Ladybug

Indonesian Ginger Chicken from the Barefoot Contessa Wilted Cucumber Salad from epicurious Rice - just plain ol' rice It was all very nice, though. I'd never tried the chicken recipe before or the cucumber salad.

I tried that gingerbread cake recipe and the flavor was a bit too strong, dark and assertive for me. The word "aggressive" comes to mind. It was unusual, which is a quality I generally love, but the sort of thing I would only enjoy in very small portions with lots of whipped cream to kick it down a notch. My husband tried it and said about the same thing - "I like it but I don't want any more." I ended up throwing out about half of the cake when I just couldn't look at it any more. I should have frozen it, but I'd had enough. It offended my frugal nature, but every now and then I get tired of being frugal so I just chucked it. I do think it turned out as the recipe intended. I followed the recipe exactly. And I love gingerbread. But this wasn't my favorite.

Wow. Now I want something sweet and the sad, sorry thing is that there is no way it's going to be as good as what nightscotsman makes.

Smoked peaches sound good to me.

I tried a new recipe today - a chewy pecan bar with orange and lemon zest, cut into rectangles and dipped (one end) in chocolate. I must say it was really great. My favorite part was either the citrus-y-ness of the caramel or the chewiness of it. Hard to pick. I also made lemon bars, an old Gourmet recipe. It's nice. What I want to try is that coconut curd nightscotsman mentioned! I'm bringing some desserts to our pastor's family tomorrow. Normally I don't make two desserts a night. I'm thinking of making one more type of bar cookie but haven't figured out what yet.

The pan gets hotter as time passes. I always have to turn the heat down a notch or two after the first few pancakes. Buttermilk pancakes are my favorite. I've kept buttermilk in my fridge for as long as two months and it never seems to go bad. It doesn't SMELL bad, anyway. My mother says that buttermilk NEVER goes bad. That has to be an exaggeration but she says it only gets thicker over time, but is still good. She will even drink it with chunks in it. It doesn't make her sick. She's not one of those super-thrifty people. She's also fastidious about cleaning and germs; she's a nurse. Go figure!

That's my experience too, but I have nuked the rock solid snow cream to soften it with some small success. It was basically spoon-able then and the flavor didn't suffer. It's really more of a novelty food than a gourmet food, but it goes over really well with kids.

Where do you live? Somewhere that you've been unable to observe the process of pristine white snow becoming mixed with dirt, sand and salt? Newfallen snow only, please. I live in North Carolina - "in the boonies" is what my relatives from Detroit would say. There are no factories or nuclear power stations nearby. We live on a dead end street with no close neighbors and almost no traffic. And I do only use newfallen snow, but that's hardly avoidable because it only snows here about once per year. We're all so excited to see the snow, so as soon as there's enough out there, we're gathering it to make snow cream. Is the snow never clean in the city?

Wow, I had no idea anyone would worry so much about the snow being clean! I mean, I have worried, but not to the extent that I wouldn't eat it. It can't be worse than eating torakris' squid guts kimchi, right? Edited to say that I draw the line at yellow snow.

I guess it's sort of like ice milk. It's definitely icy. You can scoop it versus pour it. What I know of it is this: take a big bowl of (clean) snow, add sugar, milk (and/or cream if you have it) and vanilla. I sort of eyeball this. Blend. Eat immediately. It's actually pretty good - it tastes pure and clean and fresh, but only if you use clean snow. Last year I let the kids get the snow. BIG mistake - they scraped it right off the car, which wasn't any too clean. The snow cream tasted like dirt and metal somehow. Of course, they couldn't tell the difference. If it has sugar in it, they're happy. Ugh. This year I gathered the snow with a spatula, scraping only the top 1/4 inch or so until I had enough. It was still snowing at the time, so I figured it was pretty fresh. I always wonder whether there's anything weird in the snow from pollution, but today it tasted so fresh that I don't see how it could be really polluted.

We have snow today, and where I live, that only happens once a year if we're lucky. My kids are so excited because whenever it snows, I make snow cream. My mother made it when I was a pup and it seems like a nice tradition to pass on. I've never done anything except plain vanilla but with all this lovely snow outside, I think it'd be neat to try something new. The snow cream I made today was fine - vanilla, sugar, milk & cream (and snow) - and it turned out to be very icy, but I don't expect a great texture when I'm only mixing these ingredients in a Kitchen-Aid and serving it immediately. So, how do you make yours? Suggestions?

We had the Chocolate Lover's Angel Food Cake from The Cake Bible with a dollop of Nutella and whipped cream. It was very nice. It was not pretty, but the cake was very moist. Usually angel food cakes are on the dry side.

I won't ask. I'd like to nominate the S'mores making kit. What a bad idea on every count. A) S'mores require a campfire – there's no alternative. B) Do children really need another sugar/caffeine delivery system? This was a gift from my SIL – an otherwise bright and lovely person. It's still sitting in the box. We've decided to send her 2-year-old a toy drum for his birthday. We got one of those for Christmas. My 6 year old opened it before I had a chance to consider "re-gifting" it. He was thrilled. I found out you can toast marshmallows on metal skewer over an electric stove element, though. What was worse than that was a "Coca Cola gift set." It had two Coca Cola glasses, a smallish aluminum "serving tray" and a smallish bag of off-brand pretzels. Not even any Coca Cola! Last year we got an "Oreo gift set" which had four Oreo mugs, 4 packs of cocoa beverage mix and a small, snack-sized bag of mini-Oreos. I hate getting those mugs. I feel guilty throwing them out, but there is no way I am keeping them. I hate having stacks of mugs/glasses that don't match. Even if I had a dozen of them, who really wants an Oreo mug? Oh, hey! What about beef sticks? We got six of them this year. SIX! But it's the thought that counts and I really, really do appreciate the thought. I feel blessed to be remembered.

I made Cook's Illustrated's Pumpkin Cheesecake for Christmas and it turned out very well. It was almost . . . fluffy. The pumpkin cheesecake I've made in the past is the one from epicurious and isn't nearly as good - it's very dense and the flavor is a bit strong. It's also very rich, so almost everyone who ate it said they couldn't finish their slice - but that didn't happen this year. My father-in-law ate a fourth of the cheesecake IN ONE SITTING. I had intended to make a Buche de Noel (from The Cake Bible - I've made it before) for my daughter's birthday cake (She was born on Christmas - woo woo!) but my sister-in-law's boyfriend's mother sent over a cake for her, and I felt I had to use it. Box mix, canned frosting - but my 2 year old liked it and the gesture was so incredibly nice I felt I couldn't complain.

I tried nightscotsman's recipe for strawberry marshmallows and they are AMAZING. Perfect. My kids were fascinated with both the process and the product. I used some of the marshmallow as a cake filling - I cut a 9-inch round and sandwiched it between two cake layers with a thin layer of buttercream on either side. There was no problem cutting it with a fork to eat it and the flavor was lightly but obviously strawberry and sweet but not so much as to overwhelm the cake. (I used a cake recipe that wasn't too sweet because I was worried about that.) I also used some of the remnants to make strawberry s'mores. I couldn't give a stronger recommendation for his recipe and I'm anxious to try a chocolate version or the pumpkin version nightscotsman suggested.

I've made the Cocoa Souffle Roll on page 140 of The Cake Bible twice with great success. It's very light and airy and rolls like a charm. I'm planning on making it again next week.

I reccomend letting that white shirt become her pomegranate shirt, or throwing the whole shirt in juice and dying it. It is very difficult to get out, althought I am sure some Heloise or another here on egullet might have a few hints Uh oh. And it was a brand new shirt too. Well, word to the wise...never sit your 4-year-old down with a pomegranate as a snack. I have one word for you: Oxyclean! I have a question about pomegranates. Does anyone eat the seeds? I can't manage it - they're just too . . . seedy. As a result, I end up only eating pomegranates out of hand when nobody's watching because the little pile of masticated seeds that I create is really gross.

Can you pre-cook your andouille?

Once I cooked a chuck roast and didn't have enough time to finish it because something unexpected came up - I had to pop it in the fridge and finish cooking it the next day. It did get more tender and certainly edible, but you know, I don't remember it being great. But it can't hurt to try, Malawry! It's already paid for! Why waste it?! The worst thing that could happen is that it will STILL suck.

For some reason, large green onions taste like garbage to me. I love green onions and probably add them to too many things because I love them so much - but the big ones just taste like garbage to me. I can't explain it. I've noticed the cilantro-soap thing, but somehow I still really like cilantro. I've eaten goat cheese many times and always loved it. My grandmother makes a Red Pepper Goat Cheese lasagna that's just wonderful, but my mom has always hated it. She says it tastes like licking a goat. I could never understand it. But last month I bought some caramel made from goat milk and I tasted that flavor she must be talking about. It was awful. The funny thing is, my kids loved it. Now I'm nervous to eat goat cheese again because maybe my taste buds are now attuned to it. I don't understand the thrill of sichuan peppercorns. I don't enjoy that numb, tingling sensation at all. It doesn't make my top ten list of foods I loathe, but I avoid it.

My Dad made acorn bread once - I vaguely remember that he had to boil the acorns and change the water a bunch of times because they were so bitter and in the end, he did a truck load of work for very little return - the resulting bread was bland yet still faintly bitter and heavy. My Dad is no chef, but he is adventurous! He has a very thrifty side. He picks pears from the neglected tree in front of city hall in his town (that would otherwise rot) and makes crisps. He has picked dandelion greens for salad twenty years ago when no one else we knew had heard of it. He used to hunt and we ate doves, squirrel, deer, etc. He's raised his own chickens. I'm proud of my Dad.

My kids love gingerbread and in fact, they bug me every year to make a gingerbread house and/or gingerbread men. I teach Sunday School and every year we let the kids (second graders) make "gingerbread" houses out of graham crackers, frosting and candy. It's a huge hit every year. I could feel bad about not making enough gingerbread and buttercream for 30 kids to make houses, but . . . naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. They wouldn't appreciate it anyway and at this time of year, I don't have the time.

I had one of those awful Pampered Chef bread tubes. Someone gave it to me and I felt obligated to try it. I followed the directions perfectly, but somehow the tube, which you're supposed to bake standing on end, fell over in my oven and spilled pound cake batter all over the floor of the oven. It was a terrible mess. I can't figure out how it fell over - I didn't bump the oven or anything. The texture of the pound cake that was left in the tube (which I actually baked anyway) tasted steamed and too heavy. I threw it out and I also threw the "pan" out. I repeated to myself, "It's the thought that counts, it's the thought that counts!"

I ended up changing up the menu at the last second because I ran out of time. I made baked apples instead. I actually did bake 4 apples with pastry on them and they turned out great but the clock was ticking. I made this on a Sunday afternoon before the evening service and was actually providing a whole dinner, which is how I happened to run out of time. The baked apples turned out fine - I wasn't wowed, but I wasn't embarrassed either. Oh well! The menu (very plebian) was ribs, BBQ chicken, baked sweet potatoes with cinnamon brown sugar butter, garlic cheese bread and baked apples stuffed with pecans, brown sugar and butter and served with caramel sauce. I also made an "Atkins" custard for those who weren't eating sugar.

I don't think I've ever been to a bathroom with an attendant in the states, but in Turkey, it's very common. In fact, most public bathrooms in Turkey had a bathroom attendant who wouldn't let me go in unless I paid first. For a few hundred thousand TL, I'd get one small square napkin. I always carried my own TP in the trunk of the car but a few times when I forgot to get it, I had to ask the attendant for more TP (in advance!) and they didn't like it. When they understood what I wanted and looked reluctant, I was just insistent. They shook their heads and mumbled a bit, but they gave it to me! The bathrooms were hardly ever clean and most of the toilets were Turkish toilets, but when nature calls one must answer. We went to our gardener's house to eat several times and they apparently don't use toilet paper at all - they use a small hose and drip dry.