Darienne

Thanks Andie, I'm trying your recipe next time. I will have to supply my own 'self-rising' flour, but I am hoping that it won't make any difference. I do have a funny biscuit story. My Mother was NOT a "cook". And her biscuits were always made from Bisquick and like hockey pucks. I knew naught else. And so married, and not knowing how to cook at all, I bought Bisquick also. One day I had run out and thought to myself. There's probably a recipe for biscuits in my one cookbook. (I still have that cookbook. It has weathered [badly] 59 years of marriage. Lost both covers long ago and many pages. Have no idea of the publisher or anything.) Found a recipe. Made the biscuits and lo and behold! Became a dedicated and 'expert' biscuit maker long before I 'found' cooking.

OK. I stand duly corrected. I posted the apple pie/ice cream/cheddar cheese question on my Facebook page and was surprised to find out that most folks...and this includes friends in far flung countries...eat apple pie with ice cream and many have not even heard of eating it with Cheddar cheese. And @highchef I apologize for inadvertently hijacking your post.

Yup, there is.

I shall enquire with some western Canadian friends. Interesting. Also son in NS...but you are saying that you don't eat cheddar with apple pie in NB?

We don't get the WSJ and I am not knowledgeable about sage. Ed doesn't like it. Period. What I can say is that I find it strange that someone, as experienced as Mark Bittman, doesn't mention cheddar cheese in his recipe for apple pie. I could be wrong...often am...but it seems to me that Americans usually eat apple pie with ice cream or whipped topping. I would think that most Canadians eat apple pie with a good strong cheddar cheese. Not meaning to start an argument...

I'm with Smithy please, Porthos.

I did note on page one that chez McAuleys we were going to have a spiral ham. I have no idea at this point how to cook it. Or if it comes fully cooked and I have only to reheat it. I've spent a lifetime hating ham and when my friend in Moab announced three years ago that her son was bringing a spiral ham for Christmas, I had a small meltdown (quite small). We brought a French Canadian tortiere...made by Ed as always. (OK. I've forgotten again how to put accents into this format). However, I was pleased to eat this spiral variety. Nothing like the traditional ham studded with pineapple rings and maraschino cherries and quite wet. And so our decision for Christmas 2018. There will also be tortieres made of course. Four to be exact.

My sincerest apologies, dear Kim. Indeed, it was Shelby...

Now, I am no saint, but rarely throw out anything. All vegetables which are wilted get roasted and frozen for soups. And as for throwing out limes...Kim Shook... not if you live in Ontario and have to pay Ontario prices. Zest them and juice them.

I'll go along with that. We no longer participate in them...and we don't go to them either. Craft showed out. I seem to have lost track of this excellent thread. Well, I'm back and happy to look at all the wonderful items you all have made. Loved those cookies and lollipops, Rwood.

No but I'll PM it to you. He sent it to me PM.

I have joined this Cookbook Club at our local small library, mostly because I owe so much to the librarians who constantly go out of their way to order in for me books they think I might like to read. The object of the club is basically to increase library circulation and for me the problem is that they really want the members to make the dishes from recipes in the library books. While they do have some excellent cookbooks, as you can imagine, a lot of the books are second rate (or worse) cookbooks. We bring our creations to the library and sample each other's dishes and discuss the books involved. To date, half of the dishes presented are not from local library cookbooks. This month is stews and soups. So my next project is to find a recipe in a library cookbook and make it for the 24th. Not really in the mood for a new soup recipe at this point (being currently obsessed with making suitable Scalloped Potatoes for DH). Still if this were the worst thing on my horizon, I'd be doing very well.

Right! No more words needed.

Thanks gfweb. Looked up Bourdain's original recipe also. Garlic to the sky. My Mother-in-Law probably never put garlic or thyme or rosemary in anything. And no Gruyere cheese for sure. We are talking 1950s and a family in which my Father-in-Law never tasted something so foreign as spaghetti. The question for me is: Did she use onion or not? Probably not. And would that matter to Ed now or not? She probably used flour. And does he really remember 'how' they tasted? Oh, and he will help with the slicing. (You see...Ed's Mother was an excellent cook. She made cream puffs even. And my Mother hated cooking...and really didn't. And I couldn't make anything when we got married, except for what my family called French salad dressing...which we now call Italian...and that was it.)

So far I've mentioned the spiral ham for our Christmas dinner as something we've never had before. And now Ed has asked for Scalloped Potatoes which I think I've made only once or twice, and haven't made for decades, and have no idea what recipe I used. Now, Mr. Ed, having been the one who taught me to cook, is quite happy to interfere (my words) in everything I cook if he has ever had it before. Or even worse, if his Mother ever made it. (Which is partly why I specialize in dishes which he's never eaten and has no preconceived idea of how they should taste.) So now begins the Scalloped Potato recipe search. And they must be like his Mother's...which he hasn't had for almost 59 years. It took 5 recipes to get the salted caramel sauce correct to his liking. I wonder how many recipes it will take for the Scalloped Potatoes......?????? And he can't recall if they had onions in them or not.

I will be making one of my favorite quick breads, a recipe from eG's own Arey, "Mother's Applesauce Cake (Poor Man's Fruitcake)". So good with Cheddar cheese, Canadian Cheddar in this case.

I've been very lucky. A friend's son gave me a piece of marble, 17"x35", and my DH set it into a table for me. It's bigger than I need for chocolate or confections, but it's also a kitchen work table. When we used to travel to our home away from home, Moab, Utah, I simply took a 12"x12" tile which I bought somewhere. It's not marble bu it's highly polished and just fine. I don't know if it's a counter or floor tile.

Confused. I was informed on one of eG's ice cream topics that homemade ice cream was basically really good for two weeks only. I made my usual quantity of ice cream for our annual dog weekend but quite a lot was left over. By the time, Ed ate the end of it (I am not an ice cream lover), it was less than perfect and that would have been at most 1 1/2 months.

It's a long time ago and I can't quite remember what I did, but I think I fried halved (longways) bananas in butter and added some liqueur of some kind and then put chocolate sauce over top of all. That won't use up all your chocolate, but it's a start. Yum... I pretty much always top what I make with a chocolate ganache...4 oz melted chocolate and 1/2 cup of cream. I usually use half & half, but whipping cream is even nicer.

We are going to change our Christmas dinner for the first time ever. Ever. It's always turkey and the traditional bits and bobs. This year it will be a spiral ham and that's as far as I have gotten.

Sounds like something I could really use. Ed bought me a Cuisinart 12-cup food processor and while it works very well...it weighs a ton and the pieces that come with it take up a lot of storage room and to date I have not used one of them. I'm afraid that DH has a habit of always buying the biggest he can find no matter what I ask for. Still...I'm not complaining. The weight of the machine base is really a problem. I've had to put it in a container with handles so that I can carry it more easily and it's stored right beside that honking Cuisinart 7-quart stand mixer. Well, maybe I'm complaining just a little bit. Almost 59 years of marriage...what can a girl do? OTOH, as gfweb says: I don't need this...I don't need this....

Good Heavens!!!!!

What? Only seventy?

An interesting post, brucesw. I have a friend, actually an eGer from way back, who would know where the best Chile Rellenos in Huston are available. I could ask and get back to you if you like.

I can believe that one!