deltadoc

I've got one from William Sonoma. I wish I never got it. Doesn't cut well, the blade is chewed up from very little use and has only been used with potatos. If this is for a serious knowledgeable cook, I'd buy a nice chef's knife rather than a mandoline. Just my opinion. doc

Try substituting one of your 3 lb round steaks for the sirloin tip in this recipe: http://hometown.aol.com/debjerky/cookbook/Garbeef.html doc

Turkey Roulade Debone a fresh turkey. Double butterfly the breasts and pound them flat under waxed paper. (The rest of the carcass, legs, wings, etc. go into a roaster and I brown them good. The wife takes all the meat off, and then I use the carcass and remaining bones and stuff, and make turkey stock and can that for later use). The stuffing is mushroom (portabella and crimini), bacon, shallots, and prosciutto) Panko bread crumbs and last years canned turkey stock. Layer the stuffing on the pounded out breasts and roll them up and tie with strings or use fowl clips (or even a sharp stick for kabobs). Roasted Garlic Rosemary Mashed Baked potatoes Corn on the cob Cauliflower Soup Cranberry Sauce Fresh baked Dinner rolls and thats about it!~ doc

I make raspberry puree every summer when they're ripe. Squeeze them through a chinois (small hole size), and collect the puree. Then I boil the puree and add the juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon, and some sugar until it still tastes just tart and doesn't make you pucker like alum! The result is then canned to have on hand. Raspberry Vinagrette 2 TBSP EVOO 2 TBSP Aged Balsamic 2 TBSP Raspberry Puree (above) 1 Heaping TBSP Dijon Mustard 1 Heaping TBSP Dark Brown Sugar 2 TBSP fine dice Red Onion, Shallots, Leeks, or Scallions Pinch of Salt Lots of Fresh ground Black (or White) Pepper. I whish it all, and if it isn't thick enough, I drizzle in a bit more EVOO until its the consistency and taste I'm looking for. (You, too, can adjust the seasonings to taste). Sometimes, I substitute 1 TBSP of Red wine Vinegar for 1 TBSP of the Balsamic. When I toss the salad with the vinagrette, I add lots of grated Parmesan cheese (not Kraft!). doc

In my experience, a peppercorn steak is a steak with cracked peppercorns pressed into it. (Whether you press the steak on the peppercorns or press the peppercorns into the steak, I see no difference. The peppercorns become embedded in the steak's outer surface). Steak with peppercorn sauce means a regular steak with a peppercorn sauce. I don't think I've ever come across a "Peppercorn steak with peppercorn sauce". That would be like overkill, imho. doc

Homemade ketchup using fresh vine-ripened red tomatoes from the farmer's market, and following the recipe in Joy of Cooking. (You can get all the whole spices including whole mace, not easy to find, at Penzey's). Works for me, and we've been doing this for years. Everybody at work wants to try my ketchup, so I've made extra big batches and can it, and give pint jars away! doc

Buy another cast iron pan. I assume your oven has two shelves in it to accommodate two pans at once. Afterwards, you can deglaze one pan into the other, and make the sauce for all steaks in one pan. doc

I don't know about other states, but here the point of asking if "everything is ok" is where your obligation to pay for it comes in if you say its ok. Frankly, I've only once in my life walked out of a restaurant without paying because the food and service was terrible. The waiter actually got the boss and they both accosted me at the doorway. He wanted my name and telephone # and gave me some sort of business card of his saying I could eat free next time. We never went back, and the restaurant was out of business next time we drove by. doc

Since I've been cooking for nearly 50 years, I get tired of the same old same old. Therefore, I've tried different things. Sometimes on purpose, other times because I'm making do with what I have on hand. For dry white wine, I use a 15 year aged Dry Zack wine. We have several cases of it in the basement which we bought while it was still available. So I use that white wine a lot. We love the flavor of it (obviously!). Sometimes, I have some red wine leftover (the dregs as it were), and then I'll sometimes use that to deglaze. Very occasionally, I use some purified water to deglaze if no wine is available. I don't do that very often! I tend to stay away from heavy cream. It's like eating ice cream without the sugar and coldness. But it loaded with fat. I make my own stocks, my own Espagnole sauce, and from those in combination, I make my own demi-glace (half-glaze). The process of making demi-glace removes almost, if not all, traces of fat. Then the only fat in my sauce is the pan drippings and some additional butter for the shallots or onion. The sauce is so good, and has little fat per serving, so I say, "Why not do it?" But once in a while, we have some heavy cream to use up, so once I even mixed the cream in with a demi-glace to see what happens. The cream pretty much overwhelmed the delicate nature of the demi-glace, and I also ended up with a LOT more sauce than I needed. An interesting trick I picked up somewhere was to crush the peppercorns while they are in a container with cream. I read that the burst of flavor from the crushing process would be sure to be captured by the cream. Frankly, it was hard and messy to do (cream tends to splatter when crushing black peppercorns), and I didn't detect any additional "burst of flavor" that the cream supposedly was picking up that I would have missed otherwise. So, the point is, once you get some technique down, armed with a general sense of food, how to cook it, and the blending of flavors, experiment! doc

Baskin Robbins had a flavor called "Tutti Frutti" that I had to pick up 40 containers of for a big party at the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club in the summer of 1967. That was some fine ice cream! There was plenty leftover from the party, so we club house crew got to eat as much of it as we wanted. Already paid for and everything! Love to see Haagen Daz do a rendition of it! doc

Brandy or distilled brandy (Cognac) is good! But like most things, they should be good tasting to use in a sauce. I use white wine and savor the demi-glace, sometimes I use cognac (hennesey's) when I use cream. I wasn't sure if the original poster was well versed in cooking, so I didn't want to waste good cognac if the sacue technique wasn't quite there yet! doc

I would use the cast iron pan. Heat it up as hot as you can. S&P your steaks and rub with a little Olive Oil. Throw in the pan (pan should be seasoned, but has no oil in it). Let fry on one side without trying to move it for 3 minutes. Shake the pan by its handle (use potholders), and the steak(s) should break free on their own. Turn steaks over, and sear for 3 more minutes. Take whole pan and steaks and put in 400-450 F preheated oven for about 5-8 minutes for med. rare depending on thickness of steak. Remove pan from oven. Remove steaks and put on a plate and cover with alum foil or a pot lid. Add some butter to the cast iron pan on the stove now. Add 2-3 TBSP of chopped shallot or red onion. When shallots (onion) are just turning clear, deglaze with some dry wine (red or white). Add 2 TBSP of green peppercorns that have been slightly crushed (or use Black or a combination of both). Add heavy cream. Reduce to consistency you are looking for. Salt to taste. Note: Instead of cream, try using a nice cup of demi-glace. Follow same recipe instructions. doc

First time I heard that Sodium Nitrate is also called saltpeter. Down on the farm, saltpeter was always potassium nitrate. What you have in your bottle is Technical Grade. If it was Reagent grade the label would say so. Doubt very much you'd ever get reagent grade in a pharmacy no matter what the year. I never heard of blackpowder containing sodium nitrate but it was always potassium nitrate. However, if I'm to believe wikipedia, it says that less frequently sodium nitrate is used in gunpowder instead of potassium nitrate. I still would be hesitant to use it in food unless it was FDA approved for use in humans. To each his own. doc

Dick, Please correct me if I am wrong, but technical and reagent grade chemicals are not FDA approved for human consumption. Therefore if you are using Reagent grade NaNO3 would you not be violating FDA protocol? A further observation which I hope you will correct me if I am wrong, is that after 20 years the shelf life of that NaNO3 has long since expired, has it not? Just curious... doc

I think you're on to something here. Somewhere along the way, the chocolate in M&M's changed. I'm thinking around the early 70's?? I remember saving up dimes and nickles and buying a big pound bag of them when I was a kid and thinking "YUCK, something is different" -therese ← Actually, you're quite right!! M&M's started putting peanuts in the Plain M&M's to "up" the protein content. It was about the early 1970's when Food Co-ops were springing up in all the old hippie communities, and everyone was getting into eating food that had real food value. A lot of people didn't believe me, but I showed 'em the ingredients on the bag of Plain M&M's and by golly gee willikers, there is was "peanuts". Obviously ground up so to differentiate them from the "Peanut M&M's". doc

I just now remembered that there was some company out in NY that made gourmet TV dinners. I bought several of the filet mignon. It had a little cup of real bearnaise sauce that you had to take special care to reconstitute as it thawed. The filet was mighty small, but also tender and delicious. I remember that they weren't on the market very long, and now that I think about it, I kind of miss them! Now that I think about it a little more, I remember back in about 1971-2 time frame, there were Libbyland TV dinners for children. There'd be a little hot dog or a little hamburger, usually some sort of chocolate pudding, a drink mix for your milk, and they were on sale many times for $0.19 a piece. We ate a lot of those before I found my first job out of college! doc

Yeah, I remember them. I liked the sauce so much, that I ate the little can and left the big can of beans. My wife couldn't keep up with eating the beans, and I always thought there wasn't enough of the sauce for the big can anyways! doc

The shrimp they sell at Byerly's in the Twin Cities is flown in frozen from New Zealand daily. Tastes good to me. Only once in awhile they're be a couple that cook up translucent and they smell like they washed up on shore. The rest are always firm, whitish pink, and sweet tasting. Anybody know if New Zealand shrimp are wild or farmed? doc

Try this, we really like it: Peppercream Dressing 1 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp. kosher salt 1/2 tbsp. cracked pepper 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder 2 tbsp. soy sauce 1/4 c. red wine vinegar 2 tbsp. lemon juice 1/4 c. finely minced onion 1/2 tbsp. finely minced parsley 1/2 c. buttermilk 3/4 c. salad dressing 3/4 c. mayonnaise 1 1/2 c. shredded Parmesan cheese Combine sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder and soy sauce. To this mixture add vinegar, lemon juice, onion and parsley. Blend together, then add buttermilk, salad dressing, mayonnaise and Parmesan. doc

And I forever will miss Nesbitt's Orange soda!~ doc

Kris~ sometimes I just drizzle in a very small amount of honey (I HATE sweet tomato sauces ) to just take the edge off. The ketchup idea sounds good, too ! ← I use brown sugar to take the edge off, and follow Lidia Bastianiach's recommendation to "fry" the tomato paste in the "hot spot" she's always referring to in her sauce pot. I think Fat Clemenza also talked about frying it so it doesn't stick. Anyway, it works for me, and despite those from Italy that have said they don't use paste, Lidia is from Italy and she uses it a lot. I've known many Italians that do. Perhaps its a regional Italian thing. I don't know, but I know what tastes good. I wouldn't ever use ketchup or anything with corn syrup in it. I cut out all processed foods and commercial colas (and thereby all corn syrup) frpm my diet and over 1 year period of time, lost over 100 lbs. without doing anything else. doc

Thursday night in Rochester, MN my wife and I both had a spinach salad with a side cup of lukewarm bacon dressing. The next morning I felt just the slightest bit nauseas but didn't hurl. I did however have diarhea 5-7 times in less than 1 hour. That was Friday, and I feel fine today. However, my wife, who has a slower metabolism than I woke up Saturday about 2-3am and hurled three times in a row, and had diarhea twice. Now she feels fine. Shes going back to Mayo tomorrow anyway, so she can ask her gastroenterologist. But how does one know if it really was the spinach? I confirmed with the restaurant manager by email that the spinach they served was from River Ranch which is on the list of recalls. Does E Coli go away that quickly? How do I know if I am going to suffer kidney damage or something? doc (how I wish I really was an MD now!)

Sally cookies Hunt's Skillet Lasagna Dinners 3 Musketeers made the way they were in the 50's Milky Ways made the way they were in the 50's Coca-cola made the way it was in the 50's Pepsi made the way it was in the 50's Hostess Cupcakes made the way they were in the 50's with real whipped cream Come to think of it, almost anything that used to be made in the 50's that is still available isn't made the same anymore! doc

Pretty much everything I make from scratch now: pizza dough pizza sauce hamburger sausage stock demi-glace glace de viande All of the mother sauces and any minor sauces that I need soups tahini tahini sauce hummous tabouli schwarma (gyros) stuffed grape leaves falafel kabob marinara spaghetti sauce lasagna sauce ricotta creme fraiche pickle relish ketchup vinagrettes salad dressings mayonaise sourdough bread whole wheat bread starting with whole wheat berries regular breads hamburger buns mustards worcestershire sauce About the only thing I still buy is Hoffman House brand Shrimp sauce. I've just never been able to make a shrimp sauce myself as good as theirs! doc

Malawry, I think they're called egg-beaters. They have this little handle that you turn round and round, and the beater blades can go right into the liquid hot or cold! Sorry, couldn't resist saying that! I have the Bamix professional model, and I use it for smoothing out my marinara sauce. It really works well, and has two speed buttons. I also use it for smoothing out califlower soup, although sometimes I kind of like the occasional little piece of celery or onion or cauliflower in the soup for some texture. But then other times I like the smooth creaminess of a Bamix-ed soup. I also used it with its accompanying plastic jar for mayonnaise and it was the best and thickest I ever made. Never been able to get that kind of consistency and thickness ever before. And best of all, you can pop on the lid and keep the mayo in the fridge. doc