Darienne

You all have such fancy dishes for your lunch that I hesitate ever to post. Lunch today was stuff which has to be eaten before we head back home. Egg roll wrappers, filled with roasted leftover poblanos and Tex-Mex shredded cheese, deep fried in leftover canola. Worked very well. Would have been better is the poblanos had been more carefully drained but I was in such a hurry to get the beast, aka DH, fed that I plain forgot.

Our experience, unheated, partially insulated garage. A few miles north of Toronto's latitude. Two items in the garage. A second hand full size refrigerator with small freezer. When it gets really really cold, we have put a low wattage light bulb into the fridge and that has worked quite well. Second hand medium size chest freezer. No problems whatsoever ever. Both these items were far from new. And their costs were far from high. If you have a Habitat for Humanity /Restore near you, I'd start there. (We also have a very large chest freezer in our cellar and a full size fridge with small freezer in our kitchen.)

I've made our own chorizo back home and we liked it. I have no idea of what it is supposed to taste like so I have nothing to compare it against. Can't provide the source because the recipe and cookbook title is at home. I use it in recipes as instructed. That's about it. I'll learn more as I go along.

Brilliant idea about using frozen French Fries. I love it. Loved your Queso Fundido recipe. Makes me think about Poutine.

That sounds like a great idea and thanks for directing my attention to it. Still, my favorite apple cake recipe is basically more like a biscuit dough with apple slices slotted in on top. Hence you get the apple flavor contrasted with the coffee cake flavor. You can add ice cream or aged cheddar cheese for a finishing touch. Ditto for an apple pie or Mark Bittman's Free Form Apple Tart. The cake in question could have been altered no doubt by caramelizing the apples first...then they would have stood our against the cake background, but it would not be to my particular taste. We can keep in mind that I don't like butter tarts at all. I was raised with very little sugar...war baby...and nothing has changed. It seems clear that American recipes call for more sugar than your average European or Canadian (or Australian?)would like. And bittersweet chocolate is generally more acceptable in those countries than in the USA. On the other hand, Canadians do like more salt in their foods than Americans do. It's what you are raised on. I could add that I liked my Mother's rhubarb pie better than my French-Canadian Mother-in-Law's. I felt that the rhubarb taste was lost in my M-i-L's pie and it might have well been apple. She also sprinkled sugar on her crusts which I didn't like at all. Mind you, she was a much better cook than was my Mother. Interesting ...

No I don't cook vegetables ahead of time. However we don't have young children in our lives and we do eat salad for supper every second night. That's salad FOR our supper. And soup every other night. Then once a week we have "Dessert as Dinner". I do roast a lot of vegetables, both deliberately for meals and also when I realize that something needs to be roasted and frozen instead of being thrown out. Later it can used for enchilada fillings or soups or whatevers. When my DH did most of the cooking we did have menus for the week. Now that I do all the cooking, we don't anymore. But wait...supper is preset and so is my breakfast, although not Ed's. Hmmmm...what can I tell you? So often set plans have to be or just are jettisoned that I'm not sure my answer is of any use. Still it helps me to try to sort things out. You are not alone. My sensible holiday plans were not well followed. If it's there and it tastes good, I'll eat it. End of story.

Back again searching for Mexican ingredients and again I've left it to the last minute. With luck we'll be in Albuquerque again next week on the way home. This year I'm looking for only two ingredients: ground ancho powder and real Mexican vanilla. My intended destination is Pros Ranch Market on Central at Atrisco. (I'll be glad to devour some calorie laden rich pastries while there.) As for the ancho powder...I already have whole dried anchos and that can work. They were found in Grand Junction, but no ground powder and only imitation vanilla. Can anyone point me specifically to a place which carries pure Mexican vanilla? Promised to bring back some for friends in the Frozen North. Thanks.

This recipe for homemade "condensed milk" which has no liquid in it works as a substitute for a small can of liquid condensed milk? Yes? Your link led me to another link, another sub for condensed milk. Amazing. I guess I have to try these. Thanks Shelby.

Last night I made Smitten Kitchen's recent recipe for Apple Sharlotka mainly because right now I have a thing for apple and 5-yr aged Cheddar. Thought I would try it. Never gone wrong with a Smitten Kitchen recipe so far. Alas. For me...and I stress "ME" or "US"...this did not work. The cake part of the dessert is quite sweet and even though the apples are tart, they are not a contrast to the cake. Took the finished dessert apart and later today I am going to make fritters out of the apple part in prepared egg roll papers just for the heck of it. Made a wonderfully tart Lemon-Lime Curd from Chef Eddy and we ate it on the cake. Just right for us. Interesting cooking sequence.

Don't quite get what you mean. I can get frozen banana leaves in Peterborough and would mail them to you if that is what you are asking. I can find out where my local Asian grocery gets their leaves. At least I can try. Oh, the owner of a local Mexican restaurant uses frozen banana leaves. I know she would tell me how they get them. Do let me know if I can be of any help.

We don't normally eat fried foods. We don't normally ever eat deep fried foods. Having said that, allow me to confess that I love deep fried foods almost more than life itself. In the past month I have now made deep fried chile rellenos, egg rolls, and samosas. All to die for. Chile Rellenos are not a spur of the moment "I really want some right now" items and so DH came up with this brilliant idea, especially since we live far from any grocery type stores. It's easy to keep on hand: frozen packages of Tex/Mex cheese, Poblano rajas, and Chinese egg roll skins. Mix defrosted rajas and cheese together, package in egg roll wrappers and fry. Presto: a yummy meal or snack. Sometimes the man is just pure brilliance. (I don't own a deep fryer...I wonder if that should go onto the list of needs/wants/? ) ps. I've never made bunuelos, churros, falafel, Navajo Fry bread at home. I must NOT ever make them. Far too dangerous to my homeostasis. pps. Yah, I adore funnel cakes...go easy on the sugar please.

OK. If there is any way to screw it up, I'll find it. Left the sugared lychee jellies sitting in a container of sugar. Yep. The sugar is all soaked and so are the jellies. Well, I know, you could have told me that. Learn, learn, learn. Took the jellies out. Patted them all dry. Will shake them in sugar (in a separate container) at the last moment before we eat them. Just grateful that I checked them before we left.

I think there may be regional differences at play here, if not between states, then at least between Canada and the USA. DH does almost all the meat buying so I have asked him for his response to this question. (Plus we never eat hamburger unless it is ground from a roast.) That said. Where we live in Canada, there is very seldom any meat sold past its prime date. What they do with it we don't know. I'll ask when we are home again. Our local butcher, in our nearby tiny town, reduces meat prices regularly, but then his regular prices are higher than in the city and you have to catch the stuff on the fly and there's little of it. Mainly beef liver is at a sale price, all of which goes to the pups. DH will not eat liver. Period. (Oh, the main reason we have a butcher is that he owns the building in which the grocery is housed. Don't think that all tiny ON towns have butchers on the premise.) Here in Utah, the local Kroger has a huge past prime date bin and we have basically been living from it, both for the dogs and for us. American meat prices, to begin with, are quite a bit lower than anything we have seen in Ontario. The past prime costs are such a treat and the dogs have never eaten so well. (Not to mention that back home we NEVER see gizzards and hearts and the like for sale in a grocery store.) I have bought a lot of past prime pork and chicken thighs for us to eat. Just chuck it into the crock pot over night, and then debone, defat, cut up, shred, etc, in the am and pack it into the freezer. It becomes a variety of dishes as we go. BTW, we are NOT big meat eaters at all. "Lessmeatarians" as Bittman calls it.

Candy Tray Lychee Gels. Never heard of them before. Delicious little gems. Here they are sitting in a pile of sugar waiting to be transported to our Third Annual Chinese Feast. They should be rolled in sugar at the last minute, but I have already given them a preliminary sugar rolling and will give them a last minute shake before dessert is served and hope that this will work out fine. One of my fellow cooks loves lychees and normally I would make lychee ice cream but I don't have an ice cream maker with me. Was just googling around last evening and found this recipe under Chinese New Year Candy Recipes and thought Aha! I couldn't be more thrilled. And thus...

What could it taste like? What would be in it? And with gravy on top?

Oh my! How I would like to be the recipient of such a wonderful array! So beautifully done!

Then there is that wonderful fact that men lose weight more quickly than do women. Unfair. Unfair. My DH was a fat kid and this is back in the 40s and 50s when there was one fat kid per school it seemed. It has been a life long battle for him and one that he has won. But constant diligence and rigid self-control has always been there. I, on the other hand, have neither constant diligence nor rigid self-control and am caught in that difficult situation so well described by Simon_S. I can take it off...but I can't keep it off and each decade sees my "set-weight", or whatever you call the weight at which you can eat pretty well and NOT gain any more dramatically, up by 5 pounds. Right now I am doing fine...but for how long? And it's all further complicated now by Spinal Stenosis which means less pain with less weight but difficulty in walking or standing sometimes for any length of time. Sometimes in 'remission', sometimes so bad that I don't want to think about it. Just my story.

[Moderator note: The original Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping (Part 1)] Bought an electric roaster two days ago for $10. 8 quart. Not sure why. But already it's turned out to be a little wonder. I am making another round of freezable Tex/Mex enchiladas for quick lunches and wanted to roast some poblanos and other useful vegetables to add to the leftover pulled pork filling. Normally I roast the stuff in the oven. But this was SOO handy. Like a frying pan in which I can't burn stuff. (Yes, I do have that kind of attention span now. The meds nurse brain is gone forever.) We have two more Sundays to go before we head for home and I shall look more carefully for roaster pans in the local second hand store. I know I've seen larger ones before. Never considered buying one.

Much here to ponder. Thank you.

Good point about the liquid coming from the meat. DH and I are just talking about it...the amount of water injected into the meat. Thanks for bringing that one up.

I cannot think of a time when the cooked meat (crock pot experience only) was not swimming in liquid. That's plain pulled pork with no seasoning, seasoned pulled pork (assorted) and puerco pibil (without banana leaves). But then I haven't made the foregoing more than the last two years. I drain the liquid and then remove the fat when it is solid. Use it mainly for the dogs over the next weeks. Or dump it. The juice goes for sauce or frozen for broths. The extra 'juice' always gets used up in one way or another. Have never added any liquid to the mix except for small amounts of li, lemon or orange juice. Could the cuts of pork be a factor?

There is a very interesting book on sleep Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival. It may shed some light on why we gain weight because of the effect of our living for an unnatural length of time in the light.

Here goes my last attempt. Here's a photo of two of the sheets, one right side up, one upside down. That's DH's hand holding the up side down sheet, showing how pliable the sheet is. He was using a fair amount of pressure to create this response. You can see the rigid frame. The young woman at the cash is fascinated by the problem and wants to know what happens to the sheets. Yes, I bought them at 50% off. She found them online starting at 'rubber baking sheet' and they are noted as 'silicone'. She said that they had a bunch of them and that these were the last two left. One thing for sure, they are immoveable and Kerry's idea of using them to keep some item still would certainly work. I was showing the young woman how immoveable they were and actually wiggled the counter accidentally while showing her. No identification at all. 11"x15". End of story.

Will do. However, if you go to the OP on this topic and click on the link, you'll get a photo of what this thing looks like. Ofr course it's only from one not too useful angle. I could take my camera into the store tomorrow and ask if they mind my taking a couple of photos of the item for 'educational' purposes. I think they'll agree. It's a pretty informal and friendly place and the staff were quite curious to figure out what it was also. I'll try.

At half price on Senior Sunday, each one will cost $1.50. And it's mostly curiosity that is egging me on. I don't need them or really want them. I just want to know who uses them for what and so far I have gotten nowhere. If I ever do find some use for them, I'll pass it on. On the other hand, they could well be gone. Right now I'm waiting for an electric roaster to be half-price...and still be there.