Darienne

Perhaps frozen yogurt needs a separate topic for discussion. Found only two topics for 'Frozen yogurt/yoghurt...one of them from me...and wonder why? Perhaps it's not all that popular? I made frozen yogurt this week using un-drained full-fat Liberte (Canadian) yogurt. Added sugar, a bit of corn syrup, a pinch of salt, some vanilla. That's all. Churned it in my Cuisinart. Plain. It tasted very good. Even DH, who normally likes everything very rich and creamy, liked it. The half & half component of my ice cream registers 960 calories plus 91 calories for 3 T of cornstarch, and the un-drained full-fat yogurt at 510. That's not even using heavy cream and/or without eggs. But so far I've not found a lot of frozen yogurt recipes which appeal to me. Is anyone out there making it regularly? And what flavors? What kind of results?

You are a good daughter.

Those look like black sesame seeds???

My cooking career began only a very few years ago and for the first couple of years I bought a LOT of cookbooks, especially when we were in the States and Amazon.com is so simple and so cheap. Our past visit to the USA, I bought only a few cookbooks, ones which I was actually looking forward to buying. That's about it for me for a good long while I think. I really do have all the chocolate books I can imagine buying. ...for my level of non-expertise anyway... I borrow all the interesting cookbooks which our two libraries hold. I can order books on ILL. I find a lot of good recipes online from the various blogs I subscribe to, particularly the more non-western ones, the Mexican, African, Middle Eastern, etc. I use eGullet recipes. I really thinking my collecting drive is waning... ...maybe...

Some chile, perhaps ancho powder or a bit of chipotle, in the squares and then they would be heaven.

Just trying to recall the last time we knew that the power was going to go off. Just one of the extra benefits of living in the middle of nowhere...you don't count either. Now storms are another issue...

As to bottled water. We buy one large container each year and it sits in the cellar with its date very visible. Our well runs on electricity and no power...no water. We can drink the last bought one and use the others for whatever is needed. (Yes, we do have a generator.)

That's my simple, untrained answer too. Regular supermarket corn syrup. Have never yet had a very hard unscoopable ice cream since the early ones. I also add a pinch of table salt. I make a cornstarch based ice cream. Fewer calories. Cheaper. Less fuss. It may lack some of the creaminess of the egg base, but we are not ultimate ice cream aficionados I guess. Oh well...

You don't mention your countertop length. Is it quite a lot? Or is it quite...trying to find a more positive word than 'crowded'...replete with stuff? I've never heard of a glass counter-top convection oven but I did look them up. Thanks.

Lovely to have a new kitchen!!! Lucky you, CaliPoutine. (Photos please!) My stand mixer is bigger than I ever wanted. My food processor is now in that set of shallow cupboards along with the blender, the mini-processor. My crock pots are in my studio. One item a day until the new living room is finished and all the furniture is moved. (Geez I hate renovations.) Cutting boards are in a cupboard in a slotted thingy that Ed built. Fruit bowl in what is to be the dining room. Dish drainer in the cupboard. No knife blocks...knives are all lying scratching each other in a drawer. I have this obsession with bareness on my counters. Can't help it. An old friend once said to me that she expected to come to the house one day and not be able to find it because I would have put it away in a cupboard. I had forgotten that. My walls are a different thing. There is NO room on any wall in the house for anything else.

We are real salad hounds in our house and this is a new and wonderful chickpea salad just tried for the first time. "Curried Chickpea Salad" from How to Cook Everything: The Basics, posted in Mark Bittman Posterous. Soooo good. Always collecting salad recipes, especially those which will be part of feeding a summer crowd!

Yes, I do! It is one of my now-that-I've-quit-working projects that I need to get to. One of my problems is that many of them were stocking stuffers and Santa lives with me . You are a good Grandma and Mother. And when they finally leave home, you can begin to unload some of the extras. Trust me.

Enclosed is a photo of our cabinet in the breezeway currently. It had glass inserts in the upper doors and Ed changed the glass for wooden inserts which he made and which look very nice. Kitchen bits: The new table which isn't finished but incorporates a piece of marble which solves a lot of problems in one blow. Spice cupboard. And also large shallow cupboards which I will simply have to replan in their use. Too shallow for any full size appliance, but the small processor and the mills fit into them. ...hmmm...could move the other mill, the hand mixer, the hand blender. Get the mind in gear, that's all I need. (Yes, it reads: Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get caught in jet engines)

Thanks so far. I have pushed myself 5" worth and moved a number of things. Fruit is in what will be the dining room moved into reed baskets. Stand mixer takes the place of the fruit in the kitchen. One grinder and the tiny food processor are in a kitchen cupboard, from the studio shelves, which Ed built into the kitchen when he built the room out of the amorphous huge area which was the apiary. (Century mostly destroyed farm house. A renovator dream come true. Not so for the wife, me.) Unfortunately at the time of kitchen building: a) I still hated cooking and didn't have much 'stuff' and b) he built the cupboard about 4" more shallow than I specified [we don't discuss this. Ever]. The dog bowls and dog pills are moved. The blender, which I don't use all that much as I use the bullet or the BlenderBottles for shakes, can go into said shallow cupboard when the shelves are repositioned in their brackets. Ed also built a small "between the studs" built-in cabinet for my spices which is SO handy. I can't do anymore thinking without going crazy. Renovations, especially gigantic (unwanted) ones are mind-blowing and especially when your main builder, the DH, simultaneously destroys 3 ligaments in his two rotator cuffs. Poor guy. Enough from me for now. I'll take a few photos. Oh, PanaCan, your Aparador is exactly what Ed wants to put in the dining room where I want a built-in closety type thing. Except I could not live with glass doors. (Nope, he says 'close, but no cigar'.

So much of North America is far above sea level. Does self-rising flour fit in anywhere?

Shalmanese and others raised the subject of kitchen counters and what's kept on them in a recent topic:Things lots of people buy... I am currently having kitchen counter problems, in that I don't have enough counter space to keep out my food processor and/or my stand mixer, two items which I would like to have on hand. A major consequence of this is that I use a hand mixer when a stand mixer would be preferable. Permanently on my limited counter space: blender, bullet, carousel holding many utensils, toaster oven, fruit which is ripening or being on hand, coffee maker, coffee carafe. Everything else is: in cupboards in the kitchen, on shelves in what was my studio, in the breezeway in a large cabinet which will be moved into the new dining room when the new living room is finished, and in the garage either in a tall cabinet or on open shelves. What do others do? Where do you keep stuff you have no room for in your kitchen as it is configured? Tips? Tricks? Etc. Thanks.

Canned gravy Bisquick Bottled salad dressings. Mostly they taste horrible and it's a breeze to make. These pop into my mind.

Pot Luck dinner tonight. Made this Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Pie and a second demi-pie with the leftovers. Didn't have the correct ingredients...what else is new? so made some changes. Subbed a graham cracker crust for the chocolate biscuit one, condensed milk for the whipped cream and sugar, and added a bit of homemade raspberry liqueur. Topped it with 54% dark chocolate ganache, but if I make it again, I'll use 70% dark. Too sweet for me, but Ed and the furnace guys loved it.

Are the eggplant pieces also chips?

What is crispy cabbage??? How do you 'crisp' it?

As always, dystopiandreamgirl, your desserts are exquisite.

Thank you. Cream, yes. Egg, no. What about putting out some Greek yoghurt to spoon onto the Matoke? Or pickled something or other? (In case you are still there... )

Thanks, PanaCan. I'm plumb out of green plantain chips and all, but I appreciate the ideas. Fufu next time... Do you by any chance have a recipe handy? No, not for today. For next time.

A bit late in posting this question... Finally made the Matoke yesterday and it was a huge success, so successful that now DH insists upon giving it to our Easter guests (South Africans) today. Yes, I know it's from Uganda, but they love anything delicious. Carl is 96 years old, born in Samoa, has lived everywhere, full of fascinating stories. My question: what to serve as an accompaniment to the Matoke, to put on it? to put beside it? Yes, I know it needs nothing really...just my hostess-y concern. It's on a bed of Jasmine rice and I do have a greens salad and a fresh loaf (still baking) of Challah. Dessert is a Margarita pie. So we are very International. Any one out there who has an idea? Or should I just stand back and let it go? Thanks.

PanaCan, you are a cooking artist.