mgaretz

Lamb With Mushrooms Ingredients: 1.5 lbs of lean lamb, cut into 1″ cubes 10-12 dried shitake mushrooms 1 cup of beef broth (made with Better than Bullion) 2 tbs red wine vinegar ¼ cup flour 1 tsp salt ½ tsp pepper 1 tbs of fresh rosemary – de-stemmed 3 fresh sage leaves (medium to large) 2-3 cloves of garlic Rehydrate the mushrooms in cold water for several hours. (Or for 30 minutes with water you just boiled – don’t boil the mushrooms though.) Save 1 cup of the water you used to soak the mushrooms to make the beef broth with. Squeeze the excess water out of the mushrooms and cut off the stems. Slice the mushrooms and add to the crock pot. Heat the saved 1 cup of mushroom water in the microwave and make the broth using 1 tsp of the Better Than Bullion concentrate. I add the vinegar into the broth so I can pour into the pan when ready. Put the flour, salt and pepper into a large zip lock bag and shake to combine. Add the lamb, seal the bag and shake until the lamb is well coated and all the flour is sticking to the lamb. Brown the lamb pieces on all sides in a large skillet with some oil. Remove the lamb and put in the crock pot. Add the beef broth and vinegar to the skillet and deglaze. Pour the liquid over the lamb. Chiffonade the sage and chop the rosemary into fine bits and add to the pot. Crush the garlic and add to the pot. Stir to distribute the spices. Cook on medium for 8-10 hours. Can be made up and put in the crockpot the night before. Put the pot in the fridge – take out in the morning and start heating.

After I first started cooking, I wanted to make a Thai Basil Chicken dish for my daughter. Her first reaction was "Noooo! It will be terrible and we'll starve." To which I replied, "We're not on Safari in Africa. If it's terrible we'll go out to dinner." So she reluctantly agreed to the dinner plans. She had thirds!

Thanks everyone. I'll be at Whole Foods on Sunday so I will look for the soy yogurts.

I recently picked up an Indian cookbook (my sweetie loves the cuisine, I am warming up to it). A lot of the recipes call for yogurt, which I can't eat due to lactose intolerance. Any suggestions on a lactose-free substitute?

Here's my take on it, also on my blog: This was inspired by the salad dressing they use at a local Japanese restaurant. Some places have a dressing that resembles thousand island, but this dressing is nothing like it. It’s chunky and spicy from ginger and garlic, and it’s very healthy having almost no fat and being very low in carbs. Ingredients: 1 cup of cut peeled carrots (approx. 6 ozs) 2″ piece of fresh ginger (approx. 2 ozs) 1 clove of fresh garlic, peeled 3 tbs light soy sauce 1 tbs Mirin (cooking sake) 1 tbs rice wine vinegar 1/4 tsp sesame oil Place the carrots, ginger and garlic in the bowl of your food processor with the standard chopping blade and puree until it’s about the consistency of sawdust. I use a mini food processor because the volume is pretty small – even so I have to stop several times and push the mixture back into the blade area. If you use a standard size food processor then you’ll have to do this even more. (No food processor? You can grate the carrots and ginger with a microplane grater and mince the garlic.) Transfer to a small mixing bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients. While you’re doing this, check for chunks of ginger that the food processor missed and remove them. If you don’t have Mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking sake) you can substitute cream sherry or just add some sugar or splenda to taste.

I purchased the bucket less than 2 years ago, and probably used it less than 10 times. Is it possible that the sanitizer could have weakened the plastic? I was mixing up big batches of Diversol and immersing my bottles in the bucket before starting a batch (I'm switching to another sanitizer though, as Diversol seems to basically be powdered bleach and the price recently doubled). I've been out of the biz for a while but I have never heard of Diversol. The best sanitizer for brewing is iodophor. If diluted properly for use, it's tasteless, odorless, doesn't stain, won't create off flavors in the beer (so no need to rinse) and has a built-in potency indicator (as long as it has color it will work). It's possible your sanitizer weakened the bucket, but it's more likely just a cheap bucket or a bad batch. Is the bucket opaque white or slightly translucent? White ones tend to be more brittle.

At the homebrew store your best bet would be to stay with "light" malt syrup. Anything else would be flavored for making beer.

I guess chocolate isn't even close to being raw.

When I asked about eggs, I was thinking of my chocolate mousse recipe but it uses eggs. I won't post it here since it's kinda off-topic but you can see it on my blog. You'd have to sub the eggs and the sweetener. For noodles I was thinking of kugel made with rice or corn noodles, but are noodles "raw"? You could also try some variations on tzimmes. Gotta be lots of pie/tart type things you can do - for a crust I'd experiment with rice krispies. Good luck.

Sorbet. Are you allowed to use any kind of sweetener at all? Eggs? Noodles?

With temperatures expected in the triple digits here (never quite got there, but close) we wanted something cool and light. Chilled shrimp with avocado and garden fresh tomatoes. Homemade cocktail sauce not shown.

Update: I bought a vertical roaster (Norpro with infuser) and tried it for the first time tonight. The chicken came out great - crispy skin with juicy breasts and thighs - wings cooked to perfection and not over-done. But my existing roasting pan is way too big for the amount of veggies I used (2 medium potatoes, 3 large carrots and 1/2 an onion) and they over-cooked but were still more than edible. The design of the Norpro catches the chicken drippings and I think the veggies would have tasted better if they had cooked in the drippings (I put some on with a spoon at the end, but I don't think it would be the same). The roaster also slides around when you take it out of the oven - the chicken didn't tip over but I was concerned. I will play with the vertical roaster some more, but I am leaning towards the All Clad. It's advantages appear to be: Smaller pan size which better suits the two of us. Chicken looks like it would be held more stable. Likely easier to remove the chicken. Likely easier clean-up.

Or drink any alcohol!

This is one of my favorites, except I invariably also add chocolate (and non-dairy something instead of the milk and haven't tried the oats). There's a chain out here in the West called Surf City Squeeze and they have a PB-Banana smoothie on the menu board - they will add chocolate at no extra charge if you ask!

I went and checked out the pan this weekend. It's a nice small roasting pan, typical All-Clad stainless. It has an arm that slides onto the side and uses the inside edge of the handle for stability. The arm has a small reservoir where you can put aromatic liquids. An All-Clad rep was in the store. He said the pan would be available separately as would the arm, but no idea when. The arm will work on the other two roasting pans that W-S sells (not sure if they are available elsewhere). The next size up roasting pan sells for $249. The $179 price of the smaller pan and the arm is a good deal in comparison to the other All-Clad pans, but is it a good deal in the overall scheme of chicken roasting gadgets? I've decided, for now, probably not. Instead I am going to try a vertical roaster in a pan I already own.

If you watch the Vitamix/Blendtec (I have the latter) demos they most always include banana. It smoothes things out, thickens it up and acts as an emulsifier. Dairy (or soy) by itself will lend creaminess, but won't really help to thicken or smooth things. I have found that about 1/2 tsp of Xanthan gum (also from Bob's Red Mill) will replace the banana for smoothing, thickening and emulsifying. It helps to pre-blend it with liquid before adding the solids/ice. So I add the liquid to the blender, sprinkle the xanthan on top, and pulse a few times to mix. (This is actually good practice for any powdered stuff you add - cocoa, etc.) Then I add my frozen and chunky stuff and blend. I don't use ice in most of my smoothies - instead I use frozen fruit. With the Blendtec a ratio of 1 part frozen fruit to one part liquid (by volume) and some xanthan gets me a very nice smoothie. Typically one cup of frozen fruit, one cup liquid (I usually use a 50/50 mix of sugar free non-dairy creamer and water) and 1/2 tsp of xanthan. (FYI, frozen dessert is 2 parts frozen, 1 part liquid, 1 tsp xanthan - at least for the Blendtec.)

It appears to be a regular roasting pan with the removable stand, so it could be used for regular roasting chores. I have a nice roasting pan with a rack but it's HUGE. I'll have to check it out in a store this weekend.

I'd add rice noodles and garlic and a stir fry sauce consisting of one part each soy sauce, fish sauce and golden mountain sauce (aka Maggi seasoning), 1.5 parts water, and 2 parts brown (or palm) sugar. Parts by measure, not by weight. I'd leave out the mint. Stir fry the veggies in peanut oil until almost tender, then add the noodles and stir fry for another 5 minutes or so. Then add the beef and garlic (figure 1.5 cloves per serving) and stir fry till done. Pour in the sauce and mix well - let cook for another minute or two. Serve.

Has anybody seen or tried this new chicken roasting pan from All Clad? http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/e2...e&cm_src=hplink Does it work well or is it just a gimmick?

I second the slow cooker suggestion. I have used mine twice in the last week. Once to make Cabbage Borscht and the second to pre-cook baby backs (finished on the grill). Monday I will be braising for real in the oven because Tuesday there's a potluck at work and my Braised Potatoes with Onions has been requested. However, since this is my daughter's favorite side dish, I have made it a lot this summer. We do have A/C but I don't let the summer keep me from braising. Last thought - you can also braise on the BBQ. Easier if you have a nice gas BBQ though. Keeps the heat outdoors but it won't fill the house with aromas. In fact my Braised Potatoes dish is a "civilized" version of an old campfire recipe.

A standard zip lock style bag (even a "freezer" version) is made out of polyethylene and as others have mentioned, is gas permeable. (The freezer versions are just thicker.) Polyester (aka Mylar) is, for our purposes, impermeable. It is used to make vacuum sealer bags (at least for the better sealers). However, polyester does not lend itself to heat sealing. So the typical vacuum sealer bag is actually a layer of polyester on the outside and ployethylene on the inside.

I use the Roslé garlic press, which doesn't require peeling the cloves (and it's easy to clean). And the local Asian markets sell garlic cloves so cheap it's hard for me to justify buying anything else, even at Costco! I recently listened to Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential where he says one should never use a garlic press (instead, it should be very thinly sliced like in Goodfellas). He says the press destroys the flavor. Huh? Obviously I have ignored his advice, but what are your thoughts on this?

For bags (actually I prefer the rolls), make sure they have the "quilting" inside - it's necessary to provide channels to suck the air out. A smooth bag will collapse and not let all the air out - at least with the home-type sealers. I usually buy the Costco packs.

No water line. I could run a line as the washer/dryer are close but we use bottle water when we are there. Its a large garage and we also have the treadmill and weights all in the same space. ← Your new fridge undoubtedly has a filter system for the water. No need to do any real plumbing - just get a Y garden hose splitter and put it on the cold line to the washer. Rehook the washer to one side, then you'll need the appropriate adapter(s) to hook the tubing to for the other.

Why don't you just hook up and use the ice maker? (The "hole" will just be a piece of tubing. If you don't want to use it, just plug the end of the tubing. Don't go crazy.)