SylviaLovegren

Glad it worked and glad you found and tested a good recipe. Yum.

I always recommend the Duralex Picardie glasses. They come in many sizes, are very durable, stackable, and attractive. You can get them lots of places, but also Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Duralex-Picardie-4-Ounce-Clear-Tumbler/dp/B0017LR21Q/ref=pd_sim_sbs_k_5

How about stir-fried tofu and veg with spicy peanut sauce? Rice. Easy lettuce salad with "japanese" dressing -- the thick kind made in the blender from veggies and mirin. It's nice and hearty and vegan all the way. Of course, you have to worry about whether anyone in the group has peanut allergies. Stir fry tofu in oil with garlic and ginger and red pepper. Add veg and stir fry. Make sauce in a bowl with peanut butter, hot water, soy sauce. Once pb softens, add to stir fry. Adjust seasoning (add more pb or soy, as necessary, finish off with a bit of sesame oil and hot sauce if necessary to jack the spicy/nut flavors up. Super easy, generally liked.

Home made candied ginger with syrup for a dessert? Can't wait to see what that is. Sounds divine.

Sigh, this is just wonderful. Love it.

A friend makes a similar cake with a brown sugar penuche icing, which is...well, it's the kind of thing I'd roll around on the floor and do tricks for, if you must know. I'm gonna try that cake.

Applesauce pie? I've never made it, but googling it brought up lots of different recipes. Some seem like pureed apple pie and others more like pumpkin pie with applies replacing the squash. They all sound good to me! Applesauce muffins and add some chopped apple for additional apple flavor? I grew up in the Pacific NW where Aplet and Cotlets were a favorite treat -- local Turkish Delight made with either apples or apricots. Found a recipe for Aplets which sounds really good: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Candy/AppleCandy.htm

Most restaurant supply stores sell bare alumnium skillets, which are generally well made and heavy duty, if not especially fancy. Really? Still? There's one not too far from us, I'll definitely check it out. Thanks! (Wonder how long it will take to build up that silky patina?)

You live there? It's simply stunning. And those pigs are so cute. The food looks lovely and I want 6 of those spotty mugs. Sigh.

I, too, get bored with what's on offer periodically. But then it wears off and I come to my senses. One of the fun things about moving to Canada was being exposed to lots of cookbooks that you tend not to see in the States. May I recommend Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's "Settlers Cookbook"? http://www.alibhai-brown.com/settlers.php She is a Pakistani-Ugandan woman who emigrated to England after Idi Amin. She writes beautifully (and very politically!) about life and food, especially food. Lots of great recipes wonderfully described. Maybe everyone here had already known about this book, but I didn't and recently found it at a used book sale in Toronto, fell in love with it.

The sweetness of the pie really depends on how tart the berries are and that only comes with experience with those particular berries. A recipe, in that case, is only guideline. If your pie for next week is going to be made with the same kind of berries, up the sugar!

I used to have an ancient small heavy aluminum saute pan that was somehow seasoned, maybe just from being used nearly every day for 40 years (inherited from mom-in-law). It was fabulous for cooking eggs and I never even thought about non-stick. Then it disappeared in a move and since you can't find nice aluminum cookware anymore, I use non-stick for eggs. Sure miss that little pan.

Now if you'd put them in grape jelly they probably would have been snatched up in no time! Sadly, I think you're right.

Yeah. Been there, done that. We had a big family party potluck, over 100 people. My husband and I made Greek meatballs -- very plain, ground beef, fleck of dill and cinnamon with just a weench of a garlic and fried in oil then served warm in a chafing dish with toothpicks. I mean, little cute beef meatballs on toothpicks. How less threatening does it get? We made about 6 dozen and I think about eight meatballs were eaten. All the other food -- stuff made with Campbell's soup and cans of junk and mixes and mayonnaise all get et up. But those poor little meatballs just sat there.

Thanks for posting this.

Boo hiss. I "liked" the FB page.

Loukoumades are delicious. My only caution about mastic is that it's a flavor not everyone enjoys...me particularly. Diane Kochilas is a really good Greek cook and her recipes are classic but up to date. Here's her website: http://dianekochilas.com/recipes

I make buttermilk (or yoghurt) pancakes all the time with 1/4 teaspoon soda and 2 tsp bp (for 1 cup flour). It works great, nice acid flavor, fluffy. Been doing it for years with no problems. You could try your next batch with a pinch of soda and see if there's any difference.

Canned soups, I'd say. Because all the Home Ec departments came up with "casseroles" that just called for slopping a bunch of food together with the canned soup "sauce". Taste buds across the land were corrupted, frazzled home cooks liked that they could make something "elegant" (after all, it had "sauce"!) and it was easy as pie. Cheap, too.

My mom made it with egg noodles, chunk light tuna and Campbell's Cream O' Mushroom, but her secret ingredient was...canned evaporated milk! That way, the guts stayed really creamy and slippery. I don't ever want to make it because I'm sure it wouldn't taste very good to me now. Then, I thought it was the most delicious thing ever invented. I make my own with bechamel, mushrooms, lots of cheese, tuna, and some frozen peas. It's fine but not the most delicious thing ever.

I'm glad. We go to the local Starbucks fairly regularly as a social meet-up place and I was in despair about what to have -- their "Pike" blend, which is their normal brew, is simply awful. It needs vast amounts of milk along with chocolate and cinnamon to be drinkable. They were giving out samples of the "blond" coffee the other day and it tastes just like regular American brewed coffee. Not delicious but at least drinkable.

He has a recipe for them in Simple French Food. I've never tried it, but everything else I've tried from that book has been surpassingly good, so I'd trust him.

They both seem to be oxygen powered cleaners, which is all oxyclean is. Try one!

So interesting! I have no idea what kangaroo tastes like. Chicken? Looking forward to exotic cookery from far away...

See, I like them all soft inside. Crispy and brown on the outside, soft and succulent on the inside. The Ontario farmer's markets have been offering really fresh sprouts for low prices recently and we've been feasting on slow roasted ones. Yum.