purplewiz
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Posts posted by purplewiz
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Which brand of seasoned salt do you use?
Lawry's. I'd like to try the Penzey's and probably should when I make another order, but Lawry's is pretty much the standard for me.
It's also good on frozen peas with butter.
Marcia.
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Seasoned salt/garlic salt. Sure, I have an entire cabinet full of individual spices that I mix and balance with care, but sometimes I just want to add a little extra flavor when I'm salting something, and I don't want to mess with things.
Seasoned salt also makes the best roasted cauliflower to my taste. I've tried a wide range of seasonings but I keep coming back to the seasoned salt.
Marcia.
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Nothing fancy tonight because I'm feeling a little puny:
Tuna cakes over salad. They're kind of like fried tuna salad, and they're comforting and filling. What's missing is the Ranch dressing over all - it just works with this salad.
Marcia.
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I agree - homemade stock will make it better (what doesn't it make better?), but the mushrooms dominate the flavor profile.
Marcia.
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For desert we were served a smoked banana ice-cream
You lost me right there. That sounds positively awful, even without all the rest!
Marcia.
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How do I plan meals? By what's on sale.
Seriously, I start with what meats and vegetables are on sale in any given week, and put together a rough mental outline of how I want to use them. I always leave flexibility in the plan, though, in case I run across a really good buy of scratch and dent meat.
I don't plan out things in more detail than that. I tend to wing it every night from the items I have on hand. Once in awhile I'll get it in my head that I want to make a specific dish, and then I make sure to shop for those ingredients.
It works pretty well for us, but then, I'm only feeding two (my husband and myself) most nights. If we're having company for dinner, I will angst and fret over the menu for days and plan out every step of the cooking and serving timeline even if it's just a simple meal of soup and salad.
Marcia.
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Pho glamour shot:
Oooh. Just....oooh. That looks warm and hearty and delicious!
Really enjoying the blog, even though it often makes me hungry
!Marcia.
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With the exception of the pub/stew meal and breakfast, all the other food segments were in the Republic of Ireland. The shellfish at King Sitric's got my attention.
You're absolutely right, my mistake. I should know better by now not to post so late at night!
Marcia.
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I thought the Northern Ireland was one of the better episodes - any episode that takes a place that previously wasn't on my list of places I wanted to go and makes me want to eat everything he ate is a good one. Ok, all the Guinness didn't hurt - Guinness is one of my deep pleasures.
Loved the outtake/behind the scenes episode. Except for the karaoke. That was painful.
Marcia.
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Thanks for a wonderful blog - I've been marveling at the sheer variety of food stuff you have available! And I'd love to eat at so many of the restaurants you've shown us should I ever get to visit!
Marcia.
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You've posted many gorgeous photographs of food I'd love to eat, but this one gets me in the heart. The only way I can get shiso is to grow it myself (and it does grow well here!), but there's no way I could get peppers like that without mail order. Or schlepping them back in my suitcase. My envy of your Asian markets is palpable!
Marcia.
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I don't buy many cookbooks anymore because I realized that I rarely cook from them. I do get some inspiration from some, but I tend to get that from my foodie magazines.
I'd like to cook from them more, but it's always one thing or another: makes too much, makes too little, I don't have the specific ingredients on hand, takes too long, ingredients cost too much, etc. I'm just not good at planning to make a recipe, making sure I have it all on hand, and making sure I have enough time to make it happen!
I have a couple of "go to" books that are almost all general purpose cookbooks that I've cooked out of for years. But the rest...*sigh* mostly for kitchen decoration, as far as I can tell.
Marcia.
cookbook impaired
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I admit, I throw out my broccoli stems.
Mostly because the only fresh broccoli around here is broccoli crowns, which have very little stem, so by the time I finish peeling it, there's maybe a bite. Or two. Definitely not worth the effort.
I grate the zest of oranges and freeze it - I've found a gazillion and one uses for it, from the oyster sauce broccoli to throwing it in stir fries to adding flavor to puddings. I hate the pith. It's bitter.
Much of my vegetable waste goes into my bag of frozen garbage for stock. I usually have a couple chicken carcasses in the freezer, too.
My weird "waste not" is pineapple cores. I love munching on them.
But sorry, the apple cores go straight into the garbage, along with pear cores and banana peels. If that makes me a sinner, so be it.
Marcia.
who doesn't eat asparagus at all, thus solving that problem.
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In 2007, I will eat at one new restaurant a month. It's a good resolution that works for me, so why change it?
I will make one new recipe a month. At least.
I will find a new local supplier of my favorite sugar free chocolate sauce. Sure, I could mail order it, and I will if I have to, but I'd rather know somewhere close by.
I will learn more food Italian and food Spanish. (Recognize the ingredients and be able to read a menu)
This is the year I will try deep fried twinkies. Or deep fried Oreos. Or deep fried pizza. Or deep fried Snickers. Or....you get the idea. I've been meaning to do this for years. No, I'm not going to make a steady diet of it, I want to TRY.
I will taste foie gras again.
I will use all of my kitchen equipment.
I will give away all the cooking gadgetry I don't use during the year (which doesn't have any sentimental value, which is most of it).
I will update my restaurant review/food blog on time.
We will continue to eat according to our plan.
My kids will continue not to exist.
I will teach anyone who really wants to learn almost anything I know how to do.
I will read my foodie magazines within the month of their date. No more backlogs.
Marcia.
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Ok, here's the summary:
In 2006, I will eat at one new restaurant per month. Preferably non-chain, but that's hard to do around here. (Carry over from 2005 because it worked so well.)
Sure have. Found some dandy new local places, too.
I will make one new recicpe a month, preferably from one of the cookbooks I own that I've never cooked out of. (Also carry over from 2005.)
Did that, too. Some worked, some haven't, but at least they were new. Still have to do one for December but I'm looking at a recipe for pork tenderloin with pumpkin seed sauce right here, now if only I can find a small bottle of pumpkin seed oil locally that isn't $17+.
I will find a job. *sigh*
Well no, I haven't, although I do have a short term contract starting after the first of the year. Circumstances have changed lowering the priority of this for the time being.
I will read more.
I think I did. I am up to date on my foodie magazines.
This is the year I will try several new vegetables that I don't know what to do with yet, assuming I can find them anywhere around here.
Sadly, I don't think I did this, mostly due to the fact that running into vegetables that I don't know what to do with around here is very difficult. Does it count that I've tried a lot of new sauces and seasonings?
I will taste everything I can.
Oh, yeah. You should see the samples being passed around the table when we go out. I even tried cherries again and reascertained that I can't stand them. Yuck.
My kids will continue not to exist.
And so they have.
Marcia.
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The Egg McLugnut and Hash browns I bought at the airport McD's. My only excuse was that it was some ungawdly hour of the morning and I was on no sleep. The hash browns tasted rancid and I don't know what they did to the McLugnut. I hadn't eaten at a McD's in over 5 years and I'm not inclined to do so again any time soon.
Surprisingly, though, the coffee was pretty darned good.
Marcia.
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A bottle of 23 year old Bourbon. I'd tried and adored the 20 year old, and wanted to try the 23. Surprisingly, NONE of the liquor stores around here would order it for me - we're not talking a cheap bottle of rotgut here. So I went to the net, and found a place that had it at a remarkable price. Ordered it and a bottle of the 20 year old (also not to be found locally) right away.
Of course, the price was mismarked, but the store honored it anyway (and put the correct price on the bottle right away!), which is one of several reasons why I'll shop with them again. And yes, it was wonderful, well worth every penny.
I routinely order my coffee from the New Mexico Coffee Roasting Company. What makes that unusual is that in the Albuquerque area, you can buy their coffees in the grocery stores - and I am SO jealous. I've simply not found any coffee I like better, even from our local places. One of the many things I brought back from our Thanksgiving trip was about 4 lbs of their coffee, bought at the local Raley's.
Marcia.
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In this time of family and celebration, I'd love to hear what EVERYONE called their Grandmothers, and which one was the defining influence. And in some instances, we may need a little translation, which would just round out the experience.
I'm enjoying your blog even if I'm probably going to have to finish it next week, as life has taken a busy turn and then we're away to the in laws for Thanksgiving itself. I need more TIME!
Both sets of grandparents were simply Grandma and Grandpa (pronounced gramma and granpa, the d's were always silent). My paternal grandparents were not much of an influence, as they lived 8 hours away and that was a LONG distance to drive in those days, especially on the East Coast. I know they loved us, and when we went to visit them we always ate homemade sauerkraut and hard boiled eggs pickled in beet juice, both of which seemed very exotic to me at the time.
My maternal Grandmother was THE influence. Grandma was definitely a force: extroverted, opinionated, generous to a fault, she was definitely a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately she was also very difficult to live with, at least partially caused by her chronic depression.
If a holiday celebration was held at Gram's, she cooked. She was a good, capable midwestern cook - not very inventive, but very rarely making anything inedible. (Her red jello salad with canned fruit cocktail topped with a dollop of mayonnaise being the notable exception for me.) Her repertoire ran mostly to roast beef, ham, turkey, or hamburgers with the appropriate sides.
But Gram also baked. Most of her recipes came from Mrs. Worman, one of her friends. These recipes were so good that they're now family staples - we all have copies of the recipes for Mrs. Worman's Butter Cookies and Mrs. Worman's Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake, among others. These are the tastes of my childhood.
When Gram passed on, I asked for her cookbooks. Sadly, most of them had been lost/given away through the years, but she had two church cookbooks left. And yes, I have them now.
Marcia.
who is drooling over your bakery pictures
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I decided tonight would be daube night.
While I don't have quite the extensive cookbook libraries that many of you have, I do have a reasonable number of them, but only one had a recipe that was officially called daube. It called for lamb shoulder which is 1. hard to find and 2. relatively expensive, so I decided that was out. Besides, it called for white wine, and I had red.
So off to the internet to research. As usual, there were 4 gazillion recipes, all calling for different ingredients, and none of which I had everything for. The one thing I saw many of them had in common is that they called for the juice and/or zest of an orange, and red wine. Fortunately, I had both ingredients.
I ended up with a recipe for "Daube De Boeufs Aux Champignons Et A L'orange". A suitable enough title indeed, especially since I was going to wing it. And hey, the measurements were in metric for an additional challenge. (I can sew in metric but I have to convert in cooking. It's how my brain works. Or doesn't work. But I digress.) Besides, I had to quarter the recipe since they called for a little over 2 kg of beef, and I had a little over a pound.
Pursuant to the discussion here, I punted on marinating the beef. (And I didn't have all day.) The marinade became the braising liquid anyway. I didn't have cognac so I substituted brandy. No whole cloves so I used a pinch of ground, since I'm iffy on cloves on the whole. I used half the zest but all the juice of the orange since it was a small and not particularly juicy orange. And I cooked the resulting concoction 1.5 hours since my stewing beef was pre-cubed into smaller pieces than the recipe called for (it was cheaper than the cube it yourself cuts).
I did mention I was going to wing it, yes?
This is what it ended up as:
As plated, with sauteed spinach with butter and garlic on the side:
It was *fantastic*. Lovely subtle sugars from the orange and just the barest hint of clove, and a delightfully rich gravy. I am planning to make this again in January when we have some friends over for dinner.
These cookoffs are wonderful for expanding my culinary repertoire!
Marcia.
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When technology fails....
This is what happens to a nice little roast beef when one's digital thermometer, set to go off at 130F, fails to go off, and when one notices that gee, that roast's been in the oven an awful long time for such a little roast, one notices that the roast's internal temperature is a toasty 181F. Turns out the thermometer's alarm somehow got turned off.
And to add injury to insult, I burned myself on the thermometer's probe.
Nights like this are why restaurants were invented.
Silver lining: the drippings were terrific so I deglazed the pan with red wine and set them aside for a sauce to be created later. And once the beef was cooled completely, I sliced it very very thinly, and it seems to be ok for sandwiches, if a little on the dry/tough side. So it wasn't a total loss.
Marcia.
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Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday - yes, there's lots of food, but they're generally foods that are only ok to me. I don't hate them, they're just not my favorites. There is simply not enough chocolate involved in Thanksgiving meals.
With the exception of stuffing. I don't like turkey much (because it doesn't like me - let's just say things get odoriferous after several hours, 'nuff said), but I could eat stuffing all day. Real stuffing, baked inside the bird, not that "dressing" stuff that's all dry and crisp like toast. My favorite stuffing is the stuff Mom made - Pepperidge Farms Cubed Herb Seasoned stuffing, directions right off the bag. My roots are showing, I know.
Ok, an exception for turkey skin, too. But only a small exception because it has to be hot and crisp, snitched off the bird right after it comes out of the oven. More than 10 minutes later and it's rubbery goo that's not good for anything.
Thanksgiving is also full of foods I really, truly dislike: cranberry sauce (I love cranberries in many presentations, but jellied or ground sauce isn't one of them) and sweet potatoes (I dislike their texture in any form except tempura) and creamed onions and Mom's gawdawful fruit salad with raspberry sherbet on top.
Christmas....oh, I love Christmas foods. The one time of the year we'll splurge on a rib roast. I love rib roasts and I love cooking them but my budget hates them.
Christmas cookies. My favorites are Toffee Squares (from some previous edition of the Betty Crocker "Cooky Book") and Mrs. Worman's Butter Cookies. They're made with a cookie press and decorated with dragees and colored sugars and they have no nutritional value whatsoever. Mrs. Worman was a friend of my grandmother's, from whom she received a lot of recipes that are now family favorites. Mrs. Worman may be gone, but her cookies live on.
And fudge. I received what is, to me, the world's greatest fudge recipe from a friend I met via Usenet somewhere around 1986. It's part marshmallow, part boiled, and intensely chocolate. Whenever I bring a batch of the fudge somewhere I'm asked for the recipe, and unfortunately I can't give it out - when Rick gave it to me, I promised not to share it. If I ever find out where he is on the net I will ask for permission, but until then, I'm bound by my word.
Marcia.
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Do you go to several different grocery stores?
Over time, yes, but I do my weekly (more or less) grocery shopping at Safeway. I do a little fill in weekly at Super Target because they have WAY better prices (like about half of what Safeway charges) on a couple of our staples, and I'm there anyway because I'm shopping for things Safeway doesn't carry and it's more or less across the road from them.
I hit places like King Sooper and Whole Foods only when I need stuff that only they carry.
Do you clip coupons?
Yes, and I use them. They pay for the newspaper subscriptions and then some. I do have the discount cards from all the stores I shop at, and nothing makes me happier than using a coupon on top of the card sale price. I try to take the store for at least 25% of the bill between the two every week.
What do you usually buy at the grocery store?
Uh, food.
Do you tend to buy more meat or more produce?
I buy both, since those two items make up the bulk of what we eat. I don't buy much in the way of prepared meals or things like pasta. Most of the rest of the stuff is things like spices and frozen green chiles and the like.
Are you too ashamed to make purchases from the "reject bin?"
Heavens, no. I'm always in search of scratch and dent meat because if we're not going to eat it tonight or tomorrow night, it's going into the freezer. That gives it a lengthened shelf life.
I do use my common sense, though - fuzzy blue-green meat is not a bargain.
Do you make a list?
I keep multiple running lists, sorted by store. One of the few household rules we have is that if it's not on the list, I don't know about it. I actually do keep a pretty good list in my head of what we need, but I have been known to forget important things, so we're both in the habit of writing it down.
How many refridgerators and pantries do you have for food storage?
One side by side fridge/freezer, one chest freezer out in the garage, one food pantry in the kitchen, and one pantry/closet in the laundry room that I use more for things like paper towels and dishwasher soap than actual food.
Do you enjoy grocery shopping as much as I do?
Depends on my mood. Sometimes I get a real kick out of it, sometimes it's just one more thing I have to do.
Marcia.
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I'm afraid I still use an old fashioned Revere tea kettle with the copper bottom. It's a six cup model that fits perfectly and snugly over the small sized burner on my electric stove. I bought it at a kitchen store closing sale for very little, and the whistle when it's boiling can be heard in the computer room. It has a spring loaded button/lever thing for lifting the lid on the spout. They apparently have some fancier models now, too.
I don't and won't have an electric tea kettle because I do not have any more counter space for appliances. The Revere kettle lives on the stove.
Marcia.
Frozen produce: cold hard truth
in Cooking
Posted
Frozen cauliflower is great for making pureed cauliflower (fauxtatoes) or for throwing in curries and the like. I'm not all that fond of it just plain, but as an ingredient in soups and stews I can't tell the difference between frozen and fresh, and it's a lot less expensive than fresh.