andiesenji

My most successful chicken salad is simply a classic Waldorf salad with chunked chicken added just before serving. You can even divide and flavor half or less with a dressing made with curry paste. Not everyone likes curry so do allow for people who do not care for it. I make my own pita, baking small ones, but you can buy small ones (4 inch in diameter), which are easy to eat while holding with just one hand. You can fill them or allow guests to fill the pita themselves. Far too often chicken salad causes the sandwich bread to become soggy and difficult to eat, falling apart, etc. The pita solves this problem.

This site has a detailed recipe for grilling duck. He does say to bring the temp to 170 degrees. However I don't. If you want to be sure, you could cook one exactly as directed here, and hold one at the lower temperature. You can always cook it longer, however it will continue to cook after removed from the heat if wrapped as I noted. The wild ducks that I cook weigh less than the ones he describes in his recipe. The ones I did last weekend weighed 3, 3 1/4 and 3 3/4 pounds each. Anyway, take a look at his recipe and cooking directions. http://melindalee.com/recipearchive.html?a...124&item_id=542

Just a quibble, but I believe this is incorrect. Meat nearest the bone is actually cooler than meat away from the bone (which is why you're not supposed to insert meat thermometers near any bones since you will get an incorrect reading). Because of the internal structure/density of the bone, it actually acts more like a heat dissipater than a heat conducter. It does, however, add more flavor to meat than if you had deboned the meat and then cooked it without bones. Why? I haven't a clue, but it does. You can check it for yourself with an instant read thermometer. The next time you roast a chicken, stick the thermometer into the thigh meat, and read it. Then push it further in so it touches the bone. The temp will read higher. This is why they always tell you to keep the probe from touching the bone.

Is 135 really the temp - I want fall apart tender duck and although I like breasts med. rare if cooked alone but I was thinking along the 170 degree lines. If you let duck go to 170 it will be like leather. I don't know why I typed chicken instead of duck. Brain slipped, I guess. You can check by inserting a sharp fork into the thigh area. The juice should appear amber with a hint of red or pink. Unless you have a very large duck, the ratio of meat to bone is much less than that of chicken. The bones transmit the heat into the meat. It takes much less time for a duck to cook than a chicken of comparable weight. Look at the way the duck is structured and you will understand. If you remove it from the rotisserie when it has reached 135 to 140, and immediately wrap it in foil, it will continue to cook for some time. This allows the juices that have been forced toward the skin to be reabsorbed into the meat and will make it juicer and allow the connective tissues to relax. I cook a lot of ducks (wild) because I have hunter friends whose wives will not cook game of any kind. In return for preparing some of the birds for them, I get some for my efforts. A good trade. Last weekend I cooked three for duck tacos.

You would be in Heaven at the annual Sons of Norway Lutefist celebration at the lodge in Van Nuys, California. Huell Hauser, who does PBS documentaries around California attended one of the celebrations and filmed the preparation and the serving of it. They said that luckily there were other foods available for those who didn't care for the lutefisk (but they still had to smell it.)

I make pesto with cilantro instead of basil. This paste, spread on sourdough bread then topped with a slab of cold pork roast, a slice of onion and another slice of sourdough spread with the paste is soooo yummy. Geez. now I am hungry. Well, at least it is lunch time so I have an excuse. I spent two hours in the garden, pointing out where I needed things done, and generally getting in the way of my gardener and finding more things for him to do. Picked some green tomatoes that are going to be fried this evening. I do love green tomatoes, and corn bread - real corn bread, not the cake stuff.

Oh yeah, me too. It doesn't taste soapy to me (or to my husband, thank God), but I have to check myself if I'm cooking Mexican or some sort of Asian dish for others. I forget that so many people hate it (or are just eating it to be trendy, you know).l I never, ever eat anything just to be "trendy" because I approach food as a way of satisfying myself, not trying to impress others. If I like something I will prepare it for myself whether or not other people like it or not. When I entertain I do enquire if my guests have some dietary restriction, an allergy or if they have a special food that they would like to try and have never had the opportunity. There are some things that I do not care for but will prepare for other people, however I fix someting different for myself. My friends understand. I love truffles but they have to be very fresh, the oil and the canned are worthless. Some people do not appreciate all the subtle flavors because not everyone has the same number of taste buds. I also like Sap Sago cheese grated into soft butter which is then stirred into hot vegetables. I especially like it on sautéed summer squash. Many people think it also tastes like soap, but not to me. My housekeeper once threw out a brand new cone because she thought it had "gone bad" because it is green. When I explained that was the way it was supposed to be she just shook her head muttering that I was loco........ Maybeso, but I like it..

For my rotisserie I found an old fish poaching pan at a flea market, it has handles at each end. I simply put an S-hook over each end of the rotisserie shaft and suspend the pan from the hooks. It hangs directly below whatever is on the rotisserie and it doesn't interfere with the heat radiation inside the cooker. I happen to have a cooker/smoker with a separate firebox at one end but the heat circulates so well that the temps easily can get over 500 degrees with the vents fully open. When I had a gas grill/rotisserie I simply turned off the center burner and cooked with the back and front burners lit. They produced plenty of head with the hood down to cook just about anything. With that one I hung a drip pan from the underside of the grill rack itself with bindery clips. Because they are made of thin metal, they would become brittle after a time but are cheap enough I buy them by the dozen. (They have a lot of uses in the kitchen, especially the big ones with a one inch "bite".)

Me too!! I grow a lot because I use it in a lot of things. I also grow the Asian Rau Ram which tastes like cilantro but is a perennial and does not "bolt" when the weather is very hot. It is so easy to grow, I bought some at an Asian market, put in in a jar of water on the window sill and within three or four days there were rootlets at every segment. I broke the stems into segments, planted then and every piece sprouted a new plant. Great stuff.

Stinky cheeses. Yes!! There was another thread about stinky cheeses. I order brick cheese from Wisconsin because it doesn't seem to be available outside the state and it is soooooooo good. Sliced thinly and wrapped around a slice of apple or pear...... yum. I also like it with apricots, especially my dried and glacéed apricots. (the apricots on my tree are ripening three weeks earlier than usual because of the extereme heat we had last week and the week before. Now the "June Gloom" is with us and it is much cooler.

Those "instant-read" thermometers are not meant to be left in the meat while it is roasting. A regular meat thermometer is all steel and glass with no plastic parts. I have a couple that are at least 15 years old and still work just fine. They are is much larger than the instant-read thermometers, the shaft is almost as big as a pencil. They have a read pointer that can be moved around the rim to set at the temperature you want. (Realizing that a lot of people have difficulty reading the numbers but can see the needle line up with the pointer just fine.) They are practically indestructible unless one forgets and grabs it without something to protect the hand and throws it across the kitchen,meanwhile plunging hand into ice water to stop the burning of three fingers............. I don't know where you live but there is a very inexpensive instant read thermometer for meat that is longer than the regular ones, looks like a fork with a thick handle that is easy to grasp and the window to read the temp is near the end of the handle so you don't have to singe your eyebrows trying to read the thing. I found one at Walgreen's Drug store. Otherwise get one of the Polder thermometers with the probe extension. Stick the probe in the meat, lead the wire cable out of the oven (the door will close just fine) and the thermometer itself has a magnet on the back that will hold it to the oven door. You can set it for time or for temperature. When the meat reaches the set temperature the alarm will sound. It is loud enough to be heard two rooms away in my house. I also have one with a true remote, the probe stays in the meat and you can wear the timer around your neck. I am not convinced this one will actually work so have not relied on it. (it was a gift from a friend who knows my penchant for gadgets) If I am roasting a large piece of meat, I use the old reliable meat thermometer.

The coffee with the lowest acidity available commercially is Mexican. I am not a coffee drinker, being totally addicted to tea, however I have a friend who has been in the coffee business for 40 years and he talks about it a great deal. (Whether I am interested or now, but I listen because he listens to me natter on about teas.) I saw this question yesterday and called Mark last evening. He said that low grown coffees have less acid in the bean, thus there is less to be cooked away in roasting. Longer roasting removes more of the inherent acid and dark roast coffees have less acid than the lighter roast coffees but there is a point beyond which the flavor is not enhanced but simply charred into dreck. (his words) The ones with the lowest acid currently available ready roasted in the (coffee) market are from Mexico, Sumatra, India and Brazil, all low grown - and medium dark to dark roast. Avoid Kenya, Kona, Blue Mountain, Yemen and light roast coffees. He also said the cold-brewed method is the best way to get coffee with the least acid. He also said you do not need one of the special gizmos for making it. Place a cup of freshly ground coffee in a quart jar. Fill the jar with cold, filtered water, tighten the lid, shake vigorously. Place the jar in the fridge for 24 hours. Remove the lid, stir throughly then strain through a double layer of coffee filters. This will give you a concentrate which you dilute with hot water. This should give you enough concentrate for 20 to 30 cups of coffee at regular strength.

Cilantro is an interesting herb. You are part of the population to whom it tastes like soap. To others, it doesn't taste at all like soap. It has a sort of minty/parsley flavor. There have been a number of studies done on different types of flavors and how people perceived them. To me, and to many others, Rau Ram tastes exactly like cilantro. To the people who sense cilantro as tasting soapy, Rau Ram tastes just fine, nothing like cilantro. I like cilantro, carnitas isn't authentic without it. However I can't stand radicchio, or the bitter lettuces. They leave a very bitter, metallic taste in my mouth that is difficult to eradicate. I also do not care for raw spinach, cooked is fine. Again, I get a metallic taste that is unpleasant.

You can't cook it directly over the fire. You need to bank the coals on one side or on both sides if you have room. Place a drip pan directly under the birds to catch the rendered fat and for goodness sake save it. Duck fat is precious stuff. Actually you are best served by marinating the duck overnight, then draining it and wiping it dry, stuff half an onion and half an orange (or half a lemon) inside the duck. Make small incisions in the skin all over the duck and start it on the rotissiere. About half way through the cooking you should recover some of the drippings, maybe 1/2 a cup or so, and in a small saucepan bring the drippings and some of your spices/herbs to a simmer. Then begin painting onto the duck every 20 minutes or so. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature when it nears 135 pull the chicken off the grill. It will continue to rise several degrees as it coasts.

The one in Summerland, north of Carpenteria is still open. You can see it from 101 travelling north. We often go there after one of the dog shows in the area.

I want to add a note about shortening. Although it is not traditional, because lard is the only ingredient used in 95% of Mexican households, you can get a better result with a product found in Indian and middle eastern markets. It is called Vegetable ghee. It has the same consistancy as lard which is not as dense as a shortening such as crisco. It beats up lighter and fluffier. You can also make tamales using baking parchment. Cut it to size, soak the paper in hot water then wrap in a hot, damp towel to hold while you work. I help my neighbors make up huge batches of tamales and we work on an assembly line basis. One will put the steamed corn husks down and trim them and form the wrapping. The next person spreads the masa, the next person applies the filling and pushes it along to the next who rolls and ties the tamale and places it on a rack in a pot. To begin the pot is tipped a bit so the tamales can be placed so they will remain in a vertical position. Once the layer is almost full the pot can be set flat. The first layer is covered with flattened corn husks and a second layer is placed in the pot, sometiems a third layer is added if there is a shortage of pots or of burners on which to place it.

Smothered pork chops and also the hot artichoke dip at Mara's on 6th. Maybe it's east 6th, been a while since I was there..... If I go to Westminster next February that is where I will be at least one evening.

My sister takes the last of her tomatoes (in West Virginia, early fall) and wraps each one in newspaper and puts them in boxes in the basement. She said they last until Thanksgiving, slowly ripening. I tried it once and they all rotted on me before they ripened. If you can keep them cool enough down there it might be worth a shot, though. Do NOT pull the tomatoes off the vine. Cut the stems. This will maintain the "callus" at the stem end and the tomatoes will keep longer. I do wrap tomatoes in newspaper, snugly in two layers of paper, and place then on narrow shelves in my pantry, not touching. They will keep for several weeks and will not ripen until they are opened or in close contact with another tomato. Keep them away from apples and bananas. When my pepper plants have reached a certain stage I apply mulch, often white river rocks which reflects light up under the foliage. They also keep moisture from evaporating from the surface of the soil.

Temps are cooler here in the high desert this week. High 70s and low 80s instead of near 100. I haven't had much in the way of slug problems since I bought some nocturnal slug-eating toads. They patrol the garden at night (scare hell out of the dogs) and occasionally we find one when my gardener moves a large pot as they seem to prefer to burrow under the pots instead of live in the "toad huts" we placed here and there in the garden. The biggest one, observed Saturday night when the dogs went nuts, is the size of a saucer. At first I thought it was a rock but it moved and I could see it was one of the toads. They also get some of the grasshoppers who move when the lights in the garden go on from the dogs moving around. I find the discarded hind legs (we have some huge grasshoppers) here and there before the ants get them. The dogs know better than to bite the toads, it seems to be instinctive. You can check with a local gardening club as they usually know what benefical critters will work in your area. I use no pesticides in my garden, only natural controls such as predatory insects, etc.

My friends and I usually go to the Wool Growers because it is easy to find from the fairgrounds. I can't recall the other restaurant we frequented, all I can think of is Makita, but that isn't it.

I haven't been for two or three years, but as far as I know, Basque Norte in Chico is still in business. (Another town I visited just for dog shows, Chico, Yuba City and so on for the "Walnut circuit".) Imagine trying to sleep in a motor home under a walnut tree when the nuts were falling. As bad as a hailstorm but not as damaging...... I just called my friend who was there last year. It is somewhere on Esplanade...

I believe it is possible my preciious culture has become contaminated. I learned yesterday that a brewery that is just 1/2 mile west of my home began pressure washing and venting their big lagering chambers on May 25. We have prevailing winds from the west and I can often smell the brewery. It is possible that when they vented the effluvia from the tanks some of the yeast cells took to the air and invaded my culture despite the care I take in keeping it isolated. The time line is right, I started the first batch that acted differently on May 26 and a second batch on May 28. Also I take all of the culture from the fridge, dump it into a sterilized bowl, feed it and allow it to "work," and then remove part to a sterilized container that goes back into the fridge, thus exposing the entire batch to whatever may have been in the air during the time it was uncovered, while mixing. Whatever it is, it is very potent. I used it to make English muffins last night and they rose well over the tops of the rings and spread out rather like a squat mushroom shape. For the second batch I used half the batter and they stayed within the rings. I think this weeked I will see what kind of effect I get with baking in a "coffee can" - (actually it is an old asparagus steamer with the handle removed.) And I am also going to try using it in some whole grain and fruited breads which usually do not rise well with the sourdough starters. More later.

I go to the market with my cane and my long reach grabber, (plus the scooter), because I usually try to shop during off hours when there are fewer people in the store for me to run over with my scooter. However, during those times there are usually no people in the aisle in which I find myself, needing help to get something from a top shelf. The scooter has given me more range, I can go to farmer's markets again, and mainly I can get around Costco and Sam's Club on my own. I love it.

Place the bottle in a plastic or a paper bag, the paper is better because it stands up on its own. Open the bottle the way you usually do and if any wax bits cling to the bottle just use a paper towel to wipe it down into the bag. There is less likelihood of banging the bottle around in a sink (slippery) and you can work on at table height which is a little less awkward. I use this for opening the large bottles of olive oil from Spain and from Greece that are usually capped with a very hard wax. Also some of the more expensive Balsamic vinegars come this way. When it is very brittle it cracks and sends little shards everywhere.....

I like grits with syrup, who cares if it ain't traditional. I do a lot of untraditional things. I cook grits, then cook sausage, either bulk, formed into small, thin patties, or the small links cut in half. In a muffin pan (nonstick) I put in just a small dollop of soft butter, add a tablespoon of granulated maple sugar (do you see where I am going with this?) I add a layer of grits, apply the cooked sausage, Break an egg on top of the sausage then another layer of grits. I bake this in a 350 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes then carefully turn out onto a large platter or tray. Not exactly flan, but an all-in-one breakfast dish. I have been known to used crumbled bacon instead of the sausage.