mags

Giant chef's salad with romaine, gorgeously peculiar tomatoes, avocado, grilled sirloin, slivered gouda, and Snowangel's "Divorce Salad Dressing."

My turnip chips have never turned out crisp, probably because I've been roasting them, rather than deep-frying, as Chefs13 suggests. I just peel them, slice them relatively thin (I usually don't bother hauling out the mandoline...but I should), toss them with olive oil and quite a lot of black pepper, and roast till they get caramelized. They taste very much like sweet potatoes. In fact, while I've liked straight turnip puree, I'm willing to bet that roasted turnip puree would be both delicious and a good stand-in for sweet-potato casseroles. As for the chipotle dip...I am covered in shame, here. One of my few prepared-foods weaknesses are Bobby Flay's chile-flavored mayos. And I was dipping my turnip bits into some of his chipotle tartar sauce, which is indredibly delicious. What can I say? Loathe the man, love his mayonnaise. You know, it's funny. I just came back from a major shopping expedition. I was unloading my cart at the cash register -- green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, jicama, avocado, romaine, scallions, ginger, cilantro, basil, Napa cabbage, onions, eggs, shrimp, sirloin, chiles, coffee -- and the woman behind me was saying to her friend "You're doing that low-carb thing? But it's nothing but steaks and bacon all the time. That can't be healthy!" I just looked at my cart and snickered.

I probably use a few more of the LC processed foods than Chefs13, but not a lot. I keep some LC bread in the freezer to process into bread crumbs for frying cutlets or making stuffing, ditto some LC crackers, and....that's about it. Oh, wait, I do stock up on Guylian's sugar-free dark chocolate when I can find it. But otherwise, I find most of the LC products overpriced, under-flavored and generally lousy. I didn't use muffin mix before I was low-carbing, why would I use it now? I'm feeling like a broken record here, but what low-carbing has definitely done for my cooking is introduce me to vegetables. I eat a much wider variety than I used to, and am perpetually stunned at how lousy the (non-starchy) vegetables are in anything other than seriously high-end restaurants. As an American, I think I grew up thinking of vegetables primarily as the colorful stuff that rounded out the plate, almost more of an aesthetic statement than something that was supposed to be tasty to eat. Certainly I see that basic assumption -- that vegetables are valuable only for their nutritional content, and should basically just be choked down -- mirrored all over the place in this country. To the extent that any diet means a lifelong change in eating habits, giving vegetables a starring role is a change I think I'll make pretty much permanently. (snacking on roasted turnip chips and chiptole dip as I type)

Wendy, I shouldn't even be posting here, because god knows I don't know anything about professional baking. But I was reading the thread, and the first thing I thought of was Jell-O. Except that's horrible. But what about making your own gelatin, flavored...well, you could flavor some with rasberry and some with blueberry. But what might be really pretty would be clear gelatin, flavored with champagne or sweet wine, with berries suspended in it, maybe served in shot glasses or something like mini-martini glasses. The white could be either whipped cream or yet another shot glass of gelatin with....hmmmm....coconut suspended in it? I really don't mean to butt in, but it's so hot and sticky tonight, and something light and pretty felt really appealing. The former pastry chef at a restaurant in NYC I used to love did something like this, and it was one of my favorite desserts ever, particularly in the summer.

Actually, it was never entombed. The hardcover came out last spring, and it typically takes a year, after the hardcover release, for books to come out in paperback. And for what it's worth, it's only medium-merde. I read it in hardcover, and it was fairly inoffensive standard chick-lit. Bugged me less than Bridget Jones but essentially instant landfill.

Bunless cheeseburger with caramelized onions, cilantro mayo, and roasted turnips.

Krispy Kreme, ketchup on french fries (or on anything other than a cheeseburger), tagines or any other stew involving a protein item and vast quantities of sticky dried fruit, licorice of any sort -- a category that includes anise, fennel, and most particularly both cooked and raw celery -- black coffee, imitation-fruit-flavored anything, all sugared breakfast cereal, and those gigantic B-complex vitamins that stick in your throat and lodge there all day. Wait, I guess not many people like those. But then again, I love cilantro in LARGE COPIOUS RAW HANDFULS. And I've also had some tasty turkey burgers.

Well, you know, I argued loud and long in the original Sandra Lee thread for the validity of a concept like hers. I said that there was a whole world of people out there who were both intimidated by the kitchen and ultimately not really that sensitive to the difference between "edible" and "really good," and that books like Sandra Lee's spoke to their need to A) not do any scary cooking while B) earning "mommy points" for producing homemade dinners. Then I looked at the book. I haven't seen The Dinner Doctor, so, once again, I am talking, shall we say, out of my buttocks. And I can certainly envision a book's being useful if it offered instructions for making canned stew tastier (even if those instructions were not along the lines of "open can, dump contents in garbage pail, call out for pizza"). Seriously, chop an onion or a couple of shallots, brown in olive oil, deglaze with red wine, stir into the canned stew with a few sprigs of fresh thyme, let simmer 10 minutes...it's going to be better, maybe even a lot better, than the canned stew straight out of the can. And while I don't think this approach would actually save much time or labor, it would provide a decent set of training wheels for folks who are just starting to make their way around the kitchen. But I don't see ANY point to a recipe that requires somebody to essentially make stew and then add...canned stew. Nor, frankly, do I see any point to a recipe for Asian peanut sauce that starts with a bottle of red wine vinaigrette. Not only is the labor-saving utterly minimal, but you're A) boosting the price of your sauce, and B) introducing both crap preservatives and weird, non-Asian flavors into what is inherently a very simple recipe. In both cases, the recipes sound to me like excuses for using over-priced "convenience" products that don't, in fact, contribute much by way of convenience and add a lot to the price and the crap-factor. I would much rather see a beginning cook go with something like Marc Bittman's "Minimalist" books. The recipes are straightforward, they don't involve any complicated techniques or weird ingredients -- no caul fat or buttermilk powder or chayote -- and they work.

Nono, I HIGHLY recommend the strategy of reading the book at Barnes & Noble, and then putting it back on the shelf. Don't forget to dog-ear some of the pages and scribble notes in the margins. And while you're at it, why not page through some of their cooking magazines -- hell, maybe rip out a few appealing recipes? Have I mentioned that I own an independent bookstore?

Helenas, those gnocchi look good enough to....well, good enough to eat

Rachel, this is the worst cookbook I've ever HEARD of! <giggling hysterically> You're supposed to make stew and thicken it with CANNED STEW??? Why bother making the damn stuff? Why not just eat the stuff in the can? In all seriousness, why did you buy this book? And listen, you did really well coming up with the potato flakes to thicken the stew. That's thinking like a cook. Dinner tonight: Leftover roast turkey, salad, too many pistachio nuts

Eeeps, bottled vinaigrette in a recipe for Asian peanut sauce? Rachel, use that book for puppy training! Dinner: scrambled eggs with zucchini, onion, shredded sharp cheddar, chipotle salsa, and sour cream. Tasty stuff.

Steve, that cake is BREATHTAKINGLY beautiful. What a great job!

Hmmm. The ratio of liquid to cornstarch doesn't seem that far off, although 2 T strikes me as a LOT of cornstarch to thicken a stir-fry sauce. But then, I don't remember ever seeing a Chinese recipe built along the lines you suggest. Most of the recipes I'm familiar with involve marinating the protein (chicken, fish, whatever) in a very small amount of cornstarch with small amounts of liquids and flavorings -- small enough amounts so that, by the time you're ready to cook, the protein has essentially absorbed almost all the marinade. You cook up the protein and vegetables (along with any non-liquid flavorings, like chopped ginger or scallion or black beans), add a SMALL amount of liquid flavors -- soy sauce or oyster sauce and perhaps some booze (though that will typically have been in the marinade), and then, if you want to thicken the sauce, you make a cornstarch slurry with maybe 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to 1 tablespoon of water, and stir that into the pot. All that said, if you got horrible slimy lumps, the odds are very good that you A) had too much cornstarch, and B) didn't have it mixed well enough into the liquid; it really needs to be dissolved RIGHT before you dump it into the pot. My guess is that if you want to make Chinese food, you will be best off with a Chinese cookbook. They're really not particularly scary. Grace Young's "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen," in particular, is very user-friendly, and her recipes are top-notch.

Rachel -- by volume, how much cornstarch was there in the marinade (1 tablespoon? 1 teaspoon?) and how much liquid (1 cup?)?

Those look just insanely good. So to recap: Chop pork, put in pot with water to not-quite cover, simmer till water evaporates, fry in remaining fat? And that's it?

Dinner at Home -- the restaurant, that is, not my actual home -- and wasn't very hungry. Thus, a salad -- really nice, with a pow-pow-powerful mustard dressing and sunflower seeds -- and a small plate of house-made salami and local gruyere, plus a glass of the proprieters' new merlot.

There's a book coming out in the UK that might be right up your alley, Tutor. It's by Julian Barnes, and it's called "The Pedant in the Kitchen."

Get'em where you can, toots.

Shiratake noodles stir-fried with Napa cabbage, snow peas, scallions, and leftover roast duck. Raw cabbage tossed with a bit of Chinese black vinegar on the side.

It's so interesting you say that, Stigand -- I was thinking along the same lines. The Asian and Med flavors you (and others) see sweeping over British cuisine are all what I think of as "warm weather" or "front of the mouth" flavors. To my mind, they're all about exciting the palate -- perhaps because the appetite dulls in the heat, and bright flavors tempt us to eat more. Traditional English cuisine really isn't about brightness...maybe it isn't about flavor at all, so much as satiety. I tend to think of English food as classic comfort eats, reminding the body that it's happily alive despite the winds (emotional or actual) howling outside.

LOL! Sitting in here in Manhattan, I have at least a dozen cookbooks devoted to Brit food, and one on Scotts cooking (lots of game, berries, fish). I love English food, or at least what I think of as Engish food -- pretty much the Jane Grigson lexicon, from boiled bacon collar with pease pudding to cauliflower soup to chicken with bread sauce to raised pies to mackerel with gooseberries (which I had to be dared into trying, 20-odd years ago, and instantly loved) to mmmm smoked haddock topped with a poached egg to really good butchers' sausages (and JEEZ, roast pork with crackling and applesauce), and let's not even talk about the puddings. American desserts mostly leave me cold -- layer cakes and cupcakes and brownies just don't send me. But gooey puddings are my downfall. And bacon sandwiches -- ideally, spread with a little Coleman's mustard -- is my idea of junk=food bliss.

Cheesecake is a swell LC dessert. Easier might be just a bowl of berries (surprisingly low-carb, particularly raspberries) with a bowl of whipped cream, maybe sweetened with Splenda. If you've already done something creamy in the menu and don't want to go there for dessert, almond-flour "pound cake" is really good, and a little raspberry puree makes it very pretty and delish. Going creamy again, I've also used the almond cake as a base for both strawberry shortcake and -- even better -- shortcake made with lightly stewed rhubarb.

One of the cool things I've learned while low-carbing is how varried and terrific the world of vegetables is. Stuff I make a lot: Pureed cauliflower (as with everybody else -- but hey, it's delicious) The ultra-delicious tomato-and-zucchini "hash" from one of the Union Square Cafe cookbooks -- PM if you want the recipe Guacamole Creamed spinach -- a natch with steak. A little truffle oil puts it over the top. Perhaps my very favorite, basically a tweaked version of a Nigel Slater recipe, and about as rich as it gets: Creamed cabbage with bacon and balsamic vinegar. Chop some good bacon into little lardons, render out some of the fat, and use it to saute some cabbage (cut into ribbons) until wilted (keep the bacon in the pan while sauteing). Pour in a slug of cream, reduce it down, remove from the heat, and dribble in a bit of balsamic. It's pretty f*ing divine. Plum tomatoes, seeded and halved, with a dollop of goat cheese (mixed with fresh thyme) in the hollow; broil, and sprinkle with some very good EVOO. An old favorite, from an ancient Paula Peck recipe: eggplant cubes sauteed till lightly browned, and then lightly tossed with fresh pesto. Serious yum. Grilled sliced eggplant (maybe combined with some grilled sliced zucchini) is also great just dribbled with a good vinaigrette or -- to go Asian -- Thai-style peanut sauce. SALAD. I love salad. Low-carbers often rely on either blue-cheese dressing or ranch, but I'm a vinaigrette girl. Cucumber salad -- either Thai-style, with a little sugar-substitute (I use Whey Low, but Splenda is a lot easier to find and not terrible), some chiles, fish sauce, vinegar, and cilantro, or Eastern European-style, with dill, chives, vinegar, and sour cream. The sour-cream-and-dill treatment is also great with string beans; try throwing in some toasted walnuts just before serving. Coleslaw! It's basically completely low-carb, so long as you use sugar-substitute. I would also slice the cabbage myself -- red and white is pretty -- since the supermarket mixes typically include carrots, which are fairly high in carbs. Mayo, sour cream, cider vinegar, horseradish, brown mustard, black pepper, a little sugar-sub -- let it sit overnight and you're in business. In a similar vein, I have read a lot about -- but never made -- faux potato salad, using cauliflower. Word is, it's very good; PM if you want a recipe. At this time of year, you can't go wrong with sliced tomatoes with a nice dressing. To dress up a platter, I would add some roasted-and-peeled red peppers and some black olives. Actually, I would probably throw on some grilled sliced eggplant and zukes, as above. Edited to say, there are some fabulous things you can do with both mushrooms (stuffed and broiled? sauteed? roasted?) and spaghetti squash (with pretty much anything you would put on spaghetti; butter, black pepper, and a sprinkle of parm is pretty darn fabulous). More ideas if you want'em.

Scott, I have a couple of recipes for pizza crust that I haven't tried, but that were passed on to me by low-carb cooks whose tastebuds I generally trust. Do you want'em?