SMW

Making your own chocolate is just so cool. I'll never look at a bar of chocolate in quite the same way after reading this demo. Thanks for for the new perspective on chocolate.

FYI for all macaroni and cheese lovers - the Cook's Illustrated version has changed. In the New Best Recipe, they use a bechemel sauce, rather than the evaporated milk and egg custard that they recommend in the original Best Recipe. I'm assuming that most of these posts refer to the old way, but for the sake of clarity, I think that we should try to keep them straight in this thread. My personal vote is for the old recipe - it's incrediby rich, which I love. True comfort food (and I ate the blue box once a week (Fridays) growing up, generally with tuna and peas). My oldest brothers' trick to making it was to add two ice cubes to the boiling water with the noodles . My third oldest brother's trick was to add double the amount of butter, and half the milk . I liked his way better, which may explain my preference for a rich tasting mac-n-cheese.

When you make a sandwich, do you think about where the ingredients are with respect to one another? For example, when I make a cheese sandwich with lettuce and butter, I always put the cheese next to the butter. In contrast, when I make a cheese sandwich with lettuce and mustard, I always put the mustard next to the lettuce. I have similar habits for most sandwiches I make - I think the rule is something like butter and mayonaise go next to the meat and cheese, while mustard goes next to the veggies, as does any oil. What do you do? What things do you think taste good in proximity?

I edited the above recipe in response to feedback from someone who tried the recipe. In order to ensure that the cookies do not spread out too much, it seems likely that it helps to refrigerate the dough while it is standing. This was not part of the original recipe, but is something that I have always done. I have never done the direct comparison, however, so I am not sure that this explains the difference in results. In any case, I almost automatically put GF cookie dough into the frig before baking, I think it really helps ensure the cookies hold together well, particularly if they have butter and not shortening.

The biggest one for me is, as already mentioned, salad dressing. I can't remember the last time I actually had purchased salad dressing in the house.

I made these egg yolk cookies and have been getting rave reviews. I didn't make the exact recipe, I added lemon rind and juice instead of the lemon flavoring, and 8 egg yolks instead of six, and butter instead of shortening. I also substitued a gluten-free flour mix (this is starting to sound like an epicurious review) and added lots of ground cloves to make lemon clove cookies. In any case, the cookies kind of remind me of the almond cookies you can get in Chinatown in terms of color, but they had great texture and flavor and kept for two weeks! To top it off I ended up with 24 little balls of dough in the freezer for craving time. I think this will be my go to egg yolk use-up recipe. Recipe

Not exactly shortbread, but melt in your mouth goodness are these Brazilian corn starch cookies: Biscoitos De Maizena (Sugar Cookies) Gluten Free Ingredients: 2 cup cornstarch 1 cup sugar 1 x egg 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2 stk of unsalted butter (that equals 12 tablespoons) Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift cornstarch, sugar and salt together, mix the egg and blend in the butter. Knead well. Let stand ten to fifteen minutes. You can either form these into balls, or roll them out and cut them shortbread style. Also, if the rice flour you are using seems too gritty, you may want to try to get some at an Asian market. It is ground much more finely and produces superior baked goods with less grittiness. If you wouldn't mind sharing, I would also love the gingersnap recipe, that's one of my husband's (who is GF) favorite cookies.

Great way of serving roasted cauliflower - add it to pasta puttenesca. The roasted cauliflower stretches everything a bit, and goes great with olives and anchovies. I think this is my new favorite pantry dinner.

A third vote for World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Lots of intresting stuff, with loads of clearly written recipes.

I generally am a cheese fondue lover, and I think that the best thing for cheese fondue is an enameled cast iron pot that will go from stovetop to table - it means only one cheesy pot to clean. I also believe that cheese fondue needs a large surface area for easy swirling and so that it stays at the right temperature, so I would recommend a separate pot for cheese/chocolate and broth/oil.

One book that I love is Jane Grigson's vegetable book. It's also an A-Z vegetable book, with loads of interesting information about the vegetables themselves and a diverse set of great recipes. I think it's out of print in the U.S. but available on Amazon UK.

Too late for a Thanksgiving dip, but a dip I like, and in fact made for Thanksgiving, is half mayo, half sour cream or strained yogurt blended quickly in the food processer with pitted Kalamata olives and capers - enough to make the dip chunky. It ends up kind of complex tasting, a little sweet, sour and salty.

The funniest moment of our Thanksgiving was when we were all sitting around talking about chores. Since I don't have a dishwasher, the topic turned to doing dishes, and everyone with a dishwasher was remarking how now that they had one they couldn't live without it. Then my mom remarked, "The only problem with a dishwasher is emptying it. I hate emptying the dishwasher. In fact, sometimes it's so boring that I have to stop in the middle and come back later to finish it." Somehow we all found this hilarious.

The 13 pound turkey held up! We have leftovers in the fridge and we didn't even eat the two 'extra' legs!! What was relly amazing was how many people didn't realize there was an extra leg on either side of the turkey. Even my mom who has roasted over 40 turkeys took a couple of minutes before she realized there was something off base. In any case, as far as I could tell, everyone had their fill.

Well all they had was butterball turkeys and we are eco-organic types so we added two large turkey legs and are now having a four legged turkey tomorrow. This puts us over a pound per adult so I feel a little better. I'm just not going to mention the size of the bird because I don't want people to feel like they have to hold back on Thanksgiving! If we run out, I guess it will just enter the family lore. I prefer the side dishes anyways, and we are having loads of those (I made my lasagne with an extra layer and and in a larger pan than I was planning so that should help.)

Maybe you could spare me your extra turkey ! Clearly we are in dire straits, I think I will have to send my husband on a turkey hunt tomorrow!!!

I just picked up our fresh turkey, which weighs in at 13 pounds, significantly less than I was expecting. Am I in trouble? I am expecting 15 adults (1 vegetarian) and 6 kids (all under age 7 and none eat very much) and we are also serving a squash lasagne (maybe I'll add an extra layer to that?) as well as the usual assortment of side dishes and appetizers. How big is your turkey? How many people are you planning on feeding? What's the smallest pound-to-person ratio that can reasonably be maintained?

My first year as a Thanksgiving hostess so I'm going pretty Midwestern traditional: Parmesan Crisps Veggies and Dip Relish Tray (Olives, Cherry tomatoes, Spiced Carrots, Dill Pickles, Sausage bites) Cheese and Crackers Cheese Goldfish (for the kids) Roasted salted nuts Fresh Free-range Turkey Giblit Gravy Butternut squash Lasagne (Vegetarian) Gluten-Free Stuffing with Sausage Vegetarian Stuffing with Mushrooms Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Kid Mashed Potatoes (No Garlic) Curried fruit Sweet potatoes 2 Unknown vegetable sides from a sister-in-law Creamed peas and pearl onions Cranberry sauce Salad Rolls Pumpkin Pie Key Lime Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookies I think that's everything!

Another untried suggestion, although this one comes very highly recommended from a number of sources (I can't wait to try it myself!). This one is a Brazilian bread recipe that uses only tapioca starch. It also includes eggs and cheese. The rolls from this recipe are pleasantly chewy and not at all grainy. You can find the recipe here: http://www.connceliac.com/

My husband has celiac disease, and we are still in the hunt for a great homemade pizza crust. We have had the best luck with premade frozen Ener-G crusts. Whole Foods also has a premade frozen crust that is not bad. I recently made the following recipe for gluten free naan bread and it was really good. I was thinking of trying it for pizza crust: http://www.celiac.com/st_prod.html?p_prodi...-42105139224.11 Good luck! I think it's really great that you are being so accomodating, and I am sure that the boy in question will be happy not to stand out from all the other kids.

I had a fabulous dining experience at Scylla. I eat out with a gluten-free dining crew about once a month because my boyfriend has celiac desease. We arrange the menu with the chef in advance, so it's not always their regular stuff. In any case, a couple of weeks ago we ate at Scylla, and everyone was extermely impressed with the quality of food and the presentation. I had beef tenderloin that was fabulous and came with sunckokes, potatoes and perhaps one other tuber. My boyfriend had skate wing which he also really enojoyed. We had a choice of two salads, one a deconstructed goat cheese and beets, and one with squid and fava beans. For desert, ice cream sampler (olive oil and thyme/ ginger/ chocolate chipotle/ salty peanut or a flourless chocolate cake with salty peanut ice cream. I would definately reccommend this place - very accomodating to those with special needs, and great food.

For those fans of Alton Brown/Cook's Illustrated macaroni and cheese, I was in a rush this weekend and made a surprisingly good quick version that I think will be my mac-n-cheese technique from now on. Rather than grate the cheese, I just dumped all of the sauce ingredients into a blender, including the cheese, cut in about 1 inch cubes, and blended it until the cheese was is very small chunks. Super easy, and the sauce turned out creamy and rich and not stringy, grainy or separated - just how I like it. Not only does it save grating, this way you don't need to do any alternating additions of cheese and evaporated milk.

I have had good luck luck with frozen morels. After soaking them in salt water to remove any critters, drain and trim them, them place them individually on a cookie sheet in the freezer and wait until they are frozen solid (~2 hours). Then pack in an air-tight container. They are super easy to use this way, and my boyfriend (who does all the work) thinks it's less trouble than drying. I love the taste of fresh morels, and these still taste like fresh 6 months later.

I think that the most effective way to get crunch is medium-low heat and slow, and not too much turning. It generally takes me about 45 minutes to get a really nice crunch, but by that time they are cooked all the way through.

I am interested in how this produce might work in baked goods - any thoughts? My boyfriend has celiac disease and can't eat wheat because of the gluten. It seems like this stuff might be a reasonable substitute for gluten in baked goods (and there is a growing market for this). Rice flour breads and other baked goods tend to be very crumbly. Will this stuff bond with proteins in grains (besides wheat, barley or rye)? will it hold up to baking textures?