andiesenji

Yes, Pickles. I don't simmer for 20 minutes, I bring water or stock to a boil in a large pot, must have good volume of water or stock, put the whole chicken in and bring it back to a rolling boil then cover and immediately turn heat off and leave for an hour. This works best with a smaller bird. A stewing hen is too large to cook completely. That would require simmering. I also weight the chicken so it stays completely immersed. (I have a shiny, stainless steel clad 5 pound weight - a flat disc with a hole in the middle, supposed to be for a dumbbell) Which is perfect for keeping a chicken deep in the pot. Guess how I get it out.............

I taped a lot of his shows. I still use his method for poaching chicken, it is the easiest and produces a beautiful result.

Me too! I still have an ancient Foley that still works just fine, however I bought a larger one a couple of years ago that I like much better, mainly because it fits over a larger container. I process a lot of fruits and veg and have all kinds of gadgets but keep going back to the old tried and true things. The tiny seeds still get through but I put the puree through a chinois and that takes care of the seeds.

Do you have a place where you can keep a potted plant? If so, you have a place where you can store ginger, and if the conditions are right the corms will grow and you will have new ginger to use. I have a friend who lives on a boat in a marina and has a window box where she keeps ginger. Occasionally it will sent up a shoot but it lives happily there. She uses a potting mix that has a lot of sand in it so when she needs a piece of ginger she yanks it out of the soil, breaks off what she needs, lets it set on top of the soil for a day so the break can "heal" then sticks it back in the soil. I grow a lot of ginger because I candy it in large batches and also use it in conserves, sambals, sauces, marinades, etc. I leave some in the ground over the winter, under a deep blanket of straw (and a tarp if we have a very wet rainy season as we had the year of El Niño) Then in the spring I dig it up, rework the bed then break it into sections and replant them. I haven't bought ginger for years.

My favorite is made with my own Asiago cheese bread, buttered, and between the slices of bread is a slice of buttery Colby, a slice of tomato, a slice of Jack cheese, several Peppadews, and a slice of Wisconsin brick cheese. Which reminds me, I have to order some more brick. I am down to my last 2 ounces.

For me it is things that are basically inedible unless they are rigorously processed. Olives, for instance, who figured out how to make them edible, and why? And manioc - the root is poisonous. How many people died before someone discovered that if it was grated, the liquid squeezed out and the pulp roasted it was then edible? Same with potatoes, the wild potato is poisonous. How did the ancient Incas discover that with selective breeding they could develop a non-poisonous tuber? And why did they do it? There were other foods available. I have a vision of an early-day Luther Burbank-type Inca, cross pollinating plants then when the tubers developed, feeding some to a slave to see if it was still poisonous. Ooops, back to the drawing board for another cross. Maybe if the slave just got sick, instead of keeling over, he knew he was on the right track and tossed out all the others and concentrated on that one. How was corn (maize) developed? There is no true wild ancestor still extant. There are genetic relatives but you wouldn't recognize them as corn. And why did cultivation of food plants begin in widely scattered parts of the world at about the same time. Of all the claims for visits from aliens, this is the one and only thing that would make me believe it might be possible.

BB's are a tiny sort of shot (like small ball bearings) which are used in air rifles. Their purpose, in this application, is to weigh down the balloon and stabilize it. Anything will do, I guess, as long as it is both dense and small enough to pour through the neck of the balloon. I just stick a funnel into the neck of the balloon and pour in the BBs.

I do the same thing. It never occurred to me until just now that there might be something wrong with the behavior. That's not so bad. At least you pay for what you take. I have seen people snap off a couple of the little "toes" and just stick them in a pocket. A couple of days ago I saw a guy do this, then take a tamarind pod, stick that in a pocket along with a couple of dried peppers (sold in bulk in this market). He did buy a bunch of green onions and a head of lettuce. Also a pint of tequila. All the way home I was wondering what the heck he was going to make with the stuff he bought.

I have a couple of very large dehydrators because I dry a lot of fruit, veg and herbs. However you can dry fruit in your oven if you have a very low setting and a convection oven works even better. There is a good explanation on this site: Drying fruit red or white currants do not dry well. blackcurrants are a different thing entirely, they do. You don't need to buy any fancy equipment. A cheap unfinished wood picture frame with inexpensive nylon (or whatever) mesh from the fabric store tacked or stapled to the front, to make a mesh-bottomed tray, that will fit in your oven. If you have a standing pilot light in your oven you can put the fruit in at 140 degrees and keep it at that temp for about 8 hours, then just leave it in the oven with the pilot light only or the electric light turned on which will keep it at about the same temp if you don't have a standing pilot light. First dip the berries in boiling water for 30 seconds, no longer! let them drip dry then transfer to the drying tray. Just check on the berries about every 8 hours and when they have shrivelled to 1/2 to 1/3 the original size (2 to 3 days, depending on size) and give a little but do not squish when you pinch them, they are done. You can leave them with no heat for another day to make sure but they should be o.k. Taste also as they progress. You will find that the sugar concentrates and they will be much sweeter dried than they are naturally. The regular home dehydrators are very inexpensive and do a fairly good job. I have two of the Excalibur dehydrators and they do a great job. Excalibur I dry everything from berries to mango slices to figs, tomatoes, apples and of course apricots, peaches and nectarines, herbs, celery, sliced onions, sliced shallots, sliced garlic. It also is handy for drying candied peel and ginger. (I make big batches) like this recently finished 12 quarts of ginger.

Cooked down to preserves, placed still warm in food processor with heavy cream, processed until you have apricot cream, warm and lucious.

You might try using a heavy-weight balloon sprayed lightly with release compound. I used balloons into which I had poured a cup full of BBs before blowing it up to the size I needed, you would need more for a larger balloon. Once inflated you clip the valve closed with a wood clothes pin and place it with the valve at the bottom on one side, manipulating it until the BBs are spread out, the bottom is flat and the balloon is stable. After your cage is completely set and dry, hold the valve and gently let the air out by carefully squeezing the clothes pin until the balloon has pulled away from the interior of the cage then let the rest of the air out. Try it with smaller balloons at first. I also use balloons to make chocolate bowls.

Speaking of pie - crusts - that is. did you know that you can blind bake pie crust on the outside of an upside-down pie pan on a sheet pan and not have to worry about the sides collapsing. I run a docker over the rolled dough then drape it over the inverted pie pans and cut around the circumference with a pizza wheel, then use my hands to firm it around the pan. After baking and it has cooled completely, I invert the pie dish I am going to use for the finished pie over the crust and flip it over. Since these are cream pies and meringue or whipped cream in going to cover the edges, it doesn't matter if the edges are not fancy.

I bought three sets of the "pie rings" at Linens 'N Things a year or so ago. makes it too easy

I have a very old Gaggia that has been retired to the shed. I won one of the superautomatic machines last fall and had the old monster hauled out to make room for the new baby. Who knew it could be so easy to get a cup with perfect crema....not me, that is for sure.

I just finished cooking the last of the apricots from my tree on Sunday. I cook them down - pictures on another thread - apricots Then freeze in Cambro containers for later use in combination with other fruits and etc., and canning in jam jars. I combine apricots with ginger in a marmalade, with lime and various other things, including hot peppers - an apricot/ginger/lime/hot pepper sorbet. a sauce for chicken and pork with sage and star anise cooked in the apricot sauce. apricot butter and apricot leather.

When I can get them, I dry them because the flavor concentrates and they can be used in so many baked items. I also make juice which I process and can in quart jars for later use. Saves me having to do so many labor intensive things at one time. I have a steam juicer that is great for extracting juice from seeded fruits, much easier than cooking the fruit then straining, and you don't have to stand over the pot and stir constantly. my juicer I have a friend in Sweden who turned me on to this several years ago. She processes all kinds of the various berries that grow wild near their summer home. It comes in two sizes, I have the 10 liter but the smaller one is fine for smaller batches.

I make a lime curd and layer it in parfait glasses with blueberries and strawberries or raspberries. It is very pretty as well as a fantastic blend of flavors.

The last time I was in Florida for one of the dog show circuits, (several years ago) friends took me to a Cuban restaurant that was like an insect zoo. There were no bugs in the food, but there were a lot of the ubiquitous "Palmetto bugs" and one galloped along the chair rail behind one of my friends and she just swatted it off onto the floor. Sure looked like a roach to me, but a darn big one. The food was good but I checked everything carefully before taking a bite. This reminds me of the scene in Victor/Victoria where Julie Andrews has a roach in her purse and tries to dump it into her salad so she could get out of paying for her dinner and also the dinner of Robert Preston - - and the pandemonium that followed when it crawled up the leg of another diner. Hilarious. However there was one restaurant I went to in Mexicali quite a few years ago just at sunset and where we sat on a terrace about five feet from a wall that I thought at first had a curtain hanging in front of it becuase it seemed to move. When I mentioned it to one of my friends he said it was scorpions on the wall catching the last rays of the sun. I left........... Some things I can take but scorpions, big spiders, and such things are not my cup of tea. Not a bug story but another thing that startled me while eating in a Mexican restaurant in Guadalahara was having a lizard, maybe a gecko, gallop across my plate after a moth. I scooped out the little footprints and deposited it on a leaf at the side of my plate and continued eating.

I am looking forward to your experiences in the kitchen and will be interested in seeing what other veg and fruit you have on hand. My daughter has lived in Livermore for several years, but is moving to Inverness, Scotland next week. I also have friends who live in town (have worked at "the Lab") and in other towns in the area. There are some very fine small growers in the area who market some great produce.

Schaum torte or schaumtorten is similar to pavlova in that both are baked meringues. However schaum torte is the classic Austrian dessert and is split into layers. Since it is difficult to cut with a knife, one uses a multipronged tool to make punctures all around the circumference of the schaum torte and lift the layer off. I can manage a 3 layer torten but have seen as many as 5. Very tricky. The filling has to be light enough to not make the meringue collapse but still have enough fruit to flavor it. It is a spectacular persentation when done correctly. They can be made as individual servings but the classic is a large meringue baked on a sheet pan. Now I only do two layers as it is much easier.

That's another reason I have several of these letter openers from Staples

There are some venues where tips are very, very good. One of my nephews worked at the Santa Anita racetrack clubhouse just on weekends, to finance his college career. His shift pooled their tips and divided it equally with a portion for the barman who handled their drinks orders. He did very well indeed. Now he is an astronomer working on some mountaintop in Chile and makes hardly anything but has nowhere to spend it either. He keeps writing home for long underwear and sweaters....... His Santa Anita days a distant memory. One of the young women who used to work in our office, an inhalation therapist, moved to Las Vegas and worked in her profession for a year then started moonlighting as a banquet server. Soon after she began working full time as a server and is making more than three times the amount she made here.

Yes'm, You said it! Right ON!

Most of my shopping trips involve quite a few items as I plan menus ahead of time and try to get everything in one trip because it is really a chore for me to get in and out of the van, hobble in to the store, find one of the riding carts (which never hold enough) and wheel my way around. If I am in line and see someone behind me with just a couplf of items, I tell them to go ahead of me and often they are so startled by it that I guess there just are very few people who are considerate of others. I was brought up in an earlier era where everything was not me, me, me all the time. Sometimes I don't notice everything that goes on around me because I am concentrating on my list, but I do try. I often shop at the huge Mexican supermarket and I am fairly well known to several of the cashiers and the box persons. They always help me out to my van and load my groceries and I insist on giving them a tip. They are very careful how they load my groceries, and are always very polite. Some of the other markets are very different, if a checker asks one of the box people to help me out there is one young man who I tell never mind because he slings my bags into the van, sets heavy items on top of crushable things, etc. I complained to my checker one day that I did not want him bagging my groceries after he put a carton of eggs in the bottom of a bag and dropped a bag of apples in on top of them. needless to say, 8 of the 12 eggs were broken. I pulled the apples and the eggs out of the bag and showed the checker the eggs. She sent another box person off to replace the eggs. Apparently this young man hasn't learned that he is employed to serve the public, not the other way around. He obviously resents having to perform his job properly. Too bad....

When I was in high school and my nickname was "slats" because I was so thin, I used to buy a package of cream cheese (4 oz) and eat it like a candy bar. My buddies all thought I was nuts but I loved the flavor (still do) and didn't care that much for candy. I also ate it on top of hot apple pie, would slice one of those little bricks in half horizontally and slap it on top of the pie. Everyone else would have vanilla ice cream on top of theirs but that always tasted too gloppy sweet to me.