snowangel

The only decent prepared salsa is Herdez. Period. Jaymes would heartily agree with me.

Without question, green beans. I love going to the farmer's market in the summer and buying them from the Hmong ladies -- they seem to pick them a little earlier than the American's, or else they are growing a different variety. When I had a veg garden, I grew tons of pole beans and would just stand and pick and eat. My kids current fav prepration is to steam, add lemon juice and kosher salt. We can eat two pounds like this, and if there are any leftovers, they are wonderful cold, eaten while standing in front of the fridge with the door open. Tomatoes (home-grown, in August) are a close second. Oh, but maybe it's fresh sweet corn (again in August). My ideal meal in August is sweet corn, tomatoes and green beans. Steak is merely a garnish to a meal like this.

Yes. DOn't know where the recipe came from; it's been on a card in my recipe box for eons. Yes, Thomas does a good job, but the kids really like making them. And no, it is not spring like here today. But it was yesterday -- 55 degrees, so I took the opportunity to put screw hooks in my pergola and hang new lights. It looks wonderful. We want and need snow. None so far this season.

English muffins, to be slathered with that really, really good butter from Hope, MN, and homemade apricot jam. While the muffins are raising, brownies or cookies. Keep that oven going!

I knew there was a reason I have always done the cornstarch in marinade thing for Chinese food (yes, my answer, in retrospect was rather silly; what I meant is that I have always done it that way because that's how I was taught by a little old Chinese lady who spoke no English). I quote from Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: "Used in the right measure, it performs at least three important jobs in a Chinese kitchen. One, it binds the liquid ingredients of a marinade to each other and to the meat, poultry, or fish being marinated. Two, it protects fragile food against the heat of the pan or the oil, often creating a crispy coating around it. Third (and lease used in my own kitchen), cornstarch thickens a sauce so that it clings lightly to the food, a feat it can achieve agreeably enough if it us used in moderate amounts."

Why the cornstarch?

Or could it have been the fact that it was a cold, wet day in Wales?

So would I, but when my neighbors show up with plates of this stuff, I'm not about to say no! I reciprocate with homemade ice cream, gift certificates to grocery stores, whatever. They are unbelievably generous (he works at a slaughterhouse, and presented us with 5 lbs. of ribeyes for Xmas).

Since we hit 53 in Minneapolis, burgers on the grill on really good buns. Salad. Green beans with lemon juice and kosher salt. Coca Cola for the kids, gin and tonics for the mom and dad. Home-made praline pecan ice cream for dessert. Almost dined at the picnic table!

Ditto. Unless you can get whole ones (head and tails), in which case, gutting and deep frying and serving with a really spicy, fried salsa is the way to go. My next door neighbors go crappy fishing all the time, and they have what I consider a "dusty" taste, but fixed this way, they are great. Lots of crispy bits and fire seem to mask the "dust."

Once a year, my friend Dianne and I toss all of our dried spices (not necessarily the whole ones), wash and dry our jars, and have a date at Penzey's, followed by lunch at Lucia's. It's a divine day. For spices we don't use that much of, we'll split a small bag, which makes it a little more economical and less wasteful. I will add that I just empty the old spices into the compost. Freezer. Keep it organized. I use plastic milk crates, stacked, which makes it really easy to find the stuff at the bottom (no more empting the chest freezer to hopefully find something at the bottom you think might be there) -- just pull off the milk crate on top. Plus, it makes it really easy to empty the thing to defrost. Just remember to date what you put in.

When I do stir fry, I usually marinate the thin strips of beef (round steak) in soy, cornstarch, and perhaps some sugar or whatever. Food scientists -- does this tenderize it at all or just provide flavoring?

I refer you to a thread I started quite some time ago: Archeology and the freezer

Although not a 2003 goal when I quit my job a year and a half ago to be a stay-at-home, I made several resolutions. One was to cook a new recipe once a week. Except for when we are at the cabin in the summer (30 miles from mediocre grocery in small town near Canadian border), I have met this goal. To date, I can recall only a couple of things that we all (kids, husband and me) decided just not to eat (time for scrambled eggs and toast). There have been some "it was OK, but will not repeat" but I have added a tremendous number of things to our favorites list.

I don't see why they wouldn't work in a brioche mold. I don't even remember how long I bake the cupcakes (I just keep an eye on them). But, if you don't have any cupcake/muffin tins, you might want to pick up a couple of the cheap Ecko ones. They work every bit as well as expensive ones. I think mine are at least 40 years old and still work great.

Burnt Sugar Cake Burn a heapiing 1/2 cup of sugar until brown (it's better if it's dark brown); remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup (or a bit more, if necessary) boiling water. Let cool a bit. Cream 1-1/2 cup sugar with 1/2 cup butter Add 3 egg yolks and 1 cup cold water; beat well. Add 2-1/2 cups flour, 2 t. baking powder, 1 t. salt. Add 3 beaten eggs whits (soft peaks), and burnt sugar (do not scrape out burnt sugar pan!). Bake at 350 (either 3 layers, 9x13, or I forget how many cupcakes. Frosting: In the pan you burnt the sugar in (and did not scrape out) add 1 cup sugar and 1 cup cream. Cook to soft ball stage, remove from heat and beat (by hand) until spreading consistency. This frosting does not work really well in hot, humid weather. Enjoy!

Diana and I make cupcakes fairly often (at least once a month). We always use my great grandmother's chocolate or burnt sugar cake recipes, and the frosting is always the same -- sugar, cream and flavoring cooked to soft ball stage and then stirred until spreading consistency. We make them with liners sometimes, or sometimes we just grease the tins really well. What we do that's different (and this is how it's been done for generations in our family) is to fill the tins more than normal, so that the batter sort of spreads on the top of the tin (not enough so they touch, though), so that when the cupcakes come out, they have these little ledge things. You eat the edge things first, nibbling around the cupcake. You're supposed to make a wish as you nibble these off.

We like the Flow-bee (sp?) commercials best, but not enough to call whatever number with our credit card number for four low monthly payments of whatever.

We get together -- as families with kids -- with three other couples. Five adults, 11 kids, down in New Ulm, MN. The New Ulm contingent has the largest house, and a hot tub. On the menu: carnitas, fajitas (sp?) made with skirt steak (like my neighbors make), salsas (fresh and fried), "embellished" rice, and Crux (my neighbor) and I will make tortillas the morning of 12/31 before we go down. Beverages -- whatever the kids want, Schell's Beer (it's locally brewed) and champagne. At some point after midnight, we will lay the kids out like cordwood in the basement, and the adults will quaff for a while. Adults get beds. Kids get the floor. The next morning, Eggs Benedict. Diana and I are in charge of the English Muffins (we make them frequently), Diana is in charge of sauce (bernaise is her choice), and the bacon will come from a local purveyor. One of our New Ulm hosts is in charged of the poached eggs. That and a ton of fresh fruit. We've been doing it with the same folks since we were in college. We went from couples and elegant dinners, to the year when almost every woman was pregnant, to the year that every woman was breastfeeding, to now, when kids vary from grade 1 to 11. This year, I will present everyone with a special gift -- each year, we do a group photo, and I have made copies, put them in order on foam core in poster frames, with room for years to come.

Great idea to both bags and bottles. Seems to me that you could just wash and use those plastic milk jugs. ANd, if your freezer weren't very full, they'd be a great addition because a full freezer runs less and your stuff is less subject to freezer burn than an empty one.

This reminds me of my daughter Diana, and anothe friend (Dianne). Dianne is a wonderful cookbook cook. As long as she has a specific recipe in front of her, she can work wonders. Her cookbook meals are works of art -- both in taste and visual. But, she doesn't seem to be able to translate that to "non cookbook" cooking. She has told me many times about the ingredients that go to waste because she just doesn't know what to do when she doesn't have enough of this or that for a specific recipe. In contract, Diana loves to read cookbooks, and will occasionally cook from them, but seems to absorb every little bit of technique and how to treat ingredients. She can look in the fridge at an odd assortment of things, and magically come up with a great meal. For example, the other night, she had a hankering for potato leek soup. We had not enough of any one kind of potato, not quite enough leeks, but she did espy some shallots, and some fresh tarragon. While this was not the potato leek soup out of a standard cookbook, it was outstanding. She has learned what characteristics ingredients have, which is so helpful for combining, and has a great sense of "taste as you go" knowing that some flavors will become more concentrated or stronger, and some won't. So, how detailed to get? How successul can market bags be? Depends on level of skill -- and not just technique. I believe that my daughter's talents are innate. She seems to be able to "taste" what she reads.

Home cooks in Minnesota, in the winter, just stick it out on the back stoop. A late afternoon THanksgiving Day walk in my neighborhood (it was about 18 outside) revealed back stoops full of pots and pans.

I'm sure you that most candy thermometer's have a soft ball stage marking, but I learned by dropping a blob into a glass of ice water, then working it between my fingers to see if it is soft ball. If you've gone way, way over, you'll know because the stuff will just harden into crystal-type, if you haven't gone far enough, it will just dissolve. (Yes, my grandmother taught me how to do this when I was about 5. She said that a candy thermometer was just another tool to junk up a drawer.)

Note: Those beautiful Martha Stewart decorated sugar cookies were not accomplished with a 6 and 8 year old in tow. As mother to three, I can safely say that baking and decorated cookies with kids = sugar and flour everywhere. It will make for fond memories next summer when you are still finding remants of your fun day. Advice. Vaccuum up the debris. Add water to flour and you've got glue/paste. Add water to sugar and you've got something akin to varnish.

For dinner tonight, Diana made sauteed chicken with shallots and artichokes from Michael Field's Cooking School. She figured out (on her own, from looking at Marcella Hazan), how to take care of the artichokes. My dad had taughter, a year or so ago, how to cut up a chicken properly. She served it with green beans and boiled new potatoes (Heidi's favorite). I'm so pleased that she can do all of this by herself, outside of having me take her to the markets. She knows that we will get the best chicken (raised by the Amish) and artichokes at Kowalskis, and knows that the best (and cheapest -- $.79/lb!) shallots come from the asian supermarket. She knows how to sharpen the paring knife. She knows that shallots, onions, and leeks, although from the same basic family, all taste different. It was a lovely dinner. Peter (7) sort of cleaned up.