andiesenji

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.

I do not like and won't eat sushi that contains raw fish of any kind. I don't eat shrimp (allergy) can't stand the smell of shrimp cooking. Ditto clams. Ditto mussels. Cheap caviar is gawdawful. The good stuff does not taste fishy or salty. Can't eat doughnuts and haven't for over 45 years. After frying doughnuts in my mom's bakery I got to the point that I couldn't stand the smell and just seeing someone eating them makes me gag. I had a brief episode a few months ago when I caught a scent from a KrispKreme place next to where I was getting gas and the smell was nice. However it did not tempt me. Some people have an affinity for truffles and others do not, many simply cannot sense the myriad elements of the flavor and aroma that emanate from the fresh truffle. And they have to be very, very fresh. Most truffle oil is blech! I can't stand it either. I buy fresh truffles sent overnight express, pay through the nose but I am one of the folks to whom they are as ambrosia. I can't even explain the flavor because it is not just the taste but a combination of aroma, flavor and sensation. A friend likens it to a reaction to pheremones. It has an effect on my brain. As I open the sealed package and get the first whiff, I begin salivating, so much that it is almost embarassing. I have already had the eggs at room temp, the butter ditto, so it is a rapid process, melt the butter in the pan, beat the eggs and pour into the pan, as soon as they begin to set, slice the truffle directly over the eggs, stir and eat. Sometimes, if I am alone, directly from the pan because the delay in putting it onto the plate takes too much time. Oh yeah, can't stand to watch anyone eat raw oysters, have to look away even in a movie or on TV.

I have a can of it in my pantry, pressed on me "to try" by Habibbulah at the middle eastern market at which I shop at least once a week. Since I don't turn down free anything, I took it but have yet to try it. Habib tried to explain a recipe to me but we were not communicating on the same level. He promised to have his wife write a recipe out for me. I think it is sort of a soup or stew with potatoes. Now that I know the alternate name I will look up a recipe in one of my books.

Here is the recipe for the fermented corn mash cornbread I promised. UNCLE "HAT'S" SOURED CORNBREAD This "receipt" is from Uncle "Hat" Elam an itenerant Pentecostal preacher who hiked through the Appalachians and Ozarks bringing the "Word of God" to the hill folks, many who supported themselves by cooking 'shine. (Uncle Hat was named Hatshepsut by his mother who did not realize this Pharaoh was a woman- she just liked the name having first heard it from a newsreader/traveling vendor of household items and books and then reading it in a book about Egypt.) Uncle Hat's sister Meratmeri (another Egyptian name) married one of my great-uncles. Uncle Hat remained a batchelor until he was near 60 and traveled to the Florida panhandle to bring back a young relative who had run away from a military school in Albany, Georgia, and who was hiding out in the Florida woods. In Tallahassee Uncle Hat stayed at a boarding house run by a widow "of a certain age" and fell in love first with her pineapple upside-down cake and then with her. He courted her for almost a year and finally convinced her to marry him. They enjoyed 37 years of married bliss until they died within a few months of each other -he at 98 and she at 91. As Uncle Hat told it, sometimes he would arrive at a 'stead in the mountains and the family would not have enough cornmeal to make enough bread for company. The man of the house would go off into the woods and return with a pot of "workin" mash and this would be incorporated into the cornbread to stretch it so there would be enough for the family and for company. Uncle Hat felt it was so tasty he did the unthinkable when he returned home and invaded the kitchen and experimented under the eye of his mother and sisters until he worked out the following recipe and for the rest of his life he was proud to make the cornbread for every company meal and also when visiting family and friends. (other than that he would not set foot in a kitchen) Pour 3 cups spring water into a 2 or 3 quart pot, add 1-1/2 teaspoons salt and bring it to a rolling boil. Gradually stir in 1-1/2 cups white water-ground cornmeal and cook till it is a medium-thick mush. Remove from heat and immediately stir in 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of lard (or solid shortening such as Crisco - don't use butter) and enough additional cornmeal to make a fairly stiff batter. It should not be dry, but the (wooden) spoon should stand up in the batter. Pour the hot batter into a scalded glazed crock (or ceramic bowl) and cover with a (glass or ceramic plate or glass or stainless steel pot lid) but do not seal it tight, (be sure to scald the bowl and the lid). Allow to set at room temperature for two to four days, until it ferments - this goes quicker in the summer. It should look bubbly and have a distinct aroma and smell faintly of alcohol. You won't have to remove the lid to scent it, the gases should be able to escape from the pot, thus the loose fitting lid. Caution: If you cover this tightly, the pressure can blow the lid off the crock and will shatter a glass jar. At the end of this time, stir together 1 cup buttermilk with 1/2 cup fresh cornmeal and 1/2 teaspoon fresh bakin' "sody", stir into the 'workin' mixture. Heat oven to 400, put 2 tablespoons lard (or shortening) in an iron skillet (10 inch) place in oven till the fat is very hot. Pour the batter into the skillet (it should sizzle) and bake till a straw comes out clean, (about 30 minutes). Yield, 8 servings. SUBMITTED BY: Andie Paysinger SOURCE: Andie's Uncle Hat Elam, an original recipe.

You might consider one, two or three of these. I have a friend who lives on a boat in a marina and has three of these (plus some other planters) on her slip deck.

I have a couple of unusual recipes - I am at work this morning but when I get home I will post the one I know is in my computer. It is for cornbread made with "fermented" mash. And was from a collection of recipes from my honorary uncle, "Uncle Hat" who was an itinerant preacher who traveled, mostly by mule, through the remote hill country of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, etc. He often stayed at the rather remote homes of the congregation and when times were hard, as during the great depression, it was difficult feeding even one extra person. Uncle Hat was also a great story teller and related his experience at a remote homestead where they had run short of corn meal but the man of the family had some mash "workin" and went out into the woods and came back with some mash in a bucket which was mixed with the plain cornmeal to make a big batch of cornbread to go with the beans which was their entire meal. When he got home Uncle Hat experimented by making up a batch of mash and leaving it to "work" for a couple of days (the process is very rapid) and then making the cornbread which he felt was a superior product. This was the only time that Uncle Hat set foot in a kitchen, feeling that there should be a firm division between "man's work" and "woman's work." However he was proud of his discovery and told the story to anyone who was unfamiliar with it. If you are wondering about the name, Uncle Hat's mother was a great reader and had some books about discoveries in Egypt in the mid-nineteenth century. She came across the names of several Pharohs and named her eldest son Hatsheput - not realizing that this pharaoh was a woman. She liked the sound of it. Uncle Hat said that he shortenend it when he was in school and so he was known as Hat for the remainder of his life. When he came to visit us he always had to bake a batch of his cornbread.

I have been considering getting a wood-burning oven for a couple of years. I actually wanted one in one end of the kitchen but have scratched that idea because my contractor said that removing part of the wall (steel frame) and bridging it to support the clay tile roof would be a major project, costing far more than the cost of the oven itself. I have decided to go with the Il Forno as two of my friends have them and are very happy. One has a pre-fab, in Orange County and the other is in Malibu and was built on site from a kit. They also give classes in how to use the oven. Il Forno prices and sizes. If you have experience as a bricklayer you could probably do it yourself. The prefab looks good to me and that is probably what I will go with. I like the idea of having it set in place rapidly. I considered the Mugnaini but since they are in northern Calif and I am in L.A. county I decided to look at the Il Forno in person at their showroom in Corona. I don't know how the prices compare but they seemed pretty competitive to me.

What type of cornbread? The traditional southern style, the midwest style, the cake style, the western style. cornbread is not simply cornbread because it can vary a great deal. I make the old-fashioned "black skillet cornbread" which is dense, with a tight crumb and will hold together when dipped in bean soup (my main parameter). It is very simple to make, has few ingredients but requires a particular type of cornmeal, not always easy to find. Here is my grandmother's recipe for REAL down-home Kentucky country cornbread. Baked in a well-seasoned, cast-iron skillet (10 inch). You can use any baking pan, but it's not the same. GRAMMAW'S BLACK-SKILLET CORNBREAD This is a dense, hearty bread, it will hold together when dipped in navy bean soup. This is nothing at all like the Marie Callenders type of cornbread which is too sweet and more cake than bread. This sticks to your ribs. Anyway, here is the recipe. Note, there is NO sugar in this recipe. 2 cups stone-ground, a mixture of fine and medium, cornmeal, preferably white but yellow is okay if you can't find the white. 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons flour 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 2 cups buttermilk 2 tablespoons lard, bacon dripping or if you must, canola oil or corn oil (I make it with bacon drippings or melted lard, but I don't have to worry about cholesterol and I know a lot of folks won't use them or can't use them because of dietary restrictions.) Preheat oven to 450. Grease skillet and place in oven to heat. (If using lard or bacon drippings, melt it in the skillet) Combine all the dry ingredients and whisk to mix and fluff a bit. Add eggs, buttermilk and oil. (If using lard, pour the melted lard into a metal cup to measure, make sure there is some still in the skillet). Mix with a stiff whisk or a large fork, just enough to be sure all the dry ingredients are moist and there are no dry lumps. Pour into the hot, well-greased skillet, return to oven and bake for 30 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cut into 8 wedges. serve hot with fresh butter. This also makes nice griddle cakes served with butter and molasses, maple syrup or honey. For variations, you can add freshly-cut-off-the-cob sweet corn. You can add some green chiles or Jalapenos if you like spicy. You can add crumbled crisp bacon You can add some finely diced onion lightly toasted in the oven. You can add a bit of grated cheese. I grate it fairly fine and let it air dry for close to an hour so it doesn't melt away to nothing. YIELD: Makes 8 wedges SOURCE: Andie’s Grammaw

Although the burner itself doesn't get hot, the heat from a pan that's on it can cause the surface of the burner to heat up. So you still need to be careful when you remove a hot pan from the burner. Mine is cool within seconds. The surface does not heat up more than a few degrees. That being said, if you have a pan that is not absolutely flat on the bottom you can get a little heating at the threshold rim, the division between where the flat part of the pan is in contact and the area where it is not.

I have been using a countertop Iwatani induction cooker for over a year. this is the one for several reasons. Sometimes I want to cook something low and slow (as in doing a long reduction) and do not want to have to constantly monitor it - my kitchen is closed off from the main part of the house - as I would on the gas cooker. And it turns itself off automatically......... a very big plus. Occasionally I need to take it with me when I am going to cook at the home of a friend who has only marginal cooking equipment, i.e. a very small range or cooktop on which stockpots or large sauteuse will not fit without interfering with a second burner. I like that it stays cool while heating whatever is in the pan. It heats a pan instantly and is ready to cook as soon as the pan comes in contact with the top, however you can remove the pan and put your hand directly on the element and won't get burned. (This from someone who happened to lean on a glass stovepot which was still hot but noting to indicate it. OUCH!) I can take it out on the deck and cook with it when the wind is blowing (this is a very windy area) and not have to worry about it blowing out (happens to the gas burner on my gas grill all the time) and also it won't start a fire. The one I have is not as powerful as some but it is more than adequate for my needs and very affordable. It is less expensive now than when I bought mine (at a discount) and I am considering buying a second one.

Chocolate. But not cocoa, even the very strong or "black" cocoas do not produce the same effect. I have a very low threshold. I can take a tiny nibble of choclate (I use bittersweet and need to guage how much sweetener to add to the recipe to even it out) with no problem but half an ounce seems to be my limit.

I don't think we'll have to worry about this. We're not much in way of cooks and I've never even heard of an immersion blender. If you ever want to puree something in the cook pot while it is still on the burner, this is the way to go. They are relatively inexpensive and do a great job and can also mix malts, or milk shakes, puree cold stuff too. When I want to make just half a cup of garlic mayo this is what I use. Saves a lot of time both in prep and in clean up and the thing is very compact. I have three, a Braun Turbo 400 watt, which I use mostly for small jobs that one would use one of the mini food processors for. This is easier to clean as all you have to do is stick it in a container with soapy water, run it then put it into clear water and ditto. Clean! I just hang it up and put a paper towel under it to catch any drips. I also have a Cuisinart that was a gift and I have to use it once in a while because the person who gave it to me comes around fairly often. It lives in a drawer most of the time. I also have one of the big commercial ones (Dynamic) 24 inches long for working in deep stockpots but you wouldn't need anything that powerful or expensive. I had a welder make a steel "handle" for it that lets me hook it onto the top edge of a stockpot and holds it at a slight angle so I can stick it in the pot, hook it on the edge, turn it on and not have to keep holding it. The action is pretty good at circulating most of the stuff and I just finish by using it hand held to make sure I have gotten all of the lumps pureed. Recently one of the online vendors was selling the "Thunderstick" brand stick blender for a very low price and several people on one of my small private lists bought them. They can usually be found for around $35.00 but this vendor was selling them for $19.99. If you put the bracket in a place where it will be handy you will find yourself using it often. This vendor here has it for 32.99.