Katie Meadow

Same here, only sadly, no grand marnier, so we used a bit of Triple Sec and a dash of orange bitters.

Batali's meatballs are the only ones I make. My Batali recipe is a little different. It uses 2 kinds of ground meat, less egg, less bread product, but definitely the cheese and the pine nuts. Sometimes I make them with beef and veal, sometimes I add a little ground pork. I especially like the technique of quick saute for the meatballs and then warming them up in the red sauce so they don't overcook.

Artichoke bottom stew sounds perfect. The golden crispy-top rice looks delicious. How is it made? In a big flat skillet? The way I prepare basmati rice I don't usually get a crusty side, and that makes for a really appealing presentation. Tell me how please! I seriously need some hakkaka immersion therapy. What a fun blog.

There are two ways I like a chicken sandwich. One is the Betty's Bakesale way, which is fried breast meat with spicy slaw. Very simple, but not so simple if you have to fry the chicken yourself; and I don't do that. In the early days that sandwich was dynamite, but now the line is so long I find the quality is suffering. The second way is grilled, in a banh mi. Of course freshly grilled and still warm is best, but not always practical. If I don't have leftover grilled chicken, I might quick saute slices of breast meat in a pan in butter. The crunch factor comes from the carrot-daikon pickle, which is easy to make in bulk and keeps well in the fridge. The usual suspects include cilantro, mayo plus maggi, sliced jalapeno and sliced cucumber. If you take the trouble, adding a smear of pate makes it perfect. If you have all the ingredients on hand it's easy to put together. I'm very happy using a good baguette and don't require an authentic Viet roll.

I haven't made a dedicated search yet, but I would like to find a source of fresh masa that's available in bulk--in other words in SMALL quantities. I shop for Mexican ingredients at Mi Pueblo (partly because I am addicted to the cuernos for breakfast and their bakery has really good ones) and although the masa, both preparado and non-prep is great and seems very fresh, it's only available in enormous bags. I never need all that masa. I don't know if there are preservatives in it or not, I'll have to check next time. I'm told that it can be frozen, though. Does anyone recommend this?

Okay, here's my totally sick confession. My go to is a piece of good chocolate, but like you say, sometimes you don't have that. However, I usually do have some quality chocolate sauce in the frig. My current favorite is Fran's dark chocolate or bittersweet sauce. I swirl this in about equal proportions with natural unsweetened chunky peanut butter and a teaspoon is usually all I need to satisfy. There is a thread somewhere about making peanut butter cups with high quality ingredients. I'm no fan of Reese's--they taste like what they are, very cheap sugary pb and cheap milk chocolate. But this is pretty yummy. No one is aware that I do this, so don't broadcast it. If I don't have any chocolate sauce I probably will have caramel sauce. I'm a devotee of Recchiuti Burnt Caramel. I cut up an apple into thin slices, melt a little puddle of caramel sauce in a small bowl and then dip in the fruit. Would work with a pear too, I imagine, but I've never done that. You could skip the melting part, but it's kind of nice. Neither of these extremely desperate measures takes more than 2 minutes. Nutella on toast also works, and that's under 5 minutes as well.

Rick Bayless has a few recipes that in my mind qualify as casseroles, such as his version of tamale pie. When I lived in NEW Mexico there were endless variations of casseroles built around masa, tortillas, beans, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, tomatillos, green chiles, zukes, potatoes, cornbreads. Some were more like souffles or custards or standard brunch backups and some were more like architectural constructions built with layers of various ingredients. Every B & B in New Mexico will serve something like that for breakfast, especially if it can be constructed the night before. I used to make a tomato zucchini rice cheese green chile baked affair that was comforting in the extreme. A casserole, definitely. Maybe not Mexican, but using the most commonly found ingredients in the southwest and south of the border.

Sorrel? Maybe something bright to serve on the side like a raita or just sour cream/creme fraiche/greek yogurt with cucumbers and fresh dill?

Hey, my hash turned out great! Minimal ingredients, since I'm trying to use up stuff before going away for a long weekend. I think refrigerating the par-boiled potatoes is an excellent technique; it was a snap to then mince them into perfect little cubes (smaller than 1/4 inch.) Above thread there are several advocates for using russets. There didn't seem to be any down side to using yukon golds. I weighed the virtues of bacon fat or oil, but went with just butter. First I sauteed some onion until golden, and removed it from the pan. Into the pan went the potatoes with ample butter; I stirred occasionally until they started to brown. Then I added back the onion, a couple of minced jalapenos that were not super hot, salt, a modest amount of dried Mexican oregano and fresh thyme and a sprinkle of paprika. I sort of turned the hash once or twice until it seemed nice and crisp, added a small amount of shredded ham and cooked it a few minutes more. My new non-stick pan worked way better than I thought it would. About the onion. I have no idea if what I did was unnecessarily fussy, cooking the onions partially and then removing them, but for some reason I decided that if I put in the onion and the potato in at the same time the moisture from the onion might prevent the potato from getting crispy. And in the end, I think the onion needed a bit more total cooking time than the potatoes. So perhaps it would work equally well to halfway cook the onions, which would eliminate some moisture, and then simply add the potatoes to the pan and continue to cook. With it we had a simple no-mayo kohlrabi and cabbage slaw and fresh baked warm cornbread. I had planned to serve the hash with a fried egg draped on top, but didn't remember until we were already eating. So much for short-term memory. There was no dessert, but it struck me that a baked apple in a puddle of cream would have been awfully nice.

Margaret, that recipe looks excellent. I love the idea of tossing in leftover greens, which I do sometimes have. Leftover beets are also not unknown to me. It's the corned beef that's a mystery, frankly.

I come down on the side of "not too large" ingredients, but I don't like a big mush, either. So my potatoes usually get cut into very small cubes that hold together with other ingredients on the fork. No spearing involved, but also you wouldn't want to eat it with a spoon. I never heard of putting cream in hash, but it sounds good. I didn't grow up kosher by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did my parents ever pour dairy products into a pot full of meat. "OMG what am I going to do with all this duck fat?" were words never spoken in my childhood. Too bad I didn't grow up on a farm in France. Then my mother might have learned to make a decent cassoulet and I would have been weaned on duck confit hash instead or corned beef from a can. (Yes, a can. I'm sure my dad never corned a beef in his life.) To add insult to injury, he also ate it with ketchup. And I don't mean catsup. Catsup is found on the rug before you take Snowball to the vet. The whole idea of hash is to throw in whatever you think goes and whatever you need to use up, no? If all you've got is cows, spuds and onions, then that's your hash. My dad's corned beef hash was always exactly the same; he had plenty of rules for the four things he ever cooked and never improvised. His four things were good, but he would have been useless on a desert island. And he would have been horrified at the idea of red flannel hash. Beets are for borscht, aren't they?

Okay, I'm inspired and I have just the proper leftovers/misc stuff in the fridge to make a perfect case for hash tomorrow. That would be frozen leftover ham from shanks, a few jalapenos, and a couple of potatoes, old enough so that I don't actually remember what kind they are; my guess is they are yukons. Going out and actually purchasing ingredients for hash seems to defeat the purpose. I'm going to par-boil the potatoes, which I don't believe I've done in the past, and since I am planning to make the hash tomorrow it seems worthwhile to do the potatoes today and refrigerate them overnight. When should I throw in the onion if my potatoes are partially cooked (still firm I'm presuming) and cubed in smallish bite-size pieces? Which needs a head start, the potatoes or the onion if I want an overall crispy result? And just to throw in another variable, instead of using my cast iron, I'm going to try using my newest Good Will find: a non-stick Sur la Table heavy duty fry pan that looks like it has never been cooked in. This is my first non-stick pan ever, and although the idea of buying a used non-stick pan is sort of revolting, this one looked so clean I sprang for it. And it was cheap. We'll see if I can produce a sufficiently crispy hash with this pan and pre-cooked potatoes. With eggs and some simple slaw this will be dinner.

My experience is that salting ahead improves the texture; it still has good bite, but doesn't taste so raw. Also salted slaw seems more forgiving when it comes to dressing the slaw in advance. Unsalted slaw that sits after being dressed gets watery and the flavors get diluted. I toss my shaved cabbage into a colander, salt in layers, mix, then fill a large bowl with water and set it on top for weight. Two hours seems to do the trick, or a bit less if time is short. I don't wring it out after this, although it can only help. Too lazy.

I've had duck confit hash (the duck was definitely in shreds) and smoked salmon hash, although I've never made either myself. Both were yummy.

My biggest stumbling block has always been that the potatoes stick fiercely to my cast iron pan, although generally the pan is well seasoned and doesn't have a lot of other sticking issues. I'm looking forward to seeing some recipes that turns out crispy potatoes instead of a crispy pan. I have a fondness for simple hash: just potatoes, peppers of various kinds, onion, maybe a little leftover ham and always paprika, smoked or otherwise.

Smitten Kitchen Apple Sharlotka: I love all kinds of apple cakes, including some that have lots of raw apples simply mixed into the batter. But this recipe has something seriously wrong with it; I made it recently and it was terrible. The recipe on the website includes NO butter (or oil) in the batter, which made me suspicious right away, although I proceeded to bake it. Wouldn't this be one reason the cake is a total bore?

Given I am a person who tries to use less salt, surprisingly I do carry a vial of gray sea salt around in my purse. A couple of summers ago I discovered the fresh corn ice cream at Tara's, in Oakland. It definitely screams for a little salt, but the board lists salt, among other things, at 50 cents extra. What's with that? We're taking about a few grains, no? So I started carrying my own salt in case I should find myself walking by Tara's. Every once in a while it comes in very handy for bland or seriously undersalted foods.

Identifying what's properly salted is a crapshoot. If you eat out a lot, most food will probably be within your expected preferred range. Anyone who has reduced their sodium intake for one reason or another knows that the taste buds adjust after a time, and keep adjusting as the level of salt in the diet decreases. If you eat a lot of processed food and fast food, most of that stuff will also taste properly salted, no? I love salt, but I've cut way back in the past few years. I never ate a lot of fast foods or processed foods, so my tolerance level for sodium is below average, I am guessing. Mostly I don't eat out any more, and the reasons are multiple: costs far too much, the food often tastes too salty and I usually have the time and/or inclination to cook. I try to salt my food moderately while cooking, and usually end up undersalting by some amount, even to my own taste buds. So I often use a little finishing salt after plating, and always provide it to guests at the table. I have a sister-in-law who cooks with no salt at all and her food is tasteless, imho. She's the only person I know who probably considers my cooking too salty. With the exception of baked goods, I almost always cut back on the salt specified in a recipe. I used to think that restaurants in NY oversalted more than restaurants on the west coast, but I don't believe that any more; salt seems evenly distributed in all parts of the country. If the sodium content of all processed and fast foods was cut back somewhat--maybe gradually--and if many restaurants did the same, there would be a general lowering of salt tolerance in the entire population; hard to imagine that happening, however, given the vast number of people who are used to phenomenal sodium levels. To say nothing of the money it will cost the food industry to make some changes.

Thank you Frank Bruni's mother! The recent recipe in Dining for her traditional xmas eve Eggplant Macaroni is excellent. The eggplant is prepped as for eggplant parm and the noodles, sauced with your favorite red sauce, are layered in along with a modest amount of grating cheese. The whole is baked. I didn't have as much red sauce as specified but I thought it was perfect, and even better the second day. My husband topped his with a snowfall of grated cheese and that was fabulous. What I like is the simplicity, and the refreshing lack of gooey cheeses. Not that I don't love mozz and ricotta, but this is easy (and cheap) to prepare and doesn't have that "in your face" cholesterol presence. Makes a large casserole, perfect for vegetarians.

Try that heater that's in the attic. If it doesn't do the job to your satisfaction, there are lots of economically priced small space heaters--gas filled or otherwise--on the market, some mentioned above. They are quite effective, especially in a modest sized room. In addition, you might try cooking in the oven in the morning. Put together a stew of slow cooker type comfort foods the night before, and put it in the oven first thing in the morning. Using the oven (oven door closed, obviously) will still help warm the room up and not be wasteful. Or whip up some cornbread or popovers. I even find that making chicken stock in a giant pot on top of the stove heats up the kitchen, considering the pot is radiating heat for several hours non-stop. My first year of college in Wisconsin it was so frigid in my dorm room that I went to a Salvation Army store and bought an ancient popcorn popper and deconstructed it so I could sit at my desk with the exposed glowing coil beneath me. They don't make 'em like they used to, though. And I'm sure the safety aspect of my clever solution never figured in to the equation. In those days we used typewriters and threw away a lot of crumpled sheets of paper. I wouldn't be surprised if the waste paper basket was right next to the popper bottom. No science major, here.

[Manager's Note: You can read the earlier posts on this topic in Trader Joe's Products 2002-2011)] Finally my local TJ's is stocking Bulleit Rye, and not just Bulleit Bourbon. Same price for either, $19.99. And that's the same price as it is at BevMo, which also just started to carry the Rye.

My husband bakes bread (he likes kneading)and makes a mean pie dough and we make relatively simple cakes or baked desserts without a stand mixer. I've often flirted with the idea (they look so lovely!) but considering how often we would really use it, I keep balking. Most hand held mixers are pretty junky, and believe me I've been through many of them; I find a hand mixer invaluable for whipping egg whites, cream, creaming butter and sugar, etc. Finally I bit the bullet and bought one that was a little more heavy duty, the Viking. I like it a lot and it seems worth the extra $25 that it cost above most other basic hand mixers. Perhaps if you had a good hand mixer and used it for a few months it would be easier to decide how much you really want a stand mixer. And if you do decide to invest in a stand mixer, for smaller jobs you would still be glad you owned the hand one. The hand mixer thread here was very helpful to me.

What a weird thread. It has caused me to look at my peculiar storage habits and see what my reasons for up or down really are. Fine glassware (gold rims, inherited, rarely used) are stored in a closed cabinet, rims up. They get looked at more than used, so they look a lot nicer right-side up. Plus I agree with posters above that resting glassware on a thin delicate rim seems counter intuitive. Mugs. My mugs are restaurant style and have a rather flat rim. If they are not bone dry when removed from the dishwasher they hold condensation if stored upside down. I store them right-side up. All 12 get used pretty often, so I don't really worry about dust. Cheap Ikea wineglasses get stored upside down. They also get used fairly frequently, and are durable enough, so I have no rationale for this. Drinking glasses that get used frequently are stored right-side up. Those that are used not so often are stored rims down. I think it's to prevent dust settling in them, although it seems like a toss-up: dust inside or rims touching a less than pristine surface? Luckily there are only two choices. Now I might rethink and store all glassware rims up, since I am sure most glasses get used faster than visible dust can accumulate inside them--and I am pretty sure that I don't have a shelf-cleaning fetish. Frankly, in a kitchen that sees cooking every day and with wooden cabintery built in 1960 it's hard to imagine a germless dustfree environment. And here's the thing: if a glass looks dusty I will wash it before using it. Same for a rim that doesn't look spotless. Besides, I've never once had a documented episode of getting sick from drinking out of my own glassware, nor has any family member or guest. And I hate shelf paper, it's totally annoying.

How he justifies sweet potatoes or carrots being unhealthy is a great trick. Sounds like he eats carbs, though, so high calorie carbs like brown rice, bulgur wheat, pasta etc., with vegetables he WILL eat sauteed in ample olive oil might be a good start. It's always hard to see someone lose more weight than is healthy. Maybe you could convince him to see a nutritionist to help come up with a palatable diet and some new ideas that he could cook himself when he's on his own; quirky eaters are the bread and butter of nutritionists and many nutritionists have some excellent ideas for high calorie foods that don't include butter or animal fats. Peanut butter and avocados come to mind. My too-skinny daughter was told to drink orange juice for a mid-meal snack, since that's high carb as well.

I hope I'm not totally misguided in my efforts to make the stuff I own last as long as possible in good condition. No wood ever goes in our dishwasher. The handles on my knives look decent. My in-laws put all their wooden handled knives and utensils in the dishwasher and they feel unpleasantly rough and look dried out and pale. In the dishwasher thread it has been observed many times that the life of modern dishwashers is increasingly short. Other than poor quality manufacturing and the use of cheaper materials and planned obsolescence I can't imagine why. So, I try to run the dishwasher in the most economical way possible, meaning as infrequently as I can get away with. Awkward shaped plastic objects, all pots and pans and large mixing bowls get washed by hand to maximize space in the dishwasher. Because dishes can sit unwashed for more than 24 hours, I briefly rinse them before loading. I don't know how necessary this is, but I don't like opening the door and seeing large congealed food stuffs, or smelling them. I'm guessing that I am not saving money on water use by washing pots and pans by hand, but hopefully I'm extending the life of the machine. Personally I would rather pay the water bill than buy a new dishwasher every three years.