beany

Living in Toronto, whenever we cross the border into Buffalo, we're always shocked at how cheap your fast food is. At the most basic level, you have your Mcdonald's $1.00 menu, Denny's $4.99 big breakfast, and Ponderosa's dinner buffet for $7.99 (or around there). This kind of food may not be appealing to people who Love food and everything about it, but for 3.00, you can have some kind of burger, fries and drink, without any more effort than getting to the restaurant and standing in line. Plus, there's no dishes to wash, no clean up to do. I can definitely see how fast food can appear to be more appealing than setting out to cook a meal. I also think this level of cheap fast food contributes to the obesity epidemic.

This I think, is my favourite!

You might want to send some peanut butter and crackers, or jam. One lady I knew complained that all the vegetables served in homes are cooked to death and she missed fresh vegetables. You can't ship this, but if you do have a sister in town, then maybe she can do a cruidite or a salad or something. Just know, the food is bad. very bad...

I love fishskin, its the best part!!

I can still find rotisserie take out in one smaller supermarket near me, a Price Chopper. And there are large chicken restaurant chains with gas fired rotisseries for take out, such as Swiss Chalet, St. Huberts, etc. But it's a dying breed. ←

Its funny, I flew out of Toronto a few weeks ago, and the security guard took away my barbeque sauce from Mcdonalds but he didn't notice the vinegar packets I had in the front pouch of my backpack. In Vancouver my contact lens solution was allowed through even though in Edmonton my shampoo was removed. There was a huge table will all the products that passengers had to surrender. At first I thought it was a display of the products not allowed on planes, but then I too had to add to the table. One trick I used was to ask for a plastic/paper cup from a fast food restaurant so the air hostesses could fill them up with water as bottles and cans are not allowed to be had by passengers.

I have to say I was really glad to see you blogging and am so inspired to visit Israel one day. Is it common place to take leftover food home? Everything on the table looked so fantastic, especially the eggplant dishes, I would regret not being able to eat it all!

we use ginger paste in our saags. I think its a traditional ingredient.

You know, whenever we buy samosas from punjabi shops, they are always filled with peas and potatoes and have a very flaky dough, while if we make samosa at home, the skin (chapri) is always crispy and very thin. The ideal samosa has no bubbles in the chapri when fried, and become a bit more translucent. Do other people use this type of chapri? is taht what you also call it? BTW I post mostly to General Food Topics, but am now wondering what took me so long to get here! Am really enjoying going back and reading all the posts so far.

It is posiible that the paneer was not stored at the right temperature. The expiry date would not mean anything in that case. Fresh paneer when frozen and thawed loses its firmness and becomes a little crumbly, but that won't be a sign of it going bad. Paneer is not supposed to "smell", it really must have been BAD. ← Thanks for the quick reply. I guess I'll have to try again sometime soon. I tried making paneer pakora with it, as one of the restaurants that I go to sells these for 7.99/lb and I wanted to be able to make a ton of them for the same price. Thanks again

I have a question for the experts please: I just bought my first block of paneer from the indian grocery store that we always go too. It smelled realllly really horrible. The smell stayed in my nose, and the taste was bitter. Had the paneer I bought gone bad, or is this normal. Although we do eat paneer,it has always been from a restaurant and this was my first time handling it. The brand was Nanak and the expiry date was quite far. Thanks for the help

I read an article in the newspaper a few months ago that discussed giving money or food to homeless people. The point of it was that that person is not just the homeless person on the corner bothering you, he or she has a name and is a person. That article really made me change the way I felt. Instead of turning my eyes away, I began to smile and apologize that I didn't have any "extra" money to give away. When this thread came along, I remembered that I wanted to do more. So today, while I waited for the light to change, a man with a sign passed my car. I didn't have any change, but I offered him a bottle of water. He thanked me, and took it, but I thank you for reminding me of how much I have and how easy it is to do something to make someone else's day better. Any start is better than nothing! Thanks for the inspiration!!!

A veal sandwich, with mushrooms, green peppers, extra sauce and some cheese. If its good, its good enough to have 3 days in a row!

Actually one of the things I looked forward to the most when I visited Tanzania was the food. Although it is a third world country, everything is organic, nothing is GM, and everything is fresh. Looking at the size of chickens available there, they were almost a third of the average size of a chicken here. They take much longer to cook, and have a sweeter taste. It makes sense that a country without all of the "technologies" of north america would have better food...they haven't messed with it yet!

Something that we often have are tandoori shrimp. Marinate them with your own recipe or with a bottled paste like Pataks and line them up on a skewer. Very delicious.

My roommate gave me my rice cooker, and I have been happily using it, but I have never heard of problems with making less than the proper amount of rice in the rice cooker. What happens? Maybe I've been having inferior rice all along and never knew it thanks all

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does DOC mean? and what is so special about these tomatoes..not really a big fan of tomatoes but I do use tomato sauce a lot so it would be really great to get some information. Also, what is the big deal about Muir Glen? thanks so very much

Wow, thanks for the education Randi!

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does DOC mean? and what is so special about these tomatoes..not really a big fan of tomatoes but I do use tomato sauce a lot so it would be really great to get some information. Also, what is the big deal about Muir Glen? thanks so very much