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RSincere

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  1. Here's the bread. The shadows artfully hide the fact that it's high on the right side and low on the left side. The weird dimple is where I popped a bubble before putting it in the oven. I couldn't resist. I use the bread machine to knead the dough and for the first rise. Then I attempt to shape it, let it rise again, and cook it in the oven. I know about putting it in a rectangle and rolling it up, but one side always ends up higher than the other. Daniel gets the burger and banana on the left; I get the burger and yogurt. If it were lunch, I'd probably have cheese and lettuce and pickles and mayonnaise and fried onions, but at dinnertime I don't care, ketchup and mustard is fine with me. I made the burgers from the 1/2 lb of ground round left over from the meatballs, seasoned with Penzey's 4/S (their answer to Lawry's Seasoned Salt). I made them too thick--when I bit into mine, I realized it was cooked rare, even though I thought I cooked the life out of it. I love my burger rare, but I knew Daniel would freak out. And he did. I had to scrape the ketchup off of his and re-cook the life out of it, making sure to press out all the "blood" so that it would be nice and dry. But I had to make sure it didn't develop a crust, because the one time I seared a burger for him he informed me that his "taste bugs" don't like crust. He's really squeamish about meat. It's my fault, because he spent his formative years hearing me tell his daycare providers to be sure he didn't get any meat, because we're vegetarians. I didn't start eating meat until he was 6. It hasn't been an easy transition for him, and two years later the only meat he eats is hamburgers and chicken patties (but only the ones from Sysco that his school uses at hot lunch). How long does it take a frozen chicken to thaw in the refrigerator?
  2. At about 3:00, I had a glass of diet Sprite and a small handful of Skittles from an open bag I found in a drawer. Skittles are chewy fruit-flavored candies. Daniel and I have to run to Walmart because we are out of soymilk. Then I'm going to make us some burgers out of the 1/2 lb. ground round left over from the meatballs. We were out of bread, so I made a loaf this afternoon. I'll show you a picture of it so you can laugh. soba addict, I thought that 5 cups was a lot of broth. I'm going to read the recipe again to see if I did something wrong, but I'm pretty sure I followed it exactly. I had about a quart of soupy curry sauce left after Jason took the leftover meatballs to work. I wasn't about to throw it away, so I froze it in a Rubbermaid container. Anyone have any ideas what I can do with it? jgarner, yes, that is a digital scale. The funny thing is that I bought that several years ago for my guinea pigs' weekly weigh-ins. I do wash it after I use it for the pigs but now I also use it for food. TheFoodTutor, there is a recipe for bars or muffins on the side of the Malt-o-Meal box. I'm always meaning to try it. I got addicted to curries a few weeks ago, and Monica Bhide is to blame. I've had a lot of fun with her Everything Indian Cookbook, and I've been trying all sorts of recipes. I'd really, really like to try Thai food, but whenever I look at a Thai cookbook at the bookstore, I always see tons of recipes using lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. I don't know where to get those. There might be a place in Madison, but I don't know.
  3. Three inches of fresh ginger, five cloves of garlic, two serrano chiles (seeded and ribs removed), four tablespoons of water, ground to a paste in the blender.
  4. Lunchtime! "Kofta curry" or meatballs in a curry sauce. I made the meatballs last night so that they could kind of marinate in their own spices. It took me about an hour to make those meatballs. They have grated ginger, garlic, red onion, cilantro, and other spices, and I made them from ground round that was about to expire at the store. The tomatoes are the last fresh tomatoes for me until next year; they are red but don't smell like tomatoes, so I think we're done. The new thing about this recipe is that I am attempting meatballs for a second time. My first try was porcupine meatballs, and they were extremely greasy with half-cooked rice inside, and they fell apart, inedible. Here is my mise en place. I timed myself: it took exactly 45 minutes to get this together. The pot has beef broth in it, which I made by simmering 5 cups of water with several teaspoons of Penzey's beef base. Homemade stock is on my list of things to do, but I need a bigger pot. Here is the sauce before I added the beef broth and meatballs. I had to add the beef broth and simmer it for 20 min. before adding the meatballs and simmering those for 40 min. I did have simmering issues, so the sauce turned out very soupy... Here is my lunch! It's a lot of food, isn't it? We eat a huge lunch, but not a lot of different things in one meal. I generally make recipes that serve four; Jason gets the leftovers for his dinner at work, and I scrounge for dinner at home. I was hoping for a thicker sauce. The recipe says what to do if the sauce seizes up and gets too thick, but not what to do if it's too thin. I cranked the heat and boiled it an extra 10 minutes with the lid off, but we got hungry and decided to eat it as is. I was at a loss as to what to make for a side dish. I wanted to make a Pakistani rice dish, since this is a Pakistani curry, but I thought that the tomato paste and garlic in the rice might be overkill with the tomato sauce and TONS of garlic in the curry. So I made plain basmati rice, which is a favorite for us. All in all, the flavor was excellent, and I'd definitely make this again.
  5. lamb, I will be mentioning Daniel's meals, especially if they coincide with mine. He usually eats cereal with soymilk for breakfast, and he gets free hot lunch at school. So it's not too hard to make him his own dinner, because the things he likes are very easy to prepare. Daniel has been picky since birth--he never would take a bottle, not once. He had nothing but breastmilk, and never from a bottle, until he was 14 months old! I called myself the "all-night breastaurant." He just spit everything else out. He's been that way ever since. He is trying more foods now; he's a lot better than he used to be, but as for him eating everything put in front of him--I'll believe it when I see it! ms foodie, don't be too proud of me yet...you see, I switch to diet Sprite in the afternoon! I don't have any dietary restrictions except that sometimes the meds make me nauseous, and I can't drink alcohol. I went through a few weeks where the only thing I could stomach was macaroni salad. I hate macaroni salad now.
  6. Malt-o-Meal is a mixture of wheat farina and malted barley that is then flavored with sugar and fortified. The chocolate kind has cocoa in it. I also have maple flavor in my cupboard. They used to have apple cinnamon too, but I haven't seen that in a while. It's basically a hot porridge.
  7. laksa, as a woman of great refinement and taste, I feel qualified to assure you that diet Coke, in fact, goes with everything. The foam is because I had only poured about half the can in there, and I was in a hurry and didn't take care to avoid foaming. I am very intrigued by the idea of adding Malt-o-Meal to the diet Coke...hmmm.... Honestly, I have a very long entrenched diet Coke habit. It's been my main drink of choice since I was about 14. I have cut down from 96+ oz. a day to two 12-oz. cans a day, but one would have to pry those cans from my cold, dead fingers before I even consider quitting it altogether! It's a real security blanket for me. This is great--I remember reading your fascinating blog, and I hadn't heard of 90% of the foods you mentioned. Now it's my turn to baffle you! Jake, thank you so much. I often feel outclassed in every way when reading and posting on eGullet, so it means so much to me to know that you are out there reading and enjoying. I have no comment on that Pepsi product, however.
  8. Thank you, Carrot Top, eunny jang, and snowangel for the kind words! I can get produce at the last minute from Super Walmart, but it actually costs more than the produce at Woodmans in Madison, and I don't think it's as good. For example, the red bell peppers are $1.50 apiece at Walmart compared to $.79 at Woodmans, and the Walmart peppers smell strangely like gasoline or kerosene. If I want anything that's even slightly offbeat, I have to go to Madison. We do have a Farmer's Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, so sometimes I go there for great produce and pasture-raised meats. Lately, whenever I have gone there, there has been something going on downtown and the market is cancelled. I can't get lamb or goat or calves' liver, things like that, around here, unless I arrange in advance with a local farmer. We have a nice meat market in town that buys local cattle/pigs and slaughters them there. They gave Daniel and me a tour of their slaughter area and it was so clean and the workers are well-paid and care about their work, so I buy from them when I can, but they don't always have the cuts I want. Our library is really small. The good thing is that they are connected to Madison libraries through interlibrary loan, so I am able to order cookbooks that I want to borrow, and a Madison library usually has what I want, and they send it to our library.
  9. I eat breakfast because I take a ton of pills in the morning, and also because I am not that great with my timing when cooking, so lunch can happen anywhere between 11:00 and 1:00, and I don't snack in between. Chocolate Malt-o-Meal rocks! Sometimes I melt a little peanut butter in it. Today I made it with part water and part whole milk that was getting a little old in the fridge. I always add sugar and salt.
  10. Ahem. Is this thing on? I'm it! I have to admit that I'm very nervous about this week. Kris is a tough act to follow. A little background--I'll try not to bore you all with "too much information," but you might like to know where I'm coming from. I live in a small town in Wisconsin with my husband Jason and 7-year-old son Daniel. I used to be a court reporter and my family's main provider. A chronic illness has caused some major setbacks, and after a hospitalization in January my healthcare providers told me very bluntly that I needed to hang it up and stay home. That was a kick in the head. I spent a couple months sitting in a recliner, staring dully at Court TV (yeah, I'm real proud of that)...that is, until an acquaintance told me that I reminded him of Rachael Ray (don't ask) and I decided to turn on Food Network and check this chick out. Now, I had taught myself how to "cook" over the past 10 years, but my "cooking" revolved around Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup recipes with a side of canned corn. I was a vegetarian in the first 8 of these formative cooking years, so that limited me even more. I loved to read cookbooks, but they were all the "Working Mother's 5-Ingredient Recipes" types of cookbooks. I got hooked on Ray's show at first, watching in awe--you mean you're not supposed to chop your vegetables with a steak knife? Why does she put salt and pepper on everything while it's still cooking? What the hell is fennel? My Food TV watching started to extend to Sara Moulton's show, and others. Over time, it dawned on me that I could learn to cook--I mean, cook with fresh ingredients, cook complicated dishes, cook food that was really, really impressive and not just edible and filling. I could perhaps try out recipes that I used to skip over, recipes that were "too hard" or "too weird." And it might even be good! I might even be good at it! I realized that I may be limited by health and lack of funds, but I have been blessed in a backwards way--with lots of time. So here I am, several months later. I've been introduced to so many foods: capers, shallots, jalapenos, Kalamata olives, chorizo, fresh herbs, curries, swiss chard, fresh tuna, shrimp, things that you all probably consider very basic, not exotic. I am savoring my novice status, where everything is fresh and exciting to me, and I don't want to become jaded. Jason is enjoying my cooking. He doesn't really get into food like I do, but he'll eat anything--and eat it fast, which is a good trait when my experimentation doesn't turn out so well. Daniel is another story; he has his own menu, and I don't know if I'll get into that with this foodblog. I went through a period of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants menu planning, but I found that it was very difficult to keep within a budget that way, so I've gone back to selecting a menu. This week I'm going to be making something from one of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks, several selections from the new CIA cookbook, and more--I might even roast my first chicken. Each recipe represents something I've never done before or eaten before; I try to plan meals like this whenever possible. You will see where budgetary concerns come into play--especially when you see pictures of my ratty kitchen equipment. I'm acquiring nice things little by little, though, and that's fun too because I'm still at the point where a new Oxo vegetable peeler makes a huge difference. In other words, I'm easily amused! Hope you all are amused this week as well!
  11. Are those good? I saw them at our small local bookstore and was intrigued. This bookstore owner is really bad at choosing cookbooks, so I assumed they were crap.
  12. I pulled some leftovers out of the freezer today and was faced with another of my culinary crimes. Baked chicken and leek "risotto." Gawd, it was awful, gummy, disgusting, with a hint of underdone. It was the second Donna Hay recipe I tried that didn't work (for me). Soon I'm going to try risotto the real way.
  13. Oh, that's comforting. I'll have to try this. I'll have to run back and forth from the computer room to the kitchen! Right now I'm saving up for a steel so I can hone the knife I have now. Those other knives are definitely on my list, but I have to wait. It's okay if I cook those thighs with the backbone on them, right? I mean, the ones I have marinating right now?
  14. Oh, crap. Oh, crap. I was supposed to cut that backbone thing off?! I've got these thighs marinating in yogurt right now, complete with backbone...I couldn't figure out how to get it off. All I did was stick my finger in behind it and dig out all the red organ-y bits I could find. But thank you, Katherine--that's really helpful! What complicates things for me is that I have only one knife, a Wusthof Santoku knife, and I baby it. I'm afraid to use it to cut through bone because I don't want to wreck it or dull it.
  15. I just saw this. That's not how I've understood that word for the past 10 years. My brother used to be homeless (don't ask) and he traveled and associated with a large kind of an earthy, vegetarian, hippie-style group. The way he explained "freegan" to me back then was that it was a person who ate a vegan diet, unless they were offered free food that wasn't vegan, in which case they would eat the free food.
  16. Frankwiches. Sliced hot dogs mixed with a can of Campbell's tomato soup, some pickle relish, some chopped onion, some mustard, a bunch of American cheese, spread on toasted hamburger buns which are then wrapped in foil and baked for about 15-20 min. to heat through and melt the cheese. My mom made this for us when we were kids, and I still have the 1970s Better Homes and Gardens Meat Stretcher cookbook that has the recipe. It's awesome. Cheetos, the puffy kind.
  17. I don't know if this counts, but I tend to really maul whole chicken legs when I attempt to separate them into thighs and drumsticks. Tonight I tried it again, with the complication of skinning/trimming the chicken as well (I have problems with that too). It took me an hour to separate and skin FOUR whole chicken legs. Also, I was imagining people from eGullet looking on in horror at my clumsy, unsafe knife handling while I was at it. And some of those poor drumsticks were in shreds by the time I was done with them. I haven't attempted to take apart a whole chicken yet. I was contemplating trying that next week.
  18. RSincere

    Dinner! 2004

    Percy, I have The Everything Indian Cookbook and she does have a butter chicken recipe in there! I don't know if it's the same one she used above, though. I haven't tried that one yet but her other chicken curries are good.
  19. Thank you, Andie! That's a really good idea. Anything to keep me more organized/less of a scatterbrain is good. Rachel
  20. Honestly, what I get the most crap for is my coke habit. I mean, my diet Coke habit. It's been my main drink of choice for the past 16 years. I know people who have told me they haven't seen me without a can of diet Coke in my hands. One older lady in a choir I was in threatened to put a rubber nipple on my diet Coke bottle! I know it's all chemicals and bad for you and caffeine and blah blah blee blee bling blah. Otherwise, I think it grosses out my fat conscious parents/sister-in-law that I eat turkey skin at Thanksgiving. And I'm not exactly svelte.
  21. Two more. Remove the leave-in thermometer from my loaf of bread with bare hands. Thermometer reads 192 degrees. Forget to pull my long hair back. Lean wayyyyy down over a low pot on a gas burner to hear if my rice is simmering.
  22. I definitely use recipes and love to try new recipes. I am more "by the book" when it comes to a cuisine that is unfamiliar to me. If it's a recipe for a food that I am familiar with, or something I can imagine easily, I will be okay with substituting one vegetable for another or throwing in a handful of cheese or doubling the mushrooms or whatever. Of course, when baking, I follow recipes. The only things I have been able to bake successfully (not out of a box) are quick breads and muffins, and I make my own bread but use a bread machine for kneading/proofing. I don't do cookies, cakes from scratch, pie crusts...not from a lack of trying. I often check Cooking with Google if I have a few ingredients I want to use together. Then I check the results for a recipe that has been well-reviewed (because I can't always tell from looking if it's a bad recipe) and one where I have most of the ingredients or can substitute. If I want to be creative and make something on my own, I still look up similar recipes, especially if it involves a meat. I was a vegetarian most of my life and have only been cooking with meat for about two years, so I don't really have it memorized how long it would take to bake chicken thighs at 350 degrees, or how I would best cook this chuck roast. I'll take the time, temperature, and method of the recipe I find into consideration and then make up my own recipe. But I do that the least often. I most often follow recipes. And I love them, because I am somewhat scatterbrained in the kitchen, and slow and ponderous when it comes to prep work, and easily overwhelmed if I'm making two dishes at once that both require several additions, etc. at different times. I need that recipe to keep me in check because I tend to forget ingredients or steps.
  23. I'll add my two! The Everything Indian Cookbook by Monica Bhide, have you heard of her? And I couldn't help it, I got another book, From Curries to Kebabs by Madhur Jaffrey. I don't know if I get to count that as an Indian cookbook because she also includes recipes from Asia and Africa etc. (from the spice trail). But she is Indian and there are many Indian recipes in the book so I think it should count! My next purchase will probably be Monica's other book...and I'm embarrassed but I can't think of the name of it right now.
  24. I'm with bloviatrix. I'm not even five feet tall, and my hands are very small. My husband never seems to be home when I run into jar problems, and I get frustrated easily! I have been known to wander outside in search of neighbors, strangers, whoever. Once when I lived in an apartment building I accosted a UPS guy who was delivering in our building. One look at me, HUGELY pregnant with a tear-streaked face and a recalcitrant pickle jar (how cliche) and he knew enough not to laugh. Oh, and my rubber jar opener was red and from Aid Association for Lutherans. Every now and then it surfaces, but only when I don't need it.
  25. Wow. Some awesome ideas! I knew it was a good idea to post... I like the Thai idea, and I do have fish sauce AND limes, and red curry paste. I'm not really confident enough to just make something up without a recipe as guideline giving me a basic outline, but I can easily Google and find something similar to what you're describing. I was desperate to use the chorizo, leeks, and two of the summer squash TODAY because the chorizo wouldn't last much longer and frankly, the leeks and squash were getting to the point where I could have been forgiven for tossing them. But instead I sauteed the chorizo in the bottom of my pressure cooker, tossed in the leeks and squash sliced thin, and 2 lb potatoes cut in 1/2 inch cubes, with some chicken broth, water, and a bay leaf, cooked under pressure 5 minutes, then added 1/2 cup heavy cream at the end. It was a weird hybrid idea I had between the classic potato/leek soup, and the Portugese chorizo/kale/potato soup. And the result wouldn't win any prizes, but it tasted fine for just us and I felt virtuous for not wasting all that food. Reese, yes, I'm still cooking! I've been plugging away at it, and some things have turned out great, and others have...well, taught me something about what doesn't work. I like the Indian curry idea you mentioned. I'm learning a lot about Indian food because I bought Monica's book, and even though a few of my efforts haven't worked (probably my fault) I have fallen in love with the flavors of the cuisine, and some curries have been amazing. The only Indian cooking I have ever eaten, though, is my own, so if I'm doing it wrong, I wouldn't know! I'm still going to try that layered dish, love the Pastitsio (sp) idea. That will be tomorrow. I'll use the zucchini, some canned tomatoes, some of the green peppers, some potatoes, I'm soaking some dried beans tonight. I have about 1/2 lb of bacon I need to use up, would that work in there? Don't laugh! I also have a half-package of cream cheese starting to get hard...hmmmmm... Arroz con Pollo the next day! Thanks for the rice pudding idea. I cooked the leftover rice with the coconut milk, a cinnamon stick, vanilla, a handful of dates and wayyyyyyyy too much sugar and had it for dinner tonight. I couldn't eat it all because I really oversugared it. Once again, I learned something, though. I was thinking of perhaps blanching/freezing some green pepper strips, or even roasting/freezing them. I don't use them often anyway because I just don't like them much. Think that would work?
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