prasantrin

I'm getting ready to place an order with Kikuya, and I figure I may as well get my money's worth regarding shipping costs. I'm trying to add things I can buy locally, but are cheaper on the website, but I'm encountering some difficulties. Is whole wheat flour 全粒粉 ? And what are 発芽玄米 and 発芽玄米あられ? Some kind of rice, but what are they used for, specifically? I tried to babelfish the information, but the translation didn't quite make sense ("3 dividing you mixing, please try making. There being a sweet taste, it is tasty, is.") Just based on names, is there a difference between 北海道産ライ麦全粒粉and ライ麦粉　荒挽き? I know the former is from Hokkaido, and the latter is coarse ground, but aside from that, I'm not sure what the difference is.

Whenever I made FOS, I use croutons for ease of eating, and I stick it in the microwave to melt the cheese (my Japanese oven doesn't have a broil feature, and my bowls won't fit under the fish broiler). By the time the cheese has melted and I'm ready to eat it, the croutons have soaked up most of the soup! On one hand, it's not such a bad thing. But on the other hand, I kind of like the idea of soup rather than soggy croutons. How can I prevent this from happening. FWIW, my croutons are homemade--cubed stale bread tossed with olive oil, thyme, and salt, then baked till crisp. Should I be doing something different with my croutons?

Whose to say the ingredients used in the children's menu weren't top-notch? I love grilled cheese sandwiches, especially when made with gruyere with parmesan-crusted bread (when browning the bread, add some parmesan to the pan). The cheeseburgers could have been made with freshly ground angus beef, organic onions (tomatoes, lettuce), etc. It doesn't have to be junk food.

I'd like to make this, but only have access to frozen wild blueberries. Is there something I should do to the berries to help prevent bleeding when I add them? So far I've only used them in blueberry pancakes, and I always get bleeding, even when I add them at the very last minute and stir very lightly.

You must not have known very many Chinese/Filipino/Thai/etc. people. I've never known anyone from those groups to shun chicken wings. . . ever. . . I remember when few people (as a percentage) were overweight, much less obese.

I'd love one of those crepes! I'm confused about amounts. They tell you how many to cook for, so does that mean you cook for the number of people who reserved? Or do they just estimate? If people reserve but don't show up, do they still have to pay for their meals? If not, that could be something to suggest to reduce the number of no-shows. With the groups my mother belongs to, you not only have to reserve in advance, but you must also pay when you reserve, not when you show up.

Noooooooo!!!! My dad used to buy those, but never steamed or boiled as directed. Instead, he'd cut it into chunks and fry. Excellent with freshly cooked white rice.

I took a look at the website, and just for clarification--will cocktails be available in the restaurant section, as well? And it says the main bar only seats 10--is that correct? If I make it to MSP this summer, I'll definitely be there! We usually go every year, but we were thinking of trying somewhere new this year. This, however, will be incentive to go!

This doesn't really qualify, but I just found out an exchange student I'll be counselling from April doesn't eat potatoes. And she's German. She's not allergic to them, but she just won't eat them. ETA: I mention that she's German because I thought potatoes were very commonly used in German cuisine. Am I wrong? I'm not very familiar with it, so I could very well be. She's from Bonn, if that makes a difference.

I'd go with that one. FWIW, I wouldn't have used the word "invade", though Cambodia was a French colony (ever hear of Indochina?)

Thanks! I read something like that on eG before (I think a famous French chef uses it), but hadn't tried it. After seeing your fries, though, I've got some on the stove as I type! I've got another 5 or so minutes left of low-heat frying, then I'm pushing it up to crisp them! Unfortunately, no mayo left, so it's just ketchup tonight. ETA: They would have been great if the potatoes had been decent. Darn Japanese potatoes!

I'll make sure to NEVER mention this to my kids. Both of them love ma po tofu, although we make it typically mild like in Japan. ← Unfortunately, I suffered from both those problems as a child. The former explains my childhood distaste for any kind of mushy food (oatmeal), and the latter explains my distaste for things like ketchup with scrambled eggs. I actually don't mind any of those things now.

It was very much the thing last year in Japan, and perhaps still is. It's supposed to be quite healthful, and there are many types and flavours available. Black vinegar was the most popular kind, IIRC. Oops. This article is from 2004, so I guess it's been popular for longer than I thought. . .

I buy canned corn in Japan when I just want a little corn. Frozen corn sucks, and an (yes, that's one) ear of corn is Y200 while I can get a can for Y100. I only buy ears when I want to make pork corn balls or when I have a craving for corn on the cob.

I hated it when I was young because it looked like vomit. Other people who vomit a lot, or who have very active imaginations, might dislike it for that reason, too.

I didn't like tofu so much when I was a child, and I hated soybean milk (even Vitasoy chocolate-flavoured). But now I quite like tofu, and will even eat it without cooking it (is that bad for me?). And as for soy milk, I hate pretty much all US/Canadian brands with thickeners and artificial flavours, and I've yet to find a Chinese grocery store brand I can drink. But there is a Japanese brand I like a lot, and I not only like their flavoured ones, but their plain one, as well. So there's still a chance for your niece. And although I say I'm Thai-Filipino, I'm technically 5/16 Chinese so I feel somewhat qualified to answer.

Everything looks great, but I really want to know how you did your fries. Did you double fry? Triple fry? Or bake? I've got a craving for fries, and yours look perfect to me!

Gourmet Sleuth does conversions for almost every single ingredient you can imagine. It's rather cumbersome, but it works for most things. For example, type in "tomato", then choose "Vegetables and Vegetable Products" then scroll way down for "Tomato, red, ripe, raw, year round average" (or "June thru October average", or "November thru May average", depending on what you want), then next to "convert", type in 1 and choose whatever measurement you want to start with (they have small, medium, and large-sized tomatoes plus an assortment of other ones), and the measurement you're looking for (volume or weight, and it will calculate it. But wear your reading glasses if you need to because they use really tiny numbers. Like I said, it's cumbersome, but it does it what you need it to do. But no rosemary sprig info. This link is the one I was referring to earlier, originally posted by Steven Blaski. It says a 4"-stem of rosemary is 1/4 tsp. dried leaves.

I took a look, and it's a nice fridge! The pictures I looked at showed that the bottom freezer has a regular door rather than just a pull-out drawer (which I hate). But the drawers seem awfully shallow. Could you stick a turkey in there? Do the drawers come out completely if you need more space for something like a turkey?

I think it would be even cooler to have a maid to do all that stuff for me. But (and sorry if I'm being dense), if I have a timer like this one which handles up to 15 amps and allows 3-prong appliances, then it should be OK--no? If I buy the Bunn BTX (the one with the thermos), according to the spec sheet it's 7 amps and only has 2-prongs, so the timer above should be OK, shouldn't it? Just wondering for future reference. . .

For me, new rice cooks up softer than old rice (especially really old rice, if you ever keep around rice longer than you should). I also find I prefer to cook new rice with a little less water than I usually use.

Should one really want a unit with a timer, but also really want a Technivorm or a Bunn, is there any reason one couldn't use one of those on/off timers (the ones often used for turning on and off lights when on vacation) with a unit? Would it damage the unit or decrease its coffee-making greatness in any way?

I posted a query a year or so ago about the same thing--how many grams/cups/etc. is a ~, and someone posted a very good link with equivalents for many different ingredients. I think I have it bookmarked as a favourite on my home computer, but in the meantime, if you check for topics I started, you might be able to find it (sorry, I'm at work or I'd do it myself).

Awwwwww! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It is a very good mango pudding recipe. I don't know if you already have, but if you share it with your nanny and her friends, they'll love you forever. It's always a huge hit with the Filipino crowd. Actually, it's been a huge hit everytime I've made it (and only once was it not a huge hit when my mother made it, and that's only because she tried to put cream cheese in it). BTW, my mother added yoghurt once for some of the cream, and she quite liked the result. It was much better than the cream cheese version. Tangier and lighter than her usual full cream version. I brought back one large can of Alphonso mango puree from Singapore, just so I can make this pudding again! I only make half a recipe, and freeze the remaining puree for another time.

I've been meaning to get this started for quite some time. . . oops. That respiratory infection I developed by the end of my trip is still lingering, but if I don't do this now, I'll never get it done! Day 1--Singapore We took at late morning Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore from KIX. While at KIX, we had breakfast--OK, this should belong in the Japan forum, but since it's the start of my trip, I'm including it here! Look at all that delicious seafood! It was soooo good, despite being older than it should have been. A couple of days earlier, we went to my local Hankyu Dept. Store food floor, and they were having a Hokkaido Fair. I think this was about Y1200, but it might have been Y1600. It should have been eaten the night we bought it, but we had so much other food to eat, that we kept forgetting about it. Oops. After boarding the plane, we took advantage of SingAir's free Singapore Slings! One of my mother's young adulthood dreams was to have a Singapore Sling in Singapore. My plan was for us to find a nice hotel bar/lounge and for her to have her Singapore Sling. Unfortunately, we never got around to that, but at least she had one Sling! Nevermind that we were technically still in Japanese air space, and it was served in a plastic cup. . .She can't drink much alcohol, so I had to drink most of hers, anyway. I like SingAir's food. It's pretty decent for airplane food. I had some kind of beef--maybe sukiyaki? But look how squished my bun was! I think someone sat on it! After arriving in Singapore, we hopped on a free tourist shuttle bus into the city. We were leaving early the next morning, so we didn't bother with a hotel. The shuttle brought us to Suntec--a very large, very disturbing mall. I hate malls, in general, and found this mall to be particularly bad. It was crowded, confusing, and poorly designed, and it had a dirty feel to it (relatively speaking, this was Singapore, after all). But it also had not just one, but two Crystal Jade restaurants. We ended up at Crystal Jade Kitchen, just because it was closest one and we were both starving. Starter--I know these things aren't good values, and we should just send them back to avoid paying for them, but my mother loves peanuts like these. She was quite happy to eat the whole little plateful by herself. We ordered a version of pepper-salt squid. It was tasty, and each piece of squid was stuffed with garlic. Wowsers! I felt sorry for our seatmates on the plane to Cambodia. And we ordered seafood ho fun with gravy (you can order it dry or with gravy). I love ho fun and cheung fun, but I can't get them in Japan. Or at least I haven't found them in my area, yet. This was also good, though I thought the noodles were a bit mushy. It had that nice wok hey flavour to it, though. According to my credit card statement, this cost us a whopping S$35.20, which included the peanuts, two moist towelletes, and a small tip (I can't remember how much I left--maybe S$3 or S$5). It was by Canadian standards a bit expensive considering the portions (I remember thinking the squid, in particular, was not a good value), but by Japanese standards, it wasn't too bad. On our way back to the shuttle bus, we dropped in the Crystal Jade bakery to pick up some breakfast for the plane. I got a cocktail bun filled with buttery sugary coconut filling. I love them. So ends Day 1 of our trip. I've got to sort the rest of my trip pictures now.