andiesenji

I bought some green Oroblanco at Ralphs here in Lancaster yesterday, 2 for a dollar. The produce manager had special ordered something for me (citron) and he asked if I had ever tried them when I made my candied peel. I haven't and he showed me where they were displayed and I bought 6. I am making candied peel and the rind of these seems to be quite aromatic so it should make a nice contrast to the other peel colors. I took a photo and as soon as I can figure out why the computer is not recognizing my camera, I will post it.

Fifi, You have learned my guilty secret of "improving" Tater Tots. I spread them on a pan and mash them flat - I have a batticarne which sits right next to the counter where I place pans before shoving them in the oven - but anything flat will work. I turn them using a big spatula, half-way through the baking time when the tops have begun to color well, (and usually add more seasoning at this point, just in case some fell off when I turned them), after 10 minutes I take a look and if they are getting nicely browned I give them another five minutes and by this time they have that special crunch. If I have guests have have the big griddle fired up, I also do them on the griddle because when they are flattened they don't have to be rolled around to get browned on all sides, turning once will do it. I often use bacon drippings when I cook them on the griddle as we like them with the extra flavor of bacon. Now I'm hungry. Tater Tots, bacon and eggs, here I come!!

Oh yes! I brine and have for several years. I use this recipe Ultimate brine for turkey. With outstanding results. On her radio show Melinda explains the reasons and the effect of brining better than anyone else. To make a long story short, it causes the tightly wound celluar structures to unwind, allowing moisture to be retained in the flesh during cooking instead of being forced out by further tightening caused by the application of heat. This is the reason brined meats retain more moisture.

My friend Annette, half my age, is a breast cancer survivor. She didn't feel capable of going back to her high energy, high stress job and returned to school and got her degree as a counselor. She has, with mine and other's help, remodeled and redecorated her kitchen in the pink and white, pink and black "vintage" colors as well as vintage appliances appropriate to the age of the house which was built in 1949. She wanted it in the "color of hope" as she is now hosting meetings in her kitchen for other women going through similar situations as an adjunct to her regular counseling as well as for women under the care of other counselors and others who are introduced by others in the group. Annette wanted to learn to bake things to serve at her meetings and I helped her with the basics, what equipment to buy, what supplies she would need, etc. Since last April when she began holding these meetings, twice a week, several of the women, many who were also professional or business women who never "had time" to do any more than basic cooking, have become interested in baking or cooking more interesting things. At least two have visited eG for ideas. I was a guest at one of their meetings and I was amazed at how vital and happy these women are. With few exceptions, they are discussing their plans for the future as well as discussing recipes, kitchen makeovers and entertaining others. This is in stark contrast to their first few meetings when they seemed to think that they had no future and there was no point in making plans. Just something as simple as this can make a difference. Cheerful surroundings, companions with positive attitudes and developing an interest in something as mundane as baking, can draw a person out of themselves and away from too much introspection. I asked Annette if it was okay to mention this on eG and she said it was fine and she may look in and may even become a member. She is rather busy and has some reservations because from the times she has visited, she thinks it might be very easy to get "hooked" on eG, however I assured her that it is a very manageable habit and a very enjoyable one.

Here is my method, which I have "perfected" over the many years. Prepare ahead of time, water in ziploc FREEZER bag, freeze. Put the ice bag into cheese cloth and tie the ends so you can hang onto it. Next, take a colander, wire, metal, anything but plastic that might melt, whatever size that will be nearly the same diameter as your pan or pot. Push it down so the solids are forced down into the liquid and you have just liquid and fat to deal with. Now dip the cheesecloth with the icebag into the liquid and drag it around in a concentric cricle starting at the outside and working in toward the center. The fat will be attracted to the cold and will harden onto the cloth, because it reacts more rapidly to cold than the rest of the liquid and you can lift it along with the colander out of the pot and have about 90% of the fat. I have used this in small saucepans and huge stockpots. I just use a bigger ice bag in the large pots. (you can also use ice cubes if you are in a hurry but the greater the mass of ice, the slower it will melt)

Have not tried peeling and roasting the stalk, but when I grew sprouts (when I lived in the Valley) I hated to waste all that vegetable. I peeled the stalk, cut it into quarters, lengthwise then sliced it and made it into pickles using my bread and butter, extra spicy pickling method. Excellent just plain and also combined with other vegetables for mixed pickles, also spicy and with the addition of mustard.

I certainly use food preparation, deciding on what to fix, then gathering the ingredients and the equipment, then working my way through a recipe to take my mind off unpleasant events. Yesterday, a case in point, I was feeling rather cranky much of the day and by the time I got home was in a deep funk, not in much of a mood for being sociable. I shut my computer down early and began working on things that need to be prepped for my holiday baking, in addition to what I have already prepared. I just received a box of almonds from a local grower so put a big kettle on and blanched and skinned about 10 pounds then transferred them to the dehydrator to dry out. Some went straight into a light syrup for further cooking and tonight they will begin the process of being turned into marzipan. (My own method, different from the usual.) The newest batch of ginger that has been cooking in the syrup since Sunday, was drained and went into another dehydrator after I removed the raisins that have been in it since Saturday. My housekeeper helped me move some of the heavier items onto carts so I can move them around easily when she isn't available. I measured out the dry ingredients for several batches of cookies, packaging them in ziploc bags and arranging each batch on its own tray or in a bus tub along with the recipe and list of equipment needed or in cases where a particular gadget, such a certain cutter is needed just for that cookie, that also went into the tub. (Linzer cookies have a special cutter.) By that time I was tired, showered and went straight to sleep and slept well. Feel a bit better this morning.

I often buy them at the Mexican supermarket which has them all year long. When they are really cheap, 4 pounds for a dollar, I buy a big bag full. I cut them in half, toss them in a big bowl, then sit down and using a melon baller, scoop out the pulp and toss it into a jumbo freezer bag. I then seal the bag, put it on a sheet pan, press it as flat as I can get it so it is an even thickness then freeze the whole thing. (Or it can be frozen in smaller bags.) When I have time to process it, I break off chunks, put them in a colander and let the pulp thaw then put it through an electric juicer (I have a cheap one that I bought at a yard sale for 10 dollars). The skin is more bitter than the Persian limes so I don't want to have the taste in the juice. The freezing and thawing breaks down the cell walls and I get much more juice from the limes than putting them directly into the juicer. I have done it both ways and measured the juice and the pulp from the same weight of fruit and the juice:pulp ratio is quite a bit higher after freezing. A good, sharp melon baller is just the right size for getting all the flesh out of these little fruits. I have passed along this method to several friends who own or work in restaurants and they also found it saves a lot of work.

I have used the piquillos that are sold in jars and have stuffed them with various things. They are quite good but the heat varies considerably from brand to brand and jar to jar, often they are too hot for some of my guests and I had to find something else to serve them. Some have even been too much for me! Since Ideal Cheese began carrying peppadews I have substituted these and found that they are much more reliably in having just enough heat and with excellent flavor. They are very similar to the piquillos and certainly appear to be related. They ship to me overnight but since you are fairly local, call and see if they have them in stock. Ideal Cheese 942 1st Avenue New York, NY (212) 688-7579 I should add that since they sell them in bulk, you can taste before you buy if you go to the store.

I want to add my kudos for your impressive presentation! The work is amazing. I love playing around with recreating some of the old dishes, keeping to just the things available at the time. Years ago I was a member of the SCA and attended many of the tourneys and advised on accuracy of the foods, however most of the young people involved were not that interested in the truly historically accurate foods. The tastes were not to their liking. One brewer recreated an historically accurate ale and it did not go over well at all. The small beer was better but most thought it way too sweet.

I have purchased this larger machine using Buy it Now 9 inch wide from this vendor, along with the motor, which they also carry. And I find it is much more useful than the narrower ones.

I don't eat the way I did growing up all the time, but occasionally, often at holiday time, I revert back to the foods of my youth. Of course many of the foods I was raised on, in rural western Kentucky, were not your ordinary "southern" cooking but was rather a unique experience. Of course I wasn't aware of it at the time but I came to appreciate it many years later. Our food was "fusion" food long before that description was applied to such things as food. We lived in the south but part of my family had come from England and the other half were southeners for several generations. My grandfather's cook was a Gullah woman from the Carolina lowcountry and brought that facet of the food world into the mix. Also, my grandfather had traveled in the middle east and spend some time in India and had become fond of those foods. And in addition, my great grandmother, a remarkable woman who lived a very interesting life, and a very long one, was a collector of "receipts" and also had traveled a great deal in Europe and had even been to Egypt and Palestine. Because there were so many people to be fed, it was not unusual to have several entrees, multiples of side dishes, condiments, little "sides" such as pickles, olives, radishes, and so on as well as several desserts. Being raised by Victorians did have some drawbacks. Highly spiced foods or rich foods were not considered "good" for children so we did not get curries and other of the more exotic dishes (except what we could sneak out of the kitchen) and we also did not usually have dinner with the adults, except on Sundays when dinner was in the afternoon. Holidays it was a different situation, we were allowed to stay up later and sometimes were accomodated at the tables in the dining room when we were old enough to "behave" ourselves. So I remember biscuits and cornbread, buttermilk, soup beans, greens, green beans, ham hocks in beans and green beans and greens, bacon, boiled ham, baked ham and fried ham. Beef in all its many guises, crab cakes and oyster loaves, fried chicken, roast chicken, chicken pie, chicken curry, stewed chicken and chicken and dumplings. Grandpa's cook learned to cook curries and rice and various kinds of lentils in addition to beans and black-eye peas. There were game birds, ducks and geese, giunea fowl and turkeys, the bronze ones, prepared in every way imaginable. After the war my uncles who were in the Pacific came home with food ideas from the Phillipines, from Japan and Hawaii. One uncle who had been in the China service prior to WWII had already brought home dishes from various places he visited. It was an eclectic mix of foods that is probably the reason I have always had an adventuresome spirit when it comes to food and the reason that I mix things from varioius cultures that I think go well together. (Coucous works as well with Thai food or Mexican food as it does with foods of the middle east.)

You can also dry them in your oven if you have a very low setting (140 degrees). Wash and dry them, twist them off the stems and put them on a cooling rack over a tray as they may drip a bit and put them in the oven. If they are fairly large they will take about three days to fully dehydrate. I dry the large seedless red grapes that are extra sweet and they turn out like candy.

You could probably make another batch, after all, there is "another" holiday in a month!!!

Don't fool around with butterfly bandages. Wipe the wound and quickly apply paper tape directly on the cut, first sticking down on one side then applying tension to pull the cut closed. Then apply two or three layers at different angles over the first piece in a radial pattern. THEN put on gloves. I buy the food grade latex (or if you are allergic get the non-latex) gloves that are like surgeons gloves and fit tight enough so the fingers won't catch in things. ( We used the tape in the office when my boss was still doing surgery and we would take the skin sutures or staples out a couple of days following surgery and apply the paper tape directly overe the wound. it allows air circulation but holds things together and speeds healing. As long as it is kept fairly dry it will stay on and as long as it is clean, don't disturb it for at least several hours. The incisions were less like to heal with an obvious scar.) I wear gloves almost all the time I am working in the kitchen anyway. I often have my hands in something and if the phone rings I can rip the glove off and answer the phone without getting it full of grease, dough, syrup or ?????? They will also stop any shedding of parts of you into the food. There is a reason they are advocated and in some places absolutely required for food service. They are inexpensive and save time in the long run. I began using them when I developed contact dermatitis from washing my hands constantly with antibacterial soap. I still wash my hands but with using gloves I am not doing it every 5 minutes.

The one in Visalia from which I just purchased a tree can obviously ship within California and probably to Arizona as they have reciprocity for many ag products. I will take a picture of the tree when it arrives next Tuesday. Check their website, they have a lot of interesting things. I may drive up there next spring to see the place for myself.

Here is the Grow Quest website. I just looked at the citrus tree section. There are several varieties I want which I did not know were available commercially. I may have to expand my greenhouse!! They guarantee their trees for 12 months which is an important consideration. I want a citron and a blood orange for sure.

Yesterday afternoon I called a friend in Ojai who grows several varieties of unusual citrus (but no Kaffir lime-yet) and asked him who would be the best supplier for someone wanting a citrus tree that is mature enough so that leaves (or fruit, depending on the type of citrus) can be harvested immediately. He gave me this number 559 735 0743 and told me to call. I just called, the company is growquest and they have a website which I will look up in a minute and post a link. I bought a tree for 36.95 plus 14.00 shipping. They will ship it next Monday and it will be here Tuesday. They are in Visalia, California so no problem with shipping in state. Dean says that they have first quality trees and some very unusual cultivars of citrus.

That is the hand-held type I mentioned that people often use the wrong way. The citrus has to go into it cut side down and when pressed it turns the fruit inside out and extracts the most juice. I saw someone on a Food TV show using one the wrong way, putting the cut side up, which looks like it would fit, but it doesn't work as well and the juice squirts out the sides instead of through the holes in the bottom.

I don't know where you are located. There should be some supplier in your area where you can buy cream that is not over processed. Manufacturers cream is available at many places that supply both the public and restaurants/food services. Smart & Final carries it and they are open to the public as are many other outlets. types of cream Ultrapasturized cream will not work. You can whip it as is until it solidifies but it won't have the same texture or flavor as cultured butter. I have an electric churn (actually I have 3, including a huge 5 gallon one that I no longer use) and a hand cranked one but a mixer will work. Since I live in southern California I have the Mexican markets at which to shop and I buy the Crema Mexicana, Grade A Table Cream in the quart size, which is not ultra-pasturized and makes wonderful cream cheese as well as butter. (They also make a sour cream labeled Crema Mexicana Agria) This is one company. types of cream

Has anyone had any problems with the removable bottom pans leaking? I bake a few times a year, so IF they work, it seems like a more fool-proof solution than learning how to unmold things out of a regular pan. (At least for an occasional baker like myself.) ← I have two of the removable bottom pans that have the silicone rims which work pretty well without leaking, however they are not deep enough for most of the things for which I use the springform pans. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought new pans earlier this year and have had good results with the leak-proof round ones. For the square and rectangular ones I discovered that with a little tweaking, I can seal them pretty well, without using foil. I buy the roasting bags that are made for use in the oven - they look like plastic but are obviously something else - cut the material into 1 inch strips and put that down in the depression in the springform pan bottom so the sides rest on it and when it is snapped closed, it presses tha part on the inside tightly against the inner rim. I test it by running water into it, sometimes have to adjust it a bit but if the pan will hold water it will hold the custard in and keep the water out. I am sure I could fool around with a regular pan to substitute for the sprinform but if one is available and makes my task easier, why not use it. In the bakery we baked cheesecakes without a water bath and they were in regular pans and were frozen prior to being removed from the pans, however we had other tasks to do. I don't want to have to freeze something to get it out of a pan. For one thing, my freezers are usually full and when I am on a roll with something I want to move things along and get it done, not have to wait for it to freeze before I can continue with preparation. Anyway, try one of the leak-proof springforms and see how it works for you. I think for the ordinary home cook they are easier to use.

I went to high school in Wisconsin in the early 50s and our home economics teacher was one of the rare teachers that had more degrees than most in that time and was also our chemistry teacher. She had worked in the dairy industry prior to becoming a teacher and was always lecturing about the subject, very important in "The Dairy State" as a lot of the kids in my small town class were children of dairy farmers. The lecture on butter went something like the following. At one time all butter was unsalted and was used immediately. After culturing, resting then churning and draining away the whey, the mass of butter 'curds' was kneaded and pressed to extract as much of the whey as possible and the butter was stored in crocks, in spring houses or the crocks were set down into water in cisterns to keep it as cool as possible but it still would spoil after several days. It did not travel well. Then, it is opined, when westward expansion began in America, and people needed a way to preserve butter on a long, slow trip, some enterprising farmwife added some salt to her batch of butter because salt is a preservative. As she kneaded the butter she probably noticed that more liquid than usual was expressed as this is another of salts effects, it will draw liquid out of a mass, be it a vegetable, or in this case, butter. The result was a more compact and firmer product that would keep better and longer than the unsalted. Butter crocks were made in a particular way, with a ridge around the crock about a third of the way from the top so they could be set into a round wooden board which would in turn float on the water in a barrel carried on a wagon. The lid was made with circular ridges on both top and bottom so it would fit into the crock without sliding and water could be ladeled into the depression on the top. The evaporation of this water would keep the butter cool. This treatment of butter caught on and dairys began producing it commercially as it allowed them to ship their product instead of just selling locally. This was still pretty much an American phenomenen. Europeans still used fresh butter, made daily or almost daily, purchased locally. Americans who travelled in Europe found the butter there tasted different. Mark Twain commented on it in one of his "letters", to him it tasted "flat." That was the standard lecture about butter. Following is from my personal observations over the past 50 years. There was a time when it was difficult to find unsalted butter in a supermarket. Often it was in one of the little tubs and priced much higher than the comparable salted product. However it had alwlays been available for commercial use in bakeries, restaurants and food processing. Then in the 1960s the gourmet home cooking movement began working its way into the general American scene (instead of just in the "sophisticated metropolitan venues) and home cooks all over the country began demanding the ingredients specified in the cookbooks that were being written for the "discerning" home cook and those wishing to duplicate dishes from France and etc. The marketing people of the dairy industry saw the light and almost overnight one began seeing unsalted butter on dairy shelves next to the salted. At first people were confused because only the lettering was different but then they began packaging it in different colors. I know because I was fooled a few times myself and picked up the wrong product. (Challenge butter was the culprit). At first it was only the "name" brands that offered both kinds of butter but now even the store labels or generics come in both types. To me it is personal preference. I like the taste of salted butter because I have been used to it all my life. I use unsalted butter in some dishes because I think it works better. I use european style butter because it has a lower moisture content and works much better in sauces, however I often make my own butter, it is not difficult and you can control what goes into it. My homemade butter is much lighter in color because there is no coloring added to it but it is very rich because I use an extra heavy cream and make it with a culture instead of just souring the cream. If you are going to sauté vegetables, use unsalted butter - salted butter, just as plain salt, will pull moisture out of vegetables and will change there cellular structure. You can test this yourself with somethng as simple as a piece of carrot. Sauté it in unsalted butter and it will be tender and still have perfect structure. Sauté it in salted butter and you will find the result will be slightly spongy and more fibrous and there will be more liquid in the pan and that liquid came out of the carrot. I once made the mistake of braising celery using salted butter. It was awful, the cells between the ribs were mush and the ribs were stringy, not at all as it should be.

They are worth it and they are full of seeds so juicing is a job. I wash them well, then put them in a shallow dish and microwave them for 30 seconds or so then cut them in half, throw several into a ricer and squeeze. Much easier this way than trying to do them one at a time. Also handy is one of the old type juicers that works like a ricer. like this one.

There is a place in Rainbow, California (south of Temecula) where a couple of Kaffir lime trees were growing. It used to be a herb farm open to the public and I was a customer and drove down there three times a year, in the spring, summer and fall for their herb festivals when prices were reduced. The place is no longer open to the public and the herb business has closed. However I asked Ken how he got the Kaffir limes and he said that he had bought some of the limes (they had the fruit as well as the leaves) from an Asian market in Santa Ana, hoping to propagate them from seed, however he was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a couple of the fruits were split and moldy so they were tossed into the compost. A few month later when he was turning the compost he came across three little plants and pulled one out of the compost only to find it was growing from one of the Kaffir limes. That plant did not survive but he was able to pot up the other two and they survived. It is possible that the heat and moisture in the compost heap was the ideal place for the little plants to sprout and grow. I know all kinds of things have sprouted in my compost heaps, avocados, apricots, cherries, peaches and plums, grapefruit, and even a pomelo.

This is the original post: I agree with you 100% There are some "convenience" foods that are worth using because they enable you to do other things with more flair. I often have people ask me for my recipe for Mac 'n Cheese. I unabashadly tell them my "secret". First I cook the Creamettes brand elbow macaroni, if that is not available then it is Barilla. It is then cooked aldente, then drained, tossed back in the pot with butter and a can (or two, depending on the amount of macaroni) of Campbell's Condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup, undiluted. Stir, pour in a casserole, sprinkle the top with parmesan or asiago, freshly grated and run under the broiler for a couple of minutes. It is alway creamy, never gets gummy or hard and tastes good. If we want spicy it is the Nacho Soup I use. In the meantime, I have baked bread from scratch, cooked fresh mushrooms, onions, tomato and squash, grilled chops or steaks and prepared a killer dessert. The mac and cheese takes 15 minutes, tops.