Darienne

Quick responses to Tammy's report: Wonderful. You've done a lot of work! Won't be crowding Tracklements although I love smoked salmon. The Grange? Both ideas appeal to me. Will just go along with the majority. Got to drool on Kerry Beal's Thermomix yesterday at my gang's annual Chocolate Class. Is well worth the learning. Looking forward to coming.

Good luck with your ice creams. I've not made any savory ice creams, but here's a blog where they are made: http://japaneseicecream.blogspot.com/ There are a lot of ice cream blogs and websites out there and you'll find more than you can use in a lifetime no doubt. And DL's The Perfect Scoop, of course, has lots of excellent sweet flavors. When I learned to make ice creams only two short years ago, I was lucky enough to have paulraphael and jon as eG mentors who taught me a couple of helpful tricks which you may already know: the pinch of salt and the replacing of about 2 TBLS of sugar with corn syrup. My next challenge...not a very big one...I just have to remember...is to replace the corn syrup with invert sugar. I also like to make ice creams using corn starch as a base. Cuts down on the saturated fat and calories. But you probably already know that one, given your long list of already accomplished flavors. Oh...and coconut milk/cream base also.

Your DH is definitely a keeper! Yes. The table under the window is half built. The marble dropped into the laminated pine top is done. He now has a cabinet to set under the front of the top. In the meantime, I am just using an old Cosco table. I'll post a photo later. Next...well, next after a gazillion other things...Renovation Man...I'll get new laminated pine counter tops. I had pine in Moab and just loved them. Of my DH I have long said: He is the rocks beneath my feet (see Catherine in Wuthering Heights and the pebbles in my shoes.

I'm going to try making tabbouleh with quinoa and see how it works. I do love tabbouleh. All that mint!! Thanks so much for the recipe.

OK. I'm back with a report and a small photo. That's all that was left after supper. I could make only a half recipe because I forgot to specify how much eggplant I wanted. I did roast the peppers along with the eggplant, also in the dressing. I used more than the allotted oil, but only by a couple of tablespoons. Oh, and my mint was dried. And I roasted the vegetables an extra 10 minutes. We ate this salad with the new favorite quinoa salad. Very nice light supper.

What???? No photo???? I adore eggplant and it's now next on the list for this household!!! ps. DH is headed into the city and will buy me some eggplants and cherry tomatoes. I have the mixed peppers and will roast them. Have lots of mint...will not use oregano. I'll think about the garlic when I get there. Ditto for the olive oil. I do have all the other ingredients and could add chives also... I'll report back.

Very lovely. One point against square counter top edges...everything can drip off the edge with impunity.

DL's Chocolate-covered Butter-crunch bits stayed crunchy. I liked them as I slyly nibbled them as I was making, cooling, crunching, etc them...but I found the ice cream plus the bits was way too sweet. DH liked it just fine. I haven't heard from the neighbors to whom I gave it all (except two bowls for DH). They have two young kids and get all my extras, rejects, and so on, and I think it can't be too sweet for them. Still the point is that they stayed nice and crunchy.

Interestingly enough I have absolutely no idea of what I am going to make. Something Mexican no doubt. I've made a number of things lately that call for cilantro...and left it out, of course. Neither of us likes cilantro and I said: it's time to try it again. I'd happily send you the roots... I am open to all suggestions.

Just bought my FIRST fresh cilantro and the bunch has long tannish colored roots. Do I cut them off to store it in the fridge? Or leave them on? Thanks.

Alas! Closed on Mondays I don't believe that is the case anymore. You are correct. I had taken my information from the internet menu site. I wrote them concerning a correction. It does sound like a delicious place to grab a bite...before 6 pm

No prior decisions made. Chinese, but only if very good. Mexican? Perhaps not for my friends. Middle Eastern. Yes. I'd push for that. Pub fare. You know, Portabello mushrooms on a bun sort of thing. Fish and chips. I'll always go for fish and chips. Not too expensive. Gimme your best shots.

Alas! Closed on Mondays

A small gang of chocolate-obsessed friends will be in Burlington for supper next week after a chocolate class in Kerry Beal's new chocolate lab. Where to go for supper? Not too pricey please. Not in Hamilton and also not in the GTA. Basically in Burlington. I've now read about Pepperwood Bistro. What else, please?

Confectionery partner, Barbara, her sister Mary and I are taking a chocolate class next Monday at Kerry Beal's new chocolate lab. We will have a couple of hours free after class to 'kill' before we can start the journey home to the Peterborough area. If you live in Ontario, you know exactly what I mean. I have found the central Longo's in the Burlington area...what a treat for the Peterpatcher shopper...and we'll hit that. What else is there: Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern markets? Kitchen stores? And what about supper? A restaurant (not too pricey, please). Thanks. ps. Not the GTA area, please. It's out of Mary's way.

I have always made mine in the food processor and I have never thought about timing. Next time... No doubt the blender would make it smoother than the processor???? But I HATE getting thick stuff out of the blender. Do you have some special process?

This June, per usual, I have about four Pot Luck luncheons to attend, bringing a suitable dish to share, etc, etc. Thanks to cathyeats, I have this wonderful new Quinoa salad which I can take as my contribution to at least two of the four. I'd love to have some really terrific new recipes to bring to the others also. Salads and desserts, breads and nibbles...preferably all in the cool range...please. You can find Cathy's Tangy Quinoa Salad recipe on What Would Cathy Eat

A rice recipe from a Martha Stewart Living magazine left in the free bin at the local 2nd hand book store:Wild Rice with Cranberries and Toasted Pecans. DH did not like it: he likes his rice mushy: I don't. He says he'll fix it up with some curry sauce to make it edible. I just looked askance.

Great stories so far. Ya gotta love it!

Made DL's Buttercrunch Toffee today...how does one keep from nibbling it while chopping it up?...and soon it goes into a vanilla ice cream which is an amalgam of basic vanilla recipes from Alton Brown, DL, and eGullet's own jon. jon suggests using whole eggs in ice cream and so I put two whole eggs into the mix instead of 5 or 6 yolks. If I have to freeze one more egg white, I'll have to get another freezer. Yeah, yeah, I know. Make a meringue or angel's food cake. I will, I will.

Five new-to-me cookbooks: one Time-Life, one Williams-Sonoma, a low-carb cookbook (although I have no idea why), a dessert book called Dessert Book with four authors, Canadian publisher AND!!! the prize of all: Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen.

Why and how did you become a foodie, a chef, a home-based cook, a chocolatier, whatever it is that defines you in your relationship with food? For me, the 'aha' moment occurred about three years ago when I found that strange word ‘ganache’ in a recipe in our local newspaper for a Chocolate-Covered Banana Mousse Freeze. What on earth is a 'ganache' I wondered? I looked it up and a long-shut door blew wide open. Of course, I have always cooked. Fifty years of marriage…you cook. But I’ve also made beds, done laundry, raked the lawn, cleaned toilets…and somehow cooking fit into just about the same category. A chore. Give me any other job to do…let me stay out of the kitchen. My Mother didn’t like to cook either. What I learned at my Mother’s knees was my French and German vocabulary. Not how to cook. My parents were originally vegetarians and the paediatrician told my Mother…either feed her meat or I won’t take care of her. Little Darienne, that was. And so my Mother fed me meat every night of my life: either a Porterhouse or a T-bone steak, broiled to shoe leather. Until I was old enough to say, ‘Hold. Enough’. How I hated steak. An only child and not too socially bright, I had no idea that other people didn’t eat that way. And then as soon as frozen dinners came onto the market…well, that was Nirvana for Mother. And all that cr*ppy ice cream. A freezer full. Every night for dessert. No wonder I never liked ice cream. Who on earth would want to eat either steak or ice cream unless forced to? Ate differently at other people’s houses and at camp…yeah, every summer for the entire summer…but never put 2 and 2 together. Bright..but somewhat blank. And so my DH, Ed, taught me to cook…the way his Mother cooked a la Canadienne francaise. Sugar Pie. Gravy on everything. Deep fried stuff. My Mother-in-law made Boston Cream Pie with butter-laden custard, not Crème Patissiere.) …nothing like the food I had grown up eating. But then I hated cooking and so Ed did much of it. I personally have never cooked a turkey. Or roasted a chicken. I seem to recall doing roasts…I know I made wonderful Yorkshire Puddings and I could make Biscuits with my eyes closed. Angel Food Cake, pie crust, bread…these are things I had never made. Learned to make a Bechamel Sauce in Grade Seven, but of course I knew it only as a Medium White Sauce. Had no idea of what couverture was, or gougeres or macerating (sounded like pulverizing something) or mise en place or a thousand other terms. Had two cookbooks. My Mother gave me The Joy of Cooking. Don’t know where the other one came from. But then a few short years ago ‘ganache’ came into my life, and all that was before is now different. Cooking! Baking! Confections! Chocolate! Ice Cream! And on and on. Even scratch bread and Mexican crema. All is new and wonderful…with such awful mishaps and mistakes. We eat ‘em all. eGullet has played a major part in all this. Here I have asked a thousand questions and received generous answers from so many people. And I found mentors: andiesenji, Kerry Beal, Chocolot, paulraphael, jon, Heidih, gfron1, and many others. Who could believe that such a huge and informative forum actually exists? And so now each day dawns with thoughts of what new dish to make that I’ve never tried before. Seriously. What new cooking culture to find? Hey! What flavor of ice cream to make? Rum and raisin, I think. I have missed two chocolate conferences in a row but now I AM GOING TO MAKE IT to the Heartland Gathering in Ann Arbor in August!!! What about you? What is your cooking story? Parents own a restaurant? Grandmother was a baker? Went to school? Drifted into it? Come and share. I really do want to know and others will too.

You know I have never thawed them. I just toss them into the blender as part of the orange julep.

I simply peel them, cut & break them into quarters, and freeze them in Ziplocks that way. Love blood oranges. They make such pretty orange juleps.

The plastic muffin mix square pails, with handles, ought to be available for free at any supermarket/grocery which sells fresh baked goods. They fit into a chest freezer superbly and stack beautifully. And I use Staples white mailing labels and write on the stored goods with a permanent marker. Cooked meats in one, casseroles in another, frozen vegs, frozen fruit, etc. We also became quite ruthless and retired our longtime collection of mis-matched plastic containers & lids and bought an ever-growing set of only one kind of container...all lids now fit all containers...to use in the fridge and freezer...although many freezer items end up in plastic bags. Nothing beats a resealable plastic bag for space saving. The mismatchers go into a closed Rubbermaid container in the garage and are given away with whatever is in them with a 'no return' option. I picked this brilliant idea up from a friend. So now if someone gives me leftovers, confections, baked goods, whatever to take home in a 'disposable' container, I recycle that orphan container into my 'no need to return' collection. All this organization of life is a bit unnerving at times...