liked it the best. - The waffle chips are unpeeled russets, fried in 50-50 olive oil - canola, at a temp range of 325-350 F. They look a little greasy in those pics, but after draining on paper towels and being kept warm in a 150 F convection toaster oven, they were nicely dry & crisp. Also, the oil level barely went down over the frying process.

"a little mayonaise" That, plus a little celery. What's wrong with that? We had fresh lobster with butter last night, so I don't need to just have the drizzled butter thing tonight.

I never cook lobster at home as I'm afraid to kill it but what u did gave me an idea. ← If the lobsters are small, say 2 lbs or less, I just do them myself in my large stock pot. This one was about 8 lbs -- it wouldn't have fit! Also, since we were going to share it, and I wanted to try the stuffing, it made sense to have the fish guys start it for me. When we got it home it was still warm and too early to cook, but too big for the fridge. Thankfully, it was 30 F outside and snowing, so it chilled on the back porch. When it was time to prep, I removed the beast to a sheet pan (you need something with edges, there's a lot of liquid). Ripped off the claws & arm joints, separated body from tail. Finished splitting body & tail (they didn't cut it all the way through) with my kitchen shears. Set tail aside with claws and worked on the body. The legs of a lobster this size have a lot of meat in them. Remove from body and using a combination of Alton's rolling pin method and kitchen shears, I removed the meat, set aside for the stuffing. I then removed all the gunk and gills/lung sacs, etc from the body (discard). What remains is the jointed sections. I think of them like the leg joints of a crab, there's lots of good meat in there, but at this par cooked stage, it's kind of gelatinous, so I tuck it back into the body and top it with the stuffing (some stuffing goes on top of the tail meat, to protect it from the oven heat as well). The stuffing protects this meat, so after you eat the tail and most of the stuffing, you get to pick through the joints. It cooked in a hot oven (450 F) for about 15 minutes. Actually, this one was too big for us, we didn't even touch either claw or the arm joints. I removed them from the shells and set aside for lobster rolls, tonight or tomorrow. There's more than a pound of meat left! Hope you give it a try sometime.

Think about how you'll use the veggies. For example, lots of recipes start by chopping an onion and sauteing it. So, chop a bunch of onions (count how many onions you started with), saute them until limp, just about the time you'd add whatever the next ingredient is. Then take them off heat and divide the cooked onions into the same number of portions as number of onions you started with. You'll be surprised how small the volume is, probably about 2 tbs. So, put one onion's worth each into baggies (the small snack sized baggies work well for this), and then all the small baggies into one larger "freezer" baggie. Every time you're making a recipe that begins by sauteing or sweating a chopped onion, you've saved several minutes by not having to peel, chop, wash the cutting board and knife, tears, etc.). Just turn on the heat, add the frozen onion, and start with whatever is the next step. I've done this with celery as well. Celery is one of those veggies that usually starts to go bad before I've used the whole bunch. Saute & freeze before it gets too wilty. Peppers don't do as well frozen, and carrots are so easy to find already frozen, what's the point of freezing your own?

We bought a very large lobster (again). This time I stuffed it with a Ritz cracker based seafood stuffing (bits from the lobster's legs, chopped shrimp and bay scallops, a take off of Alton Brown's recipe - hint, have the store par cook it to kill the beast, and have them break the claws and cut it in half while they're at it!). We started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail, and had sides of steamed baby broccoli (new at Han Ah Reum) and spinach souffle stuffed baked potatoes. With all the snow this afternoon (a car had a (minor) accident right outside our house), I was glad to not be going anywhere, even if Ryan Seacrest is hosting "Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve."

That's way too accomodating. You mean you didn't make the dish you wanted to make for everyone and just offer to make her something different? That would have been plenty accomodating in my book. Actually, what I would probably have offered to do would be to place an order of steamed chicken and vegetables (with brown rice and no sauce) from the diet section of the local chinese takeout. Then I would procede to plate everything in the kitchen, so that she wouldn't be tempted by family style service (my usual service preference). :evil smile: