Jensen

Roasted pork shoulder (which was served with risotto and sauteed beet greens):

After Monday's roast chicken dinner, I figured the time was perfect to try out this new method of making stock. I followed the double-bagging instructions to a tee, using Monday's chicken carcass and an uncooked chicken back I'd saved from a previous meal. Aromatics included a bit of onion, some celery tips, and bay. In addition to the boiling water recommended in the original post, I had saved whatever "giblet juice" (poaching liquid from the giblets) hadn't gone into the gravy. At ten o'clock (12 hours after having put the experiment in the oven), the Spouse asked if the oven was supposed to still be on. "Yes, it stays on all night." He looked concerned. I got up this morning and the oven was off. My first thought was "that bloody so-and-so". I had falsely accused him however. Apparently there is at least one model of gas oven in the world that will shut itself off if left on for longer than a certain length of time. That would be the same model of oven sitting in my kitchen. According to the Spouse, the oven shut itself off just before midnight. "I thought maybe you had it on a timer." So, my broth sat in the oven for 7 hours with no heat and no refrigeration. It smelled incredible as I poured it down the sink.

The Mary's chicken was very good...lots of chicken flavour. The meat was moist but not watery. Texture was superb; no rubbery meat at all.

I've ordered the big bag of Dead Sea salts from Saltworks and was very pleased with their customer service. You do know that it's not edible though, right?

Bruce, bonus beer? Wow...you lead a charmed life! Dinner here was an ex-pat's Thanksgiving. It's too difficult to find turkey outside of American TG season so I went with a roasted chicken, served with Brussels sprouts, sausage stuffing, and caramelised onion mashed potatoes (think "garlic mashed potatoes" made with caramelised onions instead of garlic). Dessert was a quince and apple crisp (thanks again go to Pille for making me think about quince, which in turn led me to grab a couple when I saw them at the market on Saturday).

It does and it doesn't. On the one hand, it's a lot tamer than spotted dick or some other English nursery food. On the other hand, I can see that it could be a mistranslation or even some sort of dialect difference, as Heidih said. Just while writing this I did remember that I have another friend in the Frankfurt area that really likes to cook. I don't know how she is about historical foods but maybe it'd be worth contacting her as well.

thanks andiesenji - this sounds like it is on the right track. Not speaking German, I might have a problem with this, but I'll let you know if I come up with something. ← I have passable German for reading and, if all else fails, I have German friends (either from Bavaria/Franconia or the Cologne area). Let me know if you need anything in that regard. In the meantime, I've sent a note to my Bavarian friends to see if they know anything of this "troubled thoughts" cookie. cheers, jen

I still haven't checked out the Quarry Ponds centre yet but I did buy a Mary's chicken at Corti Bros. this morning. The "vegetarian diet" label on the wrapper caused me some concern but we'll see how it tastes. I should be cooking it tomorrow or on Tuesday.

I showed the Spouse your picture last night and he came home with a cast iron knob. My pot is whole again.

Better. The Spawn, who hates beets AND caraway, scarfed it down. My recipe is here and the inspiration for that recipe is on Pille's Nami-Nami blog. The only tip I have for borscht is this: resist the temptation to add meat/sausage. I have done that in the past and it just doesn't work out. (Oh, the osso bucco looks great. Hell, the potatoes alone look great!)

Beauty. The Spouse offered to repair it for me so I will send him off to Home Depot (unless I can't stop him from turning one out of stainless steel...once a machinist, always a machinist). Thanks, Joe.

Borscht, made with beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, and beet greens: Thanks go to Pille for inspiring me.

When I saw the stacks of beets at the market this morning, all I could think of was Pille's borscht. So, using her recipe as a start, I made my own. Normally, I would have cubed the root vegetables but the matchsticks looked so much more elegant than I went with that cut. As I was sauteeing the onions, I realised that I had looked straight at the fresh dill in the market and then walked right past it. Doh! A quick perusal of my Gundel's cookbook showed that borscht is not particularly Hungarian (well, it didn't make it into the cookbook) but another soup (Caraway Broth with Poached Egg...which I am definitely going to try) inspired me to season my borscht with caraway. Hell, if I'm going to use a dried herb, does it really matter if it's dill or caraway? Brussels sprouts, cut in a chiffonade, took the place of cabbage and I also included some of the beet tops. I truly think this is the best borscht I've ever made: (Forgive the cropping...the rest of the image was woefully out of focus.)

Well, my Martha Stewart number just disappointed me. I used it to make some no-knead bread today and, after 45 minutes in a 450 oven, part of the handle broke. The handle is made up of two parts: the knob and a bushing that sits between the knob and the pot. It was the bushing that broke; half of it is now sitting on my countertop in two separate pieces. Two more pieces are still clinging to the brass fitting that holds it all together. I'm torn between returning the pot (and probably have it happen again) or just have the Spouse fashion some sort of new bushing and/or completely new handle.

As much as I'd like to think of them as exotic, black beans and avocado are pretty much "every day ingredients" here in Sacatomatoes. Sigh. That would make my life very exciting as I'm allergic to it (or something like that). I've had it twice in my life and both times a single ounce has given me hallucinations.

What a blast this thread is! I love it! I don't make huge shopping trips so my lists are usually scribbled on scraps of paper and are never very long. After I've been to the store, the lists then hang out in my purse until I get tired of fighting with them when I'm trying to find my sunglasses. Then I clean them out. Since I can't remember cleaning my purse too recently, I knew there'd be at least a couple of them in there and, sure enough, there were two. Here's the first one, a list of "must haves" from Costco written on the back of a desk calendar page: Just because the date says August 12th doesn't mean that that is when I went shopping. I tend to let my calendar go out of date often and then make a little stack of pages which hang out on my desk for a while. And on the other side, the list: Please compare to Anna's Costco list above. I feel like such a hoser. "Mex coke" is Coca-Cola imported from Mexico. It comes in the 12 oz. glass bottles and is made with cane sugar instead of HFCS. It tastes just like the Coke of my youth. And a regular "must not forget to pick up at the store" list: Nothing terribly exciting or embarrassing. Obviously, I'm living far too clean of a life. Maybe I should take up drinking gin?

I have a silly question but it's one that's been bugging me since I first saw reference to "the Skytrain". Is this a Bombadier Skytrain? like in Vancouver?

Penne "sauced" with roasted tomatoes, fresh basil, and toasted pine nuts. The tomatoes were done in the oven as (sort of) described by Russ Parsons in an article from 2003. Article is here.

Soo... I don't have to feel silly that one day a couple of weeks ago when we had a cool snap, I made my oatmeal with curry powder & brown sugar? Next time I'll take achevres' tip and sprinkle that with toasted coconut... mmm. ← Heh. No need to feel silly at all. I think porridge is great with soy sauce or a really hot salsa. Mmmmmm. ETA: has anyone tried putting toast dope on their porridge?

Trader Joe's steel cut oats (stored in a McCann's tin...I'm just too cheap to keep buying the McCann's) are my porridge oats of choice. I've just started using MelissaH's overnight method to cook them and am 100% sold on it. I like them plain but, after reading about MelissaH's method, I have tried them with a drizzle of maple syrup and found that to be very tasty.

Wheeeeee! I should go buy a lottery ticket! It's a great dish and doesn't taste like boiled chicken in broth with rice. Well, it does but there must be something else in there. The Spawn made history at a restaurant in Vancouver when she was 6 by eating the entire serving container of rice by herself (there were 10 of us at dinner that night so you can see why this would be a memorable occasion). Peter Green, I am very much looking forward to this week. I'm not sure what I'm enjoying more so far...the food or your sense of humour!

But the octopus salad doesn't look too German to me...and the praying Ronnie looks Thai.

Heh. I haven't seen milk in bags for just over 8 years (coincidentally -- or not -- since moving to Sacto! ). So how did you seal it? Put it in the holder and then pick up the sealing appliance and hold it over top of it?

Someone in Thailand...Peter Green?

Peter, what type of bag did you use?