andiesenji

The recipe I posted back in 2005 is entirely authentic and it works beautifully in a Crock-Pot, or any similar slow cooker. My neighbor says when she lived in Mexico on their ranch, they almost always had a wood fire burning in the stove, day and night, and she often made cajeta in the oven or in an earthenware cazuela on a cooler area of an iron plate that was set over the firebox. (This was not a kitchen range, but a built-from-the-ground-up stove made of adobe bricks, iron grills and sheets of iron welded into a box for the oven.) They have lived here for more than 30 years and she says she can't see wasting energy on cooking the cajeta for a long period in the oven when it works just as well in a Crock-Pot which uses less energy and one doesn't have to stay near the stove to keep stirring a pot over a burner. The recipe is also in RecipeGullet:Cajeta made in a Crock-Pot There is really no comparison between the real stuff and the carmelized, sweetened condensed canned milk. It doesn't matter if it is going to be blended into something else, but when it is going to be the principal flavoring in a dessert, then you should at least try the homemade with goat milk at least once. I believe that it is the long, slow cooking of the milk, WITH the vanilla bean slowly having its flavor extracted, that makes a great deal of difference.

Rather than build one, you might want to consider one of these. Reasonably priced and fewer headaches CheesyPress

The idea is that fresh cold water has not yet boiled. Using water that has boiled and left in the tea kettle for awhile will taste flat, mostly because the calcium chloride has precipitated out of it - which also releases some oxygen. To extract the most flavor from tea, one does need just enough, but not too much of these chemical compounds. Distilled water tastes flat because these compounds have been removed. Tea made with distilled water lacks the "liveliness" that one gets with fresh water that has just come to the boil. Note that many teas should be brewed with water that has not quite come to a boil, to get the best flavor. It is easy to test this yourself. Simply boil some water - you can even do it in the microwave, a cup at a time - and leave one cup to set for an hour or so - re-boil it and also boil a fresh cup. Make tea with both and taste them. Or, just taste the difference between the previously boiled water and fresh water.

That is the same reason one does not stick one's nose into a fermentation vessel. Interesting effects those alcohol esthers have on the mucus membranes....... I always think of the old print cartoons with a baloon over the head of a person who has been punched, with the stars bouncing around. I recall a long-ago tour of a small brewery (long before the days of the "micro-brewery" renaissance) and the moment when the brewer was going to pull the lock on a vessel and loudly stated, "stand back and hold your breath for a moment!" There was still some eye-watering, but nobody fainted.

Preaching to the choir here. In spite of the condescending attitude of other people handling sharp instruments, I have always advocated (and used) blade-proof gloves when using sharp blades, other than a knife on a cutting board. My oldest ones are steel mesh from before the Kevlar age, and much more uncomfortable to wear. My original mandoline came without a blade guard and I bought one of these gloves to use with it. The second one, still nearly thirty-years-old, did come with a blade guard and I used it then and use it still. I often had people tell me it was much faster to omit using it but I perferred to avoid stitches. (Partly because I have a severe and life-threatening allergy to local anesthetics and figured that it would be much less painful to wear a glove instead of having stitches without going under a general anesthesia.) Perhaps this idea of avoiding cuts became ingrained into my brain many, many years earlier, when I worked in a medical laboratory doing histology slide prep with a microtome. Because of the friction of the blade moving over the surface of the specimen, one uses a piece of ice to cool the cut surface between passes with the blade. I slipped one time only - that was enough. Not only did I remove a slice from the end of my left index finger, I bled onto the specimen. The pathologist was severely displeased and made his displeasure known. At full volume. Directly into my ear. I never again made that mistake. My fingerprint was permanently altered. Use the gloves! Your husband is a Prince!

Are you within driving distance of one of the Whole Foods Markets? They carry milk that is pasteurized but not homogenized, i.e., "cream-top" milk, which works nicely for cheesemaking.

When I was making cheese on a regular basis, I had a certain routine which included setting the curd, then when ready to cut the curds and drain off the whey, scald the container INTO which the whey would go, then making ricotta from the whey. Waste not, want not. The ricotta has a much shorter life than the first cheese, so I generally planned on preparing lasagna, ravioli or other dishes that required ricotta. Then there were the pastries...............

It doesn't freeze well - you will have grainy cheese. Aged, hardened cheeses freeze quite well but not the soft, fresh cheeses. I made cheese regularly for many years, including some pressed and aged cheddar types. Nothing spectacular but it was interesting. Mostly I made cream cheese, soft cheese, etc. You might like to read through Making Cheese the Merged Topic

Many of my favorites were penned by Terry Pratchett. My signature states my very favorite! The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate anything that couldn't climb out of one. -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids) Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits. -- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms) And then you bit onto them, and learned once again that Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn't know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything. -- A fact McDonalds knows about as well (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures) "You pay for it before you eat it? What happens if it's dreadful?" - "That's why." -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

Thanks, andie... And then there is the German version of this cake which may be a little easier to pronounce.. "Kastanientorte" kah-stahn"-nyen-tort-eh ← Now if I could only figure out how the Polish version is spelled in the English alphabet as well as the pronunciation.

dool say day leh chay Actually the pronunciation varies from country to country in Central and South America's Spanish-speaking countries as well as in Brazil. Argentina claims the origin history of dulce de leche but this is hotly contested by Mexico, Peru, Columbia, Uruguay, Cuba, Costa Rica and Brazil which calls it doce de leite. Not to mention Puerto Rico and Panama. But it is also called dolce de latte in Patagonia

fran gee pain

Tomorrow morning I am going shopping with a friend who is legally blind- she has some sight but can't see details. She has an embosser printer hooked to her computer so she can print her shopping lists. She tried a voice notekeeper but also has a bit of a speech impediment so she had more problems listening to the thing than she has with the braile lists. What is amusing to me is that I take far more time trying to interpret some of my scribbled notes on my shopping list than she does with hers. We both use scooters but hers has a nifty proximity alarm, of which I am envious. She also has a wide armrest on one side which I think is a terrific idea for anyone but she uses it to hold her shopping list and her NoteTeller, which reads paper money. The last time we shopped together she had more items on her list but was finished well before me. I guess I take extra time to look at things when I know perfectly well what they are. Just another time-wasting activity. I may have certain advantages when shopping for vegetables, but when shopping for clothes, Gail has some too. She has an amazing ability to feel of fabric and know if it is a blend or pure cotton or ? The only time I have been able to fool her was when I handed her one of the new towels made from bamboo. Of course I won't be able to do that again, now she knows the "feel" of it. What I can't figure out is how she can tell the difference between apple varieties. Oranges are a cinch the navel is distinctive but Gail can tell the difference between a Fuji and a Braeburn. I can't even tell by looking. Which remind me, I do have to put apples on my list..........

As I understand it, "crockpot" is a trademarked name of the Rival Company and "slow cooker" is what other companies call the same thing. ← Anna is correct. The early "slow cookers" were incorporated into 1930s, '40s, '50s electric stoves - and were called "deep-well" cookers and the point was that the heating coils surrounded the cooking chamber instead of being on the bottom which allowed foods to cook evenly without burning on the bottom. At the same time came along the stand-alone electric roasters, which worked on the same principal (I have a collection of these) but were mainly marketed to people with large families and those who would have a house full of friends and relatives for holidays and wouldn't have enough cooking space on or in the kitchen range to cook everything. The early ones also came with multiple inner containers and advertised being able to cook an entire meal in the same cooker (assuming one wasn't cooking a 20+ pound turkey! These were still aimed at stay-at-home moms as this was still in the days when married women and mothers did not work outside the home. In the late 1960s the West Bend Aluminum company came out with a bean pot with a separate electric hot plate (that exactly fitted the bottom of the crockery pot) which became a popular appliance and a couple of other companies also made similar ones, including one called The Beanery, which had the electric coils enclosed around the non-removable crock. Rival bought this company in the 1970s and took the concept further, and developed recipes for other foods that could be cooked at long, slow temps. (Coc-au-Vin was the recipe featured on the cover of the first Crock-Pot cookbook manual.) The early ones did not have removable crocks and the metal shell often rusted because of inadequate cleaning and seams that allowed liquids to seep through the seals. The electric "innards" were often damaged by moisture. Other companies, Hamilton Beach and West Bend, in particular, were quick to see how well these were selling and jumped into the marketing wars. The original late 1970s 1 1/2 quart cookers were supplanted by larger, extravagantly decorated models with removable crockery liners, vented lids, divided chambers and other "improvements" until we are at the point where one can find a dizzying number of styles, sizes, electronic controls and even a couple that double as deep fryers - when one removes the inner crockery liner. Meanwhile, there has also been a resurgence of the electric roaster and now 12 quart, 18 quart and even 25 quart models have come back onto the market. Something for everyone. This is my oldest "roaster - slow-cooker" made in 1935 and it is pristine, never used. Total volume 12 quarts. As you can see, it has the classic Art Deco design both as decoration on the roaster and on the instruction booklet. The interior has the separate pans for cooking multiple foods separately.

I am pretty sure they ship anywhere. One of my friends, who lived in Niagara, but has since relocated to Spain last March, bought one of the thermal cookers from this vendor. I am fairly sure she ordered it direct.

Or an ice cream carton, carefully placed behind another in the freezer, containing only about half a cup of ice cream.

I have several crockpots and have replaced several that didn't perform up to par. I use them for candying fruits, ginger, etc., as well as the usual long, slow cooking. Also for safely melting wax for candlemaking, and a few other odd tasks. I'm also an artist and have one old crockpot that has never been used for anything except cooking rabbitskin glue. Thirty + years old and still working just fine. I recently bought one of these, which is programmable I also have one of the older versions of VersaWare that is not programmable, but has the same type of inner container that can be used on stovetop to sear and brown meats. I have purchased several times from this vendor (also in the previous post link from quiltguy) and have been very satisfied with both the pricing and service. They carry replacement parts for Crock-Pots, lids, liners, racks, including an oval rack with handles that is very handy.

While prospecting in the pantry for another item, I came across a couple of jars of 3-bean salad which I keep on hand for stretching salads. Many years ago I used to dutifully make my own, using mostly canned beans, fresh sliced onions, and an appropriate dressing. However, I discovered the stuff in the jar was as good, if not better than mine. I also keep a small container of potato flakes, not for mashed potatoes but to use for thickening soups, without having a raw floury taste. Works especially well in potato/leek soup, carrot, squash and corn chowder, without altering the flavor.

Not cast iron, these are steel, much like the crepe pans one finds. They do develop seasoning but they also warp with high temperatures and they develop hot spots, do not heat evenly.

Whenever I want to thicken a stew like this, I add a little corn flour - and I mean a little. I ladle a little of the liquid into a cup, cool it a bit and stir in a heaping tablespoon of corn flour, blending it well. I add this slurry back into the stew and bring the temp up so it is actively simmering and keep stirring it. Just this little bit of corn flour will thicken three to four quarts of stew.

Frequently! Until I made the list pages in my daytimer - no more lost lists else I am really in trouble since all my money is also in my daytimer. ← That reminds me of the reason I no longer carry a PDA, after leaving two behind in markets during a rather hectic three-month period a couple of years ago. Insurance replaced the first one but I was too embarassed to claim the second loss. However I did immediately notify the security company to "kill" the PDA each time. I decided I simply had no pressing need for a PDA in addition to my cell phone. In fact, scrolling up and down checking a long list was far more time consuming with the PDA than with just a paper list, assuming I remembered to take the list with me in the first place.

I have my own scooter, which is much speedier than those the store makes available and no one should feel self-conscious about using one. Mine has the small front basket and a larger one that fits into the "trailer-hitch" on the back, but I usually just pull a regular basket around with me, using one of these Jumbo Carabiners hooked to a lower front corner of the basket to make it easier to hold. I bought several of these last year, gave some away as stocking gifts, but have one on each of the grab handles on the backs of the seats in my van, plus a couple of others in the van. I always have one hooked onto the strap of my purse for the use described above and also for, when I am on foot, for carrying multiple plastic bags.

If you wil click here and scroll down to post # 35 you will see my description and photos of the green sauce, which is made with tomatillos, chiles, in this case Caloro, but I also use Anaheim, New Mexico, Big Jim, Sandia, etc. I have tried various ways of preparing it but I have found that roasting the vegetables this way will bring out more flavor from all the ingredients. My Mexican neighbors make a hotter variety, in big pans in their outdoor barbecue because the fumes from the roasting peppers in large quantities can sear the eyeballs. Unless I have a very large batch, I simply freeze it in Cambro containers. For large batches I jar it up and process it in a pressure canner.

I forgot to mention the cans of Campbell's Cheddar Cheese Soup that live in the pantry for those times that I want an instant cheese sauce. (and by "instant" I mean in less than a minute)

Marlene, you have beautiful handwriting. I've had people look at mine and ask, "Is this in English?"