Lori in PA

Thank you for your service, Lucy. I hope we will continue to see you here on the gullet, but in any case I will continue to "visit" with you on your excellent blog.

I made the Swedish Visiting Cake yesterday for an afternoon meeting at my home -- universally enjoyed!

My way -- always works for me: Cold eggs in saucepan; add cold water to come one index finger joint above an egg. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn off heat and set timer for 13 minutes (large eggs), 11 minutes (medium eggs), or 15 minutes (jumbo eggs). Rinse in cold water.

I wonder about this too -- please give us your food history, Bruce. I'm very much looking forward to the week.

Happy birthday to you, indeed! Are your guests: 1. clueless about cooking themselves but appreciative consumers of the results of your efforts? 2. serious cooks who understand just what a gift they were given? Thing I'd most like to taste: the pig trotter

I just finished munching another chocolate espresso shortbread or four with my afternoon mug of coffee. THANK YOU FOR THIS RECIPE! The shortbreads I've tried from the book have to be my favorites.

We use some frozen veggies here: peas, corn, and green beans, primarily. Oh, and I use frozen yellow squash for an old-fashioned squash casserole I make a few times a year. Frozen spinach is terrific in lots of things, too. I much prefer fresh broccoli and cauliflower, however, as someone has already mentioned. Edit to add: Did Bittman say anything about frozen cruciferous veggies? What did he do to them in cooking?

I made a Tomato Fennel soup -- recipe is on my blog listed below my signature. Perfect and warming for winter.

A bowl of beauty, Megan, and an emptier fridge, too!

The other night I made a salad with red leaf lettuce, romaine, red onion slivers, diced mango, sweet/spicy pecans, and wedges of blood orange. Finished with a dressing of blood orange/lime vinaigrette.

Frozen cut green beans braise well, I think. Try them in a saucepan with a can of undrained diced tomatoes, a couple of diced slices of bacon, a chopped onion, s&p, and some ground fennel. Add water as necessary until they are nearly covered. Simmer with the lid ajar for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Yum.

I'm a homemaking homeschooling mom of three. A very wise person once told me, "Know what you are having for dinner by 10 am if you will be home all day or by 10 pm the night before if you will be out of the house." To the extent that I follow that advice, my stress level is much less. I usually plan my meals five-seven days at a time and shop accordingly. I make a menu, though I don't necessarily serve what I'd planned for Tuesday on Tuesday -- if needs change I flex my plan. Sometimes a menu is abandoned altogether -- again according to need. When designing menus, I consider what I have on hand, what's in season, and grocery store specials. I think menu planning, even as loosely as I do it, saves us a good bit of money and lots of frustration. Current example: I bought two fryers on sale for 79 cents/lb. yesterday, brought them home, seasoned them, and have them waiting in the fridge (yummy little skins drying as we speak) to roast this evening, to be accompanied by baked potatoes, salad, and bread. Tomorrow I will be gone much of the day, so I'll make chicken stock overnight with the carcasses and put together a potato/leek soup in the morning. We'll have that with chicken sandwiches and salad for dinner.

The Husband made the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing Saturday night. Yu-um -- sorry can't talk so well with my mouth full of cupcake... :-)

I liked the potatoes in them, but I can see that they'd be just fine without them also. I made the Chicken Do-Piaza (Indian spiced chicken smothered with onions) for dinner tonight. I used skinless, bone-in legs and thighs instead of just thighs. Unfortunately, I have a terrible cold and was unable to get much of the flavor. My kids liked it, but The Husband isn't a huge fan of Indian food, so he's non-commital.

I have chicken leg quarters in the fridge -- trouble is that I don't seem to have some of the more "specialized" spices/herbs needed for most of the recipes. I may do the chicken with artichokes and mushrooms.

I got this book for Christmas -- what to make first, what to make first? I had borrowed it with interlibrary loan a year or so ago and made a few things -- I especially liked the Bisteces Rancheros. It seems like there was a particular vegetable dish everyone was raving about earlier on this thread, but I don't have time to reread all twenty pages. Anybody have a rec or three for me?

I made the World Peace cookies today. I had the in-retrospect-not-terribly-good idea to shape the logs into triangles because my round icebox cookies often get a flat side from the slicing. I ended up with vaguely triangle-shaped blobs of deliciousness, but I don't really mind. They are the perfect thing with coffee.

I made the Manly Meatballs and the Cheddar Parmesan Crisps for a party a few days ago. Both were well-received. I was disappointed in the texture of the meatballs -- the instructions say to mix the meatball ingredients thoroughly to form a paste. I always mix my meatloaf and balls "thoroughly but lightly) to keep a tender finished product. These meatballs were not tender. The instructions also speak of the meatball and the bread "becoming one." That definitely didn't happen, though I used 80% lean ground beef. The flavor was good, but again the texture wasn't what I expected from the description.

I'm sorry -- can't help you at all. When it comes to things like caramel glaze, I'm in the "more sweet is more" camp. [Moderator note: This topic continues here, “Baking: From My Home to Yours” (Part 2)]

Kona Inn Banana Muffins: Terrific! Very heavy and moist muffin that doesn't rise much -- it can't -- each muffin has almost half a banana in it!

Wonderful writing -- even a gentile like me can appreciate it!

It sounds like it was a satisfying evening. I'm looking forward to hearing about the next session.

Comments about two side dishes I've made: Braised Green Beans with Tomato and Fennel This was lovely. I've braised many a mess of green beans in my time (though I didn't think of it as braising) by cooking them the southern way -- barely covered with water and with a hunk of fatback in them, cooked until the liquid was mostly gone and they were tender lengths of unctuousness. It literally never occurred to me to play with the seasonings and change things around like this. I loved these. I loved them even more with some heavy cream stirred in at the end. Double Corn Polenta I enjoyed this very much, too. I made it to go with a pot of chili -- it just sounded like a good sub for cornbread, and it was, except the olive oil the tomatoes were mixed with seemed a little odd with the chili flavors and would have been fine if omitted. I cooked the polenta in the oven according the info provided in the box (love those extra bits of wisdom and advice) and it was very creamy. What a beautiful dish -- sunshine in a bowl -- and tasty even with frozen corn and grape tomatoes. I want to do this in the summer with garden tomatoes and corn, but can't think I'd want to heat my kitchen for 1 1/2 hours to do the oven cooking method, so I'm sure I'd use the stove in the traditional way. I have Marion Cunningham's Kona Inn Banana Muffins in the oven right now. Anybody tried those?

I have my eye on that one, too -- always glad to get good winter salad ideas.

That unfamiliar cuisine includes children? Shades of Jonathan Swift! SB (frequent butcher of English)(language that is, not children) ← Whoops! Lori, who is not a consumer of either children or adults