Jump to content

Kayakado

participating member
  • Posts

    238
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Kayakado

  1. Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons talks about this. You can also eat the young stalks of the Cat Tails sauteed in garlic and butter, "Cossack Asparagus". From what my northern friends tell me cat tails are soon to be a thing of the past, they are being pushed out by some type of Asian grass
  2. Since I use a lot of canning jars (wide mouth quarts and pints) I can just remove what I want and reseal them. I rarely reseal bags, you have to leave a lot of extra bag to do that. Most of the times the bags are too dirty in the corners and I am bad about washing them and hanging them to dry, so I toss the used ones. I don't like the messiness in my frig or freezer of all those bag ends hanging out. When I use the wide mouth jars, I can just defrost slighty and slip the contents out, that won't work with a normal canning jar with a shoulder. I can also easily seal liquids in a jar without sucking the liquid into the machine, - a problem with using liquid and bags.
  3. I have a grape vine in my backyard, but I only seem to get enough grapes to make a few glasses of a wonderful pink grape juice. Most of it goes to the birds and squirrels. I guess I should get more proactive, it would make a beautiful pink grape jelly.
  4. I agree with all the cons. They were demo'ing these at Sam's Club the other week with broccoli. I think they were doing a brisk business on the taste of the broccoli alone. Of course, most of the customers enthralled with them had probably never had fresh steamed broccoli before. I live in the south where they boil everything for hours with a ham hock. If it started out green, it won't be when they are done. My elderly neighbor was ready to buy. I just bought a bag of the fresh broccoli and told her I'd show her how to make some in a bowl in the microwave.
  5. I agree they deteriorate over time. I had been nursing along a bunch of old stuff that I couldn't replace until Penzeys arrived in town. One sunday morning, I sat down and went through my two spice drawers and threw away almost everything. I finally convinced my mother to do the same thing when I gave her some paprika and she used it in the same quantity that she had been used to with her old stuff. It knocked her socks off, she had no idea that paprika could be so strong. She thought it was just for color.
  6. I love PB mixed with chopped bread and butter jalapenos which has just a touch of cream cheese added to the PB to make it more spreadable. Someone also mentioned cucumber which is great too especially on really dense homemade whole wheat bread.
  7. I've heard of the refrigerator with the bar scanner but alarms and a screen that listed what needed to be used right away with a link to suggested recipes to get you excited about using the old stuff would be great. I am now wondering if I could use my brisker for bread. If anyone doesn't know a brisker is a large bread box with a small heater to keep crackers and cookies fresh. I am wondering if I will pull the cabinets down if I mount one of those old wrought iron roll holders like butchers use under my cabinets. I have large rolls of parchment and aluminum foil that are living on my dryer but really need to be on some sort of dispenser roll. They are too big to fit on a paper towel rack and I'd like a nice sharp cutting edge, so just a roller doesn't cut it..
  8. I use only steel cut oats. I wash off the oats before I cook them. I either put the water on the stove to boil while I fix coffee or put the dishes in the drainer away and then turn down to simmer and add the oats while I get dressed or I put them in a small crock pot the night before and let them cook on low overnight and they are ready when we get up. We also cook enough oats for a few meals at a time and reheat them as needed.
  9. I live alone and found the best solution for cheeses and other foods was a food saver machine. I got one at a close out store for about 75% off the list price. It certainly paid for itself in stopping food from going bad. I found vacuuming sealing stuff in wide mouth canning jars to be better than bags for most stuff. No air = no mold, no dehydration. I can cut an 8oz block of cheese in thirds and seal them up and they keep for months and months. I used to lose volumes of sour cream, cheeses (hard and soft) ricotta, berries, lunch meats, milk, etc to mold before I started vacuum sealing. I can keep fresh blueberries for 2 weeks without them getting moldy. I even found it to help keeping that half sweet pepper, celery or onion fresh longer. I make a whole pot of pasta sauce, stew, soup and ladle it into canning jars, vacuum seal and freeze for later. Pint jars are enough for 2 meals for me. Can you tell I love this thing???
  10. I found the Wilton books to be of great help, as well as Colette peters books.
  11. You might look up the Titanic Historical Society (THS). If you can't find them, they used to store their collection with the Philadelphia Maritime Museum (PMM). PMM had a Titanic exhibit years ago and the living survivors attended. The PMM research librarian ought to be able to help or put you in contact with the THS.
  12. I got four Tramontino brand 3½qt enamel over cast iron at Wally World for just under $30. Perfect for no-knead bread. They can't keep them stocked in the store, so I had to order them online for pickup at the nearest store (no shipping charges that way) I bought so many, since once the family saw them - they all wanted one.
  13. I just finished "Writing at the Kitchen Table", a bio about Elizabeth David. Very nice read about someone I knew little about.
  14. My new favorite resource is www.worldcat.org The cookbooks of the world are at my fingertips thanks to Interlibrary Loan! I love it. I see a posting or read about a particular book, my library brings it to me at the click of a mouse.
  15. See if you can find a copy of Dede Wilson's book "Wedding Cakes You Can Make". She has some good recipes for cakes but also for syrups to brush on the cakes to give them moistness and intensify the flavor. Too moist a cake may not have enough structure to stack. Dede also explains stacking. Once you find a recipe for cake you like, actually making a test cake exactly like the finished cake would be the prudent thing to do. What works in a two layer may not work in a 3 or 4 layer construction. I got Dede's book through interlibrary loan from my local library.
  16. My brother and mother love his rotisseries. I've never seen it in action or tasted any food from it - I live too far away. His FIL gave it to my SIL and they usually stuff his gifts away in a closet but they actually use this one. It's one of these Showtime Rotisseries from Ron Popiel www.ronco.com
  17. I am waiting for Roland Mesnier's cake book due out this fall (Basic to Beautiful Cakes). He was the white house chef for many years. I have high hopes for it. His dessert university is good but a little light on decorating, although he covers chocolate clay and blown sugar work. The best books to get started with actual decorating are the Wilton books when it comes to piping techniques, equipment, and applications. Their ready made edible products suck and their recipes aren't much better, but they do give good basic instruction for buttercream, fondant, and gumpaste application techniques. Rose Levy Berenbaum's Cake Bible has the best clear and concise information that tells you about cakes, icing, fondant, frosting, recipes, decorating, and baking. I would get her book if I could only get one! I only wish she had more pictures. I like Colette's books, but they leave out a lot of information, maybe too much for a beginner. I have all of her books except for her the Christmas one. It is out of print. I use them mostly for inspiration. If you are into more formal wedding type cakes these books would be good. I like Lindy Smith and Debbie Brown for kids cakes that are more 3-D and fun. I wasn't impressed by the Whimiscal Bakehouse book. Margaret Braun's Cake Walk is expensive but she really was the first to do Faberge style cakes. All these cake artists have websites, if you google their name and go to their website you can see cakes and sometimes excerpts from their books.
  18. Kayakado

    Rock candy

    I went back and looked at my directions for rock candy and it says not to disturb it, stir or move it.
  19. I made bread for years in a food processor before I got a KA or bread machine. I actually got the bread machine before the KA. The advantage of having a bread machine is that you can set it and forget it (where have we heard that) and it bakes the bread in the machine. A great plus when all the other ovens (I have 3) in the house all full - like big holiday meals and you are trying to do many things at once. The FP and the KA make great bread and do other things besides but you still have to be there periodically to interact with the dough unlike a machine.
  20. Pottery sieves go up to 100 mesh http://www.baileypottery.com/studioaccesso...accessories.htm
  21. Kayakado

    Rock candy

    Maybe the humidity is an issue. The process depends on the water evaporating. You can use those crystals to seed the new strings to build larger crystals. The larger the starting crystals the larger the resulting crystals but it should only take about 7 days. Do you have any of the large decorating sugar to try as seeds?
  22. Any stores that carry art supplies for ceramics or glass, or chemistry lab supplies sells all kinds of mesh strainers (stainless steel) in all kinds of mesh sizes.
  23. Artwork that certainly offers a jolting contrast. As for fondant, Wilton is the one most found on the shelves and it is nasty industrial stuff. Wilton gives fondant a bad name. Despite numerous complaints, they just don't care. I make my own fondant which tastes great! I once went to an exhibit in San Antonio. I can't remember the artist name or theme but the whole gallery was filled with calves in various state of butchering. All were skinned and some pieces were just raw meat hunks or internal organs in various states of repose. A jolting site and smell (it was over 90). I like weird art but this had crossed the line for me. It was the gallery opening for this exhibit, so they were serving food and drink, ugh!!!
  24. I bought some of these and was disappointed that they don't stack. The bottom is too big.
  25. I have a Salton that was given to me about 30 years ago and it is still working. It holds 6 ½ pint glass jars. I used it a lot. It is very convenient, just make it in the jar, refrig it in the jar and eat it out of the jar. If I broke the jars I'd just sub ½ pint or pint canning jars. I've seen at goodwill and the thrift stores going for $5.
×
×
  • Create New...