andiesenji

Bring a boat. Most of Chalmette has flooded again. Patty, I'm glad to hear that you are OK. We lost our lights AGAIN due to more downed trees. We have only had power back for 48 hours and who knows when we will have it again. Just for the record, blue roofs and 45-55 mph winds don't mix. Mine is in Mississippi by now, I suspect. I am cooking 2 pork butts on the Weber in the rain for a party that will happen tonight, power or no. We're here and we're staying. Home, sweet home. ← I am so glad to hear your are okay, Brooks. Cooking pork butts and a party sounds like a good thing to do to lighten the mood. Andie

Black & Decker used to make an oval crockpot/steamer combinaton. I don't know if it is still available. It had the standard crockpot bottom with a lid and also a plastic top section with perforated bottom that could be used for steaming rice, potatoes, vegetables, etc., while something else such as chicken or stew or ???? cooked in the bottom. It was not meant to be a very rapid process as one would usually expect in a steamer. It did cook at a higher temperature than regular crockpots.

A quick note, something good in the midst of a storm. Baby girl born at 1:09 a.m. Theresa Marie Charbonnais. Everyone celebrating with chicken and shrimp gumbo, fried bread and home brew.

Terry just phoned again. They are now getting sustained winds over 50 mph (that is as high as the whirligig will measure) and heavy bands of rain that is coming sideways. They have covered the windows with steel shutters. One of the women just went into labor about an hour ago. It will be an interesting night. Fortunately they have two midwives in the group and Terry is a priest. The place they are in is built like a bunker high on concrete pilings with a heavy steel roof. I think Etienne usually has a still set up there because Terry says they have plenty of alcohol "for medicinal purposes."

Usually it is the northeast side of the storm, or upper right side that has the winds unwinding away from the eye wall that are the most destructive. However in Pacific storms that hit islands, both top and bottom sides can be severe. One of my friends was in the middle of Iniki when it hit Kauai in September 1992. They were surprised by the storm as they were staying in a rather remote home (they had traded their June Lake home for the island home for two weeks) They said that when the winds started it was awful and seemed to go on forever. Then the eye passed over and they thought the worst was over but the bottom half of the storm did even more damage. They took cover in a concrete block garden shed when the house began to come apart. When they came out after the winds died down, the house was gone, all the trees were gone and the swimming pool was full of trash and dead birds. They never did find their rental car and had to walk for miles to find someone who had a home still standing where they could take shelter. It was their last trip to Hawaii. They prefer to take their chances with earthquakes and living in an ancient caldera with some still-active spots. In the southern hemisphere the cyclonic winds move in the opposite direction to the ones we see in the US. They turn clockwise so the winds on the left side of the eyewall are the most destructive. I will keep Patty and Brooks in my prayers. My cousin Terry is near Abbeville and they are getting high winds and lots of rain. Thank goodness for the satellite phone. It works when nothing else does.

It won't help right now but I have one suggestion for people who live in areas that are subject to power outages on a regular basis. I have in my shed an old Servel refrigerator that works on propane - it has its own tank so doesn't depend on natural gas. I used it after the '94 earthquake, in '97 when we had a flood and again a couple of years ago when the gas line to this area was ruptured by the crew putting in new storm drains. I do have a large generator but use it for other appliances and the air conditioner. These refrigerators are not cheap, but if you lose valuable food on multiple occasions, it doesn't seen so expensive. They also have one that works on kerosene. My aunt who lives in Laural, MS has power again but needed a generator for air conditioning when they lost power. She does have one of these propane fridges. They used to have it in their vacation home in a remote area. She stored stuff from several of her neighbors, mostly dairy products and some meat. The old one I have is 40 years old - I used to have a house in Running Springs, which is in the mountains between Arrowhead and Big Bear. We often had power outages so most of us had propane fridges and freezers. Servel refrigerators

Mine are all lined on the inside with porcelain. In fact, one of my older ones, black hobnail on the outside and quite large, is actually prettier on the inside as the porcelain is a swirl of green, blue and orange, almost like marbelizing. It is somewhere in a cupboard, if I can find it with reasonable ease, I will try to get a photo of the interior. I purchased it many years ago (early '70s) when a large Japanese department store opened in Los Angeles in the Wilshire district. They were not easy to find, unless one had access to a Japanese community, until a few years ago. The internet is wonderful for giving us many sources for interesting and unusual things.

I have bought several tetsubin (as well as more than a few Yixing teapots) from Holy Mountain trading company I have always been completely satisfied with the products, both price and quality are exceptional.This is my most recent purchase.

I am again going to send you back to Melinda Lee's web site: Nuts, candied, glazed, spiced and etc. I make salt-glazed pecans (or walnuts) with just a hint of sugar. I can't give you exact measurements because I always just eyeball it. I add water to a large skillet until it is about 1/2 inch deep and put it over medium heat. When bubbles start to form on the bottom I add about 1/4 cup of kosher salt and bring it to a boil, stirring well to make sure all the salt has dissolved. When the liquid is boiling rapidly I pour in a cup or so of pecan halves, stir, then sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of sugar (granulated maple sugar if you can find it) over the pecans, stir again and let the mixture boil for a minute. Then pour the nuts into a colander and drain. I spread them on a sheet pan, on parchment paper and place in the oven at 200 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, or until they are dry and crisp. Fat, large pecans and walnuts may take a little longer. They should break easily when you pinch them with your fingers. Cool completely and store in a glass jar with a tight lid. Do NOT store in a plastic bag! However, I have found that they don't really last long enough to worry about storage.

You cannot candy fresh pineapple. Get the dried pineapple that is not treated with sugar - you can usually find it in health food stores. Otherwise dehydrate it yourself on a rack in a very low oven. Steam it first to rehydrate it - this way it does not soak up as much water as soaking will do and it is much more rapid. Then put it in syrup in a crockpot on low and leave it there until it is completely translucent - if is 1/2 inch thick, it will take at least two days, maybe longer. Allow it to dry until it is no longer tacky. If it stays tacky you can always dust it with rice flour but you lose the shiny appearance, however it won't stick together.

I candy a lot of ginger, in big batches, using crockpots for smaller batches and a large electric roaster for big batches (10 pounds and more). My recipe has been on this site: MelindaLee for a couple of years. also on the site is my method of making glacé whole (or sliced) fruits. This is a very time-consuming process but there is a reason for it. The larger the piece of fruit, the longer it takes for the sugar syrup to penetrate to the center and this has to be done or the unprocessed part will rot. Heating drives the moisture out of the fruit and the cooling lets the syrup penetrate step by step. Glacé fruit. Important caveat! Do not try to use limes - they will turn an ugly gray. Also do one type of fruit at a time, do not mix, otherwise you will get some very odd colors. Another person posted a recipe for candied figs on Melinda's site. Melinda has an excellent radio show, which can be heard online, at KNX 1070, Los Angeles. Radio show. Candied peel can be made in the microwave in small batches. I have been working on a photo essay on this but do not yet have it fully operational. Here is the text: Microwave candied citrus peel, small batch. Cut off top and bottom of orange or other citrus. (This works for two medium to large oranges, three or four lemons, or one large grapefruit. Using a round-tip spoon, (like a soup spoon) slide the dip downward between the flesh and the rind, working your way around the fruit, then turn it upside-down and repeat the process until the rind is completely loose from the flesh. You want both the colored skin and the white part. On one side make a vertical cut and remove the rind from the fruit. Flatten the strip of rind on a cutting board and cut into 1/4 inch strips. Place the strips into a Pyrex measurer, 1 quart or larger. Fill to within 2 inches of the top, there should be a lot more water than citrus rind. Microwave for 10 minutes. Drain the water off and add fresh water Microwave for another 10 minutes Drain that water and add fresh water Microwave for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside. Rinse the Pyrex container and to it add 1 1/2 cups water and 1 cup sugar. Microwave for 3 minutes - it will start to bubble up. Add the peel to the syrup and microwave for 5 minutes. WATCH IT. If it starts to boil over stop the microwave. If you have a larger, 2-quart Pyrex measure, use that instead of the quart. Stir the peel, return to the microwave and microwave for another 5 minutes. Let the peel cool down for at least 30 minutes. Now microwave again for two 5 minutes sessions. Pick a couple of pieces out of the syrup and drain it on a wire grid until it is cool. If the white part has colored and become translucent, it should be done. If the peel is exceptionally thick, as with some navel oranges and most grapefruit, it can be cooked in the syrup for additional 5 minute sessions until it reaches the point where it is translucent all the way through. Taste it. If it tastes okay, place all the pieces on the drying rack and let it dry until it is just tacky, then toss it in granulated sugar. It dries faster if you have a fan blowing on it. Save the syrup, it has many uses. It can be used to candy additional peel, sliced ginger, dried peppers (hot or mild), in tea, in mixed drinks, in salad dressings, particularly for fruit salads and of course, over ice cream. In the refrigerator it will keep indefinitely. If it crystallizes, it only needs to be heated to re-liquefy.

7-minute frosting is about the same as Italian meringue. Try THIS recipe.

Regarding the cocoa fruit cake recipe I posted earlier. It also freezes well and keeps for at least 10 months. This past weekend I found one in the freezer that I made last November - it got pushed to the back of one of the baskets and was masquerading as something else. For some reason I didn't rotate the stuff in that basket on my regular schedule and missed the cake. I let it thaw in the refrigerator and this evening took over to my neighbors who had invited me for dinner. It was still good.

Check out the ones at Fantes The one happens to have wavy wheels, but it works quite well. A baker friend made a multiple strip cutter using a threaded steel rod and the large Olfa rotary blades - probably the 60 mm size - made for cutting fabric. To make the handles at each end he simply drilled holes in two pieces cut from a large wood dowel. I think those particular replacement blades come in a package, 5 for 15.99. I thought it was pretty clever. His wife is a quilter and he got the idea watching her use the rotary cutter to cut multiple layers of fabrics into small squares. He uses it to cut long thin strips for braiding Danish dough that are formed into rings. This is not a regular three-strand braid, the ones he does are multiple, very complex braids. I have watched him do them several times and have never been able to duplicate it.

I have a very old guitar slicer for pasta. There is an inch or so of free area under the wires. I roll the pasta out, drape it over the guitar then use a wood rolling pin which forces the pasta down between the wires. I put a sheet of parchment under the wires prior to placing the pasta. For chocolate I would use one of the silicone rolling pins or simply cover it with acetate and roll that. I know others here have previously mentioned the use of guitars to cut chocolate but perhaps they have not yet seen this post.

For gardeners who have a lot of green tomatoes on the vine with a cold snap coming on, which seems like an odd idea right now. (temps have been in the high 90s or over 100 here for weeks) This is a pie filling which can be used immediately or canned as you would any other high acid fruit and used later. It has a distinct lemony taste and an interesting texture. Aunt Hattie Anne's Green Tomato Pie 4 cups green tomatoes peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 3/4 cup sugar 2 tablespoons cornstarch Pastry for both top & bottom pie crusts 1-1/2 tablespoons butter diced Cut aluminum foil in wide lengths or use pie crust edge shields. In a large saucepan combine the chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, lemon peel, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring often to keep from burning. Mix the sugar and cornstarch together and gradually add to tomato mix, stirring constantly. Continue cooking until liquid is clear. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Cool for 15 minutes Preheat oven to 425F. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie shell. Note: This works best in a glass pie dish. Cover with top crust and seal the edges so juices will not leak out. Cut several slits in top to allow steam to escape. Fold aluminum foil strips in half lengthwise and crimp all around the edges of the pie to keep crust edges from burning. Place pie tin on a cookie sheet on oven center rack. Bake for 50 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream or topped with whipped cream cheese. YIELD: 8 servings SUBMITTED BY: Andie Paysinger SOURCE: Andie Paysinger's great aunt Hattie Anne, an original recipe.

Just in case some of you folks are going to be in the area in early December, the Tamale festival in Indio is scheduled for December 3 - 4. It is a fun event. The weather in this area, a few miles from Palm Springs, is usually very nice at this time of the year. Here are some highlights.

Glycerine is hydrophyllic. That is, it combines instantly with water. If you want to experiment, rub some on your hands - it will be sticky until you allow a little water to run over your hands and just like that the glycerine on the surface is gone. It is used as a sweetener in some things and as a preservative - as in some medicines where alcohol cannot be used. Many of the herbal concoctions in liquid form are preserved in glycerine. Adding it to fruit juice in which you soak dried fruits helps with preservation and also allows the fruit to absorb more of the moisture because the glycerine has the effect of making the liquid "wetter" - a rather simplistic term but I can't explain the chemical properties technically. Look for glycerine in the larger bottles usually near the mineral oil, Milk of Magnesia, etc., much less expensive than the little dropper bottles. I keep it in a squeeze bottle with a tight cap on the top or even better, one with a one-way valve.

Over the years I have come across a number of recipes for steamed puddings, fruitcakes and etc., made with Porter or Stout. I believe that Guinness published a cookbook quite a few years back using Guinness. Somewhere in my loose recipes I have one for a delicious bread and butter pudding that uses a particular Yorkshire product, Old Peculiar, which is a bit sweeter than Guinness. I also have a recipe for walnuts (pecans also work) which are boiled in stout or porter, drained, sprinkled with a little salt and sugar then placed in the oven and dried till crisp. Very tasty, eaten alone or used in cakes, cookies or tossed in a salad. If you type "Guinness Cake" into your browser search window, you will get a list of several recipes. Here is a recipe for Chocolate stout cake Read the reviews from people who tried it.

I tried one of these in the late 70's, and no matter what I did, it was moldy in a few days. Do you have any problems with mold? I'd much rather have butter at a spreadable, near room temperature, and I like the idea of these things. Even if it was freshly washed, doused with boiling water and allowed to cool, it still grew mold. Any ideas? ← I find as long as you change the water every 3-4 days it is fine. I have never had problems with mold. Of course in my house the butter never goes uneaten for more than a couple of days . ← I have a couple of the butter "boats" which seem to work quite well. I put a scant drop of bleach in the water (which doesn't touch the butter) and that seems to solve the problem of molds. Butter Boat

How long will this keep? I'm nervous about having meat at room temp, but I want to try this! You don't need to do any canning/pressure cooker magic with this? If you are worried about room temp storage, you can process it in a water bath, as you would any high acid fruit preserves, jam or etc., for 15-20 minutes at a simmer Between the liquor and the cooking the stuff is pretty well preserved, just about as well as commercial mincemeat. If you have any doubts, you can always keep it in the fridge, or it can be packed in freezer containers and frozen. I don't recall it ever being on the shelf for very long, it got used up fairly rapidly. The flavor is not at all like commercial mincemeat. I made some last Thanksgiving and used most of it in tarts. Someone ate the rest directly from the jar as I found the empty jar with an ice tea spoon sitting in the sink. By the way, I also make a mincemeat, very similar to the pork recipe, using beef or turkey jerky. I make my own but if you can find the kind that comes in thick slabs, you can grind it coarsely and use it. That way there will be much less problem with spoilage, if that is your main concern. Somewhere in my hoard of old kitchen lore I have a recipe for mincemeat made from "bully" beef or salt beef. I haven't looked at it for years but if I can find it I will type it up and post it. As I recall, it required the salt cured beef to be boiled for several hours in multiple changes of water to extract the salt.

Melonpan tried the cocoa fruitcake and posted photos in the topic that was linked above. I also posted a recipe for a mincemeat made with pork, another family recipe that can be incorporated into a cake. It is in a different thread, I will have to look for the reference. I thought I had put the recipe in recipegullet but it is not there.

I posted some recipes last year, including this one which is quite different: society donor Posts: 3,191 Joined: 20-April 04 From: Southern California Member No.: 17,399 This is my cocoa fruit cake. I have recreated this from a recipe written in difficult-to-read, spidery handwriting in the journal of an ancestor with the entry dated 1690. It is important to use Dutch process cocoa. I use King Arthur Flour's Double Dutch Cocoa and Black Cocoa Half and Half. When glazed with the glaze at the end of the recipe, this cake will keep for several days at room temp and will stay incredibly moist with just a loose cover. I have in the past made this cake ahead of time and wrapped it well in Aluminum foil and kept it in a cool place for 6 or more weeks. However I now live alone. When my family was still all together, I could not keep it more than a couple of days......to give you an idea of the way things used to be, the original "receipt" called for 6 pounds of twice-boulted flour and 3 full pound loaves of sugar well beaten..... 2 pounds of butter and 3 dozen eggs. I have cut it down to a manageable size. FRUITED COCOA CAKE original recipe ca. 1690 1 cup BUTTER unsalted 1-1/2 tsp SALT kosher 1 tsp CINNAMON ground 1 tsp CLOVES, ground 1 tsp NUTMEG, ground 1 tsp ALLSPICE, ground 6 Tbsp COCOA, Dutch process 3 cups superfine SUGAR 4 large EGGS 3 Tsp BAKING SODA 4 cups, sifted FLOUR 1-1/2 cups CURRANTS 1-1/2 cups DRIED CHERRIES 1-1/2 cups WALNUTS, chopped or pecans or macadamia nuts, etc. 3 cups APPLESAUCE, unsweetened chunky style if you can find it, homemade is even better. Preheat oven to 350 F Grease and flour a deep 11" x 15" pan or 2 10-inch square pans or 2 holiday mold pans. In a large mixing bowl cream together butter, salt, spices, cocoa and sugar. beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Mix baking soda with flour. reserve 2 heaping tablespoons of the flour. Instead of sifting the flour you can simply put it in a large bowl and run a wire whisk through it which does the same as sifting, i.e. fluffing it up a bit. Add flour to batter alternately with applesauce. Sprinkle the fruit and nuts with the reserved flour and fold into cake batter. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 1 hour or until cake tests done. (deeper pans will require longer baking. ORANGE GLAZE GRATED PEEL OF 2 ORANGES 1/3 CUP SUGAR 1/4 CUP WATER 1 CUP ORANGE JUICE 3 TABLESPOONS GRAND MARNIER LIQUOR OR BRANDY Combine ingredients in saucepan, bring to simmer, stirring constantly, continue cooking until liquid is reduced by 1/2. Drizzle over cake ( I use a turkey baster and a perforated spoon as the glaze is too hot to dip my fingers into which is usually the way I drizzle icing . After the glaze has set, decorate edges of the cake and the plate edges with powdered sugar sifted thru a fine strainer.

I also rely on pounding instead of rolling and keeping the dough very cold and using as little additional flour as possible. I use a large Silpat mat laid on a marble slab. If the weather is quite warm, I place several of the blue ice packs on the mable to chill it as much as possible.

Probably because they might open the oven and ruin the cake to taste it ... or was it their personal magnetism? I forget now ... ← I had a chance to question one of my aunts about Lily Pearl's varied and interesting superstitions and regarding this one she said that Lily Pearl always said, "De mans be tromping too ha'ad on de floah so dey stay outta de kitchen when de cakes be in de ubben, lessen dey fall. Be dey cause de cakes to fall I be cussin' dem." *** Apparently none of the men every had the nerve to incur one of Lily Pearl's "curses"...... My aunt also reminded me that Lily Pearl had a lot of "rules" about how and when vegetables and fruit were picked. And lord help the man that whistled as he carried the milk and cream from the barn to the kitchen. That would call the pixies that would make the milk sour and the cream refuse to "set". ***Lily Pearl was a Gullah woman from the Carolina lowcountry that my grandfather had lured away from her previous employment, with his cousin, by promising her that her family would do much better moving to Kentucky with him. It is my understanding that she was the first black woman in our part of the country to own her own car, of which she was extremely proud and insisted that the men in her family kept it perfectly polished. If I had just one wish I could have granted, it would be to have Lily Pearl's recipe for Angel Food Cake. I have never seen one rise as high or be as light. It was like eating sea foam.