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Ladybug

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Everything posted by Ladybug

  1. Wow, thanks, everybody! There are a lot of great ideas here. I really appreciate it.
  2. Well, maybe I should explain more. My Dad isn't picky so much as concerned about his health. The meat and the eggs thing is new. He thinks it'd be healthier to not eat these things (temporarily, he says). He actually LIKES all of those foods (except for cucumbers, which he says make him burp), but won't eat them because he thinks they aren't good for him. I can't argue with him - he's my DAD and I love him. I rarely get to see him (I live overseas) and I really want to fuss over him. He's losing weight because all the foods he's eating seem to be low calorie. He's always been slim, but now he's - well, skinny. I find it troubling. He isn't intending to lose weight, it's just a side effect of the diet change.
  3. My Dad is visiting for two weeks and has a rather lengthy list of foods he won't eat. Here you are: All meat, including fish and any sort of broth (Basically, if a chicken walked past it, he's not going to eat it.) Eggs - not whites either Potatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, onions, shallots, leeks, turnips, garlic, peanuts, beets, ginger, carrots, mushrooms, chocolate He'll only eat limited amounts of cheese, butter and/or cream. He will eat green onion tops and chives in small amounts. I've had a few ideas for dinner like pizza (without garlic), bean soups, pasta with tomato sauce - but I'm struggling here. What about breakfast? Lunch? Dessert? I should also mention my Dad is too skinny and I'm interested in fattening him up a bit. I'm grateful he'll even eat dessert, but after fruit crisps, fruit pies and shortbread, I'm stuck.
  4. Wow, thank you - what a great blog! I found some greens today at the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv and was very happy about that. Thank you! I'm not sure exactly what I have, but they are greens of some sort and I am sure I will like them. I also bought a package of jachnun to try soon. Yay, me!
  5. Wow, on the menu they have collard greens! I want to go now to try them (and ask where they got them.)
  6. I've never had beet greens before. Do they taste like beets at all? What's the Hebrew word for beet greens? I'm from America - North Carolina, to be exact. I miss barbecue and Krispy Kreme, but the sufganiyot here are delicious. I've also loved all the citrus fruits here and hummus, of course. There are too many things to like here to miss American food too much.
  7. Lior, I've been here over a year already and still have more than a year left. My husband is working here for 3 years. Even though we've been here for what feels like a long time, I still feel ignorant about pretty much everything, but it's all so interesting. Can you explain the cottage cheese sandwiches? What type of bread is it on? What else normally goes on the sandwich? And one more question - where in Israel can one buy greens like kale? I've seen spinach, cabbage, and lettuce - but nothing like kale, collards or mustard greens.
  8. Lior, I'm an American living in Herzliya and I'm enjoying your blog so much! Thank you! I'm learning and now I'm on the lookout for "Arab bread" on every walk I take. Question: Why is milk sold in bags here? Thanks!
  9. I think the key to losing weight is less volume - then you can eat whatever you want. I've lost weight (nearly 30 lbs) through eating virtuous foods and exercising vigorously, but gained almost all of it back. Then I tried eating only when I was hungry and stopping when I was full, which results in a lot less volume. Again, I lost about 30 lbs, and 3 years later, I think I've gained about 3 pounds back. It's pretty easy too - no foods are off limits and I'm never hungry but not "allowed" to eat.
  10. I live in Zambia, which actually borders a small part of Namibia. I can't speak for Namibia, but I can say that you'll be able to find much more of a variety than you expected. The prices for some products are really high - a single 8 oz block of Philadelphia cream cheese costs the equivalent of 6 USD here. What I've heard Americans miss most are chocolate chips (but you can buy chocolate bars and chop them up), sugar (available here, but the white sugar tastes of molasses, which doesn't translate well for some recipes, and the brown sugar is dry and very darkly flavored), pepperoni, marshmallows, cherries, and blueberries. There's quite a list of prepared foods I've heard people say they miss as well: American doughnuts, Debbie cakes, apple pie, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, Americanized Chinese food, etc. You should definitely have ready access, if you're in the capital city, to a wide variety of groceries. There are onions, potatoes, tomatoes, citrus, apples, bananas, passion fruit, greens, lettuces, cabbage, garlic, bell peppers, and such. The beef in Zambia is excellent and very cheap. I've found some really nice cheeses as well - they have local dairies that make an interesting variety, plus they sell Kerrygold cheeses. Shrimp are insanely expensive here, but we're landlocked. Perhaps it'd be cheaper in Namibia. You should be able to buy seeds - I've seen a wide assortment here. They also have Knorr bouillion cubes, and the only spice I've not been able to find is chili powder. They have soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil and popcorn. The biggest thing to get used to is not being able to get any product any time of year. Strawberries are seasonal here, as are mangos, and many other fruits. The second biggest thing you'll notice is much less "convenience" food - like boxed macaroni & cheese, or frozen microwaveable meals. In fact, a lot of the frozen foods here are freezer burned. The meats are oddly, and often sloppily butchered. The chickens often come with quite a bit of stray feathers still attached and shards of innards still clinging to the insides. If I had to bring a small amount of foods I'd miss, I'd bring dried cherries & cranberries, chili powder, and pepperoni. I'd also bring some of those Hefty zipper food storage bags. They don't sell them here and the substandard approximations are really expensive. Lots of people here wash and re-wash those bags until they're completely unusable. Good luck and kudos to you for your Peace Corps venture! I've hosted a few Peace Corps workers for overnight R&Rs and I'm in awe of what they do.
  11. I live in Africa now (Zambia) and for fast foods, we have: Wimpy's Fontana's (Rotisserie Chicken) Subway Steers (Burgers) and maybe a few others I forgot about. No McDonald's, but they do have that and KFC in South Africa. For street foods, you can buy lots of suspicious looking sausages, grilled corn, grilled chicken feet, and even mice on a skewer.
  12. Everybody, thanks so much for all these wonderful suggestions! And redglass, thanks for that note on distances - that's good of you to think of that and something I need to know. I think I'm going to narrow it down to three and then ask everybody which they'd prefer of those three. If this dinner does happen, I'll attempt to post about it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
  13. Yes, yes, we all would totally eat ethnic. And it can be $20/head before tax & tip & drinks and what have you. I'm going to check out Big Bowl & the Washingtonian link now. If you have any more suggestions, bring 'em on. Having options is a wonderful thing.
  14. In February, my family and I will be in Reston, VA and at some point, we'll be taking the lot of us out to dinner - 5 or 6 adults and 4 kids. I need to find some place that: 1. is appropriate for children. 2. costs no more than about $20/head. 3. is not a chain. 4. is not either too predictable or too unpredictable - most of us are somewhat adventurous, but the kids aren't. 5. Probably nobody will be drinking, so wine lists/prices don't matter. Does anybody have any ideas? I hesitate to ask my relatives there, as I think they would be too nervous to suggest a place. Thanks in advance.
  15. I'm not convinced taking the temperature would help, TurtleMeng. It certainly didn't help me. You look like you've made a perfect cheesecake. Why mess with perfection? I'll be using this recipe again and next time, I'll bake it longer. I don't think I overwhipped it but it's clear that something went wrong. I'm going to try the recipe again soon and hopefully I'll figure it out.
  16. I just made a cheesecake today for a potluck. I made the Cook's Illustrated version of a New York cheesecake, but I made a chocolate crust and made Pierre Herme's caramel pecan topping from one of his choc. tarts in Choolate Desserts. I put some straight caramel on the bottom between the crust and filling and put more on top, with the pecans mixed in. It's not a novel idea, but I was almost embarrassed by the profuse compliments it received. The CI recipe tasted wonderful, but I had a small problem. The article spent a lot of time talking about how awful overbaked cheesecake is and to take the cheesecake out of the oven as soon as it hit 150F. At 55 minutes, I checked the temp with my trusty Thermopen and it was 158. I was alarmed and pulled it out immediately. It turned out to be UNDERdone and I had to put it BACK in. On top of that, it cracked, which supposedly only happens to overbaked cheesecakes or improperly unmolded cakes. I was very, very careful to follow the recipe exactly, including the parts about unmolding by running a knife around the edge and unmolding after 5 minutes. I ended up bringing the cheesecake already sliced and arranged on a tray so I could hide the awful cracked part. (I left those slices at home.) When all was said and done, I'd still say the cheesecake was very slightly underdone in the center, but it was still delicious.
  17. You've got to try epicurious' recipe for PB cookies. They're flourless and the best PB cookie I've ever had. I've doubled the ingredients and added an extra egg, which makes it more chewy. You can add chocolate chips - it's great either way. 2 cups peanut butter 2 cups (packed) brown sugar 3 large eggs 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Mix, roll into balls and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.
  18. I've been wondering if Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe for blueberry pie would work for sweet cherries - basically, you cook half the blueberries with sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch, then fold in the other half (fresh, uncooked) and pour into a prebaked pie crust. I've made the blueberry pie many times and it's always wonderful - the best I've ever had - and trying a cherry version is towards the top of my list.
  19. Wendy, everything you said made perfect sense to me, a home cook. I'd like to take a moment to say THANK YOU for all your posts. I make a point of reading anything you've written and every recipe you've submitted to this site that I've tried has turned out perfectly. You're my hero!
  20. I think I crave the praise and approval of others and that's why I "go the extra mile." I have run into the problem of my cooking making others uncomfortable, and this causes me great pain because all I'm really after is for people to LIKE me. And if they're intimidated, that's exactly what I'm NOT after. Now, if somebody gets all snarky, I am not above rising to the occasion. Even then, I feel very uncomfortable (guilty) afterwards.
  21. You'd have to try it . . . I've never made it, but I had it once at a potluck. It really does sort of taste like apple pie, but the texture is . . . different - think grated apple. If you think about it, cinnamon and butter flavors sort of overpower the apple-ness of apple pie anyway. At any rate, consider that the sort of folks who make this and rave over it aren't really apple pie experts anyway.
  22. Ladybug

    Culantro

    I have an 83 year old Puerto Rican friend who makes sofrito for her beans, rice, etc and she says to use cilantro OR culantro (or both). I have tried every combination in sofrito and honestly can't detect a difference in the finished dish. My friend, though, is absolutely THRILLED when she finds culantro when we go shopping. She also uses culantro as a garnish, in salads, and soups. I'm very happy to have been able to try it and only wish I could try all the other great foods she ate in Puerto Rico in her childhood.
  23. Yesterday: Out & about all day, so just threw together a quick chef salad with iceberg, tomatoes, peppers, spring onions, mozz & prov cheese, ham & a white balsamic vinaigrette. Tuesday: Braised BBQ pork sandwiches on onion rolls, roasted spiced sweet potato wedges, coleslaw, devil's food cake w/ brown sugar buttercream Monday: White pizza with bacon, carmelized onions, mozz & parm, baby carrots, oatmeal lace cookies sandwiched with orange buttercream Sunday: ate leftovers Saturday: Tyson chicken strips, tater tots, corn, mac & cheese, miniature apple tarts (The kids picked the menu. I know it's nasty commercialized food, but they like it and my lazy self enjoys a break sometimes. They don't eat like this all the time. Actually, that sounds better than the reality of it - in real life, they pick the onions off the white pizza, complain about baby carrots (but eat them) and eat all desserts with glee.)
  24. Ladybug

    Rice Pudding

    Andiesenji, I tried your recipe and it's the creamiest, richest rice pudding I've ever eaten. Wow! Thank you so much for posting!
  25. My Dad has always salted his food before he tastes it because he's yet to find a plate of food that's salty enough for him already. I don't think it's rude, really - he sees it as a timesaver. It's like coffee - some people just always want a certain amount of cream and sugar., regardless of whether it's Folgers or hand-picked home-roasted fresh-ground French-pressed authentic "gourmet" beans. They never taste it first. I think it's only a habit of convenience and since no offense was intended, none should be taken.
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