Darienne

Cut the ginger on September 14th and already I have counted 6 new little buds starting to grow.

I know it's going back a bit, but I would like to know what ice cream recipe you used, please. also from Kerry Beal Where would one get cardamom essential oil, please. Thanks. I am on a cardamom kick, so to speak.

That's a good point, about the steam killing most everything. I think we'll still go for the stainless variety. DH will simply be happier... I did make a sponge cake while away in my bamboo steamer, my first steamed cake, and I was so pleased. Should never have given it to my friend, thinking I still had one at home. Thanks everyone for all the good advice.

Made cardamom ice cream last night, Philadelphia base, no eggs. Very nice. Could have used more cardamom. I gather from a fairly recent thread on using cardamom that it's not the most straightforward of spices to use, but I love it. Next time I am going to make it as Kulfi, the frozen Indian ice cream. The main difference is that one starts with a larger quantity of milk and cooks it down, as is done in so many milk-based Indian desserts. Also Kulfi is often not churned but simply poured into molds and frozen, rather like a Popsicle on a stick. This time I was simply not ready to do the whole procedure and so took a great shortcut and used the simplest recipe I could find.

We too live despite my less than fanatical habits. Thanks. I'll get a stainless one and end the discussion with the DH.

I think the rice vinegar is an excellent idea...not as harsh as regular or wine vinegar generally is. I am not a vinegar aficionado. Prefer lemon juice for acidic needs. DH loves vinegar. Will get the book through Inter-library loan ASAP.

This one is fun : Lauren Chattman, Instant Gratification. Another one of those little treasures which need no justification because they were purchased in a second hand store.

Laughed out loud when I discovered the topic of bamboo steamers was actually started by me. I want to buy a bamboo steamer. DH does not want a bamboo steamer. Says they can't be cleaned properly. Wants me to buy a stainless one instead. He is more germ conscious than I am. What's the consensus on cleaning bamboo steamers?

Thanks to Heidi and Green Mountain for their replies. I nibbled another piece of the eggplant and realized that what was bothering me was not the vinegar, but the oregano. For some reason, it is not my favorite herb and using dried herbs is always a problem. I think I'll drain the oil out, save it for salads...DH loves oregano...and it can be easily modified to mask the oregano for me...and restart the eggplant process in the middle. Thanks. Forgot to ask: do you sterilize the container? I am a total novice at all of this and I sterilized the glass jar which turned out to be twice as large as needed. I'd like to love it all to a smaller glass jar. Can I? Can I put this into plastic even?

Having become enamored of a commercial salad addition, eggplant marinated in oil, I decided to make my own: less costly, better taste, better ingredients, learning experience, possible hostess type gift, etc. Found a recipe online which uses raw eggplant as its base. OK. Started to make it and in my usual inability to read a recipe through ahead of time properly, suddenly discovered that at one point I was supposed to add 1 tsp of vinegar to over 3 pounds of eggplant. One teaspoon to 3 pounds? Does this make sense. Quickly, quickly, back online and found 10 more recipes for the same dish. ALL THE SAME with the 1 tsp vinegar thingy. Just now I looked in Claudia Roden...where was my brain?...and found a different recipe which calls for poaching the eggplant in lots of vinegar for 5 minutes. Then drain the vinegar and add the oil. Sounds good. Does anyone have a recipe for this dish?

I would love to have a conservatory. How lovely! My little seedlings come from my friend's 2 Calamansi trees, indoor in the winter, which have now borne a few crops. Marmalade. Yummm... Many of the harvested oranges had little seeds inside them which were already beginning to sprout, so she used them to plant. This was in May and the seedlings are now 5" at the tallest leaf.

Very interesting job. Tell me, do you have more than the usual number of taste buds (?) on your tongue for this kind of job. I seem to recall Chloe Doutre-Roussel saying that she had more of whatever it is that does the tasting than the normal person. I wonder if my DH and I have the same number of tasters on our tongues. He likes more salt and more spice on things that I do. I like to taste what the vegetable or whatever tastes like. But then years of smoking changes something in the taste buds...or does it?

What on earth did we do before Google? Tulsi was a new one for me. Very interesting. My ginger is indoors. Are all your plants either indoors or out? Or both? How wonderful to pick your own fruits. I have started a few Calamansi/Kalamondin/etc plants but I suspect that I shall be a very old lady before they can bear any fruit. This fall I am going to plant my first indoor herb garden. You are never too old...

To round out the last section: Received a post from the Ginger Lady who informed me that she usually cuts the stems at 18" so that most of the plant's energy goes into the rhizomes. Of course. Thanks Ginger Lady (aka Andie) After the haircut. Tasted both the stems and the leaves. No hint of gingeriness at all.

Corn. According to an article we read recently in one of the 'organic, green' periodicals...sorry, the name is gone...what's mostly in our food is corn. According to the author, we eat more corn than the Mexican peoples who actually "eat" corn. There is corn in some fashion in and on pretty much everything we eat. They can now trace the amount of corn we eat through our blood. Corn has a very special chemical composition...one extra whatever...I think some kind of carbon molecule...and it stays in the blood in some fashion. Sorry, the above is so lacking in precision, but the mind tends not to hold as much information as it used to. My days of the steel trap mind are long gone. The gist remained.

I can echo enthusiastically what RobertM says. I joined this forum just over a year ago and have asked a lot of questions in my quest to learn how to cook and make confections. During this time, many folks have answered my questions and given generously of their time, but none to equal Kerry Beal. Thank you, Chocolate Doctor.

Yummmm...meatloaf. I have been thinking about meatloaf lately. Or even little meatballs (Albondiguitas) for Albondigas soup. The original recipe calls for pork, veal and lamb, but I can't recall the last time I saw veal for sale locally and lamb is too costly for our budget, and therefore it's beef and pork with the usual bread, milk, egg, onion, spices and chipotle peppers.

Meals of roasted root vegetables with olive oil and thyme. Yummm...

Wonderful friend gave me three cookbooks last night. Two Asian and one potato.

Our current favorite sauce is Thai Pantai's 'sweetened chili sauce for spring roll'. Maybe this is your chili paste?

Mine is also a 1 1/2 quart Cuisinart ice cream processor and it was not at all put out by the chocolate. We should both try it again. Maybe I was just lucky ...and maybe you were not. I have to learn to stop getting covered in chocolate when I work with it.

WOW! That new photo upload is incredible. OK. My point. My ginger is long, reaching towards the ceiling and now leaning precariously to the left or the right. Should I stake it or something? Thanks.

Using a tweaking of a chocolate gelato ice cream...don't have the names at hand...I made the MOST INCREDIBLE chocolate ice cream. It has a cornstarch base. Some one on eG tried the recipe and then added her own touch a couple of years ago and then I added the Paulraphael hints and the results were stupendous. The most chocolatey ice cream I have ever tasted and soft enough also. If anyone wants this recipe, I'll pm it to him/her and meanwhile I'll look for the proper attribution. Found my post on another thread concerning constarch based ice creams & gelatos:

One thing I do know. Not all ginger is created equal. I have actually thrown a batch of ginger in the trash because it tasted so awful after candying...and it's not as if you can really get much of a sense of how it tastes by biting directly into it when it's raw. I would imagine that you could get a batch of more or less pungent ginger.

I don't like mint extract. That was the whole point of using mint leaves. And now I know how to use them properly.