Smithy

This looks to my inexperienced eye as though it is a soup concentrate for noodles (or whatever) and that it does not contain noodles in the packet. Am I reading that right?

I know what they meant, but I think this is very funny advice on how to keep my yogurt fresh.

I've had white whole wheat (King Arthur) flour go off. I can't comment on the gumminess because my own results are much too hit-and-miss for me to think I know what I'm talking about...but I think the off flavors could easily be due to rancidity. I doubt you've done lasting damage to your starter. According to my reading, a mature starter is pretty robust. You might want to refresh with known good flour sooner than you'd normally do so.

I just now followed your link. What a beautiful book - selling what would (to me, under our current living circumstances) be only a beautiful illusion! In fact, the first house I bought in northern Minnesota had a brick outdoor fireplace built very much like the one shown in one of the sample pages. It was falling apart, and I never repaired it. Now I want to build one here. It's a fantasy that we'd use it enough to justify its existence, but I can dream! Thanks for that link.

My new-used copy of the aforementioned Sunset Cookbook has arrived, bringing my Sunset library to a total of 3. I mentioned the "Easy Basics" cookbook before. The fish cookbook is something I picked up at a garage sale a few years ago. I've been poking around the new-to-me cookbook and think the salad section alone will be worth the purchase.

Yes, I wish I lived near enough to @andiesenji to come help! Although I'm certainly no paragon of organization - faaar from it - I could shift things while she pointed. @scamhi, I envy your cupboards; one could actually find something in them! One can find things in my pantries too, provided one knows to look for them in the first place. That means my Other Half asks me rather than looking. Here's our in-house mess, as opposed to in-the-garage mess (a refrigerator and freezer) or in-the-trailer mess (more dry goods). Spices, oils, vinegars, live on a turntable: More spices, a few canisters of bulk-buy items: Crackers, cereal, things like panko and bread crumbs: A cupboard of mostly canned goods we regularly use: The unopened stuff, and more bulk purchases, and the home-canned goods that will fit all go into what we call the Armageddon Mini-Mart: Alas, the Mini-Mart is now overflowing so there's more stuff in an adjacent bedroom with extra cookware and most of my cookbooks. There's half a flat of last year's salsa sitting in jars in there. And then there's the aforementioned garage. No, I am no paragon.

Probably not. This post notes some of his constraints.

@kunalv, let us know how it all goes. Pictures of the result will be welcome, if you aren't too shy. 🙂

Oh, sure - you can assemble in the car. I just don't know how much space you have for doing that. I agree that things will go soggy if you assemble them and then transport. Whether they'll go soggy in an hour I don't know. I don't think any of it will go stale (rancid) in less than a day. The cooked chicken will get into a danger zone of bacterial growth after a few hours, but I don't know really how long you'd have. Four? I hope some of the professionals will chime in here with better information. They may have more practical suggestions, too. Incidentally, this (scroll toward bottom of post) is more or less what I'm imagining, with chicken instead of beef. If you have a different mental image, then we're not talking about the same thing!

Ah! Then it sounds like you need to have them assembled as much as possible before you head out! You still need to make sure the chicken doesn't sit warm for too many hours. Either cook and refrigerate it tonight, then reheat before you go, or cook it in the morning just before you start assembling the tacos. Incidentally, I just looked at the instructions for the type of crispy taco shells I've used. They say that for microwave reheating you should fan them out so they aren't overlapping much (take them out of their package first) and microwave for about 45 seconds.

Hello, and welcome! You can definitely cook those taco shells in the microwave instead of the oven; in fact, I've had better luck with microwave. Unfortunately I can't remember for how long I microwaved them. 30 seconds? if the package doesn't say (mine did) then I'd start with 30 seconds, check, and if they don't seem crisp enough then try another 30 seconds, and so on. If you have a shell to spare I'd use one as a test case to figure out the right way to do it. Does your girlfriend have a microwave, and is it feasible to heat the taco shells at her place just before serving? To me, having them warm is the best way to go. I personally like the contrast between the warm shell and filling, and the cold lettuce, salsa and guac. If you can't reheat anything at your girlfriend's place, then heating the shells and the chicken filling just before you leave and then storing them in something that will keep them warm for transport is the way I would go. (Got a cooler?) You can cook the chicken filling tonight, but if you do that you'll need to refrigerate it tonight and reheat just before you leave, for food safety purposes. The salsa can be made any time. The guacamole is better fresh so it doesn't discolor. The lettuce is more likely to stay crisp if you shred or cut it the day of her party. I have a vision of your arriving with two coolers: one carrying the cold items (quacamole, salsa, lettuce, drinks?) and one carrying the warm taco shells and chicken filling. Assembly at her house is part of the fun. If you don't have coolers or insulated bags you can improvise by putting them in containers and separating into a "hot" shopping bag and a "cold" shopping bag. You have a lucky girlfriend!

Thanks for pulling this back up, @Okanagancook. I have a few Scary Drawers that I should maybe start working through, although I probably won't any time soon. An interesting point is the "when did you last use it" test. We remodeled our kitchen 9 years ago, and that meant completely emptying it out. I put quite a few seldom-used things in a storage bin that went into one of our outbuildings. This summer, for the first time, I found myself retrieving one thing from that bin. Maybe it's time to let the rest go.

It really couldn't happen for me this summer, but I do hope to get the chance sometime in the future.

Very pretty! I'm usually disappointed in apricots, but grilling them might improve the flavor. Forgive me if I've asked you this before, but are there apricots grown in your part of the world? I always think of them as needing a longer and hotter growing season.

That's a fine essay. Thank you for the link. I really need to read him more regularly. As far as the recipe goes, I don't think the orange juice will be acidic enough. As I recall, Navel orange juice has a pH of around 4, maybe slightly higher; lemon juice (Eureka or Lisbon, not Meyer) has a pH around 2.5. (This article says 4.35 for orange, and 2.30 for lemon, and notes that the acidity of both decays with age.) I wonder if you could use baking powder instead of, or in addition to, the baking soda to compensate? I also have my doubts about using almond milk instead of milk. I'd go with the cottage cheese instead, which should be closer to the fat content. Edited to add: got any citric acid sitting around from a canning project?

I am always on the lookout for things that can be fed to our unruly and wildly irregular once-a-year firewood party. These look like they might be a good item. Is this a recipe you can share? (If not, I'll understand. Been there, done that, kept the secrets.)

Well, heck. I wish I'd known that before. I spent a touch more (not much, really) than I needed to because I didn't know that. Thanks, Kim. Readers, take note!

I'm pretty sure my old recipe for West Coast Flank Steak (marinated in citrus juice and other things, then broiled, I'd have to look at the recipe for more details) came from this book.

I can't compare them, but I can say that I have the Kyocera in your link and have been happy with it.

My sister had that cookbook. I wonder whether she still has it, and if so, could I wheedle it out of her? Edit: oh, what the heck. My own used copy has just been ordered from Amazon.

This is the book that convinced me that cooking was not some esoteric branch of thermodynamics*. I liked it so much that I found a copy of their Easy Basics for International Cooking and gave it to my best friend. She still uses that book, and unlike me she is not a cookbook collector. * Well it is, actually, but I am no longer intimidated by cooking.

@andiesenji wrote, long ago, about the ability of her basenjis to open refrigerators and perhaps freezers...but not to close them again. As I recall she had to latch them with very strong, dogproof latches. I'm sure alarms are cheaper and more aesthetically pleasing, however. Good luck, dtremit. I too would like to see some of your creations. Yes to stews, soups, sauces. Are you up to making, say, stuffings for pastas?

Same here on no curtains, no neighbors. It drives me nuts when we're in the Princessmobile, in a park, and have to draw the curtains! I feel entirely too closed in.

Hello and welcome, Wagner. I too am interested to see what you have to say about the food you cook there, and about your journey from engineer to cook. There are a fair number of scientists and engineers on this forum! If you have any questions about how to use the forum software, or whether or where to post something, feel free to ask a host (I am one) by PM or email.

Remind me please (I know we discussed this some time ago) what glass curtains are? Are they what would be called "sheers" in the US? @weinoo, I'd forgotten all about my yogurt strainer since I gave up trying to make my own yogurt. You've given it new life. Many thanks!