Plantes Vertes

Salad for my housemates a few days ago; lettuces, tomato, cucumber, olives, goat cheese and sun-dried tomato pesto.

Today, green beans stewed with tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice and a lot of olive oil. Also some olives.

I call that name inspired.

What's in the middle of the appetiser plate? It looks like a great choice.

What's the green in there Bruce? It looks beautiful.

mm84321, how do you make the twirly thing?

I was very, very impressed at your liquor stock for a second!

Darienne, sorry I wasn't clear; I meant one has to add protein from cow's milk. Neither coconut cream or milk will work because of the nutrient breakdown. Cow's milk yogurt contains bacteria that thicken the milk and turn it into yogurt in warm conditions, and these can be transferred to the next batch by adding a bit of the previous one. These are not present naturally in coconut milk so they have to be added independently. There will not be a healthy enough colony in coconut milk to start a new batch.

Hi Marj, As far as I know, coconut milk does not contain enough protein to set fully as dairy or soya milk will. You will have to add some milk or egg protein to achieve a thicker yogurt, but what you have will be safe to consume. ETA I think that commercial coconut yogurt is thickened with starches, so you could try that as well.

For those who have run out of ice, in order to avoid this direful fate I find it a good discipline to empty out the ice-cube trays into a Tupperware and refill the trays every time the ice in the Tupperware runs out. Of course you have to sacrifice some extra space in your freezer, but I've never regretted that call.

Run-through was today. We didn't do the meat, the rarebit or the sorbet but tried out the other dishes ahead of the party this weekend. Salad with goat cheese and pears poached in blood orange pale ale Risotto with lemon witbier Drunken beans with chestnut porter Root vegetables with honey, mustard and smoked urbock glaze Beeramisu! with chocolate stout This meal was fantastic! The beers were delicious and our tour-of-the-world menu was a success too. Really looking forward to the real thing. Thanks for all the advice!

Primanti's (WV, PA and FL) serve sandwiches with fries inside (chip butties for the UK contingent) that will feed a family. The biggest thing I had seen offered on a menu ever. This was the holiday when I discovered fried cheese, fried ice-cream and the concept of drive-thru; I was a teenager with an athlete's metabolism at the time so took full advantage.

You could try it with nasi lemak and sambal, or Carribean rice and peas and fried plantains, or make it into a pie with mashed sweet potato on top.

I wake up ready to eat my mattress so never actually make it to the cooking part of a cooked breakfast, on any day of the week. A weekend scramble is enough to earn respect in my book.

It doesn't look like my idea of breakfast, but it looks like what I'd like my idea of breakfast to look like.

Ah, white sauce! Country gravy sounds a lot more appetizing somehow.

We tried the Old Ironsides from Cocktail Virgin Slut. 2 oz Spiced Rum (Kraken) 1/2 oz Cherry Heering 1/2 oz Cynar I was not wild for it. It tasted like three different ingredients sitting next to each other but not talking.

Robirdstx, what is country gravy? I don't think we have it here.

Today my housemate and I discussed sauteeing and reducing sauces. He had never heard of the second one so we did an experiment tasting the sauce several times as it reduced and he was amazed. It's so gratifying to explain something and see the other person enjoying it so much. He made pasta with sauteed vegetables and a wine and cream sauce. He ate two servings and complained that he was super-full but didn't want to stop eating. ETA I am also learning a lot from cooking with my housemate. Although I don't make much of an effort to study cooking, I pick up new ideas from reading about food; now I've had to research a few things more thoroughly so that I don't dry up when I introduce him to a new method. I am also more and more grateful to my parents for teaching me how to cook. I notice there are many processes in cooking that are hard to explain satisfactorily but which one acquires easily through practice, like listening to the food while it cooks to see if it's at the right temperature. I never do that consciously but it's essential when you have something on the hob. I got those instincts when I was young because my parents allowed me in the kitchen with them.

They separate and look disgusting, but that doesn't mean you can't just shake them up and drink them. Edit: they seem to go off a lot quicker than juice, say. Probably have to consume within 24hrs or so. Edit 2: Some people cut the fruit up and keep it in the freezer so they can make a small smoothie without ending up with half bits of cut-up fresh fruit.

The Guardian newspaper has collected its ten best egg recipes: Arancini eggs Burmese duck egg curry Souffled egg and bacon tart Sabich sandwich Brunch hash Nicoise salad with tuna sauce Coffee caramel custards Overnight French toast Texan migas Pastéis de nata – Portuguese custard pies

Pickled eggs are a pub and chip-shop snack of waning popularity around here. You peel hard-boiled eggs and immerse them in a sterile container in 75-25 vinegar-water plus a bit of salt and flavourings like mustard seeds, minced onion or dill, cool and refrigerate for ~6 weeks before eating with a pint of bitter.

You could substitute margarine for butter (straight swap), almond flour for wheat flour, and/or artificial sweeteners for sugar. However, as those ingredients are very common it sounds unlikely that it could be one of those. If you are using non-organic or premixed ingredients it could be one of the additives, and you will need to find out what to avoid via medical advice.

You could try Bund Gobi - curried stir-fried cabbage. Recipe here.