[Gangsta Vegan Organics -- Norristown, Pa]

No interest in vegan food, whatsoever, but love the name.

[Grocery Shopping]

I am NOT going to take  a picture of my grocery shopping,  it is the big haul for the month and yes I am  now tired.  But this part of  what I got.

7 kilos of inner chicken fillets,  3 kilos of  mix ground meat   50% pork and 50% beef,   2 kilos of pork mince, 1½ kilo of smoked bacon ,  2½ kilo of ground chuck, 2 rings of  Falu sausages, 300 gram of smoked ham, 1 kilo of  gouda ( not great gouda but it will do for pizza), 12 kilo of flour , 20 packets of dry yeast,  stock cubes, potato starch ,  corn starch, white PAN  corn flour,  500 gram of chocolate both white and dark, sugar,  powdered sugar, vanilla, 4 litre lactose free milk,  4 cartoons of lactose free yoghurt, pickles,  veggies and  a lot more and  2 strawberry plants  Fontaine.

 

We have  filled  8 big  Tesco canvas bags with food.  Yeah I am in Sweden but I use  Tesco bags from the UK.

 

I only have the dirt to pick up.

 

Where do you store all that?  Do you have a giant fridge and freezer?

[Chinese Dessert]

Here are some things which turn up midway through breakfast, lunch or dinner.

 

 

These are pastries filled with sticky rice flavoured (and coloured) by green tea then rolled in sesame seeds. The plate usually gets emptied very quickly. Even I like them!

 

Then there are the ubiquitous egg tarts (蛋挞 dàn tà) - two types.

 

Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts 蛋挞 dàn tà

 

Portuguese / Macao Style Egg Tarts

 

I seldom eat these, but when I do, I prefer the Honk Kong style.

 

The dim sum place we used to go to in Seattle always had the Hong Kong style egg tarts and then a steamed sponge cake that I found very odd but addicting.  But they were eaten along with the pork bao and shrimp dumplings, not as a separate or later course.  There was also a taro thing, that was very sticky but I recall it having a dark, savory meat dab inside, not sweet. 

[Chinese Dessert]

Here is a true oddity.

 

Hasma is the oviducts and surrounding fatty tissue of a species of frog (Rana temporaria chensinensis David (Fam. Ranidae) – snow frog or forest frog) found in the forests of the far north of China in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces. Known in Chinese as 雪蛤 xuě há (literally ‘snow frog’) or 雪蛤膏 xuě há gāo (snow frog fat), it is mainly used as an ingredient in sweet dishes, cakes etc, especially in Hong Kong style Cantonese cuisine.

 

 

It is sometimes available dried in local markets and supermarkets, but more often crops up in restaurant dishes or as an ingredient in pre-packaged sweets such as these:

 

 

 

I'm sure it's totally cultural-ist of me but Forest Frog Oviduct & Taro Sweet just doesn't...  I'll take chocolate mousse for a thousand, Alex, thanks very much.

[Wrinkled peas]

Right, I think you all right, it might be overcooked. I usually boil it more than 1 minute.

 

Note about frozen peas, I choose not to use it because the size of the peas, they are tiny compare to the peas from pods that I bought from the market. At least that's what I got here. I do have and use frozen peas, for everyday use. But for special meal, I like giant peas

 

I will buy some this weekend to show you and few experiments

 

 

When I was a kid, my parents lived in pea-picking country and they always insisted on getting fresh picked peas but the smaller, the better.   Sweeter and tenderer.  In the City, even the farmer's market peas are too old and too big for me.  I stick with the baby frozen peas. 

[Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping (Part 2)]

This weekend I visited an estate sale nearby.  The day was the fine, sunny spring day we enjoy up here with leaves rustling and apples blossoming, and the cheery weather carried over to the gang waiting in line.  The house is a beautifully kept log home with golden varnished wood inside and out. The basement area was clean and open, and had probably been the woman's canning area, judging by the sinks and roasters and jars packed among small appliances, books and tables' worth of old kitchen tools.  I spotted my favorite style of lemon squeezer - only $5 on the first day! 

 

Citrus juicer 500.jpg

 

I thought about taking it.  I resisted: I have two already (this photo is of one of mine) and have given others to all my friends who would appreciate one.  I didn't need another.  Maybe it would find a good home with someone who needed it.  

 

Up the tight wooden spiral staircase I went to the main living area. The kitchen had cabinets with tin panels in the golden wood frames, an old-fashioned compressor-on-top refrigerator (running) and a heavy enameled cast iron multi-chamber stove designed for propane.  The dining room had a generous table; the living room looked comfortable with a stone fireplace going up through the middle of the house as is proper.  The place had a wide variety of dishes, glassware, table linens, musical instruments, games, crocks (the original point of my visit), artwork, furniture - all displayed in a comfortable array.    As I wandered I got the strong sense that this woman had loved to cook and to entertain, and she'd loved her family and friends.  The place had the feel of a life very well lived.  I mentioned it to another woman who was perusing at more or less the same pace as I (we'd been discussing crocks earlier) and she agreed.  Then a young woman who was looking through the cookbooks turned to me.  "I didn't mean to eavesdrop," she said, "but it's so nice to hear you say that!  This house was my grandmother's, and you've described her exactly."  We chatted for a bit about the warm feeling of the home, and I learned that the granddaughter was looking for books with her grandmother's handwritten notes.

 

Back down the stairs I went, to check out a pressure cooker I'd seen before.   "We're interested in the same things," said the first woman I'd been talking to. She didn't want the pressure cooker, so I claimed it.  Then I had an idea. "Do you like to cook from scratch? Do you use lemons and limes in your cooking?" I asked.  She did.  I pointed to the lemon squeezer.  "Do you know what that is?"  She didn't.  I told her.  She was impressed.  That squeezer has a new home now, and I hope it will be well-loved and -used.

 

I came away with a 2-gallon Redwing crock in excellent condition (at a good price, relatively speaking) and these:

 

Estate sale treasures box open.jpg

 

The deep fryer ($16) was new in the box, never opened, and will be tested sometime this week.  The pressure cooker was in excellent condition, all parts intact, $5.  I used it last night.  I am a sucker for vintage fabrics.  These didn't cost much, and when I use them I'll think of this woman I never met who gave such a warm spirit to her home.

 

Estate sale treasures books.jpg

 

The two upper right books are locally-produced books from the Lutheran Church ladies.  Experience suggests that I'll never cook from them, but they're local history and I half expect to find names I recognize.  The "General Foods Cooking School of the Air" book seems to be a companion piece to a radio cooking show from long ago, hosted by one Frances Lee Barton.  The other two books speak for themselves.  The Sunset book has already been put to good use.

 

A wonderful description and the house sounds like just the kind of place you want to be.  The tablecloth with the pears and cherries?  I have one, too, also found out thrifting somewhere long ago!

[[How] Do You Garnish Your Hot Dog?]

Have you ever asked them if they have sauerkraut? Some do, but they store it in the cooler. I know the ones in Tucson leaves the sauerkraut out, but here in BC they keep them in small individual containers in the cooler. You would never know they have it unless you ask. 

 

Ours in Toronto used to keep it out in a big tub, but now you have to ask and they dole it out in mini paper cups. 

[Fresh Tomatoes: Love 'em or hate 'em?]

Our son's girlfriend hates the texture of tomatoes, cooked or fresh.  She says they "feel like tongues"!  She'll eat them happily if they are chopped finely or pureed. 

[Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2015)]

Congrats PanCan!  And RWood, that Maleficent is magnificent!

[Angel Food Cake]

paulrapheal,

 

With all due respect, we will have to agree to disagree.

 

To me the epic fail is coming out with a cloyingly sweet angel food cake that I don't want to eat, and I still won't be conducting any side-by-side experiments with two dozen eggs to prove my point that I can make a more desirable (to me and and my eaters) angel food cake.

 

Ovens vary, and my old 1970's oven with a broken thermostat is very hard to work with. It's like tending a wood fire, which I have done many times. I can still cook a respectable cake in it, including my sugar-reduced angel food.

 

I still have to advocate for anyone who wishes to reduce the sugar in a baking recipe to give it a try. It is not a structural component like it is in candies.

 

 

It would be fun to try the experiment -- but I love sweet sweet sweet angel food.  "Too sweet" is not something you'll hear outta my mouth very often. 

[I want to learn baking for my family]

 

 

That said, while working with weights is easy and much more accurate, it's absolutely possible to get good results using measuring cups. Maybe not consistent results, but certainly edible!

 

If you consistently use the same measuring cups and the same flour and are an experienced cook, good results are not only possible but likely.  I can look back to Grandma Nora's angel cake, Great Aunt Edna's sour cream cake, Aunt Molly's chocolate fudge cake, Aunt Beki's lemon sponge cake and my mother's impossibly light biscuits and pie pastry.  None of them would have known what to do with scales in the kitchen and Nora and Edna probably only had a few battered old cups to measure anything with, but their cakes were famous among friends and family.    Oh, for a slice of Nora's angel food with the pink icing...  Sigh. 

[I want to learn baking for my family]

Baking is fun!  But tricky.  You must follow recipe directions exactly and measure exactly.  Start easy!  What kinds of things do you want to bake?

[Souvlaki and Tzadziki]

The local Greek festival in Wilmington is finishing up today - the Italian festival starts tomorrow, incidentally, at the same church where Beau Biden's funeral service took place today. But anyway, the Greek festival has inspired my diet for the past two weeks; first, with lots of Greek salad in the days leading up to it, then keftedes, spanakopita and souvlaki consumed at the festival. Now I have plans to make dinner for friends next week and have a boneless lamb shank to use up and I'm thinking Souvlaki would be just the thing. How long should I marinate it?

 

Diane Kochilas, one of my favorite Greek cooks, says "several hours" or overnight. 

[Culinary Use for Coconut Paste?]

Could you make your own Mounds bars?  Yum. 

[[How] Do You Garnish Your Hot Dog?]

 

 

If we make quick dogs at home with regular buns, I like to toast the buns and melt a bit of cheese on them and then add sweet pickles (bread & butter or Yum-Yums) and lots of regular mustard. 

 

We occasionally have a dog at Costco if we are hungry and in a hurry. I love that they have sauerkraut, sometimes that's all I use. 

 

What are Yum-Yums? 

And ditto on Costco dogs -- $1.50 for a huge dog, with sauerkraut and mustard, with a soft drink.  Fun lunch!

[Wine Spoilage]

It happens because it oxidizes, which is what happens to all wines when they are exposed to air for a while. Three days is quite a long time to me... I usually cork it and put it back in the fridge and drink the next day if I can't finish it all in one night.

 

Lots of wines get sort of flat and blah tasting when they've been opened for more than a day.  Very few get that weird bitter metallic thing that my rose did or that the OP describes.  Maybe that flavor was underneath all along and just came out when the "good" flavors oxidized, but I'd be curious to know if that's actually the case or if there is another chemical reaction going on. 

[Wine Spoilage]

I had a refrigerated 3-day-opened French rose turn bitter on me the other day.  Was quite surprised.  No idea why that happens.

[[How] Do You Garnish Your Hot Dog?]

Sorry, but mini hot dogs with bbq sauce and grape jelly sounds like something only a Klingon would love. On what planet is that a favorite app? I grew up in NYC, lived for several years in New Mexico and for many years now in CA and this is the first I ever heard of that. Is it a Philly specialty? I think by definition any one who eats sausages with bbq sauce and grape jelly would not be considered a picky eater. Unless, of course, that was all they ate. Forgive me, you who are not picky eaters (and my husband is included here), we picky ones definitely owe you a debt of gratitude for letting us get away with outrageous and tiresome behavior for years on end, to say nothing of snobbery and crankiness.

 

The only place I actually SAW baby sausages with grape jelly sauce, rather than reading about it, was at a party in Manhattan in the 1980s.   (Sausage with grape jelly was the most edible selection available at that party, the other stuff was not only worse esthetically but looked as though it had been involved in a road accident.)

 

As for hot dogs, NEVER ketchup.  Must have mustard. Preferably cheap yellow mustard, but higher quality mustards will do if the only alternative.  Hot dogs may also be adorned with relish or sauerkraut or even both.

 

My MIL was a toy designer in the 80s and 90s and she designed the cutest toy food but I was always mad at her for having mustard AND ketchup on the toy hotdog. 

[Dealing with Difficult/Finicky/Fussy/Picky eaters]

Ketchup on hotdogs?  Ewww, yuck.

 

I know, right?  But the kid liked it...just not if some of the ketchup got on the plate near the pizza!

[Dealing with Difficult/Finicky/Fussy/Picky eaters]

I'm still not convinced the habit/behavior failings can't be laid at the parent's feet. Contest of wills? As a child I cannot remember any of my friends or schoolmates that had real issues with the food served and that we all ate. Kudos to those whose children grew out of it- perhaps it was a phase, learning a sense of autonomy while absolutely controlled by adults.

 

However, people practicing selective eating way into adulthood and middle-age have a serious mental disorder. 

 

My son's best friend in grade school was an incredibly picky eater.  Both of his parents were very good cooks and they always had amazing food around, everything fresh and beautiful and beautifully cooked.  The kid, Luke, would eat almost nothing, he especially hated fruits and vegetables.  He once came to our house and I knew two things he WOULD eat were hot dogs and pizza (much to his parents' dismay). So we had hot dogs and pizza, which Luke was enjoying....until a drop of ketchup from his hot dog fell on the plate next to his piece of pizza.  He was so disgusted by this that he did not eat anything the whole rest of the time he was at our house (and he spent the night).  I felt terrible that he wouldn't eat but he wasn't worried about it, just drank his water (he hated fruit juice, milk, and soda pop) and said he was fine.  Now, Luke's all grown up and eats a fairly adventurous diet, although he still won't drink juice or milk. 

 

My father loved most fresh fruits and vegetables and proteins, but he loathed rice and pasta, and anything that was sour or bitter. And garlic.  (He thought people were pretending to be sophisticated if they "claimed" they liked olives or vinegar.)   Whenever he was away, my mom would feast on spaghetti with other verboten foods.  She was a good cook but I know she would have loved to expand her repertoire -- but she practiced "exotic" things on her bridge club get-togethers.

 

Unless someone's being an annoying arse, I figure their food dislikes and phobias are sincere.  Yes, sure, if they were in a prison camp or a desert island, they might be grateful to eat roasted larva, but my kitchen/dining room isn't supposed to feel like a prison camp (I hope!). I have no problem accomodating people's food preferences, even if it's sometimes difficult or even irritating.

[hello]

Hello, back!  Where in the world are you and what are your interests?

[What Cookbooks Are you Actively Using?]

My cookbook use is completely different: I typically only use one cookbook at a time, and stick with it for weeks. I find it's a good way of learning about new and unfamiliar cuisines, especially if they have a lot of specialty ingredients that I can buy all at once and then use up in the course of going through the book. Once I've gone through it I often won't revisit it for years. Right now I'm transitioning from Fuschia Dunlop's Every Grain of Rice to Rick Bayless's new More Mexican Everyday.

 

Your brain polar opposite my brain! 

[Energy and Resource Consumption and Conservation in the Kitchen]

An interesting topic, and one apart of a book a family of member of mine is working on.

 

One of the themes is that when you are using an oven, in our case Gas, you are taking significant energy to heat it up, instead of just using it to cook whatever is needed at that moment in time - plan ahead.  What else do you have that can benefit from a quick roast, or a slow one with the residual heat?

 

Garlic Confit, Onions, Roasted Root Veg perhaps to throw in soup later?  Ideas are as endless as the imagination.

 

Old fashioned cook books from the 1930-1960s have suggestions for "oven meals", where everything is cooked using the same heat.   I did that last night -- we had meatloaf, roasted asparagus, roasted potatoes and cherry cake, all cooked at the same time.

 

We also unplug most appliances -- microwave, coffee maker, radio, etc. -- that we're not using that have ready lights, only plug them in when they're wanted.  Since we started doing that, our electric/Hydro bills are about $8/month lower. 

 

Don't let the water run -- especially the hot -- and try to reuse water as much as possible (I think the latter is a holdover from my West Coast days).  I also fill a container for water for coffee in the morning the night before, so I don't have to run water to flush the pipes in the morning. 

[Disinfecting the Kitchen: [How] Do You Do This?]

My niece's niece, who is 2, contracted e-coli and very nearly died.  She was 2 weeks in the hospital and will probably have damaged kidneys for life.  Now, her neighbor, who is 1, is in the hospital with the same infection -- they thought he wasn't going to make it because his kidneys were shutting down but they were not able to get the dialysis shunt inserted.  Fortunately, the 3rd surgical try yesterday was a success, so it looks like little Bennett has a chance but he, too, will very likely have damaged kidneys for life.

 

I am very much against using antibacterials and over using antibiotics.  I am very much for washing, cleaning and using good sanitation in food and water handling. 

[Green Chicken Meat]

That is totally disgusting.  Things like this only encourage my determination to eat only animals that have been raised without torture.  Expensive and as a consequence we eat less meat.    I will refrain from a lengthy disquisition on socializing the costs and privatizing the profits that is at the heart of most agribusiness today.