peanutgirl

I haven't read all the replies... but eGullet has given me an online outlet for my OFD (obssesive food disorder... including the shopping, cooking , cookbooks, dreaming, and all that involves cooking). Most of my family and friends don't understand... unless they're eating over, that is. It's changed my life to know that this is a universal habit, hobby, disease etc. I don't post too often, but I enjoy the reading, learning , sharing , and opinions of others. Love the fact that people post pictures of their meals . When I post pictures, they may not be fancifull... I'm cooking for a family of 6. The kids are almost 12, almost 9, 6 and 4 1/2. They dont' care much for garnishing, but I do try,as I always have, to expand their palates. While others at school get Lunchables... they get tortellini w/ pesto or other such sturdy leftovers. From eGullet I've learned that this is typical... and something to be proud since the kids lunch mates usually pick at their lunch since it's more interesting than theirs. Good on one hand, bad on the other. I'm not sure my kids eat all of their food with the friends picking at it. I also enjoy the diversity of age, cultures, regions, professional experience, passionate expression, personal recipes... all of it. I must acknowledge that Col' Klink's smoking class has dramatically changed our recreational grilling fun. It's been about one year since aquiring our WSM and never since High School have I smoked as much . It gave me the courage & confidence to go beyond where no brisket has been before. Then there's LARB. I'm obsessed as is hubby happily. I Love eGullet .

I've seen them all... and feel the need to have them all as well. Lustfull thinking I know. Yes, I am lucky to have a brother to think so much of what I like to think of me and actually buy it for me (at what a great price did I mention!!!). I do feed him well when he's home though . He frequents fleas & fairs quite often, as he is a guess what... Fresh Roasted Peanut Vendor! If you're so inclined, look at Holly Moore's site under Eating State Fairs. His peanut stand happened to be in NC in Holly's picture... as well as the signs; hand painted by me.

Nothing new to add about LC vs. Lodge. Each have their attributes, as others have pointed out. Tomato based things do better in the enameled interior rather than plain cast IMO. I love my well seasoned cast iron pans, dutch ovens, double sided grill pan as well as all of my Le Creuset collection (which is small... but slowly growing). I'm not set on a particular color of LC, so that makes my choices fairly flexible, based on need and size. I just wanted to show some LC "porn" if you will. Some recent aquistions from Caplan Duval ( hubby ordered and surprised me ) : Also... my brother picked this up for me recently at a flea market. It appears to be in "never used condition". It included the care booklet as well as those rubber protector thingies. Best part about the fact that brother thought about and bought it for me ... it was only $17.00 = Priceless!!!

Susan... no need to feel a duh moment ... I would love to live where the weather is summery all year round ( though the hurricanes you experienced do make me think twice), or at least above freezing. Someday hopefully we'll be able to do that. I can see how easy it is to put our North East weather out of your thoughts. cheeseandchocolate... I am most definitely new to larb as you can tell by my questions, pictures and posts. I don't know why yours is wetter... post a picture! I don't know how authentically I've been making mine, but I add the lime & fish sauce mixture towards the very end to make as "juicy" as I think we'll like it. As I've mentioned... I looked at everyone's recipes ( snowangels included) and suggestions.. googled... and went through countless cookbooks to devise something suitable to our tastes. So larb, so good! Veteran Larbsters will likely chime in for you I hope.

Memorable dinners from this past week... Oven fries, steak "grilled" on indoor cast iron pan seasoned simply with salt & pepper, and gorganzola butter on top... salad on the side sprinkled with some of the same gorgonzola cheese. Cross section of bloody rare meaty goodness. I could have eaten the whole hunk of meat... but instead I saved half to be turned into another meal... TAH_DAH Larb . I must be stopped . Grilled on the same indoor cast iron pan one night was jerk chicken breasts along with a pineapple salsa and salad. No picture that night... but the leftovers were transformed into this for a light dinner last night: A healthy whole wheat wrap with the chicken, pineapple chunks, red onion, grape tomatoes, guacamole and shredded romaine hearts.

I have a couple of strange but true combos from childhood. Fried bologna and fried potatoes on white bread with yellow mustard. My mother used to make these and deliver them still hot to school for a special treat. Peanut butter, cream cheese & jelly. Peanut butter and relish ( recipe in one of those Scholastic book club books. The Charlie Brown Cook Book or something like that. I think it was all sandwiches). Peanut butter & butter on toast. My youngest brother loved his mayonnaise on white bread ( as does one of my sons... must be genetic ). My youngest son is going through a lettuce faze at the moment, so he requested a PB&J, sliced American cheese and lettuce all on the same sandwich the other day. I made it and he actually ate it.

Susan... I dug it up because I live in Central NJ. I planted 3 pots ( 6 bucks a pop) last year and did absolutely nothing with it. I planted the same amount this year. Needless to say, I learned my lesson. Lemongrass is not a perennial here with our cruel cold winters. I've read it can winter indoors but haven't tried that yet. I'm wondering... since you live in Florida, has yours ever flowered? Just curious, though you said you do cut it back. With this Larb thread and other recipes in mind I knew I had better pull it up and try and freeze for later use before our first hard frost hits and kills what's left in the herb garden. Thanks for asking , and the compliment... love the pictures and descriptions of your dinners BTW .

Today I received: Feast by Nigella Lawson AB's Les Halles Last week: Real Kitchen by Tyler Florence Bold American Food by Bobby Flay Cooking With The Two Fat Ladies Robb Walsh's Tex-Mex Cook Book Homestyle Thai and Indonesian Cooking by Sri Owen The Flores Family's El Charro Cafe by Jane & Michael Stern Add 8 more for me .

Lasagna last night. Nothing special about it except that I didn't boil the noodles first. My homemade sauce plucked from the freezer was a little on the thin side, so I decided to give it a try. It worked... and it was good. The sauce had finely diced sausage in it... so fine my 11 year old vegetarian didn't even notice, or object. The filling was the usual, ricotta, parm-reg, garlic, nutmeg, pepper, egg, mozzarella, spinach and mushrooms. Please note this disclaimer: I am not Italian, so this is my version. This time anyway. steaming purple green beans hot cheesy goodness how quickly they change! no garlic bread, hence the edible filler ( garnish) of purple basil and pineapple sage flowers from the herb garden.

Dinner last night: Shrimp Curried Noodles based very loosely on a Ming Tsai recipe from his Blue Ginger cookbook.

Tears & condolences here too. Reading your post brought back vivid memories of my Mother's passing back in 1996. Rest assured it will get easier as times goes on... you do have your new venture to help keep your mind busy. Life is bittersweet at times.

We had larb... AGAIN!!! Not leftovers... see larb thread for details.

My journey to LARB began with a trip to the Asian Market. I didn't take pictures while shopping and bought many things unrelated to the making of larb so I begin with the toasted rice dilemma... Bought the toasted rice power , but changed my mind during my prep work. The frozen galangal excited me for reasons unknown . Freshly dug up lemon grass from my herb garden. My "mess in place." MMMM... larb at last . I went throught this whole thread taking mental notes and adjusted the suggestions/ recipes to suit our tastes. For this first time I used ground chicken because I had some in the freezer. Went with the 1:1 fish sauce to lime ratio (with a pinch of sugar & some lime zest), heavy on fresh Thai chilies, big handfull of cilantro, scallions, grated fresh lemon grass, galangal, garlic, and the homemade toasted ground rice. Dessert. Hubby loved it to say the least. The fact that I ate the leftovers for breakfast didn't sit well with him as he wanted to eat it, so guess what we had for dinner tonight? That's right... larb again!!! This time made with chicken breast. Good, but not as good with the fatty ground chicken I used last night. At least there are leftovers for breakfast this time . We'll probably be making larb more often... next time we'll try pork (but not raw) for some extra fatty goodness thrown in. MAKE LARB, NOT WAR. Our new motto. NOTE: We didn't eat the water caltrops... I just bought them for the kids to take to school and freak out their friends.

Larb!!!

OK... I want to make larb. I am aching for larb... good, luscious, earth moving larb!!! I have read the recipes... I have seen the pictures... I just want to taste proper larb first to get an idea. I know I can do it, but here's my dilemma... The closest and so we thought, decent Thai place had NO clue what Mr. Peanut was talking about when he asked if they had it on the menu by a different name by chance... or could make it it on the fly. Very dissappointed... we ordered the usuals and were happy... but not really... because I WANTED LARB DAMN IT!!! Where's the best place in the Central NJ area to sample this obviously wonderous life changing dish??? This is a larbiously, seriously plea for larb help .

" Jeff busied himself with splitting wood,While I smoked meat and cigarettes. " The stuff that makes for a great relationship . Nice pictures, story and most of all brisket!!! Must ... smoke... something... NOW!

Darn it!!! I was hestitant to mention these pumpkin flavored ones. We found them early in the summer and my son whose b'day was just on Friday loves Autumnal/ Halloween things. He loved them... probably because of the cute pumpkin... but we've had them available in NJ for awhile. I plan on going back to our local Asian mkt this week to stock up on such goodies. My kids are the only ones at school that even know what Pocky are . According to them, that makes them cool .

Thanks FoodMan . Chicken here tonight, though not as exciting as eunny jang's above picture! I'm just simply roasting a chicken on a bed of carrots, celery, onion, fresh sage and garlic... with stuffing. Sides will be the old standbys: roasted garlic buttermik mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, gravy, and some orange- cranberry relish that literally fell out of the freezer this morning. Also, since the oven will be on, I'm baking some butternut squash seasoned with cinnamon, salt and pepper, nutmeg and butter which will then be scraped out of their skins and served mashed as well. The kids love it. No pictures since it's plain old comfort food. You all know what that looks like .

Last nights dinner of Chile Rellenos: red poblanos stuffed with sauteed mushrooms, onions, garlic & jack cheese dredged in seasoned flour after a quick dip in the egg batter and into the frying pan looking good a mess of refried beans steaming pot of pasilla chili sauce my plate hubby's plate can't forget the sangria! The kids had bean burritos... no sangria.

I wish I had time to read everyone's responses before we left. You guys were dead on... the food was terrible. Husband said that's the 1st & last time we'll be going there. My daughter said even *gasp* Taco Bell has better bean burritos, critic that she is. El Meson sounds promising. Is there a thread on it already? Haven't had time to do a search. Oh, and thanks for not pointing out that there is no apostrophe in Escondidos!

Has anyone here eaten there? Tuesday is kids eat FREE day so I figure we'll at least get our money's worth... but how's the food...anyone?

I saw this combination quite a few years back in East West magazine. natural peanut butter miso mashed banana I don't remember the proportions, so do it to taste. As I recall, it wasn't too sweet, or too salty either.

Used to be for about 15 years. I decided it would be a healthier way of eating (father had 2 major heart attacks by the age of 42). I still wore leather, wasn't vegan... eggs & dairy... liked all the soy products (tempeh, tvp, tofu)... even went as far (though I still do) to make my own soymilk (hubby likes it better than store bought). I went through 2 pregnancies as a veg. Before even knowing I was pregnant I suddenly started to CRAVE meat. I never had an aversion to cooking it... just didn't want to eat it. Brasciole... London Broil stuffed with oysters etc. Preg Test positive... ultrasound...I was carrying a boy . Don't know if my body was telling me to eat meat because I was lacking something or what. My first 2 were girls BTW... still haven't figured out the connection. I do eat a lot of meatless meals... but having my WSM since the late fall... I have also eaten a good amount of smokey meat goodness. Do boys only cause cravings? My 4th (& last) had me craving sweet things like cookies & ice cream. Vegetarian or not? There's no right or wrong. Eat what you like. I've gone both ways.

Back to work already? That's incredible. I'm glad to hear that your wife is doing so well. Thanx for the update .

7 lb box= $29.95 + $18.00 for shipping. Calimoya Cherimoyas The web site said that due to the show on FTV... they're not shipping until Feb.24th.