megaira

? Does dry ice give off harmful fumes or something? Orcas - they are *the bomb.* I have one and want another one. You can stick your hand into hot oil if necessary and never again will you have to worry about "wet oven mitt=PAIN!"

That's a really good suggestion, but for me, the closest indian store is a 45 minute jaunt. It's easier for me to just buy it when I see it fresh at the store 10 minutes away, and store it. I rarely need more than one thing from the indian grocer, so I rarely go. I still have a jar of ghee from...geez, I don't even know when. Probably rancid by now. Jo - it really truly is a great suggestion. Just passing it on should rack up some good karma. I hadn't thought to taste the sake the ginger's been in. As soon as someone says don't, of course I think "hmm, I have to try that..." Has anyone pickled ginger on their own? Can it be done at home?

I just needed to get this off my chest -the guilt has been eating at me. I posted this and had every intention of going off to start the dough right away. It didn't happen quite the way I expected and the naan and paratha didn't happen (then with all the TG ruckus...). I didn't want to have it seem like I went off and made the bread, then had no questions, or at the least, some sort of comment on it. So I felt I should come clean. I was and am excited that this class was done. I guess I'm just waiting for the mood to hit for a naan and paratha making spree. Meg <---slacker

Best tip I've ever got. I was constantly running out of ginger or going to use it only to find it had gone moldy & it's a pain in the patookis to drive 15 minutes to the store at the last minute...not to mention their ginger often looks shrivelled and pathetic, so when I stumble across nice looking ginger, I nab it. Some lady who'd lived in Japan was on Calling All Cooks & mentioned that she stores ginger in sake. She said it keeps forever and indeed, it does. I don't cut it up, I just throw it in there whole and make sure it's submerged. The ginger in the fridge has lasted me 2 months at least so far. I take it out, rinse it off and use as usual. It doesn't seem to absorb much alcohol, and it would cook out anyway. The extra perk is that it keeps the outer skin soft and it's extra easy to peel. If I hadn't stumbled over this tip already, a couple months down the road, I'd be at your feet, jo-mel. Though, I may throw myself there anyway since I can't thank tv japan living lady.

Ethnic Food Lovers Companion had a recipe in it for their North Africa chapter called "quick cous cous with chicken." I'm not sure how geniune it was, but it was tasty. Though, it was anything but "quick" unless you count the cous cous. The gist is browned chicken simmered in tomatos/broth/wine with sauteed onions carrots and garlic. Garbanzo beans and cilantro stirred in, main spices allspice and cumin. It's supposed to have zucchini, but we had a snowstorm and I was out. Served over cous cous. It was tasty. Might tinker with it a bit.

I never ever bake pies and for some reason, went on a pie frenzy & made pumkin, chess and apple. All three were not pretty by any stretch of the means, but the chess and apple pies tasted fantastic. (he says he loved the pumpkin -I'm all pumpkined out after the bread pudding expirements). The chess pie I added golden raisins along with the toasted pecans - if I'd left out the pecans it'd have become a butter tart pie. Canadian goodness. Needless to say, it's gone. The apple pie was Shirley Corriher's apple pie with flakey cheese crust. Since the pie crusts and filling are precooked and assembled, the pie filling was mounded 4" high. cutting a small slice off that thing is pretty much impossible. The hit for him during dinner was the potatos babka - much like the aforementioned potato souffle, with egg yolks, cottage cheese, butter and heavy cream, then whites are folded in. For me, it was the stuffing... I made two different kinds: a sage sausage cornbread stuffing (julia child's recipe), subbing half the butter for turkey broth (it was being cooked outside the turkey) and adding ground toasted pecans; and a mushroom herb stuffing with french bread. Both were good, but the two of them combined were "it" for me so next year it'll be a mushroom herb stuffing with sausage, cornbread and toasted ground pecans added. Maybe overkill, but I like it -there's an interesting mix of textures and flavors and mixed together, neither overpowers the other. :) I could make a meal out of the stuffing alone.

Glad someone started this thread, I've hoovered a few ideas from it and stashed them away...the pecan pie, the shallot butter green beans & the cranberry jezebel sauce. I also went over to amazon and picked up the Thanksgiving Dinner book since I've been digging through all of my cookbooks looking for just that - a collection of recipes just for Thanksgiving. I needed ideas. It likely won't arrive in time, so I'll use it next year. ETA - I picked my copy up for 5.80. I ordered it before I saw Seth's deal for 1.80 - that's awesome. 4 foot lobster... I'd love to see how they wrestled that monster into the pot. You'd have to steal the Fate's cauldron to get a cooking vessel large enough. We (I should say "I" -I don't see hub participating in the cooking, but I could be wrong) are going the traditionalist route...turkey, gravy, Julia Child's sausage/sage stuffing (and possibly a second stuffing with sweet sausage and chestnuts), potato babka, the green beans with shallots (thank you for saving me from green bean cassarole again) & french bread. If I can turn that all out in a couple days, it'll be a miracle for me, but anyway. Dessert: possibly a pear/apple/cranberry pie from Joy of Cooking. It looked interesting.. that bourbon pecan pie is very tempting, too. I was going to do the pumpkin bread pudding from Cold Weather Cooking, but I'm not sure if I've pumpkined myself out. All I need to do is figure out a schedule to make all this stuff for 2. count 'em. 2 people. We'll have guests for dessert though, at least. Pumpkin cheesecake: I tried out my pumpkin bread pudding on the neighbor and a couple weeks later she brought back the container with 2 huge pieces of pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon whipped cream. It had a graham cracker/butter crust... was very rich, but somehow quite light. You could taste the pumpkin, but it wasn't overwhelming... we liked it. Well, actually, we both devoured our pieces, burped contentedly and lay around talking about how much we like the neighbors.

throw finely minced garlic into a pan of hot oil. hot popping garlic shrapnel hurts!

Recipes for Rodents... Farley Mowatt prefers his lemmings squashed flat on crackers, or puree'd into an arctic gazpacho. See "Never Cry Wolf" for more ideas.

So many pizza threads... I make pizza regularily, we never get sick of it. My first pizzas were horrific, I thought there was no way I could get pizzaria pizza at home. Current opinion: that's horsepucky. The best dough to *my tastes* I have yet to come across is also the most simple: flour, salt, yeast, water + time in the fridge. I make it in the food processor, it's blended for 45 seconds and retarded for 3-24 hours. You can find it in The Best Bread Ever cookbook. It's the basic french bread dough, not the pizza dough recipe. With practice, you'll figure out the right bread to water ratio (I have to adjust being at higher altitude) that works best for you. I mix bread flours (whatever's on sale) and there's a bag of King Arthur all purpose mixed in with about 15 pounds or so of the bread flour. Can't hurt. This dough comes out crispy on the bottom, chewy on the top, plenty of flavor ...brushed with olive oil, the crust is tasty on it's own. It is what I think of when I think of classic pizzaria pizza crust. Julia Child's French Bread dough also works out well when I don't have the extra time for the Best Bread - I'll sub a tbsp of cornmeal for the wheat flour once and a while or leave out the wheat flour all together. You could sub semolina for the wheat flour if you wanted, I'm sure. Another hearty recommendation for the pizza stone. Your best bet for the crispy chewy crust is to stretch the dough thin and cook directly on the stone. I don't think, no matter what you do, you'll get the results you want without one. When using the stone, it takes practice, so be patient and don't overtop the pizza - thicker crust for more toppings, thinner crust for less... if you overtop it, the toppings will jar loose when you slide the pizza onto the stone (most home ovens being low to the ground)...they'll slide right off a thin crust when you try to eat it and, worst of all, make it soggy. You can skip some of this hassle by using a pizza screen and cooking your pizzas on the screen on the stone. I use mine constantly, though, I like the floury "crisp" I get from direct stone baking and prefer it. The screen allows you to stretch the pizza as thin as you have room for (a floured peel will cause the dough to shrink up a little and large pizzas are harder to handle, so it's not always a practical choice). I've stretched some crusts so thin you could see through them when they were cooked. That's a bit overkill in my books...I like crispy bottom, chewy top, thin 1/8" - 1/4". One thing, and I'm sure it was mentioned elsewhere, but it bears repeating...pizza dough does not suffer in anyway from being neglected. Start shaping and it's resistant? Just cover it up and walk away... clean the kitchen for 5-10 minutes, then come back. The gluten will have relaxed enough that it'll stretch out easily. If it starts to resist again, cover & walk away again. Don't try to force it or you'll just end up frustrated and lose texture in the crust you want. Hand stretch, don't roll out with a rolling pin. You miss out on texture when you roll dough. When you're using the stone -always preheat it in the oven (crank the dial all the way as far as you can go) and use the peel, don't put the stone in the oven with the pizza on it or you could crack and break the stone. That and, your pizza time will go from 7 minutes to 15-20. blech. If you're using flour or cornmeal on the stone, have something handy to brush the exess off the stone between pizzas. Burning flour isn't a nice smell...burning cornmeal smells horrendous. Expect to have to use a lot of practice, expect to tinker with different sauces until you find one you like (took me at least a year to find one I really liked)... try out different cheeses, but remember to take into account water and fat content of cheeses combined with toppings and sauce...swiss or chedder (not my favorite anyway) will leave you with a nice pool of fat on top. Whole milk mozzerella is wonderful, but the high water content (as someone mentioned in another thread) will leave you with a puddle as well, so either drain it, or use sparingly and not in conjunction with a real wet sauce. It's actually pretty good on a crust that's just had a light brushing of olive oil -it's often wet enough to make it's own sauce of sorts. Vegetables - some vegetables have higher water contents. I generally don't have a problem with them unless I go overboard, or, I do a deep dish pizza. Onions and green peppers are usually the biggest culprits, just be aware when using them they can sog things up on you. mushrooms sliced large as well... smaller dice does not seem to present such a problem. I could probably write out a book on this topic, as it is truly one of my favorite foods. Everyone teases me about this pizza for the bubbles (I LOVE the bubbles), it's one of my thick crust "normal" pizzas: Good luck! There's nothing that beats the satisfaction of making a pizza that's better than a chains for 3$ when they're shooting out subpar quality pies for 10-15$ or, one place in denver, a large (albiet darned good) cheese wheel for 20$!

You just made my day. Ah, so it's my inner lesbian that's drawn to the thai. I hadn't thought of it in that way...that's a really good point. I usually feel bad that I invited the person over for a meal, they've waited for it and here it isn't as nice as it should have been, but it hadn't occured to me it could come across as though my ego hinges on my cooking (well, it does, sometimes, but they don't need to know that). Or that I'd be pointing out something they hadn't noticed and thereby making it noticeable. I should probably realize they're likely visiting to visit with me, not the food -if it turns out great, it's a bonus...and if not, well, they'll survive or hit up mcdonalds on the way home. Hm, I'll make a point to stick a sock in it next time I start feeling the urge to apologize all over the food and wreck it completely. Thanks for pointing that out.

Keep the cutting board. Give me your kitchen.

jschyun that would drive me out of my head. The first time he complained I was a bad cook, I'd smack the crap out of him with his box of pasta roni. How dare he claim such a thing when he doesn't like anything worth writing home about in the first place. augh! I'm 50/50 both on my own and other's cooking. I am uber critical of my own or a restaurant's... other home cooks, pretty much not, though, I get tangled up in the desire to help the person make something better and the commen sense to shut my mouth. I'll start to say something before I can stop myself, then catch myself, then talk myself into a corner like an idiot and then abruptly shut up. I'm a horrible liar - I just make a mess of it -so even though I've been taught that you eat what's in front of you and smile like crazy - the "NEVER LIE" lesson comes screeching to the surface. It must be like watching 2 kids on bicycles crash in the street. You can see it coming & can't seem to do anything to stop it and of course, it's just awful to watch as it plays out. On the way home I get the full sense of that mangled bike laying there with the one warped wheel still rotating in a drunken wobble and spend the rest of the drive flogging myself. I'm going to be the most meddlesome mother that ever did exist one day, I can just see it. Anyway. My success rate for stuff that turns out tasty vs. "hmm, it's off" is about 60/40. It depends what I'm making and how much practice I've had at it. I loooove my own burgers and I prefer my own pizza, stew, chili...but, it doesn't mean I don't like other's cooking as well. I laughed at the fence kicking in comment above because I so totally relate to it. I get really stressed out when I screw something up. For the longest time, my kitchen was a place that drunken sailors would feel completely at home (or intimidated). I'm getting better about it now -but I'm not sure if it's due to practice or actual charector adjustment. Did say "shit" a couple times in front of Hubby's 80 year old grandmother the other week. oops! In the back of my head I know how ridiculous I look and sound, but...well...ah well. Personally, I don't often get insulted over people not being all that keen on what I've made - I just feel bad that it didn't turn out or wasn't as good as it should have been. I usually know it turned out kinda crappy and am already feeling guilty and apologizing off the bat, so they don't really get the chance anyway. I tend to expect constructive criticism from people I know and like. It took me a while to point out to Hub that if he didn't offer his opinion, I'd have no idea what I could change. I know him also, though, to be the kind of person who would never, ever say "this sucks" or "this tastes like crap" to me. There's constructive criticism, then there's jackassisms. One exception, houseguests during an indian dinner I'd spent all afternoon making: *pick pick, make a face* "this is....different." I felt like saying "yes, not all food in the world is pizza and hotpockets, amazing, isn't it?" and digging in. Their comments on thai, without even having tried it: "it smells like ass" they described indian as "smelling like BO." Ah, I like the ass smellin, BO reekin food. Go eat your bland, generic crap and leave me to enjoy my food in peace.

Comfort Me got worked up! I really hope they didn't have the nerve to criticize this while they were in your home eating your food. That, IMO is the difference between a "working kitchen" and one that is just there for looks and hamburger helper. I'm sure all of us would like a fancyass huge kitchen with all the latest gizmos and geegaws, but most of us don't have 50 friggin grand to spend on it. Allowances have to be made for efficiency and practicality and fancy pants be damned. Let them wack themselves in the head with the cupboard doors every night. Julia's kitchen isn't pretty, but I doubt there's a person on the planet that could justifiably say that what comes out of it isn't fantastic. Jamie Oliver's kitchen isn't pretty to look at (well, I'm kind of a non urbanite at heart), but you can tell from one look it's a working kitchen. Bah! How is it their business anyway!?! I started writing out a post about my kitchen's state of cleanliness and found myself getting really aggravated in the process...so I cancelled it out and now, I think I'll try again & just sum up: Hub is a bit of a slob, and while I crave organization, I also have some pretty heavy ADD going on. The end result is that the kitchen is trashed at mind boggling speeds. I hate cooking in a dirty kitchen and having to clear out a space to chop veggies...I like to have it cleaned up first, then clean up as I go -that generally works out the best (but doesn't always happen). I'd be a big fat liar, though, if I said I didn't lapse into periods of flagrant slobbery. Those are the time periods where we eat a lot of takeout or I ask hub to grill. I know, I know, I'll drive 10, 15 minutes up to town to go get takeout...making a 30 minute round trip...just to avoid having to cook in a kitchen that would take 15 minutes to clean up anyway. Guests are not to clean up unless it's a group gathering with Hub's family where the women have been cooking: they have a "tradition" that the women cook or work on the food and the guys clean up later. That's fine by me. Otherwise, no guests cleaning up. It depends on the person and situation as to whether I'll accept help. I also make exception to the one set of houseguests who invite themselves out to visit every so often. I wish to god they'd help clean up after meals. It's a pain in the ass to figure out what they want to/will eat, I get sick of cooking for them all together because of their nitpickiness and attitude and I hate cleaning up after them alone in the kitchen while they just wander off and do whatever. Hub usually helps clean up when they're here, more as a blatent hint to them to help, but they never do. I'm hoping we'll be moved before the next time they decide they want to come out and we'll oops, forget to give a fwd'ing address.

Thank you both for taking the time to do this for us... it is greatly appreciated. I'm going to make the naan & paratha this afternoon, I'll pester you with questions then if I have any.

Ex True Love one chest freezer Industrial size rolls of tinfoil & saran wrap roasting pan large enough for very large turkey...or geese...or swans, maybe a partridge bulk container stuffing mix stock pot large amounts celery, carrots, onion milk glasses tart shells for pears Jessica Simpson: Chicken of the Sea Micheal Jackson: Fruit Loops Mixed Nuts Ron Jeremy: heavy cream Dannon's La Créme Pop Tarts Milky Way Butterfinger Mounds Polish Sausage Bulk Cheese Bulk Shampoo Peaches Melons Cherries Kumquats Passion Fruit Clam juice (ew sorry) Oysters Tuna Taco mix Lays lotus root Popeye: Spinach Yams Alton Brown: see Fantasy Hardware Store List Neo: a spoon. Harry Potter: Lucky Charms Trix Dell Dude: Stoned Wheat Thins Jones Soda Munchos Robert Downy Jr. bulk coffee bulk asperin Jason: Shreddies (canadian cereal, like "Life")

1 albatross 1 ex-parrot and a coconut. halved.

Ahhh, ok... I noticed a bit of teasing going on in the palate thread along the same lines & wondered. Skinless Boneless Breasts I get (well, I think: you're paying for someone to essentially peel off the skin and detach the breast - a simple thing to do at home for half the price?)... I'm curious about the turkey. I think the sugary burn in it that you dislike, is a vinagry bite that I like. I'm a sucker for sour/tart flavors - lemon, vinegar, lime, some pickled things (I secretly devour entire containers of pickled ginger in the privacy of my own home & must restrain myself to keep from gobbling it up at a sushi bar). Thanks... none taken. I thought at the time that the chance to say "why not try this" was lost (the lemon zest/tart cider sounds like a great idea and I'll certianly give it a try. Thanks!). I figured instead of getting worked into a pride poked huff, I'd go off and do some homework on the grilled cheese itself... I ended up yanking out the John Thorne again. His writing always sparks a food craving of some sort, so you indirectly did my appetite a favor. Tommy:

Welcome to eGullet... Ask & ye shall receive.

I did the same thing with this book. I borrowed it form the library and made the italian-american lasagne. It was a bit heavy on the ricotta for my tastes (or, perhaps I wasn't using good enough quality ricotta), but the italian american meatsauce was very good... I enjoyed that and her writing well enough to go buy the book (I've read the whole book -very enjoyable). I found it at Marshalls, btw, for 12$. Last night, due to the grilled cheese thread, I went ahead and made tomato soup from a Cook's Illustrated anathology (I think it was nov/dec 2000). I had no shallots so subbed onions and garlic...I went a bit heavier on them than I should have, so next time, I'll just go out and get the shallots. It was otherwise terrific. Had weak bread for grilled cheese, so it took a back seat to the soup all together. Tonight I did the usual friday night with company over pizza. I make pizza often and well, so it's the "safe" food to make for guests...but, sadly, a gremlin was in my kitchen. I goobered something on each pizza. They still turned out good, but not as good as I'd have liked for company. edit - 10 points if you read and saw how many times I said "tonight" in one friggin paragraph.

I'm not sure when grilled cheese has ever been considered a gourmet item. It was my understanding that it has always been a comfort food to most, not "some" and were it not, I'm sure one could just as easily criticize the choice of plain white bread, american cheese or velveeta or *gasp* the use of butter flavored spray in the pan as "grotesque." Personal taste is not grotesque. I find certian southern offerings odd, but, people like them and perhaps it should be looked into why those foods are liked rather than turning up the nose at the food choice itself. John Thorne wrote an essay devoted entirely to bread and cheese in which the grilled cheese played a significant part. He was a Campbell's soup dunker, also, he dunked his sandwich in sweet pickle juice. He discusses to some extent the history of the grilled cheese, which is, in his understanding a relatively new creation adapted from the bread/cheese combinations that were originally the working man's meal. That does not seem like hauté cuisine to me. Food, to me, forms community and it is a creative outlet as well. I'm always excited to bond with people over shared tastes and always eager & willing to be enticed into new ones. You apparantly have a more educated palate than I, and more food experiance - that could have been an opportunity to educate rather than criticize. Noting the "I like ketchup's tanginess," you might have suggested an alternative method to achieve a similar effect to the contrast between buttery, cheesy fatty richness in the sandwich & the acidic, sweet, tangy contrast of the ketchup that I like so much & l'd have jumped on it & probably thanked you for the suggestion. FWIW, my mother served stewed tomatos with grilled cheese when I was 5. I hated it - it was a bland, soggy counterpart. I want rich, concentrated flavor and tangy, slightly acidic sweetness to go with my grilled cheese. The honey mustard mentioned in Jaz's post sounds creative and it is also a combination of sweet/tangy that might just hit the spot. Myself as well. My mom had some odd things that were unique to her she liked to make and every once and a while I get a craving for them (ex. the grilled cheese with miracle whip and onion). I griped at one point about how my family had no "culinary tradition" and we didn't really have recipes that we passed down or that I'd learned from grandma, etc. But it's interesting to me how little things like this become their own micro-traditions. It binds you to your family a little closer to share the same taste, especially when it is something that to outsiders at the time seems 'odd.'

It's the oreo/milk paradox! Soup/dipping... ah, see, I dipped right off the bat and it turned into a soggy, bland mess. Not dipping makes much more sense...and a sharp chedder would be good. Still like my ketchup though.

Yeah yeah, no one's making YOU eat it.

is that the butter top stuff in the yellow bag? That used to be my favorite. Still is wonderful and also the perfect bread for a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Peanut butter on one side, goops of honey across the top of the PB, smack slices together, refrigerate. The honey seems to soak into the bread & crystalize and it gets a nifty texture. Tastes just like a reese's cup to me. Crap, I'm hungry, dinner's cooking and suddenly that sounds *really* good. Rachel... do you dip your grilled cheese into the tomato soup or eat it seperate? etf grammatical error, made it look like I thought Reese's are crap and therefore the sandwich tastes just like crap!

btw -am I the only one that does *not* like grilled cheese with tomato soup? Ketchup is nice and tangy for dipping, the soup is...soup. Even if it's good, rich tomato soup, they seem to make each other bland to my tastes. Or am I a barbarian that I dunked my sandwich in the soup right off the bat?