Norm Matthews

My son has been in Las Vegas this week visiting family so I have not been doing much cooking, but he is home now and I went shopping for dinner ideas. The store had lamb stew meat, something I rarely see. I remembered seeing a NY Times recipe for Irish Stew so that's what I made today with a Jaques Pepin recipe for green beans.

Costco has prime brisket as well as choice and the couple times I got it, it was cheaper than choice at other places.

I have not used the smoker much this year but today I smoked a slab of whole spare ribs, ie not trimmed St. Louis style. Last night I was getting the smoker ready for today, and made a couple loaves of sourdough French bread to go with the ribs. With them we had store bought slaw, beans and potato salad

I am not generally a fan of fried shrimp but this was more like a tempura and we liked it. We batter fried lemon and dill pickle slices and spiral cut potato baked with cheese and a spicy cocktail sauce.

Lydia's recipe looks very similar to the one I attempted. I don't bake cakes very often and next time I should try the recipe as written before trying to change it. Thanks for the Crepes Thanks for your compliment. My cake did turn out as I expected with the changes I made. My son really liked it.

When creaming butter and sugar for cake, it is reasonable to expect that the butter will at least be at room temperature and butter at that temperature will be soft. That is different from melted though.

That would make sense. In any case, I think the recipe was not well written.

The honey crisp apples they had at the store that day were at least 60% bigger than some I had got prior. 4 apples made quite a lot of slices and I was afraid it was too much.

We had two Provençal recipes. One was a Julia Child recipe for Potato Gratin and the other was roasted chicken thighs. Our salad was broccoli, carrot and celery sticks with a ranch dressing for dipping. We didn't care too much for the potatoes but that may have been because I put too much anchovy paste in it.

Tri2Cook, you make a good point. The recipe may have turned out well if I had used 4 sliced apples as the original recipe stated, but the directions were unclear as to whether I should use all of them. I opted to used a lot less.

Of differences between original and later versions of a recipe, I have a personal experience with that. Everyday Food magazine contacted me several years ago asking permission to print one of my recipes. I gave them permission and they printed it with attribution to me but they changed three ingredients. You can still find the recipe at Martha Stewart under Pork Bulgogi. They substituted olive oil for peanut oil, pork loin for pork shoulder and used red pepper flakes instead of pepper paste. Another time MS posted a cookie recipe specifying Dutch process cocoa powder and used only baking soda but the recipe didn't have enough acid to work with baking soda and came out so flat they were almost transparent. Using Hersheys cocoa powder, for instance, or adding some baking powder, the recipe worked just fine.

In one of the reviews I noticed a reference to a similar recipe in King Arthur Flour. Here it is. It also does not use any liquid. OLD-FASHIONED APPLE CAKE WITH BROWN SUGAR FROSTING This cake is an old, old favorite of ours. It's a cake where the whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts. The moist, semi-chunky cake, spread with the frosting equivalent of brown sugar fudge, is perfect served with a cup of coffee or, better still, a glass of ice-cold milk. Our thanks to the wonderful Bakery Lane Soup Bowl cookbook for the inspiration for this recipe. AT A GLANCE PREP 20 mins. to 30 mins. BAKE 42 mins. to 47 mins. TOTAL2 hrs 2 mins. to 2 hrs 17 mins. YIELD about 24 servings Ingredients CAKE 2 1/3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar 2 teaspoons baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons Apple Pie Spice or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger and ground nutmeg 2 large eggs 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened 4 cups peeled, cored, chopped apple, about 1 1/3 pounds whole apples 1 cup diced toasted walnuts or pecans FROSTING 7 tablespoons unsalted butter 2/3 cup brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup milk 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla-butternut flavor Instructions Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" pan. To make the cake: Mix all of the ingredients except the apples and nuts in a large bowl. Beat until well combined; the mixture will be very stiff, and may even be crumbly. Add the apples and nuts, and mix until the apples release some of their juice and the stiff mixture becomes a thick batter, somewhere between cookie dough and brownie batter in consistency. please remove Instruction Spread the batter in the prepared pan, smoothing it with your wet fingers. Bake the cake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few wet crumbs clinging to it. Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a rack to cool completely; don't remove the cake from the pan. To make the frosting: Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar and salt and cook, stirring, until the sugar melts. After 10 minutes, stir in the confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Beat well; if the mixture appears too thin, add more confectioners' sugar. Spread on the cake while frosting is still warm. Bake your best: Shop specialty ingredients, tools, pans, and more To toast nuts, place them in a single layer in a cake pan. Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 6 to 9 minutes, until they're golden brown and smell "toasty." To guarantee lump-free frosting, sift confectioners' sugar before adding to the butter mixture. Usually all the lumps disappear as you beat the frosting; but to guarantee no lumps at all, sift the sugar first.

I'll have to read the recipe again. I didn't notice that.

It's OK to make substitutions if you are experienced enough to know the substitution is reasonable. The lady who used cream sherry instead of dry said it was because she was confused when she saw there was more than one kind of sherry and decided anything with cream in it must be good. Then again, I love the quote I saw once that said a recipe should be considered as a list of suggestions.

I tend to be skeptical about written reviews. That plus being at catered events with teachers in Junction City before I retired. I see a lot of reviews saying the recipe was great or awful after they say they have made so many changes that is isn't the same recipe. Sometimes I wonder if the person has any idea what they are tasting is supposed to taste like. I remember once going to an event that had gumbo on the menu. I passed a table where someone was remarking how good the gumbo was. I looked and she was eating fried okra. I asked the caterer where was the gumbo and she pointed to the fried okra. The menu was billed as being designed by a CIA trained Chef. Once upon request, I posted a recipe for French Onion soup at the old Martha Stewart bulletin boards. Someone reviewed their experience making 'my' recipe. She substituted cream sherry for dry sherry, didn't want to take time to make beef stock and complained about the price of beef bones anyway so she used demiglace and bouillon cubes. She used edam instead of guyere, again because the Swiss cheese cost too much. She thought she might use some soy sauce but didn't because she didn't want to change my recipe the first time she made it. She thanked me for the delicious recipe in the end.

ElsieD I did. I read a few at least. Some said the cake was wonderful and others complained about it being a disaster. When I started making it, I thought it must be missing some liquid so I added enough milk to make an actual batter.

Babette Friedman’s Apple Cake • JOAN NATHAN YIELD8 to 10 servings TIME1 hour 15 minutes This simple, rustic cake is perfect for a holiday celebration or any other occasion. Featured in: In Successful Paris Restaurant, Jewish Roots. INGREDIENTS • 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, more for greasing pan • 1 ⅓ cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar • ⅛ teaspoon salt • 2 large eggs • 2 cups all-purpose flour • 2 teaspoons baking powder • 4 Gala or other flavorful apples, peeled, cored and each cut into 8 slices • ½ teaspoon Calvados or apple brandy • 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings) 472 calories; 24 grams fat; 15 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 59 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 34 grams sugars; 5 grams protein; 107 milligrams cholesterol; 149 milligrams sodium PREPARATION 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan, and set aside. 2 In bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine remaining 8 ounces butter, 1 1/3 cups sugar and the salt. Mix until blended. Add eggs and whisk until smooth. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour and baking powder until thoroughly mixed. Fold in a few of the apples, and spread batter evenly in pan. 3 In large bowl, toss remaining apples with Calvados, ginger and cinnamon. Arrange apple slices in closely fitting concentric circles on top of dough; all the slices may not be needed. Sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon sugar over apples. 4 Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of cake dough comes out clean and apples are golden and tender, about 50 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. I made this recipe today but made changes in it because I didn't trust it as it read. I added about a cup and a half of milk and didn't use nearly all the apples. I put a fine dice on the apples mixed into the "batter" (which was more like a dough before I added liquid) instead of adding sliced apples as implied in the recipe. I probably used two and a half which was about 3 cups. It was crazy to try to cream the butter and sugar with a whisk. I changed to a flat beater with much better results and I added the dry ingredients, apples, and milk with the flat beater instead of folding them in. The cake turned out OK with the changes I made and looks pretty much like the picture that came with the recipe. Here is my cake. I could not get the picture from the recipe to desktop so I could not transfer it to this post. It took about 75 minuted to bake. After I visited two liquor stores and didn't find any apple brandy, son gave me some apple flavored Crown Royal.

We had baked spaghetti and sourdough bread. The spaghetti was like a simple lasagna with spaghetti instead. I left out some of the cheese because I thought it had enough without it. The sourdough was a raw loaf I put in the freezer a month or so ago, thawed out and baked for dinner tonight.

Last night I made a pot roast in the slow cooker but it made so much broth that we had it as a stew.

I used cod.

My lunch today was fish chowder. It will probably be dinner too.

Not that it makes any difference, but I forgot to picture or mention that the Cuban steak also had some rice cooked with Sazon seasoning and chicken stock.

I've made this several times and we always like it. It's a small chuck roast with Cuban seasoning, grilled like a big thick steak with chimichurri sauce on the side, tossed salad and bolillo rolls.

I was not very clear in what I said. Not wanting to belabor the point but the reason I said "English pronunciation" was because I realize the Chinese pronunciations of their own words had not changed but rather the English understanding of the way they were actually pronounced is what was clarified.

If I recall correctly, it was about 40 years ago, when as an art teacher, I read (studied) a book on the Chinese Dynasties in relation to the arts of the periods. It was only a very short time after that in which the Chinese government changed the spelling and English pronunciation in a way that made the book and everything I had attempted to teach myself obsolete. For example Peking was changed to Beijing.