beccaboo
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Posts posted by beccaboo
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You didn't mention the color of the seeds. If it had black seeds, it was one of the Rocoto or Manzano peppers which can vary in heat and are also very sweet, with an apple-like flavor, very fruity.
It looks like a small bell pepper, has thick fleshy walls. Red Rocoto from UK Chile-Head database.
It wasn't that--it had whitish seeds, and thinner walls. I looked at much of the Chile-Head database, and the one I found that looked the closest was the Aji Chombo. It really was very hot.
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Is it humanly possible to eat a habanero pepper?
If not, are they dangerous?
If so, just how hot are they? I've eaten whole jalepenos (ouch!) and thai peppers (OMFG!!!) -- how do habaneros compare? Will you be running around in circles before jumping into a lake after which you'll have to scrape flesh from your mouth?
I've had the skin of habaneros in salsas and stuffed olives. The heat was powerful but not really painful, and they had a pleasant fruity taste as well. But that was just a piece of the skin...
I got a pepper at the farmer's market that looked like either a really big habanero or a smallish, bendier-than-usual red bell pepper. I wanted it for a garnish for my gazpacho, so didn't want something really hot. The person I bought it from assured me that it was a sweet (I took that to mean 'not hot') pepper. I cut the top off to pull the seeds out, and took a big bite of the stuff around the stem--flesh with some seeds and white pithy stuff--and it was incredibly hot. Way hotter than a jalapeno or a serrano, so I think it must have been a habanero. I ended up cutting it into very fine dice and using it on my gazpacho, warning the wimpy-tongued to leave it off. I'm not one for super-duper hot stuff, but I think I could have eaten the whole thing without fainting or anything.
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I've been using instant yeast that I keep in the freezer and don't activate (don't need to, right?). I thin I've had it for like two years, so I suppose age is a possibility. But two years shouldn't be too long in the freezer, right?
I bet it's the yeast. I keep my instant yeast in the freezer in a little jar, and after about a year and a half it suddenly stops working and I have to get a new bag. It's happened a couple of times, and it really is sudden--one week my bread will rise as usual, the next it barely rises at all.
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I love my 14 cup DLC 7. The new models of cuisinart aren't like the old ones though, so see if you can find an old one around. E-bay often has them.
We have a 30+ year old one, and whenever I'm visiting someone with one of the new ones with all the safety features it's awful! I guess you'd get used to them, but they seem very counterintuitive.
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I just don't understand what happened to flour weights/measurements. Back in the 50's and 60's when I was learning to cook, I was told "A cup of flour weighs 4 ounces, which means that each 1/4 cup weighs one ounce." I have used that rule for 50 years without problems until people started using the dip and sweep method and calling 5 ounces a cup.
I don't think the dip-and-sweep method's really that new. I learned to cook from my mother's 1960s Betty Crocker cookbook, and that's what Betty told me to do. Now i have my own 1950s Betty crocker, and it uses the same method. I prefer to weigh now, but usually 'dip-level-pour' (that's what Betty Crocker calls it), fluffing the flour first, when measuring by volume. My cups weigh about 4.7 oz that way.
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I have a French book somewhere that says to make 'a volcano' of your flour--I've always thought that was a better description than 'a well.'
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I used the Green & Black 72% baking bar referenced below. I did not like the flavor at all on its own. Very green tasting. Blech! But I soldiered on.
The Green & Black I like isn't the baking bar (I don't think I've tried that) but the ones more like big candy bars. I really like the Mayan Gold, but that probably wouldn't be good for truffles.
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Thanks much, beccaboo! I like the southern Italian zucchini dish that has a similar preparation--i.e. thin slices fried or roasted then marinated with garlic slices, mint and vinegar but I have never heard of this squash/pumpkin dish. The sugar is an interesting twist. Perhaps this also a southern/Sicilian preparation?
I just Googled it, and the closest-looking recipe I found was in Italian, on a website of Calabrian recipes. There was a button to click for the English version, but that took me to a cabbage recipe!
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Zucca Agrodolce is one of my favorites. You just slice your pumpkin/winter squash about 1/2 cm thick and fry it on both sides in olive oil. Lay it an a platter, at most two layers thick, and season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with chopped mint and garlic sliced paper-thin. Add maybe 2T each (more if you're making a lot of zucca) red wine vinegar and sugar to the pan you cooked the pumpkin in, and cook till the sugar's dissolved and it's a little thickened. Pour over the squash. Serve at room temp.
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I have 313 altogether in the 'Food' folder of my bookmarks, but many are things I bookmarked once and never returned to. My favorites, or at least most-used, are the newspaper food sections.
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beccaboo, when you make soup have you ever used parmesan rind during cooking?? I'm looking for something to do with some rind I've saved. At $15/lb, it would be nice to not throw the rind in the trash.
But what about the celeriac leaves and stems I have sitting in my fridge? Are they safe to eat? I'm making braised short ribs tomorrow and thought I might put in a couple stalks while it braises. But I don't want to poison anyone.
I have used parmesan rinds, kind of like you'd use bay leaves, and it works pretty well.
The celeriac stems won't poison you--they're just like tiny celery stems.
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I have an Italian recipe for rice soup with carrots plus their tops. It's got celery, onion, and garic, too, and some parmesan sprinkled at the end. You only cook the carrot leaves for the last 5 minutes.
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Anyone have any experience with any of the chocolates on the page, in terms of flavor or suitability for truffle making? I think the Green & Black has a pretty good reptuation, tastewise...
I like Dagoba and Green & Black. I've never made anything with Dagoba, but 's good for eating plain.
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cow's milk cheeses (parmignano) and sheep's milk cheeses (percorino) are really different animals
Fake, cow's-milk romano is less sharp than the sheep kind, as well as less nutty-tasting than parmesan.
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Do you mean 'Vegan' or 'Non-Dairy?' A true vegan truffle would have no bleached white sugar, often found in chocolate. There is a purification step used in white sugar that uses the bones of animals making it decidely non-vegan.
Beet sugar isn't filtered with bone char, so it's all vegan. Some cane sugar is okay too, at least in the UK--I don't know about US brands.
I made some nice vegan truffles once with chestnuts, chocolate, sugar and some kind of liqueur. I can't remember the particulars, though.
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I want to make a blackberry sauce to accompany a seared duck breast. My question is:
What is the best way to deal with those pesky seeds
1. A food mill ? I don't think my smallest disc will stop the tiny seeds.
A food mill works for my blackberries. They might have bigger seeds than yours, though.
I've used a sieve before, too (I don't remember why), and it was a lot more work than the food mill but turned out fine.
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beccaboo, I've gotta admit - that's the first time I've heard of using it in a bread dough. I get the hamburger bun one - but with peanut-butter? Really?
Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, not peanut butter and jam. I like whole wheat toast with peanut butter, Vegemite and onion, though, so I like my peanut butter on the savoury side.
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I sometimes add it to my hamburger bun dough (leaving out the rest of the salt, of course). I've even put it in my fluffy-sandwich-type bread--it makes a nice peanut butter sandwich!
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please don't laugh
Why is milk/cheese only from cows, sheep, goats, and water buffalos?
Why not horse milk, llama cheese, camel cheese, etc?
I read once that, of the commonly drunk milks, donkey's milk is the closest nutritionally to human milk, i.e. fat/sugar/protein amounts. So some people must drink donkey milk! And humans are omnivores and babies like their milk. It's probably just that herbivores are more placid, thus easier to milk.
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I looked into it and found out that frozen fruit is very hard on blender blades--far worse than ice
Further info?
I can't find it now, but three years ago when I was deciding if we should fix the Waring yet again or get a Vita-Mix I read that in a few places. I think one of the troubles is that the frozen fruit can get stuck under a blade, causing it to bend. One time our blades broke, and another time it just got bent in a way that made the blender unusable.
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When we broke our Waring's blades making smoothies I looked into it and found out that frozen fruit is very hard on blender blades--far worse than ice--and ended up getting a Vita-Mix. It was really expensive--I think it was on sale for $250--but worth it. We call it our 'hippie blender' because it's so nice for things like tofu-making and grinding grains as well as smoothies and things.
I have a Bamix that I got at a junk store to replace a Cuisinart immersion blender that died, and, while it seems a lot more powerful than its predecessor, I don't think it's the best tool for smoothie-making.
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Can blue cheese go moldy? If so, will it look -- or be -- the same as the blue bits in the cheese (ie., will I even be able to see if it has happened?) And would it be harmful to eat?
Mouldy cheeses can get other, icky moulds, but usually they look different. I don't think cheese moulds are terribly dangerous, so it shouldn't hurt to taste a little and see if it's still good.
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A Vietnamese guy told me that balut are popular with newlyweds--I'm not sure if it's to improve their fertility or their libidos.
I used to get regular duck eggs all the time when they had them at our co-op, and liked them for everything but scrambled eggs. I like my scrambled eggs more dry/fluffy than creamy/slimy, and duck eggs don't seem to lose their sliminess.
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I put pepper in cookies and on strawberries, and cumin in my hot cross buns. I make garlic jelly, too, but that's not really dessert.
Baking stones and pan of water
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
This started happening to me when we got a new oven, and I finally figured out it was because the stone had to be in the upper third of our new oven or it got too hot. I kept it near the bottom of our old oven so there'd be more room, and it worked out fine, but our new oven was somehow different.