Tropicalsenior

@ElsieD your cakes always look so down home delicious. I haven't tried this one but you have turned me on to some really good recipes. Thank you. I have three little bananas that I didn't want to throw out. They look terrible but these little bananas that they called dados are best when they are almost black. They are still firm and as sweet as honey. I made 12 Mini muffins. I love these silicone molds. They are just the right size for a couple bites.

Exactly. I don't use mine for bacon because I like my bacon curly and with some fat and flavor still in it. For sandwiches, I prefer a panini grill which incidentally is great for cooking bacon.

I have this one that I've had for about 15 years. It was a present from a dear friend. I used it the other day for the first time in about 14 years. It worked great to hold something together until the glue dried. Too bad we're not closer or I would send it to you.

Always!

Ham salad is what my mama and your mama made. Deviled ham comes in a can.

I like to add just a tiny bit of wasabi. Not too much or it can really get devilish.

That's my impression of this fruit. It's very popular here in Costa Rica and they sell them on the roadside all the time. The bright hot pink color really catches your eye and you just have to try one. Usually one is enough. Here they are called zapote, which is interesting because that is also the name of a the buzzard.

I'm with you all the way. Better to have too much than too little. However, it makes a difference in whether this is a before dinner grazing or if it is part of the meal with bread and salads. As I remember, we recommended four people to a pound as part of a meal and six people as a tray for snacks.

When I worked in a deli and made lots of cheese and cold cuts trays, we used to recommend a quarter of a pound (cheese and cold cuts combined) per person. I remember one time a woman came in and bought 8 oz of meat and 8 oz of cheese for a party of 12. When we told her how much we recommended she got very indignant and said that people were not going to pig out at her party. After she left we said it was too bad we didn't have the phone number of her guest list so that we could call them up and tell them to eat before they went.

I made some Katherine Hepburn Brownies this morning. I should never make these. They are addicting and may not even last the day.

Slice it, fry it until it is quite crispy, chop it up and add it to scrambled eggs. No need to Salt the eggs because spam has plenty of salt. Unfortunately, you are trying it 20 years too late. It was never all that great but at least it was a lot better then. When I was a kid, a fried spam sandwich was quite a treat for someone who had never eaten anything but plain old boring real meat.

For most normal people that would be a good compromise but Frozen concentrates here are just not available. The closest thing to it is the powdered package thing. These are available in about 34 different fruit combinations. Years ago I developed a cake and a quick bread recipe that used powdered Tang as the flavoring agent. They were both delicious but then Tang altered their formula and started using artificial sweetener instead of sugar and it threw my proportions completely off. In order to get the flavor concentration that I needed, even though I cut back on the sugar, they were so sweet that they almost took the enamel off your teeth. If you live in a foreign country you have to live by my motto. If you can't make it, fake it. If you can't fake it, f*** it.

I suppose for several reasons. First, I've been looking for a good orange cake for a long time. Second, because Mandarin season is almost over here and they're getting a little spongy and third, because I can get a lot more zest out of the orange then I can a Mandarin and that seems to be a big part of the strong flavor. It only took 1 Mandarin for the juice but I had to use 4 mandarins to get enough zest. I think you would get good results with any Citrus flavor in this cake and I'm even thinking of trying passion fruit.

My first thought was The Scream by Munch.

We need more emojis. We just haven't got anything adequate to answer this.

Whenever I learn new words I tried to imagine using them in conversations. I draw a complete blank on these.

I almost forgot. I did pitch in some candied citrus rind.

I cut into it last night and it's perhaps not as moist as I would like but the flavor is delicious. I would recommend this recipe to anyone. When I made it I cut the recipe in half and baked it in a glass pan for 40 minutes. The only change that I made was to add a teaspoon of orange extract. The next time that I make it I'm going to make it with orange juice instead of Mandarin. I will probably try baking it at 325° instead of 350°.

Uh-huh, my late husband was as deaf as a post until I tried opening something like this or a potato chip bag late at night.

I made another pretty easy cake today. It's a simple Mandarin cake. I haven't cut into it yet so I will report later on the result. I'm hoping for a little more citrusy flavor than the last Citrus cake that I made. @MaryIsobel you mentioned that you like to make smaller desserts because there are only two of you. These cake pans that I use have plastic lids in any cakes that I make will last about 4 days in the refrigerator tightly covered like this. Any cake that doesn't get eaten in 4 days gets turned into bread pudding in the instant pot.

No thank you. I like chicken liver a little pink inside but I got to have that Mailard effect.

Granted you could make cheaper meals at home. But if we took the price that we would pay at a high-end restaurant and bought ingredients for a home meal we could put on a hell of a spread. That is of course, most of us here in the Forum because we know how to cook. And we can't really figure our rent and utilities as overhead because we would have to pay them whether we were cooking at home or not. But there are a lot of people out there that can't cook or don't have time to cook so there will always be a need for restaurants and people that will pay the prices so some restaurants will survive. My husband didn't like to go out to eat because he said he got better food at home. I like restaurant food because I didn't have to cook it and I don't have to clean up after it. Fortunately it never became much of an issue because there just weren't very many good restaurants in our area. @Kim Shook drives me crazy. I'd love to follow in her footsteps for a week.

Since you've been following us for a long time, you probably don't need any guidance. Please, Jump Right In and start posting. It's good to have you aboard.

Wow. What a great article. It's a great description of the science behind the baking of a good brioche. It also explains all the failures that I have ever had when I tried to make brioche and makes it clear to me that with the ingredients available to me here I can never hope to have any success whatsoever. So for the foreseeable future I will stick to my own recipe for Light Brioche Bread. It's not as buttery nor is it as finally grained but I don't suffer the frustrations that I have had trying to make brioche.

If anyone is interested, the first one would fit into an instant pot and flan can be made in the instant pot quite easily. I'm sure that @JAZ could provide us with a recipe and some times.