ElainaA

2 pounds of pine nuts given to me by my sister-in-law. Sadly, they are almost all gone. (I wonder if I should tell her that. My birthday is coming up.....) Elaina

The weather here was not good for tomatoes - cool and wet. This is what I picked today - from 30 plants - not so good. Most of my plants succumbed to septoria. I gave in and bought a bushel of tomatoes at the local farmer's market. So far I have canned tomato chutney and salsa, frozen pseudo V8 juice ( another batch to be done tomorrow). Then I will start canning tomatoes, probably buying another bushel. However I had lots of cucumbers (mustard pickles, 2 kinds of dill pickles (fresh and fermented) and 3 kinds of sweet pickles), lots of fennel, radicchio, beans, cabbage and lettuce (12 varieties) and other salad greens. i become obsessive about preserving - 8 kinds of preserves plus various other chutneys and pickled vegetables. I give most of this away as Christmas presents. And I just love looking at all those pretty jars of delicious stuff. Elaina

DiggingDog - I don't know where you are in the Finger Lakes but both Ithaca and Cortland have Loaves and Fishes groups that serve free meals to anyone who shows up. They gladly accept fresh produce (not processed items, however). So do both food pantries in Cortland. I've taken them bags of squash and beans this year as in the past. Even my S.O.D. fueled urges have a limit. Elaina

The 'allgoneophobia' thread made me think of this. I think this is my problem. Why else do I have to think up a use of every zucchini? Why did i just make 10 jars of peach/orange/ginger marmalade when no one else in my family but me likes it? Why did I make 10 kinds of pickles this month? Right now my S.O.D focuses on preserving and freezing garden produce. By early December it will morph into candy making. (Obviously S.O.D. has multiple subtypes, especially around Christmas: shopping, home decoration. Mine just happens to be cooking.) Oh NO! In 2 months it will be hunting season! How many recipes can I find for venison? Does anyone else have this problem? Elaina

Mark Bittman had an article in the NY Times last year giving riffs on some basic cabbage recipes: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/a-dozen-slawless-cabbage-recipes.html I particularly like the unstuffed cabbage (which I think of as deconstructed stuffed cabbage). I do add a dose of lemon juice at the end which brightens things up considerably. (I hope this link works. If not the article was in the March 17,2013 NY Times magazine. A search on the Times site will bring it up.) Elaina

My husband came home with sea scallops and a rib eye steak but I don't know quite what he's doing with them. And a bottle of Grand Marnier (my valentine). As for holidays -- My mother always celebrated Bastille day (this was in a very small upstate NY village). She set off firecrackers and made my father take her out for dinner. She said it was the only holiday that didn't keep her in the kitchen all day. (6 kids, multiple grand kids and resident in laws). Elaina

@Plantes Vetes: Thanks. I think the first recipe, with some added mushrooms, is pretty much what I am looking for based on the description in the book. I'm not sure I can find rabbit here. Some on-line sires recommend substituting veal; I was thinking chicken. Elaina

I just finished reading Provence 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste. The very last meal described features lapin en Gibelotte for which they purchase " Two rabbits, mushrooms and handfuls of tiny red, yellow and orange peppers". This caught my attention as I have half a bag of those very peppers in my refrigerator waiting for inspiration. However, searching the internet, I can not find any recipe for gibelotte that includes peppers. Does any one have such a recipe? I would really like to try making this dish although, given the scarcity of rabbit in upstate NY supermarkets I may substitute chicken or veal. (Unless Fanny the Lab catches one of the multitude in my back yard - and then there is the parasite problem.) Elaina

This may be considered heresy but I make pate de fruit starting with jelly or jam rather than fruit puree. I like this because I preserve so much - this year I made pate from an orange-pinot noir jelly, blackberry jelly and green apple jelly. Last year I did a raspberry-cherry jam pate that tasted really good. They all set up well, have a nice texture and, to me, taste very good. Since I have never made the fruit puree version I can't really compare. I have gotten very good feed back on these from people to whom I have given them. Elaina

I think the issue with the halibut was both the foam and the how (overly, perhaps) intricate the entire plate was. Not a good fit for this group. I only started experimenting with transfer sheets and luster dust last year. I only make candy at Christmas and most of it is bagged up and given away as gifts - so I rarely actually witness what happens to it. I get an overwhelmingly general positive response but little information on specifically what was liked and what was not. Maybe I should send out "rate this candy" emails similar to the 2 I just got from Amazon! (Please, I hope NO ONE thinks I really mean that!). Interestingly this year I tried texture sheets for the first time - those candies disappeared very quickly - I think the difference they still definitely looked like chocolate. I think next year I will dial back the decoration. Sigh. It is so much fun. Elaina

I am wondering if anyone else has had this experience. On Saturday I took a plate of candies to a Christmas party. At the end of the evening there were 3 pieces left on the plate - the 3 that I had decorated with transfer sheets. This has happened to me before. Admittedly, I live in rural, upstate New York but this party was in Ithaca and the majority of guests were Cornell faculty - not an unsophisticated group. And I know for a fact that the pieces on which I had used luster dust were eaten by my husband - other wise they may have still been there. Last year I caught my daughter slicing off the tops of some candies because "they don't look like real candy". It is not just candy. Last October my husband and I took part in a weekend junket at the Sagamore in the NY Adirondacks sponsored by a major plumbing HVAC supplier for people in the industry and spouses (I was a spouse). The final dinner was quite elaborate - my halibut had 2 sauces plus a lemon foam accompanied by a spiced sweet potato puree ( which was wonderful), braised fennel, spinach and another vegetable that I cannot remember. At my table, the majority of plate were sent back hardly touched and from glances at the wait staff's trays, that was common. Dessert came topped with a chocolate cut out decorated with a fantastic transfer - no one but my husband and I ate it even after I explained what it was. So, my question is this: when I am having tons of fun decorating the candy and food I make, am I forgetting the people who will be eating it? Elaina

I made moose stew - braised for 2 hours with stock and wine, lots of onions, some carrots and potatoes and a seasoning packet that was given to me with the moose - the first time in almost 50 years of cooking that I have used one of those. It was sent to my friend from a friend of hers in Germany and was labelled (in German) 'Hungarian Goulash' (thanks, google translate). I don't read German and did not translate the ingredients list but I think it was largely paprika. The end result was good but not all that different from a beef stew - much closer to beef than is venison. I still have a venison roast in the freezer - that's going to be part of Christmas dinner. Elaina

These is a recipe for pumpkin caramel ganache in Greweling's Chocolates and Confections that is awesome. Elaina

My Jamaican-Jewish father only ate a very small array of vegetables - corn, peas and green beans - either canned or frozen - and preferably overcooked. And my farm girl mother catered to his tastes. I put this down to my paternal grandmother's cooking. I never tasted broccoli or eggplant until I left home. Or a pea or green bean that wasn't cooked to mush. Elaina

My paternal grandmother was a Sephardic Jew whose family had been in Jamaica for generations and who came to New York as a very young woman and married a cousin, also from Jamaica. I have several of her recipes that she taught my mother (who was a farm girl from a staunchly Methodist family from central New York - how they met is another story). The family favorites were a baked banana dessert and a very simple sponge cake that I still make. I also have a recipe labeled "Nene's Bun" (Nene being my great aunt Rose -this family all had nick names) - a spiced baking powder quick bread. And of course there were black eyed peas and rice.

I have been given some moose meat by a friend whose husband recently went on a hunting trip in Labrador. I have a large roast (I think about 3 -4 lbs.) and a package of cubes marked stew meat. While I have occasionally cooked venison I have no experience with moose. Does anyone? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Elaina

Just to follow up my original post: I have successfully 'Ferberized' my un-jelled jam. I now have some lovely ginger marmalade rather than ginger sauce. I basically compared the amount of green apple jelly Ferber uses for a batch of jam (7 oz) to the amount of commercial pectin used (usually 3 oz) then applied that ratio to the Ball Blue Book formula for 'fixing' un-jelled jam. I tried one jar first, as Kerry suggested, with success. The 5 remaining jars are now cooling on the counter. Elaina

OK - I asked my husband the plumber why you would need a professional with a question this simple. His answer was that any of these options may work or they may not depending on the exact drain/sink type involved. A professional should know exactly what will work rather than depending on trial and error. Perhaps your first try will be successful - or not. And perhaps a service call will cost more than you want to pay. But I would expect many on this board to recognize that expertise can matter. I can't count the number of service calls he answers after people have tried multiple fixes on their own. And then they are angry that 'it seems so easy'. Elaina

Minas: Here's the formula I have used. It is the same as the Ball Blue Book one although I got it from another source. For 1 quart of jelly: Bring jelly just to a boil. Off the heat stir in: 3/4 c sugar, 2T lemon juice, 2 T pectin. Bring back to a full boil, stirring. Boil 1 min. I've had this work for me. Elaina

My husband (a master plumber) read this over my shoulder. He says, in his opinion, anything you can get directly is not likely to work. "You need a competent, professional plumber" (which does not describe all plumbers out there). He suggest Angie's List. He says this is fixable. Good luck.

The Ball Blue Book has a fix using commercial pectin - which works. I am simply curious about using Christine Ferbers methods and wondered what the experts here would think.

Kerry - Why didn't I think of that? Thanks. It has to wait for a rainy day though - I have too much to do outside. Elaina

The 'green apple jelly as pectin' method is from Christine Ferber's book Mes Confitures. The jelly is made from VERY green apples and added to jams or jellies made with low pectin fruit - some examples are her Pear with Acacia Honey and Ginger, Black Cherry with Pinot Noir, and Raspberry and Litchi with Rose Water (all jams). She comments that you could get the same result with long cooking but her method (she says) gives you better texture and prevents caramelization of the fruit. I have successfully re-cooked jam before using commercial pectin, sugar and lemon juice - a formula I got from Garden Web's Harvest board. Since I have the green apple jelly on hand, I thought I might try that, but I really do not want to ruin the jam - finding young, stem ginger is so difficult. Elaina

I made a batch of ginger jam (using commercial pectin) that, a month later, is still liquid. I also have a batch of Christine Ferber's green apple jelly, which she uses instead of commercial pectin in her recipes. I am wondering if I could re-cook the jam with some of the green apple jelly added to get it to jell. And if so, how much jelly I should use. I have 5 8oz jars of the ginger "jam". Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Elaina

Please tell me - where did you find Callebaut chocolate at that price?