chickenlady

We did little bitty Scotch eggs using quail eggs at a party we catered once. They the absolute number one hit at the party. People were actually coming into the kitchen to be first in line when another batch was ready.

Best omelette ever!! Thanks! In "The Making of a Cook" Madeleine Kamman claims that overbeating will cause the egg proteins to liquefy and lose their ability to develop volume, resulting in hard flat omelettes.

I do have my own flock of chickens, so yes, these eggs are very fresh--both were laid earlier the same day. As to my water, I have well water that goes through a water softener. Former city girl here, so I'm not sure what all that may imply. I really didn't have any problems with the egg setting up as it should, just the one coughed up the yolk when it floated to the top. When my eggs initially sink to the bottom, they stick slightly to the bottom. Perhaps when this one came loose, the white was damaged just enough to allow the yolk to escape. I was using an exceptionally thin enameled sauce pan to heat the water, so that was certainly not ideal. As to my other question: Are eggs supposed to float while poaching? I promise to do better with omelettes--provided my ladies have done their jobs today!

Okay, poached eggs have got to be my #1 way to eat eggs. But making them is the surest way to send me along my way to complete emotional breakdown. I make a perfect poached egg just often enough (maybe 30% of the time) to make me believe I've mastered it, only to have the next 2 times be absolute disasters. Last night I tried your method, which is the same way I generally cook mine, except that I usually only put between 1-2" of water in the pot. Unfortunately, last night's poached eggs were not particularly successful. I poached 2 eggs, separately, since I'm incapable of concentrating more than one thing at once. First egg started out fine--I slid it into the pan, it sank to the bottom and I used my spoon to help gently coax the white around the yolk. Once the white looked fairly set, I left it alone only to turn around a minute later to find it floating and the white split open and the yolk bobbing merrily around the the pot! What?! Is a poaching egg supposed to float? I usually use much less water, so I'm not sure--maybe that's normal (well, other than the yolk falling out). The second was nearly a disaster when my water got too hot and started boiling due to pure neglect on my part, but I rescued it just in the nick of time. Also, my water turned scummy with lots of white foam floating on top. Both eggs ended up cooked fine, with a set white and runny yolk (once I slipped the runaway yolk back in its jacket), but they weren't going to win any beauty contests. What I really want to be able to do is turn out a consistently good poached egg.

Excellent pictures, ExtraMSG! My 11 minute egg looked like your 7 minute egg. The one I left to cool in the water looked like your 9 minute egg. You're right, Steven, there are so many variables that could cause the differences in the way my eggs cooked--the size (which, although I picked 2 of similar large size, tends to fluctuate in my flock), actual water temp and amount. Luckily, I rarely need such a high level of precision in hard-cooked eggs. In cases where I do, I think I'll just check the temperature to gage when to remove the eggs from heat.

This sounds like my situation while my husband had full-time job and was working on his Ph.D. He'd leave at 6 am and get back around 10 pm. I would just cook myself dinner, then package up the leftovers in plastic containers for him to heat up. The tricky part was getting him enough food--he was eating all his meals away from home. If you're cooking for yourself anyway, that might work. Otherwise, lots of casseroles and soups freeze fine. Lasagne is always nice and it freezes well. Just make a big batch on the weekends and portion it out. I also send lots of healthy-ish snacks (juice, cheese, fruit, cereal bars, etc) along with a little treat so that he'll stay away from the vending machines and fast food. It may not be anyone's ideal way to eat, but with some advance planning you can get through it.

No, no! A recipe, please please pleeeeezzz?! I always have way too many hot peppers in my garden. I know, too many hardly seems possible... Thanks! And great pictures by the way! I'm looking forward to hearing about Heidelberg. I spent a summer there after college when I was a vegetarian. What a waste of an excellent eating opportunity!! Well, not completely. Every morning we'd walk to the local bakery for fresh bread and cheese. I absolutely loved this very soft, rich, probably triple-cream cheese with fresh green peppercorns in it. Anyone know what that was? I haven't been able to find it in the US, even through the importers we deal with. Hmmm... It was probably a raw milk cheese and that's why. Hrmph!! Good food is wasted on the youth!

Thanks for the interesting lesson, Steven! I don't think I've ever given the hard-cooked egg so much consideration. Last night I hard-cooked two eggs in a side-by-side comparison, one using your 12 minute method, the other using Russ Parsons' (my usual) method where the egg is left in the water until cool. In both cases the egg was an absolute nightmare to peel, but my eggs are REALLY fresh--the oldest eggs were taken from under the chicken the day before. The main difference was in the consistency of the yolk. While both were perfectly acceptable, the 12 minute egg had a much moister yolk--much moister than the yolks of your hard-cooked eggs. The one left in the water until cool looked more like yours. I'm thinking maybe the cold temperature of my house caused the water to cool too quickly? The moister yolk was fine for egg salad, but would have been difficult to get smooth for deviled eggs. How much moisture should the yolk of the "perfect" hard-cooked egg have? Either way, it's nice to know that there is some flexibility in this. By the way, I made egg salad with leftover sauteed (Indian-style) sweet peppers, mustard seed & oil, and mayo to bring to lunch today. Yum, I'm getting hungry already. Julie

While I do think there are more frugal places to buy food/cooking items than Williams-Sonoma, I have to say that, depending on the quality/age of the Parmesan, $19.60 per pound doesn't seem that outrageous. We sell a lovely 48+ month for $24 per pound and we sell a lot because it is fabulous! We also carry several pasta sauces in that price range or more.

The worst catering experience I've had was a small wedding held at a very exclusive camp in the Adirondacks. All 40 guests had flown in for the week and were staying in the lodge where the evening reception with full dinner was to be held. We arrive mid-day to set up and all the guests are lounging about the room. Of course--they've been using this room as their main gathering room all week, so why not today? We try to work around them to set up the decorations and lay out the tables, but we'd just get something arranged and they'd decide that they needed to pull one of the tables over to the corner to play cards! This decorating/undecorating went on the entire afternoon until everyone finally went to the ceremony--leaving us about 45 minutes to put everything back together. But the worst was the kitchen situation. The kitchen itself was fine, but it was, of course, the kitchen where the guests had all their private food stored. Approximately every 15 minutes, someone else would decide they just had to have a sandwich right now, so people would pour in, take up the entire prep area making sandwiches, stand around talking, then leave all their dirty dishes and food laying about. I spent most of the prep time washing their dirties!! I wasn't in charge, so I couldn't say anything. Oh yeah, the company owner kept disappearing, at one point for several hours, with no indication where he'd gone or when he'd be back. :angry: By the end, I swore I would never cater again. Of course I have, because I really do love it.

The Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook. Is there anything you can make in a crockpot that isn't a salty glop? Well, not if you're cooking from this book. That's because all the recipes include 1 pound ground beef, 2 cans cream of bile soup, onion soup mix and either 1 pound of cheese or ketchup for a zesty kick. Vienna sausages and grape jelly are optional. The most embarrassing thing is that I bought this book for myself.

Last week I baked bread that included mixed wild and brown rices along with whole cumin and fennel seeds--my new favorite bread! Dense texture without being heavy, very complex earthy flavor. I also like to make pita chips that I spread with cumin seeds, sea salt, paprika and olive oil then toast. Oh yeah... I do toast the seeds before using.

Plattsburgh (with the "H") is sadly lacking in both the ethnic cuisine and restaurant catagories. This is, of course, ignoring the ubiquitous Italian-American restaurants and Chinese buffets (3!). Certainly no Lebanese food to be found anywhere nearby. We have a decent greek diner and an interesting mexican-inspired restaurant. Even checking my phone book, which covers the resort areas, the most exotic I see are two other Mexican restaurants in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. I've heard decent things about the one in Saranac Lake, but haven't eaten there yet myself. Happily, I can be enjoying the gastronomic revelry that is Montreal in less than 45 minutes, depending on border traffic.

I, myself, am currently on the long road to recovery. Frankly, not eating or knowing how to prepare meat has been a detriment to my catering and I am determined to recify this. I started by adding back seafood, then poultry (not sure why there should be some sort or heirarchy, but that's how I saw it). I kind of stalled out there for a couple years, but in the last year I've started adding back small bits of processed meats as ingredients in other dishes. Bits of andouille in a soup, prosciutto, ham in a stir-fry. Oh! And those Fabulous Chinese sausages--Yum! Somehow those processed meats don't seems quite so "meat-like" or threatening. I also have tastes of my husband's steaks and such. I've gotten pretty comfortable with those and I'm starting to think about moving on to the real thing. I even selected a ham over a turkey as my Christmas food bonus this year. I would start out adding bits to dishes she likes. Once/if she feels comfortable with those, you can get a little more direct.

Riff. The whole chef as rock star/musician metaphor drives me nuts. From the NY Times: "The red pepper sauce is just a flash of color, a tasteful little riff on the side." "Pistou, one of Mr. Virot's triumphs, is a riff on the region's traditional vegetable and pesto soup." "...a parade of six courses cooked in the French tradition influenced by Asian minimalism that riff on seasonal ingredients."

Things I will never do again (and really shouldn't have done the first time): 1) Try to loosen the stuck lid to my glass jar of sourdough starter by running it under warm water. Hey, it works for the jar of molasses, so why not? Needless to say, immediate access to the starter was obtained when the jar exploded in my hands. The mixture of sharp glass, gloppy starter and blood did nothing for the kitchen decor. I haven't had the heart to make another starter since. 2) Heat olive oil for wilted spinach salad, then go into living room to talk to husband. After about 10 minutes, husband mentions he's getting hungry. Quick glance into kitchen reveals a weird flickering light through a haze of smoke. Luckily, the fire extinguisher was quickly deployed, but not before the pan and burner fused and the hood was melted. Unfortunately, #2 happened just last week and we are still cleaning up, repainting, etc. However, the stupid thing a former roommate did possibly spared me a worse fate: 3) Heat oil for fried chicken in a covered pan. When, upon lifting the lid, the oil exploded in flame, she poured baking soda in, which only encouraged the fire. Apparently, she's of the out-of-sight-out-of-mind camp and decided that the solution would be to carry the flaming pot of oil across the kitchen and pour it down the sink. All I can say is thank God she spilled it all over the floor and cabinets before reaching her final destination! Needless to say, we did not get our security deposit back.

I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this little slice of your life. Yes, I am that person who tries to peer into everyone's houses when I take a walk. Beautiful garden! Just curious, was this your first year with the eggplants or have you had luck with them before? My husband thinks I'm nuts to try them this far north (I'm in NY, just south of the Canadian border), so I'm looking for some affirmation that they are possible. Unfortunately, the rabbits won the battle this year, so I didn't have the chance to prove him wrong. I'll second the the thumbs-up on the Latin Lemonnaise--I took some as a gift to my Atkins-dieting parents and we all practically licked the jar clean. Thanks again for the great blog. And Squeat and Cusina, I read back through yours, too. Excellent all around!

<delurking> Okay, I want to play too. It seems I have 476. Of course, I had to count several times, since I kept getting distracted by the books. 315...316...317...Mmm, teriyaki chicken and asparagus rolls...Now, where was I?? --Julie