EllenC

Marlene, You are doing great. Your pasta salad looks beautiful. You don't need to apologise for ordering something. Everything will be wonderful. Let the mac & cheese go. Call and order a pizza. You are doing an excellent job. Ellen

Marlene, I am sorry for your loss. I know from experience that anything you bring will be welcome. (We had three deaths in my family in the space of 4 years.) For a cold pasta salad, you might try cooked cold spirals with chopped broccoli, grated carrot and some finely diced red onion. Dress it with italian dressing. No dairy, it keeps really well and even little kids will eat it. I find the tri-color spirals (sorry I never remember the real name) make it look more appealing. Your menu sounds great. Ellen

Timh, Thank you for updating us. I am glad to see you are getting some closure to the issues in your life. I hope everything goes well for you. I have been through divorce and I know how rough it can be. Believe me, you will eventually come out of the funk this situation must put you in and be able to count your blessings. (One of which may well be the fact that you're not living with her any more.) Please keep us informed on where you are at and how the restaurant is shaping up. Ellen

I like cake. My son likes cake and my daughter likes cake. I also have 13 other people at my office who regularly ask for cake. (That would be 3 women and the rest men). When a pie comes in here it takes three or four days for it to dissappear. Bring in a cake it's gone by 5 pm that day. CAKE! Oatmeal chocolate chip Lemon roll cake Four flavor cake German chocolate cake carrot cake You name it - it disappears. I'll eat pie. But good cake is sublime.

I would beinterested in sharing. The only problem is that I have a tendency to "wing it" and I've always been pretty lucky. I will look at it and see if I can re-create what I did last time, cuz it was good.

I can a lot of stuff. Wild blackberry jam. Raspberry jam. Peaches in varieties and flavors we can't get in the store. Peach Jam. Peach Melba Jam. Apricot Pineapple jam. Apple Butter made from HoneyCrisp or Jonnigold apples. Apple slices for pie. Pears. Grape Juice from the grapes in the back yard. Salsa. Anything else I think sounds good. My son goes through about ten or twelve servings of fruit a day. So I firmly believe in canning. For Christmas, my family gets a variety of whatever I canned that year, along with some frozen homemade noodles. I always get the jars back so they can get the bounty again the next year. I can mostly so that I can control what goes into the jar. I know the quality and the additives. I also have a best friend who cans with me and that makes it easier. We set up a production line and a camp stove on the back patio and have two canning pots going at a time. It's also great together time. Canning rocks!

I hesitate to post this because it may be too far out there even for this thread, but here goes: I will never again take hot carmelized sugar and, while swirling it in the flan dish, notice a lump and investigate with my finger. That way I won't have to worry about the fact that my immediate reaction is to try to put said finger in my mouth. Because I now know (like I couldn't figure this out before?!?) that I will have a blister on both my finger AND my lip. Yeah, never again.

This has been an excellent experiment to watch. Thank you for being so brave and shring your pains and trails with us. Now you can share many many successes. Congratulations.

Smokey, Welcome to eGullet! Great first post. You said a lot of things I feel about this site. That's a huge part of the reason I don't post much either. Thank you for saying it so well. Wendy, You do a lot around here and I for one appreciate all of your hard work. Some of my best ideas have come from your posts. Thank you. Ellen

Anna, You should check the expiration date on both cans. I won't mention how I know this because it's not like I would ever put a can on a back shelf and forget about it for two years. However, I have it from a reliable source that if that were to happen it's kind of like the *very* long term method for making dulce de leche. If it goes long enough, that is. Nobody died when we ate it. Not that I'm saying this happened mind you. You are probably quite safe in eating the pie. Next time you purchase condensed milk, you should probably check the date stamped on the can. Some stores are a bit absent minded in rotating their stock. I am sure that is what happened on one of these cans. Ellen

Tips on how to make a fabulous Bavarian Cream? Pretty please?... ← I don't have the recipe with me right now, but I will put it into RecipeGullet either tonight or tomorrow.

This is a really difficult question to answer. There are so many. I like (in no particular order): Bavarian Cream with raspberry sauce Brownies swirled with caramel Flan Lemon Roll Cake - especially if I put sliced strawberries and whipped cream on it Cheesecake Four flavor cake - it's a pound cake w/ butter, rum, coconut & almond flavors baklava - especially when it's still warm Okay, this list made me realize something. I like dessert best when I make it myself. None of these is something I get when I eat out. There are probably more, but those are the first ones to come to mind. I can see I'll be baking tonight.

rachel! you're probably not overthinking this because I think about stuff like this all the time and that can't be just because I'm weird can it? Here is the excellent demo on whipping cream. You can do this with a wire whip, but I think sanrensho is right. Even a cheap electric mixer will save some wrist time. I also agree that most of the time cream is underwhipped. Feel free to go for the gusto. Edited to add: Depending on the attachments for your immersion blender, it might handle the whipping for you. Try it with a small amount of cream and see how you like it.

I have done it both ways. It is more of a workout by hand but it is by no means impossible. If you have a mixer either a hand mixer or a stand mixer will work.

I think it would be helpful for all of us if those of you who think of yourselves as "baking dumbasses" would share what you have baked lately. Or maybe what you want to bake. We can direct you to some recipes tips, techniques. I personally think that one of the most fun things you can learn to bake is cream puffs. I use a basic recipe: 1 stick butter 1 cup water bring to a boil 1 cup flour stir in until it forms a big lump and then stir for one minute more beat in 4 eggs one at a time until fully incorporated I then use a small ice cream scoop to put these on a baking sheet an bake them at 400 for 30 minutes. Mine come out perfect every time. You can also use the two teaspoon trick people use for cookies. YMMV And you will definitely find some people on this board who use different recipes or techniques or both. I give you this recipe because it's easy to follow, it doesn't require any special equipment, and people are always impressed. While these are cooling, make your favorite pudding then whip some heavy cream until it's almost stiff and fold it into the cooled pudding. When the puffs are cool, slice the tops off and use the same ice cream scoop (clean of course) or two teaspoons to fill the puffs with the pudding mixture. Put the tops back on and sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle melted chocolate on top. Serve these to your friends. They will not think you're a dumbass. They will think you rock as a baker. If you don't understand any of the terms I used, please ask. We will all be glad to help. What types of things are you working on?

While I understand what chefette is saying, I think you need to also remember that the guests will not be tasting the buttercream alone. They will eat it with cake. That is going to alter the taste of the frosting. I have used salted butter before in a situation where I could tell people up front that I had changed something and please tell me if you can detect what it is. 60% said they tasted no difference and 20% said they thought it was sweeter. 10% thought I added too much vanilla. Of the last 10% a few said it tasted different, but they weren't sure what it was and it tasted fine. Only a couple of people could tell there was more salt and they still said it was fine. I think part of it also depends on what brand of butter you use. Some are more salty than others. Definitely have someone else taste it before you freak out. It may well be nothing to worry about.

I've never had breakfast in bed. I have served it several times, however. My son in particular loves it. My daughter just wants drinks and maybe fruit. Both of my ex-husbands thought I should go all out and do it more often. None of those people have ever done that for me though. I have always ended up fixing breakfast so I never really thought about getting it... Maybe it's timefor a weekend away so I can try that.

Wendy, can you elaborate... Lack of understanding would cause me to think that too much leavening would have the opposite effect. ← I'm not Wendy and I'm not a professional, but if I remember correctly, it's because the excess leavening causes it to rise too fast. There is no underlying structure, so it falls. That's your crater. When a cake rises at the proper speed, the underlying structure of the cake is intact and supports it.

Thank you for the blog mizducky. It was every bit as wonderful as I thought it would be.

YEAH!! I love your posts and your humor MizDucky. Please Blog on!

I really like this thread Timh. Amazingly enough, I'm not even curious about who they are. I just like the fantasy of having somebody dedicated to serving me great food every day. Thank you for sharing.

I have to side with Jackal on this one. I think it is very unsatisfying to have only one bite of this and two bites of that and no true focal point. I like a main course that has wonderful tastes to complement it - before, during and after. I finally thought of a corollary, but modesty and a certain gentleman's tender feelings prevent me from going into detail...

Patrick, can you give us more details, perhaps post the recipe? As you know, there is a lot of latitude on this one. It might help to know what the recipe is for and the proportions of other ingredients. Thanks, Ellen

So much of the family is out of town or even out of country this year, we only have 7 for dinner. We are having rib roast, Garlic mashed potatoes, Buttered carrots, fruit tray, cheese tray, deviled eggs, cheesecake, bavarian cream, and sauteed asparagus. That's just what i am making. I told everybody else in the family that they could bring whatever they want. I know there will also be roasted vegetables, salad, rolls, pumpkin pie, and probably enough other stuff to feed an army. We may end up inviting every neighbor we can convince to come.

There is a space between the top of my refrigerator and the bottom of the proverbial cabinet. That space holds my Grandmother's silver. All the rest of the space - both on the frige and in the cabinet - belong to the cat. I took off one of the doors and left the other one on. That gives her the cave she craves. I put an old sheet in the cupboard. Now she has a place to hide or hover at Her Majesty's pleasure.