Thanks for the Crepes

I actually thought it wasn't bad, although it did take me a bit to find the rhyme @Smithyalluded to: If I am wrong, Nancy, please correct me, but then I don't get it either.

They are pretty fore sure. But. You know what? That design is extremely top heavy. You mentioned drunks yourself, and I just have to say that I think, even it they didn't manage to break it, they might topple it quite a bit. It would take a slightest tap. If you persist in this design, perhaps you might consider widening out the foot of the wine glass shaped configuration into something that actually resembles the tried and true design of the age old wine glass? 🙂 Just a thought for your most respected consideration. Who, after all, wants to clean spilled food continually when it might better be avoided?

I do not recommend Wright's bacon. At one time, it may have been made the right "Wright" way. Now it is owned by Tyson brands, the massive abuser of chickens. I'm not impressed with the taste or texture of the bacon. It's expensive, and I believe I overpaid the one time I tried it. I would recommend Broadbent's hickory smoked bacon, but none of their other products. Okay, it seems insanely overpriced, but it was a gift, and it is actually quite good bacon. I cannot say whether it is worth your money, while still being the best bacon I've eaten since leaving my grandparents' farm. I can say it is much better than Wright's bacon, which no one should ever waste money on and no one should buy country ham or sausage from Broadbent's. They seem to only know how to make bacon, and they do that very well, if the prices are kind of out there to me.

I have eaten this weed in Louisiana because my elder relatives did. Now that I have more information about it, I do not eat it anymore. Although, what @kaybsays is absolutely correct, you must use the young leaves. I do not agree that it's nasty. The young leaves taste very much like spinach and we used to cook them with eggs and a little onion and quite enjoyed it. Having educated myself further, I feel lucky to have survived eating these weeds even if they tasted good at the time and we had very little money and the eggs were coming from Grandpa's chickens and the onions from his garden. It grows in my backyard, but it is off my table. I'm still here, but it seems a wonder, knowing all that I know now.

Yeah, I tried for several years to grow peas in Memphis. By the time the ground warms up, the ambient temp is too high. I'm sorry you aren't able to grow peas, and I would love to hear from anyone who can grow peas. What does it take? We all want to know!

I got them fresh ONCE at the Korean market near me that went out of business. They were pretty divine, however, they have ruined me for ever buying the canned ones again. You would not believe how lightly and perfectly sweet, to balance a savory dish, and just how wonderfully crisp the fresh ones are, if all you've had experience of are canned. I had to peel them myself, and it's a PITA, but worth the effort. The drawback is the fresh ones are quite perishable, and some of mine went to waste. I thought they would last longer in their tough armored shells.

Shelby, Please report back on the quality and texture of your frozen avocados. I have never tried to freeze them and I've never heard of anyone who did this. As far as I am aware, there aren't frozen avocado products beyond maybe guac with very questionable additives and, in my experience, low quality. If you succeed, it may be a major culinary breakthrough so, please do let us know how that goes.

Uhm, not quite sure how I managed to quote @Smithy, when I had no advice to offer on her fried avocado question, and instead had advice for @Shelbyon hard avocados. But thank you for the edit function where I can at least try to be a little more cognitively functional. Next time you're in the "big city", Shelby, and see the hard avocados, buy those. They will ripen after you take them home. We have avo's out the ying yang here and I always go after the greener ones, so I can use them when I want. You can slow the ripening down by putting them in the fridge or speed it up by placing them on a sunny windowsill. Hard avo's are not the enemy. They can actually be your friend if you can muster a little patience. The ones that are perfectly ripe suffer in shipping, and that is the reason why I go after the green ones when shopping. It's harder to bruise them with mistreatment, but unlike some fruits, and I believe the peach is one, the avo will continue to ripen even off the tree.

I'm also of the lover of crispy edges on baked pasta dishes camp. Lasagna, kugel, baked rigatoni or penne. Come on y'all, that is this best feature! I don't like a water bath for cheesecakes either, because I'm a fan of the caramelized flavor that can be achieved without them. However that is just me and my preferences, so you folks who want to put stuff in water baths just keep on doin' what you think is the best way, and if you like that best after trying the better way then more power to ya!

No! When I was working, I still cooked very actively. I always or very nearly always had a partner for whom I was cooking as well. We had a microwave every single place I've worked. I very often brought in leftovers and got negative feedback because the smell just was not fair to the rest because I did not bring enough for everyone. Okay, make your own great food, and leave me alone, please.

A sad day in American history. But now we have a different story, and we are all going to have to go to stashed pantyhose we never wear anymore or old T-shirt strips, which work just about as well to hold up garden vines. Good riddance! 🙂

I will weigh in again with good value. Some of our local restaurants really live up to this. The first one that springs to mind is Esmeralda Grill. Can you say three tacos with salsa and homemade warm chips where you can specify your taco fillings as you like for $4.99? I'm sorry, but this cannot be beat. And you don't have to deal with the Soup Nazi. The service is pleasant and accommodating. Now this deal is truly an outlier, but you can go to other restaurants here, where value is very high. If you go through to the 64th photo of the 73 on this linked site, it holds a photo of the lunch specials from Esmeralda Grill, which still holds true today. I ate there a couple scant weeks ago and had the taco special for $4.99. You can also go to many more where value is not at all on the table or anywhere in the experience of the restaurant. Can you tell I dislike snooty restaurants with skimpy portions? Good!

If you've got worn out cotton tee-shirts, they will work better than cut plastic strips which are 1. not stretchable and 2. not breathable. Just sayin' And Thank the Good Lord nobody has to wear those hateful garments anymore! I still have some in my drawers as well, but I could not be paid a lot of money to put them on again.

I had some Mahatma Yellow Rice for dinner the other day, and was thinking to myself how similar it looked to yours in the photo. It's from a packet too, and inexpensive. I need to say that my recently purchased 5 oz. packet no longer claims to contain any saffron, and the older ones I bought listed it as the very last ingredient by weight, so they could claim it was in there. The color comes from turmeric. It has lot's of flavor, and I like it though. I added a bit of Trader Joe's saffron to mine. I ate a portion and got two portions to freeze from the, I think, 99 cent 5 oz. packet. So It is a good and inexpensive product. Nothing wrong with convenience products when they don't contain creepy ingredients I can't pronounce, although I was taken a bit aback by the silicon dioxide listed as the last ingredient on the nutrition tab of my link. I have to say that I don't think we should be eating this non-food ingredient in any amount, and this may influence my decision to repurchase the product even though I like it.

Thank you for saying that. I am sorry, but you would not have found last night's dinner inspirational.It was only leftover chuck steak seared on a skillet rare, (which leaves it very tough, but rare). I sliced this leftover steak as thin as I could across the grain while it was cold from the fridge. I knew it was tough from the skillet where I tried to eat a little the first time; I will not go into details, but I barely made it through. It was nutrition. Vitamin B-12. Protein. I have another fairly thin chuck steak. About .61 lbs. I am gonna braise this one. Maybe I can eat it with more thoughts of joy and less thoughts of let's choke this down so we can get some protein and Vitamin B12.

Please don't be. There are many, many more single peeps who inspire me around here. I am still very sad that @huiray, who ran off in a huff and never participated here again has not come back after starting a thread about cooking for one person. I liked him. He was prickly, but he contributed a lot, and I miss him, A LOT. Please come back and talk here, please? There are many more inspirational peeps for cooking for only yourself. I would bring up @blue_dolphin, who consistently cooks only for herself in a manner that inspires all the rest of the members. You are not alone, and I'm not gonna stalk you or anything, I'm just giving you credit where credit is due.

That is what I used in Memphis. I had to wear pantyhose all the time for work and they are so fragile and tear up at the drop of a hat. BUT they do stretch like crazy and don't damage plants you tie up with them. I do have to love it when I see everyone from Congresswomen to Fox News female hosts not wearing these horrible pantyhose anymore. But yeah. Cut strips from worn out tee-shirts work nearly as well. I have used these too and they work very well.

I am very sad about the demise of your rosemary plant. I surely hope you start another one. You are one of my inspirations for single people keeping up their passion for cooking, eating and PRODUCING ingredients. It's important. It's hard, I know, and I have just about quit posting here because, frankly, most of my meals are OK, but just about survival. I am so inspired by you single guys and gals that still strive to produce enviable meals with a lot of creativity. It has always seemed so much more interesting to me to produce a meal that takes a lot of work that pleases me, but also pleases at least one other person. The pleasure seems to geometrically increase for me, so the effort is more justified. I've always found you an inspiration, and I hope that my cooking mojo may one day come back.

Okay DDF, I concede that your link is interesting, but what has it got to do with Miracle-Gro, which I have had good luck with and was unaware it had any sugar in it. Are you saying that it does? Don't get me wrong. I don't know anything about anything. I once spoke with a Vermont farmer who won the first prize for largest pumpkin at the state fair and he said he had injected the vines with milk. I have no earthly idea if he was telling the truth, but back in that day and time and place, people did tend to tell the truth much more than they do now.

I like the less well known Tia Maria coffee liquor because 1. It is overly sweet, but not so much as Kahlua, and 2. It was also quite a bit less expensive last time I bought it, which was over a decade ago. I think @Vanillalover1 may not understand that the liquor goes into the dessert dish instead of being drunk along with it. But yes, all liquors are way, way overly sweet, so need to be diluted and a good way to do that in tiramisu is with unsweetened espresso. Some use Marsala in tiramisu. It is surely not my preference. Overall I would say that @suzilightningis absolutely correct in that you need to use dry ladyfingers or dried out and toasted spongecake fingers because you will be asking them to absorb the coffee and liquor. It's important to balance the sweetness in any dish, including desserts, so make sure you go into making tiramisu with the knowledge that any liquor you use is going to be extremely sweet. It is, however, critical to making a tiramisu I like. Not sayin' it is authentic or Italian at all, but just that that is the way I like it.

That looks like muesnster. Does it taste like it and melt like it too!

Hoop cheese here is a mild to medium cheddar style that I like quite a bit. It usually comes in big red wax-covered wheels with the wax over cheesecloth. I love this cheese, but I don't think the eG crowd would find it adventurous. It seems to melt a little creamier than cheddar, but otherwise is very similar except it is not made with salt, so it spoils much quicker than cheddar. Here's a link to to more information. Here we can buy it in plastic-wrapped wedges in the meat case next to the ground chuck. It does melt great on a cheeseburger. Cottage cheese is not a substitute. Cheddar will work, but I wouldn't go sharp. Mild might work better. Edit: I just saw @lemniscate's post and realize that she/he is right. Colby longhorn is the closest thing most folks can get to hoop cheese. The teeny holes, the creamier melting, the lower salt than cheddar. That is the correct answer! So @ElsieD, If you are still looking to make some of these hoop cheese recipes from your book leminscate has the right answer, and you will probably be able to find Colby longhorn locally.

Yeah me too. I eat mostly cheddar or sometimes, when I'm feeling wild, pepper jack. I saw habanero jack at Harris Teeter once, but wasn't able to get back there before I broke my hip. I do like brie when warmed, but I like a mild brie. If it gets too old, it will put me off. There is nothing better than mild brie heated enough to become liquid that I can spread on a slice of baguette. I used to get mine at TJ's and haven't been able to get there in several years, so I miss that. I like queso fresco and cotija in some Mexican applications. And yes, I am a Philistine who appreciates good American cheese from the deli in a queso dip with a bit of onion, tomato, jalapeno, and cilantro in a white cheese dip with tortilla chips. This is thinned with a little milk if you have it or water if you don't. Sometimes the juiciest tomatoes will provide all the liquid you need. Oh, and of course parmesan. That is always in my kitchen. Mozzarella for pizza or over the top of a baked pasta dish, but you know what, provolone, (a young one for my taste) or muenster also work very well for these applications. I do love cheese and am always willing to expand my horizons, but I find myself preferring much less stinky cheeses than some do.

Tiramisu is my favorite Italian dessert, and I even found lady fingers at, of all places, a Mediterranean grocer recently, but not the mascarpone. I can even get cannolis here filled to order, but don't enjoy them as much as a well made tiramisu. @Franciis a member and an Italian national lady who might be able to enlighten you on more unknown to my American culture desserts. She is the queen of Italian desserts on this site. She produced and sold them in NYC, but has since moved to Miami, or somewhere in Florida, I believe. Still gotta say my vote is for well made tiramisu. This, of course, requires liquor and my preference is for Tia Maria.

Here is the recipe Betty Crocker published on the web for Classic Chicken Cacciatore. It is much the same as my old battered cookbook from the 1970's. Just a word of caution. I once gave this recipe to an ex-boyfriend who loved this dish when I made it for him. He called me back to say it sucked, and where had it gone wrong? He detailed what he did, and he'd skipped flouring the chicken pieces before frying. You can't do that! The browned, caramelized flour thickens the tomato sauce into something that makes me want to make it right now! It makes a gravy of sorts with the chicken fat, vegatable juices and tomatoes that is so, so good over pasta. I make this amendment to the recipe in that I only add the green bell peppers in sliced rings toward the end of cooking to steam on top so they come out crisp tender because I can and that's the way I like it. I'm adding the ingredients for this dish to my grocery order.