Porthos

In sour cream for me.

Grapes from a supermarket in California - how long do they keep given proper storage in the refrigerator? There is a good sale on now, but the trip I would take them on isn't for a couple of weeks. Do I buy them at the good price or will they go bad before I can use them?

Canned Chili with beans.

After I got excited about trying the chuck eye steaks I went to the store that had them and they only had 4 pounds left. I needed twelve pounds so I opted for the sirloin tip steaks. Thank you all for you input.

This will be served as part of a renaissance feast and after grilling it will be cut up into bite-size eat-with-your-hands pieces. That let's me off the hook for making beautiful slices.

Since I put up this question today I found out that a cut I've never seen here in southern Califonia has become available. When Snowangel used to post about family trips to the cabin she would sometimes mention Chuck Eye Steaks. Thank you all for your input but I'm going to gamble on this new-to-me cut.

Without bringing other cuts of meat into the discussion which meat would you choose for grilling: "London Broil" cut from the top round or Beef Top Sirloin? I'm thinking the sirloin would bring a little more flavor to the table but I'm not sure.

I rarely post about my finds. Be that as it may be I have been involved with something that has kept me from my weeky rounds of the thrift stores. Thursday the 23rd I will celebrate being back to making my rounds.

My foray into grilled zucchini pleased me. What I didn't expect was needing to use significantly higher temperatures than I use for beef/pork/poultry. Is this typical?

My grilling season does not start at home. I have an 8-burner event grill that I use as part of preparing a mid-day feast for a group (we're feeding 70) of Renaissance Pleasure Faire re-enactors. Seasoned beef is always cooked on the grill. I don't do custom rubs. My favorite purchased rub is Garlic Festival Mesquite Grill. It is always popular at faire and at home. Some days it just the classic kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and Lawrys garlic granuals. I start chicken and pork in the oven, then season them and finish them on the grill. The chicken in the oven first is to help keep down the flare-ups from too much fat dripping down. The pork in the oven first is because, remember this is a grill (no lid) not a BBQ, I can't get the temperature down low enough to properly cook the pork without getting the outside beyond a good char and entering just plain burnt. I've done roasted corn-on-the-cob with good results. I may try asparagus this year. Proably grilled Zucchini as well. Once faire season is over I will begin BBQing on my patio. I am particularly found of boneless skinless chicken thighs seasoned with whatever strikes me, grilled and served immeadiately. Sadly, I have no trout waiting in the freezer this year. For me trout rubbed with olive oil and garlic, then cooked on the BBQ is something just short of heaven. My wife had gastric bypass surgery which changed her dietary requirements and her digestive tract in general. Anything hinting at being too dry no longer works for her so pork loin chops are a thing of the past, We don't eat a lot of beef just because I hate paying the price for what I like, Vacation is the exeption. We vacation in the eastern Sierras and the last night of the trip has to be BBQed steak. I do like to cook sausages on the BBQ. Once every couple of years I try to get to a particular German deli for their Nurnberger sausages. So obviously I'm not a heavyweight when it comes to grilling and BBQing but I certainly like to when time allows.

I know you asked about other diets but I'd like to address what I do to make South Beach work for me. I/m back on South Beach (mostly). The biggest manner in which I don't comply is that I flat refuse to eat low-fat cheese. That is followed by eating more nuts in a day than Dr A suggests. I've dropped 27 pounds since late January doing it this way. While he says not to weigh your food, I weigh my proteins because I know what will satisfy me and leave me feeling sated after the meal without over-doing it. I also weigh my nuts because for some reason I can't seem to get the quantity I want just by looking. At work I have a digital scale I bought at Costco put away in my desk to help keep my on track when eating nuts. With that intro to my feelings about adhering to the diet here is what works for me. I enjoy fresh veggies (carrots, bells peppers, celery and sugar snap peas) and make them part of my morning and afternoon snack. BUT ... I also have about an ounce of cheese, an ounce of lunchmeat or about 3/4 ounce of nuts. I'm not doing this diet for my cardiac health, by the way, and that is why I am a bit more liberal with the non-lean meat. Anyway by having a small bit of different protein or nut sources with my snacks I have variety. Back to the veggies - I keep a jar of salsa around and use that as a legal dip to add variety. I love salads and typically both my lunch and dinner is salad and a protein - most likely chicken - second choice for variety is fish. By varying the dressing and ingredients for the salad and seasoning the chicken or fish different ways I get a variety of flavors over the week. For my carb (I only do my carbs at dinnertime) I will have a slice of sourdough or whole grain bread with butter. Breakfast is the hardest for doing different things. My "problem" is that I can eat my scrambled eggs and side of bacon 5 days a week and enjoy it. Not much help there. I keep Ghiradeli dark chocolate squares around for one kind of dessert, I have learned how to take 3 or 4 small bites of that precious square instead of my old way of just stuffing the whole thing in at once. I also have girl scout thin mints in the freezer. 2 of those consitute a dessert for me. Also, Peanut M&Ms are legal if eaten in controlled quantities. I tried a couple of the dessert recipes in the book and felt like I was eating diet desserts - not real desserts - and feeling like I'm eating diet food puts me off big time. One thing I will observe is that I don't use the recipes in the book. I've been cooking for 45 years and the principles laid out in the book are easily followed by just making a few adjustments. I don't know if any of this helps but there's my input. Not South Beach but it has helped me with how much liquid to get into my system each day (something I found years ago somewhere on the net. Take your weight in pounds, divide by 3, and this is how many ounces of liquids per day you are advised to consume. This is only something I read and not a hard-and-fast statement of how to do it.

I ordered and received Patricia Wells' Vegetable Harvest. I have only had time to glance through it but it looks very promising. I'm looking for new ways to serve veggies at the Ren Faire feast I cook for. I'll let you all know what results I've had later.

Thank you all. And now here is my sheepish grin. I found that we had a bottle of garlic-infused olive oil that my sweet wife had picked and I had completed forgotten about. Matthew, no garlic left in this particular dish is just a textual thing. There's a specific "look and feel" I'm going after: zucchini sauteed in olive oil with the essence of garlic, salted and lightly peppered. Also, this will be eaten at a rennaissance feast using one's fingers and I didn't like the idea of garlic bits still clinging to the coined zucchini. I use whole cloves in the potatoes I prepare and I do sent those out with the potatoes. It's just this one idea for no garlic in the finished dish.

I'm thinking of trying something but before I do I thought I would solicit information from my fellow eGulleters. I want to have the flavor of garlic without the garlic being in the final dish for some sauted zucchini. My thought is to cook up garlic in the oil I want to saute with, then strain the oil back into the pan and add the zucchini. Will this approach give me the undernote of garlic I am looking for?

I don't know how I missed this topic when it first came up. My favorite example of choosing water is Julia Child's Cream of Leek and Potato soup. In the text proceeding the recipe she made the case for the flavor of the leeks coming through much better if you used water instead of stock. Having then made the recipe with water I agree. There is a delicate harmony of flavors in the resulting soup.

I'm advocating that food prepared (and thus controlled) at home with healthily-balanced nutrition is better for our children than the majority of commercially prepared foods. And just for giggles, not for insult - I take my coffee black.

Does anyone here have any experience with Savory Creations brand stock and broth concentrates. If so, what is your perception of the quality of this product.

I just went to the Lunchables website, and randomly picked the "Light Bologna and American Cracker Stacker" box that has no drink. 320 Calories of which HALF are fat calories. 50% of calories from fat isn't good nutritionally. I happen to be a devotee of the South Beach Diet so I am not fat-phobic - but I am very conscience of what the major source of those fats are. I also pay attention to the balance between fats, protein, and carbs. Also addressing the busy parent syndrome excuse: When we were raising our daughters we both worked (still do) and still prepared real food that we cooked. They got a fast food meal about once a week. And we ate dinner together - it was a priority. I just went and looked at one of the meals with water. The ones that come with water ALSO come with a Kool-aid packet to add to the water. That makes it sugar water in the end.

Shel_B, did you make a choice?

Christmas cookies baking is the number one reason I use parchment. We set up the cooling racks on our dining table and as each sheet of cookies comes out of the oven I slide the parchment with the cookies still on it off of the pan and onto a cooling rack. That makes the "immeadiately remove the cookies from the sheet" instruction very easy to do. Our cookie production is enough to fill 36 tins and two platters - generally about 16-18 different cookies and samples for the us as we go. I probably should state the we own 7 or 8 of the bakers half sheet pans that I mentioned above. We bake brownies ( four half size hotel pans - using the disposable foil version) and bread puddings( two half size hotel pans - again using the disposable foil version) for each weekend we are participating in either the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire (7 weekends in the spring) or in the Northern California Renaissance Faire (5 weekends in the fall) and always line the foil pans with parchment. If I'm baking a pizza at 400 degrees F it goes on parchment. above 410 F the parchment breaks down and browns. Baking cod fillets - parchment. the list goes on... We do not store them flat. They are folded over once and kept in a jumbo Hefty brand zipper bag and take up very little space that way. This is how I do it but I certainly leave room for others to do what they like best. Cheers

My 2 cents: I do almost everything that goes into the oven on 1/2 size baker's sheets (roughly 13 x 18) and only use parchment. I buy it already cut to size on-line. I general pay around $20 US for 200 sheets. That lasts me for about a year and a half. I have bought 2 silicone pads and have never used them. I like using the parchment and then cleaning it is tossing it in the trash.

I'm evil also. I put ALL of my knives in the dishwasher as well as my cutting boards. I only put 1 knife per section so that they don't hit each other. My 30 year-old 10" chef's knife still takes and keeps a sharp egde (Thanks Edge Pro).

I am all about plastic boards. My dishwasher has a sanitize cycle but I don't normally use it. For me being able to put my cutting boards in the dishwasher is very important. I now buy the ones with raised rubber edges to help keep them from skittering about. I just got rid of my bamboo board because I never used it. Having to specially hand-clean something in not what I'm about. The sanitation objections I here about plastic are interesting in light of all of the NSF-certified boards available in restaurant supply stores. I use plastic boards in the 2 volunteer kitchens I provide leadership for. We use a standard 3-sink wash-rinse-sanitize system and after doing this many years I have never had anyone we feed (this is tied into 2 west-coast Renaissance Faire where we feed some of the performers) come back and let me know they think our food made them sick. And believe me they would!

My habit for topics that interest me is to right-click on them (or the star or circle to the left) and open it in a new tab. When I'm done reading I close that tab and then continue down the list of New Content. This may or may not be a technique that interests you but I thought I'd mention it.

Does anyone know if Debbie Meyers Greenbag produce storage bags can be used with produce that is already cut up and ready for consumption?