beauregard

I have the good fortune of knowing a chicken/duck/goose/guinea hen farmer, in Ulster County, NY, who sells unwashed eggs. I don't clean an egg until just before using it. Does anyone know how long e coli can live on eggshells in a refridgerator? My guess is that as long as there's poop on the shell, the e coli remains alive.

Hi Panaderia ~ I make extra waffle batter and keep it in the fridge because I eat so many waffles! I stopped eating gluten, so now with my breakfast eggs I have a waffle with almond oil, for lunch and/or dinner I'll have a waffle with salt and olive oil . . . I've even made sandwiches with waffles in place of bread. I make up batter usually every other day, it keeps fine in the fridge . . . when not surreptitiously invaded by little yeasties!

Much to my disappointment, and surprise, airborne yeast got into a batch of gluten-free (Bob's Red Mill) waffle batter and ruined it . . the first day after the invasion the batter was mildly yeast-flavored but still usable, but after another day in the fridge the expansion was substantial, the taste was awful, and the batter had to be thrown out. I'm pretty sure the yeast got in because I let the open bowl of freshly-made batter sit out for about twenty minutes before I covered it and put it in the fridge, but my questions are: - Could the yeast have got into the milk, sitting in an open bowl for a few minutes before the flour was added? - or could it have gotten into the flour, which sits in an unsealed bag for weeks before use, - or does yeast only effect the batter once the milk, egg and flour are mixed?

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Well, the lid was just plastic, so it was more like lifted than blown off Continuation of story: turns out the batter I used, which tasted so good as bread, had just tiny amounts of the bread in it . . . but this morning I made a waffle with the batter, from another container, in which I had put most of the bread, and this waffle tasted terrible, with an unpleasantly strong yeast taste. Just for kicks, one of these days I'm going to sprinkle a minimal amount of yeast in the waffle batter and stick it in the fridge for a couple of days & see what happens

Well, here's a new one on me. I made my usual waffle recipe: • ½ c Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Biscuit and Baking mix + ½ c Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice Flour (sifted together) • 1 c milk • 1 egg • 2 tblsp sunflower oil • pinch salt I put the mix in the fridge and left town for two days, and when I returned it had expanded so much in it's glass container that it forced up the top and spilled out about four oz of mix. It has never done that before. Made a waffle with it & it was delicious. I set the container on the counter and an hour later it had expanded even more, with bubbles, so I put the remaining mix in a bread pan and sat it on the stove top while the stove heated to 425º, and it expanded substantially more again. Cooked it for 30 minutes @ 425°, and out came a nicely risen, plump, and delicious loaf. And it looked great, to boot! (see attached photo). I hadn't known that yeast can be used with rice flour to make bread, but an online search set me straight. So a possibility occurs to me: I had originally mixed in a few torn-up pieces of 3-day old bread with the waffle mix (just to see how it tasted), and I'm almost sure that some bits of bread were still in the mix that went into the fridge. Is it possible that this is the explanation? And if so, it it generally true: 1) that only small amounts of yeast are needed for rice flour bread? and 2) that a day or two in the fridge improves the rising of dough? One of the reasons I gave up, a few years ago, on baking bread was that my dough never rose the way it was supposed to, then collapsed when I transferred the dough to a bread pan or sheet.

1) When I mix up some fresh baking powder, should I let it sit for 20 minutes before adding it to the (moist) cake mix? 2) or should I add it immediately to the mix? If (2), should I put the mix in the oven right away or wait 20 minutes? 3) What's the shelf life of home-make baking powder? I've heard that it's short, but can I make some up and refridgerate it sealed for a few days?

A couple of years ago at Hagi in Manhattan I dined on noodles that wriggled until they cooled down. What's the name of these noodles? Any special notes on preparation? YouTube has videos of these , but no one bothers to mention their name.PS: Googling "moving noodles" comes up with a traditional noodle served when one moves to a new house

I've been using Spectrum sunflower oil, and I like it a great deal, especially its sweetness*, but I've never thought of Spectrum as being a brand which offers anything more than medium quality products. Can anyone recommend a very high quality sunflower oil? * I'm so intolerant of sugar I can't even eat fruits, and almond oil and cinnamon are about the sweetest things in my diet. I've been suprised that the Spectrum sunflower oil is so sweet, I've even used it for dipping bread.

Finally, a satisfactory solution. I use a round, screw-top 6-oz steak sauce bottle, wrapped with 1/2-inch thick foam plumber's pipe insulation, then wrap the insulation with heavy-duty clear packing tape. The foam makes a nice soft cup which can be removed for cleaning. The foam also greatly reduces the danger of breakage in my backpack. Other notes: • The duct tape idea was a bad one: the bottle can't be sterilized in boiling water • Chococat, I tried a qood quality stainless steel hip flask, made by the tool company Stanley, but it leaked. I think oil lubricates the plastic O-ring seal so much it loses it's effectiveness.

Thanks very much Matthew, that's just what I needed to know. I'll give them the taste test straight away. ~ beau

I bought a couple of kinds of powdered mushrooms about a year ago and haven't used them all up. How long will they last in a sealed container on my spice rack (not refridgerated)?

Hi Paulraphael ~ >> Oil residue in any bottle will eventually go rancid and spoil the flavor of whatever new oil you pour in.<< That's another reason to use glass, and since I always decant olive oil I sterilize the bottles once a year (I think olive oil at room temperature doesn't spoil for two years), but that won't work with my now duct-taped bottle. Next time I'll find something removable to wrap the bottle in. ~ beau

OK, here's what I came up with. I bought a $4.75 bottle of Colavita, emptied it (I can always use the oil for cleaning, or, in a pinch, as motor oil), washed it, wrapped it in two layers of duct tape, and filled it with good Taggiasca oil. I carried it on a rock-climbing weekend, in a single plastic bag in my backpack, and it didn't spill a drop. I'll continue to keep it in a bag, just because vegetable oil bottles always get a little oil on the outside over time. For water I switched a long time ago to metal from nalgene because the water always tasted so bad after just a day in plastic. It'd be interesting to do a blind tasting of oil that's been in a glass container for a month and in a nalgene container likewise. It's hard for me to believe that the nalgene bottle wouldn't impart some plastic taste. Thanks everybody for your comments.

I must have been having an, er, cognitive discontinuity when I put up this post. I just remembered that for a brief time I used an . . . olive oil bottle I filched a small, perhaps 6 oz, bottle of some cheap oil from my daughter, emptied it, and filled it with the good stuff. Wrapped it in a couple of layers of duct tape and for the couple of weeks I used it, before losing it, it didn't leak. The top was metal with a plastic insert. I'll spring for another bottle and report back in a week or so. With chagrin Beau BTW, at one point I thought I was clever by using a Stanley Tools metal hip flask, but the seal just couldn't keep the thing from leaking.

Hey Alex . . "I always take a small container of olive oil when I go hiking..." Now, if that doesn't exemplify "eGulleteer," nothing does. I love it. Thanks! The full truth is, I'm a rock-climber and I always bring bread & olive oil (Taggiasca) to the crag. I was outdone one day by a French couple I was climbing with ~+~ she pulled out a quich she had made that morning. The supermarket jars haven't worked. I've been using a pomodoro in olive oil jar, but it leaks, and two layers of plastic bags, exactly as suggested by Blether always end up with olive oil in the inside one. Very messy. Thanks for the link to the hair products site. I'll call them and grill them about leakage in topsy-turvy conditions. ~ beau