Thanks for the Crepes

I made a huge caesar salad for dinner tonight. I actually made it for the first time with an egg, which I usually don't because of the fear of salmonella. I used Betty Crocker's advice to coddle the egg first and took the risk. It was good. I may not do it again, but it was good. I prepared some garlic bread with butter, garlic and parsley in a skillet instead of the traditional hard croutons. This was phenomenal with the artisanal boule I'm trying to use up. I much preferred it to croutons. Then I pan-broiled a ground chuck patty and had it nekid. It cooked to juicy med-rare with salt and pepper in a hot skillet in about four minutes. This was one of the best dinners I've had lately. I also watched a stemmed bing cherry float and sink, float and sink in a stem glass of seltzer spiked with vodka. These cherries won't float in still water, but the bubbles from the seltzer clinging to them periodically bring them to the surface. Yes, I realize my amusement threshold is extremely low at this point.

I made cherry muffins with a little real almond extract. I started going at the Chilean cherries with a knife, out of habit. I don't have one of those specialty cherry pitters. Then on the very first one, my tired old brain remembered a tip I'd gotten here on eG to use a chopstick. It took three or four cherries to remember the best way to do it, but once I did, the work went faster! These were very good with a lot of bing cherry flavor augmented by the almond essence. I used about a cup and a quarter of chopped cherries, and they distributed though every bite. They were ripe and very juicy, so it took about five minutes longer for the muffins to cook through and turn golden brown than it usually does with my recipe normally, even with inclusions like plenty of blueberries. I had to freeze most of them, and hope I can eat them before they get tired of the freezer. It's really hard cooking for only one person who doesn't eat much. My food gifts have been increasing due to my new situation. Sadly, folks feel the need to reciprocate, and I end up with a bottomless pit of food. Could be much worse, I reckon. I know out-of-season fruit is eG-lame, but when I saw cherries in December, and they looked so perfect, I lapsed into hunter/gatherer mode, and you know what? I'm not sorry I did.

I thought that was an excellent question, so I went a-Googling. I found this link particularly interesting, and Wikipedia has a little info about the subject and more info about and photos of traditional Christmas cookies. ETA: I made decorated cut out sugar cookies to hang on the Christmas tree a couple of years. My thrifty gene wanted to eat the cookies too, after they had served their decorating duty. Rather than the hole in the cookie for a hanger, I made them as usual and wrapped each one in plastic wrap. Then I threaded a ribbon trough the plastic wrap for hanging on the tree. I got tired of having to closely supervise dogs during the holidays along with everything else, so I quit after those first couple of years, but it sure made for a pretty tree, and gave me the feeling of an old-fashioned country Christmas. I also strung popcorn for ropes of "tinsel" and hung Candy Canes on these trees. All the decorations were edible, but the popcorn got stale. The birds enjoyed it after Christmas, though.

A few weeks ago, I bought some chuck "Denver" steaks that seemed to be so well marbled, although they had been trimmed of all outside hard white fat layer. They were small and seemed perfect for a single person. It was cold and rainy here, (as it is now) so instead of giving them their best chance to shine over charcoal, I did the second best thing for them I know, which was to take them to med rare in my trusty Wagner cast iron skillet. I cooked up the first two this way, planning to eat the second very small one the next day sliced into a delicious sandwich. Wow! were these $5.99 a pound things tough. I mean to the point where I tried to cut the larger one on my plate, and had the knife slipping and knocking stuff off the plate. I just couldn't face the second one destined for a sandwich, and threw it and the remains of the larger one to the raccoons from the front porch. Oh, I usually don't mind a little toughness out of chuck, but these has no flavor either. The third piece had been frozen, and I took it out to thaw, determined that more good money would not be wasted. I sliced in into about 3/4" chunks (with effort, because it was tough raw too) coated it first with seasoned meat tenderizer and very fragrant black pepper. Then I tossed it around with a little flour to coat and browned it off in a bit of oil. I would have liked to have used rendered beef fat, but there was none to be had from the cut I had to work with. Then I fished out the crusty beef, drained off almost all the oil, and stirred in some diced onion to deglaze the pan, soften and brown the onion a tad. Next, I added water, cranberry juice, half a Knorr Caldo de Res cube, a crushed garlic clove and a little soy sauce. Here is one of the few instances where I add soy for a long cook, and I always brighten it up with more soy nearer the end after tasting the broth. I added the beef back and let that simmer for about thirty minutes. Then I added about half the sliced celery and let that go for maybe another twenty. Meanwhile, I peeled half a large carrot, sliced that up and added that with the rest of the celery. That was coming back to a boil while I was dicing very finely a couple of Roma tomatoes. They were unpeeled, and while I don't mind, or even notice the peels when they are very small, large pieces of peel after the tomatoes break down don't appeal to me. I guess my stew went about an hour and a half in total. I thought about adding potatoes but did not because I wanted most of the carbs to come from a beautiful, if pricey, artisan Italian rustic bread I'm trying to eat up before the coons get that too. This treatment rendered the beef sold as "Great for the Grill!" edible to me. Finally, all that connective tissue had been tamed, and was quite tasty. I ate all the meat and carrots, but I think I overdid it with the celery and didn't finish all of that. I did manage 4 slices of this wonderful, crusty bread with a wide-open soft crumb. It's only a 24 ounce loaf, but is one of the largest elongated boules I have ever seen! Also, I picked up a bone-in ribeye steak (my favorite cut) for the same $5.99/lb the other day. It has been consigned to the freezer only until the weather cooperates to allow the charcoal treatment to bring out its best qualities.

@cakewalk, is the lost part the "nipple"/funnel thing on the end of your press? Do you have a garbage disposal? If yes to both, it's small enough to have fallen down there. I hope you haven't turned the disposal on! It drives me so insane when something disappears in my kitchen! Once, my kitchen sponge disappeared when I was living with a new roommate who'd already registered her displeasure about my "unsanitary" kitchen sponge. (Turns out she was mostly right.) I'd similarly weighed in with my displeasure about her dishcloth constantly hanging over the pivoting sink faucet. I came right out and accused her of getting rid of it and she repeatedly denied it. Next time I pulled out the ice trays, the dang thing was stuck to the bottom of one. It probably froze on when someone set it down on top of it. My roommate and I eventually became very close, but I still don't like sharing a kitchen with another active cook in my home. I hope your find your MIA part for the press. If you do get around to trying the Betty Crocker recipe for the classic ones, please let us know how you like it. I don't guess I was clear enough in my previous post about these not holding their shape as well some I have seen. The "some I have seen" refers to commercial ones with very sharp contours. Pretty, but they can't hold a candle to the flavor of Betty's homemade ones. The texture of the commercial ones is hard too. So looks ain't everything.

When I worked as a waitress, years ago, I liked the tipping system a lot. It was all in cash then, and with other jobs, you had to wait a week or two to be compensated for your work. I really liked that if I did a good, diligent job, that I was holding the rewards in my hand almost immediately. I made a good living, even when I was working at a venue (Bad Bob's, Memphis, TN) that, probably illegally, did not ever compensate their waitstaff a thin dime. I figured it was their real estate, they paid the live bands, and I was still getting paid more than I could elsewhere. I still love that model after years in the corporate world where politics, which I'm not so good at, can dwarf your compensation compared to less hard-working folks.

Just no! In our area pets, who no one really knows if they have had adequate parasite control, defecate along and even on sidewalks. It's illegal, and some apartment complexes are taking DNA samples as a condition of move-in with a pet to catch cheaters who do not clean up after their pets. Even good neighbors who do clean up can leave behind traces of parasite eggs and harmful bacteria. I never eat anything off the ground or even the floor in my home even if it's freshly mopped. Just no. If you really want to do this in hot weather, but a black cast iron skillet out in the sun for a while until it gets hot. My mom, who was a ton of fun in her short tenure, once did this on a hot California sidewalk for entertainment value for us little kids. We cleaned up the mess and no one was allowed to eat it. She was an RN.

Tonight, I had a Caesar salad with angel hair pasta with ham, baby peas, ham, and a creamy sauce. I had trouble eating all the ham I put in it for adequate protein, so for dessert, I had cottage cheese with some fresh pineapple. Otherwise, the pasta dish was very good. The ham was fine too, but I don't like to eat much meat anymore unless it's perfect, like @Dejah's prime rib posted above. Did y'all know that pineapples are one of the fruits that continue to ripen at room temp? I didn't until very recently. When it was gifted to me, my pineapple was still green at the top and golden at the bottom. As it sat on a sunny windowsill over the kitchen sink for a few days, the golden color spread up to the top, and every time I would go over to the sink after having been out of the area for a while, the intoxicating smell of ripe, fragrant pineapple would hit me. Too bad it took me this long to catch on to the fact that one does not have to settle for green, under ripe fresh pineapple. Last night, I broiled the deferred pork chop with salt, pepper and lots of fresh rosemary that I foraged from the garden at the nursing home while visiting my husband. Couldn't eat all of the pork chop either. I served with a baked sweet potato with butter and salt, and more broccoli and cheddar. I also broiled some of the fresh pineapple with the pork. They took about the same time, which surprised me.

kayb, You might find the the thoughts here useful.

It's nice to see Betty Crocker getting a little love here. I have not made Spritz in years, though I still have the press. My 1969 Betty Crocker cookbook recipe varies from KatieM's German grandma's recipe only in the amount (less) of sugar, and @scott123 (of pizza perfection fame) also recommends and links to Betty. Then @blue_dolphin came along and made another Betty reference. Betty Crocker used to have some awesome test kitchens and used home cooks for the testing. I don't hesitate to use any recipe in there unless I just don't care for the ingredients. scott123's link no longer brings one to the current Spritz recipe, so here is a working one. It varies from my 1969 version only in that it calls for only 1/4 t of extract and mine calls for a full t. I never used parchment and had never even heard of a silpat when I was making these. The BC recipe does not call for chill time, is easy to press, but as you can see from the photos on the website is not as sharp and defined in holding the shape as some I have seen. I can attest to the flavor and texture being great, though. I wish I could still make and eat these because they are delicious. ETA: I'm pretty sure I cooked these longer for my desired result, but don't hold me to it after almost 30 years. scott123 has some enlightenment on color (which affect crispness and flavor) above. KatieM also addresses baking time and personal preference.

I just love eggs about cooked just about any style. I'm in what seems to be the unofficial majority here, and agree that slimy whites are gross and inedible for me. Not my very favorite, but having some hard boiled eggs in the fridge available for a tasty, high-protein snack in a flash is sure convenient. If I had to pick just one favorite, it would probably be over easy. I like to eat them whole on top of a nice warm slice of good buttered toast. It's a challenging, but sensual experience to keep the molten yolk from dripping down the front of your clothing, but well worth the effort. I like my scrambled eggs set but not dry, and I've found I pretty much need to cook them myself to enjoy them. Who doesn't like this inexpensive, delicious source of protein and Vitamin B 12? My sister will not eat eggs except in baked goods and such. She doesn't like coffee either. We have had many discussions on the question of whether she might be an alien.

I had a pork chop thawed for tonight's protein, but a look at @Dejah's beef stroganoff above changed my mind. The pork chop could wait until tomorrow. I took a ground chuck patty out of the freezer, and by the time I had prepped everything for the stroganoff and a side of broccoli and cheddar, it was thawed. I usually make this dish with hand sliced sirloin, but it was delicious with the ground chuck. I should have peeked back at her photo before serving, because it looks like it was dusted with paprika, and I think that would have been brilliant. The recipe I was following was for four servings, but the math was pretty easy to scale back to a single one. I needed to use the rest of the mushrooms I bought for pizza today or tomorrow latest and was blank in the inspiration department, so thanks Dejah!

Please @Nicolai, Don't let such an alluringly described recipe as your Aleppo sweet sink to the depths of obscurity! Don't tease us. If you know how to make something that is rare and "has a olfactory hallucinating effect when fresh from the oven. It is simply irresistible." Please share in your own Recipe Gullet post. It's your duty as an eG member to be a steward of food culture, right? I like caraway seeds, but almost exclusively keep them on hand for a savory casserole of corned beef, cabbage, celery, onion, milk, butter, Swiss cheese and egg noodles. (Probably Eastern European?) It would be great to have another use for them, especially one like you described.

Taco night! I made pico de gallo, guacamole and warmed store bought tortilla chips to precede tacos. I froze some on sale ground chuck into four ounce hamburger patties and used one of them for the taco meat. I fried it up with white onion and jalapeno. It made three tacos, with all the veggie and cheese toppings I piled in, which was perfect. I put a little sour cream on the first one, as I like to heat and assemble them as eaten. It was so messy to eat, though, that I figured it wasn't worth it for the subsequent ones. So no leftovers today, which is also perfect, as I'm inadvertently drowning myself in them. I'm learning, though. Although I can make corn tortillas from masaca, I used the crispy store bought ones today, also warmed in the oven. Sometimes, that is just what I want. Other times for some stupid reason, I crave Taco Bell original crispy tacos.

@quiet1, Your request is unusual! I'm far from the most talented baker we are fortunate to have on this site, but I did make these muffins one time and they were drier than most chocolate cakes I have made or had. There's a lot of good info in the comment section about personal likes and dislikes and tweaking the recipe. I can't remember, because it's been a while, but I may have increased the milk to a full cup because that is the ratio I am used to using for muffins. They were still drier than a moist, decadent chocolate cake. I most likely did because I'm wont to adjust batters and things until they "look right". I liked the muffins at the sugar and salt level as written, but others commenting didn't. This recipe would work in a couple of 8" cake pans, if that's what your are after. You would have to increase baking time and monitor doneness. Also, if I was going to do a cake out of this recipe, I'd reduce the oven temp to 350 F/ 182 C.

Hi MisterKrazee from your home state! Unfortunately, I can't help on the identification of your obscure kitchen gadget but I sure do love the little smiley face cut into it and the this year's crop sweet potatoes in the background. I picked up some beauties myself at 49 cents a pound at my local Food Lion the other day. Sad for the farmers who got flooded out by nasty old Hurricane Matthew and had their sweet potato crop rotting in muddy, flooded fields. Good to know that it did not take out all the crop, though. Did you know we live in the largest producing area in this country for sweets? We are absolutely dwarfed by China's production, though, I found out recently. I'm not real sure your gizmo is a corn scraper. It looks from the photo to be convex on what I imagine to be the working side with the two teeth over the smiley. Wouldn't it work better with the teeth on the concave side? It does not bode well that @andiesenji who owns or has owned every obscure kitchen gadget devised by man posted right after you and didn't weigh in? She is our resident expert on these matters. And andiesenji, I believe you're right on your hinged loaf pan. If you overfill with batter, it would leak out on rising and baking, and there would be no way to make a round log of gelatin in your device. People ask dumb questions because everyone is used to pressing buttons to make stuff happen now. Try not to worry about it. I hope you are more successful than I am. I asked a coworker for a jump for my car battery years ago, and she said she did not know how to open her hood. Nevermind, I took care of it all and was able to drive off.

Yes "lagniappe" is a great word and great thing. Sadly, it's disappearing from our American world. @Smithy, I so enjoyed your account of the the Tabasco production facilities and restaurant! There is always a small bottle of the Original in my fridge. It's essential in quiche for me, but a little goes a long way. Thanks for letting us tag along.

I cooked fried zucchini for myself tonight. I ate a little over a pound of it in raw weight. I love fried zucchini! Then I took a chicken leg quarter that had been spiced with chicken seasoning salt, black pepper, thyme, a chili powder I really like, and a ton of ground cayenne, since I was cooking for myself. After I let this sit for about twenty minutes while I was frying the zucchini planks in two batches, I shook the spiced chicken in the same bag with flour I'd used for the zukes and fried in in the same oil. I ate the fried zukes as they were hot and ready as an appetizer. I also made a pot of plain white rice and ate a little. I have three leftover portions of rice in the freezer, because I've found when I've tried to cook less than one cup of dry rice on the stovetop, I can never get it to turn out right. I'm finding leftovers are the bane of a single person. My freezer is crammed with two wedges of ham and mushroom quiche, a quart of pinto beans cooked with pork, onions and jalapenos that I froze in one batch, before I became a single eater. We could have gone through that quart of beans in a couple days before with the first night being bean soup and cornbread, and the second night refried bean, cheese and onion burritos. Now, I'll have to thaw it all out, and make a bunch of burritos for the freezer. I've also got two wedges of cornbread, a batch of ham biscuits, succotash with onions, peppers and tomatoes, a huge serving of Cincinnati chili, which I'll add the onions and cheese on the reheat, and on and on. I've got to learn quickly how to cook only what I can consume or cook a lot less frequently, which was almost every day before. What I was cooking to cover the two of us for one day now lasts me three days, and planned overs for two days last six now. I truly hope this doesn't result on my giving up and surviving on prepared frozen entrees. They have declined a lot since the last time I was single, so that is something that's going to steer me to cooking from fresh ingredients.

I really enjoyed this peek into your life @Shelby. Thanks!

I think the cilantro in the spice mix is probably dried. I bought some dried cilantro once from The Fresh Market. It's one of those herbs that loses almost all taste if dried. I suspect it wouldn't bother cilantro haters in dried form, especially in a small part of a spice mix.

@Toliver, Have you tried them? Are they any good? I was unable to find the ingredients from BK online. I'm always suspicious of "cheese" from fast food outlets. So frequently now, whey and "stuff" is made into something that passes for cheese to most palates, but I don't cotton to it.

Yeah, that segment of the article relating how he showed up as a regular guy named Guy, had an impact on me as well. I guess what we see on DD & D is just an affected dramatis personae he puts on to make money. It softens my perspective of him too. Considering some of the things I've had to do to make money, more power to him. I love the fact he's helping out independent small restaurant owners too. Great article @IowaDee. Thanks!

As was mentioned, different salads call for different dressings. I don't use bottled dressings anymore, as they always manage to taste stale to me, even when freshly opened. When I'm feeling ambitious salad-wise, I like to make homemade thousand island with plenty of finely chopped hard boiled egg or old-fashioned green goddess for a nice chef's salad. I like a warm bacon vinaigrette with cooked onion and a little sugar, using the bacon fat and fond for a spinach or leaf lettuce salad. I love lemon tahini on leaf lettuce or romaine. A nice spring salad dressing is equal parts oil, vinegar, sugar or honey, and soy sauce for leaf lettuce with sliced strawberries. I've made a dressing I really like several times this fall for romaine and chopped apples with white vinegar, oil, salt and pomegranate molasses. Just tonight I dressed some romaine with oil, vinegar, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. I toss this first and then add some grated parm and give it another toss. I dislike commercial ranch, and my one attempt to make it with buttermilk turned out thin and disappointing although it was still better than bottled. If anyone has a recipe/method for making a good ranch, please let's hear it. @suzilightningI probably won't be the only one interested to hear about how you make your red french dressing, if you care to share.

@Lisa Shock, Your Texas college mate's mom sounds like quite the character. I never broil nachos, but rather bake them at about 400 F/204 C. Have you tried the recipe? I make them kind of similarly, but I like to cook the onions and fresh jalapenos with the ground beef, and I need shredded iceberg and tomatoes as part of any cold toppings. I also shred the cheese as part of the hot ones. I do love me some good nachos.

I recently lost my husband too. It's more complicated than that because he's still alive in a skilled nursing facility. He can't eat or drink. He's paralyzed on his right side, so he can't stand and will never come back to the home we shared for 17 years. He can communicate a little, but drifts in and out of cognizance and is unable to help in getting his extremely messed up affairs in order. I was a pretty regular poster on the Dinner thread until this happened. Now, I've pretty much quit. My meals now are pretty simple and designed to provide adequate nutrition. They are lonely too. I don't think they would be of much interest on the Dinner thread anymore. For example, dinner for one tonight was a broiled center cut loin pork chop (looks like the beef cut called T-bone), nuked sweet potato with butter and salt, and some frozen spinach steamed in it's own juices with salt, pepper, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and a little muenster cheese added in at the end. Adequate and nutritious, but not exciting. I am making the effort to walk to some of the ethnic markets I can get to on foot to shop for fresh, nutritious produce. It's time consuming, though, and I have a lot of other demands on me right now. I usually eat a meal once a day, but that was happening before my husband's stroke changed a lot of lives. Nothing tastes good anymore, and I can't find that spark to make me interested in spending the time and effort to make anything that would be beyond basic. Still, with all that depends on me right now, I can't neglect nutrition. Oh, and I have Irish blood in me too. That recessive red-headed gene pops up occasionally in my family. I don't know if that's the reason I'm drinking now, as I have long been wont to do that, but the perceived need seems especially strong now. Perhaps counter productive, but you know what? I really don't think that is going to alter my course at this point. Much respect to those who can show such restraint in dark times. I have never claimed to be a saint. @MetsFan5, I'm thinking of you in the loss of your younger brother. Way, way too young to be gone so soon. I have a brother four years younger than me. We don't always get along idyllically, but he's the only one really helping me with this situation with my husband. I can't imagine losing him; I don't want to.