Basilgirl

An OLD Land'O'Lakes recipe from inside the butter carton - "Butter Pecan Turtle Cookies" (?) - flour, butter and brown sugar - pressed into 13x9 pan - cover with whole pecans - bake - make caramel layer - more butter & brown sugar - bake til bubbly - sprinkle with chocolate chips while hot and let them melt a little, then spread but leave some whole. Wouldn't be Christmas without them. Also peanut butter/Hershey kisses cookies. Oatmeal Scotchies. My boss's wife's chocolate chip - she makes the BEST but will not divulge her secrets.

Outrageous bratwurst from the German store , with outrageous German sauerkraut, CANNED with wine ($4.00/can!!??!!) (it was a gift, as were the brats) , outrageous hot German mustard, and potato pancakes (mix ). Now why did it take me nearly 2 hours to make this? It was gone in no time.

Tried my bags for the first time last night. "Tuscan style" bread from Trader Joe's, capicola, genoa, provolone. Pesto went into The Boyfriend's. Buttered the outside, wasn't thinking or would have used olive oil. The bread was too long for the bags and the bags barely fit in my toaster, even though it does bagels fine. So after the first two rounds on medium, half of them were perfect! Cut the other undone halves off and back into the bags they went. Duh The Boyfriend was not suitably impressed. Wanted to know why you just couldn't grill them in a skillet or put them in the microwave.

The Tangerine Sours rock

Oooopppsss. They only ship in the U.S. Sorry about that.

igourmet.com. They have everything. Ordered from them last year. Very good quality. You can shop by country or ingredient. Excellent cheese selection. Check them out.

Sini Fulvi Pecorino Taleggio Morbier Just tried Mimolette for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Yum.

I gifted one of these useless "tools" to my mother, as they come two to a box. Flimsy. Won't fit in the olive jar like they show on TV. Doubt if it could pick up a fried or hardboiled egg. Cheap locking mechanism. Dumb.

SethG: I made this Sat. night. Same thing happened to me with the balsamic. It went from a slow boil to a blackened hunk of burnt concrete in no time. I sprayed it with that new Dawn power cleaner stuff and let it soak and it came right off my stainless steel pot. Otherwise, another delicious Lidia recipe.

Hot chocolate with peppermint schapps.

Brie and salty ham.

I make pretzel rolls from an OLD Gourmet (recipe is on Epicurious) that you boil in baking soda and sugar.

Friday night: A huge oven-baked "Cuban" Sat. night: Pizza, Trader Joe's dough; one ham/shiitake/onion/garlic/roasted garlic cream sauce/fontina & swiss; one Muir Glen pizza sauce/red onion/red pepper/mozzarella/Italian sharp cheese/garlic Sun. night: Mario's beef braised in an onion ragu, penne

Buy the book! The chicken scarpariello and valdostana recipes are awesome. The whole book is awesome.

Hmmm. I don't think I have ONE Asian cookbook. But I must have at least 10 Italian ones. But I couldn't part with any of them. Please check out Lidia's Web site. There are some damn good recipes there.

PS - Make It Italian by Nancy Verde Barr is also very good. As is Italian Classics by the Cook's Illustrated people. I think I have too many Italian cookbooks.

Yes indeed. She is a wonderful cook and her recipes are great. The book's a good read, also. Heather: Mario's Holiday Food is a nice little book too.

All three! Marcella's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking for classic Italian - start out with her tomato sauce with butter and onion, eggplant parmigiana, crespelle with tomato & prosciutto, and bolognese sauce; Mario's Simple Italian Cooking - start out with his basic tomato sauce, it's delicious, and try the pork Perugina - thick boneless chops with a yummy white wine/prosciutto/caper/anchovy sauce; and Lidia's Italian-American cookbook - everything I've tried out of that book has been fantastic, especially the chicken scarpariello and the chicken valdostana with braised lentils with spinach. You can get that last one off of her Web site. Good luck! Hope you enjoy these books as much as I do. You can't go wrong with any of them.

Heresy.

I love the classic. However, have recently discovered bacon and cheddar grilled on raisin bread. Sounds weird, tastes good.

The "Baked Ham and Cheese" from the latest Martha S. little cooking mag. Translation = Croque Monsieur.

Sammy, they basically said that it doesn't deliver a notably superior product for the price. I'm getting one to give for Christmas anyway.

What I mean by "one-off" is doing just enough of a sauce for one recipe. Sorry about the confusion. That must be yet another restaurant term I don't know, like "runner"

What is "one-off" I use Mario Batali's recipe all the time and when squishing the whole tomatoes they inevitably wind up on my shirt. Also like Marcella Hazan's butter tomato sauce - so easy and so good. Tomatoes, almost a stick of butter, an onion, salt.

My favorite mug has "Good #@$!#%@ Morning" on it