ellencho

My aversion to raisins has nothing to do with the taste really, it's more a visual issue. When I was twelve or so, my family received a copy of National Geographic with a Bog Man from England on the cover. His body had been found somewhere a bog in the UK and his entire body had been preserved in that acidic/brackish environment for hundredes of years. His hair had been bleached bright red, and his skin was black like tar, and was dried out like a raisin. From that day on I could never eat another black raisin. However, I enjoy sultanas - those yellow raisins. They're fine as part of a dish, but I'd never eat a handful of them as a snack. Lastly, I have a question about sultanas. After watching Unwrapped on food network, they showed a vineyard where the grapes are raised to become raisins. The grapes were Thompson greens but yielded black raisins. I always assumed that black raisins came from purple or reddish grapes. What sort of grapes do they use to make sultanas?

If you absolutely must make the sauce in the pans you're currently using, try Alton Brown's trick of taking a frisbee, cutting halfway into the center and cutting out a small hole for your immersion blender and use that as a splatter guard.

I think on Good Eats' ice cream episode, Alton Brown recommended storing ice cream in paper paint buckets that you can get from the hardware store, sort of like how you get your ice cream at the supermarket. *sigh* an ice cream maker and a waffle iron are the only pieces of kitchen equipment that I don't own that I desperately want. There's always Christmas.

Usually, in a recipe for some roast meat, whether it be beef, pork, turkey etc, it tells you to let the meat sit for 20 minutes or so to rest before cutting into it, to prevent juice from spilling forth. However, even after waiting 20 minutes my pork loins, roast beef, whatever, almost ALWAYS spill juices. I normally cook meat with my trusty Pyrex Probe thermometer, so I began waiting for the temperature to stop rising, and begin falling. Oftentimes when I do that, any of the meat that is not near the core of the roast (where the thermometer is) is not as warm as I would like it to be for serving to my family. Can anyone help me on this? The done-ness of my meat is never an issue, it's just the juice spillage and the serving temperature that are my issues.

I seem to have a lot of problems with baking soda and baking powder. I either add the wrong one, or don't add them at all.

I think it might be pronounced hodduk? Not hod-duk but ho-dduk, like dduk, korean rice cakes. And I think the outside wrapper/pancake part is made from rice flour. Yes and they are delicious straight from the grill.

Ooh! 12th St Cantina has an awesome Cuban Sandwich. It takes forever for them to make it, but I wait patiently because it is worth it. I too buy my mexican cheese from them, as well as tortillas and their salsas. And if you get there early enough in the day, Metropolitain bakery has cannelles. Eee! Iovines always has great prices on produce. They have a great turnover rate - everything is fresh, reasonably priced and their cashiers are lightning speed. Lastly, before I had a pasta-roller, I used to buy fresh sheets of pasta from By George- Pizza & Pasta. THat stuff was GOOD.

Cool - thanks mdt!

There's a new season? When will it be airing?

Good suggestions and tips all. I made egg/semolina fettucine two nights ago and to keep my strands from sticking, I sprinkled and tossed my pasta with semolina flour and let it sit out on a tray while the remainder of my pasta rolled out. My pasta did not clump and was thoroughly enjoyed. Oh, and while we're discussing pasta, can anyone recommend a good way to freeze fresh pasta? Do I have to have it sliced into the shape I plan to eat them in? Or can I just freeze the excess hunk of pasta dough that I have left over?

Just so you all know, I froze up some buttermilk and when I defrosted it, it sort of curdled a bit. It wasn't all that bad, I still used it in my oatmeal and in my pancakes and nobody could have told the difference. But to anyone who plans on drinking it, it doesn't look all that appetizing.

I like breakfast foods for dinner. Although where I went to school seemed to ruin my appetite on a daily basis, I was always excited when they had breakfast for dinner. A lot of folks in asian countries eat rice, soup, meat, fish, veggies etc for breakfast. So in my house, oftentimes, we'll eat our leftovers from the night before for breakfast the following morning. It took me a while to understand why non-Asians think it's weird to eat leftover pasta, or chicken, or whatever as my morning meal. Lastly, while I was visiting home, my dogs and I ate fluffernutter sandwiches with a glass of milk every morning for breakfast. My mom was horrified, but more so because I was using sliced sandwich bread, instead of the good Italian bread that we had.

My favorite: Let me add my vote for the two ABs - Brown, and Bourdain. Also, now that I've seen his Kitchen series where he helps the kids - Jamie Oliver. Least favorites: first off, I think everyone should get Sandra Lee, Flay and Lagasse as a given - sort of like how in Wheel Of Fortune they automatically give you RSTLN and E. And please mark me down as voting for Gordon Elliot and Al Roker. Two giant wastes of time who are neither qualified to host food shows. Oh, and add Jacqui Malouf too.

Does red pepper count as an unusual ice cream and sorbet flavor? It was part of a dessert I had at Aquavit in NYC. Peppers aren't really my thing, but I ate it anyway. Also, red pepper isn't very kind on my digestive system so I was tasting it over and over again for the rest of the night - bleh. Oh, and the entree that I picked that night was sort of odd too, but I guess odd by my standards. A pan seared seabass with an espresso foam. It wasn't half bad either. It added a nice smoky element to the dish. My brother's brother in law used to work at the Minnesota Aquavit, and apparently, foam is Marcus Samuelson's favorite thing.

Oo wee, tonight's white pizza was excellent. I even daresay I'd rather eat my own white pizza than NYC white pizza! My SO was full from the two other pizzas that I had made earlier, but when he tasted a bit of the white pizza he had three more slices himself. This is what I did. I roasted up a couple garlic cloves in olive oil, mashed them up on my cutting board. Mixed the garlic with an egg, fresh parsley and basil, parmesean cheese, salt and pepper, and the ricotta (which was pretty dry so I didn't have to drain it). I spread a thin layer of that over my pizza dough (Cook's Illustrated's recipe) and topped it with fresh mozz, smoked mozz and mushrooms. Put it in my rip roaring hot oven, and left it in for 15 minutes. Deelicious. THe flavors melded really well together. Especially the garlic - which added a mellowness and richness to my pizza. Hee - and no bad breath. Thanks for all your suggestions guys!

Hee, I was actually considering roasting up some garlic cloves, mashing them up and mixing that up with some egg and ricotta.

Thanks for the link KatieLoeb. I've had pizza a handful of times since I moved here, and admittedly, the majority have been crap - just dough with cheese and sauce on it. It's good to know there isn't a dearth of good pizza around - one just needs to know where to look. When I lived in Ardmore, there's a place in town, Felicia's Brick Oven Pizza which serves some excellent pizza. Good texture, good sauce, only problem is that they're not always consistent - it occasionally bland. That's why I began to make my own pizza at home.

I must be such a sentimental weenie because everyone's listing all these famous people. I'd want to have dinner with my four grandparents. Two of whom are deceased, and two who are alive, and one who I never had a chance to meet. We'd have Korean food and not have to worry about both my grandma's diabetes.

So I'm a Philly transplant from NY and I miss NY pizzas so much! I especially miss white pizzas, the kind with mozzarella and ricotta. For a couple years now I've been making my own pizzas at home with my beloved pizza stone, and I can't belive I never once considered making my own white pizza until now. So this is my dilemma - since my oven gets pretty hot ~550 our pizzas don't take long to bake at all and I'm concerned about the ricotta mixture not firming up enough underneath the mozzarella cheese that I plan to top it with. Any suggestions? I don't have an actual recipe, I was sort of planning on flying by the seat of my pants.

I will never attempt to boil an egg in a microwave (granted, I was 13 when I did this, but boy did I learn my lesson). Also, I will never eat bacos.

Woo hoo! Just finished cleaning up from my marathon ravioli making session. There must have been a pasta god shining down on me late last night because my SO came home with a bag of semolina flour. I ended up making two pasta recipes - one with semolina and one without semolina, just so I could see what all the fuss from earlier was about. I used the Alfred Portale recipe for my semolina pasta and I used the Cook's Illustrated Egg PAsta recipe for the AP flour pasta. Both turned out perfectly and both had perfect texture. The only difference I noticed was visual, the semolina pasta was yellower than the Egg pasta. I took everyone's advice, let the dough rest, had drying racks set up, used extra flour to keep the dough from getting too sticky and to prevent clogging up the kitchenaid pasta roller attachments. While the dough was resting I made three different ravioli fillings, all ricotta/egg/parmesean based - a beef, shiitake mushroom, and just plain cheese. They were all equally delicious. And like everyone else said, better than store-bought. When they were all finally cooked, I just tossed them in browned garlic/olive oil/parm cheese. Oh, and that kitchenaid roller attachments are AWESOME. I managed to save dough from both recipes and made fettucine and I served that with a vodka sauce. I mixed both semolina and AP flour noodles in that dish and nobody noticed (including myself). So thanks again to everyone for their great suggestions. Considering how easy pasta-making is, I'll definitely be making more, and buying less in the future.

Yikes! I never meant for everyone to get so riled up about pasta! But wow, so much good advice, I'm not even sure where to start! Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for their tips and tricks. I learned a lot of good stuff - like about adding extra flour, the differences between types of flour, letting your dough rest, having drying racks ready. Also, I think I'm going to leave most of the kneading to my kitchenaid to do for me, and thanks to whoever gave me the "baby's bottom" advice. Thanks again all. Admittedly, I'm not expecting to make the best ravioli ever, but I'm sure all of your suggestions will make it better than it would have been had I been flying by the seat of my pants.

Hi all. So for my birthday my kind sister bought me a set of kitchenaid pasta roller attachments. I am very excited to begin making my own pasta (I'd like my first attempt to be ravioli) but I need a bit of advice. First, I was told that the best way to initially clean out your pasta rollers is to run a batch of dough through them that you'll just throw out when you're done. Is it possible to make a faux pasta dough without using eggs? I feel like it's such a waste of eggs if I use them in a pasta dough that will be thrown out and not eaten. Second, I wanted to use Alfred Portale's pasta recipe from his Gotham Bar and Grill cookbook, however, it calls for 1.5 cups of AP flour, and 1.5 cups of semolina flour. The AP flour is not a problem for me to find, but the semolina flour is another story. I drove all afternoon visiting five supermarkets looking for semolina flour and none of them carried it. Even Whole Foods and Trader Joes. So is semolina flour necessary? and how is it different from regular flour? if it contains more gluten or protein than AP flour can't I just substitute bread flour, and just knead it a little bit longer? Any sort of help will be much appreciated. TIA.

I once froze heavy cream and when I defrosted it, I found that it separated sort of like butter does when you melt it. I figured it would be fine to use in the chocolate turtle pie I was making because I was going to be mixing it up with other fats (egg yolks, chocolate). So it turned out fine, and nobody ever knew.

I tried this method and what they want you to do is literally take a cold pan out of your cupboard, and place your cold pork chop on it, and then turn your heat onto low. After it sits on low for 4-9 minutes you give your chop a flip and give a couple more minutes for your chop to cook on medium (If I remember correctly, I don't have my issue here with me at work). Then you remove the chop, reduce the liquid in the pan and voila you've got a tender pork chop. If you have an electric stove then place your cold pan/chop onto medium.