andiesenji

In addition to culinary bear's #3 suggestion, I smooth the surface of the guacamole and spray it with one of the culinary oils, plain, garlic or lemon, then apply the plastic wrap to the entire surface. Using this method I have held guacamole in the fridge for 8 hours with no browning whatsoever. The bit about the seed is not true. The guacamole in contact with the seed will not brown because it keeps air away from the surface but the rest of it will brown.

Get the pods at Smart & Final, they are only $3.99 a bag there. I buy it by the box (6 bags to the box) and get a slight discount and also use my Smart Advantage card (apply free online)Smart & Final. I prefer the Dark Roast - it has way more flavor than the medium. Be sure and get the Senseo with the extra large water container. I got the ones I bought for gifts at Sam's Club and they came with the extra large container for the same price as the regular, $67.00. They did have the Senseo at Costco for 67.00 with a $20. rebate, however it was the one with the regular water tank and to buy the thing separately is $19.95. They may now have the ones with the larger tank, I haven't been in Costco for a while, but that is my advice. (I bought 6 to give as gifts).

I agree, the Thai restaurant here in Lancaster that is my favorite, got a B rating because they don't have a new code grease trap. The thing is that their main parking is behind the restaurant and most of the customers can walk through the kitchen (on one side, against a wall) and see everything that goes on in there, insures that the regulars know the place is clean, the cooks ditto and there is no pathogen that could live at the temps where the food is cooked. Sometimes the place is so foggy with steam that you practically need a guide to get through to the dining room. I have been in the place early in the morning (I did a portrait of their grandmother) and they were steam-cleaning the floor and walls. Good enough for me!

Discovering how to make a particular condiment is a creative adventure. I have had a lot of fun over the years experimenting with various combinations of ingredients to get just that perfect blend of sweet, hot, sour, salt and pungency that titillates the tongue and nose. Mostly I have been successful but am still trying to figure out what gave one particular firey-hot mustard its interesting flavors. A friend (chef), who moved to South Africa several years ago,sent me a little jar of mustard (along with some other oddities) with the name of "Mother-In-Law's Tongue", as he thought the name would amuse me. It did, but I was more taken with the flavors that gave the mustard its complex heat and pungency. The printing on the label, except for the name, was not in English so the true ingredients remain a mystery to me. I saved the jar but it was misplaced some time ago. I have probably made upwards of thirty tries to duplicate the flavor, using various types of mustard, African peppers, spices and herbs but still that particular flavor eludes me. It is one of those things that, I can't describe exactly, but would know it if I tasted it. I would love to try it again but have never found it on any website and Lee has since moved on and is no longer in Capetown. It is still fun to try, along with the various other mustard combinations I make. Most recent is a combination of my homemade seedy mustard with Crosse & Blackwell's Branston Pickle, mixed half and half and served with a roasted leg of pork. My God! that was good........tangy, a great complement to the pork without overwhelming it.

Any older version of Joy of Cooking. doc ← Home Made in the Kitchen Barry Bluestein, Kevin Morrissey, Jeanne Troxell Munson Better Than Store Bought and Fancy Pantry by Helen Witty and also her Good Stuff cookbook. These are the ones I turn to whenever I want to make something and don't have a clue where to begin. Helen Witty has the best recipes for wine jellies I have yet discovered and her recipe for cream crackers in Fancy Pantry is absolutely the best, I depend on it.

I make my own vanilla extract and use only the Bourbon for this purpose. The flavor is stronger and "cleaner" or rather has only the vanilla without the floral overtones fo the Tahitian, which I do not care for in the extract. It does have its place, particularly when the bean is infused in milk or cream. I have tried the Hawaiian vanilla, a friend who lives there send me a couple of beans. It was quite good but in my estimation, did not warrant the increased price over the other types.

Anyway, the picture is in my public album so anyone can look at it. Rather than mess around with another system, I will wait until imagegullet is working correctly again. When I get my other knives back I will post a photo of an old chef's knife, the same size as the Forschner, that was made for me many years ago. The guy who made it took a high carbon saw blade and cut the knife with full tang from it. It was a huge round saw blade from a saw mill so was much thicker than what we ordinarily think of as a saw blade. It takes and holds an exceptionally keen edge and until I got the Forschner, it was my "go-to" knife for cutting stuff that resisted everything else, acorn or butternut squash, no problem whatsoever. The blade looks stained but it has always been that way, dark and light spots that are part of the metal.

I was going to post a picture but apparently the photo I uploaded to my album can't be posted. When I click on it, instead of getting the window that allows me to copy the URL, I get a new message window. I don't have all one brand of knives. Some makers have certain knives that work better for me than other makers. I handle a knife and see how it feels in my hand before I buy. I have some very old knives that I still use and some newer ones that have become favorites. These are the ones I use all the time, perhaps not every day, but at least several times a week. The oldest is the smaller boning knife, made by Case, which I have had for about 40 years. The middle sized boning knife is a Dexter and I have had it for at least 30 years. I have several big chef's knives like the one at the top but this Forschner feels the best in my hand, has the best balance for me. The narrow bladed F. Dick utility knife and the custom made one 2nd to the left of it are the knives I use constantly, several times a day, along with the paring knives. The white handled boning knive is one of the super flexible ones sold at Smart & Final and it is amazing how much the blade can be bent and it is fantastic for boning out a ham or a leg of lamb or similar cut, the blade slides right around a bone with ease. The Wusthof slicer at the far right and the Robinson slicer at the top are the best of several long-bladed slicers I use and the Robinson is my favorite bread knife. I have had the three Global knives (plus a long filleting knife which I can't find) for at least three years and find they are wonderful for slicing larger fruits and vegetables. I like the way the blades that are beveled only on one side behave when cutting firm vegetables. Getting these out, I discovered some of my knives are missing and I realized that I took them to my neighbor's and left them there in my knife safe the last time we had a joint cooking venture. Obviously they are not ones that I use all the time. I have many more knives, I have not pulled out any of my butchering knives which I use only occasionally, or the specialty knives, such as the cake knive with the 14 inch blade or the real Chinese cleavers and knives that I also use rarely. I love knives, and am always searching for a new "perfect" knife but have been more than satisfied with these.

When you first start the machine, you have to "prime" it which pulls water into the inner chamber and heats it and pours out the first water which is much more than a regular cup, which is why the instructions say to use a container of a particular size. After that a certain amount of water remains inside the machine and that is what is heated in the 60 second heating period, then as the hot water is forced through the pods into the cup, fresh water is drawn in from the supply chamber and in turn is heated very rapidly which is how the machine can make individual cups in a fairly rapid sequence. I have been using the Senseo since the end of July last year and am very impressed with it. At Christmas I gave several as gifts. I gave one to a young lady who is in college and it is ideal for her. Her dorm rules state that they can not have any appliance in their rooms that has an exposed heat source so a regular coffeemaker with its hot plate is verboten. This machine, with no exposed heat source is ideal and since college kids often survive on coffee, it is becoming very popular. Nina mentioned that several of her dorm mates asked their parents for the machines and there are now at least a dozen just on her floor. I like the coffee it produces because I have always had a problem with coffee tasting stale to me shortly after being brewed, no matter how it is contained or kept warm. This machine, brewing one cup at a time, is ideal. It is something new for me because I have always been a major tea drinker, mainly because coffee, made the traditional ways, simply did not appeal to me. I happen to like my coffee with cream and sugar (Splenda now for my diabetes) and my routine is to put the milk or cream in a large mug with the sweetener, nuke it for 30 seconds to heat it and then use an Aerolatte to foam the hot milk. I use two pods and draw the two-cup serving straight into the foamy milk and at times it is almost as good as a meal. This is not a substitute for an espresso machine, it is a totally different end product, however, it is one of the best cups of coffee I have ever tasted and after six months the novelty has not worn off and I use it every day. I also bought one for the office and one for my boss. Other people in the office also enjoy it.

There are some links in the original post that didn't copy over. I also make polenta regularly (like last night) in the microwave. You may commence with the culinary ass-whipping now.... Jim ps.....I'm going to start reducing stuff, too..thanks andiesenji ← I do polenta and risotto in the microwave also - also the "instant" couscous when I don't have all the time needed for steaming it. Try this. Cut an apple into bite-size pieces, put it in a pyrex bowl, sprinkle with a little sugar(I use splenda) and cinnamon and a pat of butter. cover loosley with a saucer or ?? and cook for 3-4 minutes at full power.

I love hard-boiled eggs, split in half and with a small dollop of butter on the yolk. Often for lunch I will cut up an apple in a small dish, dot with butter and sprinkle with a little cinnamon (no sugar). I also love a bowl of tomato soup with a pat of butter melting in the center of the bowl.

No cornbread. Anka found some hominy in the small fridge so that went into the pot and I "refreshed" a loaf of asiago cheese bread baked Sunday evening. The soup is delicious, just enough spice to drive the cold away and very hearty.

No, it is the sound the pig makes. The old joke is that every part of a pig can be put to use, as food or other uses, except the squeal. Hog snout is a delicacy favored by many in the south and in Mexico.

Cooking on my stove at present is a "use up some stuff in the fridge" soup. It includes some extra small bacon pieces I cooked day before yesterday for a salad, some cooked fresh bratwurst from Sunday, some fresh black-eyed peas I had been planning to use for something else but this is their "use-by" date and of course, some chopped onion, shallots and green chile pepper with 1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock which I thawed and then couldn't remember what I had intended to do with it. (?"Old-timer's disease?) In any event it is progressing - I took photos and when finished will take another and if they look interesting will post same. It is cold and rainy today, our lovely warm weather a distant memory. At least the weekend was nice. This is a perfect day for soup. Maybe cornbread too.

Traeger BBQ pits have a good reputation on the competition circuit although they are looked down on by some traditional "stick burners". I'm guessing you would need a rather custom installation with auger feed, induction fan, and burn chamber. Even so, you may not be able to produce a high enough temperature. Shipping charges for pellets are another issue. The the more readily available ones designed for heating stoves are not rated food grade. The Energex pellets sound fine if they are locally available. Jim ← I was replying to the comment that firewood is not easy to come by in some areas, Nebraska was mentioned. Sometime last year I went with friends to a restaurant somewhere on the way to San Diego and we had to park in back of the building. I noticed three pallets of the wood pellets outside the back door of the restaurant. It may have been in Carlsbad, but I don't recall exactly. Since I wasn't driving, (was talking to others in the motorhome and not paying any attention to where we were.) It was one of those places where the cooking was done in a glassed-in area so the patrons could watch and they had several large grills going and also had pizza which cooked very rapidly. One of the party ordered one of the specialty pizza as an appetizer and it came to the table no more than 10-12 minutes after the server went off with the order.

No thanks! And I am pretty sure that my friends would never think of drinking from a bottle. They are the types that have to have a special glass for every type of wine. God forbid they should every have to drink a red wine from a glass designed for white! Bottle drinking would be totally anathema. These are some good wines too, nothing cheap. In the last box they brought was a third of a bottle of 2001 Cotes du Rhone Rubis - they bought a case at a charity auction. They killed two bottles at a dinner party and couldn't quite finish the third so it came to me. The aroma was wonderful, wish I could taste.

With cilantro, I have noticed that often it has to be in conjunction with something that it complements. I think that too many chefs went overboard in throwing cilantro into everything, often combining it with foods that fought back, so to speak. I have been eating it for so many years that i can't even recall the first time I had it and it wasn't called cilantro, but fresh coriander. Not too long ago I prepared carnitas tacos that had the salsa, a pico de gallo containing tomatoes, onions, peppers and cilantro, already mixed into the meat. One of my guests commented on how good it was and commented that he really liked the "parsley" - - - I told him that it was cilantro and he said, "But I don't like cilantro, this doesn't taste like cilantro!" It was cilantro and tasted like cilantro by itself, but when combined with the fatty carnitas, it is not at all the same as eating it on its own.

You can go to any health food store and find vinegar that is unfiltered and containing the mother. All you have to do is shake it up, to break up the mother somewhat and pour some of it into a larger (dark) bottle, add your wine loosely cover it, so there can be some air exchange but stuff can't fall into the bottle (I use a 6 inch square of cloth and a rubberband) and put it in a dark, cool place. Leave it alone for a couple of months, then begin tasting a bit from time to time. When it has the taste you like, carefully decant some into another bottle for use, being careful to keep the mother in the orignal bottle and add more wine to it so the process continues. I have several going at the same time. Red and rosé as well as white. I have even had fair success with sherry although it takes much, much longer and you need a high concentration of vinegar and mother to start with and add only a little sherry at a time, otherwise the mother will cease working. I happen not to drink but have a lot of friends that do and they save me their "leftovers" - wines that have been opened and left out too long, champagne that has lost its fizz and etc. Some have begun to turn on their own but are still perfectly fine to add to the vinegar pot. I mostly use magnum size bottles and have one jereboam.

Has anyone considered using pellitized wood in these ovens? This company has successfully used the wood pellets in their barbecues and smokers. The dealer who sells pellitized wood heating/cooking stoves here in Lancaster is a friend and he sells a huge number of the pellet stoves (he has about 20 styles in his store at any one time) and they develop a lot of heat with much less fuel than the traditional wood stove. He sells only the Energex wood pellets as there are no additives. It seems to me that the pellets could be used to do the primary heating of the oven, then the residue raked out and regular wood added late in the heating time, perhaps burning in a different area of the oven, left in the oven to maintain the temperature.

May I direct you to this article on yeasted waffles.

Technically, the stuff that is marketed in the US as "chai" would be called Masala Chai in India. Masala is a combination of spices that are mixed with the tea, which is stewed in milk, not brewed in water then mixed with milk. Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for massala chai is the one I have used for many, many years, long before one ever saw "chai" in a store. There are several recipes for the beverage on this page. The top 40 Indian recipes accessed on RecipeZaar include, at #11, a recipe for masala chai. Indian recipes at RecipeZar

I don't know when the idea that milk in first was lower class evolved, but it certainly wasn't during Victorian times. My great grandmother was as aristocratic as any English gentlewoman of the Victorian era and she had her heated milk in a special little pitcher and it always went into the cups first and then the tea was added, then one added their own sugar. I always thought it was to prevent heat shock from the eggshell-thin porcelain cups because sometimes the men would drink their tea without milk and they had their own cups which were larger and thicker. Of course this was at breakfast or early morning. Afternoon tea was always served in the fine china cups and with milk because my great grandmother "poured" and everyone was served the same.

I use a Pyrex container that is much larger than the volume of liquid (usually the 2 quart size but occasionally use a 6 quart "Visions" Dutch oven) - I set the power level to 40% and depending on the amount of liquid set the time from 5 to 15 minutes as a general rule. I don't open the door or move the container for several minutes after the cycle ends, in fact, I generally just leave it alone while I am doing other things. I check it and if it needs more reduction I set it again at the lower power, etc. Sometimes it takes several cycles to get the liquid where I want it. However this way I don't have to hang over the stove. You can see photos of apricot jam processed in the microwave on this thread. Post # 22 is the one.

I have a large microwave oven, a small microwave oven and a combination convection/microwave oven and I use all of them all the time. All of the things mentioned above and them some. such as - - I make preserves in the microwave - documented in photos last summer when I was up to my hips in apricots. then there is; making infused syrups with spices, herbs, etc. making the syrup for pickles heating milk and cream as you are sure it won't scorch this way. reducing liquids of all kinds. I would never be without one again.

My neighbor goes to Mexico every other month, he has a ranch in Durango. He has brought back all kinds of things for me, including one of the big copper pots, which resembles a jam pot, it is unlined copper so can't safely be used for cooking many things. However I can get one for about $75.00, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more, depending on the bargainning. He will be going down there week after next so if you want one let me know and I will figure a way to get it to you so you won't have to pay shipping costs. I will take a picture of the one I have so you can see how big it is. Hey, I already have a picture of it in my public album, with a ruler alongside of it and even with the dog in the way you can guess the size. I have one of the huge enamel pots with a double decker rack inside for cooking large batches of tamale. also the molcajete and one of the bigger flat ones for grinding corn or cacoa beans.