Tri2Cook

I usually just toss regular lasagna noodles in a container of cold water in the morning. When they soften a bit, I drain them and throw them in the fridge until I need them. They work just as well as the no-boil noodles but are more substantial, which I like.

I stand corrected.

Polenta is ground corn, grits are ground hominy. Thanks to the local store picking up the Bob's Red Mill product line about a year ago, I once again enjoy grits on a regular basis.

Fair enough... ask away and have fun. I hope I'm wrong and you get lots of help/suggestions but I really don't see a lot of people having attempted to get rum flavor into anything via infusing it into something else first*. It's just taking the long way around with no benefit over just adding some rum. But I sincerely hope it works well for you. Let us know. *Edit: other than something like fruitcake where the fruit is sometimes soaked in booze before going in.

I'd just add rum to the custard. You're making things unnecessarily tedious by trying to get rum flavor in your custard via the vanilla beans(s). If you want it less strong in flavor, add less rum. If you want it less boozy, add the rum while the custard is still very hot or when it still has a short amount of cooking time left. That won't get rid of the alcohol but it will reduce it.

People definitely do that. My ex sister-in-law once tried to get the entire check for our table of 6 comped because the server, exactly as she should have done, told us up front before we'd even looked at the menu that they were out of baked potatoes and it was going to be a while before more were ready. "Well I wanted a baked potato, I think our meal should be free." It was embarrassing to the point that I told her I'd pay her part of the bill if she'd just shut up. It was also the last time I went anywhere near a restaurant with her.

How much disposable items are you using while cooking? Usually none. Will these be recycled or end up on the landfill? If I'm using anything disposable, it's gonna end up in the landfill. How much energy does it take to cook your meal? I have no idea. Could you change for a better option? Probably. Food, ingredients: How much is organic? None by intent. Some may be but not because I went out of my way to make sure it was. How much of the left overs will be used? Depends, sometimes all of it, sometimes none. How much food do you through out that could have been eaten? More than I'm happy about. Will it be composed or end up in the landfill? Landfill unless it's something the ravens will eat during the winter. Could you change one habit that would make your dinners more environmentally friendly? I'm sure I could...

Give it a little time, the bad guy changes on a somewhat regular basis. Though not as frequently as the media buzzword fear of the year: cholesterol, gluten, sodium, high fructose corn syrup and my most loathed of all... "ingredients I can actually pronounce" (as if literacy and ingredient safety are interconnected), for example.

I'm currently filling my face with a piece of what turned out to be a surprisingly decent baguette (from the grocery store) split open, smeared with butter and filled with some shaved black forest ham. The bread won't win any prizes but it's got a much better crust than I usually find at the store and didn't require any effort from me (which may go a long way towards explaining why I'm finding it surprisingly decent).

With a full day of football to watch, the easy way out won the day. I put a big pot of chili on this morning and I'm doing the bread dough in the bread machine (sorry but bread making does not take precedence over New Year's Day bowl games). I will bake the bread (a basic white loaf with a bit of molasses and a hefty portion of corn meal added) in the oven if that redeems my soul in any way.

The standard pecan pie recipe works well with any nuts I've tried replacing the pecans with. Maybe sweeter than you have in mind but you can add as many nuts as you want. I like to up the salt in that pie compared to what most recipes call for.

If you start reducing everything proportional to the sugar reduction, eventually you're just making a smaller version of the original. If you're ultimate goal is a lower calorie cake while still using sugar and butter (or whatever fat you're using), your best bet is to just eat smaller portions. If you just prefer your desserts less sweet, there's no reason to alter the fat with the sugar reduction.

I did a Valentine multi-course plated desserts thing a few years ago. 7 pm seemed like a good start time to me because it allowed people to have/go out for dinner if they wanted before setting down to a whole lot of dessert but was early enough for them to still make other plans for the evening if they wanted to. But kids weren't part of the equation and it was a for-profit event. If it's a more casual "help yourself to the desserts table" thing, with kids being welcome, I'd consider starting maybe 6:30-ish with a mention that those who want to come later can. You might see a progression through the evening where people with kids arrive earlier and leave earlier and those without kids arrive later and leave later but there should still be some overlap where pretty much everybody is there together. I think afternoon doesn't really suit what you described wanting to do. A desserts only, bring-the-kids thing in the daytime is going to sound like a kid's party to a lot of people even if that's not the intent.

Not sure it's a pairing that will be appearing on restaurant menus anytime soon but they'd probably be okay together. Sort of a deconstructed Cincinnati 3-way.

Not sure if it's where you saw it but I mentioned it as part of my southern style dinner plan that isn't going to be happening do to circumstances beyond my control. I could still make the mac and cheese part but I've already started leaning heavily towards just doing a big pot of chili now. Not sure how chili with mac and cheese on the side would be...

Looks like I'm re-thinking the entire plan. No collards in the store as of today and no black eyed peas either. They carry the dried peas but the usual spot was empty so I asked... nope, none. So the traditional southern theme is being tossed. Not sure where I'm headed next. I don't want anything that requires too much fuss or attention, New Year's day is going to be 12 hours of football for me and I don't want to interrupt that too much messing with food. Gonna jump around between the Outback, Cotton and Citrus bowls in the morning and then really focus on the Rose and Sugar bowls (the two playoff games this year) in the late afternoon/evening. Food will not be my primary interest. After a few weeks of unseasonably warm weather, we're back to the nasty cold stuff again so the forecast (-20 C for the high) isn't looking too good for trying to do something in the smoker that day. I may just put on a pot of chili or stew or something and call it good enough.

Actually the prices aren't that far apart all-in. Amazon U.S. is with free shipping, Amazon Canada is charging $40 for the shipping. It's pretty cool but not something I'd have a lot of use for. If it was $30 or something in that area, maybe as a novelty but I'd never use it enough to spend $150+ on it.

They probably do... Amazon Canada sells them for ~$117. Ouch... just noticed that's ~$117 + $40 shipping.

I didn't get anything food-related that would be considered particularly interesting to most. I did get a nice little collection of sausage making supplies that I'm looking forward to playing around with. That's funny because the first thing I thought when I saw the picture is she must have bought it from a shady looking character at a Phish concert.

I remember fresh purple hull peas straight out of the field.

I think the reason for the tarantula prices you're seeing is that they're generally sold for the pet trade (where $25 is getting close to the low end of the price scale which goes up as high as $300 for more exotic varieties), not the food market. Even if a specialty shop is carrying them to sell for consumption, they're probably still coming from the pet trade at the bottom end of the price range (~$10) and then being marked up to increase the mystique for adventurous eaters.

Ham. Black eyed peas in the form of a cold salad. Collard greens (boiled then cooked down in a cast iron frying pan with bacon grease and a pinch of sugar) if the store has them this year, they did last year but that was the first time in a long time. Cornbread. Not sure what else, maybe mac and cheese. I'd love for the ham to be a nice country ham but that's not available here. That will be for New Year's Day. New Year's Eve is usually just snacks/finger foods and watching movies. I no longer feel any desire to go out or party for the occasion.