The only thing I ever bought from TV was a Super Slicer. It was worse than you would expect from a TV impulse purchase. To say this thing was utter crap would be unfair to utter crap.

In an old house in Frisco
On 23rd and Vine
Lived 12 little cooks
Hitting the cooking wine
The sharpest one was Mandoline

Mandolines are called that because you're sort of strumming up and down the thing. And yes, razor sharp blades are a must or it flat refuses to work. That means don't use the cheapest stainless alloy you can get your suppliers to supply, but instead the pricier alloy that will actually perform. There is such a thing as high carbon stainless steel. It's often called surgical stainless, but within that category are alloys that are better for edgeholding than some others.

Ahhh. Ok that makes sense.

Foot is the man of a thousand limericks.

Like that, only a LOT sharper.

(btw, I had no idea they were spelled differently. I've only ever heard the name spoken ... although it's probably in the instruction manual somewhere, I didn't read it.

Glad I fought my impulse to buy it. :p:

This is the slicer that I feared the most. I have scars on nearly every knuckle on my right hand from slicing tomatoes back in my high school Burger King days.

Is it possible to salvage jelly that hasn't set?

Story is that I made up some jelly yesterday...here everything has to go in the fridge immediately otherwise there is ant suicide on a large scale so I put icecubes in the jelly to cool it down so it could go in the fridge quickly and it hasn't set....recommendations for alternative uses or straight down the sink?

vanilla ice cream topping!

Waffle/flapjack topping.

Daquiri base.

Thanks for the ideas. Gonna try making it into icecubes and mixing it with OJ etc...

Add the sloshy jelly to Vanilla or Plain Yogurt.

or smear your body with it and have someone.....

Anyone? BTW, there were demonstrations about Bashir's sentencing somehwere nearby today if that appeals.This will be followed by more advisories from the embassy advising all citizen to seriously reconsider their plans to travel here. :D

I made up a recipe - it was fantastic. Wanna hear? I had it for lunch yesterday

3 oz chicken cooked diced chicken breast
1 serving barilla pasta plus
2 oz corn
asparagus
2 g parm cheese
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp Italian Dressing Seasoning from Penzey's

Cook pasta until desired doneness amd drain. Blanch corn and asparagus in boiling water until asparagus is bright green and drain. Mix everything together while warm. Eat immediately or do what I did and put it in a container for the next day and eat it cold.

So I am thinking of doing the above with steak - what do you think? Will it work? What would you change?

Came across a recipe for tamale filling, and it is also recommended for enchiladas.
As I fancied doing those in the next week or so, I'm going to give it a go.

HOWEVER
This is a completely different way of cooking pork for me.
And I can't help wondering if simmering it for 45 minutes is enough.
I suppose I wouldn't question it if it was in a stir fry or in a sauce, but being in water it seems quite a short amount of time.

Also do the flavours really permeate the meat?

I should probably just trust the recipe, but it's a lot of pork to waste if I get it wrong...

Any advice?

Turns out I didn't need your input you old miseries :p:

Not serious - this is a slow moving thread, and had I been really concenered I'd have put it in Home or Nothingland.

It went well.
The meat didn't fall apart as well as I'd hoped and I was prepared for a chew-a-thon.
But of course it was only the first part of the process.
I divided the enchilada sauce between the filling and the topping and after adding onions and red & green peppers the filling was lovely and moist, the pork tender and the outside all yummy and baked with cheese & sauce.

I made 12 for 3 people, but took two in for lunch today.
I managed to eat one.
Today was stupid-hot.
Eating hot food (in both meanings of the word) doesn't work.
I'll have the other half tomorrow.
Given it was too hot to eat tea tonight I might be hungry enough to manage it!

This is not really a recipe; it's an assembly.

Strawberry Shortcake...

...needs biscuits (in the American sense), not yellow spongecake, dangit. Needs their soda-bicarb/baking powder piquancy to balance the sweetness of the berries and whipped cream.

Equipment: mixer, paring knife, bowl for sliced strawberries.

Multiplies readily. I usually stop at a double batch of about a quart of whipping cream -- 2 pints. Don't have to, though...

Ingredients:
1 pint Whipping Cream
Double Cream, Devonshire Cream, Mexican Crema Agria, slightly thinned yoghurt, quantity sufficient to dab on, optional
3 little green baskets Strawberries, sliced to about 1/4 inch or simply halved.
1/2 C Sugar, divided -- 4-5oz castor sugar. Or use a proportion of Equal or Splenda.
Biscuits, quantity sufficient, halved flatwise. Use your preferred American biscuit recipe to make them, or buy them from a bakeshop. I use the biscuits I can get at Mexican bakeries locally -- somewhat buttery, faintly sweet. Fairly large biscuits are preferable but not necessary.

Procedure:
De-leaf and slice Strawberries. The big ones can give three or four slices. Toss in bowl with half the Sugar coat, put in fridge 30-60 minutes to marinate and exude a little juice. If other berries tempt you as well, put them in the marinating bowl with the sliced strawberries. Slice the Biscuits into flat rounds while the berries marinate in the fridge.

Whip the Cream in the mixer. When it just begins to form peaks, stream in the remaining half of the Sugar. Continue whipping until Cream forms firm peaks.

With the berries marinated, spoon them onto the biscuit halves, adding a dollop of the local interesting creams if desired. Or a touch of some liqueur. Pile whipped cream on top. May serve immediately, or may be held in fridge.

Yummy, UG. Try it with ice cream.

Lemon meringue Cake!
 

I'm just going to post a brag pic here. It was Mav's birthday earlier this week, and I wanted to make him a special cake so had been thinking about it for a while. His favourite desert is lemon meringue pie, so I decided to make it but as a cake.

What I did was make just a plain white cake, but a fairly dense sort of recipe because the middle layer was going to be the lemon filling, and fairly thick, so the cake would need a bit of substance in order not to collapse.

So anyway, I don't have a pic of it cut, but here's one of the finished item.

Attachment 33023

eta I'll sort the pic out. That's come up a bit small.

mmm yummy

I think this is the best thread ever.

Tonights Dinner, from the Splendid Table . ORG

MENU
Turmeric Grilled Chicken
Potato Salad
Corn on the Cob

Turmeric Grilled Chicken

Serves 4 and doubles easily
15 minutes prep time; 4 to 24 hours for marinating; 60 minutes indirect grill time; 15 minutes rest

Grilling a whole, butterflied chicken is one of the easiest ways to cook for a crowd. In this recipe, shallots, garlic, red chiles, turmeric and salt are combined into a pungent paste that makes the bird as beautiful as it is tasty. Be sure to add some of the paste under the skin for an added kick when you cut into the chicken.

This is our managing producer Sally Swift's spin on a recipe from Food & Wine magazine featuring hunky Chef Pete Evans, author of My Grill: Outdoor Cooking Australian Style (Weldon Owen; reprint edition May, 2011).

Wine: Pair this earthy chicken with a lightly chilled Grenache-based wine like Côtes du Rhône from the southern Rhone Valley.
4 medium shallots, peeled
12 garlic cloves, peeled
3 fresh red jalapeño or long red Asian chiles, seeded, if desired, for less heat
3-inch piece of ginger root, peeled and roughly chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
4-pound chicken, butterflied
3 fresh limes
1. Up to a day ahead, combine the shallots, garlic, jalapeño, ginger, turmeric, oil, salt and pepper in the bowl of a food processor and puree into a thick paste.

2. Place the chicken in a large dish and smear it with the paste, making sure to thickly coat both sides, and slipping some under the skin. Cover loosely and refrigerate for 4 to 24 hours.

3. Heat coals in an outdoor grill until they're covered in grey ash, or heat a gas grill on medium-high. Set up the grill for indirect cooking, with the coals spread out around the circumference of the grill, leaving an empty spot in the middle.

4. Place the butterflied chicken, bone side down, over the empty space in the middle of the grill. Cover and cook 20 to 30 minutes, checking occasionally, and adding more coals if the fire is burning too fast. You want to cook the chicken most of the way through on the bone side before turning. The bird should be nicely charred on the bottom.

5. Turn the bird carefully and continue cooking until the skin is nicely browned and crisp, and the internal temperature measures 170°F on an instant-reading thermometer, about 15 to 25 minutes more.

6. Carefully remove the chicken from the grill and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Cut the bird into pieces and drizzle with generous squeezes of fresh lime juice.

Potato Salad
Reprinted with permission from Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes by Andrea Reusing (Clarkson Potter, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Andrea Reusing.

Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish
1/3 cup champagne vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1-1/2 tablespoons walnut oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1-1/2 pounds (about 8) medium Yukon Gold potatoes
1. Whisk together the vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, black pepper to taste, the sugar, and both oils in a small bowl. Add the onion and toss to coat.

2. Put the potatoes in a medium pot and cover with cold water; add a big pinch of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 12 minutes, until the potatoes are easily pierced with the tip of a sharp knife but are still firm.

3. Drain the potatoes, and as soon as they are cool enough to handle, rub the skins off by using a clean tea towel or peel them with a sharp paring knife.

4. Slice the potatoes into 1/3-inch-thick slices and put in a large bowl. Pour the onion mixture over the warm potatoes and combine gently with your hands. Taste for seasoning, and add more salt if necessary.

OMG, that chicken and potato salad ROCKED!! we used new potatoes, 0 calories, 0 fat.

I'm sorry, what? Each potato serving alone had 30-60 calories, and then there's this part:

Granted, since there was no mayo it's considerably better than most potato salads... but if it truly had zero calories it would not have tasted like much at all. :)

BOO! BOO! I like the 0 calories and 0 fat part. :D :lol:

The nutritional package statement said 80 calories and 0 fat. Sorry, my error..... I was just talking about the potatoes.

.

POG Soup
 

No, not little cardboard milk cap things.

6 Potatoes (I used russets, but you could use pretty much any type)

1 Sweet Onion

5 Cloves of Garlic

Water to cover potatoes

Tablespoon of butter.

Peel and dice the potatoes. Add enough water to cover and boil until tender. Drain, reserving the potato water.

While the potatoes are cooking, finely dice the onion.

In the potato pot ... throw in the butter, use more if you think it needs it, add the diced onion, stirring frequently until caramelized.

While the onion is cooking,

Peel and dice 5 cloves of garlic. When the onions are just about done, add the garlic. Let that cook a bit and return 1/2 to 2/3 of the potatoes, depending on how chunky you want it to be at the finish.

Let that heat up a bit, and then mush it all together ... do it however you like, handmasher, mixer, or throw it all in a food processor if you want to have to clean up more stuff.

Add the potato water back in until you get the consistency you want.

Pour in the rest of the potatoes.

Fantastic on it's own, mindblowing with a handful of cheese thrown into it.

That sounds great wolf. I am going to have to make that one soon.

Bump, to put it back at the top.

Easy turkey brine
defrost bird
get a Cooler that will hold said bird ( unsented tall trash bag optional , it makes for Way easy clean up )
put a Gallon or so of water in said bag in said cooler
add a Hand full of salt ( sea , reg table salt . etc,,, )
a Bear of Honey
hand full of Pepper corns
Other spices if you want
mix this around to combine
put in the turkey
fill with water and ice untill turkey is covered
seal up bag
let sit over nite

Rince off the turkey
Cook it how you like
we smoke ours ( Hard keeping it Lit !!! )

Enjoy

Deep Fried Turkey again. Wonderful.

Now To The Banquet We Press...!
 

. . . now for the rollicking bun!
Now for the muffin and toast!
And now for the

gay Sally Lunn!

Sally Lunn Recipe
(from historic Gadsby's Tavern, Alexandria, Virginia)

The following ingredients make one two-pound loaf:

3 1/4 cups flour
1/4 oz. active dry yeast
1/2 cup (short) melted shortening
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup (plus) milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
4 tablespoons warm water


Grease a cookie sheet. Heat the milk and shortening to the temperature of a warm baby bottle. Mix flour, salt and sugar in a separate bowl. Add water to the yeast in a separate bowl. Mix the egg in yet another bowl. Add the warm milk and melted shortening to the bowl of flour, salt and sugar. Add the egg and yeast and water.

Beat the entire mixture until it comes off the side of the bowl, which should be clean. Cover, let rise in a warm (non-air conditioned) place until double in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Knead the bread down in size and shape into a round loaf. Place on the cookie sheet and let rise again to 1/2 again as big, about 45 minutes.

Bake bread at 300 degrees F for approximately 45 minutes. After 30 minutes, baste the top of the bread with butter, and also again after it has finished baking.

Also a

Quick Sally Lunn
(from a Reedville, Virginia Cookbook)

1 egg, well beaten
2 cups flour
1 cup sweet milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Butter size of an egg [a little more than 1/4 cup]

Beat egg -- add milk. Sift in flour to which has been added other ingredients. Add melted butter. Pour in a well greased cake pan and bake in hot oven [425 degrees F] until golden brown.

Serve either with whipped cream, sliced sugared fruit optional but tasty. Some Sally Lunns come out rather dry, and need everything a good dollop of whipped cream can do for them.

Ma's Spicy Garlic Meatballs
 

...sounds formidable. Also like it'd go down real well at California's Gilroy Garlic Festival, last weekend of every July since 1979.

Ma's Spicy Garlic Meatballs

In a heavy skillet with a drizzle of olive oil, SAUTE:

10 bulbs ( not cloves) of garlic, separated, peeled, and
smashed with a wooden mallet

When soft and pungent, add;

1 sweet Mayan onion, peeled and diced finely

Remove from heat and allow to cool

Meanwhile, in a 2 quart or larger bowl, mix;

1/2 Lb. lean ground beef, 2 eggs well beaten, 3 Tbsp. heavy cream,
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce, 4Tbsp. Tabasco (red or green), and
1/2 Lb. dried bread crumbs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix well, add cooled onion and garlic, and with relatively clean hands
make balls the size of golf balls.
Brown formed meatballs in skillet, adding olive oil as necessary.
Cook, turning, until all sides of meatballs are browned.

Serves one or two, depending upon species.

Swiped this off a paintball webcomic, The Whiteboard. Don't worry, the name makes sense when you read through the whole thing.

Using different hot sauces probably make entertaining nuances on the recipe. This recipe is Alaskan-influenced and thus may be a little limited on what hot sauces you can get in bottles.

"Wooden mallet" and "depending upon species" are, um, significant.:cool:

Sounds nice but we'll have to sub out the bread crumbs for anti-wheat purposes.

Mm, busted-up rice noodles? Does barley have gluten? I tend to neglect the gluten-free things since my condition is diabetes, not celiac.

Crushed rice chex is the easiest and cheapest method.

Soul Food Mac & Cheese
 

Swiped from a poster off The Armour Archive.

Soul Food Mac&Cheese the way they don't tell you they do it. High fat.

1 lb macaroni elbows

2 eggs

1 1/2 pints BUTTERMILK (the secret)

1 (8 oz or so) container sour cream

pepper to taste (a lot)

Velveeta (1 box)

Boil noodles, drain. Rinse in cold water. While all that's going on mix the sour cream, buttermilk, eggs and pepper in a bowl. Slice the Velveeta.

Put a layer of Velveeta on the bottom of a 9 x 12 pan. Pour the liquid mix in with the noodles. Spray it with Pam first.

Pour the resulting mix in the pan. Layer Velveeta on top, bake for 35-40 min @ 400F. There will be liquid in there that will thicken on standing, and the resulting mix will actually rise slightly over the top of the pan. Doesn't matter; stir, serve, eat up.

[UG in here] Some editing went on; Blackbow didn't capitalize hardly.

Also works using Muenster or any other suitable meltable cheese. The roux-milk-shredded cheese route also works, though by then the recipe is completely different, more chef-ly; they were kicking these ideas around discussing it in the thread. The interesting feature seems to be the buttermilk with sour cream.

Can I request a recipe or instructions on how to make something? I want to make these! :D

Bump :3eye:

Somethin's comin'... promise.

I bet I could make those.

Maple-Buttermilk Pudding

Seems simple, sounds tasty. Has pics.

Prove it. :-D

It looks like meth crystals wrapped in a pool noodle.

Hello Kitty Crank?

Here ya go, Lola.

How To Make Hello Kitty Sushi

It's the same pic, note the dish detail, the version you posted has been tweaked to make the colors pop.

There's no real instruction, you'll kinda have to infer what's going on.
******************************
On another note: The song playing in the background of that vid is driving me crazy. I'm all but positive it's a Japanese version of an English language song. AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT SONG IT IS!!!!!!!

I'll be trying this one before long:

Crockpot Lasagna

Attachment 45517

from RecipeTips

Here's some help for Thanksgiving.

Sugar-free Cheesecake Melange
Crust: 2 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup Splenda 1/4 tsp. vanilla flavoring
3/4 stick of butter, melted Cinnamon and clove to taste, optional
Combine ingredients and pat into a 9-inch springform pan.
Filling:
2 (8-oz.) pkgs. Low-fat cream cheese 1/2 cup Splenda
2 Tbsp. one-percent milk 1/4 tsp. vanilla flavoring
3 eggs
Beat together cream cheese and milk. Whip eggs, Splenda, and vanilla together; add to cream cheese mixture. Pour into crust and bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Increase heat to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Remove and let set for 20 minutes.
Topping:
2 cups low-fat sour cream
1/3 cup Splenda
1/4 tsp. vanilla flavoring
Combine ingredients and spread onto cooled cake. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Refrigerate for 8 hours.
Fruit topping:
Strawberries, halved Black grapes, halved
Kiwi, peeled and sliced 1/2 cup sugar-free apricot preserves
Canned pineapple chunks, drained 4 Tbsp. water
Arrange fruit in a pattern on top of cheesecake. Combine preserves and water in a saucepan. Cook until preserves are melted, stirring frequently. Brush over fruit. Refrigerate until serving

wow, that looks great

Anyone knows a good recipe for corn medley? :)

I have just recently discovered celeriac, aka celery root. It has turned out to be a fantastic potato substitute for my kids. The french fries I made recently were a big hit, and today I have made mashed celeriac so they can look like they're having mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving with all their relatives. It had to be very aggressively pureed with the immersion blender instead of just lazily softened up with the hand-mixer, but ultimately I did achieve the same texture. Hooray!

That's cool! What is the flavor like?

salt, pepper, butter, garlic, sour cream, bacon, cheddar, what-have-you...

Nice! I'll have to try that - looking for potato substitutes.

Off to make stuffing right now. Today will be a multiple-coffee day; my 6:00 am alarm went before I got to bed this morning. I feel like I'm back at college, pulling all-nighters. Yikes.

It's very mildly celery-ish, like if someone had boiled a bunch of celery in the same water the potatoes were boiled in. More a smell than a taste. Salt and other seasonings hide it completely for me, but I don't have a very refined palate, so maybe others will still be able to taste it.

I'd love to try it if someone put it in front of me.

Update: both the kids absolutely hated the texture of the mashed celeriac. Minifobette actually gagged on it, and this is the child who will eat anything I put in front of her. One of my relatives told her, "but it's just like mashed potatoes!" and I had to tell them that I think she's never actually had mashed potatoes in her life.

Anyway, it's still great for fries. But it looks like I have a lot of mashed leftovers I'll be eating.

Chocolate peppermint cheesecake (frozen)
 

This is the recipe I promised to Ali. I thought I'd share it in general because it's super-easy and it's delicious. At least, we think so.

Frozen Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Chocolate cookie-crumb crust (I used to make it with Nabisco chocolate wafer cookies but can't find them anymore; now I buy two pre-made Oreo cookie crusts, take them out of their pans and crumble them up, and add a little melted butter so that they'll stick together and not crumble too much once the cake is cold.)

If you can find those dark chocolate wafer cookies, the crust recipe is:
1 1/4 cups chocolate wafer cookie crumbs (about 24 wafers, crushed)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened
1 cup finely crushed peppermint candy


1. Spread the chocolate cookie crumb crust in an 8 or 9" springform pan and press onto bottom and slightly up the sides of the pan.
2. Beat the softened cream cheese (leave it out on the counter for about an hour) until fluffy.
3. Slowly beat in the sweetened condensed milk.
4. Whirl the peppermint candy in a food processor or strong blender until most of it is almost powder and a few small to medium pieces remain. Set aside the larger pieces, which always migrate to the top. You don't want big chunks that will crack someone's tooth. The peppermint candy can also be crushed with a rolling pin, which is time-consuming and noisy but can be done. This year I found pre-crushed peppermint hard candy for the first time and only had to whirl it in my Vita-Mix for a few seconds to get the consistency I wanted. Heaven!
5. Stir the cup of peppermint candy into the cheese/milk mix.
6. Beat the 2 cups whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks.
7. Gently fold in the whipped cream.
8. Pour into the springform pan. Sprinkle the top with the larger bits of candy. Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Here's a photo of what it looks like when done:

Attachment 46310