adoxograph

One more day of snow and I will be ready for durance, vile or otherwise. Do the wide eyed innocents lured into your domain get three meals? Are they occasionally allowed to peel grapes for you, or are we just supposed to coo over your masterful sauces? :)

Anyone else have a favorite "leftover" recipe that you'll deliberately cook extra food to make the next day? Quiches and Frittatas are my favorite leftover cooked veggie dishes. Since dressing is done on an indvidual basis (The only way to balance my spartan salad with he-who-must-be-overdressed) end of dinner spinach salad remnants become tomorrow's spinach quiche lunch - I'm having a spinach, mushroom and blue cheese quiche today. Veggie stir fry can become fillings for egg rolls, or frittata fixings, or wraps, or occasionally successfully doctored into burritos. When my SO suddenly becomes ravenously carnivore, that opens up worlds of leftover possibilities. Meat, I have to say, is much more fun for leftovers - maybe because I don't cook it all the time. What about dessert leftovers?

Had a roommate a while back who had the most remarkable tendancy to find the single most expensive/most necessary item from my last shopping trip and make it into a "snack". He sat down and ate a pound of pine nuts once. Like they were pistachios or something. This was the same roommate who would knock on the door to my computer closet and ask me if he looked fat after consuming the bittersweet chocolate I was going to use for truffles, or eating half of my sugar cookie dough that was chilling in the refrigerator. Luckily, the previous roommate returned to town and I was able to give this one the boot. He tried to stiff me on utilities bills, too. This was the worst of the lot of roommates - although I admit the others had food habits that were occasionally mistifying. (Stir fried ground beef with ketchup and radishes?)

Dairy If I have to pick within dairy, then cheese but grudgingly.

There's a Dunkin Donuts within walking distance of my apartment, and let me tell you - that generic sweet pastry smell can actually cut through the car fumes and waft past the pizza place to sneak in our lobby. I am all over the regular Dunkin - you know, with cream and sugar - over Starbucks. However, this is with the knowledge that Dunkin Donuts coffee, for whatever mysterious reason, is better in the Northeast than in the Midwest. If someone can give me a good explanation for this I would be grateful - is it the water? :)

This topic is dangerous, I thought of a couple more: Jitterburg Perfume, Tom Robbins. I have to admit that on my first trip to New Orleans all I could think of was this book and "the Beast" that you had to feed when you entered the city. Oh, I fed that Beast in the 24 hours I was there. That and any book that spends that much time delving into the mysteries of beets is going to make me happy. Another Dr. Seuss - Scrambled Eggs Super. There's your 365 egg recipes. More recently - the spiced peaches and sweet onions in the book Holes sounded much tastier than they appeared in the movie. I'm going to go home an pull some old books off the shelf tonight before deciding what to make for dinner. I think it was Almanzo in Farmer Boy who got potato in his eye.

I swear I thought that said "Maniacally" instead of "Mechanically" separated chicken. Gives a whole new spin on potted meat.

Children's books got me started early: James and the Giant Peach ("I like hot dogs, I LOVE Hot Frogs"), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Hot Ice Cream You Can Eat on Cold Days), the BFG (Frobscottle and Snozzcumbers) and pretty much every other book Roald Dahl wrote for children have great food moments. Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder. In between the descriptions of crisp roasted pig's tail and maple syrup poured on to the snow to make candy this was the first book I remember that made me hungry. Can anyone else trace back an appreciation of food writing to books read as a child?

If there is follow through for Bush's space plan we'll see the retirement of the shuttle and the completion of the ISS. Moving on to the next step, then, what would you like to see in future shuttle craft kitchen capabilities, or on more permanent space settlements? If you could do everything you would like, what would your Kitchen of the Future include?

I noticed that tortillas have answered the bread question for astronauts and wondered how that solution came about. Do you look to other countries for food inspiration or do food options evolve based on changing American tastes? Have you found any food items from other cultures that have provided food solutions uniquely suited to space (like the tortillas), or do you tend to stick to items that fit with the American palate? Although the day to day may not be so glamourous, feeding astronauts sounds like one of the coolest careers I've heard about. Thank you for sharing with us!

Lady T - your mom and my mom must have learned pasta in the same place. Although, if your mom drained her pasta, she may have been a step ahead of mine. :) Mom's culinary skills were amusing - she was great at any food for entertaining (canapes, desserts, elaborate entrees) but had real issues with everyday meals. Chicken, regardless of size, was baked, unseasoned for about 2 and a half hours. Medium rare beef only existed deep in the heart of a roast, or in restaurants. Worst, though, was mini pizzas. Of course we were always clambering for pizza as kids, so this was one Friday night at home solution: Half an english muffin was topped with raw ground beef, tomato sauce or tomato paste as the cupboard allowed, and a slice of (shudder) american cheese. It was then tossed into the broiler until a certain degree of cooking had occurred which may or may not have burnt the cheese but left the ground beef raw or, indeed, frozen. Why this continued to be served I have no idea, but it was better than being hungry. Maybe. Still, she was the one who taught us how to eat artichokes, so I'm willing to forgive.

In "first-footing" doesn't the first one through the door after midnight have to be a dark haired man? I read somewhere that blonds, redheads and women mean bad luck for the house, regardless of gifts... But if someone shows up at my door with a lovely bottle of Scotch just past midnight, I'm letting them in no matter what color their hair. :)

I don't think a vegetarian diet is unhealthy, especially since I'm mostly living on one. :) I just know too many people who have made the "oh the poor animals" decision to cut out meat, or the "well, my friends are" decision, or scariest of all, a recovering anorexic who became a vegan because that was a way she could still maintain that sort of control over her diet - people who don't take the time to find out how to replace necessary nutrients, or heedlessly continue such a diet when their health has been affected. Just as there is pressure to get the vegetarian to eat meat (not that anyone here is guilty of that. :) ), there is also pressure from other vegetarians to stay vegetarian even when you feel you shouldn't. I am applauding this choice because she feels like this is what her body needs.

What is it about PORK, I wonder, that drives our meat free souls crazy? Almost every vegetarian I know who reverted or converted did so following the lure of ham, bacon or sausage. My suggestions would be to start with small substitutions - chicken broth for vegetable in soups, risotto, etc. Also, before jumping in with a triple hamburger, start with small portions of meat. The highly dense protein that is meat may feel a bit, ahem, heavy at first - I know that whenever a proper protien crosses my plate I'm amazed at how little I eat before feeling full. It is truly a disappointment how much less sushi I can pack away. :) As her ravenous desire grows, she can move on to the pound-of-bacon-on-white-bread sandwich. Applause to her for making a dietary decision based on her needs - too many vegetarians don't necessarily take their own health into account when leaving the path of the carnivore to begin with.

crepes with asparagus, swiss and mushrooms. mustard cream sauce. stupid egullet with its stupid subliminal messages. I've been dreaming about crepes all day. too bad it is not even remotely out of my system. :)

Wow. We didn't have cake dioramas but we did have 30 pounds of mashed potatoes that my sister made, including a premium sun dried tomato pesto variety. I think I had thirds of those. As for personal successes, my vegetarian mushroom sherry gravy was finished before the turkey gravy was - and there were only two vegetarians of 35 guests. And it was clearly labeled as vegetarian. I think I might be getting the hang of it.

No cheese smuggler, I Trapped by Pasteur, I long for A simple Epoisse.

I definitely like the strudel idea - I've done one that was kale, roasted red pepper and ricotta (although I mixed in some tofu here), which, as a bonus, was festively colored. Any sort of mushroom strudel would be great too. And kudos for not making vegetarian lasagna. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of lasagna for the vegetarians on Thanksgiving, but it's always nice to see someone looking for more traditional flavors. Or maybe it's because I don't like most vegetarian lasagnas. :)

I may be slacking, but that's only because I had an eclipse and 280 cub scouts to deal with. Can I vote mussels, anyway? I can snag some of them with my preholiday grocery shopping trip and my budget will be none the wiser...

First off, the best thing about being vegetarian in this case, I started cooking and ate dinner an hour later. Bet none of you managed that with your beef. Of course, it made the wait for the creme brulee that much more agonizing. :) Eggplant, Tomato and Zucchini Gratin - adoxograph sticks to the printed recipe. Mostly. We were in the car on our way home from the grocery store when my live-in black hole asked when we would be eating. Ignoring that, we arrived home and I set up to make the gratin. I could live on ratatouille during the summer, so the ingredients were fairly straightforward to me, but I like a robust ratatouille, lemon, basil, and lots of et cetera, so I was skeptical about the minimal nature of the seasoning. Still, I remained true to exploring the book, and decided I would keep to the recipe as much as I could stand. Interesting to me was that the eggplant wasn't salted, but in the sidebar Julia suggested salting the zucchini, so I did. I think this definitely contributed to a less juicy gratin, in a good way. I thought the end result was fabulous, the herbs de Provence wonderful for seasoning, although I did give it a spritz of lemon juice. The boyfriend complained it was a bit too veg as he was getting his third helping. I think he just wanted more overt cheese, but then again he's been know to ask for food without onions. Freak. The gratin also made a great sandwich a couple days later with some goat cheese on multigrain bread. Creme Brulee - adoxograph discovers life beyond the vanilla bean I used the J & J recipe for creme brulee mostly because it was not my usual creme brulee recipe. I love vanilla in custard, so tend to stick with recipes that steep the bean, scrape it in and then don't muck around with other flavors. But I like making creme brulee because I can use my torch, even if I do always forget the necessary refrigeration time after cooking. Actually I loved the orange zest. Perhaps flavor variations in creme brulee are acceptable. Sometimes. Oh yeah, and I only let it cool for about two and a half hours. I could only wait so long. No discernable difference between that one, and the leftover one I had the next day. Overall, with some happily mashed potatoes, this worked out to be a very nice dinner for an unseasonably warm evening - although I love that most of my protein came from dessert. :)

The only way to guarantee complete brussel sprout consumption in my house is to make fritters. It's a great way to serve them, particularly if your guests are less than open minded where they are concerned.

I empathize with your shopping - I'm willing to drive the 10 miles to that Valli's (and the Joe Caputo's on Oakton) in exchange for the affordable prices. (Something about produce signs that say "cents" instead of "dollars") Broccoli with roasted garlic (lots), EVOO, a little romano and bread crumbs on pasta is one of my favorites. Also, with various leftovers, eggs, and some of those potatoes and onions, you could probably swing a few nice frittatas. My two people budget is around $20/week, giving us a potential $10 weekly splurge budget to save or use as cravings or really good sales strike - but since we eat mostly vegetarian, and beans are cheap, we usually do all right. Hey, with some of those ham bits, you might be able to swing some bargain vegetarian meals into something edible to carnivores. :) Can you imagine how decadent it would be to have $40 a day? Feel free to PM me if you'd like to power bargain together. :)

I work at a science museum, so playing with fire is par for the course. Liquid oxygen, on its own, will not cause flames. However, when a lit cheeto is placed into a styrofoam coffee cup containing liquid oxygen, quite a spectacular display will result, especially when parties involved realize that styrofoam can and will melt when exposed to open flame. Moral of the story: Cheetos make good fire starters, and you can't get scorch marks off tables with Windex.

I did my version of this week's menu last night, using the creme brulee from J & J. Will post results of my gratin and brulee in a bit..

I can't believe the ever unholy FLUFFERNUTTER has not yet reared its gooey face on this list. When I need to have one, there is nothing else in the world that can replace it. The Big D Veggie Delight : mozzarella, artichokes, roasted peppers, tomato, thinly sliced roasted eggplant and pesto grilled on a baugette. (I don't remember the name of the restaurant where I had this, but I think the only change I would make to it would be the occasional addition of goat cheese.) Grilled portabella and swiss on a roll, a bit of worchestershire. Grilled cheese Goat cheese, sun dried tomato, cucumber and lettuce drizzled with balsamic on multigrain bread Scrambled egg, cheese and salsa on a bagel or english muffin Tuna melt with swiss Oyster and soft shelled crab po'boy Lobster or crab roll When I still ate meat, pastrami reuben (aka the Rachel in some circles) with mustard, not russian dressing. It was so number one I feel the need to include it here. Oh yeah, and will everyone in Chicago please stop looking at me funny when I call it a grinder? :)