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The Ten Most Recent Comments By AuntJenny

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

Oh, no! That IS sad. Are you sure it's permanent? I mean, I've had my biscuit mojo abandon me on exactly two occasions: once for reasons I still can't fathom, and once because I was so anxiety-ridden that the dough CLEARLY absorbed my emotions and the resulting hockey pucks were as dismal as my disposition. Fortunately, in both cases the the curse was fleeting, and I was back to form with subsequent batches.

Maybe it's just the culinary gods telling you it's time to branch out in new directions, and you'll be able to come back to these personal classics in the fullness of time. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

AuntJenny at 10:10PM on 07/11/08

From Required Eating

Bacon Bra

Oh, please, y'all... it's just plain silly and hilarious.

I'm as ardent a feminist as you'll find on the planet, and I TOTALLY embrace my love of bacon, bawdiness and "bwah-hah-hah" (which are pretty much the three things this photo celebrates).

AuntJenny at 5:12PM on 04/14/08

From Recipes

Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese

The only change to this STELLAR recipe that I recommend is to increase the milk to 6 cups in order to make the mix "soupier" and the end result (and subsequent fabulous leftovers) moister.

Otherwise... the PERFECT baked mac & cheese!

AuntJenny at 9:58PM on 03/23/08

From Required Eating

Serious Easter Artisanal Chocolate Egg Giveaway

With the leftover hardboiled Easter eggs, my mom would make eggs goldenrod served over toasted English muffins for Easter breakfast (the egg white bits would have random little streaks of pink and blue and green on them from their dyeing), along with fried country ham. My dad called this "scram gravy," referencing the "Smokey Stover"* comic strip which featured a sign reading "scram gravy ain't wavy."

*Mom always added a splash of liquid smoke to the sauce, interestingly enough...

AuntJenny at 9:11PM on 03/18/08

From Talk

Freezing stock

I do the ice-cube tray thing, too, but with two changes:

1) reduce the stock down by at least 50% (simmer gently, don't boil), sometimes more; when you reconstitute them, just add extra water for regular-strength stock;
2) after the stock cubes are frozen solid, pop them out of the trays and store in a zip-top bag (if you leave them in the trays, they can pick up freezer/fridge odors and will also tend to evaporate).

AuntJenny at 10:14PM on 02/27/08

From Talk

I add _____ to macaroni & cheese

A splash of liquid smoke (my mom once made macaroni & cheese with some smoked cheddar left over from a party tray, and it was so good, from then on she always added some liquid smoke to the mix) and a squeeze of mustard.

AuntJenny at 5:36PM on 07/28/07

Responses to Comments by AuntJenny

From Recipes

Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese

Wow, it's the middle of the summer and y'all are making mac and cheese?

I never had mac and cheese growing up, but when Martha says she doesn't do comfort food I think she means she doesn't 'do' processed food--like she always says she doesn't really eat candy, she prefers 'the real stuff,' even if that is chocolate chip cookies or apple pie.

I pumped the data into a nutritional analyzer on the web, and it said 512 calories per portion if it serves 6, which, while heavy, isn't as bad as I thought.

HeartofGlass at 9:04AM on 07/21/08

From Recipes

Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese

You know what I think is funny? A month or so ago, I watched Martha on the Next Food Network Star show, telling everyone that she does not "do" comfort foods. (One of the chef's prepared a "Sloppy Joe" dinner) Maybe if it had gruyere cheese in it, perhaps she would have found it acceptable....

Nonetheless, her recipes are usually quite good. I just find it interesting that Martha has begun making casual fare, even though it's not "her type of food."

momto3 at 1:59PM on 07/17/08

From Recipes

Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese

Still no answer to the question of which combination of cheeses one should use.

Thanks.

lisaomay at 1:11PM on 07/16/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

After a baking disaster where my cake wouldn't bake, frosting looked like lava and the finished product looked like a deconstructed mess, my neighbor gave me this sage (?) piece of advice: Never bake during your time of the month. It just won't come out right LOL! Now the ladies have an excuse. Who/what can the guys blame?

Josdean at 7:37PM on 07/13/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

Have I ever lost my signature mojo? Nope. But then there are a few reasons why.

1) "An amateur cook does a dish over and over until they get it right. A professional chef does a dish over and over until he can't get it wrong". Mario Batali. If you have a written or memorized recipe and your technique down then you will not mess up a dish unless you aren't paying attention. I seems that many or most of us here cook a lot and have at least our basic techniques down. So do you have your recipe truly memorized or written down? That's my first thought. When I work from a written recipe I've done correctly I've never botched it after learning it.

2) You are improvising. This is me all over. I rarely work from a page and don't memorize recipes. 95% of my food is made up on the spot and sometimes they are better than others. Even the ones that I make often are changed around with my whim and mood. Still if i wanted them to be consistent I'd write the stuff down. But unless the dish in question is a total experiment, it will still be tasty regardless of my intended outcome.

So if you have lost your mojo I'd go back to the basics on your dish and practice it.

Bunnyman at 11:47PM on 07/12/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

Don't you think it's a combination of changing tastes and tastes changing?

Many products have been altered and don't taste or work in a recipe as they once did.

As we "mature" (haha - ok, some of us don't, we just get older), our palates become more sophisticated or just plain change. I know I crave more salt and now love green olives, which I once detested. I had a signature dessert that was a 3 tiered cake with blueberries and cream cheese whipped cream filling. I used to love it and so did my friends and family. Now, I don't even remember the recipe. It became way too sweet.

PerkyMac at 5:35PM on 07/12/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

I discovered that many of the old recipes that gave me comfort as a child are no longer possible with the products available to us today. My grandmother's "egg custard" (creme anglais to us today) just doesnt taste the same. I think it likely that her ingredients were different ( I know her whole milk was "more whole" than mine.) The eggs came from under her chickens. The sugar was different. Has anyone else noticed this as a reason things taste different now?

ocarol at 11:34AM on 07/12/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

I thought I had lost my bread mojo, and for me this was a crushing defeat. Several loaves of bread in a row were just not right. I thought the bread fairies had left me or that I had somehow lost my bread instinct. The bread looked okay, but the flavor just wasn't what is was supposed to be.

Then I realized that I had somehow refilled my countertop salt container with sugar. An extra teaspoon of sugar in a loaf of bread isn't a big deal, but that lack of salt was.

On the other hand, I have experienced whole days where I just should have stayed out of the kitchen. These tend to be the days when my mind was elsewhere, or when I couldn't spend the time to really enjoy the process. Or when I had something that needed to be cooked because I bought it or thawed it or whatever, but I really wasn't in the mood for it. That's when things get burned, oversalted, or weirdly spiced.

I have learned. If I'm having one of those days, it's better to just pull out a container of spag sauce that I've probably got frozen, or grab some other item that I made on a better day, and go with that instead of murdering some innocent meal.

dbcurrie at 12:43AM on 07/12/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

I feel your pain. My advice is to give these favorites a rest for a while. You'll know when it's time to go back to them. Trust your instinct.

Kerosena at 11:51PM on 07/11/08

From Talk

When you lose your mojo with your signature specialties...

I've found two different phenomena at work here.

The first, or "hole in one" is when you get something perfectly right the very first time of trying, and you can't ever get it right again. This happened the firs time I made buttercream frosting. True, it was Banana, notably easier to work with than strawberry, but still: the sugar syrup glistened like crystal, spun its thread deep into the creamy butter, and together became, well, banana-and-butter-flavored air, except more satisfying. AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DO THIS AGAIN. Just put it down to being human.

The second phenomenon is losing the mojo. I can't figure out any overall reason either, but I do think that ingredients can change over the years, according to whre they are grown and where one buys them. What's more, vegetables and even meat and be engineered over the years, so that their chemical makeup is just not reliable.

annien at 11:41PM on 07/11/08