toweringpine

I once made cheese from powdered milk while on a long canoe trip. I doubt it would be worth doing at home where you could do much better but fresh cheese on day ten of the trip made the world a little cheerier!

Peanutbutterscotch Squares Not very gourmet or complicated but they have been my favorite squares since I was a kid. one cup PB one bag butterscotch chips one bag coloured mini marshmallows shredded coconut - optional melt PB and chips together ( double boiler or microwave works well ) add marschmallows and coconut if desired press into a pan and chill. Enjoy They are pretty sweet but there is no extra sugar added ( beyond the butterscotch chips, marshmallows and peanut butter ).

Golf & country clubs often do not accept tips, even in their restaurants. Although I'm not sure if this actually qualifies for what we customarily refer to as "restaurants" (being typically members-only). Are service staff at clubs that don't allow tipping paid higher wages than restaurants that have tips? How do servers make up the difference? ← Not necessarily. My sister worked at a Golf and Country Club. The members were told that they were not to tip as the wait staff was paid well and tipping was not required. The wait staff got minimum wage. Eventually she quit and let a few members know the what the wages were. Apparently there were a bunch of complaints to the management once the truth was out there. ← Was she paid minimum wage at the standard rate, or the rate for "tipped employees" ? It makes a huge difference; the minimum wage for "tipped employees" here in Florida is somehing like $3.00 an hour. ← She was paid minimum wage for regular employees. It is higher than minimum wage for tipped employees but far lower than anyone can live on and far lower than anyone would reasonably expect to make with a low hourly wage plus tips. The members were told they were not to tip but when they found out how pitiful the wages were they were upset with the management of the club.

Golf & country clubs often do not accept tips, even in their restaurants. Although I'm not sure if this actually qualifies for what we customarily refer to as "restaurants" (being typically members-only). Are service staff at clubs that don't allow tipping paid higher wages than restaurants that have tips? How do servers make up the difference? ← Not necessarily. My sister worked at a Golf and Country Club. The members were told that they were not to tip as the wait staff was paid well and tipping was not required. The wait staff got minimum wage. Eventually she quit and let a few members know the what the wages were. Apparently there were a bunch of complaints to the management once the truth was out there.

Winnipeg News Bhujia is often referred to as pakora (I've been to Indian restaurants where I've asked about bhujia, and I've been told, "It's the same as pakora."), but in my experience, pakora are more like tempura--vegetables dipped in batter and fried. At India Palace (and its predecessor), it's different. It has always been a mash of things, including chickpea flour, that has been fried. ← I have had a hard time trying to sort of the various bujia, bahdji and pakoras. My father in law ( born near Calcutta ) explained to me that onions battered in gram flour are bahdjis if they have a mix of veggies they are pakora. Budjia is a mixture of vegetables cooked together with spices and is often at least partially mashed. Every recipe from India seems to have as many variants as there as Indian households and almost as many different spellings.

FWD..."My husband always winds up standing underneath the smoke detector flapping a towel at it and cursing." The childhood memories that brings back. At my parent's house the smoke detector was situated in just the right place that it would go off when the garlic toast was done just to perfection. One person would take the toast out and another would wave the door nearest to the alarm until the fog cleared. If all else fails a cheap and temporary exhaust system can be made from a length of flexible ducting and a small fan. I have cooked many a curry that was vented out the window to avoid adding a lingering scent to everything in the apartment. I have used the same principal ( just with a little larger hose and fan ) to create an area for smokers during parties. I work in the HVAC business so I have easy access to the materials needed but anyone could set up a quick system that could get stored in a shoe box for about twenty bucks.

I haven't seen anything like this here yet but would be very interested when it becomes available. Rogue has made beer that is far superior to most, I would trust they could take spirits to the same level. Some of the Rogue recipes are nothing new, just better. If they want to try making gin, I want to try it. For decades we have all drank beer from the same few breweries and have recently found that there is better product out there, why wouldn't the same hold true for liquor?

The machine would have to make excellent cocktails and many varieties but I can see a market for this. There are plenty of coffee makers that sell for $10000 or much more. With the right marketing, people will come to a coffee house and pay a premium to have a cup of joe made from a fancy machine. I don't see why the same people wouldn't do the same thing for a good cocktail. I think selling the machine for around $1000 would be too cheap. I guess it could open up some different markets but would make the product less 'special'.

Green beans with bacon and tarragon. French and blanch the beans. Add to a pan with hot bacon bits. Mix with tarragon vinegar and fresh tarragon. Everyone got to pick a favourite dish that we would have at special meals, this was always my sister's pick.

I love Strongbow! In fact I haven't had Strongbow for a good while so when I go home to Melbourne (Australia) this coming end of May, I will have one a day for each of my three weeks stay... In the meantime, I have a small bottle of Budweiser with my spagbol tonight... Cheers, austramerica ← Is the Strongbow in Australia different than what we get in Canada? My wife tells me she liked the sweet cider she had in Australia ( I think it was Strongbow brand ) but the Strongbow that is available here is much less sweet and has a very different flavour. Can anyone recommend a brand available in Canada that would be similar to the Australian Strongbow? Thanks

We often grill as well. The menu is usually very high on meat ( sometimes exclusively meat ). I started a thread on Daytona food a few months ago ( it was mid winter and I was going through racing withdrawl ). I wanted to make tire shaped meatballs. I never got to it as our daughter was born a few days before the race and I missed the Daytona party. Thinking back I think the best reaction to any food I've brought to a Nascar party was for samosas and pakoras. They were a big hit!!

This totally describes my kitchen!!!

Kim Moon Bakery on the north side of Dundas 1.5 Streets east of Spadina is my favorite dim sum.

I don't know what the proper name for them is but... I love fresh Puffballs. If you catch them at the right time they can be as big as a volleyball. Slice them into steak sized slabs, fry 'em up with some butter and garlic, yum yum. I've never seen them in a store and they don't last long in the field but they sure are yummy if you get them at the right time. As soon as they turn a little brown they are no good anymore but when they are pure white all the way through and nice and firm they can't be beat.

Be sure to check out C'est What next time you are in Toronto. It is easy to get to on Front Street. They sell lots of great craft brews, may locals and some from afar. They have several casks on hand most of the time as well. It is my favourite beer destination in Toronto!! http://www.cestwhat.com/ I have heard great things about the beer scene in Philadelphia and would love to visit someday. The forum last year on Friday the Firkenteenth is what led me to discover C'est What. Cheers

I quit three years ago. I can't say for sure how it has affected my palette but my nose works way better than it used to! A good dinner starts when I walk in the door and notice the aromas wafting around ( usually )

Thanks for the suggestions. I love the stadium pan. I like the checkered flags too. I think I'll print some checkers on stickers and make flag toothpicks for serving. It would be fun to go all out with the checkered flag eggplant but I think it would be lost on the crowd. Thin patties with olive centers and spaghetti whitewalls are going to be my first attempt. Saddly as I am a huge race fan but happier yet because I am even more excited... my first child is due to be born very close to race day and I probably won't be going to the party. But I will still have fun with the tires!

I am getting geared up for another great racing season! We usually kick off the season with a party for the Daytona 500. Everyone brings something ( some folks only bring beer ) to contribute. I was given a Tony Stewart Crock Pot as a gift last year and want to fill it with meatballs. I started thinking about what I can do to make them a little racier and came up with tire shaped meatballs. If I go with 'donut' shaped meatballs I am afraid they will tend to break if I don't find a way to make them stronger. I also thought of shoving an olive or something else to look like a rim inside the tire. I have month to perfect my recipe ( 32 days and one hour at the time of this posting ). Any ideas on how to make these work would be appreciated. Feel free to add any other racing inspired food ideas that you have as well!

Unlike many Egulleteers I am not a food professional. I work in the heating business. As you can probably imagine I have been rather busy lately. I haven't had time to go out for dinner nor to cook much. Fortunately I pass by the Fine Food Boutique on my way home and have been picking up soup and salad for dinner there. Across the street is West End Meat Packers, chicken sausage last night, who knows for tomorrow. No sweetbreads nor any exceptional meals but we have been doing pretty good with very limited time and energy.

I use olive oil sometimes. It works well in savory stuff but I don't think I'd try it in baklava. I was in a hurry and was making a lot of fillo somethings. I put olive oil in a sprayer bottle and made short work of the fillo. Now I use it for anything that doesn't need to have real butter.

I was given a subscription to "Fine Cooking" last year and have really enjoyed it. I like "Cook's Illustrated" too.

Thanks both for the great technique in the first place and thanks more for the speedy help when I screwed it up.

The first time I make something new I tend to follow the recipe pretty close. The second time I figure I am a pro and usually screw it up... I tried to crystallize some ginger this wekeend but did not have my mise en place. I did not realize how much more ginger I was doing than the last time I did this. My crockpot was full to the top with all the ginger and although I used an entire bag of sugar it was not enough to make the syrup properly. The slices are drying but they are not getting sticky enough as I didn't have enough sugar in the pot with them. What do you think would happen if I added more sugar to the syrup, reboiled it, then added the ginger slices for a few more hours in the crockpot, then tried drying again? I am worried that without enough sugar in the mix they will not be properly preserved. Ginger is cheap, I could start over again but I have invested a lot of time so far and hate to consider it a wasted effort. Even if this batch ends up being ground into ginger powder I guess it isn't a complete waste as I have learned the value of having everything I need together before starting.

This is a big topic in my house! The description by Soupcon pretty much sums up how they treat it in Toronto. We were told to measure blood sugar before eating, two hours after eating, before bed and upon waking. We were told to determine how many carbs were in the meal we were about to eat and taking X amount of insulin per serving of carbs. After months of testing we started to see patterns and have learned a lot about how my wife's system handles the insulin and carbs. Yes, you can just take more insulin if your are having something very heavy on carbs but you risk having big swings in the blood sugar levels. A small mistake on a big dose of insulin can lead to very low sugar levels. It does seem strange that the diabetes education we have had hasn't really taught us that much about what we should eat but the testing has made us learn it on our own. We must be doing something right as we were told that the diabetes was keeping us from having children. With all the hard work we have done over the last year and a half we seem to have fixed the problem and are due in March.

samosas and spanakopitas are both great. not necessarily meat filled but still really tasty!