miladyinsanity

Buy organic? I've been wanting to make candied peel, but can't find any organic oranges that are within my price range (think poor student).

It's solid today. Chewy too. I think I'll just eat it. It's not like I eat a lot of candy anyway, right? I think if I give it a few more days in this weather, I can press it into a pan and then cut it into squares. Also, I found a new macaron recipe. At least, I think it's new to this thread. Click here This recipe makes an Italian meringue with only half the egg whites, then folds the remaining half in with the almond/powdered sugar. I'll try to try this next week, because I suddenly find myself with a big jar of egg whites--I'm not sure how or why, but I no longer need to find uses for egg yolks.

I called my maternal grandma Ah Ma, which simply Grandma in the Hokkien dialect. My other grandparents died before I was born--my parents are 9th of 14 and 6th of 7th, you see. My grandma could cook, but it is my maternal grandpa who truly shone in the kitchen. My mother likes to tell the story of how they would fight (both of them born in the year of Tiger) because my grandma would simply roughly chop up the vegetables, but my grandpa insisted on even slices.And then there's the story of the Chinese New Year Eve reunion dinners, and how grandpa/Ah Gong would cook fabulous dish after dish, serving them dish by dish restaurant-style. But you asked about grandmothers. I don't remember my Ah Ma cooking. Partly it was that it was my mother's kitchen--we lived in different countries though she'd come to visit for a few weeks at a time. Later, she was older, and after breaking her wrist twice, she simply didn't have it in her. What I do remember is that she would go to the market every morning to buy fried dough sticks for her black coffee, and she would bring me a type of sour plum that's sweet and used to be really hard to find here. It's the little things we remember about our loved ones, and the little things we remember that bring a smile to our faces, instead of leaving tear tracks behind. (sorry this is long)

Soy sauce and potatoes. Pick either one.

That could actually get me to eat fruitcake!

You said it! And now, I need your recipe. Pretty pretty please with a chocolate chip on top?

*points at Pam above* There, that's one person who's not doing Thanksgiving next week. I can't wait to see what you come up with, Alana!

I have to say I agree with the original poster's take on it. There is no way ketchup flavored anything will pass my lips if I'm not drunk, stoned or dead. In fact, I think you can discount stoned and drunk too. I do like the idea of fried rice wrapped in an egg though. I have to try that, once I get my omelet skillz back. But without ketchup, of course.

I love the purple Okinawan sweet potatoes. I talk my mother into buying them for me during the season. Expensive though. I prefer to bake them, because I like it dry and starchy. I have to try _john's method, with salt. I sometimes make something similar to daigaku-imo, but with yam (the white-fleshed kind). I've tried it with sweet potatoes, but I think it's better with yam.

Rock sugar is the secret to a really good adzuki bean soup. Though according to what I've seen in the China forum, adzuki bean is different from red beans.

Actually, in Chinese, we use the word sweet to describe a good soup/broth/etc. I think that if you press on the vegetable solids, it'll definitely make your soup cloudy.

You could mix it with tempered milk chocolate and mold to make something akin to a toblerone bar. edited to note that since your humidity is 100% tmpering is not going to go well either ← I have plans now! I'll try to post pics in the Dessert thread if they succeed. ^.^ ETA: Where are my manners? Thanks Kerry!

I'm starting to crave beef when PMS hits. This is bad because my mom rarely cooks beef at home and I'm leering of eating beef outside because of the smell.

Blogging might be done for a variety of reasons by different people, don't you think. . with no one singular reason for all or any combination of reasons for the individual. One blogger might want to keep their name "out there" so that people could see their work easily. Another might be seriously trying to hook up or create something business-wise.The next one might be wishing to do (in a more formal way with the notion of "deadlines" somehow added to the task) the daily practice that good writing demands. Someone else might mostly be trying to get feedback from readers as to what works and what doesn't work quite as well. And then there could be people, who just as with those who cook each day, who might blog just for the love of sharing what they love themselves. I might put you in that last category, Janet, if anyone were to ask me to try to guess. ....................................................... (Though I did read a fascinating article in a nationally-distributed magazine a short while ago on how bloggers can make money, *real* money. Actually written by an eG member, too.) ← Blogs can provide those of you who want to write books with platform and name-recognition. It's not uncommon for an agent or publisher to reject an non-fiction author simply because she/he does not have platform, even though the work is as good as what's available in the bookstore today.

I decided to make caramel sugar (caramelize, harden and grind) during the monsoon season, when the humidity is 100%. Then I compounded the issue by, after grinding the caramel with the almonds, by deciding that it'd be a good idea to try drying it in the oven. Nope. The sugar melted and gave me clumps of almond-sugar. Yummy though. Except that I can't turn it into candy because it doesn't clump that well.

I am an idiot. I decided I wanted to make caramel macarons. Step 1: Make caramel. Step 2: Let cool. Step 3: Grind Caramel with almonds. Except that: 1. It's the monsoon season. Humidity 100%. 2. Caramel was sticky right away. After grinding, caramel + almonds clumped. I happily continued in my stupidity and tried to dry the stuff in the oven. Shoot me people. Shoot me. Or better still, tell me what to do with my caramel/almond mixture.

Glass noodles in Thai hot-and-sour soup. Darn. Now I'm hungry again.

Coconut milk! Bananas and coconut milk cooked together in some Nonya/Malay style dessert, that is.

I've never had dry cakes from cutting the sugar. But I use superfine, if it's also known as caster sugar.

I was going to put tamarind, but someone beat me to it. Tamarind prawns...drool... Anyway, prawns steamed with garlic...Yum!

I do the same thing. 30-50% usually. I figure that if it's not sweet enough, frosting will come to the rescue.

I was taught to heat it to a boil last thing at night, and then heat it again in the morning, and all would be well. Any truth to that?

No, no, no, My Dear---you just make a pot of tea and calm yourself. Tune in to Miss Lucy's Cajun Kitchen on RFD TV. Watch her put smiles on the faces of stockholders in Kraft Philadelphia Brand, Campbell's Cream of, and entire herds of butter-making cows. Sit and watch and do nothing. THEN, we'll talk. ← Now that's what I call therapy!

Pineapple Enzyme + Yogurt culture + Dairy Products = Science Experiment?

Gorgeous, and no such thing on the chocolate chunks.