ellencho

Depending on how lazy I feel: A. ice cream and cones from the supermarket or some sort of frozen novelty B. Paula Deen's Gooey butter cake C. Brownie sundaes For when I'm NOT feeling lazy A. Orange flavored flan B. Tiramisu C. Debbie Field's Chocolate turtle pie

Regarding the cooking wine: Pick something from the Burgundy region of France perhaps? And I believe in Cooking with Julia and Jacques they recommend using a Pinot Noir. I've used cheaply priced versions (~13 bucks) of both (since I'm not a wine drinker at all) and they both turned out fine. And about the lardons - no biggie to use bacon but maybe you want to boil them for a bit and dry them off well before you start rendering any fat? That way you can avoid the smoky taste of the bacon permeating your Boeuf Bourguignon. I'm a big fan of Julia and Jacques recipe, and my favorite thing about their recipe is that you can stagger the steps and do what parts you wish to do at your convenience. If anyone wants the recipe go ahead and leave me a PM and I'll be happy to give it to you.

Please add to my list of narsty food habits - a love of fake mashed potatoes. Good lord I love me some rehydrated mashed potatoes. I also love McDonalds apple pies as well as their McRib.

I always wonder if I'd actually LIKE wet dogfood because I actually enjoy canned Hormel chili as well as our supermarket brand chili (Stompin' Ranch Chili from Genuardi's in PA). My other nasty food habit are the honey butter biscuits from Church's chicken. It's like a biscuit with a candy coating. Deelicious.

For grease/sweat stains on whites I recommend oven cleaner. Do not use it for colored fabrics though, because you'll end up with a light spot from where you sprayed. Also, there's a product out in the supermarkets called Carbona. It comes in a little yellow triangular shaped bottle in the laundry section. They have a great de-greaser that you can use on colored clothing, and I've used it on years old oil stains and they came out just fine and didn't mess up my colors. <edit to add> Carbona also makes other stain removers, for stuff like lipstick, wine, blood, grass stains, etc. All you have to do is choose the stain remover you like :)

Wow, thanks for the replies so far. Well, the type of restaurant we're looking for is casual and we're really not too picky over types of food, we're open to nearly anything. I guess in terms of price, our price range would be anywhere between 15-20 bucks on a main course. Also, I suppose we're a younger crowd, most of our party is in their mid to late twenties.

Yeah, sorry about that, National Aquarium in Baltimore :)

Hello! Us Philly kids are taking a little trip to the aquarium this weekend and it's our first time there. Any affordable dining suggestions for us? Thanks!

I was sad to see Chef Frederic leave HTBW and then see him replaced by Tyler. No thank you. Also, I love how that little article says "Midwesterners like Rachael Ray". Funny, IIRC on her show she's always blabbing about being from Upstate NY.

I'm with jgm. Just because something is organic doesn't necessarily mean it's good. For the most part, I don't trust organic food over non-organic food. I trust produce sellers that have good produce. And from the experience I've had with a certain food stand at my local farmer's market, the food might LOOK good but it doesn't necessarily taste good or have a good texture and doesn't necessarily last as long as I would like and sometimes contains a rather large number of bugs. I tried to buy from them for a bit, just to support the local growers, but the quality of the produce did not make up for their obscene prices. If you don't mind these things then I say shell out the extra couple dollars for your produce if it makes you feel better to know they were grown organically. But for me, usually when I see organic I usually see it as an excuse to jack up the prices in one's supermarket or menu.

Wow, I live in SE PA and I didn't know about the pork superstition until just now. Lucky for me I had a link of pork sausage for breakfast. A bowl of kielbasa/kale soup for lunch and for dinner, shumai :) And to think, I didn't even plan it that way. I am so wise beyond my years

I just wanted to add a little something about aging meat in your fridge. I aged two hunks of meat this month. One 7lb boneless rib roast. The other was a 10 lb bone on rib roast. They both aged for a week. The boneless roast really had a funky-ish aroma going on, whereas the bone in barely had any smell. The 10lb-er was far superior to the 7 lb-er. With the bonless roast I had to shave off a considerable amount of dried up meat. With the bone-in roast it was a negligable amount of shaving. The boneless had an ok taste but was a bit on the tough side. I didn't manage to shave off all of the outer dried meat so I wasn't able to develop that great of an outer crust. The bone-in was glorious. Tastewise it was delicious and rich-tasting. Texturewise - like buttah. Also, gorgeous crust formation. Anyway, after eating the boneless roast and being a bit disappointed, I was reminded of a segment I once saw on food network. THey showed the meat buyer for Peter Luger's steakhouse, and she was explaining that she wouldn't buy any meat for aging that didn't have bone and kidney attached to it bceause that protects the meat during the aging process. That could explain why my boneless rib roast didn't turn out that great because it had no protection in my refrigerator. Boy was I relieved when the bone-in turned out as good as it did.

I too am a big fan of Frank's for all-purpose hot-saucing, and Sriracha for asian cooking. Tabasco has it's time and place, but for me it's usually too overpowering.

Thanks lcdm. The wrappers recipe was great. I used my own potatoes recipe since I had a bunch of leftover mashed potatoes, but our filling recipe did sound awfully similar. I used orange cheddar and threw in some parsley I had leftover from something else.

In no particular order Boeuf bourguignon using the Cooking with Julia and Jacques recipe Pho Jun Bok Jook - Korean rice porridge made with abalone ( I know, not exactly a soup/stew) Matzo ball soup - made with floaters, not sinkers Korean Oxtail soup

I once ended up with a bitter chili sauce because I didn't squeeze out enough of the soaking liquid from my anchos. I decided next time I try the sauce maybe I'll give them a good soaking, then wash them under running water, and then dry them out.

1) So does this mean Super Fresh lives up to its name? 2) I'm guessing that with Acme, this depends on the Acme. I haven't run across any outdated food being sold at the Passyunk and Reed store yet. ← Actually yes, Superfresh in Wynnewood definitely lives up to its name. Excellent produce section and no matter what hour I'm there, someone's always putting out new produce. I'd even venture to say the Gladwynne one and the Manoa one are just as nice. The Manoa one is GINORMOUS btw. All three are clean pretty clean. The Gladwynne one is the smallest, has lower ceilings, not as well lit as the others but the staff is quite nice. The Acme in Narberth is where they had some far gone apples a while ago but they refunded me my money. Other than that, I actually like their produce selection. It's well-lit and they have a decent selection. I also love that they sell big hunks of chuck for stew fiends like myself. The Acme on City Ave in Bala Cynwyd, despite its size has the slowest cashiers in the universe working there. While they do have self-checkout, the fact that those lines are long as well doesn't help. Also, I once walked into that Acme on a weekday morning, and I swear, all I smelled upon entering was the smell of wet dog food, and the sad thing was, it was all in the area of the "prepared foods/food court" that I smelled it. Yick.

In Philly I"ve seen moldy and outdated and overripe foods mostly being sold in Pathmark and Acme. At least at Acme if you bring it to their attention they will give you your money back, but at Pathmark where I live, they couldn't care less. During the summertime there are always fruit flies swarming over their fruit/veggie section.

Perhaps he could purchase a mini tea pot with a built in metal filter/strainer and just transfer his steeped tea into his teacup? That way he can just keep reusing the same teapot and not have to mess with little bags or filters.

Hi all, a while back my computer died, and along with it, a very good pierogi wrapper recipe. I was originally going to make a thread in the Europe forums but I thought maybe I'd get more hits in here. Does anyone have a pierogi skin/wrapper recipe that they'd like to share with me? That and perhaps a good recipe for a cheese filled pierogi? I have a large portion of mashed potatoes as well as a bit of farmer's cheese that I'd like to doctor up and use as pierogie fillings this weekend. Thanks.

Best recipe I've ever used for chewy cookies courtesy of Alton Brown.

I suppose that if a fruit is the seed-bearing part of a plant then a vegetable is the part of a plant that does not contain seeds? Perhaps rhubarb is an example of a veggie used as a fruit.

Good lord do I love Chessmen and Brussels.

Do any of these roasting techniques prevent the inner skin from clinging to the chestnut meats? I usually roast 25 minutes at 425 with Xes cut into my chesnuts, but at least 1/2 of them have the skins still clinging to them. And majkeli, was this the Food network recipe you spoke of earlier?

Wow, I've been here for 6 years now and I don't recall those ads at all. What I do remember are folks in the Genuardi's parking lot handing out pamphlets warning customers that Genuardis was now owned by Safeway. You're definitely right about the quality of supermarkets/class thing. I know of only one exception though, in NY where my parents live, in a middle class shopping center there's a really nice Italian-owned supermarket called Turcos right next door to a pretty dirty Pathmark.