xxchef

Another sure sign... Homemade Velveeta This recipe brought to you by the good folks at New England Cheesemaking Supply Company who are normally pretty down-to-earth and all 'round FANTASTIC resource and source of supply for home cheese makers. To their credit, they are at least a bit defensive about publishing this particular recipe and, in that it is made from scratch and from fresh milk, it's got to be better for you than real Velveeta. "Real Velveeta" - now there's an oxymoron for you!

Ummm, I hate to break it to you but, that's exactly how our health insurance system works. That's what "pool" or "group" insurance is all about: spreading the risks and benefits around. The problem lies in who decides which lifestyles are underwritten and which penalized. I'm a man. I'm never going to get pregnant (and neither is my wife, for that matter) but you can bet I'm subsidizing pre-natal care through birth of every baby born. I'm not in any kind of risk group for HIV/Aids but a good chunk of my health insurance dollars goes to cover the medical expenses for people who get them. We all subsidize illegal immigrants' and obese peoples' health insurance every month because we, as a society, have decided that we all need to share the risks with these groups, or are at least unwilling/unable to designate them as a group to penalize. Are evil salt-eaters so worrisome as to deserve special sanctions?

I think I would consider using a short dough crust/ pate brisee. They work fine in a mixer or food processor (use a very light touch, just to hold ingredients together) and can be easily individually scaled and pressed into the shells with no rolling/cutting/scrap to deal with. Good luck.

Your idea of folding is similar to how I make this candy. I use a recipe similar to the one posted above (here: ) but cook the sugar mix to a medium caramel. I've made it both with and without a little baking soda stirred into the caramel (haven't noticed much difference between the finished products) but then I pour the caramel out on a slab, blop the peanut butter/vanilla mix over it and start folding it over itself with a large off-set spatula until it reaches the right consistency and begins to hold it's shape. I then corral it in with some caramel bars and press the candy to the desired thickness. Score immediately for individual pieces. Cool completely, cut through, dip in dark chocolate.

Tequila. I like "Tres Generacions" for this.

Indian Pudding was something we had several times a year when I was a kid growing up in CT in the 60's. It was definitely a fall/winter dessert and was, in our family, invariably served in a bowl, hot with a big dab of vanilla ice cream melting down it. I remember having it at home a few times but mostly I think we ate it after meals at my grandfather's farm. My grandmother's recipe (I am looking at her yellow, dog-eared, original hand-written file card, right now) is pretty simple... Grandma Chamberlain’s Indian Pudding Amount Measure Ingredient -------- ------------ ----------- 1/3 Cp Corn Meal 1/3 Cp Cold Water 1 Qt Milk 1/2 Tsp Salt 1/2 Tsp Ginger 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon 1/2 Cp Molasses 1. Combine the corn meal and water. 2. Scald the milk. 3. Add the corn meal mix to the milk and cook 20 minutes until thick. 4. Add the salt and spices and molasses. 5. Pour into a greased 1 1/2 qt dish. 6. Bake @ 325*F for 2 hours. 7. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. It's right up there with steamed brown bread (as an accompaniment to baked beans, of course) as favorite classic NE baked goods.

Rosemary is the best! It grows like a weed in warm climates (can be upright type or sprawling), is evergreen (can be harvested year-round) and the bigger branches are great added to the grill or smoker. We had good luck with sage, lemon grass and thyme in Tucson. (edited for typos)

In honor of this thread and it's premise I have added a new candy to our seasonal line-up this year... Sea Salt Toffee! Get some while it's still legal!

NO. Hell NO. and When you pry the salt shaker from my cold dead fingers. While it seems SO obvious that this is no place for gubment involvement, in the many other countries (and now regrettably the US too), when the gubment starts paying for the majority of health care they have a huge pulpit to not start dictating "If we're going to pay for your medical care you BET we can have a say in how you eat, drink, recreate and live your lives. PS Sky diving, bungee jumping, smoking, drinking alcohol, eating more than 1500 calories a day, saturated fat intake, and salt possession are now felonies" Education and choice is the right answer. Potassium Chloride is a currently widely accepted substitute for table salt if you need one. 'nuff said.

:laugh: :laugh: And it probably didn't just "dissolve" into neat little packages on styro trays wrapped with plastic either. Hrumph. Imagine that, actually having to do some work for your food and face the karmic consequences (supposing there are such things) squarely and honestly. Kudos.

Exactly!

Surely the end is near... "Tavern on the Green morphs into a food court" This NYC Central Park restaurant icon since 1934, which closed its doors last New Years, has been converted into a tres shee-shee "food court" with four high-end food trucks serving everything from artisan ice cream to truffled chick peas. Granted, the Tavern was long past its prime when it finally closed but puh-leeze!

I've been cooking for people for a long time and the problem is that you get really jaded about their responses (good OR bad) to your efforts. It really doesn't take that long, once you are an accomplished cook, to realize that most of the people you cook for honestly don't know as much about food as you do. Having schooled, worked, slaved, studied, apprenticed, lived and breathed cooking for years you find yourself VERY in tune with your creation/production labors. Unless you are incredibly out-of-touch or intentionally obtuse, you KNOW if the dish you just served was perfect, or just very good (or heaven forbid, just OK). You find that when a guest makes a comment on your food it is more of an insight into THEIR culinary tastes, appreciation and understanding then it is about your performance. How many times has an insipid or mediocre dish gone out to choruses of "complements to the Chef!!"? And how many times has an absolutely inspired plate of perfection been greeted with indifference or even scorn from the receiving party? You can spend from now until eternity trying to please other people, second guessing their reactions; wallowing in doubt at their distain or flying high on their praise but the only true critic of whose motives and qualifications you can be sure is yourself. In all cases be genuine and gracious. Be genuinely pleased and grateful when someone appreciates your cooking, as that is for what we all strive. Be genuinely sorry if someone does not enjoy your food, whether it is their problem or our own, as we will have failed in our goal of pleasing. But either way, be genuinely honest with yourself and you will not fly too high, sink too low or lose your culinary clarity.

I do this a lot too but have found that even with heavy-duty freezer bags and regardless of care in storage most of the bags will have sprung leaks by the time they are thawed for use. No big deal as long as one is aware of the possibility doesn't just stick a bag in the fridge to thaw unfettered.

What's Robuchon's reasoning for the vinegar in the salad rinse? I do this with almost all the produce I bring in from the garden in it's wash/cooling bath to (theoretically) make any bugs uncomfortable (acidic environment), let go and be more easily washed off. Same thinking? Some antioxidant properties maybe?

I'm with you. Never had a crockpot, never will. Just not my style. You're Sous Vide Supreme sounds way better anyway. Personally, if I need to long-cook something unattended I'm going to look to my hot smoker (pop the ribs in in the morning and they're just ready for diner time), or my oven on super low for a good braise or even slow-roasting a large cut of beef or a turkey (somedays I do miss the Alto Shaams I got used to using in restaurants!)

More a la minute info... Here's fun web site for men who are trying to cook. I kid you not. http://www.menshealth.com/shortordercook/ It's got a cute ap where you click on a picture of a food you have on-hand and it gives you an easy recipe you can prepare with it in under 30 minutes

I think you've got about three directions you can go. Long, slow crock-pot meals that cook while you're away. Heat and Eat meals. Make ahead when you have the time, freeze in appropriate portions, thaw in fridge 24 or so hours before you need them then heat (nuke/oven whatever) and eat. A La Minute cooking options. Crock Pot: Mentioned previously ad nausium and you've already said you aren't planning on going this route. Heat and Eat: I love this option for certain meals and have some experience here. They can be simple or quite elaborate, if you want. My wife and I did some traveling for a while in a very small RV. For weeks before a trip I would freeze 2-person portions of the full meals we were eating so we could have real food on the road without suffering the indignities of trying to cook in the pathetic 1-burner galley. Think self-made TV dinners. I doubt too many of our fellow road warriors were having duck l'orange with wild rice and sweet potato puree, or swiss steak with mashed potatoes and vegetable gravy, or Zucchini Lasagna with spicy meatballs. Combine any of them with a salad (from a pre-mix if you must) and you've got a serious good meal. I no longer do any traveling but I still make up our "RV Meals" from time to time. There's nothing better for me after working a 14-hour day to run down to the freezer, pull out a couple of full turkey dinners with all the trimmings (frozen shortly after last Thanksgiving), popping them into the nuker and having a holiday feast 30 minutes later. No muss, no fuss. A La Minute (ie short order) cooking: 80% of the meals I make are a la minute. Stir frys or throw something on the grill or a fast sauté of a chicken breast or other small cut of meat, maybe a quick stroganoff. And "breakfast". Just about everything we normally associate with breakfast foods are a la minute foods and require very little in the way of prep. Anything you can picture your favorite diner cook whipping out on a busy Sunday morning is fair game. Sides? Rice, pasta, cous-cous etc all cook in about the time it takes to cook the entrée. I can't think of a vegetable that, once cleaned and cut, doesn't take more than about 7 minutes to actually cook. I've always got a bag of cleaned salad greens ready and a pan of boiled red potatoes in the fridge I can cut up and roast/fry/sauté for as easy side. As a last thought... Mise en place, mise en place, mise en place!

It's not only the loss of rudimentary cooking skills to worry about. Anytime a food is handled or processed it adds another opportunity for contamination (bacterial, mechanical etc). It will also generally incur higher costs in transportation and energy/other resources consumed than a lesser-processed version. Additionally, many even nominally processed foods (like salad mixes) have stabilizing ingredients/antioxidants etc. added to maintain their color or extend shelf life. Yum.

Yup, sandwiches are, quick, easy and of infinitely variety. Do we count open-faced "sandwiches" (you know, like.. Roast beef and gravy on a nominal piece of bread with a side of mashed potatoes)? Regardless, I'm sure I average close to eating a sandwich a week. Last week I had a home-grown and smoked cappocola ham and our own aged goat cheese sandwich with roasted red peppers, fresh from the garden on hot Jewish Rye bread that had just come out of the oven. Oh-yes, the humble sandwich can be goooood eatin' food!

Culinary Sign of the Apocalypse... "Frankenfish" "Genetically engineered salmon that grows twice as fast as the conventional fish appears to be safe, an advisory committee told the Food and Drug Administration Monday [9/20/2010]. But they argued that more testing may be needed before it is served on the nation's dinner tables. <snip> The company is arguing that the fish do not need to be labeled as genetically engineered. "The label could even be misleading because it implies a difference that doesn't exist." See full article from Business Week here: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IC0BMO0.htm

Now if we could only get that many to avoid just plain BAD (IE low quality/poorly prepared) food, we'd be getting somewhere!

Honey is an inspired idea. Not only is it a good chemical replacement for the sorbitol but an excellent flavor paring for any fruited caramel too. Using white tupelo honey might also get the anti-crystallization properties the glucose helps with and might permit replacing some of it too (that would require some more serious research/experimentation). Did you have any trouble with over-sweet taste? Sorbitol is 60% as sweet as sugar while honey is up to 50% sweeter than sugar. I agree that with so much butter an emulsifier is probably needed so it doesn't completely break or at least feel/taste greasy. I have this crazy idea about using an immersion blender to try and achieve a mechanical emulsion. It would have to be while it was still cooking which would be crazy dangerous. All I need is a fire suit and to borrow a blender (sure as heck not going to use mine!!). Maybe lecithin isn't so bad after all. Same with the soda. I'm sure it helps leaven the slightly acidic mixture a bit and probably helps the texture, kind of like it does in peanut brittle and it's not an onerous ingredient that my customers would likely balk at.

I've been making caramels for a long time (20 years??!) and know that Genin Caramels are fantastic BUT I'm wondering if there isn't a way to achieve similar style caramels with more pedestrian ingredients. I use: sugar, cream, butter, corn syrup, salt and vanilla. These ingredients look simple and benign on my labels (please don't get me started on the whole GMO/high fructose corn syrup debates!). I KNOW that Glucose and Sorbitol are not too dissimilar from plain old corn syrup (well, sorbitol is an FDA regulated ingredient with laxative warnings required with usage over a certain rate but...). I KNOW lecithin is a naturally occurring in many food items and that there is nothing particularly scary about good old sodium bicarbonate (which technically doesn't even have to be included in the ingredient list, at least in the USA, as it is less than 1% of the end product by weight) but I like to keep things simple and easy. I'm happy with my caramels now but wouldn't mind having an alternative "Genin-style" variety or two to offer and was thinking that, perhaps, there were some ingredient ratio tweaks or methodology tricks that would get me at least most of the way there without the "funny" ingredients?? Any thoughts?

The general consensus here seems to be that the standard Sam's Club or restaurant supply house sheet pans "plain old cheap aluminum" are sufficient for most uses but there are a couple of distinctions between them and higher quality/more expensive pans worth pointing out. Normal home/commercial quality pans are usually made of fairly light 16-18 gauge material, sometimes even 19 gauge for super-economy pans. These are quite prone to warping at high temperatures or with quick changes in temperature. Heavy-gauge sheet pans from 13 to as high as 10 gauge (usually for full sheet pans) are much more stable and will remain flat under most rigorous kitchen uses. I find them indispensable for slabbing toffee and caramel to help ensure the sheets come out flat and even. Better sheet pans also have "open bead edges" as opposed to the more common "rolled edges" on thinner gauge pans. This allows for much easier and thorough cleaning of the pans (no voids that trap moisture, bacteria etc).