Tri2Cook

A friend described a food she had (and enjoyed) while vacationing in the Dominican Republic that she says was fried and the main components were plantains, cheese and I'm pretty sure she said ham. This sounded odd to me but I've never been there so what do I know. Anybody have any idea what this might be?

The best distributor of a good french fry is also the least expensive... a bag of russet potatoes. It's not that much work and you won't get anything frozen that your customers will like better.

That's the one. I've only seen one in a picture in a book and it was from an angle that didn't show the bottom but I'm pretty sure that's it. Thanks!

Thanks!

Nice! Smoked cheddar pastry cream? That's awesome! I'm gonna have to try it.

I did my own napoleon-ized version of that for the "dessert-a-thon" last weekend. Two layers of cantaloupe sherbet and one of honeydew sherbet seperated by layers of caramelized prosciutto and topped with honey/peppercorn whipped cream. It was a bit salty for a dessert and would work better as an appetizer. Of course, making two kinds of sherbet and caramelizing the prosciutto doesn't fit in the quick and easy theme and it wouldn't sit out on a tray too well... but it wasn't bad.

Anybody know where to get them? Not the ones that sit flat and look like they're leaning, the ones that are actually tilted on edge and balancing. Thanks.

I recently did a honeydew and a cantaloupe sorbet. I actually made the melon purees for a cantaloupe sherbet and a honeydew sherbet that I did over the weekend but I had more melon than I needed and used the rest for sorbets. I used honey to sweeten them a bit because I think it works well with those melons and a bit of lemon juice to brighten them up and was very happy with the results. The local wild blueberries are still going strong, I have two gallon pails of them on the table right now, so I think I'll do that next.

Why the 45 minutes to prep rule? You could do things that can be done ahead and served cold or at room temp. Do 'em up a day ahead, fridge 'em and throw 'em on the table when you need to. That takes the pressure off the 45 minute limit and opens up more options. They can't expect it to be super fancy on that budget but you can put out a pretty nice snack spread for $60. Fruits and veggies fit in the healthy rule. Some nice cheese(s) and breads. Chicken salad, tuna salad, egg salad are all fairly cheap to make and can be fancied up a little if you wanted (you can't by a dried out convenience store sandwich for $2 a person so you don't have to go overboard, just make sure it tastes good). If the rules on time and all that are because it's a committee of people trying to do as little as they can get away with (I'm not saying that's the case, I've just been in those situations before) then see if you can fish out 2 or 3 people who don't mind putting a little extra effort into it and do a little evening before "build the snack trays" party.

I'll trade you one for one of those avocado milkshakes. The napoleon was pretty good. A little less salty would have been better but that's ok, I was just having fun. The sherbets turned out really nice. The veggie mousse experiment wasn't as good as I hoped but was better than I honestly expected. Most liked the carrot, the response to the pea was mainly "I don't hate it but I'm not sure I actually like it either". That's ok though, again I was just messing around. No plans to keep it around for future use. Every now and then I have to get the goofiness out of my system.

Awesome stuff. I wanted to throw a couple things in for the "dessert-a-thon" but I don't have a lot of time this weekend. I don't have anything to offer with the beauty of the "driftwood" cake and can't offer the mouthwatering creativity and sheer volume that gfron1 and jumanggy brought to the table so I decided to put on the thinking cap and make the theme of my contribution "Weird". First, I decided to twist the old catering standard by napoleon-izing it. alternating layers of cantaloupe/honey/tahitian vanilla sherbet and honeydew/honey/rosewater sherbet seperated by crisp salty/sweet layers of caramelized prosciutto. It's topped with honey sweetened, peppercorn infused whipped cream. Next is buttered peas 'n' carrots. Mousse of pea puree, butter, honey, lemon zest and juice and a pinch of nutmeg folded into vanilla whipped cream. Mousse of carrot puree with butter, honey, tangerine zest and juice and a pinch of cinnamon folded into vanilla whipped cream. A sauce of browned butter, sugar, cream and vanilla bean. Topped with candied carrot pieces. P.S. I won't be offended by "yuck" replies.

I agree with that 100%. The thing is, there's spending more on ingredients because they make something better and spending more on ingredients just because the cost more. There are probably a few palates out there that can tell you which batch of mac n cheese used cream and which used milk but I'm willing to bet if you put a pan of each on the table at pretty much any party/dinner nobody is going to discern that the one with cream is better. I'd almost promise you they won't know if used a more or less expensive brand of dried pasta and they definitely won't know (in this context) if you used salted or unsalted butter. If you don't compensate for the salt when seasoning (if the recipe calls for unsalted butter and a specific amount of salt and you use salted butter obviously you'd have to use less salt... but we all salt to taste anyway right?) then they may find it too salty but they won't know it's because you used salted butter. They'll just think you oversalted it. As for the cheese, that's the flavor-star in mac n cheese and the place I'd spend my "splurge money" if I was going for fancy. There aren't many (if any) cheeses that won't work, it comes down to what you like and what you want to spend.

With no offense intended, you're overthinking this one a bit. I've made mac n cheese when I was a kid and we were not high up the income scale with storebrand pasta, margarine, whatever milk was in the fridge and whatever cheese we happened to have in the house and it was always good. If you're using butter and good cheese it will be even better. Salted or unsalted butter won't matter, just compensate for the salt when seasoning. If you have half and half or cream on hand and want to use it, go ahead. I wouldn't go buy it special for mac n cheese though, milk works fine... there's already plenty o' fat from the butter and cheese so you really won't miss the difference cream instead of milk will make. Dry mustard is with the spices. Personally, as much as I hate to admit it, I think a blend of cheddar and (blush) proceesed ("American" or velveeta) cheese makes good mac n cheese and comes closest to what you find in the type of places you mentioned.

Sounds like fun but this time of year is really difficult to work in extra projects for me... even fun projects. It's tourist season (fishing) so it's nuts at work, it's race season (I do triathlon and road cycling) so I spend a lot of my free time training and most of the little time I have left goes to grabbing some sleep. I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody does though. Hopefully I can find time to sneak in a dessert or two for the cause.

I know this question is from a few months ago but I didn't see any responses so, just for fun, lets find out. I've got plenty o' cocoa nibs left from another project sitting around so we might as well see what happens if I let them party in a jar of booze for a while. Worst case, it'll be a disgusting mess that I have to throw away... won't be the first time I made one of those. I won't interrupt (again) the vanilla thread with it, I'll post it elsewhere when I have results.

I do the same as jcho with stem on maraschino cherries and I get an occasional leaker as well but not too many. I dip them well up the stem then put them in a tray that I've covered with a layer of unflavored poprocks to set. I call them cherry poppers.

Maybe make a cinnamon bun modified version of Moto's donut soup, custard it up with some egg yolks, then run it through the freezer. You could add a bit of cream cheese to the base if you want that cream cheese icing flavor to stand out and maybe even swirl a cinnamon sugar mixture through it at the end. I've never seen it or tasted it so I don't know what I'm trying to create exactly. This is all strictly from my head (and I just finished a fast-paced 50k bike ride so it may not be a clear thinking head), I haven't actually tried it.

Didn't waste time with a pic, just thought I'd put in my entry for the most boring breakfast among all of these really tasty looking breakfasts. Summer is the time I add lots of road cycling and racing triathlons to my list of things to do which means finding more time for training (I bike, run and swim year-round but have to up the intensity and frequency during spring and summer) and keeping the weight in check so I had a flax bagel w/ homemade (not by me) raspberry jam, a banana and a cup of earl grey.

And of course there's also the interesting (and once I got around to trying it, very tasty) olive oil version.

Nice! This looks/sounds good. There was a recipe for a "shortcut" baklava in a pastry book I read years ago. I can't remember the author other than he also has some bread books out. The recipe in his book that he proclaimed "really good" was horrible. It called for layering everything without butter then pouring vegetable oil over it all before baking. Supposedly you'd never miss the butter. I knew better but tried it anyway and it was awful. Surprised me that he even included it because most of the book was pretty good.

Looks awesome but does the book offer any explanation as to why it's called "Birdseed Cake"? Just curious since you didn't mention any type of seeds as a component of the cake.

I honestly haven't done much with the salt so far other than finishing. I use it on salads and scallops and have tried it on many things, even duck breast, just out of curiosity. It doesn't help some things as well as others but so far there hasn't been anything that made me say "I wish I hadn't done that". Vanilla seems to adapt pretty well to almost anything. I used some with a couple recipes I'd been wanting to try for a while and finally got around to. Caramel tarts... chocolate tart shells filled with salted caramel, topped with bittersweet ganache and spinkled with vanilla salt and an olive oil based chocolate mousse that I served sprinkled with the vanilla salt. Neither recipe called for the vanilla salt but I thought it would work well and it did. I want to infuse some black and pink salts with vanilla so I can get the flavor and some color going at the same time.

I don't know if this counts but I did some indoor smoking last week. We had a 3 day breakfast and lunch catering job for a small conference (40 people). They were very specific about what they wanted and one lunch was to be smoked salmon. I was able to get some really nice salmon and didn't want to dry it out in the smoker so I covered the bottoms of a couple large pans (lined with heavy foil) with a mixture of rice, brown sugar and tea leaves, heated them 'til I had smoke, put racks of salmon (brushed with soy and sprinkled with sea salt) over the pan and covered with inverted pans. I gave them about 10 minutes or so in the smoke, they were still cool inside, then popped them in the fridge. The next day a quick crisping of the skin and a few minutes in the oven finished them off. They had a nice smokey flavor but were still moist and fresh tasting and went over very well with the client. Not a new way to do it by any means, hadn't done it in years, but it seemed lighter and more summery done that way so I'm glad I remembered it.

Yep. I haven't been messing with it lately but I usually used pretty much the same amounts for any fruit. If the ph was right, it always worked. The ph is easy to fix with test strips (or a meter) and some sodium citrate but there's no magic ratio... depends on your juice/puree. I'm not an expert on the stuff so there are probably good reasons for being precise (finding the minimum you can get away with for a given fruit comes to mind) but others have done the hard work when it comes to caviar and spheres and it always seems to work if you stay in the ballpark of their recipes.

Very cool. I'm jealous (not that I have the skills that would earn me a stage there but I'm gonna go ahead and be jealous anyway). Keep the great posts coming.