Marlene

Cough cough. Ahem. Recipe perhaps?

If these are half as good as the mongolian beef stir fry recipe you gave me, I bet they are wonderful!

Here's something I haven't seen before. Wine in a plastic bottle. We had a party last night, and one of the guests brought over a bottle of Wolf Blass, 2004 Bilyara Reserve, Cabernet Sauvignon. I was completely taken by surprise when I picked it up and discovered it was a plastic bottle. I haven't tried it yet, but something like this would also be great for camping/backpacking trips.

Given the cork shortage, I wouldn't be surprised to see this trend continue. As noted up thread, Australia is now producing wines with screw caps, and they make some very fine shiraz in a screw cap bottle. There was a time when anything with a screw cap was considered to be on the same level or below Baby Duck. Australia has managed to negate that connotation, and I suspect that with some good advertising by some of the bigger wine houses, it will happen in boxes. Probably more predominately whites than reds, since there can be the aging factor when talking about big reds. I'd bet it's coming.

I just have to say that if y'all can actually get other food sites, in effect, your "competition," to display the eG logo, it will be an utterly brilliant PR move. Have any of the others - say Chowhound, OA, NIAC, Mouthfulsfood, Dallasfood.org, etc., indicated any interest at all? Marlene, how about cookskorner? ← Well, (a) we aren't a blog, and (b) we don't do restaurant reviews, we just stick to cooking, so I don't think this really applies to us.

Here's a thought. We recently switched out our propane BBQ for a natural gas one. We have found that the natural gas BBQ does not get nearly as hot and takes longer to heat up than the propane one did.

There are some very good knife skills classes at ICE in New York. Institute of Culinary Education.

liver really needs to be soaked in milk first for 40 minutes to an hour to get rid of that bubblewrap texture. Then do just like you did, lightly dredge in flour, pan sear quickly in butter on each side so it's pink in the middle still, then make a nice red wine pan reduction sauce with the dripping. Liver and onions is good. Liver and crisp bacon is even better! See how it's pretty creamy inside? That's the texture to aim for.

I have one and almost never use it anymore, since my husband once poured fat down it and it cost me a hefty plumber's bill to fix it. A year ago, they came out with Green Bins here. Basically all scraps, etc go into the green bin and get collected with your garbage every week, then the town composts it. Works much better for me. And all my stock bones can go in there too, which they couldn't in the garburator. I thought I was going to hate the green bin program when it came out. I have small bucket on the kitchen sink that serves as my scrap prep bowl now and the bag goes out to the green bin when full. I just peel carrots, potatoes etc into the small bin, and dump my cutting board scraps in there when I'm done. I love this program. We also have an air switch and ours is a commercial insinkerator.

I've been using food and cooking to teach my son math since he was in grade one. Since I don't do chemistry, high school math and such is beyond me, but it's a good idea for high school kids as well. Particularly for boys, who are more hands on learners and are going to grasp something from a basic they already understand and can do that much more easily.

But at the beginning of the thread, she said she was simmering it on an induction burner, not in a slow cooker. The carrots in the crockpot in chicken stock were fine. Otherwise, I'd agree with you.

We love the one in Ft. Lauderdale.

Thanks David, I'll let you know this weekend. My ice cream maker is at the cottage so we'll make this for company on Saturday when we are up there. My favourite way to do asparagus. Roasted, with a little melted parm, then sprinkled with extra parm out of the oven and drizzled with balsamic. We are getting US aparagus here now. Ontario asparagus is probably still a couple of weeks away yet.

This just went on my list to try!

It was very different! Would make a great conversation starter at a party! Yes, they were stinging nettles. We used gloves to remove the leaves from the stem.

This is the popcorn with asapargus and other things in it

When our class was at the Union Square market last week, we also found some spring garlic and nettles and one vendor had some asparagus.

I don't have pics uploaded to this computer, so I can't post them here, but they are available on my site, but recently, I made the weirdest dish Ive ever made. Popcorn, then tossed with grilled asparagus, sliced garlic, wilted nettles, and some other stuff, sprinkled with cayenne and some salt. Tossed with olive oil. This was something we created in our last cooking class when I was in New York. It didn't suck, but it's not normally how I think about making popcorn!

I'm pretty hopeful Janet, that whenever your book comes out it will be flawless. Aside, from the suggested substandard writing, maybe we could take a look at what the book actually offers? I was the lead tester for this book, and yes, I proof read the manuscript as well as Micheal's regular editor, so mea culpa if there are errors. The ratios work. Some of these recipes/ratios have become standards in my home cooking rotation. Regardless. The book is geared for the home cook. Not necessarily the very advanced home cook, but one who is reasonably comfortable in the kitchen and is looking to expand and springboard to the next step. Will it be pedestrian for some of the people on eG? No doubt. Is it way past what Rachel Ray offers? Count on it. Will it work for those who are looking to tear this author's work apart? Never, in a million years. I can say I tested 90% of these recipes myself, and what I didn't test, the other members of the group did. We discussed what worked and what didn't. Changes were made where necessary. They work. Are they the best recipes in the world? No. But that wasn't the aim, if anyone bothers to read the introductions. The aim was for good and what works. Once you have good, and you know the basic ratio, you can springboard into excellent. You can take a ratio and make it your own. That is all the aim is here, which is to try to free the home cook from doggedly following a recipe, thinking that is all there is. It's a pretty simple concept and some of the recipes are damned good!

Ann, how nice to see you again! At what temp did you cook that roast to get such lovely cracklins? Did you treat the surface in any way? Looks beautiful!

there was a Miele wall oven in our house when we bought it. I couldn't rip it out of the wall fast enough. It seriously sucked as an oven. I've had two kitchenaid wall ovens and loved them both. I have a Dacor now, but I don't really think for the price they are any better than the KA. I have Kenmore Elite at the cottage and it works very well. I have the model with the small oven on top and a regular sized oven below. The small oven comes in quite handy.

I'm in New York for several days, and wandered over to the nearest Duane Reade yesterday for some water and other things. The very first thing I saw, was a big display of munchos. Well gee, since I'm here for a while, I had to buy a bag, or two, or......

I think you nailed it here. I was one of a small group of people who tested every recipe in this book. As with most of what Michael does, this book is aimed at drawing home cooks into the kitchen and experimenting. The recipes are solid and they work. The aim wasn't to give the best recipe ever for bread dough for example, but to give someone a springboard from which to take a basic ratio and use your imagination.

Something like this? which granted, is probably deeper than you wanted, but you could also make fritattas! I have used this to make a rosti type base when making a hash brown fritatta and have flipped the potatoes from one pan to another without issue.

It does take a bit of practice, and you will get some waste in terms of the amount of bag you need to use. I didn't get gush mostly because I was willing to waste some bag Elevating the food saver is a good idea. I'd been doing the opposite, and supporting the bag off the counter which works as well, but I think elevating the saver makes more sense. I'll try it that way. My machine combines a vacumn and seal together, and it seems to work so that I don't have to time hitting the seal button. For those who are a bit challenged with this method, until you get enough practice, there's always the option of ladling say two cups of stock into one of the small ziplocks, then vacumnsealing the ziplock inside the food saver bag. A bit more work, but you can still lay your bags flat in the freezer, and hey, they're double wrapped so to speak. I bag in 1 and 2 cup quantities because that is what I use most often.