Darienne

Not to forget that different strains(?) /kinds of yogurt taste quite different from each other. And I am not including those fruit-filled, sugar-laden things. Some yogurts taste better with fruits than do others. Etc.

SL: Shame on me no doubt, but I know nothing about SV. I have just mastered shredded meats and they are our standby to date. Do recall that I was the world's biggest non-cook until just a very few short years ago. TOK: Shall look up a recipe for Spaghetti alla Puttanesca asap, but could you honor me with your ingredient list please?

It was hot and spicy enough with the ancho. Chipotle would have put it over the top for us. It probably rested in this case on the heat of the salsa. Thanks again, Emily_R and to you too, Jaymes.

I'd appreciate it if someone could post a link to that thread.

OMG. We loved it! Let's see what I changed. Well, it's in my nature. I used ancho powder instead of 'chili' and more cumin because I adore cumin, 2 full cans of beans @ 19 oz each, and turkey broth because it was the easiest to reach in the chaos of the frozen broth compartment. Oh, and dried cilantro because I couldn't face trying to find the frozen fresh. Anyway, it's still the same basic soup and we just loved it. It now joins the regular soup repertoire to be made from scratch when so inclined...or from cans. Thanks so much, EmilyR.

Actually, we're going to have it for lunch today. I always rinse the canned beans...or at least half rinse them...depends upon the beans. I didn't realize that chili powder could have salt in it. Might use ancho powder plus chipotle or some combo.

More good ideas for me to add to my growing list. Twyst and Sandra. Never even had duck confit. Never had duck for that matter. I could do the soup and biscuits. Bread and potato pancakes sort of defeat the purpose for me I'm afraid. EmilyR: I'm going to try that tomorrow night (tonight is salad). With cornbread (have to check my cupboard) or biscuits which is one of my 'with my eyes shut and one hand tied behind my back' goodies. Because we don't eat 'dinner' and most everyone else does, I don't often think about having the visitors fit in with our schedule...which as you might imagine makes for some problems for us. It's like having a dinner twice in one day unless we are very careful about how much we take on our plates which can make visitors a tad uncomfortable. Well, mostly females...not males. Oops. Not generally males. Have to be fair. However, extra carbs, like bread, potatoes, biscuits, can often fill in the holes I guess. We mostly have company for our noon dinner...my problems seem to crop up at the later hour: tiredness, not wanting to cook, not wanting to have a large meal...both physical and psychological hurdles. Hmmmm..... This topic has been so useful for me.

AAquesada Thanks for the recipe. Very generous of you and please thank your grandmother. The idea of using tomatillos is interesting. I made some Tomatillo/Lime jam and loved it. I would also definitely use piloncillo and not brown sugar. I am trying to convince our local outlet of all things hot and spicy to carry piloncillo but in the meantime a friend from NJ brings me a yearly care package. EatNopales. I am OK with raisins although not crazy about them. Might use dried cranberries which are scarcely authentic, although I sub them often for raisins. I would also use pecan, or even almonds. I love peanuts, but they don't belong in everything and to me they are not a case of one 'nut' versus another.

Love those eyeballs!.

Thanks EN. This old white woman, who is learning to cook Mexican and wishes she could speak Spanish, thanks you both for this video and for the website. Not to mention all the help over the past year. I tried a couple of years ago to start a topic on Capirotada to find a good traditional recipe for it and received no replies. So many of the recipes I found were simply bread pudding with eggs and milk and other inappropriate ingredients. Would you make it according to this recipe by Tina?

Wonderful macarons, Jerry. Wonderful story.

Thanks for all the encouraging words, fellow eGulleters.

I had to double coat my PB balls...leaky little critters. No one complained. My confectionery beneficiaries are all taste and not presentation oriented thank goodness. I see there are already a couple of topics on favorite peanut butters...maybe I'll visit one. I can't find a smooth natural one so far. When I say smooth...I mean SMMOOOTHHHH.

Sounds good. My question would be was the peanut butter really, really smooth, slightly crunchy or quite crunchy? (We don't have Safeway here where I live.) I had the hardest time finding a smooth peanut butter for the PB balls. All the 'natural' smooth butters have little crunchy bits in them. Not that that is reprehensible, it's just that I was looking for SMOOOOTH and had to fall back on one of "THOSE" peanut butters that we don't eat to get a smooth enough texture. Just curious.

Lovely, RWood. What peanut butter ganache do you use? Or is it your own recipe? My dentist loves peanut-butter/chocolate anything and I might try truffles for Christmas. I gave him last Pastry Girl's recipe for Peanut-Butter Balls dipped in chocolate. Big kudos for DH and me.

My abject apologies, PanaCan. I cannot imagine why I said such an all-encompassing remark. You can't get much more multicultural then Toronto. I'm just lucky that no Torontonians read my foolish remark. However....Peterborough? Not cosmopolitan nor multicultural. Except around the university maybe. We do well for Asian foods in our local Asian market...even some fresh things...but that's about it. Our daughter's BF is from Grenada and he always comes laden with stuff from the GTA and then he cooks for us. Deadmonton...I like that.

Thanks again for more posts, all. Kouign: will do that. I have not wanted to eat chicken for a long time now and have so few recipes for it. Cooking chicken will be one of my aims now. Thanks. Kaszeta: always have pesto in the fridge but have never frozen it. I guess I don't make that much at once and I guess I also thought it pretty much kept forever. I have added extra olive oil to it on occasion. Hmmmm. KarenDW: Don't know exactly why. Of course I do use frozen ingredients. It's the frozen fully prepared dishes that I am reluctant to serve. I think it stems partly from my sense of not being an experienced cook except in a very few areas. I spent most of my life avoiding cooking as much as I could, and am feeling that a woman of my age should be able to put on an excellent meal at a moment's notice...and I really can't. Thus perhaps my insecurities. Perhaps more than you wanted to know...

Perhaps we should have a party with apple and rhubarb desserts. We have several patches of 100 year old rhubarb plants but we don't do rhubarb and every year I try to give it away but can find no takers. What a shame.

Sir, thanks for the info. As you know, we are near Bowmanville although the search may have to wait for next year. Sorry about the gender confusion.

Happy Birthday, EN. Your cake looks and sounds delicious.

Thanks so much to all of you who have sent such great replies.

We are on our second Champion. I mean over many decades. Very expensive to buy, particularly in Canada, but well worth the money. We mostly use it for pulping green vegetables for our dogs, but it does yeomen service for apple juice and so many other things. Thanks for the thoughts of the frozen apples. Makes sense.

Lucky Ashen if she can get Russets. Used to be my favorite. Haven't seen one in a couple of decades. Never heard of most of the apples named in this topic. I can name an apple I don't like: Delicious. Our two best apple trees are the Mackintosh and the Northern Spy :wub: , right in the backyard. No spraying nor nothing. Our farm is the old "Salter place" and our farmhouse is the second house on the property and it's 100 years old in 2014. We have 19 apple trees on our property and the only ones I can name are the two in our back yard. We have been making apple juice for a few years now. And I am about to start the process once again. Oops. Sorry. East Central Ontario.

And how long do they last PtheE? Our cellar is almost the same as our house heatwise. Our garage is unheated...but warmer than the outside air. Oh, that is in the winter, which it is not. NOT WINTER. NOT.

In a box? With holes? Wrapped separately? Not wrapped?