andiesenji

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.

Slightly OT, but I also would like to plug Peter Reinhart's American Pie, which I think is a fantastic book. The pizza (dough) recipes that appear therein have the benefit of PR's vast bread-baking experience. =R= Still slightly OT but I have to agree with you about American Pie. Peter asked for volunteers to test recipes for the book and many of the bakers on the B-B digest contributed and are mentioned in the book. Bob Koontz, a very good friend of mine, tested several. I have made several pizza from the book and every one has been far superior to my earlier efforts. He takes the guesswork out of it. I have had quarry tiles in my oven since I first had it installed. Although it is a commercial gas oven, it still loses heat if the doors are opened. The stone or tiles maintain an even temperature in the oven even if the door has to be opened. There are other advantages, you can bake directly on the stone if you are making rustic loaves and pies placed on the stone have better bottom crusts than those baked directly on a rack or on a sheet pan. This effect works in an electric oven as well as gas.

This is one of the reasons I began using the food-handler gloves (like surgeon's gloves) several years ago. I would be up to my elbows in dough or whatever, the phone would ring. By the time I washed and dried my hands, the caller had either hung up or it would go to my answer machine which would also cause them to hang up or leave a message and if it was a call I wanted to take, it was a problem. This way, I strip off the glove and grab the phone. Ditto answering the door, and so on. Also I found that some things that I had to handle a lot or for long periods, gave me contact dermatitis. Annoying and not attractive. The gloves solved that problem. A box of 100 doesn't cost that much and are a great timesaver as well as being neater. Friends who maintain perfect manicures have taken to these like gang busters.

I have all of Peter's books and they are all good. This one has more details about artisan breads. I have baked many of the recipes but I actually use Crust and Crumb more than this one, mainly because I have used it longer and the recipes in the book are familiar and comfortable for me. Peter is on the Bread-Baker's list and often posts when someone has a particular question. I think everyone on the list has all of his books and many are much more prolific bakers than I. If you want a broad sampling of opinions ask: http://www.bread-bakers.com/mailing_list.html

I made the Chestnut Torte because I had some chestnuts to use up and I wanted to see how it compared to my old favorite recipe from Nick Malgieri. It turned out quite well. I was pleased with the appearance but will probably go back to my old recipe because it uses more chestnuts and has more of the chestnut flavor.

Sometimes I have to make very large batches of biscuits or scones and I found that rather than working the dough and cutting them, I get really good results with just mixing the dough until blended, then using a large ice cream scoop (3 1/4 in. diameter) to portion the dough onto a sheet pan, then when the pan is full I dip my fingers (wearing food-handler gloves) into melted butter and quickly press them a bit to flatten the dome shape. They come out very tender and raise beautifully. I do keep everything chilled and using the large holes on a grater, grate frozen butter into the dry ingredients. This allows for quick mixing and the moisture in the butter gives a lot of lift in the oven. (I use this grated butter method when making croissants and it has been very successful.)

And to confuse things even further, when fresh, chile Ancho is known as chile Poblano. This is of course, the favorite chile for chiles rellenos. I grow several varieties of chile and this occurs in other types of chiles. They have a different name when dried. Chipotle is not the name of a chile, it is the familiar Jalapeño allowed to ripen until fully red then smoked and dried. There are nine varieties of Chile Puya, most with similar characteristics. Puya alpestris Puya berteroniana Puya boliviensis Puya chilensis Puya coerulea Puya coerulea intermedia Puya coerulea monteroana Puya coerulea violacea Puya venusta It depends on the vendors as to how they are identified. Some do add the type but most do not. The most common is puya chilensis, and venusta. Often they are identified as chile Guajillo, but the latter are milder. Sometimes they are called pulla but of course it is pronounced the same. The color can vary from dark read to pale orange to violet. The only dried chiles I see in the Mexican market here are Chiles Japones - they are similar to Chile Arbol and have about the same heat as Arbol and Puya. Even serious chile scholars argue about the identification of some chiles so don't feel bad if you have a problem. One particular chile was mis-identified for many years until they finally were able to establish the DNA and found that it was a sport related to a pepper that looked entirely different in shape, different growth habits, different leaf shape, different flower. It had long been classified an "inedible ornamental" pepper. However it is edible, medium hot and looks good and grows in containers and is evergrowing, everbearing as long as it doesn't freeze. You can always check in at the Chile-Heads list. Some of the most knowledgeable pepper people on the planet are on the list and always active. The guys who wrote the books are on the list.

I prepare a great many bread puddings, both sweet and savory. For the savory ones I usually use a bread which has a savory base, such as Asiago cheese bread, or Calamata olive, cheese/onion, etc. You may find more savory recipes listed under recipes for "strata" - all a strata is actually, is a layered bread pudding. I have used artichoke hearts in savory bread puddings, however I usually do not put the cheese in the pudding with a vegetable, but put it over the top during the last 10-15 minutes of baking to allow it to melt. Cardoon, which grows like a weed in my garden, has the same flavor as artichoke and I often use it, chopped and blanched, in strata or puddings. When I do use cheese in a pudding or strata, I use a fairly hard cheese, shredded and put into the pudding in layers, instead of mixed in, to make sure it is evenly distributed. I use bacon, cut into bite size pieces then cooked until crisp, ham, also cut into bites and sizzled and cooled before adding. Shredded beef, pork or chicken, all work. Think of the flavor you want and work from there. You can make one that has Mexican flavors, incorporating mild peppers in the pudding or strata, with chicken, beef or pork, and a cheese, such as a queso fresca, then serving two or three salsas, mild, medium and hot, so your guests can add the amount of heat they wish. Also sour cream... Fresh onions may cause the pudding to be soggy, I use carmelized onions or dried, toasted onions. I also use dried tomatoes with olives and cheese such as a ricotta salata for a Mediterranean theme. I use low carb bread and Splenda to make sweet bread puddings for myself because I am a diabetic. I have added fresh fruits, dried fruits that have been plumped, nuts, etc. Sauces can be sweet or savory, milk or cream based, fruit sauces, meat sauces and all kinds of condiments. I usually try to set out something that will contrast with the flavors in the pudding. Also remember that you can prepare any of these puddings ahead of time, bake in a loaf pan and refrigerate. Then when ready to prepare the meal, slice and fry on a griddle and serve hot with the various sauces, or for a sweet one, fresh fruit or syrup. This is a good way to work when cooking for a croud. I have served a sweet bread pudding as "mock French toast" to huge numbers at fund-raising breakfasts when it would have been impossible to make regular French toast.

The smoker looks great, Ronnie. I will be spending part of the day with friends in Orange County. Their son is just home from Irac and they are having a party in his honor. I have three ducks from my freezer now thawing, will cook them tomorrow and prepare the meat for duck tacos, one of Greg's favorites. His mom is making other favorites of his, a sort of tamale pie, made with fritos, layered with ground meat cooked with onions and alternate layer of black beans and also a mac and cheese casserole. Side dishes prepared by sisters-in-law, I have no idea what, and his brothers are bringing beer. I will take my ice cream machine and pre-mixed batches so all I have to do is plug it in, pour in the stuff and turn it on. The poor kid has lost almost 40 pounds since he left home. I haven't seen him yet but my friend says the first night he was home he drank almost a gallon of milk and ate 3 cheeseburgers from Fatburger plus two orders of their fat fries.

I personally had one "outbreak" of salmonella three years ago and obviously I didn't die but I certainly wanted to at one point. My case and that of six other affected people was following a wedding reception and the culprit was not eggs but salad, apparently contaminated by proximity to raw poultry in the prep stage. Going to the ER in the middle of the night is no fun and the sadistic ER doc got a lot of fun out of giving me an injection to stop the most violent effects of the infection by saying "this may sting a bit". (I was severely dehydrated by this time and they also had started an IV in my other arm.) I felt like I had been shot in the arm by a 30.30 slug. It did make me forget about my other complaints, all I could think of was whether or not my arm was going to fall off. While there, two other people who had attended the reception came in and later we learned that four others had also been ill enough to go to an ER. I have to admit that the injection worked immediately but it was one I will never have again. I prefer to be cautious and prudently avoid any raw greens at such functions. It is also why I use the pasturized eggs. I would use irradiated eggs if they were available.

The unlined copper is best because the heat distribution is carried to all parts of the pan with no hot spots. Heat conduction in copper is so good that it heats quickly and cools quickly as soon as it is removed from the heat. There is very low resistance to heat conduction which is why copper is used for electrical use. It conducts electricity without heating up as much as other metals (resistance). Aluminum wire was used in house wiring for a time in the fifties and sixties but there were a lot of fires because the wires heated but from resistance. Back to copper. I have a couple of copper kettles and a large poaching pan that are almost 200 years old and are still usable. Copper vessels from Roman times are still usable (though they are in museums). It is expensive and a chore to polish but there is nothing quite as good for sugar work.

I this also a copper pan, Andie? And did you find it on their website or in a store? I went to the website, but can't seem to find this. thanks! --Jan It is listed as small preserving pan