phatj

Hm... pretty much any cruciferous vegetable when cooked (though lightly steamed they can be OK). And don't tell me they're great when roasted or whatever - they still have that stench. I call sauerkraut "Satan's snot". Come to think of it, there's no vegetable other than onions that I especially like cooked. Mushrooms I guess, if you count them as veggies. Bananas. Liver, though I enjoy pates. I'd like to try foie gras but it's out of my range financially and I don't know if I could even get it anywhere locally if I wanted to splurge. I think I would try bugs if prepared by someone who knew what they were doing but it would be really hard for me. The aforementioned cicadas creep me the hell out when I see them and spiders are just beyond the pale. Most whole legumes. I like young green beans and peas, and I but that's pretty much it. It's a texture thing. I've only had oysters once or twice, but, no. I pretty much love all other seafood. Not a fan of peanut butter, but I use it sometimes in Asian dishes. And squash. This may be my least favorite thing of all. I'll choke it down at Thanksgiving because people insist on bringing it, but at no other time will it appear on my table.

A panini press is a godsend for this kind of scenario. In the five or ten minutes it takes to preheat, you can prep your sandwiches, from the simplest possible grilled cheese to as fancy as you want, limited only by the bread you have on hand and whatever you have in the fridge.

And plus you have all the great containers leftover..."Eugene Tupperware"! OMG are we related? I grew up in Corvallis (about an hour north of Eugene, OR), and my dad ate Nancy's by the ton, and finding the actual yogurt in the fridge was a challenge because there were so many Nancy's containers filled with assorted leftovers. Never liked it much, myself; too tart. I like most any yogurt nowadays; I prefer the whole milk varieties which, sadly, are becoming rarer. I wish I had noted the brand (pretty sure it wasn't Chobani or Fage), but I had a little cup of some kind of flavored Greek yogurt in Connecticut recently that was absurdly decadent. Something like 1/2 of the daily allowance of fat in a 6-oz cup. It was delicious.

At sea-level pressure. At high altitude, water boils at below 100 C; below sea level, above 100 C. This is not correct. Steam is simply water vapor; it can form at any temperature. In fact, ice can and does convert from solid phase to gaseous (sublimation) at below freezing, let alone boiling. The higher the temperature, the faster the water evaporates. 100 C is simply the temperature at which water at sea level cannot remain liquid. Steaming is very even, as it works by convection of hot water vapor, and by conduction, from condensed water, now less hot than the vapor. It imagine it would heat even more evenly than ovens, since in steaming the surrounding vessel will be pretty close to the same temperature as the vapor, whereas in an oven the heating element in the bottom or wherever is much hotter and radiates. *** Not really sure what you're getting at here. I'm not sure what happens to the "density of water vapours" but I'm pretty sure it has little to do with the temperature. *** The "steam bubbles" produced are only 100C if the water producing them is 100C. If you want to "steam" something at a lower temperature, you need to arrange a steaming chamber where the water isn't boiling. For instance, construct a sous vide rig in an insulated chamber like a cooler, and hang the stuff you want to steam above the level of the water. Sous vapeur, if you will.

This isn't exactly a pet peeve, because I've never seen it before, but I went out last night to a pretty classy little Italian restaurant where apparently the maitre d' was also the waiter was also the chef was also the dishwasher. He was wearing a filthy t-shirt, grubby pants and sneakers. This wouldn't bother me in a diner, for example, but the decor at least had pretensions of something nicer than that. It was a bit off-putting. Also, the restaurant apparently adjoined a none-too-clean greengrocer, and there were fruit flies buzzing around constantly. More than a little off-putting. The food was very good though.

Question: for how long is that water potable? We buy large water containers every year and I mark their dates on them hugely in black and we will restrict ourselves to using only the current year for drinking purposes...except that we have yet to need to use any of them. Thus I have sealed water going back a few years in our cellar now dedicated to possible burns, fires, etc, only...and still unused. Ed has water up at the Drive Shed for burns, fires, etc, but it's from the well, unprotected so to speak, etc. I really need some guidance about this. We are currently setting up to set up for emergencies and will probably do it properly within the next six months. To date, it's been a trifle haphazard although with the extra space which we have in the cellar we are set for quite a while with canned tomatoes, canned beans, Habitant pea soup, this and that and quite a lot of it, prompted more by sales and the fact that we are quite far from grocery stores than any organized thought. Thanks. I wouldn't even give it a thought. While some stuff could leach into the water from whatever it's stored in, that would be the least of your worries in a scenario where you need emergency water. If you have glass containers, or stainless steel, the water should survive basically forever.

PSmith, I must respectfully disagree - triple-cooked chips are wonderful, and the only way I do them at home now. But back more or less on topic ... I've been uncomfortable for some time with the fashion for menu items in the form 'Sautéed/poached/roasted/pan-fried/whatever pieces of ingredient A with some ingredient B, thoughtfully garnished with ingredients C, D and E and slathered in a sauce of ingredient F'. Yes, all those things may well be in there but to me it just makes whatever it is sound far more complicated than it really is. And lovingly coated in larks' vomit. (Quick, who knows the reference?) Crunchy Frog!

My go-to late night snack is run-of-the-mill corn tortilla chips topped with store-brand pre-shredded cheese and microwaved.

I got some orange cherry tomatoes at the local farmer's market that were almost impossibly sweet, like tomato candy. They were great for just popping into your mouth, but almost too sweet to do anything else with. Maybe a caprese salad type of thing with red wine vinegar, balsamic would add too much sweetness.

It came with a purple iPad?

Hm... one smoked ham chip, one pickle chip, one Swiss cheese chip... Cubano in chip form!

I agree. I find Coke Zero to taste almost the same as regular Coke...now I'm just waiting for a caffeine-free version. I never "got" Diet Coke. It didn't taste the same as regular Coke so I considered it a sham of a diet soda. I mean Diet Pepsi does taste like regular Pepsi, so why didn't Diet Coke taste like Coke? That being said, I have friends, bless their hearts, who swear by Diet Coke. So go figure... Diet Pepsi certainly does not taste like regular Pepsi to my thinking.

If you can get Utz, look out for Grandma Utz potato chips in a brown bag. They're thick cut, cooked in lard, and well-salted. Best potato chips I've had.

Lovely presentations, dcarch!

What's the skim milk powder for?

I live in Lansdale, PA, outside of Philly, and there are three 7-11s nearby, but only one Wawa (which isn't that close), to my disappointment.

Did a ~4lb rib roast with this method today... it took over four hours. I was planning on it for dinner and ended up making grilled cheese sandwiches instead. Started it about 3:30 PM in a 325F oven, then bumped the oven to 400F after an hour when it was still frozen solid less than an inch from the surface. Then dropped it to 250F at about 5:30 PM, as it was clear it wasn't going to be ready for dinner and it was getting pretty dark on the outside. I finally was able to get the probe into the center, but the temp was ~40F at 6 PM. Pulled it at 130F at about 7:45 PM. I haven't even cut into the roast to see how it looks yet. Well, dinner tomorrow is taken care of...

Not the question I thought you'd be asking. I made a rough stock overnight with the bones and scraps from a leg of lamb I grilled yesterday. Despite my best efforts, it came to a fairly steady boil on a few occasions, including when I checked it first thing this morning, so it likely had been boiling for a few hours at least. And indeed, the resultant stock was cloudy. But, I figured - so what? I'm not making lamb consomme, and this stuff tasted really good. Makes sense - the fat and the bits of solids that can cloud stock will contain a lot of flavor. Anybody deliberately disregard the prohibition against boiling when making stock?

I find Google Docs is great for this sort of thing.

I don't bother with aromatics or herbs. I want my stock to taste like liquid chicken. That said, I save bones from various cooked chicken dishes (unless seasoned with something particularly assertive) along with raw bones and other scraps trimmed from raw parts in the freezer until I have a gallon Ziploc or two filled, so the stock will definitely not be "pure". I augment that with a couple of whole fryers bought whenever I can find them on sale. I dump all this in my 16-qt stockpot and add water just to cover, then bring it to the verge of a boil before turning the heat down to the barest simmer (if I happen to be in the kitchen at the time; I don't worry too much if it boils a bit). After half an hour, I take out the whole chickens and let them cool on a cutting board long enough to handle. I strip the meat from the breasts, legs and wings, then add the rest of the carcasses back to the stock pot. (The meat is reserved for other uses.) I simmer at least a couple hours, usually four hours or more. I skim a couple times toward the beginning. Then I strain out the solids and chill (I do this primarily in the winter and will put the stock out on the deck overnight to chill). Then I remove the fat cap and warm the stock on the stove to re-liquefy, then strain through a paper towel into a smaller stockpot for reduction. I usually reduce at least 50%. Then I portion into disposable plastic tubs for larger recipes like soups and Ziploc sandwich bags for other uses (the latter are themselves placed in Ziploc freezer bags) and freeze.

I believe that the spelling and pronunciation "restauranteur" has moved past being an error and is becoming the more commonly used spelling. Several dictionaries already list it as an alternate spelling. Lots of foreign words that are adopted into English eventually get Anglicized. ETA: Clarification Huh. I had no idea that "restaurateur" is correct. Presumably I've seen it written that way any number of times but my brain added the "n" back in automatically.

This turned out excellent, in my opinion. My wife didn't like it, but it turns out she just doesn't really like chili. The first chili she had that she liked was my "kitchen sink" chili which has all kinds of stuff in it but is relatively light on actual chili peppers. Anyway, I made a chili paste much like that described by slkinsey above. Mine contained ancho and chipotle peppers, and I also included garlic, cumin and oregano on the theory that I could freeze the leftovers in small containers to have ready-made chili seasonings for weeknight chilis. Then I browned Mexican chorizo and some meatloaf mix with minced onions, green and red peppers, and mushrooms, then added tomato paste and chili paste, milk, and some beer and simmered for several hours. Then I added browned cubed chuck, some more chili paste, and some beef stock and simmered a couple more hours. About an hour before the end I added a bunch of chopped onion because I wanted some onion in there that wasn't complete mush. I think this is my new favorite chili.

If making Bolognese for lasagne, do you adjust the recipe at all? The lasagnes I've had have all had a more liquid sauce (with more tomato in particular) than what appears to be typical of true Bolognese sauce. Or perhaps an authentic Lasagne alla Bolognese is a considerably less "saucy" lasagne than I'm used to...

I had these a couple times via the vending machine at work. Very weird flavor for me - aside from the spiciness, they tasted to me like they were dusted with ramen noodle seasoning packets.

Thanks, will do. By the way, anybody know what became of the "What is wrong with this chili" thread mentioned by Chris Amirault in the first post of this thread? The link is broken and I can't find it using the site search tool. I'm curious about the Frankenchili!