andiesenji

I don't recall ever using dulce de leche in a savory soup - I have used it in a cold fruit soup. Considering the flavor, I would suggest trying a squash or pumpkin soup. I make a carrot/sorrel soup (one way to get rid of a lot of sorrel, which volunteers all over my garden) which might benefit from the addition of some ducle de leche. Sometimes, if the carrots are not extremely sweet, the lemony flavor of the sorrel becomes a bit too assertive and I think the burnt caramel flavor of the dulce de leche would go very well with it. I'll ask Celia when she gets back from church - (she takes several grandchildren with her to late Mass.) -and ask if she uses it in any savory dishes. She makes a terrific sweet potato and roasted pepper soup/stew that is delicious. I have been meaning to ask her for the recipe. She uses the "white" sweet potatoes, not the orange ones that are usually called (erroneously) "yams." I know that she roasts the peppers and some of the potatoes, then mashes them. She adds chunks of cooked potato and possibly jicama to the soup, but I don't know for sure. It does have a sweetish, tangy flavor and a pinky-rosy color. (just as an aside, I saw a true yam at the local fair a couple of years ago - the kind grown in Asia, Africa, New Guinea, Borneo, etc., it was five feet long and about a foot in diameter.)

You can also make a syrup with sumac and drizzle it on grilled meats and use it in salad dressings and marinades.

You need to use a wide frying pan, at least 11 inches. 1 large or 2 medium navel oranges (seedless oranges work the best) use about a cup or orange juice, a cup of sugar and a dash of cinnamon. Also grate a tablespoon of orange zest and set aside. bring this mixture to a boil - it shouldn't take long - and boil for 4-5 minutes, until you see large bubbles that hold their shape for a couple of seconds. Place the orange slices in a single layer over the bottom of the pan and as soon as the syrup comes back up to a boil, set a timer for 5 minutes. Turn the slices a couple of times, using tongs. Meanwhile place a sheet of parchment or waxed paper, on a cooling rack and as soon as the 5 minutes is up, transfer the slices to the rack. Return the syrup to the heat, add the orange zest, reduce the heat and continue cooking for 3 minutes, while stirring fairly oven, if you see crystallization at the edges, brush it down with a wet pastry brush. Pour the syrup into a pyrex measure or other microwaveable cup or into a small saucepan if you don't use a microwave. When ready to serve or use as a topping on a cake, cheesecake or other dessert, arrange the slices, warm the syrup and pour enough over the slices to glaze them completely.

I was given one of these last year (coals to Newcastle ) and didn't get around to cutting into it until well into January or so. Vermont Country Store fruitcake It was one of the best commercial fruitcakes I have ever tried. It did not have the tooth-jarring ultra-sweetness or the overpowering spice flavor that ruins so many fruitcakes for me. I like to be able to taste the individual flavors of the different fruits and nuts. This was also very moist - as they claim. I think it may be because of the carrots, which I don't think I have ever seen in fruitcake ingredients. It may not have the high fruit to cake ratio that you want, but in my opinion it is excellent. It may seem small, but it packs a lot of flavor into that small form and is very heavy for its size.

I agree completely! I also have Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann's "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook." I also have a diabetic cookbook for the slow cooker and a vegetarian cookbook but can't recall their titles offhand. I bought the vegetarian cookbook at a local health food store when they were doing a demo of three recipes from the book and all were delicious. I have several vegetarian friends and I like to include them when I invite omnivores and preparing entrees is easier when I can have them cooking in the slow cooker. I haven't found that everything tastes the same. However I do use much less salt when cooking with this method because while liquids reduce, the salt doesn't. I use salt-free or low salt stocks and broths when necessary to use these.

I am only offended by that cheesy looking short sleeve jacket that gordon ramsey is so fond of -YUCK! He looks like he should be manning the fryolator in a paper hat when he puts that on ← I've wondered about that also. It looks like the jacket worn by a dentist I used to consult....... And come to think of it, he used almost the same language.

My favorite is this recipe for Cocoa Cookies that I always make for the holidays, but also during the summer - to make ice cream sandwiches. They are extremely versatile - rolled out thin and cut into strips with a wavy cutter, they can be twisted or folded as soon as they come out of the oven and are still soft enough to bend. If rolled very thin they can be rolled into "cigarettes" and dipped into chocolate or ? They can have stuff other than ice cream sandwiched between them. Varying the baking time can alter the crispness. As I noted in the recipe, I often use KA's black cocoa half and half with the Dutch process.

I was given this as a child for my afternoon tea (with the crusts cut off) but I was raised in a household dominated by Brits. The fruited cakes and the more interesting pastries were considered too rich or too stimulating for a child's stomach. As I recall I turned the age corner when I was about eight and allowed to have more "adult" foods. I loved fairy cakes.

I forgot to mention I have a rechargable drill I use in the kitchen. Mostly I use it to drill holes in very hard, very large squash when I am going to bake them whole. It's a lot easier than stabbing holes in them with an ice pick (my former method, until I broke one in a large Hubbard). I also have some sandbags that come in handy in the kitchen, particularly for steadying odd-shaped things such as squash, etc. These are the kind used by physiotherapists, not the water barrier type.

I plan on making a few jars of mostarda di frutta, in addition to the candied fruits in syrup and glacé fruits I have made before. I have a tiny bottle of Italian mustard oil a friend brought back from a trip to Italy. I bought a couple of jars of the mostarda di frutta from Chef's catalog and figure I can do this. It is much milder than the other mostardas I have tried. I've already made a big batch of candied ginger. Some I am going to dry much more and grind to a granular consistency to include in a homemade chai mix, or just plain to add to brewed tea. I also am going to make a few bay laurel wreaths as my bushes have to be pruned anyway. Also some rosemary "brooms" to hang in a kitchen, either as decor or to use in cooking.

Oooh, what a good idea. I use welding clamps for holding various things.

That, my friend, is a thing of great beauty. I'm always struck by an art object that is clearly from a single piece of material, like a totem pole or a stone carving. No mysterious extrusion, no endless source. Have you done any more in the last 15 tears? ← No, once was enough. It took a very long time because I really didn't know the tricks real carvers use. I was so afraid of ruining the wood I worked it all by hand.

I have diabetes, type 2, and systolic hypertension, and I am pretty sure I am a sensitive person. I would like to know a bit more about it. A Seeds of Change article says it is related to the sunflower. I wonder if the yacon has the same GI effects as sunchokes........ Yacon.

Someone mentioned the high cost of avocados and they are going to be even higher priced because the fires have ravaged some of the prime Hass groves in San Diego county. I have tried all of the commercial offerings and although Trader Joes isn't bad, nothing compares with the taste and texture of a mature and fully ripe Hass, freshly chopped.

It's not a salad bowl and it isn't turned, but I carved this bowl in '92 because I couldn't find one the size and shape and color I wanted. I wanted a bowl of natural wood that was not stained or varnished or painted to serve nuts and candies. I bought a slab of African blackwood, a true rosewood, from a place that sold exotic hardwoods (I had bought a lot of other woods from the store for making picture frames and supports for my crystal engravings. This stuff is incredibly hard but takes a high polish without needing any finishing oil or other coating. I used only hand tools for the carving and only a felt ball on a flexible shaft to work on the tight interior curves for the near to final polishing. The final polish was done with a bone polisher that was loaned to me by a wood carver. It isn't perfectly square and a little uneven on the top edges but I decided to not try to make it too precise because I didn't want a machined look.

Very nice indeed. And no lines. I need lines, otherwise my notes tend to drift upwards. I used to make marbelized papers similar to the cover, for a friend who did bookbinding as a hobby. I really liked the process but developed an allergy to the inks, in spite of wearing gloves and a mask.

I've still got more than a half-gallon of syrup from my last batch of ginger. It's been living in the back of the fridge. I supposed I should try to do something with it. I did use a cup or so when I made a batch of mincemeat. Did I mention that I prepare the stuff in really big batches?

I used to get pecans from my family in Ky. However they no longer harvest them as the trees are very old (they were old when I was a child sixty years ago) - the hogs they raise have the run of the old fruit and nut orchards and no one cares to argue the territory with one of these big and wily animals, particularly at this season, when they like to fight over the windfalls. I remember those pecans as being so sweet and so good. Sigh.....

I have made hard candies - drops, not lollipops - but the principle is the same. You should add a little corn syrup. I think there are several threads that discuss it. I'll see if I can find a site with the specifics you will need. Here's a simple bit regarding temps.

Put it in the freezer for an hour. Or you can try spraying your knife with Vegelene or similar oil.

You can make it on the stove top but you have to stir it frequently if not constantly AFTER it begins to turn color. If you have a double boiler, it is much safer because once it gets to a certain point, just before it thickens, it will scorch easily and the entire batch will taste awful and will have to be discarded. I speak from personal experience because I ruined more than one batch by trying to rush the process - this was long before Rick Bayless, possibly it was one of Diana Kennedy's recipes I found this recipe at this site that has traditional Mexican recipes. It gives specifics that that I have never used, particularly since using the crock pot. It has been so long since I made it any other way, I don't recall if I did the skimming bit. and I have yet another recipe online but it is on a subscription web site Leche Quemada and I am not sure you can connect directly without subscribing - they do have a one-week free trial subscription. However I have found the articles alone are worth the annual subscription fee. There is also a great deal of information on travel in Mexico that has been very helpful.

If by "chopping" you mean cutting it into fine dice, the easiest way is to break it into its natural sections, scrape the skin off the largest pieces then cut a slice off of one side to "square it up" - so to speak. Cut it LENGTHWISE into slices then stack the slices and cut them into "matchsticks" - again, this is along the grain. Now you gather the matchsticks into a small bundle and cut across them so you end up with fine dice. For the candied or crystallized ginger, the sections or "fingers" need to be cut across the grain or at an angle. I prepare it in large batches and slice it on a mandoline. I have an old Bron and have replaced the blades a few times. The V-slicers and angled slices work okay too. With a mandoline you make sure that all the slices are the same thickness and will cook evenly. For a long time I only made candied ginger with young ginger or "green" ginger because the mature stuff was simply too tough. One day I was in the kitchen of my favorite Chinese restaurant in Reseda (I still lived in the Valley) and I watched on of the cooks slice a large chunk of ginger, cut it into strips and dump it into a steamer. I asked the owner about it and he said that steaming the ginger would make it very tender, "like young ginger" but without losing any of its "bite" as would happen with parboiling it. A synapse clicked in my brain and I thought, "what a great idea" and I tried it on my next batch of candied ginger. It took a bit of tweaking to get it just right, but that is how I developed my recipe/method and have been preparing it that way for almost twenty years.

I think you look great and certainly very professional. This thread reminds me of a story a very good friend tells of his trip to England ten or twelve years ago. He has been a butcher/meat cutter, owner of an abbatoir, specialty sausage company and etc., and of course he had intros to several places he wanted to visit. He was shocked when he walked into the first place on his list to visit and found several gentlemen in long white "doctor" coats over white shirts with bow ties, and wearing derby hats. He said that he believed some of his customers, who have him slaughter their home-raised animals, would have a stroke if they found him wearing a long white coat, but especially with that derby hat. And the bow tie. His girlfriend said she thought he would look "cute" with a bow tie. Her only answer was a growl. The rest of us were careful to maintain straight faces. None of us could picture Karl, who makes a linebacker look somewhat flimsy, in a bow tie and a derby. He does wear a cap, a Navy watch cap, while working and a Stetson at leisure. Nope, never a derby!

You can call this place and ask what variety these are. The Prilop is a Texas native pecan tree and these are incredibly tasty (but small - Prilop are quite small pecans). I buy from here and I also buy the mammoth pecan halves from Bass in Mississippi.

I phoned my neighbor and she brought me a pint of cajeta from a batch she made a couple of weeks ago and canned. She says that in Mexico she used only goat milk but her "Anglo" daughters-in-law and some of her grandchildren like it better when made half and half with cow milk. Regarding the canned stuff, she says you might as well buy the ready-made stuff which is sold in most markets in Hispanic areas and on the shelf right next to the regular. Several brands are available. I think I mentioned this in an earlier thread also. La Lechera, Eagle Brand, Santa Fe and Coronado. Celia says it is for lazy people........... They have a very large family and she currently is supervising several grandchildren with the help of a sister-in-law and her youngest daughter who is a student at Pepperdine but home today because of the fire. I have lived next door to the Obregons for 19 years and I have never seen Celia sitting around and doing nothing. She brought the cajeta to me and perched on a kitchen stool for about three minutes, then stood while drinking a cup of coffee and watching me take these photos. She suggested I try the cajeta as a "filling" in one of my pumpkin bundt cakes. Good idea. Then she washed her coffee mug, hung it up and bustled out the door. So now I have a pint of cajeta to play with and with absolutely no effort on my part. It has a silky texture without even a hint of grainyness - something I have noticed in the condensed milk type.