fannus

Hi Lindsay, So I noticed I had a ton of broccoli that I bought on sale in my fridge, so I decided to make some soup, and I really liked how it turned out. I had about 7 heads of broccoli (with the full stems). I took 4 of them and peeled the skin off the stems, and cut the very end off of them (these parts tend to be string and don't break down as well). Once this was done, I diced up all the pieces and tossed them in a medium sized pot, added milk to just barely cover them, about 1tbl butter and 2 tsp salt. Covered the pot and put it on medium heat to simmer until the brocolli was just tender, then took the entire contents of this (which admittedly looked pretty nasty at the time) and tossed it in the blender (had to do this in 2 batches with the quantities I was using), then tossed it back in the pot and let it sit unheated. Then I chopped and tossed the rest of the brocolli into a steamer, and started making a butter/flour roux in a saucepan. Once the roux had cooked a bit I started gradually adding milk, and when it was about pancake batter consistency added cubes of equal quantities sharp white cheddar and havarti cheese (really heavily aged white cheddar doesn't melt well for me, so I usually add a 'stabilizier' cheese that's less grainy/crumbly, like Jack or Havarti, or Gruyere). Once the cheese was melted in, I took the blended liquid and added that to the cheese sauce until it was sufficiently incorporated, and dumped the entire thing back into the unheated pot, finally I added the steamed chopped brocolli, stirred it up and let the thing sit for 5 minutes or so for everything to even out, then adjusted the salt balance. It was the first time I've ever made brocolli-cheddar soup, and I just pulled the ricepe out of thin air, but I really liked how it turned out. It tasted very full and complete without any other seasonings/veggies added. Essence of broccoli

Thanks for suggestions! I'll definitely check out Seisel's and Iowa Meat Farms this week I'm on a bit of a budget but I'm willing to pony up for a decent cut of meat

Up until now, 95% of my meat shopping has been done at general supermarket stores like Ralph's or Vons, etc., or at club stores like Costco, but increasingly, both of these have very poor selection, quality, and value in the meats they sell. I want to buy chicken legs, feet and all. I want, on occasion, a prime cut standing rib roast. I want to be able to buy a 5lb block of kidney suet. I've decided I need to find myself a good Butcher. I've looked in the yellow pages, via Google (search, local, etc.), and unfortunately I don't have a group of friends who are 'in the know' about such things, so I'd like to know, does anyone has some tips on how to find a damn good Butcher? I figure that this post is the first step I'm looking somewhere in the San Diego area, preferably north of Downtown (I live in University City). I've seen a lot of places in the Clairemont Mesa/Convoy area but they seem to be big wholesale meat suppliers, and don't have retail storefronts. If anyone has a Butcher that they frequent in the area, I'm all ears!

I have a 'waring bar blender', that I picked up off amazon at a steal for $75, there seems to be quite a few model variations, but mine has stood up to frozen fruit, ice, boiling hot soups (although you sometimes need to make sure the lid doesn't pop off, otherwise you're in *big* trouble), and just about anything else I need pulverized into goo Daily use for about 6 years and no sign of problems, still works like a champ. Here's what it looks like: Is this the same visage of the Waring that everyone else loves?

I don't think any trip to San Diego is complete without sampling some Pho: My preferred place is here: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=1...estaurantReview You can actually see browned spots on the tables from years of having hot bowls of beef noodle soup served on them day in and day out You'll either love it or you'll hate it, the vermicelli noodle dishes are also good.

I would have to say that the thing I like most about my Dutch oven is its versatility. It was one of the first larger sized cooking vessels I purchased, I use it for stews, soups, braises, curries, it makes an excellent cooking vessel for savory pies. It's also great beacuse my stovetop and oven both electric, do a terrible job of maintaining a consistent level of heat, so the cast iron really helps keep things more or less constant. I would say cast iron skillet is to a frying pan as dutch oven is to a pot. More versatile, sturdier and with a much higher specific heat (also my dutch oven has a pretty good nonstick patina on it at this point

Wow, looks delicious. Cooking for one makes me pretty lazy about cooking 'meals', let alone multi-course dinners. You can infer what comprised my dinner: And desert is ready to go into the oven: A very primitive first attempt at some Russian Wheat, and some as-of-yet unborn Ciabatta (which is in the oven as I speak).

'Scuse me? Winter an impediment to grilling? As long as you can make a clear path to the grill, what's a little sub-freezing weather? Lack of outdoor space--now that's an impediment to grilling. Don't get me wrong--I love my countertop grill. But it's not quite the same thing, and besides, you can't barbecue on it. ← Sandy's right, of course: we should accept no impediments to grilling year-round. But I'll confess to being a wuss about it. My feeble logic? It's too cold to get the proper grilling effects. Do you grill outdoors in the winter? What special things do you do to make it work? And Sandy, we'll expect photos of you flippin' burgers with the snow falling, dude. ← Well, in many places in the US (I know maybe not a lot of the East Coast), Winter means a significant increase in precipitation levels (read 8-10in/mo). Snow may not be a deterrent to outdoor cooking, but wind and pelting rain every week will squelch the inner flame of almost any grill enthusiast. In more tropical areas, a storm can hit pretty quick. I know there has been more than one time that I've stocked up on grilling supplies and been rained out the next day (or even afternoon). Anyone have any heroic stories of grilling in the rain? The best advice I can offer is to make sure your grill is well covered, nothing worse than a sunny day and a waterlogged grill!

I know avocado is the cliche "California Cuisine" addition, but if you live this far south, its ubiquity and cheapness really makes it a 'normal' food, I eat avocado slices with my scrambled eggs, for example Burgers can be tricky, more is definitely not always better. If anyone has ever been to a Claim Jumper's Restaurant, they have something called the "Widomaker" burger, in short, 1/2 patty, 3-4 thick slices of bacon, ditto for avocado, a few slabs of cheddar, onion rings, and all the fixins. Now on the menu, you think, ok, a few onion rings, sounds like a larf. When I got this monstrosity, it was basically as it was described on the menu, except that it was more like a side of onion rings with burger topping. I had to remove at least 6 or 7 of them before I could fit it into my gaping maw. Afterwards, I felt dirty.

I've been making my own yogurt every 2 weeks or so for about 3 or 4 months. I make a gallon at a time (yes, I eat a *lot* of yogurt) The best web resource I've found is this (I've seen a few references to it in other threads, but because it's so great, I'll plug it again): http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html Specifically: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Chees.../YOGURT2000.htm This guy really seems to know his stuff. I use the exact method he does, with a few exceptions. I've had good results with this method, using freshly purchased standard 2% milk. For a gallon of milk, I actually add quite an obscene amount of dry milk, 1.5 - 2 cups, depending on how firm I want it. I also increase the incubation time to 12 hours, and reduce the final incubation temp. to 45C. I like my yogurt pretty much as thick and tangy as I can get it. This matters especially if you want to fold in additional ingredients later, like honey or jams/preserves, the longer cycle is also a lot more convenient, as you can do it easily overnight. The other thing that I'd like to comment on is that the different bacterical composition of the cultures you use for your starter yogurt does tend to make a big impact on the final product. Personally, every batch of yogurt that I've made has tasted better in my opinion than the yogurt I used to start it, although my first batches were on such a short cycle (read 3 hours), that they lacked commensurate tang, but were still rich, creamy and divine. The best commercial starter yogurt I've used is "Alta Dena" brand, which if you've ever lived in California, you're probably familiar with. Next time I buy some I'll transcribe the names of the bacteria in the culture, but it contains something like 6 different organisms, compared to most yogurts I've seen only contain a few, primarily 'lactobacillus acidophilus', so I encourage you to experiment with different starter cultures, although since I'm cheap I usually reuse my previous batch for the culture. Best uses: Smoothies! Yogurt is the absolute best addition to fruit smoothies, thickens and adds tremendous flavor. I also like adding it in general to lots of drinks, my Armenian room mate loves it for tahn. Also, as Fankhauser suggests, you can use it in place water or milk in a wide variety of recipes for batters or anything that will benefit from some extra thickening. I'm curious as to what other people use bulk yogurt for!

I know this is *way* belated, but in San Diego it being 'winter' is usually not an impediment to grilling: The photograpy.... I'm very much of the 'point and shoot' school, best I could do being with indoor lighting and no tripod. Also, 3/$1 avocados make guac pretty much a necessity. It's not that I don't love mushrooms, bacon, tomato and all those other 'necessary' burger fixins, but I'm not a structural engineer. I suppose the only thing I'm fairly picky about on my burgers is the cheese (Cabot 24-month aged white cheddar is my staple cheese for pretty much all sandwiches, plus it is a very reasonable $4.50/lb at Costco). I've always been a fan of plain old salt & pepper seasoning on my burgers, but if you're feeling adventerous, I recommend marinating the ground meat in 'Basque' brand marinade for a few hours before you toss them on the grill. If you can't find it in the store, its composition is farily simple, about two parts red wine vinegar to one part nice Red like a Cab or Merlot, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, ground pepper to taste. The only thing is that this can make the meat a bit more prone to breaking up on the grill, but as long as you don't manhandle it, it should be fine.

I would also recommend looking at Fagor pressure cookers, they're much more reasonably priced than Kuhn Rikon are Magefesa, and have commensurate features, but I have not 'battle tested' one yet. Soon I will have in my posession: http://www.mercantila.com/catalog/store/Fa...Pressure_Cooker I think that this looks like a very solid 2nd gen. (i.e. internal steam valve) pressure cooker. So I should be able to comment more concretely on its merits soon (if you're looking for a deal, this website has about the best non-eBay price I've found on this model).