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emilyr

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Everything posted by emilyr

  1. My family does a pretty big Sunday dinner, but not for the explicit reason of having a "Sunday Supper." We eat a large-ish lunch/brunch with my dad's family in the afternoon, so we usually aren't hungry enough for a normal-for-us early, light dinner. Also, with schedules that change from day-to-day, work, and events, Sunday just happens to usually be the day of the week that we do something big in the kitchen. Usually it's the meal with the most side dishes, and it's one of the ones that are not all-in-one kind of recipes (like tacos, casseroles, pasta dishes, etc.). We do lots of roasts or BBQ big hunks of meat. This week we had pork loins roasted with sweet potatoes and apples and a salad.
  2. I'm going to have to play Devil's advocate for wraps counting as sandwiches. I think what a lot places are using now are flatbreads as opposed to tortillas and tortilla-like wrappers, so you do get the bread in there. Plus, as opposed nachos or tacos or potstickers, they often contain TRADITIONAL sandwich fixings. Many major sandwich chains (Quiznos, Subway) are now offering their regular sandwich toppings on flatbreads. I tend to like these, because I want the sandwich fillings to meld with the bread. I can't stand a super crusty sandwich bread that overpowers the flavor of the fillings. I also don't like the fillings soaking through and obliterating the bread. I think flatbreads are the antidote to both of these problems.
  3. After reading these responses, I feel a bit like I should be posting this in the egullet shame thread, buy my family and I are meat and starch kind of people. We prefer the meat parts of dinner. A lot of times the veggie is the afterthought to the meal. When I go to the grocery store, I head to the meat department first to see what looks good and what's on sale. BUT! I have learned to work around what I know isn't a very healthy attitude toward food. We eat a lot of meals that need the veggies included: BLTs, fajitas/tacos, salads with steak included. And when we just don't feel like making an effort on the veggies, there are quite a few frozen veggie mixes with good sauces that aren't just cheese or butter. Green Giant makes one labeled digestive health that has white beans, spinach and yellow carrots in a garlic sauce. We almost always keep a plastic box of baby greens in the fridge for a quick salad. My mom did a garden this summer for the first time in a long time, and that really helped. Last night we made jambalaya with tomatoes, okra and jalapenos from her garden.
  4. My dorm in college had pretty standard food, nothing too impressive, but on weekend mornings they set up a made-to-order omelet station. It was good enough to make college kids get up early enough on a Saturday or Sunday morning to stand in line and wait for eggs (the cute guy making them didn't hurt in the all girls' dorm ). In high school, most students avoided the main lunch line, choosing the salad bar or french fries from the a la cart line, except on Chicken Patty Day. Yes, it was capitalized, and the morning announcements those days usually started out "Welcome to another day at MHS. It's Chicken Patty Day!" Frozen and preformed chicken patties, mashed potatoes (I think they were actually real potatoes, not from a box!), and bright yellow chicken gravy! I shudder a bit now thinking of it, but even the green beans they served with it were SO good. Probably enough salt in that meal to fill your daily recommended levels for a week, though.
  5. I like it roasted or grilled like cauliflower, too. To me, the crispy, slightly burnt buds are the best part. I usually do it with a little oil and curry powder or bbq seasoning mix.
  6. emilyr

    Dinner! 2010

    @kayb - What's in the creamy gazpacho?
  7. I considered that "field trip" food. We went to the St. Louis Science center one year and they had it in the gift shop, and then in another year, they had it at the Zoo. My best friend's dad was a survivalist, and when we realized he had it in his kits, we started hatching a plan to get it! I don't remember all the details, but it took most of a sleepover to figure it out, and then he found out and just gave it to us. I think we put it in the icing or sprinkled it on top of the birthday cake.
  8. Holy Cow! $6/lb. You should just drive down to Missouri. I haven't seen them for more than $3 or 4 around here. I nominate bananas. I usually just wait until the skin is almost completely brown before I eat one, or else I just get a mouthful of vaguely sweet starch.
  9. I make these with a cake mix and canned pie filling for my best friend's birthday every year. She loves them and won't let me "go to all the trouble" of doing them by hand. The cherries don't sink too badly unless you're making a really huge cupcake. I just portion out the batter into the cupcake cups then add a spoonful of filling into the middle of each one and bake. We sometimes put chocolate chips in for a little extra chocolate flavor. I don't see why you'd need to encase the cherries in chocolate at all.
  10. I think the title "whole wheat" just meas it uses some of the whole grains, not that all of the flour is whole grains. It's one of those loosely defined government labels like "lite." I agree that it's frustrating to no end.
  11. We just had BFD on Thursday. Biscuits and gravy, hash browns ad sausage. I didn't feel like scrambling a bunch of eggs, so I told everybody they had to make their own. I did over easy. Mom and dad scrambled. Little Sis decided to opt out. We also had tomatoes from the garden and plums. We tend to do it when we get in the mood. Once every other month or so. Some times it's quiche or a big omelet when we have a lot of little leftovers to get rid of. A lot of times it's french toast and eggs. I like them without syrup, a little bit of powdered sugar and dipped into the centers of OE eggs.
  12. emilyr

    Dinner! 2010

    Soba - What's curd rice? That looks amazing!
  13. emilyr

    Best pot luck recipes

    Broccoli salad is big around here. I end up making it most years for church picnics at the end of the summer when I just plain run out of ideas from potlucks. It's 6-8 heads of broccoli cut into small florets, green onions and almonds mixed with a dressing of mayo, vinegar and sugar. Kind of like broccoli slaw. Some people around here add raisins or grapes, but I hate that flavor - it's overly sweet with the dressing. I also do a Caprese salad with grape tomatoes and the pearl mozzarella, and sometimes put this on top of roasted asparagus. ETA: Oh, and my girlfriends often ask for a couscous salad with dried apricots, green onions, feta cheese and pecans. Yum!
  14. emilyr

    Pork Burgers

    I don't ever measure the temperature when I'm grilling supermarket pork burgers, but I do cook them so they're just all the way through opaque. No pink, but only just.
  15. Anyone planning on going to the Farm to Table Festivalat the University next weekend? Lots of seminars on local food topics and cooking demos/classes by chefs from both Columbia and around the Midwest.
  16. I stopped by the library on my lunch break and stumbled on the Friends of the Library monthly sale. I needed to pick up some cookbooks for my friend Jaci's wedding shower this weekend. I found the Good Housekeeping Cookbook for $3, Cooking for Dummies for $2 and for a buck I picked up for her fiance Penn and Teller's How to Play With Your Food. My cousin and little brother each had a copy of this when they were kids, and they can still make the bleeding jello heart from memory. I thought it'd be great to try to get the groom-to-be in the kitchen since he thinks cooking's for girls! Unfortunately, I'd done the library last in my lunch break, or I could've shopped for myself. They should have whatever's left out this Saturday, so I'll probably go back. Plus, everything will be half-price.
  17. emilyr

    Pork Burgers

    Pork burgers are pretty ubiquitous at homes around here because we have more pig farms than cow farms (I mean cattle producing farms - cow farms sounds weird). One of my best friends growing up lived on a pig farm and I remember her asking why the burgers were a weird color at my 7th or 8th birthday party. She'd never had beef burgers. The really weird thing is that you never really see pork burgers in restaurants and only rarely find ground pork in the grocery store. I usually just end up getting some from friends and co-workers who process their own pigs. While I usually do them just with standard grilling spices and lots of mustard on top, my favorite recipe is a turkey burger adaptation. I grate onion and apple together and mix them into the ground pork with a little bit of grainy mustard, then grill. Sometimes, if the meat is really lean or the onions and apples are too watery, I add an egg as a binder, but most of the time I don't have to worry about it. They're so good.
  18. I'd make foil packets in advance. This saves a LOT of room in your packs/coolers. Carrying around whole veggies or chunks of meat is kind of a pain.
  19. I like the Cocoa Mole Larabar. Right now I'm snacking on cucumber and hummus.
  20. I think boneless skinless thighs are best on the grill, and I use them like many of the posters above, in stir fries and curries. I also use them when I babysit to make chicken fingers. My cousin's kids can tell when I use breasts or tenders and tell me how dry they taste otherwise.
  21. emilyr

    Smoked Apple Sauce

    We smoke apples all the time, especially when doing pork butt, and them chop or grind them to serve on the side. It's kind of apple sauce-y, but the apples do lose a lot of moisture in the smoking process. I think if you want a true apple sauce, you'd have to do at least half regularly simmered apples.
  22. I get requests for this dip all the time. It's kind of '50s housewife-y, but it's really great at parties. I even got a request for it for a friend's wedding and had to figure out how to make two hotel pans' worth! It's just cream cheese, mayo and Asiago cheese in a 2:1:1 ratio, chopped green onions, and drained and chopped chokes. I usually add a few grates of nutmeg and either cayenne or white pepper for just a bit of heat. Mix these together, and then bake til bubbly; add a bit of grated Asiago on top and pop under the broiler til it's just brown. I serve it with veggies (especially cauliflower!!) and some jalapeno cheddar beer bread toasts (another crowd pleaser). When I'm not party hopping ( ) I really like marinated artichokes in grilled sandwiches, especially jazzing up boring lunch meats like turkey. And they're good with hard cheeses like Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano. I always add them to pasta puttanesca, too. If all else fails, and you run out of ideas, you can just send them to me!
  23. Hi, These are delicacies??????? Tim No, but I can't really think of any thing else that St. Louis is famous for. I'm from a few hours away, and they're what my family would get when we travel into the city. If we were in town for a special event that needed a special meal, we'd probably end up at a place out in the suburbs, but they were never really memorable. We usually find a little hole-in-the-wall place near whatever attraction we're in the city to visit. There's a great African place near the City Museum, for example (I don't remember the name). The best bet is to pick up a copy of the River Front Times around town and look through their recommendations, which are usually pretty solid.
  24. Now sold in single serving sizes at Target, which is incredibly useful for beach picnics and entertaining the parents at children's birthday parties. Great concept... but I gotta know: Do the individual boxes come with sippy-straws that you poke into them? I don't know if the ones Kougin Amin is talking about at Target do, but there's a bar in my town that only does canned beer. To serve wine, they have juicebox sized boxes (lined with aluminum or some such) that has it's own straw. It makes me feel like a wino when I drink them, but the wine is ok. I can't remember the brand.
  25. My parents are auction goers, so we have several antique pieces in our kitchen. My mom loves Graniteware, and we have pans, pots, mugs, plates, and buckets of all shapes and sizes from the early 1800s on. We also store extra spoons and things in a crock my great-grandfather used to make bootleg liquor in in the 1920s. It's not in the kitchen, but in our front hall we have the iron cooking pot my pioneer ancestors bought in West Virginia in the late 1790s and traveled with to Missouri in the 1800s. My uncle recently found the receipt for it. From the other side of the family, my grandparents gave my mom and dad some mixing bowls they received at their wedding and my grandpa cleaned up a Revereware copper-bottomed sauce pan that they bought used in their first year of marriage. We still use it all the time. In my teen years, it was the preferred mac-n-cheese pot. Our kitchen is actually pretty young, comparatively. The house was built in 1895, but it didn't have an inside kitchen (beyond a cast iron stove in the pantry for the winter) until the late 1930s. The oldest thing in the house is technically a kitchen item. We have a lead platter from the 1500s from my mother's father's side of the family. They were quite well-off and proud of their history. It's from the home of a baron or something (the story is foggy and has a tendency to be stretched and aggrandized depending on the audience), but my great-grandmother took it to a metallurgist in Chicago in the 60s who confirmed the age of the lead and said the repair that is in the rim is from the 1700s.
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