Toliver

I noticed while patronizing a local McD's that their menu has changed quite a bit from what it used to be. "Streamlined" would be the appropriate word. Their Value Menu (formerly known as the Dollar Menu) has been thinned out going from about 20 items to now just 5 or so. It reminded me a little of the menu at In-and-Out Burgers which is as simple as it gets. Apparently, the fast food market is currently slowing down if not shrinking. So they're apt to try and lure customers back in with specialty items. Case in point: McDonald’s Lobster Roll I wish they would offer that sandwich here! I'll be "jonesing" for lobster for the rest of the week thanks to that picture of the sandwich; a yen that will not be sated here on the left coast of the U.S. where lobster is far from affordable (which is another thing that pisses me off about the Food Network where the chefs use lobster in their dishes as if it were as cheap as bologna).

They'd be great together. Originally, I had an issue with the Creamsicle cookies being a little too fragile (crumbling too easily). With Andie's suggestion, via PM, of swapping half of the butter in the recipe for shortening, the cookie was now a lot more sturdy and stood up better to being transported. My mother has insisted that the orange rind version of the Creamsicle cookie will now join her Christmastime repertoire of homemade goodies, which is a great compliment to the recipe (and to Andie!). A nice addition to the Dream cookies would be chopped walnuts (which are in the Butterball cookies I make).

I have grown to adore him and his cooking philosophy. Thank you for the link to the article.

I don't have any pictures but I made two cookies this past week. The first was Kim Shook's Dream Cookies which turned out to be almost a half recipe of the Butterball cookies I make every Christmas. "Surprise" to me! They were delicious. In her most recent mention of the recipe, Kim said cinnamon bits would add a nice flavor to the cookie. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the cinnamon bits in my local grocery stores. I did find Kraft's Caramel Bits which are little round balls of caramel that I added to the recipe. Unfortunately it didn't work out too well. The bits were hard on first bite and then became caramel-chewy after. So they had a mixed reception. The other cookie I made for a July 4th party was the Creamsicle Cookies that Andiesenji had recommended. Only instead of orange rind I used fresh-grated lemon rind. They had a wonderful "summery" flavor and were a hit. My mom said they reminded her of the little lemon pudding cakes you can buy at Costco. I really wanted to try lime rind but those suckers are far too small...I would have been grating for days to get enough rind for a single recipe of the cookie!

Lisa, thank you for the suggestion of Tejava brand ready-to-drink iced tea. I think we have a winner. The ingredients? Brewed Tea. That's it...that's all she wrote. It tastes pretty good for something ready-made coming out of a bottle...it has an almost fresh-brewed tea flavor. Ironically, my local Von's grocery store had it on sale this past week so "Yeah!" for me. I also discovered that Costco sells a multi-pack (6?) of Tejava in the larger bottles. The only thing that stresses me out about Tejava in the larger bottles is that the bottles are glass. I have to keep telling myself when handling it "Don't drop it. Don't drop it." Thanks for the suggestion. Tejava (and the Lipton Sparkling Peach Iced Tea) will keep me satisfied for the rest of the summer. Regarding the segue into brewing iced tea in this discussion, in my Mr. Icea Tea maker I brew decaf green tea, with one bag of decaf orange pekoe (for color) along with a bag or two of herbal Mandarin Orange tea bags. A warning though, drinking too much iced tea everyday can be a bad thing (click).

Nope. The state of California discovered the same weight/pricing problem a few years back. I believe Whole Foods was fined a chunk of change at the time. Interesting Karmic timing on all of this considering how they were in the spotlight recently for their proposed downsized "365" stores and also for their new "Organic" rating policy that has the organic farmers/producers up in arms.

I'll have to give the Tejava brand a try. I am not sure my area grocery stores would even carry the Japanese brands. I'll have to check. The main reason I brought this up is I wanted to be able to get a nice ready-to-drink ice tea already made for me...cutting out the brewing time wait. Yes, call me lazy. I do have a 3 quart Mr. Iced Tea maker (created by the Mr. Coffee brand) at home which makes great iced tea, of course. You can fill the pitcher with ice and once it's done brewing, you have "instant" iced tea. Thanks for your input.

It's actually "Goldbely.com" (one "L"). I think it was Jason Perlow, co-founder of eGullet, who raved about "It's It's" years ago, I eventually found them here in my area grocery stores and discovered I wasn't a fan. YMMV. I prefer "Chipwiches" which are ice cream sandwiches made with chocolate chip cookies with the sides of the ice cream rolled in chocolate chips. (And the Carl's Jr's around here are selling Hostess Ding Dong Ice cream sandwiches ). The Goldbely.com site sort of reminded me of ethnicgrocer.com which while not a food-Etsy type web site like Goldbely.com seems to be, but at the time it seemed to have everything ethnic under the sun available at the one web site (the current site is a mere shadow of what it used to be).

Now that it's summer and quite hot (105°F today), I keep seeing a lot of TV commercials touting the new ready-to-drink iced teas. The major brands in my local grocery stores are Gold Peak and Pure Leaf. I've tried the unsweetened versions of both brands and think they're both bottled "Meh". IMHO neither brand has that nice "iced tea made from brewed tea" flavor. Gold Peak iced tea actually has an ingredient list: water, natural flavors, tea, caramel color, phosphoric acid Gold Peak Iced Tea looks awesome. It has that nice dark brown color of a nice brewed iced tea. Who knew it was due to caramel coloring? I try to avoid drinks with caramel coloring in them (you can Google why) (serves me right for buying something without reading the ingredient list first...but then, who knew iced tea had an ingredient list?!) and then I'm also freaked out that their iced tea has more "natural flavorings" than the tea itself. WTF? Any SSB want to explain that? Pure Leaf has an ingredient list, too, though it's shorter: Brewed Tea, Citric Acid I actually thought the Pure Leaf Unsweetened Tea had lemon in it because I could taste a tartness in it. Sort of like when you're in a restaurant and you order iced tea and the waitress puts lemon in your tea even though you requested no lemon and then she remembers you didn't want lemon so she fishes it out but when she brings it to your table and you take a sip you can taste a little bit of lemon. Yeah, sort of like that. It turns out that citric acid, aka "lemon salt" or "sour salt" is used as a preservative. Perhaps Pure Leaf has enough of it in their tea that I can taste it and so I thought there was lemon in it. I'm batting "0 for 2". Are there any other brands of ready-to-drink iced teas that actually taste like fresh-brewed iced tea? Or should I just make it myself?

My mom likes to roast cabbage often. Except she insists on calling it "sauerkraut" for some reason. She roasts a nice hunk of pork first, then adds the rinsed sauerkraut with some diced onion, a wee bit of brown sugar (my aunt uses shredded carrots instead of the brown sugar when she makes it), and caraway seed. She'll add some water too so it's all juicy. You need the juice for the dumplings which are made last on the stove-top. Them's good eats, folks.

I previously mentioned about how I used Trader Joe's "Soup Starter" veggies with some salad greens in this Trader Joe's post (click). Someone from Trader Joe's must be reading these forums because yesterday, while in my local Trader Joe's, I found the same container mentioned in my previous post (the container was flat-ish round plastic) now labeled "Healthy 8 Chopped Veggie Mix." Below the title it reads "For salads, sautéing or anytime you need fresh veggies." It's the exactly the same thing as their soup starter veggies, just re-labeled. Here's the list of veggies in the product that I should have posted the first time I mentioned them: Broccoli, carrots, green cabbage, red cabbage, jicama, green bell pepper, radish and celery. They're all diced so they're ideal for soups or salads. Like I mentioned before, I refresh them in some ice water before adding them to my salad greens. And Trader Joe's, if you're reading this...I want a commission.

Excellent idea to stop the plants from spreading. Mint is another plant that should only be grown in pots. It spreads everywhere if planted in the ground.

The spicy heat shouldn't be in the vinegar (though it may have some just by attrition due to the oils leeching out of the peppers). The heat should still be residing in the peppers. If you dump the vinegar and put new vinegar in, the peppers should still be hot. You could always try freezing the jar of peppers, vinegar and all. I've put salsas that I thought had a kick to them in the freezer and when I took them out and thawed them, the heat was gone (which pissed me off royally at the time ...live and learn! ).

Sponge toffee...it looks like Butterfinger candy bars. Is it crispy/crunchy or soft? If it's /crispycrunchy you could always label it "Futterbingers" so people would know what it tastes like. I am in awe of your continued great work in chocolate.

Eggs are an issue as an ingredient. They're not something that can sit in a warehouse for a year. They need to be fresh. So it's likely that prices will fluctuate with the current availability in the market. On the other hand, corporate behemoths like McDonald's can also lock in prices for supplies a year at a time so the daily market prices shouldn't impact their bottom lines too much. It will be interesting to see how this all impacts their prices. The bird flu impact on availability of eggs and chickens will reverberate for months to come. Not only in the price of eggs and the price of chicken but in products that use eggs as ingredients (such as mayo). Also, Thanksgiving may be a price shocker in the U.S. as well since millions of turkeys have also been slaughtered due to the bird flu and the turkey farmers aren't sure that a new "crop" of turkeys will be mature enough in time to become Thanksgiving turkeys. So the price of this year's Thanksgiving turkey may also heavily impact consumer spending for the holiday.

When I was a kid, my mom would make cheese dogs (hot dogs slit from one end to the other...the slit making a pocket yet not deep enough to be able to split the dog open in half). Then she would slice some cheddar cheese into small sticks and stuff them into the slit in the hot dogs. She'd use the broiler in the oven to cook the dogs and melt the cheese. Good stuff, Maynard.

Yes, I saw that, too. But my sugar yardstick regarding canned ice tea was a can of Nestea Ice Tea with lemon I once had that I think had 18 grams of sugar per serving. This was a while ago and I don't know if that still holds true so I considered the 4 & 1/2 tsps relatively not that bad. Besides, the tartness of the peach flavor seemed to counterbalance any sweetness. It didn't taste too sweet to me. I'm also recently aware that McDonald's has finally put out a diet version of their Sweet Tea which I am interested in trying. edited to fix some spellling

I thought I would post this in this forum since it's ready-to-drink. Lipton has come out with Sparkling Iced Tea flavors in a can. The cans are tall, thin and on the smallish side, looking more like those energy drink cans (Monster, Red Bull, et al) than a soda can. Here's a link to the Lipton web site (click). The carbonation is odd. It doesn't have large bubbles. When you pour it into a glass and it foams up, the foam has very tiny bubbles and the foam doesn't disappear as quickly as the carbonated foam of a regular soda. That being said, it comes in three "punch" flavors: Lemonade, Raspberry and Peach. Run...Do not walk...and go buy the Peach flavor. O.M.G. The other two flavors are just okay and are nothing to write home about (let alone write about it in a eGullet forum ). But the Peach flavor is amazing. It's like you just bit into an actual peach. Of course, that flavor version of the tea is sold out in most of the stores I've been in looking for it. Two thumbs up for the Peach version of this Lipton Sparkling Iced Tea.

Gorgeous, Norm! Thanks for taking the time to post this picture.

FauxPas, I agree with rotus...your simple puff pastry looks amazing. I am salivating just thinking of how it must have tasted. The colors of the tomatoes are so vivid. I hope they tasted as good as they look. mm84321 - Your rib eye had me at "hello". I adore a good rib eye...it's my favorite cut of steak. And your dessert looked spectacular, too. liuzhou - Your spaghetti with asparagus and red prawns looks delicious. I'm thinking it could make a nice cold salad, too. patrickamory - Regarding your giant white beans with Italian sausage and leeks...I thought the beans were potatoes, they're so huge! Well done.

Welcome to eGullet, Sally! I am surprised that the Modernist community hasn't tackled this issue yet and come up with a solution. They've seemed to have solved just about everything else. I think one of the reasons why sweet potatoes and yams never get that crispy french fry crunch is because of their much higher moisture content. Which makes me wonder if you dehydrate the sweet potato/yam fries and then fry them or bake them, if that would help them to get that missing french fry crispiness. Are there any dehydrator aficionados on these boards willing to experiment?

From the article: "Man making margartias gets seond-degree burns" It's a rare condition, thankfully. But who knew you had to be careful with limes when out in the sun? Live and learn.

You should try PM'ing eGullet member Sam Kinsey. He's quite knowledgeable about cookware (I think he wrote the eGCI class on cookware). A few years ago when Calphalon was dumping their 2-ply non-stick cookware (which resulted in amazing low prices for the stuff on Amazon), anodized aluminum cookware was fast becoming the rage. I never bought in on it because even when it was first launching, the caveat on these boards at the time was that it wasn't even close to being as non-stick as the Calphalon cookware was. A silly question, but have you tried spraying something like PAM inside the pots before cooking the soups? I share your pain as a past college cafeteria dishwasher having to deal with daily burnt-on crap in pots from kitchen cooks who didn't give a rat's ass because they weren't the ones who had to scrub the pots.

As a kid, I ate hot dogs with ketchup. Unless my dad brought home mustard dogs from Der Wienerschnitzel, the hot dog fast food chain. As an adult, I still eat hot dogs with ketchup, sometimes a little mustard gets added. And can we find some leftover Nobel prize to give to the inventor of Dill Pickle Relish? It's not sweet, it's sour. A great condiment to add to just about anything that needs some chopped up pickle. Brats, however, I always top with mustard and maybe some sauteed onions and green bell peppers.

For my family's Memorial Day BBQ, we cooked hamburgers and brats. The brats were first simmered in beer with chunks of onion. Once they were cooked, my brother put them on the grill to mark them up and give them a nice smokey flavor. The brats were delicious.