Darienne

Found Bake Until Bubbly in the downtown library today and so now I'll sit and give it a good lookover. Thanks Smithy

Thanks Jaymes. And thanks for the recipe. I can't abide ham...long story from childhood...but I do eat chicken. And I am going to think about pork which has become my go-to meat. Thanks again.

I swear I am actually drooling looking at those apple fritters. I hope I can be up to such a complicated recipe. Your instructions are very clear...but I do have a habit of not succeeding brilliantly at such complicated items. Thanks so much for posting your recipe, David. You are a gentleman and a scholar and a fine baker too. :wub:

Thanks Smithy and Jaymes. Not fond of cookbooks with NO pictures alas. The second one named sounds good. Jaymes...can you give me one or two titles, please.

Recently took a big casserole cookbook out of our local library. Taste of Home Casseroles. Lots of lovely photos and over 400 recipes. Alas, many of the recipes call for cans of cream of this soup and that soup, packages of instant rice and potato mixes, refrigerated rolls and so on. And almost all the recipes were very North American. Not that I am damning these ingredients to the nether realms...I just want to know: where are the good casserole cookbooks? Are there any? Who has a title for me? Thanks.

Welcome, hiinakemenduro. You have come to the right place. You don't tell us what foods you were raised on. Maybe it's something we could all try and learn from. I am fairly new to liking cooking...about 7 years now...although advanced in years and I do love making and eating Mexican and Indian foods. We had enchiladas, rice and beans for lunch yesterday. Don't know Thai food very well at all. Look forward to reading your posts.

Hello Canadian expat. Welcome to eGullet. A really good place to be. Cooking was never my thing either and in fact my husband taught me how to cook in the first place. I learned what I had to and no more. That's all changed now and I hold eGullet responsible (in a good way) for the changes. Darienne

Oh...an apple fritter recipe...a good one. I love apple fritters. Please.

I enjoy it all, but along with Deryn, I like the breakfast chronicles which remind me that breakfast doesn't have to be cereal or bacon and eggs. ...although I've yet to try any of the tomato/cheese/meat combos.

Interesting post, Nancy. I must Google Patzcuaro and see where it is. (Did it and you are still up very high. Looks fascinating. )And how right you were about the flowers. I was so remiss this year in not cutting off the flowers. I did that finally and then the fruits really began to fill out. But, alas, it was very late. As for freezer space, I am just about completely out now after adding yesterday's huge bag of tomatillos. On the other hand, I just didn't have the time or energy to work in making the Chile Verde at that point. Could have just cooked them I guess.

With applesauce. Don't forget the applesauce.

Can almost smell it baking...I think I'd better get out the ingredients and pans and get to work.

Thanks LindaK. The husks would be easier to remove dry...if the husks were dry on mine. Because they aren't really ready for harvest, the husks are still green and for me easier to remove in the water. Roasting under the broiler would be better, but I am lazy about some things (and thank heavens, not about others) roasting them on a half sheet in the oven is easier. Not to mention that I had pounds and pounds of them at one time. As noted, we cannot buy them in our area. And now one of the chains which carried Poblanos has quit doing so, leaving us with only one store. We do not have much of a hispanic population in east central Ontario. I have frozen the tomatillos cooked and I have frozen them raw and then cooked them later. If it makes a difference, my uneducated palate can't tell.

Love Middle Eastern cooking but have cooked only from two cookbooks: Claudia Roden's A Book of Middle Eastern Food and Habeeb Salloum, Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa. I could spend the rest of my cooking life just trying the dishes in these two books. No Middle Eastern restaurants in our area, alas. I look forward to following this thread as you cook from this cookbook.

Aha. Vinegar. Of course.

Thanks, eGers. I throw them all into a couple of basins of water, de-husk them, and then try to get the sticky off them in a few changes of water. Then I dump them into a huge stainless steel bowl with a bit of oil and then 'roast' them in the oven until soft...when they will be combined with the 'roasted' poblanos, etc, and thrown into the blender to blend. Hmmm...sounds like a lot of throwing and dumping... Not traditional method...but then my take on 'Mexican' food falls short of Bayless and Kennedy, but works for us. So, unless I hear other in the next couple of hours, that's just what I'll do. Oh, I found the non-dried husks easier to remove from the watery base. No bugs. Too cold. ps: I used the word 'roast' in apostrophes because my method is just too careless to be called 'roasting'. If they tend to steam more than roast, then that's what happens. Actually the above is pretty disgraceful when you consider the traditional methodology and I should be ashamed to have admitted any of it.

Not sure which forum to put this in... First of all I am not a gardener. Almost zilch is what I know about growing things. We live in Zone 5 Ontario which is not prescribed for growing tomatillos, although I grow them every year to make Andie Pasinger's Chile Verde which we love. Also one store only in my area carries Poblanos and I have a passel of them on my counter right now. OK. This summer was colder and wetter than usual and the first hard frost was two nights ago. I thought I'd better bring in the tomatillos. Also we never eat them raw. Now I have some questions: - is it safe to eat them (cooked) when none of them has a dried husk? (we've done it but I thought I'd ask anyway) - are they more mature when a paler green rather than a dark green? - does size count for maturity? - what about when the fruit is small but fills the husk completely? - what about when the fruit is only half as large as the surrounding green husk? - do you have to get all that sticky off them before eating them? I know I have more questions...thought about them as I was de-husking the little devils, on and on and on...they'll come back to me no doubt. Thanks for any and all help.

You two certainly do eat well.

Tried once to make Divinity. Biggest confectionery disaster ever.

Hmmm...fruitcake. A friend gives out the booziest fruitcake every year. OMG, it is so wonderful. Add to that Tortiere which DH makes according to a French-Canadian recipe given to him decades ago.

Shortbread cookies. For Christmas only.

Deryn, I would love the recipe for your " 'family-famous' Rick Bayless-inspired sweet chipotle pecans". Thanks.

Found this recipe online just now. It's not the source for the recipe I have always used but I'm sure it's fine. http://www.marilynmoll.com/2007/12/enstroms-style-toffee/ If anyone wants my version of the recipe, I'll PM it, as I did for Jaymes

Deryn mentioned dipping pretzels in chocolate. Well, there's also coating pretzels in caramel and then dipping them into chocolate. Confectionery partner Barbara and I have done this one a number of times, with much laughing I admit. We fashioned the strangest-looking apparatus on which to hang the dipped pieces to make sure they had a nice rounded shape.

Chocolate-dipped candied ginger cubes or slices are a big favorite. And toffee. I found this terrific recipe online which is a copycat for Enstrom's Chocolate-coated toffee. It is my best gift. And of course, various brittles.