jgarner53
-
Posts
1,201 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by jgarner53
-
-
I don't think I'd have to do much to hide something from Mr. Garner. Half the time I have to find things in the kitchen for him anyway. "Where's the coconut milk?" "It's in the bottom cupboard above the toaster, lower shelf, right hand side, on top of a can of baby corn and just behind the fish sauce."
So you can imagine how I could easily hide something sinful. Except I don't.
-
All that looks so good! From the won ton soup to the pot roast, biscuits and that banana cream pie! to the sticky rice and the description of the dim sum that's for dinner. What a treat this blog is! Thanks!
-
I guess I'm lucky. Mr. Garner and I decided long, long, loooooong ago to split the culinary tasks in our household such that he cooks one week, and I cook the next. He could make a few things when we met, and he's been learning ever since.
Though there was a long time when he'd call me into the kitchen (or bring the pan to wherever I was) to ask if something was done. "How do I know when the ground beef is 'brown?'" And he's desperatly anal about following recipes, so he's gotten more than frustrated if it says "Saute 8-10 minutes, or until golden," and it takes longer than 10 minutes.
He's not especially efficient at multi-tasking or pre-reading the recipe, so there are the times when we eat at 9:30 because he got started and realized the meat needed to marinate for an hour, or he hadn't preheated the oven, or made the rice, or whatever.
Whining aside, I have to say that I'm proud that he can cook and is willing to.
Strangely enough, he's not very good at grilling -- I though all men had the genetic ability to put meat and fire together?
-
I just use the small quarry tiles from Home Depot. My oven is desperately small, and the extra size of a 1/2 or 3/4" stone (or fire bricks) would reduce my space considerably. I've found that they do make a big difference, though.
For example, yesterday, I was baking two loaves of bread. After 35 minutes (their expected baking times), they were golden on top, but pallid on the sides, so I popped them out of the loaf pans and onto the hot tiles. 5 minutes later, they were perfect. Just that extra heat held in the tiles did it.
-
OK, I'm a convert. I don't know that I'll sit eating marshmallows until the cows come home, but these are so yummy! Can someone explain to me how they can get so creamy?
One thing that the recipe did not mention (but that seemed common sense to me) was straining the strawberry puree.
The other thing I need to know is how NOT to go on about how easy these are to make when people marvel. How do I develop that air of mystery, like I'm some kind of culinary magician that I can make marshmallows? I tend to discount my skills when people compliment me on food. "Oh, it really isn't hard at all. Anybody could have done it." Do I just say, "Thank you," and shut the hell up?
-
An insulated baking sheet is kind of like having two cookie sheets stuck together with air in between. A baking sheet (as opposed to a sheet pan) is a flat piece of metal (usually aluminum) with no rim and usually one, sometimes two edges bent upward at an angle, for easy gripping.
An insulated baking sheet takes that and adds another layer of aluminum underneath, sandwiching air between the two sheets.
A sheet pan, on the other hand, has about a 1" rim all around, and comes in several sizes: full sheet, half (the size of a cookie sheet, usually), and quarter. They can be used as a baking sheet, but are also good when you're baking something that might bubble over, and you want to make sure that is contained and doesn't drip all over your oven. They are also used for baking jelly rolls, and, well, sheet cakes.
-
I've stopped buying produce at my supermarket (Albertson's). I can't even manage to buy it at Whole Foods because I think it's so outrageous. For one, the Albertson's quality is usually poor, and the prices high. Not to mention the lights they display it under so you pick what you think is a bright red pepper, only to find it's barely red and tinged with green!
We have a great mom & pop produce market about 10 minutes' walk from home. Prices and quality there are much better, and they're largely seasonal, so no Chliean grapes at $6/lb in January. Huge bunches of the freshest basil for $1, 3 or 4 for $1.19 ruby grapefruit, small lemons for 10 for a buck, etc.
And Saturday mornings I go to the farmers' market - NOT the expensive, yuppy one at the SF Ferry Building, but a smaller one in a not-so-chi-chi part of town that's closer to home. The herb guy sells basil (3 or 4 kinds), mint, shiso, and a whole host of other things for 50 cents a bunch. I pay $1.75/lb for peaches, but there are peaches there for $1/lb. (The ones I get are tree ripened, huge, and sweet as can be, so worth every penny to me). Tomatoes - $1/lb for beautiful red, ripe honeys, dates for $2/lb -- whether you want deglet noor or medjool; figs are $2-3.50/lb, but are still just starting to come in.
Produce is expensive if you just buy it in the supermarket. It's one of the few exceptions I can think of to the old axiom, "you get what you pay for."
-
And as for practice, one piece of advice I was given in a cake decorating class I took (taught by Julia Child's personal assistant!) was to practice on your counter with mayonnaise. Buy a jar and label it "not to be eaten," and just pipe things out on your counter, or "ice" your cake pan, or whatever. She said it's about the same consistency as buttercream, a helluva lot cheaper, and you certainly aren't tempted to taste it!
So from time to time, I make a big mess on my counter, scoop it up, and put it back in the jar.
-
There's a good recipe in Baking Illustrated for yellow cake cupcakes. I'm sure you could bake it as a cake. They're mighty tasty and QUICK to whip up because you dump all the ingredients in pretty much at once. Yeah, I know, that's counter-intuitive to a baker, but for some reason, with this recipe, it works.
But IMHO, yellow cake (whether it's butter, pound, or chiffon), is just a vehicle for the chocolate frosting!
-
Biscuits or no, $6 isn't a whole lot of money to drop for an oven thermometer.
I concur that your oven is probably too hot. Are you putting more than one cookie sheet in the oven at a time? With some cookies, it seems to make a difference to bake one sheet (on the center rack) at a time. (If you have a convection oven, this is less true, but you do need to adjust the oven temp and baking time.)
I use insulated cookie sheets and silpat mats for all my cookies. I found early on that the insulated sheets made a big difference when it came to not burning them. But, as lorea said, you can double up the sheets for the same effect.
-
I was a big fan of the uncooked buttercream as a kid, either vanilla, or chocolate (probably made with melted chocolate). It goes together really, really quickly.
-
Stick blenders -- great for emulsifying salad dressings, pureeing soups and sauces without having to clean up a blender or fp, etc. One of those things that makes great sense when you think of it.
Cast iron - simple, cheap, effective. Not for everything, but good to have on hand, and certainly cheaper than All-Clad or Calphalon
A decent chef's knife that's kept sharp. Most of my non-cooking friends don't even have one and so try to do their all their chopping with 5-inch serrated knives.
whether it's a CA or a KA, a good-sized food processor is well worth the price.
Pyrex - 8x8, 9x13 baking dishes, pie plates (at least one)
A good whisk
Wooden spoons in various sizes
Oven mitts and/or pot holders - again, I'm surprised that many of my non-cooking friends don't have even one of these and just rely on dishtowels (and most home cooks don't have the asbestos fingers of a professional chef)
Bowls in various sizes - more uses than I can think of for mixing, serving, and storing, either glass or stainless
-
Butter butter butter butter butter butter butter butter
I currently have 3 types in my freezer: Plugra, President (from Normandy), and regular unsalted from Trader Joe's.
Oh, did I mention I like butter?
Actually, it's because I do a lot of baking (gearing up for pastry school in the fall). I would only admit this here because you folks are probably the ones who could comprehend it, but I like it when my hands smell like butter (sometimes even after washing).
I mostly use olive oil for other stuff, peanut oil for wok cooking, safflower oil for "neutral" oil needs, EVOO for salads or garlic bread.
Edited to fix typo
-
A really good BLT is always my favorite - on good, toasted wheat bread, with really good, ripe tomatoes and crisp bacon. A little avocado in there is good, too.
-
Maytag blue cheese always makes me think of dishwashers.
Well, it is the same family.
And Fritz Maytag (also the same family) runs Anchor Brewing Company (here in SF, and kittycorner from where I work -- ahhh, the smells on brewing day...
) -
Not to go off-topic, but do NOT play "chubby bunny", ever. Children have died playing this "game".
Good thing that's the only dumb, dangerous thing kids do.
Can't remember playing (or dying from) "chubby bunny," but the lack of memory could just be me repressing the horror.
I think I've eaten a few marshmallows straight outta the bag, but usually the only time I ever ate them by themselves was if they were toasted, campfire style.Maybe it's just because store-bought shmallows were so nasty and flavorless? Perhaps if I make Neil's strawberry ones, I'll be converted to a shmallow-holic, eat them constantly, and wind up on skid row, with sticky bits of marshmallow around my mouth. "It was the strawberry ones," passers-by would hear me mumble.
-
I second the idea of a fresh peach pie. You can make a simple cornstarch glaze to go on the pie from mashed fruit, sugar, water, and cornstarch, boiled until it thickens. Add a knob of butter, cool, and glaze the pie with it. (use a pre-baked shell for this pie) Heavenly.
In fact, if I can get some top-notch peaches this week at the farmer's market, I intend to do just that!
-
Quark always makes me think of Quark XPress, but that's just the graphic designer in me.
Tete de moine - "monk's head" is another good one.
-
OK, perhaps this is a dumb question, but do you all just eat the marshmallows? I guess I grew up in a marshmallow-deprived household, since they frequently turned into hard, chewy pellets in the cupboard, or were occasionally used in hot cocoa or s'mores. So I don't think of marshmallows when I think of candy, or dessert.
Then, of course, there are Peeps. And my dad was the only one in the family who ate those.
-
My mom's fridge was in perfect working condition but it was about 10 years old. She bought a new one recently and the difference between the old and new showed up on her first utility bill after the purchase (as in decreased power useage). Seeing the energy savings with the new fridge, she's sorry she didn't do it sooner.
Oh, I know that getting a new fridge would probably lower our utility bill. It's just that the frugal, penny-pinching side of me always wins out in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument. But if the money ever fell in my lap (Bush tax cut - ha ha ha ha ha ha, dead relative, lottery winnings, you name it), I'd get a new fridge (and probably a whole new kitchen) in a minute.
-
Now all I need is a sledgehammer to take care of the cabinets and walls.
Hey, Edsel, when you're done with that sledgehammer, can I borrow it? I'm dying for a new fridge, and the damn thing (12 years old already) won't DIE!
I'm jonesin' for one of these, (which I saw WAY before I saw Rachel Ray's, FWIW), but for budgetary reasons would probably get an Amana Easy Reach Plus (also bottom mount).
At 6 feet tall, everything in the fridge means a bend (except milk in the door), and while I do use the freezer a lot, I use the fridge a whole lot more!
Mayhaw Man, I'm with ya on the OK&M + wall ovens -- wish I had room for both!
I love my range; I just wish the oven were bigger and that whenever I used the broiler it didn't throw the oven's thermostat way off. -
I'm always amazed/appalled at the liquified vegetables or herbs that I find in the veggie drawers in the fridge.
Once, when I was younger (in elementary school), and dad was charged with feeding me (I don't remember where mom was), he brought out margarine to put on the rolls. At the time, he was the only one who ate margarine because of his high cholesterol; the rest of us ate butter. I was convinced that the bread had freezer burn, or the butter was bad because it just didn't taste right somehow, but he couldn't taste it. I'm sure he thought I was crazy.
And the night before Thanksgiving one year, I made a whole batch of pie crust for my pumpkin pies only to realize that the shortening had gone rancid.
Off to the store (pissed off, naturally) for more at probably 11pm.Last year at Christmas, mom made some special garlic bread that she'd gotten the recipe for. I don't know if I was the only one to taste the off flavor, but I was the only one who said anything (the next day). To me, it tasted (and smelled) like moldy oranges. Mom had just bought the butter (3 lbs of it) at Costco, but threw it all out once I pointed out the problem with it (then she could notice it, too). Mmmmm, moldy orange garlic bread....
-
Maple syrup goes very well with peanut butter on waffles.
There's someone else out there who eats peanut butter and maple syrup on waffles?!
I thought Mr. Garner was the only one! (and I thought he was plum crazy, too) I just bought my first bottle of Grade B and can't wait for Sunday to try it on pancakes or waffles or French toast.
-
Oh, boy, I can't wait for those rolls to be done! I love bread.
Weight Watchers (Part 1)
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I join the chorus on singing the praises of Cooking Light. I've subscribed to that magazine for wow, over a decade, and always find new, tasty things to try in each issue, and some things that have become favorites. And since portion control is one of those things that is usually difficult for many people, each recipe states the size and number of each portions (such as "one piece chicken, 2 tablespoons sauce"), which helps make sure you're not eating the whole recipe in one sitting.