Darienne

Reminds me of Moab, Utah, my home away from home. They have no municipal recycling there, partly because the town is so far from everything. The two nearest cities are two hours north and two hours south, and both in Colorado. There is recycling, but it's privately run, mostly with volunteers and if you use it, you are asked to donate money to help keep it going. The center accepts cardboard boxes. And you never saw so many boxes from Sysco. Almost all the "restaurants" in Moab are fast food outlets.

You have posted a dish which features an almond sauce and yet you make it with a peanut sauce. I've never actually made a peanut sauce. Would you please post your favorite? Thanks, andiesenji.

Hmmm....I never thought of myself as crazy, but there you are. We do recycle plastic bags and also reuse many of them and no matter which, they are washed out with soap and water and hung to dry in the garage. My husband insists that they be washed out. I hate doing it, but I do it faithfully. And certainly in the summer, just storing them in the garage between recycling pickups would make the garage smell, particularly if the bag had contained meat of some kind. No, don't worry. I am not hurt or offended at all.

Good heavens. I didn't even know there was side specific baking paper. You won't do that one again....

Did not know that Tonic water came in diet format. I'd have to check the 'sweetener'. Can't tolerate Aspartame.

Does anyone actually use leftover rinds. I have my own little collection...

Something to consider. I am not a soft drink drinker. At all. But I found this suggestion about drinking Tonic Water because it contains an amount of quinine which is supposed to help with night leg cramps. (Boy do I hate night leg cramps.) I was mistaken about how Tonic Water might taste and find that it's not bad at all and it certainly cuts through everything which I like a soda pop to do. It's about 100 calories per can. Not exactly zero calories...but not too bad.

Speaking of repressed cake memories...many years ago for fun I made one of those refrigerator cakes using two packages of Christie chocolate wafers and whipped cream...oh, such a lot of work...NOT!...and my oldest son loved it so much that he asked for it every year for his birthday cake. "Whatever you would like, my dear" said the doting Mother.

I think of Pineapple Upside-Down cake as a cake from the past. From my past at any rate. I think it was the only cake my Mother made.

It was enjoyable re-reading this thread and seeing how we all lived. Of course, rules have changed in our area since I last contributed in 2015. Against the wishes of the entire township, our current mayor re-instituted garbage pickup but we hardly ever put out anything. Recycling no longer takes foam of any kind...but the library collects used batteries. We have county depots far away from our home where electronics and paint cans can be taken and we pay for that privilege. We even dispose of our dog poop in a special container which Ed has moved once in 23 years. Mostly they do their business out on the farm land during our daily walks. I keep our backyard poop-free because of our constant exposure to giardia on the farm. As for throwing out food. Doesn't happen. Anything vegetable gets roasted and kept in the freezer for soup or enchilada making. Our pots and pans are really old. Some made in Korea and Japan even. And we have something you don't often find...a metal grilled cheese and waffle maker. We all remember metal...we just don't see it anymore in a lot of appliances. I hate washing plastic bags but do it faithfully. We use cloth grocery bags...where we live you have to pay for plastic bags if you want them. I hate, hate, hate the plastic packaging which we buy. Batteries for one. Just about anything from Canadian Tire. The packaging of supplements drives me slightly batty. A bottle big enough for 1,000 pills I swear with 60 in it. We are not saints and not as green as I would like, but we do our own best. PS. And while we are on the subject (and here comes the ranting part): We keep our house cooler in the winter and hotter in the summer than most visitors like. For them I change the temperature settings. But apparently Ontario, which has tremendous sources of electric power, and we are exporting much of this to the USA at a loss, has the most expensive electricity prices in all of North America. There. I'm finished.

I'm 'from' Montreal, Quebec, but live in East Central Ontario. And yes, there are lots of eGers from Canada.

Spring is late this year in East Central Ontario. We had a terrible ice storm a few weeks ago and there was a lot of damage to the trees on our farm. The Fiddleheads are past eating of course...will we ever eat them? ...and now I am on the lookout for the morels. Last year's crop was amazing. I found two in 2016 and then in 2017, we were inundated with them. Strangely enough we had not one puffball which survived. We are usually overrun by them. Last year we had elderberries like crazy. Again, they were the first I had seen on the trail. Contrary...we had no apples after several years of bushels. Oh well. And in the vein of confession...last year's butternuts, all 90-something of them, picked up mold one day and were tossed the next. To my shame.

The wonderful little fishies...what are they made of?

Reading about eating canned bean and creamed soups reminds me of my childhood when my Mother utilized these things regularly. Constantly. Endlessly. When I wasn't eating a tough as shoe leather steak...I was eating canned soup. I have to admit that I hate just about all canned soups, Habitant Pea Soup being the one exception that comes to mind. And then we alter the soup so much that it leaves its original nature far behind. Any dish which calls for using a can of creamed chicken or celery soup is not ever going to be served in our house. I'm not a cooking snob...I just hate the taste of canned soups. ps. Add cream of mushroom to the forbidden list.

Sneaking this one in because David Ross opened it up. Last year we had such a crop of wild morels on the farm we could not believe it. I've marked a lot of the spots and am checking them daily.

I never tasted fresh asparagus until long after I was married. My Mother ate only canned asparagus and if you've ever tasted it, you'll know that it is about as much like asparagus as Cheese Whiz is like aged Canadian cheddar. We moved out onto the farm 23 years ago and for reasons unknown, had a good patch of asparagus growing on the lower dirt driveway. Yum. Our own private patch. How old it was or who planted it we'll never know. One year it rained like crazy in the spring and we ended up with so much asparagus that we actually got sick of eating it. I didn't know that could happen. Then the year we did the major renovations which included a new septic tank, an added living room at the back with basement room, and repointed, reparged the entire foundation (including discovering that there was basically no exterior foundation at the back of the house...a common practice back when), etc, etc, the large trucks in and out destroyed our asparagus patch and we have been forced to buy it ever since. So sad. I mourn its loss. No, I am not a gardener. (We also have an ancient patch of rhubarb but I try to give that away. Rhubarb just takes too much sugar.)

But did it taste good...or did they use the grocery special icing which seems to be made from vegetable shortening...and tastes like it.

My read out thermometer is not meant for cooking and came from Canadian Tire (thanks to Kerry Beal). I have several caulking scrapers and spatulas on hand always. Thank that's it. Not exciting and not unusual.

I'm so tired after reading your post that I have to have a little lie down....

We cook just about everything from scratch - both retired. However, there are some things I either don't make well, like pastry, or am too lazy to make most of the time like canned beans and those I buy. There's probably more, but I can't think of it right now.

Sounds and looks so good that I am going to make this one. Always looking for new salad recipes to feed the Dog Weekend crowd.

Does this take me back. Got the recipe from CaliPoutine many years ago and she got it from her ex-M-i-L. Serve it each year at our annual Dog Weekend. You can make it days or even weeks ahead of serving.

I'm with Elsie on this one.

And I read about Buddha Bowls...the same thing I think...and have yet to make one. We eat a very light and simple supper and they sound ideal. I have to pull myself together and figure this one out.

I've spoken on this one before...my Mother hated cooking. And so she did as little as possible. I recall the early TV dinners with distaste. My poor Father never got to leave them behind. My grandmothers were early gone. But I do remember lighting the candles at my Mother's Mother's home once, although I had no idea what it was about. One of my first cooking memories when married (far too young, alas): I knew only Bisquik biscuits. How would I know otherwise? I had run out of Bisquik and it occurred to me that maybe you could just 'make' them. I found a recipe in my one cookbook and was astonished at how wonderful my biscuits were (compared to my Mother's pucks). I still love to whip up fresh biscuits and remember that day more than 58 years ago. My husband taught me how to cook. (Which, of course, means that he still interferes in my culinary processes. Mixed blessing.)