andiesenji

You can buy "Mexican-style" hominy in many regular supermarkets and certainly in all Mexican markets. They have three or four brands at the Vallarta supermercado here in Lancaster. It is regular hominy with Mexican seasonings. They also have both yellow and white hominy.

I make an oven-roasted vegetable medley thing with various vegetables when I have just a couple of each, not enough to do one side dish with one vegetable. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, celery, onions in chunks with snapped green beans and so on. Enough to cover the bottom of a 9 x 11 or 9 x 13 baking dish. Season with kosher salt and pepper and perhaps some herbs de Provence or just rosemary or thyme. Then drizzle with roasted garlic oil and roast in a slow to medium oven (300 F) for however long it takes for them to just begin to become tender but with some resistance to the fork. I then add a can of hominy with its liquid, stir well, and return to the oven to finish cooking, about another 25 minutes should do it. When this is done correctly, it should have an almost meaty quality to it, but without any meat products of any kind included. It becomes a sort of oven vegetable stew.

One of my long time friends, originally from Africa, educated in England and for many years a university professor here in soCalif, now back in England, said once that if coffee tasted the way it smelled it would be as popular as chocolate. He said that try as he might he could never get the stuff past his tongue. He drank tea constantly and could tell the difference between varieties with just a sip. He also could not drink cola products as they all tasted terribly bitter to him. His wife was a dedicated coffee-head and was never without a cup/mug/thermos or whatever, in hand. He learned to prepare it in various ways from espresso to various brewed types for her but couldn't swallow even a spoonful. He said that the aroma was so delicious it made him salivate but the actual taste was horrible and he tried many, many times and could detect the tiniest hit of coffee in desserts as well as other foods. The three of us attended a food festival in Santa Monica several years ago and one of the vendors had a chili which Louis tasted and discretely disposed of. He asked if it contained coffee and the vendor was surprised that he was able to tell. So was I, it was indistinguishable to me and I was amazed that he could sense it. Some people do have an extraordinary ability to taste certain compounds.

One just opened in Santa Fe, so they are working their way closer to you.

Try this place for the smooth tartlette molds though they may be smaller than you want. here I have bought bread pans from them and brioche pans but never any of their little molds or pans. I also buy rolled fondant from them when I need a large batch and know I won't have time to cook up my own. They carry a quality product at a fairly reasonable cost.

I have purchased mine from Big Tray They have 4 dozen for 141.00 which works out to less than $3.00 each. shipping is reasonable.

I think that this thread has pointed out that we all have differing tastes that converge at some points and diverge at others. It is very true that some people are super-sensitive to some flavors or aromas and others don't notice them at all. This can change also and sometimes fairly late in life. And abruptly...... My across-the-road neighbor has a 49-year-old son who has always been one of these "eat what is put before one" persons, no interest in any special foods, ethnic or spicy, he simply had no preference. A year ago he was having a lot of headaches and went to a doctor who found he had a severe sinus condition that had been present for many, many years. An EENT doctor did a rather extensive surgery and warned him that he might have some odd sensations. What he had was a sense of SMELL, something he had never had prior to the surgery and which also interfered with his being able to taste. Imagine if suddenly you were able to see in color after being limited to black and white all your life. This is what it has been for him. All of a sudden he can taste things. He has become fascinated with hot and spicy, warm and savory and fresh vegetables and fruits of all kinds. Prior to the surgery he could not taste any difference between a peach and an orange. Now he can tell the difference between a peach and a nectarine. He is amazed at what he has been missing all these years. His mom is happy, now she knows that there was a reason he never noticed her cooking. His wife is not a thrilled, she is not much of a cook, but he is learning that he can do it himself. He is watching FoodTV and has borrowed a bunch of my tapes from old shows. He even likes cilantro - he loves pesto (before he thought it was on the pasta just for color). The only downside is that he has gained 25-30 pounds, however he was rather thin before the surgery. So there is something else to consider. How many people have conditions such as this that impede their enjoyment of good food?

I second the motion about the Dawn Power Dissolver. If any spots remain I use my old, "tried and true" method which is a barely damp cloth, dipped into dry baking soda and used to scrub off the clingy bits. I do not use anything abrasive on any of my cookware. Eventually it will cause the surface to dull slightly. And oven cleaner is okay on porcelain surfaces but not on some metallic surfaces, and certainly not on anything that is non-stick, even though it is not directly on the non-stick sufrace, the fumes can soften the stuff. This is not good. Even the super-hard surface on Farberware's Millennium non-stick (takes metal utensils just fine) can be marred with oven cleaner.

Have none of you ever read "The Egg And I" by Betty MacDonald?

That makes sense to me, unless someone objects in the reasonably near future I'll make it so. I still have some of the wild boar meat like that which I cooked for carnitas on that thread. I can roast and chop it and stew it in my homemade green sauce. People seem to like it.

I know when they came out. The Santa Barbara store(whose manager developed the idea) introduced them the weekend of the Santa Barbara Kennel Club show at the Polo Grounds in Montecito (just south of SB). They were a big hit at this show that was a very big show in those days, (over 4000 dogs entered) it was the last of the "benched" shows in southern California. (All the dogs were assigned a benching area and had to be on display all day except when in the ring or being walked). They had two stands, one at each end of the grounds and did a huge amount of business all day. They served them in flat styro containers and the top muffin was not on top of the egg as butter was included so you could butter the muffin half if you wished. They were served with tater tots, on the side, it was some time later that McDs came out with their own version of hash browns.

In and Out Burger does this and does it well.

Can we combine it with the potluck? I asked this on the potluck thread.

If I am going to hold a truffle for a day or two, it or they, go immediately into a sealed container with eggs. So they can flavor the eggs. It is amazing how it permeates right through the shell. However I usually have all the things I am going to use with the truffles on hand or order so they arrive at the same time. Foie gras to make truffled paté, phesant, etc....

I received an email from a friend in Pennsylvania earlier this morning and it reminded me of another thing I cannot stand. I have had it in the past and eaten it to be polite but now I can no longer get it past my lips, no matter how it is fixed or disguised. SCRAPPLE, to me It tastes like mildew smells.

Actually this does very well as a granita without using an ice cream maker at all. It just takes time and a strong wrist to scrape and stir the ice crystals every half hour until you get the consistency you want (tasting of course as you go). I have found that the new "disposable" Glad ware "family size" containers are just perfect for this. I also found what looks like an ice cream scoop but has teeth on the end at one of the Kitchen & More outlets which does a bang-up job of scraping and mixing the granita as it freezes. Of course I do have two ice cream freezers - the self-contained ones with a built-in freezing system and they work beautifully for ice cream, frozen yogurt, and etc., but some things just seem better the old-fashioned way. If anyone cares, the Lello Gelato Junior is now available at Amazon for $199.00 and shipping is free. I have had one of these since last summer and while it makes a smaller batch than my old Simac, it does a very nice job. And the price is right. I am not pushing these because I have anything to do with the company, but once you find how easy it is to have this ready to go anytime, you will find all kinds of things to do with it. And in addition to ice cream. I had a couple of chilled soups to do and I chilled them in this and it only took about 10-15 minutes for each. Considering how much time they would have to chill in the refrigerator, this was a great time saver.

I'm game. We just need to settle on a day and a time and a place. Would love to see Chris Cognac's place of business. What rules to follow regarding where the pies originate?

Have you ever heard of corn cob jelly? Growing up on a farm, one learned to never waste anything. After the dried corn was shelled the cobs were saved and washed and boiled to get the last bit of goodness out of them. Often apple skins were cooked with the cobs which added natural pectin. As has been noted by others on this thread, you certainly can cook down the liquid from boiling fresh corncobs and use it in stock for extra flavor. Another thing to do with it is to use the liquid for cooking rice. Even better, add a can of coconut milk and cook the rice in the corn "liquor"/coconut milk liquid. The flavor is wonderful and people will wonder what magic you have used to get that lovely flavor.... If you buy the "ornamental" corn for decoration at Halloween or Thanksgiving, you can shell the dried corn off the cobs and cook as instructed in the recipes on this site. Even popcorn cobs make good jelly.

I have an extremely colorful family, many of whom where quite elderly when I was a child and all great story tellers, that being the days prior to TV, we made our own entertainment. My grandfather was the head of a very large extended family, all living together in an enormous house. I was born before WWII and my dad and all my uncles were away in the service so all my aunts and my 9 cousins, all boys, lived with grandpa and grandma, great grandmama and my great uncles and their wives and families. We were a village all by ourselves and quite self-sufficient. Then there were many close family friends, some famous, some infamous, and it seemed that all of them were devoted to the enjoyment of good food. This was the foundation of my interest in food. Many of my family kept journals and the family still has all of them. They are a great source of stories, recipes and practical knowledge of earlier times.

According to a friend who dabbles in nutritional studies (actually works for a super-premium dog food company), the partial fermentation of the cornmeal mash breaks down some of the starches converts them to sugars and makes it easier to digest and also to bind with other amino acids. Combined with beans it will produce a nearly complete amino acid chain which can substitute for animal protein.

I love Fatburgers, the King Burger and the Biggie fries, well done. The turkey burger ain't bad either.

And finally, if you check the recipes on this site you will find a lot of apple recipes. The recipe for Apple Custard Pudding is excellent made with crabapples. I have made it many times and it never fails to get lots of compliments.

and this one for sweet & sour spiced crabapples is slightly different.

And this recipe for spiced crabapples is for canning them.

This recipe for spiced crabapples is very tasty.