Thanks for the Crepes

Lisa, Pan's trying to go low-sodium and substituting acids, spices and other flavors to sub in. I do not know about hibiscus (but it sounds intriguing because I love tart flavors) but many things that are good to flavor teas/tisanes may be destroyed by high heat/boiling. Some tea aficionados will swear that water must be at X degrees below 212F to bring out the best flavor from a particular brew. It may be possible that in reducing the hibiscus tisane, the desirable flavor was altered or destroyed. An alternative might be to brew it extra-strong, and add only at the end, where it will not boil.

The Goya capers I just bought to make tartar sauce have 380mg sodium per TBSP (per the label). The flavor really goes a long way though, so that sodium could be diluted throughout a dish, but it's still 19% of Pan's daily allowance. A site I find very useful when I am on a restricted diet, which is usually calories for me, but also has much useful info regarding sodium, carb, protein, fat, vitamin, mineral and glycemic load content as well, is this one: The linked page concerns winter butternut squash (scroll down past the annoying video they added to every page recently). Smithy's suggestion about winter squash is not as high-carb as you might think. Use the linked site to compare 100 grams of it to rice or baked potato prepared without salt, and you'll find that the squash is much lower in both calories and carbs. Butternut 40 cal/10g carb; rice 130 cal/28g carb; potato 93 cal/22g carb. I include that info because Pan is also trying to lose weight as well as restrict sodium, and I have found butternut to be a very satisfying substitute in meals with pork or poultry instead of a more starchy, less nutritious component. It even tricks my husband. Also on the Nutrition Data site, there is a nutrient search tool that drops down from the Tools menu, that allows you to select foods highest and/or lowest in particular nutrients that you choose from a drop down menu. I have used this feature frequently, however, it is skewed a bit sometimes, because things like dried herbs which concentrate nutrients can come quickly to the top of lists when the only option for comparison is 100g or 200 calorie servings. It's still very useful to me.

Thanks Pan, Unfortunately this guy doesn't like hot spices. He'd be in clover, if he could achieve your blood pressure stats. He's also my husband of 17 years. I am all ears for any helpful suggestions out there. For him they have to be just as tasty as the salted version, or he's not eating it without wielding his personal shaker. I have no control over that except to make the food just as tasty without it.

As someone who really loves salt and is still able to eat it, I won't have a lot to say on this matter, but will be watching for replies, since I do cook for a person who needs restricted salt, and loves his nemesis as much as I do, and refuses to limit it (or anything else that would help him that he likes). Mrs. Dash (as referenced by Shel_B up thread/topic), a very pedestrian salt-free condiment, that's available at US groceries everywhere, I think, turns lightly cooked green beans into something special without any salt. I actually prefer it to the salted version, and so does the apparently suicidal person I cook for. It's also good on sliced, fragrant ripe tomatoes, and the salt-restricted person will eat them this way, and I do too, but I have to admit, I still prefer a little sprinkle of kosher salt when he's not looking. I haven't found anything else that really works, except the vinegar idea for salads, etc. If I undersalt, he's going to go for the shaker, and we both know it. So please bring on the ideas. I'll definitely be reading.

On my last grocery shop on Monday, I picked up a pristine head of cauliflower in Cary for $3.99, it is slated for roasting very shortly. It may be my last for a while if the price doubles, so I plan to savor every morsel.

I reviewed my experience with the Five Cheese Spiral a while ago, but the post was lost in the software upgrade, so I'm recreating it from memory here. I like it, but now I see why they are able to offer 14 ozs. of tiropita for so cheap. It's not really tiropita, at least that I am used to. It's more of a delicious and flaky cheese bread. The protein content and the cheese content is not as high as what I consider tiropita, but it is still very good. I will get this again if available. And for folks @rotuts wondering about if you could separate it into smaller portions and refreeze the rest for later, that is a yes. I took a thin, sharp knife and starting at the outer coil, separated about half of the product into separate coils for my husband and me to split and returned the rest to the freezer.

That is a great idea, @Porthos! I try to keep the landslides at a minimum, although they sometimes happen. I always wear sandals in the kitchen, so have become very adept at jumping out of harm's way. I just get tired of having to remove everything in the freezer to find something I want to use and know is in there. Once I even put the sought item back in with all the other contents, and had to repeat the process. Doh! This will eventually save money for me, because I dread taking out frozen items one by one, while holding back a landslide, so much that I've been known to waste items when they get buried in the freezer and stay in there too long. I may look for plastic baskets though, because I despise having my hands frozen or scalded. Also when I'm working in the kitchen, my hands are usually slightly damp from washing and manage to get stuck to anything metal in the freezer. Anyone else ever notice that when you take an item out of the freezer, unless it's right on top, there's actually less room in there after putting all the other things back in? I expect it's because they are more pliable when not frozen and conform to the other items already there. I can never assemble that puzzle back together just right, so always end up with less space after removing something from the freezer. It's not fair (whine) !

When my husband and I went to take advantage of the McPick2 deal, we each ordered two McDoubles and an order of small fries. So in all we got 4 McDoubles, and 2 small fries for $6 plus tax at our local McD's. So at least at our location, you can order as many of the same item you want in multiples of two. There is no info on the website about limits, so it may vary by location.

@liamsaunt, Your salmon burgers look lovely. What is the herb sprigging out? It almost looks like clover on the left side of your photo. Pea shoots? Then on the right hand burger it looks like mizuna? I have to compliment you on your food photography. You are quite talented.

Thanks for your reply, @rustwood, and the link. This is what I took away from it: "80% infestation rate Such infestations make life more stressful for the chickens and may affect egg production, but researchers say there is no risk to humans who eat the eggs or meat of infested chickens." Fleas, lice or mites are a scourge, for sure, and I feel bad that so many free range chickens seem to be so badly managed by their handlers. Still, they are healthier and happier than mainstream agribusiness chickens IMO. In the comments of your linked article, some folks chime in with ways to manage external parasites on free range chickens, including diatomaceous earth. One person talks about a place to take a "dust bath", which is the way my grandparents managed their free range chickens, used for both eggs and meat. That was the best chicken I ever ate, and I've occasionally paid a lot for some from commercial sources. I still think free range will hold longer in the fridge than agribusiness chicken. YMMV

Yes, I have seen white worms burrowed into the flesh of tilapia. VERY gross and creepy, but we ate it anyway, after I pulled them out with tweezers, satisfyingly ground them up in the garbage disposal, and cooked the fish thoroughly. I never mention stuff like this to the husband. No need for him to know, if the end product is going to be edible and safe. Hell, it probably would've been safe just with cooking, but WORMS for extra protein? NO THANKS!

rustwood, Free range chickens are less likely to be contaminated with salmonella, which is so rampant in USA agribusiness battery caged chickens or overcrowded barn chickens that come from our mainstream food supply. I would not worry about your practices. They seem safe for the product you are dealing with, and you are lucky to have access to a much better product than many of us are stuck with. Also salmonella does not produce a heat resistant toxin like e-coli, or colustridum botulinum, so thoroughly cooking salmonella ridden chicken is still safe to eat, which is apparently why our government tolerates this contaminant in our food.

I always bring their cheeseburger home and nuke for 20 or so seconds to melt the cheese and heat the damned things back up. If there's lettuce and tomato, of course you have to remove them before the nuke treatment. These days McD's serves nothing but leftovers from a low-heat cabinet that I can't believe passes health department standards, but in 10 or so visits, you might get fries right out of the fryer. Those are nirvana, burn your fingers good, and must be consumed on the trip home. McD's fries do not take well to reheating either in the nuker or the oven. They became such a successful business model on cheap food prepared pretty much to order. Now they serve mostly old leftovers. And they wonder why their sales aren't good? If I'm going to pay for leftovers, it has to be ultra-cheap, which is why I almost never go there unless they are offering a steal deal, like the McPick2. Especially with the price of beef these days, that is a real loss leader. Still, neither the husband nor I want to go back during the limited time promotion. I will say that I have never gotten sick from their food, which is pretty much a miracle, in that it's all prepared way ahead of time and held at what I think is less than 140 degrees F, which is required by our local health department for holding cooked foods. They continue to get away with it somehow?

Here is another one from stand-up comedian, Jim Gaffigan. It is looonng, almost 90 minutes, but if you are Obsessed about food, like me, you might enjoy it. It's recorded from a live performance in Boston. He rags hard on Southern food, including grits, which I love as a G.R.I.T.S lady, but I have a sense of humor about it. He also rags on: kale, cottage cheese, pita and wraps, gluten-free, Whole Foods, seafood (blasphemy, but still funny, at least to me), Kobe beef, and desserts in China (sorry huiray and liuzhou), including the Americanized fortune cookies. Also bars (long rant): "Female bartenders always seem like they're a little bit tougher than they need to be. I don't want to describe them as bitchy, because that would describe them perfectly." Other quotes yours truly liked: "Hotdogs are like strippers. No one wants to hear the backstory." This was in reference to ingredients in said sausages. "I have five kids. I used to have more, but I ate them." This guy is crazy, but funny to me. Edit: second time around watching it, I caught my very favorite quote from his routine, which I had noted in my feeble mind, then promptly forgot. "No one really wants fruit. It's too much work with fruit, right? You gotta waaash it; you gotta peel off that sticker Al Qaeda put on there?" (Personally, I love fruit, but again, have a sense of humor about it.) I despise those stickers, and I think he has an angle with Al Qaeda!

Sorry it didn't delight you, @Anna N, If you don't grab hold of your intrepid spirit, and branch out to new experiences, you can never discover that hidden gem. At least that is my personal pep talk to myself after disappointing dining experiences that involve wasted time and money.

I don't cook duck often, because it's hard to find for me and expensive when I do. There are some great suggestions here. I'm certainly no expert, but I still have a hand written note in my Betty Crocker first cookbook that I made after my first attempt at roast duck in the 1970's. It says to be sure to prick the skin all over(!) with a fork like KennethT suggests above. Betty doesn't mention it, but Joy of Cooking does, and it results in a better duck to my taste. I love me some duck, but the first one I tried retained way to much fat under the skin, and also kept the skin from crisping up properly. I also love Shel_B's hairdryer idea from Marcella. I think I have read where Chinese specialists use fans to blow cool air on the ducks, and it seems the hairdryer would speed up the process. I would want to cook the duck promptly after raising the temp like that though.

Okay, this was hilarious , but many of them looked like staged jokes, at least to a person who is unfamiliar with the German language and culture, for the most part. I kept craning my head to try to seem something else with the photo of the buttocks with ears, and was stymied until I read the comments: Katharina Fösel · Uni Bamberg There's a german idiom that's "Arsch mit Ohren" ( "ass with ears"), which is a colloquial insult term for an annoying, stupid, awful person smile emoticon This article didn't really well in explaining or translating the texts. I'm sure many would make better sense with less ignorance on my part, but still a riot. Thanks liuzhou.

Well, best-laid plans for Sunday dinner from our fresh fish market were thwarted by a huge 60' mature tree coming down in the wind across the power lines. Scared me quite senseless. It blew the two transformers on either pole between where the lines were breached, but they got the power back on respectably quickly within a few hours. It was too cold to grill anyway, and I certainly had no great urge to cook in a swampy backyard where a crew was trying to work to restore power that had blown up MOST spectacularly a few hours before, not knowing when or even if power would be back on that night. We went to a Mexican place that used to be our favorite years ago, but won't be named, because, sadly, after this visit we won't be back. We've been noticing for a while on our infrequent visits after a change of ownership, that quality was going down, but this visit was the clincher. The default salsa that came out literally was pureed canned tomato. No jalapeno, no cilantro, and worse, no onion. The husband pronounced it "terrible," and he eats stuff I wouldn't touch. I am not exaggerating to say that Hunt's canned tomato sauce is much more flavorful than what we were served. Mmmkay. So I ask for the hot salsa they used to have. It comes out in a small dish, and appears to at least have some crushed red Italian-style pepper in a very thin sauce. I said, "At least this one looks like it has some flavor". After I taste it, my husband asks, "So it has flavor?" I make a grimace, and reply, "Yeah, a really bad one." The rest of the meal was edible, unlike the "salsas," but barely, and with heavy hearts, we turn out backs on a restaurant where the Latino staff used to greet us by name. The new management fired all the old guard, some of which were there when we started eating there about twenty years ago. Apparently they also fired, and failed to replace, anyone with a palette or even rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuisine. So the seafood was deferred until Monday night. For the first time, they had no red snapper, and the blue crab sign was gone from the window. They were also out of clams. The husband got his usual fried catfish with hushpuppies and fries, and I got them to fry me up large shrimp with some okra. I had made homemade tarter sauce before we left with Dukes mayo, chopped onion, capers, flatleaf parsley and a leetle Tobasco sauce. This made up for the bad dinner the day before! I also ordered a dozen oysters for later at 75 cents a piece. When I got them home, there were sixteen in the bag. I love lagniappe. Edit: I forgot to add finely minced dill gherkins to this list of ingredients for the tartar sauce, one of the most important ingredients! Some like it with sweet pickles, but I don't like that at all and don't eat it if it's served like that.

I love ya, gfweb, but I have to disagree here too. I own both books, and I know Joy isn't hip anymore, but sure is and has been useful to me. I love the depth of coverage on ingredients and techniques. The game chapter and the individual illustrations and descriptions of cooking techniques and characteristics for some of the most popular eating-fish species are invaluable to me. I agree with cooking times and temps for optimum results on most everything. This is my favorite cookbook. I also love Bittman's book, but like JoNorvelleWalker, I often find myself going back to Joy when I fail to find anything I'm researching in HTCE, or sometimes, when I just plain remember an Irma recipe I prefer to Mark's idea(s). I love and use his lists of ideas for variations on a basic recipe all the time. That's my personal experience, though, and both books are treasured additions to my kitchen library. I am so grateful that Kenji share's his extensive research and experimenting with the best results in mind on the Serious Eats site. Many of his articles have improved my cooking. He is not afraid to challenge traditional methods and myths, some of which he has completely debunked.

They "Joy of Cooking" states that, "all fish is cooked through at 137 (degrees) F. Usually 135 (degrees) F leaves just a hint of translucence and more moisture, and is done enough for most people. For tuna and other fish, that you might prefer less well done, try 120 (degrees) F for starters. Use the knife peeking technique to double-check the thermometer if you are unsure." I have trouble getting a good reading on all but the thickest of fish with my trusty old-fashioned mechanical meat thermometer, so I use Joy's guideline of 8 or 9 minutes cook time per inch of thickness, checking with the peek inside with a knife procedure. No dry, or worse, rubbery fish from my kitchen! But individual tastes, and food safety concerns vary, as may your mileage with this advice. It's most important to start with fresh product here, as that is what will determine your result, even with the most excellent cook.

Su Lianling, is indeed a very beautiful young lady, and her new husband is a very lucky man. Fun fact: elephant ears, commonly grown in the US as ornamental garden plants are taro. liuzhou, What type of melon is that? I don't think I've ever seen it. Do you eat the skin? What an opulent feast, and such a breathtaking young bride! Thanks for sharing.

I agree with DiggingDogFarm, especially if the chicken has come from our mainstream agribusiness food supply, known to be commonly contaminated with salmonella. Those little critters multiply at exponential rates. I find little, if any, quality degradation from freezing chicken, so that's what I usually do. I will refrigerate, if I'm going to use it the next day. Then I handle it like nuclear waste, and cook thoroughly while trying not to dry it out too much. I use a meat thermometer before serving. I use the "Joy of Cooking" recommendation of 160F for breast meat and 170F for dark meat, and have never had any health issues with any chicken coming from my kitchen. Keeping your fridge on the "verge of freezing" as KennethT suggests, will extend the life of not only raw meats, but milk, and everything else in there. You just have to be careful, use an inexpensive fridge/freezer thermometer, and not make too large adjustments to the thermostat at one time. I have frozen more than one head of iceberg lettuce trying to get a fridge stabilized. Once stabilized at 33-34 degrees F, though, I can always keep milk 4 or 5 days beyond the expiration date with no problem at all. Even produce keeps longer, once there's no danger of it freezing. It saves money and eases my mind, knowing that I'm slowing the reproduction of any bacteria present.

KennethT, I don't know if you love Mexican food as much as I do, but all the more authentic Mexican and Latin American restaurants around here serve limes plated with tacos, carne asada, seafood and other dishes, or they are offered on a salsa bar. If too many perfectly fresh, juicy limes are your worst problem, you are a very lucky person.

I forgot about naval jelly. Years ago, I used it on a car and on some old cast-iron patio furniture my MIL gave me to get rid of rust before painting. It works miracles. I don't know the science, but I suspect some chemical reaction is going on. You will want to wash and rinse very thoroughly after use, because there is no way this chemical brew is food-safe. I remember having to wear rubber gloves, and it tingling my skin even through the gloves. Probably eye protection isn't a bad idea either, just in case of an accidental splash. It sure is effective, though.

To make up for last night's McDonald's "McPick2" dinner of a couple McDoubles and one small fries each, which neither of us finished and set us back a whopping $6.46, I made something healthier tonight. I broiled pork chops seasoned with adobo, black pepper, smoked paprika from TJ's, oregano on one side, thyme on the other, plus chipotle powder on mine. On the side we had broccoli boiled Marcella Hazan style in plenty of water for four minutes. I also nuked NC sweet potatoes, split, mashed in the shell, and topped with a little butter and salt. Tomorrow will be roasted chicken leg quarters, probably just with salt, pepper and dried rosemary, with mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and salad. Sunday, I think we'll hit up our local seafood shop again. If they have good-looking red snapper like they usually do, that will probably be our dinner, broiled whole. If they have the live blue crab, promised in the window sign, but unavailable on the last two visits, I will defect to that. I am still thinking about Steve Irby's fried apalachiacola oyster po boy on ciabatta on the Lunch thread/topic, but I am as fickle as a kid in a candy store when I'm in a fresh seafood shop, like we are lucky enough to have. So I guess we will roll the dice with the most attractive day's catch/offering.