Darienne

Thanks, Kerry. RWood: I agree with no yeast. My whole purpose is to stay off my feet as much as possible right now and have something to freeze for the onslaught of people and dogs who are coming to the farm next weekend for the Annual Dog Weekend. All eGulleters invited, BTW. (No, no coffee cake for the dogs.) Also I would love your Orange Cardamom with pecans. I absolutely adore cardamom. Please. CanadianBakin: Looked up your recipe. Am not fond of chocolate in muffins or coffeecakes. But thanks. OK. I need know some basic stuff. Take the Bake-Shop Muffins recipe by our own CanadianBakin in Recipe Gullet: 16 oz flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp soda, 1/2 tsp salt. 9 3/8 oz sugar, 5 oz butter, 8 1/2 oz milk, 8 1/2 oz sour cream, 2 large eggs, 1 large egg yolk. Additions: up to 1 1/2 cups fruit or chocolate and 3/4 cup nuts. plus vanilla or spices. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 mins. To make this into a coffee cake, what size loaf pan would I use, and would I change the oven temperature and would I bake it for longer? Maybe it is not a simple transition. I don't know. I am hoping to learn. Thanks.

Made two batches of mini-loaves with the Blueberry Muffin recipe from Randi which she originally found in Glamour Magazine. The first batch I messed up royally. Came out that purple gray color. Strictly my fault. Resolved: never run to another room to answer the phone while mixing muffins because your DH has taken the portable from its stand in the kitchen. Second batch: bee-oo-ti-full. Lovely little loaves with nice pale crumb and whole blueberries in them...mixed in frozen as directed. A breakfast treat for DH? Not quite. Now he tells me that he doesn't like cooked blueberries anyway and he doesn't like cake muffins and he thinks the recipe is too sweet. And I didn't put nuts in them and he likes nuts in everything. End of report. I say, let him make his own muffins!

Found this title today: Lick It! Creamy, Dreamy Vegan Ice Creams Your Mouth Will Love by Cathe Olson. It appears that I cannot get it through Inter Library Loan and I am loathe to buy cookbooks, sight unseen. Has anyone else tried any of the recipes from this book? Has anyone tried any vegan ice cream recipes with say, coconut cream or rice or nut milk or whatever. And what about using Agave syrup for the sweetener?

Hooray for mgaretz. My sentiments exactly. Now is this freezer of mine would just quietly die... No, otherwise I cannot do it.

Dear HungryC, What a great idea! Thanks so much. Learn something new every day!!

Following this thread made me curious...just how old is our old huge manual defrost chest freezer anyway? I probably shouldn't tempt fate by writing any of this. I have hated our freezer for lo! many years now and would dearly love to buy a new upright freezer with auto-defrost and no pit from heck to dig into to find things...with my head in the freezer and my feet and rump sticking up in the air as I rummage around trying to get the package down at the bottom. OK. We bought it in April of 1975...that's just over 34 years! Omigawd! How much longer can it last? We have been putting a 20 pound lead weight on it for almost 20 years just to keep the lid properly closed. Defrosting it is a two-person job which takes hours. But it lives! It lives!!! And it has given us great service. And until it dies, I am stuck with it. I continue to pine for a new upright frost-free version.

Thanks, Karen. As for the dirty dishes...they go into the garbage can. A terrible collection of stuff into the bin. I had to promise years ago that there would be paper dishes...some one is bringing a biodegradable type from Delaware. I drew the line at cutlery and mugs. Cannot abide drinks out of paper or foam. I won't be doing the work this year, so it is not my call.

DH and I are not hunters. We do know hunters in our area, east central Ontario, and they do not eat what they kill. Hard to take. However, we know hunters in Utah and they rely on what they kill to get them through the winter. It's a way of life with them. That I can respect fully although it is not part of our life.

Jon's got it right. Muddling is just a term for bruising or crushing an ingredient to use in a cocktail. Some items you want to muddle pretty firmly, but mint you want to muddle gently. You can read about it here; note Katie's post after mine. Like Jon said, slightly bruised mint is going to bring out the flavors you want; crush it hard and you're going to get sticks and vegetables. Hot. Like Jon, I followed the Leibovitz recipe and did a hot steep for an hour. Before that, however, I took the leaves and lightly bruised small handfuls as I dropped them into the milk/cream mixture. The ice cream turned out great, btw. I added a T of Benedictine for both flavor and texture, and frankly I couldn't be happier. ← It's great to have so many mentors in each list!!! Thanks for the information. A couple of years ago friends and I were making white chocolate mint ganache and the mint person minced the mint very very finely before anyone caught her. The truffles tasted good, but the color was hard to describe in polite terms!! Mint ice cream should be next on my list...

Will check out the WW thread. Love lentil soup. Ate the end of it for lunch. Lentil spinach soup. Now if only the DH would tolerate a bit of lamb in it. Thanks, Kerry. p.s. the blog was no longer. Do you have this particular lentil soup recipe? I can see that the WW version would have no lamb in it anyway.

Now, I am pretty much a novice at all this, but have to say that I was totally blown away by the cornstarch ice creams/gelati . Whole milk and cornstarch only? Amazing!

Would you please explain exactly what 'muddling' consists of? Thanks And thanks for the minty information.

Haven't tried it yet but am also interested in the 'fresh' mint angle. I have never liked mint anything until making fresh mint truffles under the teaching eye of Keri's protege, Mari van Pelt. Suddenly a whole new world opened and mint was wonderful. DL doesn't say anything about bruising, crushing or chopping the mint...one the other hand 2 cupfuls tightly packed is a lot of mint. Please report on your results and tell what, if anything, you did to the mint, how much you used, whether it tasted minty or not. Thanks.

We have used shredded cabbage in place of noodles. Just about pulls it off...not quite, of course...but close. You can use cabbage leaves for lasagna also. This topic being raised again today s a kind of do-do-do-do do-do-do-do(singsong voice). I really need to lose a chunk of weight and my DH is in my face about it now. My recent MRI is saying some very unpleasant things which might result in back surgery...I hope not...but losing the weight would sure help. Not to mention that being unable to walk or stand, and hating, hating, hating, getting wet in the middle of the day makes exercise difficult. So caloric reduction has to be it. I'm going to go back over this thread and download all the recipes, look up all the noted cookbooks. And try to come up with some of my own to share. I should add that learning to make delicious homemade ice cream using only milk and cornstarch can only be a plus!

Do not give up. I am just beginning to cook seriously at the ripe old age of nearly 70 and after a lifetime of trying to cook as little as possible, finding just about anything else to do instead of cooking. My Mother did not teach me to cook and I did not teach our daughter to cook. My DH did much of the cooking and both our sons cook. One son has a wife who does not cook. However, I have always enjoyed darning socks and would not dream of feeding my dogs canned or dry food once I learned what goes into it. Our dogs have eaten real food for over a decade now. And they eat a variety of foods too. Different strokes et al...

Fascinating thread. What was that strange looking 'spatula/scraper' thing that the Callebaut gentleman was using in the Thermomix video demo? Thanks.

It certainly is appropriate with me and I shall make it at some point, if not for that weekend. Thank you. You are probably correct about this crowd though. They are great folks but more of the cole slaw and potato salad bunch. Hamburgers and corn on the cob. Great stuff.

I can't give you advice on the heat problem, but I can tell you about the cold problem and perhaps that will help a bit in some way. Our oldest son lived with us for an extended period as an adult and we put a second fridge in our garage. In the winter, the enclosed garage gets very cold and so the fridge did too. We put a separate light bulb in the fridge on 24/7...cannot recall the exact wattage...and the problem was solved. Good luck!

Thanks to you, Ruth. I am feeling much more 'in control' about the whole affair with the bean and slaw recipes.

WEEKS???? Omigawd I can hardly believe it. I'll make it today!!! Many thanks.

You are so correct. I think I am very tired. I was looking at the date that you joined the list, not the date of the thread. If I currently had the energy, I'd be very embarrassed.

Well, I sure wouldn't pay extra to watch any show I can think of. We get it as part of some package.

Just watched the Grocery Bag show last night and now I see that it is the one referred to in the first posting on this thread in 2003: the Mexican cooking show. They were really out of their depth on that show and the chef made it quite clear. This is a VERY unusual cooking show. It was delightful to watch, but it might wear a bit thin after a while if this is their usual level of expertise. Still I'll watch again because the entire food network stuff is new to me.

No, No. I never meant they were mutually exclusive. Just that these ones are not foodies. Good one about the dijon. There will be some last minute stuff going on, but the supervision will have to be done by others, namely the head nurse/girl scout leader of an earlier message. The fact that she is coming ahead of time and is offering to take over means that things will be fine. Thanks for the reply.

Bless you for your wonderful reply. The horde is 16 people and what makes it hoard-like is also 15 dogs...6 of which are puppies!!! We haven't had puppies in years. That's a lot of folks, most of whom stay in our farm. The really good news is that two people have announced are coming ahead of time to help. The Mother is a head nurse and a Girl Scout leader and can do anything and quickly and well and with one hand tied behind her back and loves to work. This changes everything. I would love to have your 7-day slaw recipe. DH makes the slaw. Our meals are simple but we need a lot of salads. I make our dressings. And bread. Good bread. I am not a bread maker. We'll buy it. And rolls. Yes. Thanks so much.