Lora

I agree with the cooling - I have never had a runny pie, no matter what thickener I used, as long as I waited to cut it until it was completely cool. If you like warm pie, reheat the cooled pie gently. If it's still runny you might just not be using enough thickener. Something I've been playing around with for apple pies - tossing the apples with the sugar and a pinch of salt and letting them sit overnight, then draining and either thickening or reducing the juice before baking. Load the crust with the (somewhat shrunken but not cooked) apples, then pour over the reduced juice. Takes out the guesswork and the pie comes out very nice.

Yes, I cook the rice, and then used the cooked rice for the pudding. Since it is brown rice, I cook it in water to be absolutely sure it fully softens. Then I proceed with the rest of the pudding in the same pot. I have made coconut milk and Thai purple sticky rice pudding, and that does make a lovely breakfast. Particularly with mangoes on top. When I add Kahlua, it's about 2 teaspoons - I'm using it like vanilla extract. But I think a white Russian rice pudding sounds incredible! I wonder if more alcohol would affect the cooking of the pudding. I am guessing not, since the wine added to a risotto doesn't seem to adversely affect it.

I sometimes make chocolate brown rice pudding for breakfast. It's dense in texture, not super sweet, and very chocolatey. Cook 1/2 cup short grain brown rice in 1 cup water as per usual. To the pot, add: 1 quart whole milk 1/2 cup excellent cocoa 1/2 - 2/3 cup sugar 1/2 tsp espresso powder 1 tsp salt Cook at a simmer until quite thick. You can ignore it early, but must stir frequently at the end. Stir in a slug of vanilla, and kahlua if you like. A handful of chopped chocolate and/or dried cherries stirred in once the pudding has cooled does not go amiss. Nor does a sprinkling of toasted almonds on top when serving.

Mine is less a set of suggested dishes and more of a method: I always prep the next night's dinner the day before. With everything ready to go, I can slam dinner on the table in no time flat. Then when we have eaten and there is no stress, I assemble myself the next night's kit in a leisurely fashion. Veggies get chopped, sauces made, etc. I always plan for one night of leftovers from each weeknight meal (starting with Sunday), which cuts my total cooking way down. This of course only works if you have the energy to cook after dinner - I know some people don't, but I find it very pleasant to unwind that way with a nice full belly.

Corn chips plus raspberry jam. Magic.

You have Lang's Cuisines of Hungary, you said? Look for Káposzta töltelék. I agree that dumplings would not be particularly summery.

After deep-frying in fresh oil, I like the strained leftover oil for cooking vegetables. It's got a really nice nutty aroma. (The crispy greasy strained-out bits go right on a slice of bread and into my mouth.)

I freeze unbaked dough all the time at various stages, and it works great once you get the hang of it. Shape, cover well, and freeze immediately. When you want to bake, take out the frozen dough and let it thaw and proof at room temp. For a full-size loaf, this can take 6-7 hours from dead frozen to oven-ready. (I'm betting your dough was still too cold when you baked it - thus no rise.) If I wasn't going to be able to keep an eye on it for as long as that, I'd move it to the fridge to thaw overnight, then room temp for a couple hours. Use your normal proofing standards to judge when it's ready for the oven. The good thing about proofing after freezing instead of before is that lets you know that the chill is off the dough and the yeast is awake again.

A citrus juicing tool. They come in several varieties (most of which I own), but if you stole my favorite one I would replace it instantaneously. And (to these dinner guests who started all this) since when is a pan a Unitasker? Just because it's called a popover pan doesn't mean I can't bake anything I feel like in it. I bake a lot of things besides pie in my pie plates. A real chef uses the proper tool for the job!

I usually go with option number one. To ensure that the dough is warm and fully risen, I use a trick from Alton Brown: in the morning, before baking, put boiling water in a roasting pan in the oven and then put the rolls on a rack above the pan. Shut the oven, leaving it off. After 30 minutes pretty much any yeast dough has the chill off and is ready to bake. To streamline, I might put the rolls and boiling water in a cooler instead so that the oven could be preheating at the same time.

A cabbage strudel would be an awesome app or side. Mmmm...Hungarian egg roll...

Sorry, these posts are insufficiently shameful. So it's time for me to step in. I hate wasting food, and I dearly love anything sweet. So, at birthday parties (only of very good friends), I have at times rescued half-eaten cake slices from the trash bin, trimmed off the eaten-on bit, and sneakily consumed the rest. You know, if they're still on the plate, perched upright on the very top. I've usually had a glass of wine (or three) when this happens. And my only regret would be if I got caught.

Anybody know where to find unrefined oils? I want to experiment with using them in baked goods. I'm looking for unrefined peanut and sunflower, in particular, but I'd like any, just to see what they were like. I thought for sure Whole Foods would be a slam-dunk for this, but no joy...

My daughter insisted on feeding herself long before she could handle a spoon or had any teeth to speak of - or any manual dexterity for that matter! It turns out you can make pretty much anything into a pancake by binding fruits and veggies with eggs and/or cereals or flours (of any grain type), then frying small dollops in a nonstick pan. (They'll be fragile.) Chunks of these are easy to pick up and eat, and they freeze beautifully. My daughter's favorites were strawberry-rice and broccoli-corn. (Oatmeal-green bean didn't work out nearly so well.)

I have a recipe for a Persian rice dish that also involves parboiling, with a note for converting to brown rice. It says, parboil the brown rice 12-15 minutes (basically until it's as cooked as the white rice would have been after its boil), then proceed with the rest of the recipe as written.

Being there if possible is my plan as well.

I make small batches of kraut, a quart or two at a time, and so I experiment a lot. I like the addition of carrots and caraway seeds. I also like to use red cabbage, in whole or in part, because it turns pink when the acidity rises and helps you know when it's ready!

I had heard that less starter = better yogurt, but I didn't really believe it; your post made me finally try it myself. I have been doing it for a couple months now and it is absolutely true. With 1 tablespoon per quart it takes longer to work, but the flavor and texture are much better. I use a small amount of starter and a relatively low temperature, in a low tech culturing setup (jars in a warm water bath in a small cooler). I don't mind that it takes 8 hours because then I can just leave it overnight.

Just read it - and loved it! I sat down with it on the Friday after Thanksgiving and happened to read about Nebraska farmwives feeding the itinerant threshing crews. That gigantic Thanksgiving meal I was so proud of making, and taking a well-deserved rest after? They did it three times a day, several days in a row!

I make mine weekly, 2 quarts plus a separate small jar of starter. I have pushed it to nine days between batches and my starter shows no loss of strength, but after six days or so the yogurt starts to get a slight cheesy taste - not like it is rotten but like it has fermented a little too long. Nothing I personally mind. I follow good hygiene during the production process though and I've never had it actually go bad before I could finish it.

It's gotta be sweet, but it can't be rich. Rice with yogurt and jam, or cold sweet potato custard, or pancakes with bananas ... but never pastries. Pastries are what I want for dessert. It is my eternal sadness that my local donut shops aren't open at 5 p.m.

I think the only reason I ever turn to the internet is because my cookbook collection isn't full-text searchable...

A flourless chocolate cake. My favorite recipes all tell me to make them the day before anyway for best flavor and texture, and they are so dense that they are difficult to disfigure in any way that cannot be quickly disguised with whipped cream and raspberry sauce.

35/70, exactly 50%. Not bad, considering that I played it straight and resisted the temptation to leave out the cookbooks people gave me but that I didn't want and my strictly-for-collecting books! My average becomes more normal when I admit that my cookbook collection REALLY lives at my local library, where I bring home a few volumes to lovingly thumb through every time I go. That's where I find out which ones I want to buy for my very own. Keeps my numbers up!

Old-school kosher dills and sauerkraut are made using lacto-fermentation. It does not require a yogurt/milk-based starter, as the bacteria in question are generally already present on vegetables, but since it's the same bacteria and the same microbial processes as yogurt, you can cross the processes to give your pickling a boost.