andiesenji

The Pork cake thread includes the recipe for pork mincemeat I posted a year or so ago. Viva made the mincemeat and the cake and posted wonderful photos. You can also use the mincemeat in empanadas, turnovers, tarts, and when thinned with a liquor, spread between layers of a stack cake. I make "beggars bags" with filo dough and a teaspoon of the pork mincemeat, or use wonton wrappers, seal and deep fry the little packets and apply a little spun sugar over them.

One might consider that this is Thanksgiving as seen by the turkey. Life as a turkey.

For those who are enthusiastic about quince the following site has several interesting recipes. It also has some other unusual fruit recipes and combinations. Recipes from Tazmania

Thanks for posting that thread link. I completely missed it, I wasn't a member when this was posted. Beautiful photos.

When I make quince jam, I look for fruits that are just barely ripe, still some green at the stem end. Very ripe fruit does not have as much pectin and will not jell firmly. I scrub the fruit (with a plastic scrubby or stiff brush to get rid of the fuzzy stuff), core, then chop very fine leaving the peel on the fruit. (Grating, as mentioned by bloviatrix will also work very well but quince is slippery to hold so be careful.) I cook the fruit in just enough water to cover until it is very soft, then put it through a food mill to remove the bits of skin and tough fibers. For each cup of pulp I add 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup water and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. This is cooked at a simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, the pulp will turn to a rose pink and as it cooks longer the color becomes deeper until it is almost red. Skim the foam off as it appears. When it has reached the desired color and thickness (test a spoonful on a saucer) pour it into a colander lined with cheesecloth or into a jelly bag and hang to drain. This will give you clear jelly. If you are not concerned that it is clear, put it through a fine sieve or chinois but do not force it too firmly or some of the fibers will end up in the paste. This is actually a variation of an old recipe for marmalade - marmelo is the name for quince in Portugese - given to me by a friend from Sardinia.

I have all of her books and like Paula, I had to get the English editions. I was lucky in that a friend was a book dealer and made two or three trips a year to England to buy books and would pick up things for me. (I collect books on Egyptology as well as cookbooks.) The first of Elizabeth David's books she got for me were purchased because she wasn't able to find the particular books I had put on my list and the store clerk told her Ms. David's cookbooks were very popular and she wrote articles for popular publications. (No email in those days and overseas phone calls were expensive!) She even went to Ms. David's kitchen store in London in 1970. She was in a used book store selecting several books and when the clerk noticed she had a couple of the David cookbooks, he mentioned that Ms. David had just had a new book published and it was for sale in her store around the corner. Ms. David was not in the store but she did get me a copy of Spices, Salt and Aromatics. I also have all of Paula's books and have enjoyed them greatly ever since I first opened "Couscous and Other Good Food....." The word pictures that put me in the places described are almost as good as a trip itself and the descriptions of the flavors can virtually be tasted.

Re: your mention of sorrel, it grows easily in pots (and merrily reseeds itself all over the yard) and comes back every year, even after a hard freeze. I move one 14 inch pot into the greenhouse as winter comes on and have fresh sorrel all winter. I love carrot/sorrel/ginger soup - originally it was carrot/sorrel soup that I learned to make about 40 years ago when I took a class on French country cooking. The chef told us stories about his maman who would be out at first light in the spring, striding up the hill behind their home, picking wild sorrel and other greens. I haven't been doing a lot of cooking lately, however I think your new book is terrific. I plan on taking my old one down and putting them side by side to see if any of my old favorites are included or altered. In my family "convenience food" meant that you didn't have to go out and pick, dig, kill/pluck or skin, clean and etc., before preparing a meal. My elderly relatives still do not trust prepared frozen meals. Some vegetables are okay, maybe fruit juice, but they still consider most of them as "TV Dinners" !!

This is one place I order from - they have River Road coffee I order for a friend. Cajun supermarket They also have Steen's syrup in the 12 oz can. In the past I have ordered from Cajun Grocer and Louisiana Spice but one is in Lafayette and the other in Broussard and I have not received any email specials from either in the past 3 months. I had a Turducken from Cajun Grocer last year and it was very good.

A stack of pancakes, layered with thin slices of Kasseri cheese and applesauce, served along side seared foie gras (or braised duck breast) makes a very tasty meal.

Actually, a cake left out at room temperature will become more dense the longer it sits. Freezing sort of speeds things up. What happens is that the sugar in the cake will absorb moisture from the air. This is accelerated in a humid climate, probably the reason that dense cakes are popular in tropical areas, a light, fluffy cake is difficult to produce and maintain. This is the same reason that cookies become chewy and pliable a few days after baking even though they were crisp when first baked. Sugar will keep cakes and sweet breads "fresher" and will slow staling simply because it will retain moisture in the cake. When you freeze a cake in a regular freezer, it drives much of the moisture out. As it thaws, unless you can keep it in a low-moisture enviornment, it will pull in a lot of moisture from the air, and in fact will seem to concentrate it on the bottom if on a solid or non porous surface, not so much if kept on a wire rack. Quick-freezing at a lower temperature has less effect. When I freeze cakes, I thaw them in a dehydrator without heat, just the fan, and they seem to collect less moisture but still retain their freshness. A convection oven, no heat, just the fan, works too. I apply a very thin layer of frosting while they are still mostly frozen, (the crumb coat) then allow it to finish defrosting before finishing.

Not from everywhere, just from one area. My favorite vendor.

The Global knives I have are ground only on one side, a "chisel" edge. I have had them for three years and have never used a steel. I use a ceramic hone the same way I would use a steel on my regular knives and use a diamond hone on just the ground side if they feel as if they are dragging. I take them to my knife man once a year for sharpening and dressing.

I trust it is less expensive than the regular caviar. The prices are astronomical this year. I haven't bought any for almost a year and it seems the price for the good stuff has doubled.

I am with you on the White Lily flour, Trappey's golden sweet potatoes, also Trappey's butter beans and sausage, mild banana peppers, Zatarain's Remoulade sauce, Bootsie's Cajun Creole roux, Louisiana Brand original hot sauce, Crystal hot sauce and Bruce's hot sauce. There there are the canned Blue Runner red beans and also Navy beans.

Yes, someone sent me a PM with a hint on how to do it. The bread pudding/French toast is great when feeding a crowd. I have made it many times for fund raiser breakfasts when people began to get a little bored with pancakes. We could also ask for a larger donation for the "fancier" item.

I am going to try again to post the photos of my bread pudding/mock French toast.

I made a lovely bread pudding in a loaf pan yesterday afternoon, chilled it overnight. This morning I sliced it and put the slices in a fry pan in melted butter, sprinkled granulated maple sugar on the top side, then turned it over so the sugar would carmlize. I posted the photos to imagegullet but I can't get them into a message. My album The individual photos will not open so I can pick up the URL. How are you folks getting your photos into messages with imagegullet not working correctly?

I picked up a copy of Fine Cooking's annual edition of "Great Finds" which has a great and detailed article on selecting extra virgin olive oil. There is also an article on cookware including some of the new non-stick skillets - "Not You Everyday Nonstick," they liked NordicWare's new Pro-Cast Gol which is non-stick but sears nicely and the color is light enough so one can see what is going on in the bottom of the pan. They also liked the Calphalon One Infused Anodized which is not non-stick but released foods such as salmon easily and cleaned up nicely. There is an article on building a custom knife set and how to store knives, includng some of the suggestions mentioned in the knife thread here. Also an article on 100 kitchen essentials. One ad caught my eye. Blum has a new design for corner base cabinets that is rather interesting. Blum Space Corner

Empanadas, chicken fingers, French toast sticks, criss cut fries extra well done, taquitos, pizza bites. I have a 140 mile commute - 70 miles each way - 1 1/2 hours when the traffic is good. Much, much longer when it has jelled because of an accident, rain, idiots, car chases or lookie-loos slowing down to look at something happening at the side of the road. I am not alone. There are obviously a lot of munchers on the road at the same time as there is always a line of cars in the drive-thru lanes at McDs and Jack's at Crown Valley Road off the 14, especially in the morning. I don't speed because it wastes gas and the CHP has really been cracking down on speeders and about time too.

I am adding the link to this thread on Pork Cake because it is a type of fruitcake. Check out Viva's photos of the process. It is technically a fruitcake but is different enough to be interesting. It does require more preparation but it is tasty and it does not have to be "aged" to develop the complex flavors one expects in a fruitcake.

Carmel, Mogen David, Manishevitz are all brands of Passover or "Sacramental" wine. White, red, concord grape, and come others all available at many stores. Wal-Mart local to me has it in white and red.

There are camp toasters that go over a burner, but they don't flip the toast over as do the electric ones. You have to turn the toast with tongs and I have to confess that I dropped as many slices as I successfully toasted. Camp toaster I have a few of the vintage ones. Some of the ways people invented to make toast automatically have been really weird. The early ones all centered around a centrally located electric coil and mechanically turned the toast in various ways. Finally some genius figured out that putting the coils on either side would be quicker but would only do one slice at a time. Finally someone got around to the idea that multiple slots would be more efficient. I guess the bread itself is different. Toast doesn't seem the same to me either and I have tried all kinds of bread. I have been trying to find a particular flavor that I remember from many years ago, without success. I have tried hundreds of recipes for plain, white bread, different types of flour, with or without potato, different yeasts, milk, filtered water, hard water, soft water, etc., I have never been able to duplicate that particular flavor that dwells in my memory.

This is one place And here is the toaster in which to use them!

Just a quick note. Consumer Reports new issue has a section titled "Best Gifts" and evaluates cookware. They tested Le Cruset against the "Country Cottage" stuff from China, sold on HSN, and couldn't find any difference in performance. The one thing they did say was that there was no very large round or oval Dutch oven in the sets offered. However, the stuff is non-stick which, in my opinion, would mean it would not produce fond when browning meats. However if cost is important, one might make concessions. I found it on line at this vendor.

I have my magnetic strips mounted vertically and the knives are horizontal with the bigger ones with flatter blades at the bottom and smaller at the top. Even the narrow, thin bladed cheese knives stick well. I don't put small bladed paring knives or bird-beak knives on the mag strips, they stand in a small container with some marbles covered by a sponge in the bottom. It is acutally a wire mesh pencil cup I got at Staples that is very handy. The marbles are to put enough weight in the bottom to keep it from tipping over. You can mount a mag strip under a cabinet. You just measure the longest handle and mount the strip so that the handle doesn't protrude. Even with cabinets with fancy scrolled woodwork at the bottom, the mag strips are thick enough to make the knife handles easy to grab. The "industrial strength" magnetic strips made by Mundial come in 12", 18" and 24" lengths. Prices are from 12.80 to 20.80 at Star Restaurant supply in Van Nuys, CA. They are more expensive everywhere else.