Khadija

I've used ginger ale, with additional fresh ginger, garlic, chili, etc. many times. It's nice.

Another cold (room temperature) pasta dish I made recently: Made dressing of minced garlic, rice vinegar, olive oil and salt. Tossed with a pound of cooked farfalle, and let marinate for awhile. Before serving, tossed pasta with diced bacon (cooked), finely chopped shallot, finely chopped sundried tomatoes, lightly blanched green peas, toasted pinenuts, generous amount of fresh parm, and fresh basil.

I love cold noodle dishes, and often whip them up with whatever is on hand. Yesterday, I made a sort of pad-Thai-ish cold noodle dish, with leftovers. The strange part of the dish was the sauce. I was out of both tamarind and vinegar, and needed a sour component. I had some leftover raisin/caper emulsion in the fridge. I thinned it out with some water and added A LOT of fish sauce, fresh lime juice, chili, and a small touch of sugar. I brined some frozen shrimp, and sauteed with lots of minced garlic and ginger, then set aside. In the same pan (with bits of garlic and ginger), cooked some beaten eggs in "crepe" form, which I cut into ribbons when cool and set aside. Julienned a lot of green mango and cucmber with a mandoline. Crushed peanuts in mortar and pestle. Soaked some rice noodles (the wide, flat ones), until slightly softened, but very firm, and coated with oil. Fried the noodles in wok, and added the sauce. Let cool, ad then tossed with the shrimp, egg, mango, cucumber, and peanuts. Generous squeeze of lime juice and lots of fresh cilantro. A nice Sunday lunch.

I'm intrigued by this one, too. All of these ideas are fantastic. Yesterday afternoon, I made a sausage and broccoli lasagna. Marcella Hazan style bolognese, with sausage removed from casing as the meat base. Bechamel with blanched, pureed broccoli. Fresh pasta. A light layer of parm on top. Baked in individual gratin dishes, which I think is the best way to make lasagna.

Pickled broccoli is a great idea!

Broccoli bread? Sausage bread? I've never heard of either. Intriguing.

I LOVE both the idea of the souffle, and the idea of the salad. Excellent. As coincidence would have it, the only dish my boyfriend makes is sheperd's pie. It would be sort of funny to make a sausage/broccoli shepherd's pie, but maybe another time.

This makes me think of another idea I had: Mac N' Cheese with sausage and broccoli. I am a Mac N' Cheese fiend, and I've always been somewhat of a purist when it comes to the dish. That is, no matter how good "add-ins" might be, I never want to mess with the purity of excellent Mac N' Cheese. However, the soup might help me get around that problem.

The pasta does sound pretty good, and I think I will make one like that for a quick dinner. Actually, a couple of nights ago, I made almost exactly the pasta dish you suggest (with farfalle), except bacon was in place of sausage, peas were in place of broccoli, and parm-reggiano was in place of romano. Delicious. I will definitely make the sausage/broccoli pasta for my boyfriend and room-mate for a quick dinner, but I want something a bit more surprising for a special dinner party.

My boyfriend's room-mate is not much of a cook. He eats sausage (supermarket grade Italian sausage) and broccoli for dinner every day, if he is the one cooking dinner. Sausage cooked in frying pan, broccoli boiled. No exaggeration. After my boyfriend boasted about my cooking ability (especially my self-proclaimed innovativeness with mundane ingredients), his room-mate raised a friendly on-going Iron Chef challenge for me. Not-so-secret ingredients: Sausage and broccoli. My first attempt occurred the other day. I started at 10pm, and used only what was available in the house. Luckily, I had a few things that I had left there (sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sirricha, honey, ginger, shallots, garlic). I made broccoli/sausage noodle stir fry. The noodles were those North-American style instant ramen-type noodles. Boyfriend and room-mate proclaimed the meal the most excellent ever cooked in their house. So, I'm having them over for dinner sometime soon, and I want to do much better. I've thought about making my own sausage, though I don't have one of those sausage-makers. I could only make the filling and then form into patties, or crumble (I do this from time to time). Things like pastas, stuffed pastas, lasagna, pizza immediately come to mind. But those seem almost too easy. I could roast the broccoli, or make it into tempura. But how to make the best sausage complement? Does anyone want to help me play this game?

We did the second round of samosa-making last night, following much of the advice from this thread. They were amazing. First of all, I recommend using slightly "aged" filling. But more importantly, the crust was heavenly, light and flaky, but crisp and sturdy enough to hold in that filling at the same time. Thank you so much for all of your help!

I am in Halifax for the summer and constantly eye the catfish in the market, mainly due to its low, low price. I'll admit I've been dubious, but maybe I'll give it a try.

When you speak of cornbread, I assume you mean the quick-bread, Southern US kind. I think I tried using cornbread for pulled pork sandwiches once, but found the cornbread annoyingly crumbly, and an interference to the enjoyment of the pork. However, I have also used a completely different animal, Portuguese cornbread (my favourite bread in the world) with pulled pork. I think it's fantastic. I'm sure it doesn't really go with the theme you're thinking of, but if you have time and inclination, try the Portuguese cornbread. You won't regret the decision!

I did think of the banana-pudding idea, but I want something a bit out of the ordinary. However, I would prefer something snack-y, and easy to eat out of hand. We are very casual (late twenties to mid thirties crowd) and beer will probably be the drink of choice. Here's an idea I just had -- bacon/banana carmel corn. I am a stove-top popcorn addict, and make it all the time, usually with sugar and salt (kettle cornish, but less sweet). I could make salty/sweet popcorn or caramel corn and toss in bits of bacon and bits of dried banana chips. Perhaps peanuts as well? I will have to do an experiment to see if this is actually a good idea. I've never made caramel corn. Any good recipes? Tell me if this is a bad idea.

I've heard of the flour tortilla idea. I've also heard of a method that basically seems to involve making flour tortillas and then filling them and frying them (so the crust gets pan-fried first, and then deep fried). I think I might try with commercial tortillas. I think the fact that I kept all of my ingredients ice-cold (as for pie crust) was a problem. I used vegetable shortening (which I had frozen), because that's what the recipe I had called for. But I would have no problem using butter (or ghee).

I like the idea of those "Elvis" sandwiches, too. I'm wondering if I could do something like that in a "beggars purse," using commercial wonton skins, which are very stiff and would probably stay crisp.

Great ideas, everyone, thanks! I had thought of making Turon, actually, but I was worried about the crust going limp. (I'm in Halifax right now.)

This Saturday, a friend is having a birthday party "cruise" on a boat for her 30th, entitled "This Cruise is Bananas." There will be between 50-70 guests. I want to make some kind of interesting banana-based treat. I'm trying to think of something out of the ordinary, not cake, banana bread, etc. Originally, I was going to bring bacon candy, and I still like that idea. So, now I'm trying to think of a cool idea that incorporates both bacon and bananas. I am not wedded to the bacon idea, but I do want something that people would not usually expect. Since we will be on a boat, I have to make something that requires no heating or last minute prep. Also, I need to make something that I can prepare a fairly large quantity of.

I recently replied to a thread in the pastry forum about samosas, but with no luck. I thought I might get a better response here, since samosas are savory. Recently, a friend and I made homeade samosas for the first time. We tried two fillings, one potato-based and one beef-based. Both fillings were excellent. Our main difficulty was the crust. In the pastry forum, there is a thread that gives loose instructions based on two different Julie Sahni recipes. One contains yogurt and baking soda, the other does not. We did a side-by-side comparison of both recipes, and we both preferred the yogurt/baking-soda version. We tried both shallow frying and baking. Both crusts were tasty, but not exactly what we were looking for. The baked ones did not brown evenly, and while they were crisp (the dough contains quite a bit of fat), they did not have the wonderful texture of a fried crust. The shallow fried ones did not brown evenly either, and tasted almost too rich, delicate, and flaky (like pie-crust). I think there may be a couple of issues: 1. We may have handled the dough too delicately. We incorporated the fat (cold, cold veg shortening), using the food processor, much more thoroughly than one would for pie-crust, but perhaps we should have used melted fat? And perhaps we should have kneaded longer and tried to make a slightly drier dough? 2. We should deep fry to prevent the dough from soaking up excess oil, and to ensure even browning. We have lots of filling leftover and want to use it up. Any advice would be much appreciated!

A friend and I made samosas for the first time, yesterday. The fillings were great. We tried both the Julie Sahni pastry recipes listed in this thread, so we could try a side-by-side comparison. We didn't have the full instructions, but followed the advice given here. Basically, we made the dough much like pastry dough, except we cut the fat into the flour much more thoroughly, and we kneaded the dough slightly longer. We kept all the ingredients very cold. We made both doughs in the food processor. We tried both shallow frying and baking. We both preferred the dough with the yogurt. However, I found both doughs a bit too light and flaky (the yogurt dough was less light and flaky). The texture of the fried ones was better, but I found the fried ones a bit too rich (the richness of the pastry seemed to overtake the fillings a bit, and the fillings were very well seasoned). I'm wondering what kind of adjustments we should make in our next attempt (we have tons of filling leftover). We agree that we should try deep frying as opposed to shallow frying. The shallow frying did not give us even browning, and although the dough was crisp, I think it absorbed a lot of the oil. The baked ones were not evenly browned, either. Should we not keep the ingredients so cold? Should we knead the dough longer? I froze some uncooked ones. Do people have good results frying frozen samosas?

I made some fake bacon for my vegan friends, long ago. I found a recipe on the internet and tweaked it. Basically, I took some firm tofu, cut into very thin slices (strips), fried the slices in oil to get rid of as much of the oil as possible. I soaked the fried tofu slices in a mixture of soy-sauce, liquid smoke, a bit of sugar, and some spices for a long time. Then I drained the slices very well and broiled or baked them briefly to cook the marinade into the tofu. I was pretty dubious, but I have to say that the results were not bad at all; definitely bacon-y. My friends swore it tasted like real bacon, but since they had not had real bacon in such a long time, I cannot accord their judgment much authority.

Thanks for the advice! I'll check the public library!

I'm looking for an amazing peanut-butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I can make a batch and send to a friend for his birthday. He is a peanut-butter/chocolate fiend, so I want to make the cookies a little bit more special than your average Reese's Pieces. I always think the thing that makes peanut-butter/chocolate so good is the salty/sweet/rich-fattiness. I plan to use a very high quality dark chocolate bar, broken into chunks for the chocolate chips. I'd like to add some really good salt to the batter (I prefer French gray salt, but I'm open to suggestions). What I really need is a recipe for the base. I'd like a thick, chewy cookie. One issue is that my friend lives in another province, so I have to send the cookies to him (courier). So, I will need a recipe that will keep, a little. If anyone has advice on shipping baked goods, I'd appreciate the information. I don't have much experience.

Hi, Peter. I'm really enjoying your blog. I'm moving to Halifax for the summer (June/July/August) having been away from Nova Scotia for about a year. I'm from Toronto, but my heart is in Halifax. It will be great to get back in to the east coast food-swing-of-things by following your blog!

Good point. Sometimes, I grate harder cheeses. For me, the main advantage of grating is being able to distribute the cheese evenly.