LizD518

I serve three & four course wedding dinners all the time. Your menu looks lovely. One thing you may consider, and it looks like the menu will lend itself to this, is start the dancing as entree is cleared since people will have been sitting for a while at that time. Have coffee served at a station so people can help themselves as early or late as they like (my grandmother drinks coffee all through her dinner), and have dessert served as a station so people can also help themselves. Oh, and many couples don't get to eat, but the caters should be able to pack up portions for you and your husband. Many caterers don't do to-go bags as a policy, but they should make an exception for the bridal couple. They are probably packaging the top of your cake anyway.

Panaderia, according to Wikipedia, it is spelled tourtière (ooh, even got autocorrect on that one!) or tortiere. Maybe there are regional variations though? My mom's entire family is from an area just south of Quebec City.

I always associate my mom's tortiere (French Canadian meat pie) with winter, although mostly Thanksgiving & Christmas since I moved away from home. Ground pork & beef mixed with mashed potatoes and baked in a pie shell...mmmmmm.

I used two self-watering planters this year and got wonderful tomatoes. The brand I used are call GrowBox. Same thing as EarthBox, really. This is my first year gardening. Everything is in containers and I've already exhausted and cut down the tomatoes in the GrowBoxes - they grew a lot faster than my conventional planters. My two big planters of mixed herbs did well. I had 3 types of basil, plus parsley in one, and thyme, rosemary, oregano & lavender in the other. The basil has all flowered and are done so I cut them back. The highs in my area are low 70's this week, with nights getting down to low 50's. My remaining tomatoes only get about 4-5 hours of sun a day at most, but I have one tomato plant with about a dozen large green tomatoes that have yet to ripen. My question is...do I pick them this weekend and just make a mess of fried green tomatoes, or give them another week?

Dave, that looks great! I actually bought puff pastry a couple of days ago and did the leek & tomato tart I was eyeing, as well as a small apple tart tatin. I have one sheet leftover, and I may have to save it for this!

Alankar, it is nice to see a dish that is not on the standard "Indian Restaurant Menu". What are beaten rice flakes like? Are they crunchy like a breakfast cereal, or soft like cream of wheat or oatmeal? I'm from the northeastern US, New Hampshire, originally; and the seafood would definitely be the regional specialty. Most people would say lobster, and although it is tasty and delicious, I love getting fried bay scallops when I go out for seafood. In fact, fried seafood of all kinds seem to be a local specialty - clams, scallops, haddock or cod, shrimp, etc... The seafood restaurants where I live now - the Mid-Atlantic - are all about the crabs, and they don't offer fried items for the most part.

I'd start with asking him about what he wants to make, then preparing those recipes with him step by step. Hopefully it is something simple! :-) I find that a lot of my friends won't try new things because they are afraid of screwing them up, and all they really need/want is someone there reassuring them step by step that they are doing the right thing. Of course, as many others have said, it won't matter if he isn't interested. It looks like Nibor and I posted pretty much the same thought at the same time...

In the past when I've had too watery a salsa - I put it in a strainer, reduce the liquid to a syrupy consistency and add it back to the strained chunks. Kerry, I may try that. I have already pureed it to a really fine consistency though, but I think it would work well mixed into rice, maybe with some poached chicken, sprinkle some cheese on top and bake? Not fancy, but a nice hearty winter meal.

I have to confess, I'm just about sick of tomatoes! This was first time ever planting...anything...and I have 7 plants - a cherry that was done by the beginning of August, one "salsa hybrid", two brandywine pinks and three golden boys, all of which are still producing! I've had innumerable tomato sandwiches, tomato salads, simple pasta with fresh tomtoes, and bruschetta, and I've stocked the freezer with red and gold tomato purées, a batch of golden gazpacho, and a batch of golden tomato salsa. The salsa came out too watery to use for chips and dip, but the flavor was good so I think I'll use it for cooking somehow. I've already made a batch of green tomato & jalapeño jam and I think I may make another batch in the next couple of weeks. I think I'm going to try a tart like some one the ones shown above, maybe with the addition of ricotta and some sautéed leek. Will the leftovers potentially keep? Or should I plan on a personal-size serving? How to keep the tomatoes from being too liquid?

Ah Ha! I guess I know what I will be doing this evening then. Thanks for the help!

I just bought a wok in a Chinese restaurant supply store in Philly's Chinatown. It was $15 for a 14" wok and seems to be basic, all-metal, the type of thing that everyone on here recommends. It has a single metal handle in the same metal as the bowl, welded to the bowl. Here is an image of pretty similar model: http://www.wokshop.com/HTML/products/woks/wok-iron-pow.html So far, I have only used once - on Saturday, I used it along with a bamboo steamer to hold the wrappers for a Peking Duck appetizer station. We put the wok on a riser, put sterno underneath, hot water in the wok and set the steamer on top - just as you would to steam product at home, only using sterno as the heat source. It worked great, but when the dishwashers ran the wok through the dishwasher at work, It came away with a sticky film all over it, inside and out. There is one spot on the interior of the wok that looks like it was scrubbed - probably with a plastic scouring pad - and that area is not sticky. It isn't the dishwasher, per se, there is no film on anything else. It seems to be some sort of reaction to a coating on the metal of the wok. So, the last wok I bought was from IKEA (don't judge ) Do woks like this need to be treated in some way?

I have no idea how I'd define my eating habits in relation to cuisine. I love to cook Indian dishes and I have a relatively high number of Indian cookbooks (5) as opposed to any other specific cuisine in my collection. But as a single woman, living alone, on the east coast of the US, my tastes are widely varied but my cooking is fairly simple. I tend to do one-dish types of meals. Tonight was a quesadilla filled with some homemade corn salsa and grilled chicken that I made a few days ago. A typical go-to meal is pasta tossed with sauteed shrimp, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives & capers or something similar. I tend not to cook separate starch/veg/protein since they don't reheat as well as one-pot dishes and I eat a lot of leftovers. As far as ingredients: tomatoes, corn, & eggplant have been big this summer, as well as cucumbers and zucchini, which are always big. I don't tend to buy lettuce or make salads - I get enough of them at work. I've been eating less proteins this past 6 months or so, but they tend to be mostly chicken, sometimes I'll splurge on beef or shrimp. Occasionally fish (salmon) or pork. For starches I tend to go with pasta and sometimes rice. I almost never buy potatoes. I'll eat anything and everything when I'm out.

I'm having a friend over for dinner on Tuesday and decided to make gazpacho so I can put a dent in the mound of tomatoes I have at the moment...before the next batch ripen! I have a recipe for a golden gazpacho from Aliza Green that looks lovely, but I'm not sure what to serve with it. My friend is on a soy and dairy-free diet at the moment, as she is nursing (so, soy, dairy and spicy-free actually). Any sugggestions? I'm thinking a nice bread, brushed with olive oil and grilled, but I don't really want to do more tomatoes and I don't love olive tapenade either. Some other sort of topping? And I'll maybe do grilled chicken or shrimp with fresh herbs as well on the side.

One of my standbys is what I call "pantry pasta". Jarred artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, oil-cured olives & a bit of capers, fresh or canned tomatoes, garlic. My method is to warm the garlic & olive oil while the pasta is cooking, add all the chopped ingredients and warm them up, then toss in the drained pasta and heat together so it all comes together. If you think you can keep proteins cold, either shrimp or Italian sausage work well. And maybe you or someone could bring a small potted basil (most grocery stores sell them in the tomato section) so you can throw some of that in as well. If the gas burners aren't very strong, you could actually do this on top of the wood stove, or at least cook the pasta on there.

My version of this is white cheddar mac & cheese, mixed with taco-seasoned ground beef. Use sour cream instead of butter when making the mac & cheese. And does anyone mix the milk & powder together to make a "sauce" before putting it in the macaroni? No lumps that way.

I need to come up with a cocktail using Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label for a small (under 20) group of female lawyers. They want something fun and fruity. Suggestions? Thanks!

So...the best laid plans... We arrived Saturday, and it turns out that we did not rent a car after all. After checking in to our hotel, which was in Burr Ridge, about a half hour southwest of the city, we met up with a colleague for lunch in the area at a chain restaurant Wok & Fire. Authentic, no, but not bad either. Afterwards we headed for the nearby train station at Hinsdale, intending to catch the train into the city, but the next one wasn't for two hours. Instead we wandered around the shops nearby and treated ourselves to mani-pedis before heading back to the hotel. We ended up ordering deep dish pizza from Giordano's for dinner, which was pretty good. My feeling on deep dish is that it is nice for a change once in a great while, but I definitely prefer New York style for every day. Sunday we did take the train in and I had made reservations for brunch at the Publican. It was great. We shared the banana bread with ricotta & honey; the bucatini a la carbonara with pork belly; the tartine with Russian dressing & grilled sirloin, topped with a fried egg & garnished with fried oysters; and a "side of bacon" - a thick strip of pork belly that had been braised in maple syrup & chicken stock...swoon! After that, we popped next door into Glazed & Infused and picked up a half dozen donuts to share with friends. The blood orange glazed one was my favorite. Thankfully we walked from Union Station to the Publican, and then over to the Art Institute. Dinner was a local fast-food (I guess that is what you'd call it) place suggested by friends we met up with - Portillos - it was...fine. I knew when planning this trip that we probably wouldn't do most of what I hoped, but getting to the Publican was definitely worth it, and hopefully I'll have reason to go back soon and try to make a few more of the places on my list.

eternal - I'll have to check out the Art Institute's tours. That sounds like what I'm looking for. I feel like I should clarify that for drinks, only one of us drinks, so that is why I'm also interested in a place that serves good dessert or late-night snacks.

Great suggestions, thanks. There will probably be only two of us, unless we pick up some other strays who arrive early, lol. And we're both pretty flexible on plans, so the itinerary is loose. So far,I did make a brunch reservation at the Publican, but I may also just make a map with places we are interested in and then see where the days take us...

Mmmm...goat for breakfast sounds delicious! Will check out the Purple Pig website. Graham Elliot's g.e.b also looks good. Thanks!

My friend and I are flying in a couple days early prior to a work conference in late February. We will have half of Saturday, all Day Sunday and Monday morning to see the sights and eat our way through Chicago and we will have a car. I think I've come up with a pretty good itinerary, but I'm looking to fill in a few gaps. My biggest challenge is not really having an idea of where some things are in relation to others, although I've put together a Google Map to help navigate. We don't have the budget to do a super expensive dinner, but we'd like to hit some of the highlights. Saturday: Fly into Midway. Check into hotel in Burr Ridge 1pm Lunch at Hot Doug's Head to Chicago French Market for browsing Grant's Park for fresh (bracing) air & to see the Bean 6pm Dinner at Frontera Grill - can go a little earlier if needs be 8pm show at Second City 10:30pm Dessert / Nightcap??? Need a suggestion here, preferably in the area of Second City Sunday: 10am Brunch at The Publican Check out Maxwell St Market - snack at Taco Stands Possible bus or boat tour - recommendations? Check out Art Institute of Chicago 7pm Dinner at The Girl and The Goat scratch that, no reservations available!! Need suggestions here. Blackbird has availability, but is beyond the budget. Monday: Conference starts at 1pm at Toyota Park, which is near Midway. Need a good breakfast option, probably preferably out near the hotel in Burr Ridge

Home at my parent's for Christmas, and I made homemade French onion dip for snacking on. It's definitely one of those thing that is so easy and so much better than store-bought.

Neither I nor my immediate family have ever held a "formal" dinner party with served courses or the like. Even big holidays are pot-luck and served on paper plates at my grandmother's house (there are usually around 30ppl - who wants to do dishes?). But just because the atmosphere is casual doesn't mean you can't do something unusual or creative with the food. It also doesn't mean that every single dish has to be over the top either. At your next gathering, start by bumping up the quality of the cheese / meats you put out and maybe add a few extras like fig preserves and grilled bread or pate like you would see in a restaurant. Or for your main dish, choose something new to try out - but still in your comfort zone. Slowly you'll expand your repertoire without going over the top all at once.

In my fridge I have the base for a mixed berry-sour cream ice cream adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe for blueberry-sour cream ice cream. I am going to spin it up when I get home tonight. I've been making a lot of Vietnamese iced coffee to drink lately, so I may have to give the DL Vietnamese iced coffee recipe a try next. I do love coffee ice cream...

I've made Bahn Mi at home several times recently - although it is probably more correctly considered as Bahn Mi inspired: Lemongrass chicken (thin-sliced chicken breast or boneless/skinless thighs, marinated in lemongrass, fish sauce, sugar & garlic, then grilled), quick-pickled veg (carrots, radish, cuke usually), sriracha mayo & cilantro. Don't know that it is all that authentic, but it is certainly yummy! There is a little Vietnamese eatery down the street from me that serves Bahn Mi in three varieties - classic, with pate & cold cuts; grilled pork or grilled beef are the other options.