Thanks for the Crepes

andie, I liked your post because of the quoted part. So great that you soldiered on through your injury to success! I know the kitchen can be dangerous, but hot sugar work sounds especially scary.

Well marketing it may be, but as I dearly love pasta in its many forms, I am delighted to have an excuse to celebrate it, and that is just what I will do. Maybe I will even get up to making Marcella's egg pasta by hand. I have no machines, but I do have a decent rolling pin. Even if I continue on my current lazy course and cook up some of the excellent dried pastas I have on hand, how can I lose? So thanks for the heads up @JohnT.

I had a king crab leg tonight. Expensive but worth it with melted butter and fresh lemon wedges. There's another one in the freezer. The husband had his usual catfish plate fried by the fish store. I got okra and plantains that they fried up for me too. Then later, I gave into my craving for pizza. They pretty much roll up the sidewalks here after about 9:00 PM or so. There are bars that serve food until late, but restaurants close at 9:00 on weekdays and may stay open an hour or so later on weekends. I started looking on yelp for pizza delivery, and lo and behold, Domino's was open and delivering for another hour on this Friday night. They were running a special of a medium pan pizza with 2 toppings, and something called Stuffed Cheesy Bread for $12.99. Of course, it cost me $19.00 (46% more) by the time I paid taxes, delivery fee and a modest tip. About 1:15 in the AM, right before they close, my food was delivered. The pizza was not great but not inedible. I saved the leftovers for later. The Cheesy Bread was really pretty good though. It turns out it's a flat loaf of good, fluffy bread that's stuffed with a generous amount of mozz and then more cheese is sprinkled on top. Still, I don't think my very first late night pizza delivery is in any danger of developing into a habit. I have not ordered from Domino's in over a decade, and there is definitely a reason for that.

@kriz6912 Cool video. Are the nails chocolate too? They are startlingly realistic, if they are. Where did you come up with such a unique and striking idea, if you don't mind saying?

Just guessing, but based on this photo, perhaps the filling is wrapped in the main pastry, leaving the ends open, then sprayed with a batter all over, lightly sealing the ends. That would be tough to duplicate at home, but perhaps if they were dipped? We would always get care packages of country ham and grits from our southern relatives in Louisiana when we lived in the US state of Vermont. You can probably find them up there now or mail order them, but not in the '70's when we were there. I learned to make crepes so I could duplicate discontinued ham and swiss crepes from Stouffer's company. They haven't been available in the freezer case for many years, but they are available at my house. I always make extra ones to freeze.

I just remembered that years ago, I got a can of Weber Grill 'N' Spray with a bag of other groceries that must have belonged to the customer in line before me. I didn't realize it until I got home. I tried it once, and I found that it tainted the taste of the food I cooked with it. I stuck it back in the pantry for some reason, and haven't thought of it again until now. The expiry date is 09/02/09, and into the trash bin it went.

I don't think your question has been answered, and I am embarrassed and sorry if it has. I'm following this not as an expert, but a curious learner. I think the answer can be found here. He's missing something from his original home environment that's not available where he is now. I can relate to that, as many of us can.

The microwave for a short time in a lidded glass casserole might help. If that didn't do it, I might sprinkle a little water and try again. Eventually it should work to loosen it up again, I think. I have pounded brown sugar in the plastic bag with the flat side of my cast aluminum meat mallet to good effect, but that was not for the "rock solid" you describe.

Yes, @Shel_B, there were some comments earlier about how it looked like a boat load of bacon on the soup (might be in the Instant Pot thread), until you looked more closely and they were mostly sauteed Chanterelles. These mushrooms are often described as "meaty", and her dish certainly looks great to me, and well balanced.

I roasted some chicken wings seasoned with Goya Adobo, cayenne, black pepper and thyme. One of the sides was Mexican rice made with white onion sauteed in olive oil, and Knorr Caldo de Tomate. Five minutes into the rice cooking time, I added a couple of diced green jalapenos and diced red bell pepper, because I don't like overcooked peppers. This made for a colorful, festive dish. We also had chopped spinach seasoned with garlic, salt, black pepper and a little dill. I stirred in crumbled sheep's feta just long enough to melt it. I was going for sort of a spanakopita filling profile, but since I didn't even crack open the recipe, I probably forget some things, like the little bit of nutmeg I just now remembered. It was still tasty, as was the rest of the dinner.

*Sigh* I was jealous too, but after the reminders of the conversion rate, I'm absolutely green! I'm happy for those who got these great bargains too, but it ain't easy bein' green.

I say live with it too. I actually like my baking pans and sheets better after they get polymerized oil burned onto them. I encourage it by wiping with thin coats of seasoning oil on both sides and heating them in the oven as you would cast iron. It keeps steel pans from rusting and aluminum ones from oxidizing. Once you get a good dark, even coat built up, it's non-stick too. If it gets scratched or messed up, just season it again. Not shiny anymore, but they will last virtually forever if kept seasoned like this. I broiled pork chops for dinner tonight on my steel WearEver rimmed sheet without even greasing it, and after cooking, the meat released easily and the pan cleaned right up after soaking in hot water a few minutes. It's as black and glassy as a good cast iron skillet, and I love it. If you insist on shiny or putting the item in the dishwasher, then this method won't work. Oh, and putting aluminum in a dishwasher is the fastest way to oxidize it I know.

The first time I heard of chili spaghetti, I thought it was a crazy idea. After trying it, especially in @robirdstx's treatment with beans, onions and melty cheese, I am a believer!

With cream cheese, capers, tomato and fresh dill? So nice looking! That looks incredibly edible, but maybe it's the lighting, because it doesn't look quite like cream cheese. Also while you're at it, do you mind telling us about the bread? Food obsessed idiots (I) want to know.

This is a very interesting, well-written and informative article in the NY Times about the Mars Company's "Quest to Ma ke a True Blue M ". I especially identified with this part: "Instead of continually reconstructing images of everything we see, our brains take shortcuts by creating color memories as filters. A ripe banana is assigned a particular yellow based on previous experience with bananas. Researchers call this the “memory color effect,” and not all cultures see and know colors in the same way. A global food conglomerate like Mars, which sells products in 150 countries, wants its goods to be uniformly recognizable anywhere in the world. Aided by marketing and chemistry, brands fight against the different experiences of individual retinas. Companies want their colors to become, in essence, memory colors for the entire species." No wonder I get frustrated all out of proportion when companies change the familiar colors of their packaging, forcing me to waste extra time to locate them. The above link works for me with out a subscription, but you can get behind the paywall by Googling: natural dyes M&M Mars site:nytimes.com if you have trouble.

I do not love how less processed and "refined" things are always sold at higher prices (at least here). I can get panela here and tend to hoard it, because it's much more expensive than mainstream stuff. I have a small chunk in the pantry that's probably good for about twelve cups of tea. It's the only thing it's good for now, because I have let it become hard as a rock over time, and must chip off small pieces to melt in the tea. Which product is more expensive in China, @liuzhou?

I pulled some of the frozen New Zealand green-lipped mussels this evening for dinner. I made a simple steaming liquid by taking a little olive oil and sauteing onion and garlic. Then I added Chardonnay, parsley, crushed red pepper and some chopped ripe tomato and the frozen mussels. A minute or so before the end of cooking time, I added some butter and swirled into the sauce. I cooked this in my big stainless chicken fryer, because I find I get much better results with cooking shellfish in a single layer and that was the largest diameter pot/pan I have. It's got a glass lid so I can see what's going on in the pan during the steaming. The mussels were on the half shell, large and plump, and filled the shells quite nicely. They were tender and tasty too, with the exception of the abductor mussels and a central small tough white structure attached to a small dark brown cylindrical structure I chose not to eat. I cooked 7 mussels for each of us and served them over linguine with the sauce. Neither of us could finish all of them, so my husband will eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I'm quite satisfied with these frozen mussels and will buy them again. It was nice to have them already cleaned and debearded, and they cooked up from frozen in only 8 minutes in the boiling sauce. Thanks again to those who recommended frozen mussels, for I would never have ventured to give them a try otherwise. They might be even better if you have access to fresh ones in New Zealand, but this is as good as it's going to get for me, and I can now also recommend them if you run across any frozen. I have about half of the two pounds left in the freezer and may cook them in the oven with a stuffing/topping next time. It will be easy with already cleaned and prepped ones on the half shell. Consistent with my only previous experience in a restaurant with green lips, I like them better than the smaller blue ones we harvest from local waters. We also split a loaf of samoon bread heated in the oven with the pasta bowls. That was great for chasing the tasty sauce from the bottom of the bowls.

My favorite (and only so far) use for tapenade is the muffuletta sandwich, and as I know it, comes from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. There are French, Cajun, Creole, Italian and my other influences on the cuisine of this major port city, and some excellent and interesting food comes out of it. I have made them cold, but my best recipe is for one wrapped in foil and grilled until the ingredients are warm and the cheese is melted on the sandwich. I served muffulettas at a dinner party at my house one time, and it was a hit. I remember having to hand write the recipes for the sandwich and tapenade for two guests in the aftermath. I don't think I would take the trouble anymore, because I have to fire up charcoal and no longer have a gas grill. I am certain that the foil-wrapped sandwich would not suffer from heating in the oven, though. I used the rosemary "peasant bread" small boules I fetched for takeout from our local outlet of the chain Romano's Macaroni grill for the cookout dinner. They were perfect, back then, but I haven't used them in many years, and their reputation has suffered of late. I would be interested in other uses for tapenade, if others have any ideas.

Dried stems of some sort? They look like beet stems to me, but I certainly don't have beets pop to mind when I think about Chinese veggies.

@kayb, maybe your herbs didn't get watered enough when you were recovering from your injury? In the kind of weather you describe, pots can dry out really quickly. I'm sorry about your rosemary. I can always walk a few minutes to the neighbor's place and get some from her HUGE shrub year round. I mean this thing is over four feet in diameter and nearly as tall. She's kind to give me carte blanche with it, but there's no way one household could use all it offers up. It is planted in the ground and has been very hardy here.

That's been my experience with dried beans too. We have a thriving Latin American community here and they strongly influence what is available at mainstream grocers and even dollar stores around here. Almost all packages of dried beans are now marked with an expiration date and many of them are marked with year of production. I like the La Rosa brand of dried beans I can get at the Dollar General. They brag about being "this year's crop". I did have a pack of field peas that were terrible years ago, but they are not a real popular bean, although they can be very good if fresh and prepared properly. They probably sat around too long before I bought and tried to cook them. I also encountered some dried red kidney beans I cooked in chilli con carne for three days in a crockpot without softening, but that was over thirty years ago, and probably my fault. I added the acidic homegrown tomatoes before the beans were softened. Do not add acid or sugar to beans before they are getting soft, y'all. All that said, I like canned beans too, and I can get fresh frozen ones that are very good too. If you want the very best bean experience, you must pick, shell, cook and serve them on the same day. It's a tall order, and I haven't had the pleasure in decades. Ranch Gordo's beans, while I deeply respect what he's trying to do, are just priced outside my budget.

It might be worth a try to salvage your ingredients, effort and time in your emergency, but I have never heard of doing it that way. The consensus on Chowhound is that it won't work. Others think differently, and as long as your cake is not depending on whipped egg whites, this site and others say it will work. I would give it a try, and please report back with the results. I'm glad you weren't injured in the "fireworks show"! I have had an electric element in the oven and one on the stove top provide unwanted pyrotechnics, and that is scary! The one in the oven was contained and very loud and startling, but the stove top one threw superheated shrapnel across the kitchen. By some stroke of luck, I was fetching an ingredient from the pantry/laundry room off the kitchen when it happened.

The Colonne Pompei pasta is very interesting, @Lisa Shock. It's like a super long fusilli. The shape is perfect for capturing a chunky sauce. This link suggests that sauce might be Genovese sauce, but any thick chunky sauce might work well with it. I love that the name of the pasta means in English, "columns of Pompei". Did you have a particular sauce or dish in mind?

We do not get the Swanson brand here at all anymore. I grew up on it, and it was so successful they have sold out to many giant corporations. They were actually very good back in the 50's and 60's. They had real chicken then. In my memory Swanson chicken pot pies has tasty gravy, good chicken chunks, peas, carrots and potatoes, all encased in a delicious, flaky crust. I have tried Boston Market, Stouffers, Marie Calendars, and you know what? Banquet brand. The first three are bigger, more expensive, but all lack a key element from the Swansons of my childhood. Some lack peas, some lack carrots, some lack potatoes. Banquet has all three in a very tasty gravy in a lard crust. The "chicken" in the Banquet version is "mechanically separated" pretty disgusting, and you really don't want to look at as you are eating. The rest of the Banquet line is garbage. Banquet chicken pot pies are garbage too. The "chicken" is an abomination. I do not look at, but I eat it to get the 12 grams of protein from the 350 calorie serving. The potatoes are overcooked mush, the carrots are undercooked or just rubbery from freezing, but the peas are spot on, as is the gravy and the lard crust. This is what Serious Eats has to say about frozen chicken pot pies. In order to prepare a frozen chicken pot pie to its admittedly limited best state, make sure you take a sharp knife and cut deeply through the top crust in several areas. I like to make a decorative pattern, but one may think that is gilding a, well ... you know. This step is important so the boiling gravy doesn't blow the top crust off and spill onto the baking pan. I like to put the pie in while preheating the oven. Frozen pot pies are one of the few things that benefit from doing that. You want the bottom crust cooked, right? I also take a couple of narrow foil strips and mold them around the rim of the crust. Otherwise it burns to just an inedible ring that you have to discard. It's all about the flaky lard crust, the tasty gravy and the peas to me. I had one tonight, my guilty pleasure.

Oh, I believe this is true. In my research on the dish and restaurant, the original recipe, now duplicated in many places on the web, it seems to have come from an article in the Orange County Register by the then reporter Nancy Berry. Sadly, I could not find the original article online. Many sources I found stressed that it was food coloring that was used. I wasn't disparaging the excellent recipe at all, just exercising my irrepressible drive to tweak recipes to my own tastes. Thanks again for calling my attention to it. I also found this interesting: "Juan Francisco Ochoa started the restaurant in Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1975." That is from this wiki article on El Pollo Loco. Our excellent restaurant from circa 1987-a few years later? was focused on the outstanding chicken and a few sides, more like the Mexican chains. Oh, Lordy! I forgot how you could smell this chicken cooking as soon as you got out of your car in the parking lot. That was before all the air scrubbers and stuff like they make City Barbecue and other places like that in town shell out for nowadays. Umm, now that I think about it, that may have been exactly the reason this excellent restaurant folded in our town. I sure do miss it, but now, thanks to you, I can recreate it at home!