andiesenji

One of my favorite fall dishes is bratwurst, cut into chunks, seared briefly, then add 1/2 cup of apple cider, cover and steam for 12-15 minutes, uncover, allow some of the liquid to reduce. Add sliced or coarsely chopped apples, and continue cooking until the apples have just begun to soften. You still want some crunch. If you want them softer, cover for 3-5 minutes. You can sprinkle in some fresh chopped taragon, if you wish. The bratwurst I buy is already seasoned so I rarely add anything else but you can add whatever you like. I have also been known to toss in 1/2 a cup of chutney (whatever type I have on hand) before adding the apples. This is excellent served with potato pancakes, with cornmeal waffles or even buckwheat waffles.

I agree with Paul. I have a lot of knives but have never purchased a set. I have Global, Furi, F. Dick, Wusthoff, Check this thread about knives. You should go into a shop that sells good knives and feel how the handles fit your hand, and also how they balance because a knive that is not "fitted" properly will cause your hand and arm to tire much faster than one that fits you well. Think about how you will use the knife, because different types of blades are held differently and therefore balance differently. A heavy chef's knife is held so differently from a thin-bladed slicing knife (as you would use for salmon) that the shape and girth of the handle are not at all alike. This is also true for paring knives of various shapes and sizes. If you scroll down the list of topics, all having to do with knives, you will find extensive discussions on choosing knives, finding knives and who likes what. Knives are a very personal item, what works for one person will be totally inappropriate for another. I have fairly large hands for a woman and use some knives that have heftier handles that would be uncomfortable for many women to use. I have a friend who has huge hands and has to wrap the handles of his knives in rubber tape so he can grasp them efficiently. (6'8" wears a size 16 shoe) His business partner is 5'7" and has hands smaller than mine. Needless to say, they have completely separate knife collections. Take your time looking and feeling. Good knives are a significant investment and can last for more than one lifetime if properly maintained.

I should add that I prever the Mrs. Grass Onion Soup Mix, lower sodium. Mrs. Grass soup mixes I have tried the Knorr and Maggi as well as Lipton and I like this one much better. Smart & Final has had one in a larger container that is quite good but I can't recall the brand. It isn't Lipton.

I use it when I make the "Sweep Steak" that did indeed appear in Peg Bracken's "I Hate To Cook Book", using a 7-bone or chuck roast the mix and wrapping the meat tightly in foil (doubled) and roasting in a 250 degree F. oven for 3 - 3 1/2 hours depending on size. It can be shredded or pulled apart with two forks so is perfect for sandwiches. I also use it in one of my meatloaf recipes with the addition of some teriyaki sauce. Ditto the chip mix. I also add it to a 7-grain cereal mix to prepare it as a side dish instead of a breakfast cereal. I dilute it with twice the amount of water called for in making "soup" and cook homemade fresh tortelloni or ravioli in it for people who do not like tomato-based gravy or sauce. And then, there is this cookbook!

I have a great little cookbook I bought almost 40 years ago. "Food That Really Schmecks" by Edna Staebler. This book is going to be released in paperback on October 1, 2006. It is available via pre-order on Amazon.

Cheese, yogurt, (and butter) can be made from the milk of most grass eating mammals, which also includes antelope, giraffe, and wildebeest. Getting the wild ones to hold still for milking is the major problem with some. The ancient Egyptians made cheese from camel's milk and the process is depicted on tomb paintings from the 3rd dynasty, more than 4000 years ago. The Mongols made all kids of dairy foods from mare's milk, in fact, they often lived exclusively on it while on long treks. The Lapplanders make reindeer cheese - caribou also produce sufficient quantities of milk. In the Andes, in South America cheese is made from llama milk. This page notes the animals that have been used to produce milk and milk products.

You can cook it longer and check it periodically by dribbling a little on a saucer (I use a Pyrex custard cup) and to hasten the test, put the bottom of the saucer or cup in cold water. Once it mounds slightly when dropped and moves slowly when the cup is tipped, it should be set. Or, if desperate, or nearly so, you can use Melinda Lee's recipe for "Liquid Cement" Which, I guarantee, will cause any fruit mixture to set, including apricot / pineapple preserves which are notorious for remaining runny.

There have been no Sumeet mills available in the U.S. since April. Some of the vendors that were carrying them no longer have them on their websites - they are selling different machines under the names: Butterfly, Premier, Preethi, Revel Wet and Dry, Rico and a couple of others. Look for Indian kitchen appliances. Or look for "Mixie" or Wet Grinders Bombay Limited is one vendor. This is another.

Polenta should work okay, however you will get a better texture if the size of the particles varies just a bit as stone ground cornmeal is not uniform in size. You can take a little of your polenta, half a cup will be enough, and put it into a blender (if you have one) and pulse it once or twice and mix it back into the polenta. This little bit of finer stuff will give you a texture that is closer to the "real" stuff. I did an instructional photo essay on cornbread in This thread. This is of course taking it to extremes but the recipe is for "southern" type cornbread which is very different from the cake-like cornbread common in other parts of the US. There are many variations to the basic cornbread. Adding crisp bacon bits to the batter gives it a wonderful flavor. I often add both bacon bits and chopped mild green chiles (sometimes the hotter ones) to the batter. A little grated hard cheese will not change the texture too much - Asiago is excellent. Some people do like a sweeter cornbread and add sugar - one can also add honey or maple syrup but not too much or the cooking time will be off as this also adds moisture. Up to 2 tablespoons is okay. Baking in a deeper, narrower pan will require a bit longer cooking time, baking in a shallower, wider pan needs less time and you do get more crust, which is often desirable. Do experiment, I don't think you will be disappointed.

How about this? It was in another topic also.

By the way, with the waterproof pad, you can put a folded, damp towel on the pad and set your pan or bowl on top of that and will get much higher humidity under the "hood" and this will help to keep the surface of the dough flexible and allow it to stretch - particularly with the heavier doughs, such as rye, whole wheat, and the Struan dough noted in Peter Reinhart's books. Peter Reinhart's blog.

Interesting product, andiesenji. The website says it keeps a consistent temp of 98-101. A bit off-topic here, but that sounds like the ideal temperature for slow-melting chocolate and keeping it in temper. Any experience with this? ← I have used it for keeping pulled sugar flexible - I also have used it to keep pizelle and rice wafers from setting up too rapidly so I have time to shape them. I lined it with one of the large Silpat sheets, drizzled melted sugar onto it and then rolled the "lace" into a cylinder. I also used it once for making a large batch of yogurt I needed for a variety of frozen yogurt desserts. I used an extra large SS roasting pan simply covered with plastic wrap (I use the large rolls of commercial stuff that is heavier than the regular Saran wrap). It is made so that it will not get any hotter - dogs and puppies have a higher body temp than humans. What feels fairly warm to us is normal for them.

The recipe for Dulce de Leche in RecipeGullet can be made with 100% goat milk - then it is truly cajeta.

The action of the yeast in the dough does generate a lot of heat. 100 pounds of dough in a dough trough will be very warm when you sink an arm deep into it to punch it down or to grab an armful to place on the bench.

It's a vegetable/fruit peeler - I think it is called Quick Peel and I think someone put a photo up a year or so ago on another gadget thread.

I bought some corn Saturday and I used my usual method - I don't pull the shuck back very far and only on one section. It was good that I did because on several of the ear I examined there was greeny-black mold between the kernels and the inner shucks. I called one of the produce men to look at the ears I had pulled out and put aside and he brought a box from the back and began checking the ears himself and tossing any that were bad. He said 4 pallets of corn had been delivered in a reefer truck that was very cold. In fact he said that the receiver noticed frost on the exterior of one of the boxes, which were left on the dock for a couple of hours because of the large volume of stuff they got for the holiday sales. He said that moisture probably condensed in the shucks as the corn warmed up and created a perfect place for mold to grow. I was able to find 8 ears that were okay and he was still sorting them when I left the produce area. He thanked me for calling his attention to the problem.

Purplewiz, I use my pizelle iron quite often. In fact I used it yesterday to make cones for homemade peach icecream. My pizelle iron came with a cone roller It is this Villaware double iron. You can roll them into "cigarettes" and dip one end into chocolate after they have cooled. You can also fille the rolled ones with various goodies. You can also fold them like fortune cookies. You have to work rapidly as they set quickly after they come off the heat. (I wear gloves.)

You are not alone. Over the years I have met hundreds of people who refuse to try anything new or different, exotic, foreign or ??? I was raised in a family who were all food adventurers and would try anything once. My great-grandmother travelled extensively in the late 1800s when travel could be extremely ardurous. She would tell the most wonderful stories about trying strange and exotic foods while on her travels in Europe, around the Mediterranean, Egypt, India and Africa. One of my uncles brought a box of "alligator pears" home from a visit to Florida when I was about 9 and we all fell in love with avocados. I still love them.

I have used the heating pad method with excellent results. You can get a cheap but fairly accurate thermometer that is made to stick on the outside of a window (facing the glass so you can see it inside) which I have used on the inside of a big Sterilite container which fits over my long dough bowl. The only difference is that I bought a heating pad made for dogs (puppies actually) that is 100% waterproof. (Actually I bought two, because at that time my basenji was in whelp and I needed one for the puppies too.) I still have the one I use in the kitchen - it is also handy for gently heating cream and keeping it warm over a long period of time for making clotted cream. There are a few other less common uses. waterproof heating pad the medium size

Look for them in middle eastern markets in your area.

Many jam and jelly recipes include a little lemon juice to temper the sweetness and to aid in jelling. One can experiment by making very small batches of jams and preserves in the microwave in a Pyrex custard cup, to determine what ratio gives the desired flavor. I have a recipe for prune whip that requires lemon juice even though it is not for preserves or jam. The prunes are plumped and simmered in water to which lemon juice is added, 1 tablespoon for each 6 oz of prunes. Omitting the lemon juice produces a cloyingly sweet result. This recipe uses less lemon juice but is very similar to mine.

However, you can make a very inexpensive proofing box from one of the small refrigerators made for dorm rooms, etc., and which can be found at thrift stores, Goodwill and similar stores or swap meets for $10.00 and up. They are already insulated and all you need is to drill a hole in one side through which you can thread a wire, then, mount a ceramic light fixture base over the hole on the inside and use a 40 watt bulb to heat it. You can get the fixtures with either a chain switch which will be on the inside of the box, or an in-line switch on the cord (more desirable in my opinion). surface mount socket socket with in-line switch Also drill 2 1-inch holes in the top of the fridge, at diagonal corners, to vent excess heat/moisture. A hole saw works best. There was a web site that had this conversion diagrammed but I can't find it at the moment. However it is not all that difficult. Just remove the cord to the fridge itself and if it has and external coil, remove that also, however most nowadays do not. You can even plug the cord into a timer so that it will turn off and on periodically to maintain the correct temp. One of the thermometers that has a probe on a cable, with a magnetic base to stick on the door is perfect for checking the temperature without opening the door.

Here is an earlier thread on proofing in winter

Dried pears make a wonderful preserve. The trick is to reconstitute them in pear nectar (canned) which really intensifies the flavor. Also dried tomatoes (unflavored of course) also makes a lovely jam. Tomato jam can be made a bit spicy, with the addition of just a little dried chile and is an amazing accompaniment to meats such as roast pork, etc. The Shakers were famous for their dried fruit preserves, apples, wild berries, plums, peaches and gooseberries. Two of my aunts spent a lot of time in the late 40s and 50s gathering shaker recipes from people in Kentucky, southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio who remembered the Shaker communities that were still active in the early 1900s. Many of these recipes depended on dried and preserved foods. The Shakers were inventors, innovators and experimented with new ways of perserving foods. Dried (unsweetened) pineapple is also a great addition to preserves - especially combined with apricots or apples.

Migrating fowl, geese, ducks, swans, puffins, and penguins ALL gorge prior to migration. The so-called "force" feeding simply exploits a natural tendency. As far as I am concerned there are so many more important issues that should be addressed, i.e. children and elderly who do not have enough to eat and do not have even minimal health care, that this ridiculous legislation, costing a lot of money, is frivilous. Any legislation that puts small farmers/producers out of business is a travesty when they do nothing about battery-raised and maintained chickens, turkeys and etc. They go after the little guy who doesn't have the money to fight back. That is restraint of trade. Note that the day the "Govenator" signed that ridiculous bill in California, the federal government relaxed the restrictions on IMPORTS of foie gras from France! Does that make sense? it is okay to import the stuff and wrong to raise it here. Most legislators are idiots.