Darienne

Hooray for PanaCan. If I EVER get to Ecuador...you can expect me at your door. I'd love to go there and to meet you and your family. (Don't worry...it's unlikely to happen...but then you never know.) This week will be fun with you.

Hi there, PanaCan. Loved your last blog with you and your family eating from food trucks. Oh my, would I love to do that. East Central Ontario has only chip trucks. Not too exciting. So we wait for the next blog. Hooray!

Good heavens, I seem to have returned already. I was streaming along, making two Moussakas and all was going well. I was just finishing up the double batch of Bechamel sauce to pour over the tops of the casserole dishes and realized that I had forgotten to add some salt and pepper. Salt added. OK. Pepper added. Oh.... I had just replenished the ground pepper container and had neglected to tightly fasten down that little piece of white plastic with the holes in it which goes under the cover. An entire container of fresh ground pepper right into the sauce. Frantic scooping out ensued. Could I get enough pepper out of the mixture quickly enough to stave off the damage and loss of time, energy and ingredients? I did. I succeeded and the sauce was back in business...a little peppery perhaps...??? But now I am wiped out and have to have a cup of coffee and spend some quiet moments on the time-gobbler.

Will follow and love the blog? The dried fish...not so much.

No photos because the pie is wrapped in plastic, as ordered, to cool in the fridge. Martha Stewart's Best Coconut Cream Pie . Never made a coconut cream pie before...hope the DH finds it rich enough.

If I were attending such an event, I would probably take a South African dish, Bobotie, which I made for the first time a few months ago for a South African meal with the help of several eGulleters. The combination of meat, apricots, raisins, almonds, and the spices took eaters by surprise and the popularity of the dish was amazing.

Moussaka is a favorite in our household. And Ed makes his Mother's Macaroni & Cheese which always goes quickly because it's so delicious.

Found my post. You are absolutely correct. I can't recall what the dogs thought about it. Sorry. Gosh. I am surprised. Thanks, Anna.

OMG. One day.

Not the same day I would hope....???

Just read through Chef Ramsay's recipe and I think it's now slated for the coming week. Thanks Anna.

My very feelings.

Thank you so much Franci. I'll try the above next. I was not thrilled with my yesterday's experiment although DH loved it. I thought it was bland although as noted, the salt helped. But then...DH and I were raised in very different families with very different food...and it is, of course in our world anyhow, his taste which reigns supreme. (I can always eat the stuff I like best when I make it just for myself. )

The chocolate additions, while they sound very nice and useful, are not what I am looking for. Might try them some day though. Re-read the posts. (Thank you all again) Looked at a dozen more recipes for pastry cream, creme patissiere, mousseline...and of course got more and more confused. So, in the end, I more or less solved the problem in my usual bumbling way. Took Martha Stewart's Creme Patissiere recipe, changed the 1 cup milk to half milk (whole) and half half & half. Added a 4th tablespoon of sugar, subbed 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, added 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter and away I went. DH loved it. It was rich enough and thick enough and he thought it was divine. I thought it was lacking. Stirred in a smidge of salt. And presto. It picked up. Sliced some banana on it. Good. Stirred in some sweetened coconut. Very good. So I may not have made anything which would pass any test, but as long as DH loved it, nothing else mattered. Thanks for the help and more importantly, for the support. ps. Sorry, I should have added Martha Stewart's recipe.

Dear Tri2Cook, I think you have hit the nail on the head. I had never heard of mousseline before and have now found a few recipes and I think you're right. It will work and DH will be pleased. Thanks.

I well remember the first time I made DH a Boston Cream Pie. And I thought he would be so happy. I think I followed a Martha Stewart recipe. But no. He is the son of a French-Canadian cooking, baking, Mother and if you know anything about French-Canadian cooking, Sugar Pie is a regular feature. And pure pork Tortiere. DH grew up on Millefeuille and Napoleons and Rhubarb Pie which had so much sugar in it that you couldn't taste the rhubarb. (Sorry, dear departed M-i-L.) And so my cream filling simply wasn't rich enough. Make it richer, he said, Like my Mother did. And so I am asking. Take your regular Creme Patisserie and add what to it to make it 'richer'? Butter? Several tablespoons? I've Googled 'very rich pastry cream filling' and can't get back the usual egg, cream...and maybe a smidgen of butter...recipes. Help please.

That's two for Lion and Globe. We have to go into the city tomorrow so I'll send the DH to gather the names of the brands held by our Asian grocery. Need ingredients to make Hot and Sour soup anyway.

Kind words, Liuzhou, and I thank you. There's nothing really exotic (in North American terms) or authentic I wouldn't think in our dishes, but we do use some of the ingredients which you wouldn't find in most Canadian Chinese restaurants, unless you were in Toronto or Ottawa or Vancouver. Long beans, eggplant, cabbage, tofu, lychees, longans, for a few. I've even gone as far as making a steamed sponge cake. Nothing exciting...but not restaurant fare. Peterborough Ontario, in east central Ontario, is not a hotbed of exotic cuisines. But hey! we live here. And I can't complain. We just don't eat out anymore. (Except basically for good Mexican food in the southwest and fish and chips at home. Ontario does good fish and chips.)

As for the mistake of buying 'peanut cooking oil'...it never occurred to us that oils were subject to such counterfuge before. Does not speak well of our discernment.

No idea, Smithy. I'm just trying to get personal anecdotes. It seems to me that almost all research leads to confusing conflicting evidence in the end. Maybe we'll just do that thing. The Magic Bullet did last a good long time. And did an adequate job. I'm not trying to pulverize flax seeds in the first place...

Thanks all. I shall look for Rice Bran Oil next time we are in the city. I'm afraid that our taste buds are not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between one oil and another. No doubt you would all laugh heartily at our attempts at Chinese dishes. Unfortunately we now have only those horrible 'All-You-Can-Eat' buffets in our area now and we find the food unacceptable. All swimming in the same sauce pretty much. Chinese food for the Cheese Whiz crowd. (Sorry if I am insulting some eGulleters. Can't think of a more useful comparison.)

Thanks Cyalexa, daveb and JoNorvelleWalker for the information so far. All grist to the mill, so to speak. Interestingly enough, yesterday I watched a video of a Vitamix versus a Ninja (or one of them...can't seem to find it this morning) and the Vitamix won by a slight margin. However, what I came away with was the fact that now, confined to my family size Hamilton Beach Wave Action blender, I was not keeping the action going long enough to completely make my smoothie smooth enough. So this morning, I let the blender run twice as long, and what do you know?, the smoothie was acceptable. (Not wonderful, not beyond compare...but good enough). I'll do more investigation before I make a final choice. Or rather, before he-who-makes-those-sorts-of-choices makes the final choice.

DH and I make Chinese dishes for our lunches quite often. He does the 'mises' and I do the cooking and get ready the odds and sods, like the tea, setting the table, putting out the condiments, etc. Truth be told, his job is more work than mine...but then he gets to have Chinese food quite often which is what he likes. And we use peanut oil, most of which we buy at our local Asian grocery store. And until yesterday, neither one of us never looked at the "Ingredient list" for peanut oil. Peanut oil would contain only peanut oil...one would think. Apparently not so. Our current container which is titled "Peanut Cooking Oil" has the following ingredient list (in order): Soybean Oil, Sesame Oil, Peanut Oil. Who knew? Yesterday we bought peanut oil at a regular grocery store, a Loblaws brand (Canadian brand), and it contains...wait for it...100% peanut oil. Hooray!

Good heavens...the Ninja injuries. But then, to me the Hamilton Beach had very serious injury possibilities. The blades could be engaged without the blender bottle on them, thus leaving them completely open. Would never have had one with children in the house. Or old folks...which come to think of it...we are both swiftly becoming. I think the Vitamix is simply out of our snack bracket. But thanks.

Well, my Magic Bullet died last fall after many years, and while in the States in October I bought a Hamilton Beach which turned out to be a piece of total junk. The gears...some kind of rubber or acrylic...sorry I am not a CSI type...just came off last week. That's not very many uses. They just fell off. So now I am going to buy a 'good' smoothie maker. Don't really want to spend more than $100.00. Or is that unrealistic? The question is for making smoothies and other small one person beverages, what is the best brand to buy: Ninja? Nutribullet? Black & Decker? Oster? Does anything out there have gears made out of a material that will last? Thanks for any help.