andiesenji

I've a friend who makes a "trick" version of grilled cheese for parties. He got the idea from the pictures on this blog. He cuts a whole pullman loaf (unsliced) in long, thin slices, butters the bread and layers the slices with cheese and stacks them to make multiple layers. He wraps the assembled "loaf" in plastic wrap and puts it into one of the long, straight-sided loaf pans and adds a heavy weight for several hours. After the layers have glued themselves together, he slices across the layers and grills the slices, then cuts them diagonally and arranges them on a platter in a herringbone pattern. It makes a neat presentation. He often alternates yellow and white cheeses for contrast and sometimes adds a bit of mustard but never mayo and sometimes puts two of the slices together with yet another slice of cheese between. I've asked him to let me know the next time he plans to do this so I can go over and take photos. I've also tried to get him to join eG but while he lurks as a guest from time to time, he says he is just not a "joiner" and won't sign on.

Just received "Cooking With Jane Austen" the first in the Feasting with Fiction Series from the Greenwood Publishing Group. This cookbook published in 2005 - 414 pages with original recipes and modern versions. There are also a lot of engravings from the period - most satirical - especially those by Rowlinson and Cruikshank. The second in the series is Cooking With Shakespeare was published in 2008 - I haven't yet ordered this one. I'm a big fan of Jane Austen so decided to add this one to my collection of JA peripheral books. I already have The Jane Austen Cookbook and Tea With Jane Austen.

No, don't do that; it'll raise your blood pressure! Well, that is true with too much salt, but there is also the fact that we do need some salt and too great a restriction can also be a problem. The first doctor for whom I worked was an internist and wrote a paper for the New England Journal of Medicine that illustrated problems that could happen with restricting salt intake too rigorously. The peer review notes showed that was an "A-Ha" moment for several reviewers.

As I noted in my first post in this topic, too many of the deductions, based on these so-called studies that relate to any food in the diet of any group of people, accept as truth what can only be a conjecture. A study based on a fallacy because the "researcher" accepts as fact something that is extremely difficult to prove is inherently false itself. The Latin term: Post hoc ergo propter hoc, illustrates this; "after this, therefore because of this." Just because something happens after one event does not mean that the preceding event (or meal or lifelong diet) caused the following event. When they pounce on one factor and don't consider the entire series of events, they aren't presenting the entire picture. To illustrate this: I am sure you have all heard about older women "falling and breaking a hip" as it seems very common. What I bet you didn't know was that most of these are spiral fractures of the neck of the femur and a fall does not produce this type of fracture. What happens is that force from pivoting on the leg will cause the fracture in older women (and men) with osteoporosis. The fracture occurs THEN the fall. Because the person was found on the floor or the ground the immediate idea was the fall caused the fracture. Post hoc ergo propter hoc in action. Take everything with a grain of salt - what may appear to be true in one decade may be proven to be dead wrong in the next.

This has been on the news programs here in L.A. today. Channel 9 and Channel 2, both CBS affiliates, had fairly long segments several times today. I believe it. My vet has told me of several, difficult to treat infections around the mouths of dogs and also cats whose owners have them on the popular raw diet.

There is no shame in that (pitted or not)! I eat the whole can by myself - hate to share. Fortunately, I married a guy that does not like olives (silly man), so I get them all! I love them but I also am extremely partial to the "green ripe" olives marketed under the Olive Pit brand and the difficult to find, Santa Barbara Olive Co. product. They have a lovely, buttery flavor that is much richer than the black ripe olives. Lindsay Naturals are pretty good but not as good as these.

No shame in that. I love them too. If I want a "light" lunch, I take a thin slice of crusty bread, ladle on some stewed tomatoes, right out of the can, allow it to soak in a bit and then consume. Low calorie too.

I use cocktail weenies and the same size spicy sausages, I cut puff pastry (or crescent roll dough if I'm feeling lazy) into small triangles, place a strip of pepper jack cheese (about the size of a stick of gum) on the dough, place a weenie on top and wrap.. Bake in a 350° F oven for 12-15 minutes, till lightly browned. Serve with spicy mustard and spicy cocktail (tomato) sauce. I prepare about three times as many as I think will be consumed and never have any leftovers. Some guys eat them like popcorn.

Oh the shame! Today I purchased six packages of Peeps. Now to see how much I can "expand" them in the microwave before they collapse.

I remember some twenty years ago when there was a great hoo-ha about charcoal grilled meats and the carcinogenic effects of eating same. Again, the consumption of the stuff was way beyond any amount that it would have been possible for someone to eat. Some wag wrote an essay, I think it was in the New Yorker, that his doctor must have been trying to engender cancer in him because he had been prescribing activated charcoal for a decade or more. Give someone an inch and they will take a mile. Whether it is "fame" or $$$$, someone is getting something out of this. Who knows what the payoff will be?

Well said! I still say, "follow the money" somebody has to be making something out of this.

I think it is one of these reproduction wood cook stoves The oven door looks a little too big for one of the original antiques. Those ovens very were quite small. I learned to cook on an antique wood/coal stove that also heated the kitchen and adjoining rooms in winter - was moved out to the summer kitchen during the hotter months.

What do you do if the ovens are in use for something else? That was my problem and the reason I use a warming tray.

Anything, used to excess can be "poison" and sugar or sugar relatives and substitutes are no exception. Moderation - as many have said before, is the balancing force. If one wants to be argumentative, it is easy to point out the average life span of Europeans/English and etc., prior to sugar appearing as a significant portion of the diet was considerably less than the current life span of Europeans/English and now Americans. However, that does not take into account hundreds or thousands of other factors that also affect not only the length but also the quality of life. Sugar certainly did not increase the life span but it could be made to appear that it did. Just as not all tooth decay can be attributed to refined sugar consumption (some peoples eat NO refined sugar and still have tooth decay and loss) there are a great many conditions that can't simply be blamed on sugar consumption. Before the internet and WWW there were paper publications that sold well because their covers carried provocative headlines and these made money for the publishers. These are not much of a money maker now, so they have had to transfer these dramatic writings and the headlines, to the internet. Scary announcements do bring in the bucks. They are not always completely true and often in the past have been proved to be totally false. One excellent example were the totally erroneous "studies" that killed the production and sale of sodium cyclamate when it was banned by the FDA in 1970. It is interesting that these studies were financed by the sugar industry - (and were carried out in some of the same labs that found tobacco non addictive!) A couple of years ago Coke Zero was introduced to Venezuela using sodium cyclamate as a sweetener but President Chavez personally banned it because he thought it was a plot to poison his citizens. Numerous studies all over the world have shown that sodium cyclamate is no more poisonous than other artificial sweeteners and is much cheaper (10.00/kg) than Aspartame (150.00/kg) and the manufacturer of the latter has also financed some more recent "studies" to prove sodium cyclamate metabolic products causes cancer. None of these so-called "studies" call attention to the fact that the amounts fed to laboratory rats would, if adjusted for size, would require an adult human to consume more than a pound of the stuff each day for three months. Any scientific study can be manipulated to obtain the results wanted by those financing the study. Truly independent studies are not all that common because these are expensive and someone has to pay for them. Far too often the money behind the studies comes from those who want to manipulate the marketplace.

You can use guar gum or gum arabic or gum tragacanth instead of the gelatin. I use these gums instead of gelatin when making candy for vegans.

Are you a secret Hobbit? "First breakfast, Second breakfast, there were several other meals. I forget.... I have made batter for popovers which are going to be baked early tomorrow morning. Photos will be posted if I can remember..

I used them today to pick up shelled hardboiled eggs - slippery but easily retrieved.

I still miss my old Garland that I bid goodbye thirty years ago. It had a shelf above the back part of the cooktop which was perfect for warming plates, keeping bread and rolls warm and keeping butter and other fats in a liquid form. Snif! Sigh...

The tips are just slightly rounded but where they meet they are almost flat. They are silicone and pick up slippery stuff fairly easily.

I do warm the plates and as some of my vintage and antique china is not microwave suitable, I use one of my old Salton hot trays to keep plates, soup bowls and cups warm, especially when I serve buffets. I have seen heating pads used to keep plates warm, also microwaveable heat packs, which work nicely when there is no electric outlet available.

I was going to put these in "unusual gadgets" but as this topic is specific to tongs, I'm bumping this thread up to show these new tongs "Clongs" I got a couple of weeks ago. I originally saw these on an Australian site that was linked from a ForumThermomix topic and thought I would order them. However, I dithered a while, actually a few months, then was pleasantly surprised to see them on Amazon.com I ordered the 12 inch Clongs and after using them for a while, have ordered the 9 inch. These are quite easy to use and require only one hand to lock and unlock them but they hold securely in both options - something not always true in other types of locking tongs. These are quite easy to use for me, even with the arthritis in my right hand. The bump in the shaft not only holds the tips off the counter but I can also "hang" them on the edge of a skillet and they stay in place - not possible with other type tongs.

It may seem odd to some people but the stores really do benefit significantly when customers use coupons. Manufacturers pay up front for shelf sites - that is, to get their products in a prime location. Often this is based not only on sales of the product but when these products are purchased with a manufacturer's coupon. When these factors are considered, the statistics don't show if the sales are to one person with 100 coupons or 100 persons with one coupon each. They just show a positive response for a particular product and if the manufacturer wants to push that product, the store (or chain) will receive a bonus or premium for product placement in a prime location. Unfortunately, small manufactures can't compete with the big boys, which is why their products are on the lowest or highest shelves, not near the eye-level slots that come at a premium price and that is why you seldom see coupons for these products. Many small companies have a semi-annual coupon promotion so don't expect to see them monthly, and usually they are much less than those offered by the big companies. That's one of the reasons I buy products from small manufacturers, when they have a superior product. I don't want to see these things disappear from my store shelves.

I also make my own fromage blanc and use it as a filling in blintzes, both sweet and savory, some quite spicy (obviously not traditional). Almost any kind of fruit, many vegetables, etc. Some filling ideas here.

I don't recommend it either for stainless steel. This is what it did to my thermos, when I just wanted to scrub the tannin deposits away--I had a theory, which I now know was wrong, that perhaps the buildup of tannins was the problem with some of my more delicate teas when put into the thermos: That's steel etched by the tablets. Oy! A disaster. I meant heavy SS stockpots that have developed crustal elements from boiling lots of water (say for pasta). My well water tastes wonderful but has a high percentage of minerals dissolved in it that precipitate out with boiling. I can boil straight vinegar to get it off but that also requires a session outside - with an induction burner - because of the strong fumes. I just clean interiors of vacuum bottles with a bleach solution as I make sure never to leave anything inside them for a prolonged period and I store them upside down on a boot rack.

The best way to clean a teapot that has been infected with mold is with hydrogen peroxide. Pour it in and leave it in the pot for at least an hour, rinse several times with hot water and follow with a vinegar rinse to neutralize any peroxide that may remain. There are many molds that are resistant to bleach - it will remove the color of the mold, but will not kill the spores so the mold comes back and these spores can hide in microscopic crazing inside a teapot. Bleach will destroy bacteria and viruses and is excellent for removing stains from tea. You can also use full strength distilled white vinegar and if the pot is microwave safe, heat it in the MW for 3-5 minutes, depending on the size of the teapot, then allow it to cool in the MW. This has the advantage of also doing some cleanup of the MW interior - just wipe with a paper towel. Don't open the door while the stuff is still hot, you will get a sinus-clearing jolt of vinegar steam. You can also fill the pot with vinegar, place it in a larger vessel pour hot water around it and put it over low heat to keep the water hot but not boiling. An hour is optimum. Denture tablets are fine for removing mineral deposits and will kill certain bacteria but will not kill all mold spores - some molds actually like some of the compounds that go into these tablets. The bubbles are produced by sodium hydrogen carbonate. You can combine this with hydrogen peroxide to get a very effective cleaner but it will also remove the glaze from pottery, porcelain and etc. Not a good thing. It's very effective in removing mineral deposits from stainless steel. I have tried it - outside - in a stiff breeze to carry away the fumes. I don't recommend it. Oxygen bleach? Not so much effective on molds. I had a box in my garden shed - for scrubbing plant pots - it got damp and the top and end of the box had a fine crop of mold growing on and in it. We gingerly bagged and sealed it and put it in the hazardous waste bin at the local fire station.