andiesenji

But you can also make some wonderful things that are low calorie and taste the way YOU want them to taste. I make a fantastic tomato gelato which is a wonderful palate cleanser after a bunch of rich "starters" ... Now you have a lot of choices that are really inexpensive. I did have a couple of the kind that had a container that had to go into the freezer, however I finally bit the bullet and bought one that has coolant in it and all you have to do is turn in on to chill, then pour the mixture into the freezing chamber and turn it on. In 20 minutes it is done. I have been using Splenda and have had some excellent results. I have to dig out the ice cream cookbooks I used and try something different.

I used to visit a Fat Burger in Orange Co. whenever I visited my friends who live in Yorba Linda. Then, hooray!! a Fat Burger opened here in Lancaster. For the first month it was open one had to wait in line for a long, long time. Now we have a Panera Bakery and Cafe, (next door in Palmdale) one of only five in California. OT I think some companies like to try things out in this area because we had the first Wal-Mart in California, the first Dillard's dept. store and a few other "firsts" including other fast food places. The last A & W Rootbeer drive-in with car-hops was here, independently owned. The food was great and the Friday "cruise" night meant that one couldn't get within two blocks of the place. You could see some fantastic cars - some from as far away as the beach cities.

It is possible, however note that the leaves are not curling nor yellowing. There was a big push to get the F1 hybrid out in the market last year and again this spring. Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart had them here. The plain grays, locally known as "Mexican Squash" has a small leaf. When attacked by PM the leaves immediately yellow and curl. This plant looks like it is heavily infested but doesn't appear to be suffering. My gardener brought in a basked full of squash this morning, including a bunch of the F1. Most of my garden is watered by drip method, however one end still has standing sprinklers and the leaves of most of the plants there have white on them, however it is borax from the soil. One advantage is that many species of insects simply can't live in soil with this much borax. You are correct, the hybrid will not reproduce - however it has great blossoms for stuffing and frying.

I thought I posted this but do not see it. Smokin' Jack's Kansas City Bar-B-Q and ACME Autoworks N. Victory Blvd in Burbank, Calif. The best Kansas City Barbeque take out only this side of Kansas City.

Regarding the "Mystery Squash" It is a hybrid, called Hurakan F1 Zucchini gray type Harris Moran holds the patent http://www.harrismoran.com/products/squash/hurakan.htm

I vote for So.Calif./Baja also. L. A. and environs (love that word) has some of the most diverse food anywhere in the U.S. Not to mention the many attractions. I could spend a month just visiting restaurants I would like to try for breakfast, lunch and dinner - and I live in the area. On the way to San Diego there are several small towns that have attractive places with great food. San Diego has some great restaurants and great attractions. If you want to splurge on a great place to stay with absolutely grand food, consider the Del Coranado - The "Del" was the place that the movie "Some Like It Hot" was filmed. I have stayed there many times and have never been disappointed. Heading north from L.A. along the seacoast you come to Malibu and some great restaurants, great scenery. Santa Barbara, besides being the new home of Julia, has just about every type of food you could want, very few duds. If you could go in July you could visit in time for the French Festival and/or Greek Festival which are both fantastic events. And for the horse lovers, the Santa Barbara National Horse Show. September sees the Oktoberfest and even better, the Santa Barbara Jazz festival.

On re-reading the article I noticed the mention of the duck fat vaporizing and the problems attendant. I place my roasting pan on a sheet pan and place one of the racks near the top of the oven and from that suspend a "tent" of aluminum foil with the ends resting on the sheet pan near the edges. To fasten the center of the tent to the upper rack and to the edges of the sheet pan I use bindery clips, which I get by the dozen because they come in various sizes and have become an invaluable help in the kitchen. The open "tent" directs the fat back down to the sheet pan where it can be collected. I do not let the foil come near the duck because it would adhere, tear the skin when removed and ruin the presentation. This works fine in my convection oven (Blodgett) that has a powerful fan. The tent is open at the back and the front so does not interfere with the heat circulation. If you have an oven door that does not seal well, you can get a high temperature silicone sealant (good to 700 degrees) and run a bead around the opening. Unless you have an oven exhaust that vents into the kitchen, this should solve problems with smoke/fat escaping from the oven. I often prepare Sara Moulton's "Blasted Chicken" and use this same method. Try it once, see if it works for you.

For one thing it is a lot smaller than my regular one which is a canning pressure cooker, 30 quart. Big monster I have had for about 40 years. It has all the new safety features on it that will keep it from blowing up. It is programmable. I read several reviews before I bought it. I read between the lines, people liked how it worked but had some problems which I attributed to failure to clean it properly after each use. If it is cared for as it should be then it works just fine. I have used it numerous times with excellent results. The pricing is variable. The discount price at most places is 199.00, however I bought mine at a "factory" outlet store for 129.00 MSRP is 285.00 However I recently saw it on the MSN.shopping "Smart Bargains" on sale for 119.00 A better buy than I got. It is identical to the Russell Hobbs pressure cooker which sells for 177.00 (discount price) to 199.00, supposedly a discount price. It is a 1500 watt appliance so has plenty of power. If you think you will use it enought to make it worthwhile, it is a bargain. I gave one to a friend's daughter for a wedding present because she wanted to make her own baby food. She had twins and uses it constantly. This is probably a lot more information than you want or need, but I like to be thorough.

My solution when married to my ex, many years ago (plus the horde of locusts, i.e., his three kids), was to have two refrigerators. One had a lock on it, just like the freezer. One fridge was open to all, anything it contained could be consumed. The locked fridge was MINE! If I put something in there it had better be there when I needed it. The locks were necessary because the kids would eat anything, including frozen cookie dough. Now I live alone but still have the lock on the freezer because I do have a housekeeper and she knows what I have in there. I am generous but no one is going to walk off with any of my special items. To get back to the topic. I cook a lot of duck, three this past weekend. If it is an old duck, usually can tell the difference by how much the muscle has retracted from the keel or breastbone, I simply roast it to render the fat out because there is nothing better than duck fat for frying potatoes and other goodies. Then I use the carcass for duck stock. I used to simply cook it in a stockpot but a couple of years ago I began making it in a pressure cooker. I found an 8-quart electric Farberware one that works beautifully. The bones soften to the point that I can put everything through a food mill, then strain again through a double mesh chinoise.

I have an unopened bottle of Hudson Bay 151 proof rum that I purchased in 1970. My son-in-law has requested that I will it to him... I don't drink alcohol but do use it in cooking. I purchased this with the idea that it would go into dried fruit that would macerate in liquor and eventually become part of a Jamaican black cake. However, we had some remodeling done and I packed the bottle away along with a bunch of my books in some trunks and this bottle did not come to light again until 4 years ago when I decided to catalog my books. Imagine my surprise when I found this pristine bottle, now almost 30 years older than when it went into the trunk. The seal is intact and the wax overcap has apparently kept it from evaporating as the level is still within an inck of the cork. I don't even know if the company is still in existance.

Although I do a lot of baking, I occasionally want to sample something that people have mentioned. I have ordered bread from Gazins https://gazins.com/lg_display.cfm?page_number=10 and found it was very good. I have also sent is as gifts to friends who found it to be very good. (As you can probably guess, I also manage to find other goodies to order at the same time.) Andie

I forgot to mention, you can also use this dough to make big soft pretzels, just form into a rope, cut in about 12 inch sections, form into the knot shape, brush tops with egg wash and dip into coarse salt, poppy seed or sesame seed, then bake as you would the plain pita. I also make mini pita, two-bite size for stuffing with various things, such as home made pimento cheese, (made with peppadews)... etc. Sounds like your carnitas was a super hit!!

It does sound wonderful. Milk gravy over biscuits, especially when cooked in the pan where you get the little bits of sausage and/or bacon that have been left behind in the pan mixed into the gravy. We used to get sausage gravy over biscuits as a late morning snack on Sundays when we would have an early breakfast and dinner in the afternoon instead of the evening because it was felt that growing children should not go that long without something of meal. It was just sausage crumbled and fried, most of the fat drained off, then flour browned in the remaining fat with the sausage and fresh full cream milk (we had Jerseys) to make the gravy. Served over biscuits it was heaven. The cholesterol police would probably have had a conniption fit if they were around back then. Funny, even though I still eat a "high" cholestrol diet my cholesterol has always been quite low. Perhaps it was because I became acclimated to it as a child. Sounds like you had a wonderful time. Too bad you missed out on the grits.... I can recall one of my elderly aunts giving a report on her visit to NYC and a meal at an Italian restaurant. She was particularly apreciative of one dish, but said "I don't know why have have to call it Po-Lan-Ta, all it was, was grits, and yellow ones at that."

They look like cranberry beans. I have never cared for them plain but use them for baked beans and they take up the flavor of the sauce. They usually have a slightly mealy texture.

I have a friend in St. Catherines, Ontario, who does a lot of baking. I asked her and she said that the only butters she will use in baking are Lactantia, made in Quebec and Sealtest. I will not repeat what she said about the others.......... The first has three types, Sweet, Salted and Cultured, she prefers the latter. Sealtest is just sweet and salted. She says that sometimes Costco carries the Lactantia brand and when it is in the store she stocks up and freezes it.

You can dry it, or you can freeze it in water. To dry it, spread on a sheet pan on top of paper towels and place in oven. if you have a pilot light that should be o.k. Otherwise set your oven to the lowest temperature you can, 150 degrees F if possible, or just turn it on for a few minutes then turn it off, when it cools turn it on again, then off. At this temp it should be dry in about 12 hours. To freeze, remove the leaves from the stems, pack tightly into a freezable container and fill with water to within 1 inch of the top, cover and freeze. You can also make a simple syrup (2 cups sugar to 1 cup water, crush the leaves and stems and add to the syrup and simmer gently for 20 minutes, strain the syrup into a container and refrigerate. This also can be frozen to keep it longer, just freeze it in ice cube trays, then store in a sealed container or heavyweight ziploc bags.

You mean the Crema Mexicana "Agria" ?

There is Crema Mexicana Agria, a sour cream, and Crema Mexicana, which is a sweet cream, I think the crema Bobby Flay used is the latter, what is simply called "Table Cream" usually identified as Grade A. It is actually a "triple" cream, much heavier than "heavy" cream and is a sweet cream. When you dip into it with a spoon and lift the spoon, the crema stays slightly mounded on the spoon, unlike regular heavy cream which is more liquid. I buy it at the Mexican market here in town, they have, as Gifted Gourmet stated, several varieties of sour cream, including the newest, with Poblana in the name. The names are in Spanish with an English sub-title. The most popular Mexican dairy in So. Calif. is Cacique but there are four dairies competeting and they keep adding products to stimulate sales. http://www.caciqueusa.com/products_cremas.htm They even have a buttermilk, which is nothing at all like regular buttermilk, but is similar to a kefir but even thicker. I have noted that the Grade A Table Cream keeps much longer than regular cream and it is not "Ultra-Pasturized" so it is great for making fresh cheese. The ultra-pasturized cream will not set a firm curd so is useless for making cheese. This is probably more than you wanted to know, but I hope it has answered your question.

Nick was on a PBS cooking show and demonstrated the croissants right after this book was published. He also did a sweet pie pastry which I also use, it contains an egg. I like it because it is virtually foolproof. I freeze my butter and grate it onto the dough using the large holes on a grater. When I take the dough out of the fridge I beat it with a rolling pin, first one direction then another until it is flattened about 1/3 of the thickness. For some reason this causes it to relax a bit and makes it easier to roll. The pin I have is actually a piece of a maple hand rail and is heavier than most pins and slightly larger in diameter. I bought it at a hardwood place and a bit of sandpaper was all I needed to clean up the ends. Nick's recipe calls for baking at 375 and I have had good results with that. Be sure that your oven is right on, if you don't have an oven thermometer get one.

Here is the link to Graeme's website-the pages on the website that has the photos of the peppers. http://www.g6csy.net/chile/database.html

If you can find Nick Malgieri's book, "How To Bake" at your local library, copy his recipe and try it. I have been making croissants for many years but after I bought this book, perhaps ten years ago, I switched to his recipe and never looked back. I use Plugra, a European butter and it must be unsalted. The croissants are very flaky, tender and have great flavor. The dough has enough body to stand up to fillings, even as substantial as ham and cheese. It is true that if the ambient temperature is too high you can run into problems but I live in the California desert and I manage to make them except during the days when temps are well over 100. I do have air conditioning but because of our energy constraints I do not keep the thermostat set very low. I use fans quite a bit and also do a lot of work at night (temps drop rapidly after sunset) I have a marble-topped cart and can cool the surface by placing cold packs (blue-ice) on the table, or I have one that has a stainless steel stop with two drawers directly under the top and I fill those drawers with the blue ice packs to cool the table top. I work the dough for a while then put it in the fridge to rest while I re-cool the slab if working on the marble.

I slice them diagonally about 1/2 inch thick, dip them in a ver simple sweet fritter batter and deep fry them. I had them like this at a Mexican street fair in Guadalahara about 20 years ago. The same place was making candied sweet potato slices on a brazier and served them on sticks like lolipops. I still haven't figured out how they did those but I have the plantains down pat.

The layers - that is what strata means. Melinda Lee has some great strata ideas, and a master recipe, on her website: http://melindalee.com/recipearchive.html?a...=124&item_id=46 She also has some killer salsa recipes, including a watermelon salsa that I will be fixing to go with duck tacos which I am preparing for tomorrow.

I do sample things at Costco and at Trader Joe's because they maintain careful control over the samples. I never sample things from unattended trays at regular markets. Some people are so unthinking or even simply gross, that you never know if the food has been touched or whatever. Even the packages are not always sacrosanct. I only buy packaged things at Costco if the seals are intact. A couple of weeks ago I saw two young women cutting the tape on boxes of strawberries and eating one or two out of every box they opened. They never bought any so I found one of the employees and reported it so they could remove the opened boxes from the display. The guy said they kept a watch for several people who apparently came into the store just to "graze" and left, only buying something inexpensive, if they bothered to buy anything at all. I described the women and he said they were on their "lookout" list.

My ducks are just about ready to come out of the oven. I have been salivating for an hour. My dogs have been "guarding" the oven for some time. They are expecting "fall-out" when I go to work on the birds. I have already cooked the custard for the ice cream. Costco had lovely raspberries, 6 boxes in a flat for 6.99 so I bought 2 flats. And they also had Ranier cherries for 6.99 for a 2-pound box, so I bought two of those. Raspberries and cream, Cherry with dark chocolate bits, and butter pecan ice cream for the party. I am running a test batch now to make sure the coolant is working. I haven't used the machine since Christmas, however I had it recharged last fall and it should be fine, but I want to make sure. I should have checked it Friday but didn't think of it till this morning.