blue_dolphin

I've been making the recipe for Nikki's sweet potatoes from 101 cookbooks for years now. Dead easy and always a hit. Not too sweet, just a tablespoon of maple syrup. Coconut milk makes them creamy and they are topped with unsweetened coconut and macadamia nuts. I've sometimes used other nuts instead.

Ditto. I'd love to see comments utilized for the recipes. For me, numerical ratings would not add value but I'd have no problem just ignoring them if they were of value for others.

I roasted up some little cubes of butternut squash this AM and added them to my hot cereal along with raisins, nuts and maple syrup. Very tasty. Picture over in the breakfast thread in case you want to see a bowl of oatmeal with squash !

Chilly morning here. This hit the spot and warmed me up nicely: Hot multigrain cereal, cooked with cinnamon and nutmeg. Served with roasted butternut squash, raisins and walnuts. Sweetened with just a bit of maple syrup. Cup of joe alongside.

Yes, that cranberry color is so festive, isn't it? I was a little disappointed that some of the cranberries sort of exploded (as they do) in the brine rather than all remaining intact. For some reason, I thought maybe the acid from the vinegar might help keep them all whole but that was not entirely the case. As a condiment, it's probably not a big deal, and there are certainly whole berries in there but I think I'll try to be more gentle with the heat and stirring with the next batch.

Yesterday, I made some butternut squash pickles (posted over here in the winter squash cook-off thread) and also tried some pickled cranberries, both small pilot batches to see if they'd make good holiday gift add-ins. I used this recipe for the cranberries but doubled the ginger and grated it instead of slicing so the ginger flavor is quite punchy at the moment. I suppose that may mellow over a bit of curing time. I only used 2 bags of cranberries instead of 3 so I ended up with a good amount of leftover brine or as I'm calling it, cranberry-ginger shrub. I already tried it in the cranberry shrub cocktail recipe that David Leibovitz posted the other day and it was quite tasty indeed. And the cranberries themselves are very nice with some sharp cheddar and crusty bread.

Cooked up a few crustless mini-quiches in the cuisi steam oven: And had one for breakfast, along with some cuisi-toast and grape tomatoes:

The best explanation that I've come upon for the relatively recent guidance to avoid distilled water in steam irons is to avoid producing superheated water (due to the lack of nucleation sites) that could bump and spray the user with steam when the iron is moved. I would think that the average home iron, even if refilled with purified water, would end up with enough particulates or surface irregularities inside that this is unlikely but perhaps not. And I wouldn't think the oven would be subject to the sort of movement that an iron would but maybe everyone is just being very careful lest they be sued.

I bought the French Champagne at my local Total Wine shop. It's a bottle that I generally reserve for gift purposes. TJ's used to carry the mini toasts but I have not seen them there lately. These (made in France) were purchased at Sprouts. The TJ's pâté comes in a little black loaf pan. It is nice and small enough that you wouldn't do irreparable damage even if you ate it all. I usually like a more rustic pâté but today was about making it lovely. My former boss was French. I visited his home right after his family had suffered a tragic loss and the menu above is what he served us that day. It was a lesson to me that I am implementing now. Edited to add that the cornichons are from TJ's too.

I had never heard of pickled squash until David Ross mentioned it and went to Google. Though cucumbers, melons and squash are sort of in the same family, so it makes sense. I was looking for something else to include in holiday gifts and figured I'd give these a try. I think the cooked one has potential if the flavors mellow out over the suggested 2 week curing time. I can see serving it with cheese or as a condiment with roast pork or poultry. Not sure about the quick one. Although the brine is very simple so it would be easy to scale down (no counting out 2 peppercorns, 1 clove and half an allspice berry!) and just make a little with some leftover squash.

Sometimes you just need a treat: Vive la France! Trader Joe's Truffle Mousse Pâté on whole wheat mini toasts with cornichons and Champagne. All from France.

I made small pilot batches of both of the pickle methods that I linked to above using butternut squash. The green topped jar in the middle is the quick refrigerator pickle with onions and dried chiles (the recipe called for pequin, I used del arbol). The squash is cut into 1/8" slices, boiled for 2 minutes then cooled before being packed into a jar with the sliced onion and chiles and covered with the boiling brine. These should be ready to try tomorrow. They have just a bit of crispness to them. This recipe only calls for 2t sugar for 12 oz of squash. The jar on the left is from the other recipe that cooks 1/2" pieces of squash in a brine with a good bit of sugar and typical "warm" spices (black peppercorns, cloves, allspice berries, cinnamon sticks and a bay leaf) until they are fork tender before packing the jars and processing. The recipe recommends letting these cure at least 2 weeks. I also made some pickled cranberries and thought it might be pretty to pack a few berries in with the squash. The result is the reddish looking jar to the right of the quick pickles. The processing time for the squash recipe was 20 min and the cranberries, which had already been cooked in brine but not processed, sort of fell apart. That was a little too much cooking for them! I'll report back later with a taste test.

It is challenging to combine shippable, protective packaging and lovely presentation. You could wrap the vacuum sealed pouches in tissue paper and tie with a ribbon, or with brown paper and string with little hangtags identifying the contents. If they are the right size, you could drop them into brown or white paper lunch bags, fold over the tops and close them with a pretty sticker or piece of bright colored tape. Or keep everything functional but print out a pretty "tasting menu" that describes the contents and place that on top of everything so it's the first thing your friends will see when they open up the box.

hummingbirdkiss, I admire your fearlessness in taking on such a big project and your creativity in making it so personal. The countertops look beautiful and I love, love the real coin backsplash. Your enthusiasm is contagious and makes me look forward to more posts please do continue to share when you have time. Thank you so much for posting!

That sounds really good. I placed an order for RG beans yesterday and included a lb of Yellow Eyes to try this out. I'm a little skeered about the idea of making my own salt pork (recovering vegetarian who has no idea where to even buy a pork belly ) but I'll give that part some thought as well. Thanks for the link there, too.

I enjoyed reading this article, The House that Julia Built, in the real estate section of the NYT about the cottage that Julia and Paul built in the south of France in the mid-1960s. It's apparently listed on the open market for the first time (~$880,000) with her original kitchen mostly intact. Photos show the same sort of pegboard as in her kitchen now in the Smithsonian. Lots of Julia threads here. Mods should feel free to combine this with one of them.

Yes, that might be good. When I saw it in the store the other day, it just looked so odd to me to see nuts bobbing in a jar of brown liquid. It did not appeal to me as I always like nuts to be as crispy and crunchy as possible. At $6.99/jar, I don't think I'm going to try it but I'd certainly be curious to hear what others think.

Sounds like you've done all your research and will enjoy having a beautiful copper sink in your kitchen. I also love the idea of a red sink, like you used to have, but I don't think I could keep it looking shiny enough! Feel free to ignore this (as mentioned, you've clearly done your research) but on a double-bowl sink, I really prefer the 60-40 style where the bowl on the non-disposer side is larger and deeper. I also really, really prefer an undermount sink but that's probably not an option for a replacement sink. And you probably wouldn't have the issue of crumbs/crud collecting at the sink lip that poor, messy souls like myself experience! I hope we'll get to see a picture of the new sink when you get it.

I'd never heard of this stuff before but was visiting a cousin last week and saw a bag in the cupboard. Some brands contain some extra sugar and salt, if not, then it would be pretty much like a defatted nut flour, as shain said above. I noticed some people are using it as a flour substitute in gluten-free baking, not something I have any experience with. Like shain suggested, it could be useful to thicken a sauce, soup or stew. I'd be curious if any flavor would come through if substituted for flour when dredging poultry, pork or fish before sautéing or to bind something like a fritter as LindaK did using almond flour in the butternut squash fritters she posted over in the Squash Cook-off thread. I think I will look into picking some up to play with so do post back with your experiences. Edited to add: I just realized that you posted this in the Pastry and Baking forum so I suspect my thoughts are not at all what you're interested in - feel free to ignore away!

I didn't see the pfeffernusse yesterday but the holiday stock is coming in for sure. Both the regular candy cane Jo-Jos and the chocolate dipped peppermint version were on the shelves!

Yes, this was apparently published in Martha's mag. I plead the 5th. Didn't find out about the Martha connection until after I ate it !! Edited to add: the idea of Martha slicing garlic the Goodfellas way does make me laugh !

I tried the 5-cheese spiral that natasha1270, curls, Fernwood and ThanksForTheCrepes have mentioned: I thought it was tasty. Served it along side a roasted squash and apple soup. The tangy cheese and crisp phyllo played nicely with the smooth, slightly sweet soup. A little wedge would be enough to make a nice salad or soup into a meal. I wouldn't bring it to a happy hour gathering elsewhere due to the phyllo crumbs mess factor.

I made the one-pan pasta that was apparently an internet thing last year. Throw everything in the pan: And eat: Not bad.

What are you currently listening to that constitutes a rut? KCRW's Good Food and Lynn Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table aren't new but still my favorite food podcasts. Sometimes I like listening to Dave Arnold's Cooking Issues, too. Edited to add that I've been meaning to give Radio Cherry Bombe a listen but haven't gotten around to it.

I've got homemade limecello that I plan to bottle up. Also the lime-ginger marmalade that I made recently. Not sure what else to add. There are lots of limes on my tree so I could go with an all-lime theme and make some lime cookies or something. I saw a recipe for pineapple preserve with rosemary that I thought sounded good. Not sure if I will do fruitcake this year or not. If so, I had best get at it. rotuts - I usually riff off this basic fruitcake recipe which may help with time/temp estimates for fruitcakes. I usually use dried fruits instead of candied except I do use candied citrus peels and ginger. I usually plump the dried fruits a bit first by steaming so they are not too dry. I did one with dried pineapple and mango, candied orange peel, coconut and macadamia nuts that was very good. I like half brandy, half Grand Marnier (or Gran Gala) for my alcohol dose. Southern Delight Fruitcake 1 lb candied cherries 1 lb candied pineapple 1 lb pecans 1 1/2 cup butter 2 c. sugar 6 eggs 3 c flour 4 tsp vanilla 1 tsp salt Brandy Cut up fruit and nuts, add 1 c. flour. Mix well, let stand Cream butter, add sugar, 1 c. at a time. Add salt, vanilla and mix well. Add fruit and nuts and mix well. Pour batter into 2 regular sized loaf pans or multiple smaller pans, lightly greased with butter and lined with parchment paper. Bake 2.5 - 3 hrs (gas 250 deg, electric 275 deg) with a pan of water in the oven. Test w/ toothpick after 2.5 hrs. If not sticky, it's done. Do not overcook. Sprinkle cakes with brandy and let cake cool completely before removing from pan. Wrap cakes in cheesecloth, sprinkle with brandy and wrap tightly with foil and place in zip-lock bags. Repeat brandy treatment every few days for about 2 weeks and let age another 2-4 weeks or longer.