Thanks for the Crepes

Hey weinoo, Your photo looks like the most perfect shirred egg I've ever seen. The yolk looks ready to ooze, the white seems set, but not overcooked. I've never had good results in attempting to bake eggs. Could you share your cooking method please? It doesn't looked cooked in situ. The white would have seeped down into the supporting bed of spinach and bacon. I'd hazard a guess it must've been covered in the oven. Please, do tell.

I get good results from everything with 2 percent milk, including bechamel. We don't really even notice it compared to whole 4 percent full-fat milk. When I try to drop below that, I'm never satisfied. I don't keep cream, ever. Our household can't afford the calories, saturated fat and cholesterol. I make scalloped potatoes, spinach/artichoke dip and alfredo sauce that are very lovely and decadent to us with 2 percent milk, and butter, thickened with flour. This is all with 2 percent milk, but when I try to drop below that it just doesn't give acceptable results in anything. There is, in my personal experience, a limit to austerity in this particular area. However, if you and your family find lower fat milk acceptable to drink, for cereal, for baking, etc., then you may want to stick with that and just buy the 2 percent for those applications that you find actually require it.

Hey Kim, I love homemade Rice Krispies treats, but never tried them with peanut butter. The husband would appreciate them probably more than I would. I just don't like the frantic scramble to get the mixing and spreading done before the marshmallow mixture sets up and becomes unworkable. It's a matter of seconds. I've always made it in time (barely), but I prefer cooking without adrenaline. I'd never make it in a professional kitchen.

Hey Simple TruthNutrition, I like the website NutritionData which is apparently a subsidiary of Self magazine. It provides more information on nutrients on a wider variety of foods than the USDA site. I don't eat much meat, so I really worry about my B12 and protein intake. They (NutritionData) have a nutrient search tool that allowed me to determine that canned clams and sardines are excellent sources of B12 that can potentially make up for not eating much meat. These ingredients are cheap and accessible. Very good information to have. I don't own a restaurant, but I'm a consumer of their services. Restaurant owners are only interested in any service you might provide because the government is interested in the nutritional value of restaurant offerings. The government is only interested in providing this info because it's in the best interest of their constituents which include restaurant consumers. I agree with pbear, that if folks are interested, they can always Google. It's hard to compete with that.

I like a recipe from Lydia B. for sauteed radishes with their greens. The green are actually more nutritious than the root part. http://www.lidiasitaly.com/recipes/detail/781 It calls for for only a few ingredients: about 16 cleaned radishes with their greens 2 T. olive oil 4 garlic cloves smashed 1/4 c. chicken stock or water salt black pepper You heat the olive oil in a skillet, toss in and toast the garlic for about two minutes, add the radishes and chicken stock, and cover the pan. Cook about 4 minutes, then remove cover to evaporate liquid. Season to taste. I never waste beet greens either. I like them better than chard, and I love chard.

That looks very good, huiray. I love the look of baby bok choy in the presentation and also the texture, but I find that what's available to me can be sandy/gritty if I don't disassemble it leaf by leaf and wash it separately. I've tried soaking in a sink full of water, turning the heads upside down in the basin and swishing them up and down, and then spreading the leaves still attached to the head under running water and rubbing them with my fingers as far down as possible without damaging their integrity, but nothing seems to work. I find the same with leeks. I'm never satisfied until I wash all the separated leaves. Do you have a method you're willing to share with us to clean whole bok choy effectively? I would really appreciate your input.

Welcome to eGullet, danielphilippe! Most of us are here to learn from each other too. This is the very best place (IMO) to further your culinary knowledge and connect with others who want to do the same.

Hey Smithy, I love dates, but not on burgers, or anything else sweeter than raw or caramelized onion in the mix. That definitely includes Miracle Whip. Duke's mayo for me. No sugar/corn syrup and quite tart. Thanks for sharing all of this, but especially the Ansel Adams worthy photo of the sunset on the lake at the end of post 147. Any idea what the waterfowl are? A couple look as graceful as swans. SUCH a BEAUTIFUL capture of a moment in time!

Welcome to eG, jameswo! I'm always excited to see a new member from another country, especially my ancestors' homeland. I'm sure you'll find, as I have, that this site will expand your culinary horizons beyond your wildest dreams. There is SO MUCH good stuff here; anything you're interested in you can find in depth. Please share with us the food that is normal and everyday to you, but exotic to us over the pond. ETA: comma to semicolon (sorry, but I just had to)

My 1976 copy of Betty Crocker's recipe dictates toast, mayo, lettuce and chicken, more toast, lettuce, tomato and bacon topped with a final slice of toast. They go on to suggest additions for hearty appetites of cheese, ham, salami and green pepper rings. The 1997 edition of Joy suggests that this sandwich may have originated in the Saratoga Club, which was a men's gambling club in Saratoga Springs, NY in the late 19th century. Their version calls for toast, mayo, chicken or turkey, more toast, mayo, lettuce, tomato, bacon, thinly sliced cucumber , and more toast with mayo. They also suggest a bunch of ad libs: grilled fish; chicken, tuna or egg salad; sliced hard-boiled egg; roast beef; crab or lobster salad; watercress; arugula; spinach; roasted red peppers; grilled veggies or cooked asparagus. No one seems to agree on exactly who invented it, but the Saratoga Club comes up a lot. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Sandwiches/ClubSandwich.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2909723/Holy-cow-s-lot-mouths-feed-Toystory-bull-sired-500-000-offspring-dies-making-owners-tens-millions-dollars.html This guy is responsible for so much dairy production worldwide. I'm very interested in this topic, yet I've never heard of him before. Anyone here ever heard of Toystory before? I'm aware that Holsteins produce inferior milk to Jerseys and others. Holsteins are known for volume output only. Holsteins are the workhorses of the dairy industry. Still this is very interesting to me. When I was a child in Vermont, we sometimes bought Holstein male calves and raised them for meat. They weren't wanted by the dairy farms they came from. Once we got a black angus male calf, or at least as presenting as so. He may? have been a cross, but I'm here to say, he was SOOO much smarter than the Holsteins. You have to wrestle them up to paint their navels with disinfectant. Clean after them. Feed them. At least we got to send them off to a commercial slaughter house. I'd left home before Blackie (the black angus maybe blend) got slaughtered. If I was in charge he'd be a pet.

I made sopaipillas recently from this recipe: http://userealbutter.com/2013/01/13/sopaipilla-recipe/ No pictures, but she has great step-by-step ones with her recipe, and mine came out just like hers by following the recipe exactly. I sprinkled with powdered sugar instead of the honey though. We both thought they were really good.

I do have and use a dishwasher although I DESPISE the one I currently have. It's a Fridgidaire with the electronic touch panel controls. Power outage, the damned thing resets to zero. It is so green that it has no hope of drying the dishes on its 20 minute enforced dry cycle. With my mechanical GE one, you could spin the dial back to the dry cycle after the first one was insufficient. Not with the "smart" machine. So I must monitor it, and intervene, when it switches to dry cycle, which means I must listen to its offensive noise for two hours (on lite wash) and catch it when the dry cycle light turns on. Then I have to run over there and vigorously shake all the water off the dishes, especially anything plastic. If I take too long to do this task the cursed machine resets itself back to oblivion just like a power outage. Then I take a sponge and clean up all the water on the upper sprayer arm, which allows them to use a smaller and cheaper motor, but severely limits the size and quantity of dishes that can be loaded. I sponge off the water from the door and vent and reload any dishes I've had to unload to shake water off or drain. Then close it back up and it usually, manages to dry the stuff. The dishes are scalding hot during these operations especially, if I've vegged and let it go a few minutes into the dry cycle. I have tried running it after I go to bed and retrieving the dishes the next day. They are still wet, and drying them negates any sterilization benefits. I cannot convey how much I abhor this machine. I have named it POSTI: Piece of Shit to Infinity. (Excuse me, I have to go tend POSTI.) But I keep using the infernal thing because it sterilizes the dishes and removes every last trace of fat. And don't get me started on low flow taps, showers and toilets. It takes 45 seconds to fill my cats small water bowl in the bathroom when I have food in the kitchen and don't want to risk dirty water splashing. About 5 seconds in the kitchen, but I see that as their next target. I have long hair, and it just takes a lot more of my time in the shower to wash it. I'm not going to leave products in it just because the government cut down the throughput. Every time I need to replace a plumbing fixture, I dread it. I even buy them in anticipation, so I won't be subject to further restrictions down the road. I'm a really green person, but enough can be enough!

You are all very inspiring with your beautiful and creative breakfasts. We had breakfast food for dinner tonight: sausage and egg biscuits with buttered grits and sliced bosc pear, so ripe and so good. Kim Shook, I agree that Willie's avatar does vaguely evoke Dave Hatfield's Rupert, because they're both shots of dogs in a field. Dave's shot of Rupert was singular though for his capture of Rupert's ears in a gravity defying fully extended position. Dave discussed it somewhere, and said he got the shot while Rupert was running though a field with the ears rising and falling, and just caught them on their full rise. Dave was a valued member who contributed a lot to eGullet, and I miss him too. He did three food blogs, over the years, the last of which was not too much previous to his death. He was still enjoying food and life pretty much up to the end, and for that I'm grateful. You can check out his food blogs about eating in the French countryside, or just take a quick peek at his Rupert avatar here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/104472-egfoodblog-dave-hatfield/ http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143664-eg-foodblog-dave-hatfield-la-france-profonde/ http://forums.egullet.org/topic/145926-eg-foodblog-dave-hatfield-a-food-adventure/ ETA: cuz I cain't spel

Hey Franci, Nice looking dinner! Next time you all have the spiralized salads, I'd love to see a picture. I'm trying to imagine it. I guess I'm still part kid at heart.

I used to have a "work buddy" that went out to lunch hours with me to restaurants. What a prima dona! She was always so demanding of the servers, that anyone else with her couldn't get even anything close to marginal service, and I always had to cover her tip. We went to many of the same restaurants on a regular basis. Having worked front of house years ago, it was obvious to me that at some places where management allowed it, as soon as we entered, the waitstaff was vigorously foisting off the bad table on the least senior server. I'm glad that association has ended. It's was so embarrassing, and always ruins the experience for everyone involved.

I had my PC upstairs at a desk for years, but now it's down here in the kitchen/dining room. Andiesenjie used the term "kitchen/family room", and although I never thought of it that way, it applies to my situation, because we have a wide screen TV and both our computers in here. I just look up recipes on my computer, screen on the dining room table, and take about six steps from the stove or five from the sink when I need to refer to it. I've learned over the years, though, that computers eventually die. I always copy cherished recipes into the real world so they don't perish with the machine. Some may rely on thumb drives or some other backup. I spent years making my living by, among other things, backing up other people's data, and storing those backups at my home offsite. I'm kind of burnt out with that though. Today, some brand new thumb drives, and other media come preloaded with viruses so I leave them alone. They are the quickest way IMO to introduce malware.

Cary has a very good recycling program, although it makes me a little mad that it ended behind-the-house garbage collection with no benefit to me and lots to them. It threw much of the municipality's work on the residents for no compensation. It works for them because everyone wants their garbage collected, so it's very easy to enforce the free labor. My water/garbage bill is $100 per month. That said, I used to have many bags of trash destined for the landfill. Now, there's only one or two a week. The recycle cart's always full to the brim every two weeks. It's been very profitable for them. I was surprised after reading several years ago that the Italian mafia was killing one another over plastic bottle recycling. I hadn't realized there was that much money in it. We even have a law that it's illegal to "steal" anything from recycling bins to curtail those individuals who were trying to make a profit for themselves from this practice, but it's still okay for the police to go through recycling or trash looking for something incriminating without a warrant because it's been discarded. I guess the "legit" mafia makes the legislation to benefit themselves. Logic be damned. So I have a few problems with these developments, but overall, I really like them. Practically no food gets wasted in this household. We can't afford to. If for any reason, leftovers do not get eaten in a timely fashion, which is seldom, they get offered to our raccoons. I discovered years ago after years of trying to beat the critters who'd raid my trash cans and break into the plastic bags and strew all the trash over the yard in search of the tasty chicken bones they smelled, that it was just easier to join them. Now bones, and anything else I think they'll eat gets offered after dinner in a designated place at the edge of the woods. They especially love sweet potato or butternut squash skins. Maybe they don't have access to a lot of vitamin A? I even been known to cook pasta or pop corn that I've inadvertently let go past its expiration date for them instead of throw it out. I can't usually afford a lot of organic stuff either, but I'm buying more chicken that way because I'm having a very hard time choking down the agribusiness offerings lately. Sometimes I find produce that's organic and very affordable. Carrots seem to be very reasonable in that class lately. Maybe they're easy to grow that way. I never remember any bug problems when I grew them. Our recycling program doesn't take some stuff. A major one is plastic grocery bags. Regular paper bags just don't get it with the long haul from the driveway up the sidewalk into the house. It's 100', and I may have to make a dozen or more trips sometimes. I take the bags back to the local Food Lion that accepts them for recycling. I also use reusable shopping bags, including an insulated one from Trader Joe's, and I reuse their paper bags, which because they have handles, if double bagged are every bit as utile as plastic shopping bags. When the paper bags are worn out, Food Lion offers recycling for them too. I buy cheap paper towels from the dollar store for nasty jobs where they'll go straight into the trash. I buy better paper towels for the kitchen, and reuse them. If I'm just, for example, drying off produce I just washed, I'll hang them to dry over my utensil bucket. They may last up to a week, until I have something greasy or nasty I have to wipe up right away and don't have time to run to the pantry for the cheap ones. All my cookware is bought to be very long-lasting with the exception of nonstick. If I found an acceptable substitute that worked as well, I'd be open to getting rid of that too, although I've had my current nonstick aluminum pans for twenty years because I only use them for necessary tasks. Some are beginning to ask for replacement, though. I manage my fresh produce very carefully, taking advantage of the many tips I've found on eGullet. For instance, I didn't know fresh ginger could be successfully frozen and grated from that state. It works great and has allowed me to utilize many a rhizome that would have otherwise gone to waste. I aim for zero waste, and often achieve it, thanks to eG. I do keep disposable dinnerware, but only for power outages. We're in a hurricane zone, and are subject to NASTY ice storms in winter. Heating water for dishwashing without power is very difficult. Usually I do that in the skillet I cooked in and just throw out the serving ware. I send sturdy, disposable, full sized eating utensils with my husbands lunches sometimes, but expect him to return them so I can run through the dishwasher and send them out again. This doesn't always happen, and that's the reason I don't send regular silverware. That's all I can think of in this area, but any tips anyone comes up with in this area are most welcome to me.

I reduce the sugar in cookie, cake, pie, cornbread, muffin, etc. recipes all the time, and don't alter anything else. I haven't had an unacceptable or even undesirable result yet. (Fingers crossed) Most, as written, are just too sweet and cloying to my matured palate.

Hey Shelby, Your goose looks really great, but it seems to be smaller than the only wild one I've ever cooked. Was it a Canadian? My ex was called to his uncle's rural home in Collierville, Tennessee to take out the large male that had settled on their pond. Ex was the best shot in the family. He got it cleanly with one shot in the neck from a .22 rifle. We used to go out there and try to pick quarters from fence posts at 100 yards. The ex always won, but I came in second. That goose was very aggressive, and would fly and actually attack people getting out of their vehicles just trying to go into their home. If he'd been more peaceable, he would've lived a much longer life. No one bore him any malice, but he couldn't be convinced to reciprocate. No one else wanted it, so we took it home, and I slow smoked it on the Brinkmann for many hours. After the slow cook over charcoal with a water pan for steam, it came out fairly tender, but needed to be sliced thin. Several of those who tried it thought it was too gamy, but I liked it a lot. Maybe it was gamy and so large because it was an older MEAN male? Just wondering what kind of geese you have in Kansas, and how they taste. If it was smaller than mine and/or female, I'd bet it wasn't as gamy and even tastier.

I had a boyfriend/fiance (we never married, thankfully) who owned the amber set of Visions cookware. We actually used them on the stovetop of our electric range with no problems. I loved being able to see what was going on inside the pots. I was really skeptical at first, but he assured me it'd be okay, and it was. This was before even tempered glass lids for stainless cookware were widely available. I really like those too. Don't miss the ex, but I sure miss the Visions cookware. I wish they were still available in that quality. As the daughter of an engineer, I find it amazing that you can actually put a transparent GLASS pot on an electric coil and not have a disaster. I consider the old Visions line to be a major engineering feat, and I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen this with my own eyes. I remember having a white ceramic looking coffee percolator in the 70's with the iconic trio of blue flowers. It was used on a gas stove. I can't remember the instructions or using it on an electric stove, but it always worked great. I still have a Corning Ware pie plate with the white ceramic, blue flower design. I got that in 1986 at a "yard" (actually the top floor of the Masonic Lodge in Cary) type sale the Eastern Stars were having when I worked there. It still looks new, although I use it all the time. The loss of American made Corning Ware and Pyrex is a great loss to anyone who cooks. I really feel sorry for the young cooks coming along now.

Shel_B, There is much evidence that the new Pyrex and Corning Ware are not what they used to be. With the vintage, I can put a refrigerated dish into a preheated oven to cook, and do it often successfully (for thirty years). I've never had reason to put them in a cold oven. I also have frozen stuff in them, and then thaw in the fridge before baking in a preheated oven. Even with the older stuff, the instructions say to avoid temperature shock. I hate to admit that I forgot that one time and ran cool water into a hot dish in the sink and it shattered, but didn't shoot shards of glass all over the kitchen and into my face like the new ones will do. The reason the instructions call for a preheated oven is to minimize the manufacturer's and distributor's exposure to liability and secondarily to reduce your risk of injury. The striations on your vessel indicate manufacturing defects, I think. Good luck suing Chinese manufacturers. They sent boatloads of toxic Sheetrock to us that had to be removed and replaced at great cost, and I've yet to see any report of compensation. Go back on the American distributor; that's your only recourse. Or just throw it away, if you hate returning stuff, or use it for something else, like you said. Google exploding Pyrex or Corning Ware and you'll find many examples, including several on this site, and one started by you, entitled "Glass Pie Plates" in September 2 years ago. It might have been your thread that led me to research it more widely, but I can't remember more specifically now. Anyway, I remember a woman reporting a new Corning Ware casserole exploding on her when she opened her oven to check on it. She was wounded by the scalding glass shrapnel in the legs mostly. Apparently the explosion was from the cooler air from outside the oven contacting her casserole. The containment of the oven's roof limited it. I surely wouldn't want that to happen to anyone with a wall oven. That would be beyond horrible. Return your piece, or just trash it. It's not worth an injury, perhaps a very severe one. I'm lucky enough to own many Pyrex and Corning Ware pieces when they were made in USA that are marked so. I adore and rely on them. But after reading about the new stuff that's available I'm not buying anything more unless it's vintage.

Shalmanese, Thank you for posting the link to this great article. The best part was the transportation in my mind to a field in east Texas in the early 70's where we picked crowder peas, then took them home, shelled, cooked and ate them. Sublime.

If you don't care for rice with Hoppin' John, there are many versions of Texas Caviar that call for hominy instead of rice, and some of them are even called "Hoppin' John", although I don't think that's accurate. I think Hoppin' John or Texas Caviar is a very appropriate New Year's dish, at least in the South. Google it, or if anyone's interested, or I have an old recipe from an Eastern Star cookbook. PM me if you'd like it. This cookbook is interesting because it's written by a bunch of very old white southern ladies in the 80's, many of whom have died by now. It was produced as a fundraiser to support their very expensive habit of driving all over NC to attend and sometimes lead the Eastern Star meetings. The great thing I've found about this cookbook is, that there's a preponderance of very reliable recipes due to their experience. The bulk of them tend to be very easy, too, and I'd attribute that to their aching old bones. I bought the cookbook when I worked there, constantly hearing "she isn't EVEN an Eastern Star." Most came to like me anyway in the eight years I was their SysOp. Everyone knows the nutritional benefits of combining rice with legumes to make a complete protein, Anyone got any nutrition info for legumes (specifically black-eye peas) with hominy? I went to NutrionData, which is usually really reliable, but they had no info on hominy.