andiesenji

Now I am blushing. I also have gotten a great deal of pleasure from communicating with the eG community. GG, you simply amaze me with the diversity of the topics you initiate. So often it is about things that I have thoughts about but have not been able to put into words coherent enought to make a topic title understandable.

Not a steroid, Astelin is an antihistamine, azelastine HCL.

Yuch, I can just imagine - CSI would be there............ I bag this kind of stuff and drive around to the back of my property and dump it near a couple of Joshua trees that are home base for several ravens, the very efficient waste managers of the desert. Whatever they don't get during the day, the coyotes get at night. (These are mighty big ravens, not like the much smaller blackbirds.)

This site has a good explanation about using Lactaid dairy products.Dairy products/lactaid. and this page has an explanation of dairy allergieson this site. This is Dr. Dean Edel's Health Central. A lot of good, no-nonsense advice.

The treatment for intolerance to dairy is not the Lactaid pills which have to be taken with meals or every time you consume dairy. Those have been around for some time. This is something fairly new, and apparently there have been clinical trials, I believe I saw a reference to clinical trials in New York city, but can't swear to it. As I recall the starting dosage was 1 or 2 tablets twice a day or every 12 hours for a week or so then 1 or 2 tablets daily in the morning. It apparently re-establishes or re-introduces the critters into the bowel that produce the enzymes that convert the dairy components to a digestible type. The things such as Lactozyme and Lactaid are the enzymes themselves and will convert the dairy products but are not self-sustaining. Jason, This is not a treatment for allergy to dairy, that is something altogether different. However I can say that the Astelin nasal spray (by prescription only and expensive) is great for people with allergies that do not respond well to other drugs. Your doctor should be able to tell you if it will work for you. Since I have been using it I have not had a single severe allergy event. I didn't even get itchy eyes from the local anesthetic in the drops the opthamologist used when he tested me for glaucoma. I usually have a reaction to it - I can't have injections of local anesthetics because I get laryngeal edema which can close my airway. Before using the Astelin my eyelids would get red and puffy within a few minutes of the drops being administered and I would get a rash in the typical "butterfly pattern" on my face. Astelin stopped that. My allergist did a scratch test with Xylocaine and Lidocaine on my back and the reaction was much less than in the past but I am still allergic to it, just my reaction is not as severe. And I have had no hay fever at all, even in the midst of the worse season for me.

They had these at the produce market a month or so ago. They called them "bullseye" beets. I grew the golden beets one year. Unfortunately no one but me seemed to like them so I didn't repeat the experiment.

I just called my aunt and asked her about pork in cake. She says her grandmother, Meemaw, made mincemeat with ground cooked pork and used it in cakes, pies, fried pies and steamed puddings. She also made a cake with cornmeal and mincemeat. She is going to go through her recipe files and see what she can find. She said she will call me later today and give me the ingredients for the mincemeat. If it is what I remember my grandmother making (dad's side of the family), it is delicious mincemeat. I make mincemeat and use beef jerky, ground of course, in it and it also makes a very nice mincemeat, not nearly as sweet as the stuff in the jars. More to come!!!

I have to dig a bit more to find the cake recipes in my files that include lard. Meanwhile, I found this one. at Recipe Source.

I would say that once you use one and master the rather shallow learning curve, you won't want to go back to a conventional radiant oven. There are adjustments you have to make for baking some things. Cheesecakes for instance, or any custard type thing - You have to either turn the convection fan off or you have to employ a barrier to keep the fan from making ripples on the surface of the custard or cheesecake. I use one of the metal "burner barriers" that are made for camp stoves to protect the flame against wind. Works great. I tent most meats with foil for most of the cooking period if I am using convection. Cakes and cookies bake beautifully. And baked potatoes, both russets and sweets roast to perfection. Combined with a stone, baking bread, pizza, is supurb. Even without the stone you get excellent results.

Also consider visiting a home show if one is in your area. This seems to be the season for them. It seems that almost every weekend there is one somewhere in SoCalif and I assume the rest of the country is the same. I have several times in the past remodeled kitchens and also have changed appliances and other fixtures in the kitchens and many times I have gone to a home show and bought a display item. Depending on the situation of the manufacturer or vendor, they often would be happy to sell the display model (for cash) and I would arrange to have it picked up at the end of the show. I got some excellent deals this way. Remember they have to pay to ship their stuff around and usually have to have a brand new display model at each show as they invariably suffer some minor scratches or "pings" which do not affect the appliance performance in any way. I learned this many years ago when I wandered over to a home show which was held at the same venue as a concurrent dog show. I had some free time until the group judging and it was the last day of the home show. Some of the displays were being dismantled and the various components were being crated. At one booth I overheard one of the people tell the worker to leave a dishwasher uncrated as it had been sold and the buyer would be picking it up as-is at the close of the show. I asked if anyone could do that and he said, "Sure, we just take them back and they go into the storage yard as they can't be sold as new." Wow, I was hooked.. I wandered around and found a shower that was a self-contained fixture, didn't need a door, sort of a spiral shape, that was just perfect for a bathroom that needed remodeling. I called my husband at home and told him to bring the truck, I had bought a shower. He didn't realize until he arrived that I meant an entire shower, not just the shower head. I don't recall how much the thing was supposed to retail for but I got it for 500. and I am pretty sure that was about 1/4 the price. My old U-line undercounter icemaker was another appliance I bought at a home show, 200. for a 700. appliance.

This is indeed a wonderful thread. I love bread, I love baking bread and have been at it for nearly 50 years - beginning in my mother's bakery and attending Dunwoodie school in the mid 50s. I have most of the books listed as I tend to buy every bread book that comes along, including just about all of the bread machine bread books. I too have some favorites. Probably my favorite is Crust and Crumb. TBBA is also a fine book but I like the "tone" of the earlier book. I can't explain why, just my personal preference. I also like No Need to Knead, as I have become quite enamored of the slack dough breads and Dunaway has obviously given a lot of thought to this type of bread and the recipes are excellent and produce great results with much less work than usual. I have a well-thumbed and dogeared first edition of Elizabeth David's book which a basenji friend brought me from England in 1981. I also have the "New American" edition that was published sometime in the 90s. One of the earlier books that I found to be very helpful over the years when trying to teach bread making to my children or my helpers, is the Cornell book on bread. It is not very extensive, has only a few recipes, but for the basic technique and the principles of bread making, it is very easy to understand. Cornell book on bread. and it is very inexpensive. I recommend it to people whose children want to learn to make bread. Flatbreads and Flavors by Alford is another book that I use quite a bit, although this is a different product than regular breads, it is worth trying the techniques. Bread Alone and the Village Baker round out my favorites. Then there is Nick Malgiere's book How to Bake but it has a lot more in it than just bread.

Was it the Bob's on Ming?

I don't know if there is a Lowe's anywhere near you but if there is, check out this Bosch range. Several weeks back there was another thread about appliances and I mentioned that a friend had just gotten one of these. They got it at Lowes, an "open box" special - it had a scratch on one side which is hidded by the cabinet next to it anyway. They got it for 799. plus 39.00 to have it delivered. They love it. She had her three grandchildren, 13, 10 and 8, staying with them all summer and did a lot more cooking and baking than usual. She said it was so much better than their old range (Jenn-air) that she is sorry they didn't make the change sooner. She also likes having the knobs on the front of the range rather than on the deck as in her old range. She also loves the warming drawer. Check all the vendors that carry Bosch and see if you can find one that is being closed out (models are changing now) or is a "scratch & dent" special. You can get a great bargain on the "open box" appliances that have been displayed in the store.

I remember most of the food on Christmas day when I was a child growing up in my grandfather's house. All the traditional English foods plus all the things that had been added over the years since he emigrated to America from England. As well as the traditional southern foods introduced by his cook. My cousins and I got to have our meals with the adults that day and there was a huge amount of food as it was an extremely large extended family. We had to have breakfast before we could open our presents and it was agony sitting at the table in the breakfast room trying to mind our manners and eat like little ladies and gentlemen under the sharp eye of my great grandmother, a stickler for proper behavior. I can remember most of the foods that we had the rest of the day but Christmas breakfast is a blur. The one I remember best is Christmas 1945 when my daddy and all my uncles were home from the war, my mother and two of my aunts who lived away were home for the holidays and one of my great uncles who lived in New York was also there. I came across a note in one of my grandmother's cookbooks about that holiday, planning food for 59 people (including 7 children). I came across this site which brings back even more memories.

There are a lot of traditional English cakes that use beef suet. Lard has been used in a number of cakes and fruit cakes. I have to look them up, as I don't seem to have any in my computer. As soon as I find one I will post it.

The cocoa is definitely present. Think of a dense devil's food cake, very moist, with fruit in it.

In case anyone is interested, Target, on the web only, has the Innova 7 quart roaster for $59.99. Green Innova pot only at present.

Here is my small batch recipe. Pumpkin Pecan Butter #1 small batch 3 cups granulated sugar 1 cup maple syrup 1 pound cooked, pureed pumpkin 1 Tbsp . pumpkin pie spice 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk 1 cup ground pecans In a 4 quart crockpot combine first 3 ingredients and set crockpot on high. Stir well until the sugar has dissolved and mixture is bubbling. Add the spice Reduce heat to medium and cover. Continue cooking at medium, stirring occasionally, for 40 minutes. Add the sweetened condensed milk and stir until it is well mixed Add the ground pecans and stir well. If the mixture is too thick and seems dry, add another 1/2 cup of maple syrup. Cover, turn heat to low and continue cooking for about an hour. Stir occasionally. Spoon a bit onto a saucer and allow to cool. If you can tip the saucer and the spoonful does not run, the batch is finished. Ladle into sterilized jars, cover and allow to cool. Store in the refrigerator. Makes about 2 pints.

A long time ago there was another vegetable shortening, marketed mostly in the midwest, that was as good, if not better than Crisco, it came in a pale blue and yellow diagonally striped can(bucket with a wire bail) and had a name that started with Sno- and I can't recall the rest of the name. We used it in my mom's bakery and got it in 50 pound tins. I had one of the buckets for years in my shed when I lived down below but it was lost in one of my moves. I have tried just about everything over the years, including a "vegetable ghee" that one of the guys who owns the middle eastern market here in town talked me into trying. Not bad, but not up to Crisco standards. There was a time when I used to buy beef kidney suet, render it down and use that fat for frying French fries because I had good friends who were Jewish and I didn't think vegetable oil produced as good a fried potato as an animal fat and wouldn't settle for a less than perfect fry! Everyone thought I was just a tad obsessive about it but those were really great fries. I am no longer quite that dedicated to the perfect fry but may occasionally make the effort. The problem is that with the "factory" beef production it is getting much harder to get kidney suet. I do get what there is when I have my steer butchered but there isn't that much on one animal.

And it would make a nice gift in a basket, along with some goodies to put on the pancakes, etc., etc.... I do a basic cookie mix like this and package it with things to add to the mix to make different varieties of cookies.

There is good news for the lactose intolerant. I don't have the information here at home but will be able to get it when I go in to work next Monday. There is a new Once-A-Day pill for those that cannot tolerate even cream in their coffee all the way up to those that want to eat a quart of ice cream!!! I just happened to see the article which was sent to the internist/toxicologist who shares space in our office. It is an over-the-counter medication and should be widely available within a few weeks. I am sure that it will also be heavily advertised quite soon. I just wish I could remember the name. I will check one of the med-info sites to see if it is mentioned and will post again if I am successful.

Pasilla and Ancho are essentially interchangeable and the mulato are another sweet/slightly smokey/dark red chile. Neither are very hot but do have a distinctive flavor. check your yellow pages for a market that carries Mexican groceries or ingredients. I am sure there has to be some. See if there is a "carniceria" listed.

In answer to msphoebe - - - It depends on how you are going to use the stock. Stock made in a pressure cooker never gets really clear, even with careful straining. Where you would skim the particles that rise to the surface as a scummy layer in an open stockpot, you can't do that in a pressure cooker and the particles are suspended so completely in the solution that it is difficult to separate them out. However if it is going to be a base for something that does not require a clear stock, then it is fine and you can extract a great deal of flavor with much less time and effort. Except with very large and dense bones, the bones will soften to the point that they can be put in a meat press to extract even more of the flavored liquid. You can also make stock in the large electric roasters which were once so popular in home kitchens. You can find the old ones in very good condition on ebay and just have an appliance repair place check the wiring and the plugs at a very nominal cost. They are now making a comeback in many homes. Rival has this 20 quart model. Nesco, an old name, is back in the market with an 18 quart, as is GE and Hamilton Beach. I have a 45-year-old Westinghouse that is a 23 quart and an even older Nesco that holds even more, although I have never actually measured it. Westinghouse is similar to this one. Because of the way the heat is transmitted, around as well as under the cooking chamber, similar to a crockpot, things on the bottom do not burn. When placed on a counter or a sturdy table, because of their shape and proportions, they are very stable and will not tip over as easily as some of the larger crockpots will. I use mine for cooking large batches of ginger and citrus peel in syrup and you know how carefull you have to be around hot sugar syrup. I feel that these are safer than any other method I have used and I have tried everything over the years.

Several years ago I had a Mr. Coffee that burned and fortunately my smoke/heat and fume alarms went off and I got to it before much damage. From that time on I had all the plugs changed to GFI plugs to make sure that never happened again.

There is one that is perfectly adequate for home use that is much less expensive than the ones available when I got my first one three years ago. I have ordered from this vendor in the past with great success. In fact I just ordered a thing for storing rice since I use so much of it and the price was right. Induction cooker. I bought a dual voltage freezer from them which works beautifully in my van when I need to transport frozen things for long periods. They offered free shipping and there was no tax so it was an extra discount compared to what I would have paid if I bought it locally.