ruthcooks

I've seen them filled with corn pudding or a cheesy quiche mixture. Two tips for sturdiness: 1. Rather than whole peppers, choose very large ones and cut in half, making two "cups". The squattier shape has better balance and won't tip over so easily. 2. Bake individually in muffin pans. I find there are more pepper haters than lovers--and I too like a bigger proportion of stuffing to pepper--so I usually put stuffing, sort of a Spanish Rice with sausage and bacon, in a casserole and cover the top with pieces of pepper.

Unlike many of you who put "garlic and onions" together at the top of your lists, I have to split them: onions at the top of my good list whether cooking, raw or lingering on my hands. Garlic goes to the very bottom: the smell of garlic cooking makes me ill. Other favorites: dill, vanilla, bacon, coffee, nutmeg, grilling and roasting meats, bread and desserts baking, many fruits but not bananas or papayas. Mostly, if it's food it smells good. No to the smell of hot peanut butter; my ex spread PB on his breakfast toast every morning for over 30 years. Ditto Mexican food or any food with hot peppers and combinations of spices, even spice cake.

Thank you for joining us. I was first introduced to your work by having a copy of "Sacramental Magic" included free in a book mail order. After I read it I thought, "These people are nuts for giving this book away! I'd pay for it any day." There are two matters which have been puzzling me. First, sometimes I see a recipe for a bread I'd like to try, but it calls for Rapid Rise Yeast. I just can't bring myself to buy that, knowing as I do that long rising improves/develops flavors, it just seems like a bad idea. When and why would this yeast be necessary? And, if it's not necessary, how do I go about substituting regular dry yeast granules? Are there any breads which absolutely call for a different kind of yeast such as cake yeast or can I always use dry yeast granules? Second, being a diabetic I have to watch my carbs. The low carb breads using soy flour and other flours simply don't taste good to me. I'm wondering if there is a way to add enough seeds, nuts, bran, etc. to a white/whole wheat loaf to make the fiber count lower the effective carbs.

1. Don't overbeat. 2. Run a knife around the edge when cheesecake comes out of oven. Clinging edges will cause cheesecake to stretch and crack as it tries to shrink away from pan. 3. Let cool very slowly. In turned off oven with door open (but remove from water bath or it will continue to cook), and/or move to draft-free counter, cover and refrigerate when completely cooled.

1. Browned, in a casserole with rice, chopped tomatoes, green peppers, onion. 2. Browned, pan sauce of wine, stock, cream, shallots, Dijon mustard. 3. Boned, pounded thin, dipped in egg and crumbs, browned in butter. Maybe better than veal or chicken. Cold on good bread or rolls for picnics or on the way to the cabin. 4. Stuffed, or topped with stuffing including raisins and apple. Braise or bake. 5. Dipped in egg, then a mixture of soda cracker crumbs and grated or shredded Parmesan cheese. Brown in butter or bake on heavily buttered sheet pan, turning once. My grandsons are always disappointed unless the pork chops are cooked this way. With a mashed potato casserole and my mothers sugar/vinegar slaw, one of my favorite meals.

Yeah, it's easier...but then you gotta EAT it. Too sweet, too chemical tasting. Similar characteristics with whipped cream? It's white and contains air. I'd rather eat something plain if I can't have real whipped cream.

A mixture of apples in any apple dish will usually result in a "whole greater than its parts." This is particularly true in applesauce and apple butter. A word about choosing Golden Delicious apples: if you wait until they are truly golden, it's too late. Select the greenest ones you can find in the fall and they will not disappoint. I learned this by living in North Carolina, where GDs dominated the market in the fall. I use Winesaps for apple relish, McIntosh for applesauce and Granny White or Golden Delicious for pies or other apple dishes.

Sure, Abra, here it is. I see now that it is a brown sugar syrup instead of a caramel, but with those other ingredients, who could tell? Most useful to have on hand during the holidays, or for a Derby party. Kentucky Sauce 1 cup each: brown sugar white sugar water 1 cup broken pecan halves 1 cup strawberry jam 1 lemon 1 orange 1/2 to 1 cup bourbon Combine sugars with water and boil to 240 degrees F (this is not quite to the point where it spins a thread, so you'll have to use a thermometer). Remove from heat and stir in pecans and jam. Grate zest from lemon and orange and add to mixture. Remove white pith and discard. Chop lemon and orange in a food processor (or cut into very tiny sections by hand) and add to mixture. Stir in bourbon and store sauce in refrigerator to ripen. Keeps indefinitely. Serve over vanilla ice cream. Makes one quart. Notes: I use the smaller amount of bourbon and find it to be plenty. This really does get better the longer it sits. To use as a personal chef, I would make it on site at an earlier date OR use it fresh substituting a fruit liqueur (strawberry?)instead of the bourbon so the alcohol flavor would not be so harsh. In that case, you'll have to re-name it, or just add a little token bourbon along with the liqueur.

Catering clients can either set the price or choose the food, not both. They either give you a total budget price or a price per person, and you get to tell them what they can get for that money OR they choose the food and you tell them what price you can deliver that menu for. I used to make up several sample menus with different prices to give prospective clients an idea of budgeting. I've never heard of a caterer setting the budget. Perhaps the client is mis-using the word. Another way to price is to set an hourly or daily rate for yourself. Like $240-$400 per day or $30-$50 per hour, depending on the area, plus cost of food and help. This might be the way to go, where she can choose any menu she wants. After you've done a job or two, you'll be better able to determine "what it's worth" to you to take on a job of this size, and figure out the relationship of food cost to your price.

I tend to pooh-pooh anything that is not homemade, but just remembered this one which brought raves at my first restaurant. The set menu changed weekly, and I offered some kind of ice cream or sorbet, usually homemade, as an alternate dessert for those not having room or not liking the dessert choice of the week. This particular selection was ice cream sandwiches made from purchased vanilla ice cream and those super thin ginger snaps, with a really good caramel sauce poured over two sandwiches per serving. I called it Ginger Flips. Two other ice cream sundae desserts with purchased vanilla ice cream also surprisingly "outsold" the main desserts. One had a summer plum-rum-almond compote, and the other featured Kentucky Sauce, a specialty of Louisville KY, its ingredients including lemon, orange, caramel syrup, strawberry jam, bourbon and pecans. My leftover sorbets were often layered with purchased vanilla ice cream in graham cracker or chocolate cookie pie crusts and topped with meringue for Baked Alaska Pies, often served with a caramel, fruit or chocolate sauce.

If no refrigerator space, how about the freezer? A couple of frozen desserts I have done successfully: Store bought angel food cake, torn into pieces and folded into lemon pudding and whipped cream. Freeze in spring form pan (12-16 servings). You may frost with more whipped cream and decorate with cherries and almonds. Best thawed, but it will thaw enough by the time it gets to the dining room if you serve on individual plates. At a large seated dinner fundraiser, a server presented to each individual table a silver tray containing a small souffle dish of frozen rum mousse, small dishes of raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. There are lots of frozen souffles and mousses which don't have to be frozen individually. And ice box cakes which don't take up a lot of room in the refrigerator. I also have a recipe for a no-crust fudge pie, sort of a brownie, which is mixed up in about 5-10 minutes and started in a cold oven. You could make this in foil pans and cook four or five at once when you arrive at the cooking session. Sort of while you're heating the oven.

I make these cookies all the time. Using half Whey-Low (or Splenda), they don't seem to raise my blood sugar but aren't as good as the real thing. I agree on the orange-almond variation being great. Oh, yes--I've never liked oatmeal cookies before.

Pretty sure that safety cones were so called because you could set them down. Before they came out--back in the dark ages of my life--all cones were "pointy", and had to be held constantly. That made giving a cone to a 2 year old quite a project. I like sugar cones myself, don't like the sogginess of the cake ones.

Which is easier to say: "He's a flexitarian." OR "He's basically a vegetarian but eats meat on some occasions." I'm for shorthand--like saying "tomato concasse" instead of saying "peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes".

In macaroni and cheese In "cream" soups instead of cream or thickeners In lots of places you'd use cream cheese, because it doesn't have that cloying taste of cream cheese

Omigod, what a time to ask! I just got back from visiting my son's family in Dyersburg, TN and we ate out 3 times: Olive Garden (on the way home from Memphis airport) Wendy's BadBobs (or some such) all-you-can eat barbequed ribs The ribs were good, anyway.

What is the meaning of the name "doberge"? Which flavor is traditional (or original), chocolate, lemon or caramel? Many recipes call for evaporated milk, which tastes funny to me--can cream be substituted in the icing/filling? In general, how would you describe the cake, like: "many layered buttercake with a cooked filling and cooked icing"? I've traveled to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but this cake is a new one on me.

I have been looking for a new signature line, and nothing seemed quite right until now. Russ’s piece reminded me of the time I realized that for what-seemed-like-years, no one had recommended any food, recipe or restaurant to me because it was GOOD. People wanted me to exclaim over the lowness of fat, the height of the stack, the artistry of painted-on sauces, the sheer abundance of quantity or the beauty of stained glass windows, but never recommended the food because it tasted so damn good. And that, of course, was my one and only criteria. After that, whenever someone told me "You should go...eat...try...see" I would always say, "Why? Does it taste good?" Somehow it seems more credible when attributed to Julia. Thanks, Russ

Recipe posted as requested. Enjoy.

Aunt Ilea's Cornbread (Sweet) Serves 9. I like the Southern "sour" corn bread as well and have tried many recipes, but here is the one I always come back to, an unusual version using light cream instead of a fat and milk/buttermilk combination. It's from a great aunt, one of my paternal grandfather's seven sisters, who could have done a "Great Cooks" series all on their own. 1 c flour 2/3 c cornmeal 1/3 c sugar 4 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 c light cream (half and half) 2 eggs Throw everything in a bowl, beat with a whisk until smooth and bake 25 minutes or so in a greased 8" or 9" square pan at 400 degrees, or until top browns. Keywords: Bread, Easy ( RG1145 )

Aunt Ilea's Cornbread (Sweet) Serves 9. I like the Southern "sour" corn bread as well and have tried many recipes, but here is the one I always come back to, an unusual version using light cream instead of a fat and milk/buttermilk combination. It's from a great aunt, one of my paternal grandfather's seven sisters, who could have done a "Great Cooks" series all on their own. 1 c flour 2/3 c cornmeal 1/3 c sugar 4 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 c light cream (half and half) 2 eggs Throw everything in a bowl, beat with a whisk until smooth and bake 25 minutes or so in a greased 8" or 9" square pan at 400 degrees, or until top browns. Keywords: Bread, Easy ( RG1145 )

Sorry, Lisa! Senior moment and all... Two more books: a Civil War Cookbook because one of my ancestors was a baker in the Union Army. (Had relatives on both sides, actually.) Number 2, my daughter brought me a church cookbook back from Deer Isle, Maine, edited by my son-in-law's cousin. Also brought me a lobster!

OK, since nobody wants to be the first to publish a sweet or "cake type" cornbread, I will. I like the Southern "sour" corn bread as well and have tried many recipes, but here is the one I always come back to, an unusual version using light cream instead of a fat and milk/buttermilk combination. It's from a great aunt, one of my paternal grandfather's seven sisters, who could have done a "Great Cooks" series all on their own. Aunt Ilea's Cornbread 1 C. flour 2/3 C. cornmeal 1/3 C. sugar 4 t. baking powder 1 t. salt 1 C. light cream (half and half) 2 eggs Throw everything in a bowl, beat with a whisk until smooth and bake 25 minutes or so in a greased 8" or 9" square pan at 400 degrees, until top browns. (Always invoked one of my ex's favorite sayings: Pi R Square? No, Pie R Round, Cornbread R Square.) Edit to add my Grandmother Phebe's version, other side of family. She baked this in a large metal pan and my grandfather ate it mushed up in his milk. As she gave it to me: 2 C. corn meal 2 C. sour milk (naturally soured) 2 T. drippings Salt 2 t. soda Dissolve soda in milk and mix quickly. Bake in metal pan. Grandma cooked on a cook stove, but if I had to guess, I'd say a 10 X 15 inch pan (batter will make a very thin layer), greased with the drippings, about 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

Julia Child appeared in my life about the same time as my first child, and both brought dramatic new realizations and changes in the way I lived. Within a few years, I was giving French cooking lessons myself, and was flattered when a student commented that I reminded her of Julia--about the time a cucumber went flying across the room, and I went on without fluster. In her later years, it amused me to watch her appear on PBS fundraising shows where other cooks prepared food to be showcased by Julia and her co-host. While the co-host went on about phone numbers and pledge giving, Julia--you go, girl!--was scarfing up the food. Many of us, like Julia, are lucky to be able to say, "I don't have any guilt," when it comes to good food and good living. No matter what the food police would have us believe, we will always have Julia the beacon, standing as a testament to long life from a diet of butter and cream, red meat and spirits. Well done, good and faithful friend. We shall miss you.

To make even an ordinary* lemon bar special, make this change: instead of the usual powdered sugar sifted over the top, make a thin glaze of powdered sugar, fresh lemon juice and a little melted butter. Drizzle over the top while warm. You may have to refrigerate for a while to get the glaze to set. The icing intensifies the lemon flavor greatly. They have what my mom calls "whang". *By ordinary, what I mean is with baked-on lemon filling, not the type you make with lemon curd and a true shortbread cookie base.