andiesenji

I found my last order from Rancho Gordo for Snowcap beans, placed November 23, 2017 received 12/4/2017 also included Marcella Beans, Vaquero Beans and white corn pasole.

I couldn't find a topic for this year so am starting one now. All I am doing with this one is posting my annual REMINDER to NOT discard any dried fruits; raisins, figs, apricots, peaches, plums and even the "fruitcake mix" because ALL THIS STUFF IS EXPENSIVE. IT CAN BE RECONSTITUTED AND RE-INFUSED AND MADE USEFUL - IT JUST REQUIRES STEAMING. Here is an example of a tray full of very dry dried fruit that looks beyond help. And this is that same tray of fruit after steaming for 20 minutes. Just like magic it has become soft, moist, translucent and ready to be chopped and used in baked goods.

I received one of these Hamilton Beach Smooth Touch Openers to use and review from Amazon back in June. The product page with all the reviews is confusing because this is a new model and Amazon has lumped thousands of older reviews in with this one WHICH WAS JUST RELEASED FOR SALE ON FEBRUARY 5, 2019! I have used it on #10 cans and the tiny cans that hold diced green chiles and chopped black olives& etc. It even did okay with a rectangular flat can of roasted peppers. Since I have severe arthritis in my right hand, this is a great kitchen assistant as I can no longer use the hand-held ones.

Facebook post by CLAUDIA MARQUEZ October 21 at 12:55 PM · SOLO POR AYUDAR. Amigos tengo 30 toneladas de miel de apicultores de Oaxaca que están desesperados porque no la han podido desplazar. Es multiflora cosecha de primavera. En menos de un mes se debe recolectar la de otoño. Son comunidades muy pobres que dependen de la venta de su miel. Hay en cubetas de 27 kg y barriles de 300 kg. Les pido su ayuda por si ven alguna manera u oportunidad de apoyar a la comunidad de apicultores. ...See More Just for helping. Friends I have 30 tons of honey of Oaxaca Beekeepers who are desperate because they have not been able to move it. It's multiflora spring harvest. In less than a month you must collect the autumn. They are very poor communities that depend on the sale of their honey. There are in buckets of 27 kg and barrels of 300 kg. I ask you for your help in case you see any way or opportunity to support the community of beekeepers. If anyone knows any channel that might be interested, I ask you to help these really poor people. Honey is pure, of the best of Mexico. I'm at your command, if anyone wants to buy a bucket, it's also a way to help. The kg is in 48 pesos. In the market costs 110. If you're interested contact me. Thank you.

SNOWCAP BEANS. My favorites. They are much larger than most beans, comparable in size to the largest red kidney beans. They vary in color from medium beige with red spots to a light mahogany with darker red spots. They are very "meaty" in flavor. Make a great chowder/stew with a small amount of cooked pork.

Last year I got some samples of Steeped Coffee. Some of the varieties were pretty good, others pretty much "meh" not a lot of flavor. Probably okay for people who aren't real coffee fanatics.

I have an old one that I have used for grating Jaggery since the 1970s. And oddly enough, I have used it a lot for grating the very hard Mexican chocolate!

I grew Yacon for three years, 2005, '06 and '07. I originally bought 5 "live" plants - 4 survived the shipping. I planted all four in a 3' x 8' x 30" deep stock tank. Each plant produced 10 to 18 tubers. I ignored the instructions that came with the plants and left them in the ground over the winter with a couple of tubers left on each. I mulched them deeply and tented them with clear heavy garden plastic staked down to protect them during hard freezes. The tops looked dead but when it warmed in the spring, they greened up and the tubers I had left sprouted. I enjoyed them - I had advice from a person who had lived in Peru and told me they grow at an even higher altitude than here and could survive a hard freeze. Also told me to treat them like the white sweet potatoes. They were excellent sliced thin and deep fried, sliced and baked with sliced apples and oranges - and lots of butter! I eventually had a dozen plants. In 2008 I had some problems and wasn't able to do the garden work and the young man who had been doing the heavy work moved to Utah and I had no affordable help and they died. I certainly got my money's worth. The plants were expensive but produced well and the first crop was more than enough to satisfy me.

So very sorry to read this. I wondered why I hadn't seen any comments or posts from her. I remembered that she had a procedure around Christmas. However I haven't been here as much as I used to because I am limited to the amount of time I can sit at the computer. My doctor gets testy if the edema in my lower extremities is too extensive. A combination of heart failure and kidney failure and age. We traded some posts in a discussion about biscuits in early December. I actually did try some biscuits - my own cream biscuit recipe - with Wensleydale cheese and they turned out quite nice. I always enjoyed Lisa's posts and contribution to discussions. She had a great deal of experience and never hesitated to share great advice.

I can't drink alcohol myself because I am allergic to it but years ago, when my favorite neighbors still lived here and we held "progressive" dinners, I made hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps in one of my large coffee urns, for those who liked "spiked" hot drinks and it went much faster than the un-spiked cocoa. In fact, it started at my home and was transported to the dessert house so they began and ended with it. Also had hot spiced cider both plain and spiked but that was not as popular.

When I was still able to shop at the farmer's market, I had cloth tote bags with cheap oval or rectangular baskets shoved down into the bottom, lined with crumbled tissue paper. Tomatoes, peaches, plums, berries, breads and rolls, etc. I know I got some at Target and a couple at the dollar store, which is where I bought the cloth totes. I use a lot of tissue paper when I ship delicate things and it is very cheap at the dollar stores.

Yes. Since there was so much of it that I wouldn't be able to use it up and at the time wasn't thinking of giving it away, I canned it to inactivate the mother. I had other batches of vinegar "working" at the time and I wasn't sure I would have enough suitable additions for that one - my income was much less than it had been and I couldn't afford to buy a lot of the things I had been using. I don't think the flavor canned vinegar was much changed by the aging. I don't worry about the probiotic benefits only about the flavor. I'm 80 and have some medical problems but I am more interested in enjoying the flavors that I like and frankly the amount one consumes of this type of vinegar, used for flavor instead of preserving, etc., would never be enough to benefit anyone seeking nutritional supplements. There are so many touted as being "pro-biotic" and every other term to get people to buy supplements and such but in many cases the AMOUNTS ONE WOULD HAVE TO CONSUME to actually reap any benefits are ridiculous, unaffordable and probably unhealthy. I listened briefly to someone selling a dietary supplement with which I am familiar as it was a fad about 40 years ago. Didn't work then, won't work now but a lot of people are going to shovel out money for a useless product. If you want to try this vinegar production, all you need are raisins, pound and a half, 4 quarts of water, which will reduce down to a quart and a half so it is like syrup, some white wine, some Bragg's vinegar with the mother and at least a half-gallon jar. and some cloth to fasten over the opening with a rubber band so it can "breathe. And several months. I recommend a glass straw for sampling without disturbing the mother too much. hold your finger tightly over the top opening while you insert it through the mother and down at least 3 inches into the liquid, move your finger to ope the end, then cover it tightly again and bring it out and hold it over a little dish or shot glass, release the end and let the liquid run into the container. Taste it. You can also get an inexpensive test kit for Ph. in this type vinegar, 3.5 to 4.0 is desirable.

I've always spent more on kitchen "stuff" than on shoes. And I have a lot of shoes.

Follow up to my raisin vinegar post. I braised a thick pork chop in milk (shallots and seasoning to my taste) I cooked some frozen crinkle fries in the air fryer I am testing. I drizzled the vinegar over the pork chop and the very crisp potatoes. A little ran into the green beans. It is a revelation. The tastes are complex and complement the pork, the potatoes and even the beans. This was started in 2011 and I just held onto it for this long because I had so many other vinegars. I was able to get hold of one friend to whom I gave one jar and he said his wife was pregnant a short time later and would fill a shot glass with it and sip on it to relieve morning sickness for the "couple of weeks" she was bothered by it. A little later in her pregnancy she had cravings for steak fries and would put some in a cup and dip the potatoes in it. He said he got a taste or two on steaks when she went through her "meat phase" but she consumed most of it. He said it must have had an effect on his kid because his son, now 6 is very partial to vinegar dressings and they have an "English fish place" nearby that has "Fish and Chips" with malt vinegar and the boy can eat an adult serving and finish off anything left on his mom's plate.

This has been in the back of my small pantry for several years. I had dried a huge batch of grapes - red flame, a friend had brought me one of the double boxes, 40 pounds of grapes, she bought that morning at a grower in Ojai. I had to get my old dehydrators out of the shed, wash the spiders out and use them plus my newer one and also dried some in the oven. The ones in the oven were really hard, more like Zante currants than raisins so I had to figure out how to use them because being rather frugal, I hate to throw anything out. Steaming softened them a bit but not enough so I put them in a slow cooker with water to cover plus an inch or so and left them overnight. The next morning they were very soft and the liquid was black and thick and very, very sweet. I had most of a bottle of riesling I had bought for a recipe and poured it and the raisin syrup into a half-gallon jar and half a cup of Bragg's apple cider vinegar with the mother. I tasted the vinegar as it progressed and the apple cider flavor was completely gone after 3 months. I checked on it every few weeks, checked the Ph and when it reached 4, after about 7 months, I filtered it and canned it in 3 pint jars and processed them in a water bath. I gave two away and kept this one, undisturbed until last evening. The vinegar is mild and sweet and tastes remarkably like some Balsamic 20 year old that I received as a gift a few years ago. It looks wicked but tastes amazing.

I have made it from "scratch" in a slow cooker. I posted Mrs. Obregon's Dulce de Leche long ago on Recipe Gullet.

I just took this out of the big bread machine - 3 pound- Black & Decker. It's the white bread from the machine's recipes and calls for 4 tablespoons dry whole milk powder. It has to cool for at least an hour before I can cut it. Note the photo of the bottom with just the two small holes from the drive shafts. In this machine the last "knock-down" stir is with 1.47 on the timer so as soon at that sounds, I yank the dough, remove the paddles (two in this big pan), re-shape the dough and dump it back into the pan, close the lid and leave it alone. In this batch, it had risen more than expected so I lopped off a piece about the size of a large orange and put it in a plastic bag int he fridge. Good that I did because otherwise it would have pushed up the lid. As it was, it had about 3/4 inch space and even with that one end of the top, nearest the opening, did not fully brown, even with the crust color set on dark. It's difficult to tell just how large the loaf is when standing so I took one photo with it laying on the cooling rack. Finally, a photo of the crumb and a slice that is twice the size of a regular bread slice. I don't know why Black & Decker discontinue the 3-pound machine but I love it.

I have to laugh because I have tried to explain CompuServe, BMUG, GEnie, Prodigy, and even AOL which I used briefly and then spend weeks disengaging and eliminating all the little "hooks" it had inserted into my system. We had a great recipe cache in SOAR (Searchable Online Archive of Recipes) that became www.recipesource.com and a bunch of us foodies, who have migrated from Prodigy to one I forget and then to Yahoo and now on FaceBook have maintained contact all those years. And trying to explain the "speed" or lack of it is very difficult. I can recall posting a question, going to fix a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and coming back to the little cursor symbol spinning around until there was a connection.

In the '70s, my Italian neighbors in Canoga Park grew a lot of squash, lots of zucchini, 3 or 4 varieties and while a lot were picked young, some were allowed to attain huge sizes, like the "marrows" in the UK. They would split the large ones, scrape out the seed mass and put it all into a pressure cooker with peppers and "sedano di Verona" or "raduce di sedano" which I learned was celeriac. They knew it in English as celery root and liked the name celeriac. The mature seeds were tough when raw but after pressure cooking were softer and they cooled the vege mix and put it through a food mill so it was a puree and then added a meat broth to it, often from pork and it was delicious. And no tomatoes in that soup. The zucchini was sliced about 3/4 inch thick and grilled after tossing with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, crushed pepper and chopped fresh basil, thyme, oregano and salt rubbed into the herbs. They used a granulated toasted garlic to "finish" after grilling. When I grilled squash like this, I used the Penzey's granulated garlic. I never tried my hand at making the soup but thinking about it now, and having a great electric pressure cooker, I think I will give it a try. The local produce market often has "oversized" zucchini.

SPAM is very popular in Hawaii. Nutritionists have been warning Hawaiians for decades that it is detrimental to their health to consume so much of it but most of them ignore the warnings. There are several Hawaiian cookbooks featuring Spam. One is Hawaii Cooks with Spam and it was featured on an informercial a few months ago. I watched for a while because it was like one of those horrific videos of a highway pileup in slow motion where you think it can't get any worse and then it does. I had nightmares.

This has been discussed on FaceBook, on Twitter and there are some rather inventive posts with the list of "Official flavors" and some possible "new flavors." Besides the Pumpkin Spice, SPAM® Products To Add Flavor To Your Food With Our Canned Meat Varieties. SPAM® Teriyaki. SPAM® Oven Roasted Turkey. SPAM® Classic. SPAM® Hickory Smoke. SPAM® Lite. I have never purchased Spam. I ate enough during my few years in the Army to put me off it for life. However, I did have this culinary adventure. I was married in October 1961 and did little cooking until several months into 1962 because we were waiting for our home to be finished. I had a stack of new cookbooks to go with the old ones that had been gifted to me by family. My husband had very little input, not a "foodie" by any measure. However from time to time he would see a recipe in one of his newspapers and suggest I try it. And so it was with "Spiced Spring Ham Loaf" which was printed in the L.A. Times Sunday magazine. I spent quite a bit of time, chopping and mixing and pressing and baking and finally it was done. My husband heard me laughing hysterically in the kitchen, walked in and asked what happened. I stopped laughing long enough to tell him, "I have spent all this time and the result is SPAM!" Then continued laughing. Being a NAVY man, he immediately understood what I meant. As he walked away he said, "I'll call for reservations at the Smoke House." It didn't go to waste. I wrapped it in aluminum foil, put it in the fridge for overnight and the next morning offered it to my cleaner. She was happy to have it. That taught me a lesson and to extrapolate what a result might actually taste like instead of blindly following a recipe because it is published in one of the big papers.

ElsieD, it looks perfect to me. Also, love your teapot. I have a collection of teapots. I never met a teapot I didn't like!

Drooling here! I haven't had watermelon since last summer.

I am going to be parting with one of my meat grinders. I sold the big Northland one several years ago to my friend, Sam the Egg man, who is now raising game birds for the L.A. hotel and upscale restaurants. He make some kind of special food that has to be ground and baked or dried and ground again so he needed the heavy duty one that I hadn't used much for years. When I did catering I ground ALL of the meats I used to make sure the quality was to my standards. I still have three smaller ones but will have to retrieve them from storage and see which one works best. One is a Rival, one is a Maverick (I think) And I forget the name of the other one.

Did he think that was going to speed up his service?