Eden

the other trick besides the blender, if it gets to hard, is to just let it melt completely and then refreeze it.

did anyone else notice the truffle recipe? marinate one-inch cubes of truffle in oil & lemon juice, then skewer and grill them. can you imagine?

Merci encore Lucy! I just read this thread & find it really inspiring. I am trying to get back to feeling healthy. I will always be a zaftig girl, I'm OK with that, but after too much inactivity because of a back injury I have gone up beyond where I feel comfortable in my skin, so it's time to work back down to a more healthy me... The funny thing is that I looked into Montignac once years and years ago, when pretty much the whole plan in detail was available online, but I'd just come off an awful Atkins-oid diet that had thrashed my health & was scared to do anything lo-carby again after that. I've since discovered that while no-carb=BAD, controlled-carb does work well for me, and after reading your accounts, I'm thinking Montignac may fit well with my current lifestyle. As long as I can still enjoy wine, and cooking and dining with my friends that's the important thing... I need to go find the book & read more details to be sure, but in the meantime I'm keeping some of the basic principals in mind when planning my meals: bresaola w/light cream cheese for brekks (yumm!), and I made a variation of your lentils for dinner last night only problem with those is I want to eat too much beacuse they taste SO fabulous! So did you ever get a workable nutella-like recipe? you mentioned planning to try, but that was around the time you started posting less frequently...

I think that the StirChef Saucepan Stirrer can happily accomodate you. ← I tried one of these & it's too small & too short for most of the pots in my kitchen - who makes risotto in a 1 qt pot? Not to mention it didn't seem like it was a very strong motor, so if you were using it on something thick I don't know how well it would do. I need the industrial version of this, but then of course I'd also need a wireless monitor to remind me that there was still a pot on the stove or I'd walk away start reading eGullet and burn something (like say my breakfast this morning )

Mamster, What (roughly) are the variations from their recipe to yours? And why did you make those changes? Not that I think CI is inviolate, just wondering what end result you were looking for that inspired differences... edited for stupid typos...

Not sacrelige, but basically pointless, because the dish is totally out of balance without them. so you don't think that you could sub-in say almonds for a similar effect? Or perhaps a blend of almonds & cashews? No it's not going to be exactly the same, but could it be a plausible flavor approximation once it was cooked in?

I've been meaning to learn how to make Pad Thai for-just-ever, so thanks for the impetus! I skimmed through chrisamirault's links above & have two quick questions: 1) A couple of posts in there implied that meat/chicken pad thai is not authentic. I'm not able to eat fish or seafood, so I was initially thinking about doing a carnivore's Pad Thai, but would it be better just to go vegetarian? If meat is authentic, what would be the most appropriate? 2) can anyone confirm (the original poster wasn't certain) that vegetarian fish sauce is called Nuoc Mam Chay? Thanks, this will be fun! E

coconut icecream!!! you just mix this stuff 1:1 with whole milk (or rice dream if you have dairy intolerant friends visiting) and a Tbsp of rum, and throw it in the ice-cream maker

Lucy you are indeed an inspiration on many levels. Both for specific foods: I just tried "french breakfast" for the first time, since they had lovely looking fresh radishes at the farmers market this weekend: Zingy! - Who needs coffee? And since I went back to read all of your fist blog as well, I have a box of strawberries waiting to be stuffed with the creme fraiche/chocolate ganache from your first blog and your creamy rabbit dish back there reminded me of a creamy chicken dish I love, so I made that as well. Also for just being more mindful of the pleasures of cooking & eating: yes my potato gratin WILL taste better/make me happier if I take the time to arrange the slices rather than just tossing them in at random... Oh and I'm going to look into rubber flooring since we need to replace the ugly linoleum in our kitchen one of these days

we made a lovely potato gratin last night with just the cream/stock mix, and a dollop of leftover Pepper Boursin cheese. Will have to try the other suggestions next time. FYI should you make Passover Chicken & want to try one of these suggestions with the leftover cream/stock you will want to defat it first, or your dish wil be WAY to greasy. Fortunately when cooled, the chicken fat rises to the top of the dairy fat. must pull out McGee & find out why it's lighter...

My second cassoulet batch this year was a mix of soissons & great white northerns and the soissons freeze beautifully, but the GWNs did indeed do a mealy disintigrating thing that made the whole dish less appetizing. I will remember next year to use only the big hardy beans like soissons & tarbais.

Not only were they the norm when I was growing up in Calif, they are the more common choice here in Seattle as well. Perhaps it's a west coast thing primarily? I agree they are really flimsy and a gawdaful color, but with so much positive association from years of donuts, cakes, eclairs etc, they still make me smile whenever I see them

so do they keep running around after you bite their heads off? bleeding chocolate sauce everywhere? and in the spirit of actual inquiry; are these hollow inside like a chocolate bunny & then the eggs just rattle around inside their tummies? or do they perhaps have a nest/basket as part of the mold?

Thanks everyone for all the great ideas here! I will pass them along to my friend as well. ladyyoung98 figured out what we often do with it at Passover, which is just pour it over the mashed potatoes, but since I did this impromptu there were no potatoes available. Chicken Ice-cream wins the creativity prize but I'll probably actually make a gratin or maybe the pasta or risotto or... (Off to the farmers market in a bit, we'll see what they have that might work with it) Sandra: I leave the skins on and then people can pull the skin off if they choose to, or not. Here's the Recipe, such as it is. Take as many chicken thighs (skin on, bone in), as you want, put in a baking dish, cover with cream just to the tops of the thighs (they can peek out a bit, that's OK) Sprinkle with paprika if you feel like it. Bake for @ 50 mins at 350. It should be pretty & bubbly, with golden brown areas on top of the cream when it's done.

Nor had I, but apparently they're pretty widespread. Per Alan Davidson's wonderful Oxford Companion to Food, Collards are a member of the Kale family, and the name derives from "coleworts" which in turn derives from the Greek word for brassicas which is Cole . It's all brassica to me edited because I can't use a keyboard today...

Let me preface this by saying; Yes, I know how un-kosher it is... On a whim I just made my friend's "Passover chicken" for lunch, which is literally just chicken thighs baked in heavy cream. Well actually we do sometimes sprinkle it with at little token paprika just because she got tired of people not beleiving you could acheive that amazingly rich flavor with only chicken & cream So anyway, having just made a small batch I have about 2 cups left in the pan of heavy cream that's been baked with chicken juices & I'm just sure there's some brilliant idea out there for how to use it up. It tastes way to good to just pour down the drain! The irony of using it to make biscuits would not be lost on me, but I'm sure there are other options. No seafood please - I'm allergic - but otherwise I'm wide open to new ideas... Thanks.

So what is the little round item to the right side of the knife block? As a tribute to your writing and photography Lucy, I am sitting here reading your blogs, absolutely famished & being made hungrier by the second, but refuse to get up from the computer to go find food because I'm too absorbed in eating vicariously And just when I had sworn off reading blogs because they suck up so much of my time, I not only found & had to read this, but go back & read all of the first one as well!

My adventures in the meat department are not so wide, cetainly not compared to Divina - Wow! just some blood sausage, tripe (amazingly well prepared, but I just can't abide the texture) and snails - bleh! I think, however, that I can top almost anybody in the just-not-natural scary dessert from italy department: on our last trip we spent a night in La Spezia. Unfortunately we had to waste a few hours there doing laundry, and. since someone was smoking in the laundromat. Nicole & I guarded the dirty socks while the husbands went off to fetch Gelato. (Bill is highly allergic to smoke, but has an instinct for finding gelaterie that is quite impressive) They returned some while later and Bill offered me a cup with the most scary shade of electric blue sorbetto you could ever hope to find. The flavor? AQUA VELVA!!!! (and yes that's what it tasted like ) Now bear in mind that on a previous trip we actually reached a goal of tasting 100 different flavors between us, which as you can imagine took some work and meant trying literally every new flavor we came across, so we are NOT gelato wusses, but this was without a doubt the weirdest, scariest gelato flavor I have ever tasted

While I reccomend that you go there, the Queen Mary's afternoon tea has some issues. First of all, it's a bit pricey, and their reservations are very dicey - they lose them, they make you wait 30 minutes even if they admit you have them etc., plus some of the decor is just too cutesy - I don't much care for Calico bunnies & teddy-bears with my tea... But all of that aside they make THE BEST afternoon tea I've found in Seattle: excellent quality on the foods, both savory and sweet, and good portion sizes. the British Pantry is great for supplies, (bakewell tarts, yummy cheeses, shortbread, teas etc) and the attached restaurant "Neville's" does a nice simple afternoon tea, as well as good british food for lunch/dinner (I loves my Bangers and mash! ) I had afternoon tea in the Georgian room at the Four Seasons about 5 years ago, and while the space was lovely, and the food was tasty, the portions were so small that we literally had to go get something to eat when we left if they've improved on this it would be a lovely break in an afternoon of touristing about the downtown.... I'm told that Elizabeth & Alexander's up in Bothell does a nice afternoon tea, but haven't checked it out yet. If it's still in business avoid a place in the U-district called "High Tea" at all costs. They're actually some kind of teriyaki joint that lies & says they do afternoon tea, (you have to make reservations & everything) but it's really just a sliced up safeway danish & some fruit with a cup of tea in a room that reeks of sesame oil Oh one last warning re Queen Mary, because it's the best game in town you'll probably go there so you should know that they only serve afternoon tea from 2pm to like 4pm, but will accept your reservations for outside those hours even when you specificy "afternoon tea" but then will refulse to serve your tea when you arrive... Being a tea junkie is just plain hard in this town

Hot button for me too. I am terminally prompt, always allow a little nudge time for there to be a traffic problem etc. If you say be there at 7, I will be there at 7, not 7:10, never 7:55, at 7:00, because I would never want to make someone wait for me (especially when it's for a meal!). So I am hurt & frustrated by my friends who cannot treat me with the same courtesy, or at least not be chronically 20+ minutes late, all the more so when I know that they can & will be on time when something is important enough to them (work, planes etc) Unlike thefoodtutor & emmapeel however I don't feel that I have enough friends to ditch those I have left lightly. (I've done a lot of trimming in the last few years so there's not a lot of fluff left) The worst offender remining in my life is otherwise a very good friend, the kind that would help you hide bodies and brings you sparkly toys & pop-tarts when you're sick - not someone I want to cut out of my life at all, but I do wish I could convey how egregious I find the anti-clock behavior. Maybe I should steal her keys

Great photo Brooks - now we know what happened to the feathers from all these chickens we've been frying So I had my chicken fry with mixed results this evening. Recipe-wise I tried for a balance between Alton & Aunt Minnie/Martha. I mostly used Alton's instructions, but I added in the tabasco to my marinade, and put the flavorings into my flour mix per Aunt Minnie. I also had a second batch marinated in goat-yoghurt rather than buttermilk to accomodate a dear friend who has problems with cow-milk, but using basically the same proportions of spicing etc. as the buttermilk. Interestingly the chicken marinated in yoghurt came out much better, much less salty than the Buttermilk. (why???) also a bit richer and tangier in flavor. Here's my staging areas set up (raw hot & finished) per Alton's directions, with the crisco about to be melted. Lacking the official cast iron chicken frying skillet I started in my two leCreuset Dutch ovens. The yoghurt batch was cooked in the smaller LeC and cooked exactly to time and came out golden & lovely, just a little trouble with sticking to the bottom of the pot on the second side. I had some real temperature control issues with the larger LeC and eventually because the oil was clearly burnt) ditched it for a large heavy bottomed teflon skillet with much happier results. What surprised me the most with the large LeC was that when I put in my chicken I had a temperature spike UPWARD rather than downward!!! Because of this, the chicken ended up browning much too quickly & had to finish in the oven, it was just OK. The subsequent batches from the skillet were just fine... here's a shot midfry... None of the batches came out greasy even the overcooked ones, I was very happy with that & will definately try this again, possibly bowing to peer pressure & acquiring an official cast iron chicken frying skillet next time. Oh and I heartily reccomend having two thermometers if you're going to cook in two pans. Switching back & forth was awkward. Unfortunately, between playing with hot oil & talking to my guests I didn't remember to take photos of the finished chicken till after dinner, so here 's what the last of the buttermilk chicken looked like - not beautiful I'm afraid, but still tasty. I'm looking forward to eating it cold standing up with the fridge door open I also made Alton's Southern Biscuits, which although he doesn't say so, would prefer to be cooked in a round cake pan to help keep them tall, but were quite good and still fluffy in spite of some "middle age spread" Our friends brought a very nice coleslaw, which I'm normally not so keen on, but this was GOOD, very vinegary, not too cabbagey tasting... Bill's experimental "Cream of Coconut" sorbet refused to freeze (too high a sugar content) so we drizzled it over my mini chocolate bundt cakes in lieu of icing & they were perfect together! with many glasses of Kir & good friends to chat with we had a lovely evening in spite of some minor problems with the chicken. Thanks everyone for the support through this - these cook-offs are such great learning experiences! oh and please forgive that I could not trim the photos, for some reason image gullet didn't like the cropped files... edited for irritating typos...

OK the chicken's in the buttermilk/goat-yoghurt and tobasco mix marinating till tomorrow, and I've "forced myself" to have a bacon sandwich for lunch in order to make bacon grease for frying. hence the plate of bacon on the left standing in for the bacon grease... There's also a pot of chicken stock going on the stove since I don't share the fascination with chicken backs... I'm planning to walk a line somewhere between Aunt Minnie & Alton Brown - I hope they don't fight too much

We found a new Indian place in Kirkland tonight, which seems to be recently opened, called Tandoori Kitchen. (website has pics but no descriptions of the dishes) Unfortunately we were dining light so we didn't try a wide array of dishes, but the few items we ordered were quite tasty. Tonight we just had the butter chicken (I needed comfort food!) which was notably less creamy and more tomatoey than most and also had a much higher garlic content, oh and was screaming tandoori red The rice was a lovely 3 tone saffron mix, but otherwise just plain basmati rice, meant to support the curries, not compete in the flavor department. The Vegetable samosas which included dried pomegranate seeds (sadly not as noticable as I'd have liked) were in a good but very greasy pastry (not so much tasting greasy as phsycically dripping oil off the bottom, like they hadn't been drained enough coming out of the fryer) and served with a really delicate cilantro-yoghurt sauce, and a scary looking hot pepper sauce that made Bill happy Bill also ordered the "leachy juice" which I presume is a lychee juice, but don't know, and it was great! very light, kind of pearlike but almost reminisent of a cucumber somehow except very sweet. I can only imagine how refreshing it would be on a hot Indian day... But here's the cool part, they have a really interesting menu with some items I've never seen on a restaurant menu before such as Haleem - legumes and grains "amalgamated with beef" I can't wait to go back & try this since I've read about Haleem a fair bit & really want to see what it actually tastes like - the owner said this dish takes hours and hours to make so most restaurants don't want to put in the labor... There's also a soup? of lamb's feet called Paya which I've never even heard of, Nargasi Koftas - "seasoned ground beef balls with a whole boiled egg inside", and Halva Puri - halva and chana masala on puri bread (this is just an odd combo for me, but I'm game to try it!) The menu has pleny of the usual supects that I love as well; malai kofta, gulab jamun, plain puri, seekh kabab etc. but I'm really looking forward to going back here & trying all stuff I can't get elsewhwere! Oh and the owner seems to be very proud of what he's doing & happy to talk about the food which is always a bonus

I'm scheduled to Fry on Sunday, and every time I look at all your pictures I don't know how I'm going to wait that long! A side bar that hasn't come up yet is biscuits which I'm pretty sure are a must with fried chicken, so here's a link to a previous discussion, and, to go with his fried chicken recipe above, here's Alton's recipe... Friends are bringing salad so we can pretend to be healthy Now what to do for dessert? Thanks for the confirmation re the goat yoghurt Helen.

My main suggestion is to take a bunch of loose ideas (stew salad etc) with you to the grocery store, and then adapt them to whatever you find on sale/affordable. for an appetizer, if lettuce is affordable where you are (it varies a lot here) you could just do a simple salad and bruschette - a baguette and a head of garlic shouldn't set you back too far... For a main you could buy a little beef stew meat (or whatever's on sale!) and make a beef & lentil soup with the carrots and onions, and a potato-leek gratin on the side for your main course (or just a hearty beef stew including the potatos) Or you could do some kind of tajine-oid/curry-esque spicey stew-type dish to serve over your couscous (incorporating the carrots & onions obviously) Assuming you have sugar & spices in the house, take that one egg, buy a cube of butter while you're at the store & make a one egg spice cake for dessert - there's nothing like cake fresh from the oven to make people happy no matter how simple it is... If you want to dress it up a little, buy one orange, slice it into 6 slices and broil them with a little cinnamon & sugar - yumm! you could also cook up the various different pastas (in seperate batches, skip the spaghettis) and make a "mixed pasta salad" with some fresh tomatoes & basil and the last of your parmiggiano