NulloModo

You can do almost anything with ground beef, tacos, red sauce with meat, lasagna, casseroles, goulash, soups, chili, really, it is an ultra versatile meat, just use it anywhere...

It was cold here today. 11 degrees with a wind chill of -10. Luckily, I had made a meatloaf over the weekend, and the ticket for dinner tonight was a meatloaf sandwhich with a side of mushroom Ragout. I still feel warm and gooey inside.

I am experimenting with LC pizza crust recipes again. Yesterday's was a little too fibrous and dense, but I am on the right track I think. Anyway, the pizza on top of the experimental crust was Greek seasoned ground lamb, roasted eggplant, tomato sauce, feta cheese, and lots of oregano.

Since it is only a thirty cent swing per pound, and you use around three pounds per cheesecake, I'd just use the Philly and if it comes down to it, raise the price of your product by a dollar to compensate. After all, cheesecakes are pretty decadent desserts, no point in skimping on the main ingredient.

I personally don't see a problem with the label of 'Hispanic' for a broad range of cuisines, and don't see why it can't cover Mexican, Cuban, Carribean nations, central America, etc. Then again, I don't mind the broad sweeping 'Asian' or 'Western' either. If you stand back far enough you can see a lot of similarities, even though there are also lots of differnces. For example, most Asian cuisines have an affinity for white rice, lots of soupy/one-pot dishes, big use of noodles, and that salty/sweet/sour flavor combination going on. Some do it more than others, and obviously a Thai Curry is going to be a lot different from a Japanese Sashimi plate which is in turn nothing like a Schezuan stir-fry (except for the possible presense of soy in the latter two). Still, most peopls presented with Asian food could make an educated guess of what general area of the world the dish came from, even if they were unfamiliar with it. Hispanic cuisine is very similar in that regard. Getting away from the white rices into more 'dirty rice', affinity for tomato, chiles, and certain characterstic cuts of meat such as flank steak you start to build a base. Add in condiments such as salsas, or the presense of flavoring agents like Sofrito (and all of its variations), and you start to see things looking more and more similar if you take them in as an abstract instead of just paying attention to the minor details.

Hmmm, I have never really thought about this, but now that I do, the cheesecakes I have made with Philly have all come out better than those when I use generic store brands... I guess from your experience as well, something is obviously happening. I wonder to save costs if you could maybe use the cheap cream cheese and just add a bit of xantham gum or guar gum or something to the batter to help it stick together?

Tonight was: Meatloaf sandwich (with an awesome hot garlic mustard from Buffalo, NY) and a side of roasted brussels sprouts. No pics, as I devoured it with great prejudice as soon as it was prepared.

Saturnalia! now there is something to celebrate ;). In my HS latin class we always had a Saturnalia celebration, although we substituted a pig-shaped pinata filled with candy for an actual pig stuffed with sweetbreads and all...

When I was a tot my parents tell me I had an insatiable hunger for cottage cheese and collard greens. I can't much stand cottage cheese anymore, but I still love collard greens, and my parents know that it is theone item that absolutely must adorn the table anytime they invite me over for a holiday meal.

Isn't Rumsford double-acting? I was under the impression that anything you buy at the grocery store is double-acting...

So, yesterday, coming home from work, I decided to drop by the liquor store for a little refreshment for the weekend. I was planning on picking up a bottle of Knob Creek or Booker's, but I found myself wandering to the scotch wall instead. I recalled reading something about Dalmore's Cigar Malt as having marmalade and sherry overtones, and upon seeing a 750ml bottle on sale for $25, I had to pick some up. So far, I am pretty pleased with it. It is certainly a medium bodied scotch, not smokey and deep, but not light and biting either. It is very smooth, and certainly does have that sherry finish. I have yet to try it with a cigar, but for anyone out there looking for a pleasant, not to heavy, not to light scotch with a subtle sweetness behind it, this is certainly worth picking up a bottle of if you can find it for a good price.

Definately a reduction. Reduction sauces that are thickened purely through reduction are so much richer, tastier, and just more luxurious than floured gravies.

I completely forgot, I have a huge .doc file full of crock pot recipes on my personal storage site, here is the link: Crockpot Recipes

Awesome! and I have a Tivo-ish thing now, so I am definately going to set it to record those...

Cookbooks for a slow cooker? Just play around, have fun with it. Make onion confit, toss in a pork butt, a couple cans of kraut, some sausage and spices and let it go, do roasts, do stews and chili, cook comfort food 24/7 !

Genereally I just dump pan grease down the sink... Hardly ever more than like half a cup from a pan at a time, but I have never had a problem, and I usually run some hot water after to wash it all down. When I need to clean out my deep fryer I wait until the middle of the night and walk out to the storm drain to dump it...

I dunno, they might be, I like shrimp, and I liked chips, I could've just ordered a bad bag. My problem with them is that they had a very powerful 'artificial' taste and smell that turned me off from them.

Why does her mother mind you broadening her tastes?

We love to pick on Olive Garden here, but I think that statement brings up a good point: One of the original questions is whether or not authenticity matters, and to me, it simply doesn't. Now, I see the point in keeping the original recipe around for history's sake and all that, and I feel that a person should probably sample an 'authentic' version of their favorite dishes at some point in their lives. However, past that, I don't see why it matters. Olive Garden, Chi-Chi's, Bennegan's, none of these are 'authentic' cuisine (unless we can qualify US Chain Restaurant as a cuisine ;) ) but I still enjoy the majority of meals I sit down to at these places. Yes, your pasta dish at OG will be nothing like it would be in Italy, but who is to say the original way was the best way? I don't think we should lose the authentic ways of doing things, because from a purely educational standpoint it is important to know where things come from, but I personally think my marinara sauce tastes better with a couple slugs of butter in it along with a ton of rosemary (neither completely authentic), and that Chili is improved by the addition of cocoa, clove, cinnamon, mace, ginger, and black soybeans. Authenticity is nice, but I prefer it in a book as opposed to on my plate.

Weird, I had no idea Barefoot Contessa was filmed in the Hamptons, or that that was her actual house and not a set, guess that shows how clueless I can be ;). I also like Paula Dean a lot, the food is wholesome, mostly doable for most home cooks, looks very tasty, and she talked like my grandmother. I watched 'How to Boil Water' last night for the first time. I think the host was a lady named Jack Hourragot, or something along those lines. There was also a foreign (I couldn't quite place the accent) chef helping her out (I wasn't watching that closely). Anyway, from what little I saw the recipe (they cooked two dishes, but one was simple pan roasted meat, not really a recipe needed for that...) was basic (the actual recipe was for a mushroom ragu) but something I would be interested in trying, and they did explain well how to do it. I also liked the 'how to fix it if you mess it up halfway through cooking' bit they did at the end. The only thing that really bugged me was the non-existant chemistry between Jack and the chef. I couldn't tell if he pitied her, or wanted to slam down his All-Clad pan on the back of her head when she looked away.

The best steaks I have ever tasted have had an almost 'instant-char' applied via slamander or ultra-hot grill. The meat was black and crusty on the outside, still raw on the inside, to me, this is perfect.

Chinese is America's favorite ethnic food? Wow, who knew... I wonder if they consider Italian to be 'ethnic', I certainly see at least three Italian restaurants for every Chinese/Mexican. Then again, Mexican places are starting to pop up more and more than Chinese, and I am probably eating that way too. I certainly prefer Hispanic food to most Asian, although I do love some spicey szechuan style Chinese, some good Sushi, or good Thai on occasion, but I wouldn't want to eat it every day. I am also excited that the Hispanic food world seems to be broadening. Instead of seeing just 'Mexican' places, there are now distinct Americanized Mexican, Authentic Mexican, Tex-Mex, Cajun-Mexican Fusion, and Puerto Rican/Chilean/Peruvian places around here, each with its own special charm. All of the Chinese places on the other hand have nearly identical menus, and there is nothing to distinguish between any of the Japanese Hibachi/Sushi-Bar joints. There was briefly a place that specialized in Asian style noodle soups/noodle bowls, but the they were overpriced and the food was boring by any standard, so it quickly shut down.

They don't have these in Canada? They are very buttery, flakey, cripsy crackers which are lightly salted.

I once ordered a box full of random japanese snack items via some mail-order company (or maybe via the internet). I remember some of the more odd chip based products being squid and wasabi flavored rice puffs, and seaweed and shrimp flavored cripsy twisty things. I have pretty open tastebuds, but even I felt both of those were vile. I guess one almost has to grow up on them...

I thought that whole lobsters were traditionally boiled, and that just tails were traditionally broiled. Broiling and served with butter certainly isn't a bad idea, the thing about lobster is that you don't want to do anything too crazy that will cover up the natural sweetness and flavor of the meat. I like the tails grilled though, just a short time over hot coals adds a hint of smokeyness that really sets them off.