MelissaH

I'm not a huge salmon fan. In fact, I didn't eat salmon at all until about three years ago, when our local market had skin-on salmon filets on sale that week. I'm still not totally sure what possessed me on that fateful day, but I marched up to the fish counter, asked when the salmon had arrived (that morning), and had them hold out a piece of it so I could have a sniff. They complied, happily, and I buried my nose and inhaled. Deeply. And I smelled---nothing. I took this as a good sign, and brought a filet home. And then I had to figure out what to do with it. My husband thought I'd gone off the deep end when I told him we'd be eating fish that night, since he knew exactly what fish was on sale that week. At the time I only had about 284 cookbooks, but since it was summer I decided to start with the grill-specific and fish-specific ones. The recipe I eventually went with came from the Weber Fish & Seafood cookbook, I think. I don't have the details here, but I remember it being vaguely teriyaki-ish, with soy sauce, sugar, and green onions. It may have also had miso and citrus. I can look up the recipe at home tonight, at any rate. More or less following the recipe, I made the seasoning mixture into a sort of paste, and rubbed and patted it onto the fish. Then I took a piece of heavy-duty Al foil, cut it down to about the same shape and size as the fish, and put the fish on the foil, skin side down. Fish and foil went onto the grill together and cooked without turning until it was done. (I'm a little hazy on that part, because I left the actual grilling to my husband.) Once it was cooked, the meat was easy to separate from the skin, which stayed stuck to the foil. Under the lid of the grill, the seasoning had merged into a sort of glaze, so you got some in every bite. Cleanup was a snap. And nothing smelled remotely like fish the whole evening. I know this because the cats never noticed a thing. Since then, I've eaten salmon semi-regularly. MelissaH

I, too, will add my vote for Primanti's in the Strip District (18th St. just off Penn Avenue). No matter when you get there, Primanti's will be open. (Did someone say that the trains are always on time? ) Furthermore, it's going to be much easier to get there than, say, the South Side on foot. And the sandwich will be big enough that you'll be fine until you get to Cleveland. However, you'll probably have to go elsewhere to get that drink. I am unable to help on that front, largely because I moved away to go to college, well before I came of age. MelissaH

I saw that this thread had been bumped up. I lived in Kent, about an hour south and east of Cleveland, for five years. For about a year and a half of that time, I worked on the West Side of Cleveland. My absolutely favorite place to eat was Phnom Penh, both for the food and for the drinks. And if you're going to be there on the appropriate days of the week, don't forget about browsing at West Side Market, if not buying enough to get you through a month or two. Oh, how I miss that place! MelissaH

Our "secret" seasoning mix: onion soup mix, a chopped-up onion, and apricot nectar. (I prefer nectar from a jar rather than a can, if I can find it.) Put it all in with the meat and cook low and slow until it's so tender you could cut it with a spoon. I usually use my crockpot. When it's not Passover, we serve with egg noodles. Yummy! Anyone else out there do meat with fruit? MelissaH

Won't walnut oil go rancid eventually? ← There's also an allergy issue with walnut oil: anything that touches the butcher block would then be capable of setting off a reaction in those allergic to nuts. Safer for many reasons to go with the mineral oil. MelissaH

Upstate NY: We're just now getting to the point where the braver souls are cleaning out their flowerbeds. The low temp last night was about 35 degrees...and I live about ten minutes' walk from Lake Ontario. Our farmer's market starts in May, but the good stuff doesn't show up for another month. Last year we picked strawberries at one local farm in June, and blueberries in July at another farm. MelissaH

I'm planning to try the madeleines this weekend, since my husband is enamored with the chocolate-lemon combination. I've even arranged to borrow a friend's madeleine pans, since I don't own any. My question: these pans are silicone. Do I need to butter them, or are they non-stick enough that I don't need to worry about it? Did they stick in a normal pan at all? MelissaH

How about TIVOing it and watching when you have some time .. seems incredibly worthwhile ... ← Our local PBS station is running it at 5 AM on Friday mornings. I'm curious if they expect those of us without TIVOs to watch it at all, or just give them $$$ (in exchange for a DVD) when they come begging. MelissaH

Or a method that I learned from Shirley Corriher a couple of years ago, when she spoke at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in NYC: Rub the pork shoulder with worcestershire sauce. Coat with brown sugar. Put in a slow cooker, and drizzle a juice box of apple juice down the side (don't get the meat wet). Cover and cook on low for a long time (at least all day or all night). (At least, I've always done it in my slow cooker. She mentioned that you could do it in the oven also, but my oven's pretty miserable.) I usually add a bay leaf when I make this. I also usually make it at least the day before, for easy defatting. MelissaH

Well, some physicist friends and I just made some ice cream here in lab. The base was made from cream, half and half, sugar, natural cocoa, and chocolate syrup. I can't give you proportions because the only ingredients that were actually measured were the dairy products, since they came in and were used in increments of their specific-volume containers. Anyway, we mixed up the stuff in a big metal bowl with a wooden spoon, tasting along the way and adding more chocolate syrup and cocoa along the way until we got something that tasted chocolatey enough but a little too sweet. Then, one person stirred the mix while another poured the liquid nitrogen in, a little bit at a time. As it went in, it bubbled like mad (as you'd expect) and steam obscured the surface. The volume of mixture increased noticeably over the process. We'd also get some lumpiness, which would subside as the rest of the liquid transferred its heat into the frozen lumps. After a good bit of stirring (and liquid nitrogen) the ice cream thickened to about the texture of soft-serve. We kept on going, and eventually got a homogeneous mixture too thick to stir with our wooden spoon. At this point we waited a little bit for it to warm up, scooped it into our bowls, waited a little bit longer, and then ate. My verdict: Very smooth and creamy. The most even-textured ice cream I've eaten in a while: no large crystals of anything anywhere. Could have used some more chocolate flavor. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to do it again, unless I were trying to impress someone or I had extra liquid nitrogen to blow. But it was yummy! MelissaH

I haven't tried making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. But if you want to try something else with food and liquid nitrogen that kids always go wild for: get yourself a bit of the cold stuff in a dewar with fairly low sides, and a bag of cheez puffs. (Not the ones like crunchy cheetos, for this you need the ones that are very puffy...as far as I'm concerned, the only good use for the puffy kind. ) Dip a cheez puff into the liquid nitrogen, and hold it there just until it gets good and cold. Use a big cheez puff, so you have something left to hold! Then pull the cheez puff out, and put it into your mouth. Hold it there, maybe chew on it a little bit. Voila: you've become a steam-breathing dragon! The puffy cheez puffs are mostly air, which warms up pretty fast, so you're in no danger of freezing your mouth. If you chew on it, it feels about like chewing ice cream: definitely cold, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. It's a great trick, especially for Halloween costume parties. MelissaH

What goes in your wing sauce? Ours is about equal parts Frank's and melted butter, which is definitely out this year. MelissaH

We put all sorts of stuff on our back porch when it's cold out. I restrict myself to only squirrel-safe foods, though: I can't even keep a suet block for the woodpeckers longer than a couple of hours if I don't stand right by the door to shoo them away. Right now, it's a whopping 10 degrees F out, about the warmest it's been in three days, but the wind chill is still about -15. Fortunately for us, it doesn't stay super-cold for very long, so you don't need to worry too much about things freezing quickly. Something else that usually works well in Oswego, if we need a little extra "fridge" space, is to gather some snow and use that instead of ice in one of our coolers. We've never had any trouble with wildlife molesting a closed cooler on our deck, and this time of year you don't have to recharge the snow often. MelissaH

I'm starting to think about food for the Super Bowl, when we usually have a few friends over. However, one of our friends is scheduled to have his gall bladder removed shortly after the game, and until then he's trying to eat as little fat as possible. I've been trying to come up with munchie-type food that he might be able to eat without paying a steep price, and so far that list consists of: *Pretzels *Veggies *Salsa *Baguette Anyone got some other suggestions? Thanks, MelissaH

From this standpoint, The Passionate Vegetarian would be a particularly good choice, as many of the dishes are either dairy-free, or have dairy-free options. MelissaH

This topic reminds me of the food court in the University Memorial Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder: the Alferd Packer Cafe! (To the best of my knowledge, they never served its namesake's preferred dish for blizzardy days. Some of us wondered about the dorms on campus, though!) MelissaH CU 1993

Monday morning, our local Bed Bath & Beyond had a Farberware santoku for $9.99. We picked one up, more than anything to see if we liked it before shelling out big bucks. And for us, it would be really big bucks: I'm left-handed, my husband isn't. Ask me in a couple of weeks how I like it. MelissaH

Does anyone have experience cooking sous vide at high altitudes? I'm curious how the lowered boiling points of everything would affect the temperatures you'd need to hold. MelissaH

I also do steel-cut oats overnight, but I don't use a crockpot or rice cooker. My method is to boil 4 cups of water in a 3-qt saucepan, stir in 1 cup of oats (might have to try toasting them next time I do this), put the pot's lid on, and turn off the heat. In the morning, all you need to do is heat through, stirring occasionally to be sure it's not sticking to the bottom of the pan. I haven't tried, but I suppose there's no reason a bowlful couldn't be heated in the microwave. MelissaH

My first time through a new recipe, I actually copy the recipe out of whatever book onto a piece of paper. For me, the process is a lot like "prelabbing" the recipe: by writing the ingredients and procedure, I have a better chance at embedding it in my memory. Once I've made a recipe and determine that it is indeed a "keeper," I type it into my computer (along with notes on the source and any comments about it) so I only need to print out a new copy. I continue to add notes over time. I figure these recipes I've collected would be a great excuse for me to figure out how to build an index or make a functional database, one of these years. MelissaH

However, one thing to be aware of is that many of the slow cooker cookbooks seem to wind up on the bland side of bland. Many of the authors seem to be real wusses about spicy food, and soy sauce seems to be considered an exotic ingredient. Mable Hoffman seems to be particularly guilty in these respects, and she's got many cookbooks out. That said, one that gets more adventuresome (and more to our taste) is The Slow Cooker Ready & Waiting Cookbook by Rick Rodgers. (Here's an Amazon link.) Once you've played with your cooker a little, you'll also be able to figure out how to use it for some of your existing recipes. Have fun! MelissaH

I'm neither Polish nor Catholic, but over the summer I helped our local Polish Catholic church prepare the pierogi for the annual St. Stephen's Festival. I didn't help to make the filling so I can't help with that part, but I saw the rest of the process. Their procedure went as follows: The day before you make the dough, or longer, make your filling. Give the filling plenty of time to cool before continuing. Dish the filling onto parchment or waxed paper-lined sheet pans, making each scoop about the size of a ping-pong ball. Try to keep the filling scoops in nice neat balls, because the neater the ball, the easier it is to form the pierogi. Potato filling and cheese filling both scoop reasonably well, but kapusta (cabbage) is much tougher to keep in tight balls so save it for last, after you've had practice with the easy ones. Put 100 filling balls on each full-size sheet pan: 8 across and 12 down, and four extras wherever you can squeeze them in. Freeze (or at least chill well) the filling balls on their sheet pans overnight. Have as many people making dough as you have food processors. Expect the food processor motor to heat up and shut down for a while after making a dozen batches or so. For the dough, buzz in a food processor: 3 c flour (I think they used Gold Medal bleached all-purpose) 1 tsp table salt 1 egg 1 c water, lukewarm about 1-2 Tbsp margarine (Imperial, temp. of a kitchen with large pots of boiling water in August; one of the women commented that sour cream also works well) Take the dough ball out of the food processor bowl, and knead a few times by hand. Form into a ball, and set aside until the rollers are ready. Try to have as many rollers as you have doughmakers. The rollers should keep a little pile of flour nearby, to help flour the rolling surface and the rolling pin. Roll the dough out, trying to keep it uniform, to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 inch thick. If the dough is too thick, the pierogi are too large. If the dough is too thin, the filling will poke through. After the dough is rolled, cut the dough into circles with a can that has had both ends removed. The cans were about the size of the cans that fruit comes in, and each cutting can had its own padding for the back end (think like a showercap, but made of fabric and batting) to protect your hand. Put the cut circles on another paper-covered sheet pan and deliver to the pinchers. Form the scraps into a ball and set aside. After a few batches, you'll have enough scraps to reroll and cut. Have as many pinchers available as possible. The pinchers will need a comfortable chair, a tray of frozen filling balls, a tray of dough circles, an empty lined tray for the pinched pierogi, and a small bowl of flour. To form each pierog, take a dough circle and stretch it slightly, into an oval. (If the circles are too thin, return them to the rollers to be combined with the scraps and rerolled thicker. If the circles are too thick, return them to the rollers to be rolled thinner and cut again.) Place a filling ball in the center of the dough oval, fold the dough over, and pinch the edges together tightly. Be sure the filling is tucked entirely inside, because if filling is at the edge, the dough won't hold together. If your fingers get sticky from the filling, dip them in a bit of flour to help the dough stick to dough and not finger. Place the finished pierogi on the lined sheet pan. You should be able to get 100 on a tray, just like the filling balls. While you pinch, talk with your neighbors (in English or Polish), and give the rollers a hard time, especially Father Ed. As each tray is filled, it gets covered with a kitchen towel before it goes to a checker. The checker lifts the towel off the tray, and inspects each pierog to be sure the edges are firmly attached. If needed, the checker pinches the edges together again, double-checking that any filling is safely inside. If the dough was pulled so thin that it rips, or if a pierog is otherwise unsalvageable, open the pierog and return the filling ball to the pincher, and toss out the dough. When the tray is checked, put the towel back over it and send it to the kitchen. Have a large pot or two of boiling water on the stove, as well as a large skillet with melted margarine. The pierogi get boiled, removed from the water with a large skimmer, and then simmered in margarine. Try to do this shortly after the pierogi are checked, so they don't dry out. If necessary, tell the doughmakers and pinchers to slow down. As the pierogi are finished, they get removed from the margarine bath onto a couple of UNlined sheet pans reserved specifically for the purpose. Wheel them away from the stove to the coolest part of the room, and direct a fan on them to cool them quicker. Once they've cooled, they can be packaged, LABELED, and refrigerated or frozen until the day of the festival when they get sold. After the pierogi with the filling du jour are finished, it's time to reclaim the filling ball trays, to scoop the next day's filling so they're ready for the next day. Hope that helps, MelissaH

Raspberries have been available on and off, if you're willing to pay $5 or $6 for half a pint of berries, and check through them very carefully to be sure they aren't growing. Frozen's generally available at a more reasonable price, though, and probably a better bet. This summer was a good one for both straw and blue, and we picked and froze oodles of each this summer. We haven't found a source for pick-your-own rasp, though, and don't really have the yard space for a patch of our own. If you can believe it, we got rain today, after a few inches of snow yesterday. But it's fall in Oswego and therefore it's been windy the last few days, with gusts on the order of 50 mph coming off the lake. Not quite like last fall's windstorms, but enough to make for a good soup day nonetheless. MelissaH

That implies available mascarpone. And although there's a reasonably large population of people with Italian ancestry in this area, I have yet to see mascarpone in the stores in town regularly. Good thought, though. Had I not used all my cream to make the butterscotch pudding, I would have alternated layers of whipped cream and butterscotch pudding. MelissaH

Or line a plate or cookie sheet with waxed paper, plop the little babies down with a little sauce on each, and put the whole lot in the freezer for a bit. Once they're frozen solid, bag the lot in a resealable bag. Then you can pull them out one at a time when you need them. MelissaH