Thanks for the Crepes

I did exactly that, but was afraid I would get kicked out of eGullet if I admitted it! Back in March of 2016 I did use half of the duck broth I had made from a roasted duck for a very good ramen soup, and had used a bit of the duck fat here and there. Along with the ancient Trader Joe's butter puff pastry, there was a pint of aged duck broth and nearly a pint of duck fat I have been saving for a special occasion that also took a ride to the town landfill.

I have this affliction too, but not only with hard to obtain ingredients. It's ridicules when I examine it in bright light, but I have been this way a long time, and probably won't change much at this point. The other day, I had two cans of La Costena refried beans and wanted some refried pintos with my tacos. The problem was that one of the two cans was refried black beans. I resolved not to break open the can of pintos, even though it provides me three servings, two of which would be waiting in the freezer, until I obtained another can of the refried pintos. Even with these everyday staples, which are available even at Dollar General, for Pete's sake, I will not use the last can or package of something from the pantry. I was this way even when it was beyond easy to hop in my car and go to the stores, so I can't blame it on having to walk after it. It defies logic from any angle at all. I can't tell you how many packages or truly difficult to get foodstuffs I have hoarded until they are no longer edible. At least I recognize when this happens ... usually. I recently threw out one unopened and two partial packages of Trader Joe's frozen puff pastry from the time when it was all butter. Many of us know how long ago that was.

@Alex, This is obviously a bell to Carolina Reaper pepper hotness scale, so it belongs in Food Funnies.

Very nice Greek themed meal, Dejah. Looks like a perfect cook on the lamb for me. I agree with the salesman. I've had the manual defrost and they keep stuff preserved in much better condition for longer than the frost free do. I'd have made the same choice in your place.

This is great for laughs, but I just looked up the Hawaiian cheese pie and Pedro's special to see what they were, and both sound like something I would like to eat. I never heard of making a cooked sweetened flaked coconut and butter crust and pre-baking it, but it sounds pretty good to me. Then they fill it with cream cheese, pineapple and other stuff and chill. The Pedro's is a casserole with some Mexicanish ingredients and I don't see what could go wrong with that one either. I also still cook recipes from my old Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens and Joy of Cooking. Sure, some of the old ideas about food and recipes are funny in retrospect, but that's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

@lindag, That's the worst contractor story I've heard, and the contractor took off with the money my Dad paid him to buy all the plumbing fixtures for the home we were building and skipped town. This was in rural Vermont, where everyone knows everyone else and is just unheard of behavior. This guy just disappeared, never to show his face around there again. It was a fairly large house for six with three bathrooms and on demand hot water from the oil furnace, but also used to heat the home, pumped around the house in baseboard copper pipes. It also had a central vacuum system, but I think that was probably plastic pipe. Still a lot of money though. Too much temptation, I guess. Police couldn't find him either. The guy had lived in the area for years, and supposedly did good work. Guess he got a wild hair at an unlucky time for us. He left his wife and kids behind too. The house eventually got built, though, and I did a lot or work on it myself, as the oldest child. Good luck with your kitchen remodel @weinoo! Yours can't possibly be as bad as these two stories from me and lindag. Please remember that when you're fixin' to go postal on your contractor.

Okay, with all this new input, I am definitely getting the okra tomorrow! They'll still be good if Irma tears us a new one and I have no power. Nothing on the list that requires refrigeration. The okra chips at Harris Teeter still have the stems attached. (No fringes, though). @caroled, These whole veggie chips I'm getting are not fried, burnt or even brown. The green beans and okra are still very green. I'm guessing dehydrated or freeze dried. When frying, I like veggies crisp, but not burned. There is no way you could get the texture of these veggie chips from frying. I love grilled, roasted and fried veggies, but for a lazy, no-cook, albeit expensive snack, these things are the bomb. Edit: I accidentally "mentioned @chefmd instead of caroled above in reference to the fried okra perspective on these okra snacks. I apologize chefmd. You were probably thinking, "What is this crazy woman talking about?" I have obtained and tried the okra chips, and like others said above, these are the scrumptious, and my favorite out of the green bean and Snapea competitors. The green beans do have a sweet note when processed this way that is almost off-putting. None of that sweetness comes through on the okra ones, and they do taste quite like crispy okra. I like these the best. The green bean snacks were sold out at Harris Teeter when I picked up the okra ones, so they appear to be not as popular, which leaves more for me. I hope they restock these things, because, as y'all said above, they are seriously good.

Jo, I have gotten good service out of my mechanical oven thermometer for at least 15 years. It has a little hook at the top for hanging or a little metal foot on the bottom where it will stand on a rack. They seem to run between $5 and $10 now. Just saying it would be cheaper and probably last longer than a digital. Signed, Luddite

I can totally relate! I turned my anger over stupid politics into something healthy for me. I hope you can do so too. Start out slowly. Anger can sure be a powerful motivator. Absolutely nothing else would have made me start walking two miles one way unloaded and then two miles back heavily loaded with all I am able to carry, which turns out to be only twenty or twenty-five pounds or so, for that distance, so far. It's been a positive outcome, though. The heck with the craziness. I'll ignore it and work around it, as usual. Also, I am with Anna N. The independent freedom of being able to select your own supplies can't be beat. I love getting myself to the stores, perusing stuff on sale, and wandering the aisles with no one looking over my shoulder or holding me to their schedule. It is just absolutely priceless. Still though, if it were possible, when it rains for five days in a row or we are under heat advisory for same, the delivery service looks quite tempting. I can walk in the cold coming up this winter, although I don't like it. We are looking at fall weather, with cooler days and lower humidity that will make packing groceries very tolerable. I have to be very cognizant of the weather these days so I don't get caught short. I'm coming up on the season where this will be much easier and all I need to look out for is rain. No human can walk four miles in a heat advisory with 80+% humidity. Not if they want to live, anyway. Even anger will carry you just so far.

I'm sorry, but if you've said upthread whether the range is gas or electric, I can't seem to find it. If it is gas and setting off the CO detector that is more concerning, of course. If it's electric, like mine, that is another story. Could it just be dirty? I despise cleaning an oven on my knees breathing bad fumes in rubber gloves. The last time mine was cleaned was probably more than 20 years ago when I was paying a German lady who came over here for a death row inmate she had been writing to. She had a photo that she like to show everyone of the inmate, Bobby Lee Harris, behind bars with a teddy bear. She loved pizza and used to make the reporters who wanted to interview her take her here in return for talking to them. This was when my brother was still a lawyer and that is how I met her. She was wondering how she could make a living as an illegal immigrant, and I was using a maid service (very expensive). I suggested that she could easily make a living cleaning homes and she could start with mine. Maid service is only a nice fantasy now. It didn't work out with Daggi long term as she did not have a car, so I had to pick her up and take her home, which was bad enough. It turned into me taking her to the post office, the grocery store, and even Walmart. One time I picked her up and asked her to clean the ceiling fans, but she refused because she had just taken a shower. Who takes a shower before they clean?! She broke some stuff too, and never offered to pay for it. I'll never be a good boss because I just can't be mean enough. They say most executives profile as psychopaths on tests. The best defense to a dirty oven I have found is to cover the lower rack mostly, but not all the way, because it will cause problems with circulation and the thermostat, in aluminum foil sheets. The sides still get spattered, but that will polymerize and not be that bad and you can change out the foil sheets when the detector protests. The bottom of my oven is still virtually spotless, despite the lack of cleaning. My electric oven will set off the smoke/CO detector every single time I broil meat in it. I think the damned detector is a vegetarian.

Yes, hilarious! Not helpful at all though. It is sad that this has become the norm, when I have owners manuals for stuff like my American made CrockPot from the '80's that still serves me very well. The little manual not only gives very helpful instructions, but recipes that turn out well. Don't mind me, though, I'm just a pesky Luddite that actually expects things to work well, last and have helpful instructions to operate them, especially as it seems to me things are getting more and more unnecessarily complicated as we march boldly into our futures. I need to get with the program, but my good sense seems to always get in the way.

Yes, @CantCookStillTry, I especially loved the π (pi) symbol on your pie in the foreground of your image enough to look up how to type it, which is something I never do for diacritical marks, copyright symbol and and so on. Welcome to eG! It can take some time to find your footing here. It certainly did for me, because I have a terrible time thinking or writing linearly and seem to drift off topic. It caused me some consternation. It is worth it, because this is the best site I know to share culinary knowledge and ask for help with something in that area you are trying to figure out or perfect.

Lovely, shiny crumb on that bread! I can certainly see how it could overshadow the fillings. Thanks for taking us along on your holiday to Napa Valley. I have found it most enjoyable.

That sounds really, really good! I was unfamiliar with the Hasty Bake grill brand. They seemed expensive, so I looked them up. Probably not that expensive for what you get, though. I am still using a stainless grill grate from almost 30 years ago I have rigged up in a Charbroil gas grill that I degassed and converted to charcoal. Those stupid Charbroil ceramic coated grills don't last long at all, and all the parts, while replaceable, are essentially junk. Yes, the Hasty Bake certainly looks like it's worth the money with so much of the components stainless. I have a question, though. How does Adam Meyer deal with the carbon monoxide? Are these Hasty Bakes outside?

This made me laugh out loud, and I can just imagine you doing just that and being successful in your queries. I wouldn't dream of it unless I had a wee bit too much to drink.

I was at Harris Teeter again today and picked up the tub of Green Bean Chips. I was wrong about them being Harris Teeter branded and about the size of the tub. It tapers radically at the bottom, is shorter and slightly smaller in diameter than the tubs of cookies at T.J.'s. So it's not as good a bargain as I initially thought for only 5.25 oz./149g at $5.99. The brand is Creative Snacks Co., which gives an address only of Greensboro, NC. The good news is that these are definitely whole beans with only canola oil, dextrin and salt added. They are crunchy, salty and have texture, but are not hard like the ones I got from the Asian store. They also have whole okra pods given this same dehydration or freeze dry treatment, which are on my radar for next time. Ha! You are right, I think! I tried some more today in better light than my computer monitor, and it seems they are indeed much more processed than I thought and cleverly extruded. I'm not the only one they fooled though. "The green bean/snap pea (snapea) snacks caught my eye since they are recognizable vegetables in snack form." Here's a link to reviews of Snapeas and T.J.'s brand of the green bean snacks where the quote comes from. The Snapeas are made from 70% peas, though. I would buy both of these products again, although they are not as healthy as they first appear. I like 'em, though.

I tried to find out, but they make you sign up for an Amazon account. I saw nothing about not shipping to NC before I got that far. I kind of doubt it, though, since you can buy liquor NOWHERE else is this state except their ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission) stores. These are all closed on Sundays and range from basic but reasonable here in Cary, to one in Durham that you aren't allowed to even enter and the clerk delivers your selections from behind bullet-proof glass after receiving payment. As I recall there wasn't even an awning or portico over the window for bad weather. So customer friendliness is not exactly their first priority. I remember liquor stores in Tennessee that were privately owned and had soothing music, plush carpets, nice decor, helpful curators and quick chiller machines for wines, but they did not have a captive customer base. There's not a chance in a million this state will be getting involved with alcohol delivery service. On the plus side you can buy wine and beer through private retailers and all grocery stores carry it. (Just researched and we still have some dry counties, although municipalities have the power to allow or disallow alcohol within counties, and that overrides the county's designation, but only within city limits.) So you see, alcohol is complicated in this state. When I first moved here, even finding liquor was a totally word of mouth thing. ABC store? What's that, kids' educational toys? The state legislature even recently passed a law where municipalities or counties can allow restaurants to serve alcohol on Sundays for brunch before noon. Raleigh allows it starting at 10:00 AM. Not sure about Cary or Wake County, but if they haven't done it yet, I expect they will soon. So we are slowly catching up with the 20th century.

You're probably right about the alcohol part being just my state where the liquor is tightly controlled by a state monopoly. I tried every way I could to get cigarettes delivered and because of federal law, the only way to accomplish that is have limited amounts imported. Many places that pretend to do that though, are scams. I researched before placing an order, and I'll bet the posters of all the complaints against these scam sites wish they had too. There seemed to be a few that were legit, but it still seemed to risky. Back then a four mile hike seemed like a hundred miles. Now I'm doing it regularly and am almost certainly healthier and stronger for it. Still though, if I could get alcohol and smokes delivered, I would go for grocery delivery during bad weather at least.

@andiesenji, I also started out with Amanas first is the early seventies at my aunts home where I managed to turn a frozen hamburger into a grey and leathery inedible puck. I kept going trying to get it to brown. Not gonna happen. We never had a nice, helpful sales rep come out. Then a boyfriend who lived with me later had an Amana that was very large, but I never really learned to use it for much of anything useful. It had a detachable temperature probe and the manual that came with it swore you could cook a Thanksgiving turkey in it. Since then, through reading a lot and just experimenting, I have found my current microwave very useful. I rarely use it on full power except for boiling water for a cup of tea. I've found several vegetables can be cooked to good effect in it. I melt butter on the stove on low heat after an explosion on my first try in the microwave. I'm sure it would work better with reduced power, but it's easier to clean a little Revere Ware pot than exploded butter all over the interior of the microwave. I don't care for it for defrosting much either. Even on reduced power, it tends to cook wing tips or other thin portions of meats. It's good for reheating leftovers sometimes, depending on how fast you want them. Tonight when reheating a frozen and thawed vegetable curry to be served over pasta, I opted to heat the curry slowly in that little Revere Ware pot on the stove top. I like hot foods hot to the core, and my microwave would've taken just as much time as the stove top method with reduced power. I often burn my mouth with my love for screaming hot foods, but it hasn't deterred me since childhood. With a microwave, you can boil the liquid/sauce around your food, but it takes some time for that heat to be absorbed into chunks of meat or vegetables. I know how to wait for the heat to penetrate at this point, but it's really no faster than stove top. Now for frozen lasagna, say, I thaw it in the microwave slowly and then bake it if I have a working oven. The microwave certainly has its place in the kitchen when I want something like water heated as quickly as possible. I wouldn't be without one if I have a choice. I'm very thankful for mine.

@JoNorvelleWalker, We have a Chinese restaurant here within my walking distance that still offers "Fried fish like squirrel tail with sweet and sour sauce". It has gone down in quality, since the original chef opened his own restaurant in Morrisville. Super Wok is still open, but the Yelp stars went down some when this happened. I learned this on Chowhound, but failed to remember where the original chef went, since it couldn't benefit me, as I can't get myself there. I am quite sure that restaurant is great though.

Food Lion offers delivery I think? I never see any professional shoppers in there that I can distinguish from just regular folks trying to find ingredients for dinner. When it first popped up on my radar, you could get much more information than you can now, as you are immediately challenged to sign in and give away all your personal info. The fee was only $5.00 then, but it seems to have escalated. Still a good service, if you do not need to indulge your vices, though. It would be worth it not to have to walk four miles to me in a heartbeat. Turns out federal laws ban the delivery of cigarettes or alcohol. That is what made delivery a no go for me. My rarely available cigarettes are two miles away in one direction and vodka at the state liquor monopoly in the opposite direction. Both have access to groceries once I get myself there. Seniors aren't supposed to indulge, I reckon. Whateve's I'm really getting in pretty good shape for my advanced age. My glutes and quadriceps femoris are sometimes talking to me from carrying heavy loads, but at least I am still independent. My calves, feet and ankles seem to be holding up well, cramping a bit sometimes. I need to eat more potassium rich foods, probably. Screw their Puritan laws. My poor stricken husband's nursing home has issued a ban on smoking effective Sept. 12 unless you get someone to take you off the premises. He's desperate to escape, although he needs around the clock intensive personal care. They used to be able to smoke outside away from the building. Do not get old, or you will be treated like a child in a caregiver situation. I hope I go suddenly before then. Walking will help, I think. I started doing a cadence in my head while walking to make the time pass. I've since looked up cadences, but did not really know the lyrics when it started spontaneously. I knew "I don't know, but I've been told" ... and made up "If you walk, you won't grow old!" There's a bunch of military cadences available on wikipedia, but I like mine better for my purposes. Like I've said before, I'm no poet, but this rythym in my head as I walk the four miles it takes to collect all the stuff I need is helpful to me. I've even started going out much more often when weather allows for seltzer water. It takes four miles to bring back two or three 2-liter bottles depending on if you get anything else. This is my preferred mixer, and until recently, I hadn't had any since a hoarded bottle in May for my birthday. Now I go after it when weather allows. I'm sure I could get cases delivered, but the Puritan thing has really ticked me off and made me determined to just not use it. After all, they could responsibly deliver the verboten items with home delivery by asking for ID. I understand why they won't do it by mail to keep it away from kids.

I had another Greek salad tonight. Nothing new, but you have to repeat some things when you live alone or waste a ridiculous amount of food. I still found it very enjoyable. Then I had some thawed out vegetable curry that had been in the freezer. It's really good over rice, but I felt like pasta, so I cooked up some angel hair and served it over that this time. I can't remember pasta dishes on the menus of any Indian restaurants around here, but I felt like doing it anyway. So while I was eating my creation I thought to be outre, I did some research on whether anyone else had thought of this. In looking at the Indian menus of local restos, I found no pasta offerings. Everything is served with basmati rice. Turns out pasta is common in Indian cuisine, though. Then I remembered having some sort of yellow (turmeric?) vermicelli and vegetable dish from an Indian buffet years ago that was very good. Then I remembered seeing an entire aisle of pasta product at Patel Brothers Indian grocer. So much for inventing a delicious new dish. Okay, and further research seems to indicate that pasta actually originates in Asia, probably China, long before it was brought to Italy. In our culture at least, Italy gets all the credit. Whoever figured out noodles though, is a genius. My dish was really good, and I will be repeating my unoriginal idea. Then I reheated a couple of chicken wings in my little Dutch oven that were left over from a Chinese place I ate at yesterday , one at a time as I ate them so they would be at their best.

I'm with you on the light on the (real) mayo, Katie. Your theory about being brought up with a certain mayo or substitute might be flawed, though. I was brought up on Miracle Whip. My R.N. mom thought it was a healthier alternative at the time, along with margarine. Now, I think any mayo wanna be with sugar in the ingredients is just fake and not very good. That includes most commercial ones, including Kraft, and Hellman's. I think Julia Child, rest her soul, would be with me on this one, as I don't think she ever included sugar in the ingredients for her mayo. Duke's is one of the few mayos that does not contain sugar, and that is why I have been using it as an adult for decades. I also haven't had margarine in the house for many years. In trying to find out what mayo was used in Mexico, I came across McCormick Mayonesa with lime juice. It contains sugar, which makes it fake in my book. I also came across this interesting discussion between some people in Mexico and others in the States that is mostly about whether mayo needs refrigeration. A sailor and others testify it does not. There's also a link to an interesting ChowHound discussion about refrigerating mayo. The takeaway for me from that rabbit hole, is do not contaminate your container of mayo by using anything other than scrupulously clean utensils to dispense it. @kayb, I'm sorry you said your recipe you tried for red Mexican rice wasn't very good (IP thread). The rest of the dinner looks so fabulous that I was trying to figure a way to get to Arkansas before the leftovers were gone. Too bad about the Mexican street corn pie. It looked absolutely delicious. If you like the Tex-Mex style red rice served in a hundred thousand restaurants, after many years, I discovered the secret. I was trying to go high end with fresh tomatoes, but never really liked it as much as I liked the slightly greasy offering at the Tex-Mex joints. That secret is Knorr Caldo de Tomate cubes. They are widely available around here, even at Dollar General, and they also offer a powdered version in a jar that I don't like as much. They are like big chicken bouillon cubes that will flavor two cups of water. They have dehydrated tomato powder, and tasty MSG. I chop some white onion and saute it in oil in the rice cooking pot. The Mexican restos seem to use more oil than I can bring myself to, and that is probably why theirs is always slightly better, and a rare treat. You want it translucent, not browned, but enough to drive excess water out. Now add a cup of regular long grain rice. I tried it with short and medium grain and didn't like it as well. You want to saute the rice just long enough to get every grain coated with oil and just cook it a little. It starts turning whiter and more opaque. I like to add chopped jalapenos at this point, but the restaurants usually don't. You could also add poblanos for lower heat or any other pepper you want. Then add two cups of water, one Caldo de Tomate cube, and bring to boil, bringing down to simmer for 15 minutes, covered. If you know your rice, you can adjust down the water from 2 cups for very dry long-stored rice to less for fresher rice. Turn off heat and let stand covered for five minutes, but it will hold longer if needed. For single eaters like me, this makes four serving, but freezes well if scooped into Baggies and stowed in a freezer bag in the freezer. You could add peas, corn, carrots or other stuff, but you'd deviate from the Tex-Mex restaurant rice. @Shelby, That is the best treatment of turkey breast, which can so often be sawdust dry, I believe I have seen. What kind of good-looking cheese is that on the sandwich fixin's plate? I can't recognize it, but it looks like something I want.

Today I picked up a new to me product, Harvest Snaps Snapea Crisps. They are made by Calbee, North America and give a Boardman, OR address. I tried them tonight, and these are really, really good. The ingredients are: green peas, vegetable oil, rice, salt, calcium carbonate and Vitamin C. They are crunchy, but tender and made from what I think are whole dehydrated sugar snap pea pods. They claim, they're baked, but I'd call it more like dehydrated. The rice flour coating is thin. Maybe they are lightly baked after the peas are dehydrated and coated with rice flour? I paid $2.09 for a 3.3 oz/93 g pouch at Food Lion. It seems expensive, but dehydrated veggies and fruits seem to run that way. If anyone cares, they are Non-GMO Project verified as well, a tall order with vegetable oil these days. Highly recommended. I also really like Trader Joe's Green Bean Chips. I tried some from the Asian market before it went out of business that weren't as good as T.J.'s because they were harder, especially in spots, than T.J.'s product. I almost bought a huge tub of green bean snacks about the size of T.J.'s tubbed cookies at Harris Teeter. This was a bulk product with no branding except HT. I might give them a try next time. They seemed a bargain if they are any good. Has anyone tried the ones sold in the Harris Teeter produce department in big clear tubs? Another thing that's an excellent if kinda expensive healthy snack is T.J.'s dehydrated strawberries. Edit: Now that I think about it, I think the strawberries say they are freeze dried. That may be the case with the pea and green bean snacks too?