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astarteny's Profile

Website: http://travelswithmyfork.blogspot.com

Location: scotland

About: food and cooking obsessed. will try 5 different recipes for the same dish to find the one that works. covets good kitchen kit.

Favorite foods: anything made with love.

Last bite on earth:

The Ten Most Recent Posts By astarteny

From Talk

a trifle disaster

Posted by astarteny, December 28, 2007 at 7:13 AM

for xmas i decided to make a sherry trifle. i was doing great until i got to the custard. i seems to have some kind of block about it. in the past i've watched a nicely thickening custard turn to scrambled egg in seconds and wanted to avoid a repeat of that. so this time i undercooked it and it was too thin -- not thick at all.

i've heard about heating it until it coats the back of a wooden spoon and you can run a straight line through it with your finger, but is there anything more specific than that -- like temp? at what temp will the egg start to scramble and is it past the point of recovery then?

your advice is much appreciated!

8 Comments | Tagged: trifle

From Talk

How do I revive a tired sourdough starter?

Posted by astarteny, November 1, 2007 at 8:00 AM

last january i thought i'd try to make my own sourdough starter and nurtured a mother starter out of organic grapes. i fed it every week and was turning out 2 loaves of really nice bread every sunday for my weekday lunches. as the weather got better, my urge to bake bread diminished and i went 3 weeks without feeding it. i managed to bring it back with daily feedings, and keeping it at room temp instead of the fridge.
that lasted another month, but then life intruded and i was going on holiday and then moving house, and then unpacking and the starter has been woefully neglected. all in all it's probably been about 8 weeks since i last fed it.

is it too late? do you think i've killed it? what would be a good way to know? or should i just start all over again?

also -- is there a minimum quantity i need to keep alive? my recipe calls for 250g of starter for 2 loaves, but the total weight of the starter was more like 750g -- could i have just chucked all that out?

all your advice and comments are much appreciated.

7 Comments | Tagged: baking, bread, Question of the Day, sourdough

The Ten Most Recent Comments By astarteny

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

i'm intimately familiar with the binders and file folders stuffed with scrawled recipes or recipes torn from newspapers and magazines. i also have had to deal with an ever growing collection of back issues from the two food magazines i subscribe to. and i have at least two document folders of recipes on the computer.

to stem the flow i started using Recipe Center 5.2.
what i like about it:
it has a great autofill function for ingredients
ability to create your own keywords
ability to create and save menus of groups of recipes
handy ingredient printing list (but see what i don't like below)
ability to attach photos of finished dish
range of printing format options

what i don't like about it:
search functionality is minimal -- you can't search on more than one keyword for instance
the shopping list output doesn't add up all the ingredient quantities into 1 entry per ingredient.

i'm going to stick with it now that i've put over hundreds of recipes in it.
i've been using a scanner to slowly tackle the binders and use pretty decent OCR to generate text from the scan. then it's just a matter of copyign and pasting into the recipe database, choosing some keywords, and it's saved!

astarteny at 3:55AM on 07/06/08

From Recipes

Eating for Two: How Do You Love Sardines, Tell Me All the Ways

re: sardines and rice -- yes! must be cos i'm half filipina? salad of choice to accompany is red onion/juice ripe tomatoes/coriander and a sharp vinaigrette.

my parents retired to live in st jean de luz and every time i visit them i stock up on their sardines from this WONDERFUL shop: http://www.labelleiloise.fr/

in fact, my ma sent me a dozen tins for my birthday!

the other way i like tinned sardines is in on toast with plenty of mayo and sliced tomatoes.

if i get fresh i make them in escabeche OR grilled -- too too yum.

astarteny at 9:07AM on 03/25/08

From Talk

What's Your Best Boeuf Bourguignonne?

i tried this one a couple of months ago and it was wonderful:

http://www.burgundytoday.com/gourmet-traveller/chefs-recipes/beef-burgundy.htm

astarteny at 4:23AM on 02/24/08

From Talk

Making Chile Powder (How-To)

i make a jarful of chili powder every year. i brought over my collection of dried chilies when we moved to scotland and so far, with just a few additions of chilies that friends have mailed me, i've been able to keep it going.

i like to use lots of pasilla and chipotle. to be honest i don't even know which varieties i have anymore -- the packaging is long gone and they're kept in air tight plastic jars.

i just heat the oven up, put them all on a baking tray and once i can smell em they're done. i keep the kitchen door open when i'm grinding them in the food processor -- it can get really intense! i try to remove most of the seeds but always keep a few in to keep the powder hot hot hot.

astarteny at 2:51PM on 02/14/08

From Recipes

A Red Velvet Affair

when i used to live in harlem at 126th and madison, the best fried seafood place was just down the block from me. it was called A Taste of Seafood. they had really good red velvet cake.

thanks for posting this recipe -- i've always wanted to try it myself

(http://travelswithmyfork.blogspot.com/)

astarteny at 2:47PM on 02/14/08

From Talk

What are you making for the super bowl?

JerzeeTomato -- can i come to your house for the superbowl?

every year since i moved to scotland i've tried to stay up and watch the game. and every year i'm asleep on the sofa before the 1st quarter's even over! still, i make nachos and chocolate cake and yeah, we dig into it before the game even starts.

this year, there's a scotland vs. france 6 nations rugby match on during the day. i've invited our friends ian (scottish) and julie (french) over for braised lamb shanks and chocolate cake. we'll see if i'm still hungry when the game starts at 11 pm!

astarteny at 8:10AM on 02/01/08

From Talk

Robert Burns

yep. we had one, albeit with a twist! you can read the lowdown and see some great pics here:

Burns Supper with a Twist

astarteny at 1:49PM on 01/27/08

From Talk

What foods do restaurants most often mess-up?

sad sad rocket salads with absolutely wilted rocket, no dressing and minging parmesan shavings.

mind you i had the best ever one a coupla years ago at a restaurant in leith (edinburgh) called fishers of leith. it was a huge plate of totally fresh, peppery rocket with just the right amount of parmesan, perfectly dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette.

i keep ordering it at other restaurants hoping it'll be as good, but sadly, it never is.

*sigh*

astarteny at 2:37PM on 01/22/08

From Talk

What's your favorite soup?

for really cold wet days we go for scotch broth with a beef bone thrown in for extra flavour. my partner and i make our batches differently -- she cooks a big chunk of neep in the pot and then mashes it to thicken the soup. i cut everything into the same size dice. she thinks i put too much pulse in mine; i like mine nice and thick.

do lentejas count? they're not really a soup, more of a stew. i posted a pic of the one i made on sunday in the serious eats flickrpool:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23472838@N00/2206213945/

i'm planning on making ribollita in the next coupla weeks cos i'm craving some of that cavolo nero.

astarteny at 2:33PM on 01/22/08

From Talk

Mediterranean Cookbook recommendation needed!

Claudia Roden is one of my favourites, as is Elizabeth David. Rick Stein has a new book out to accompany his new show on mediterranean cooking. not sure if it's available in the us yet.

astarteny at 6:26AM on 01/03/08

Responses to Comments by astarteny

From Recipes

A Red Velvet Affair

So, is red velvet cake a chocolate cake or not? I don't really know, even though I've eaten in made from a mix a few times.

I remember old recipes using beet juice or tomato juice to add moisture (not really noticeable in the taste) and wondered if that's where the whole "red cake" idea came from.

chari at 1:22PM on 07/09/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

I'm with love2cook, I like the low-tech 3-ring binder. I can put notes on how to make something or list variations.

Years ago I read a story about a family in which the wife/mother was very ill or died. The father hired a woman to cook and clean and everyone was worried about what she would cook for them. To their surprise every meal was something they liked and prepared just the way they liked it. After a while the father asked how she had managed to do this. She explained that she had found the wife/mother's collection of recipes and cooked those with the most stains and spatters -- something that would never happen if all recipes were saved online or printed and thrown away after each use.

I have 2 3-ring binders. One is for favorite recipes and the other is for recipes to try. They are divided in exactly the same way. The recipes to try binder bulges now and again and I have to purge it. I try to keep only those recipes that I actually might cook -- not all of those that sound good. One thing about the recipes to try, I've found that some are tried soon after I've found them unless they're for a special occasion or holiday. Those that hang around for more than a couple of weeks will probably never get tried.

I also keep a copy of my favorite recipes in my email account. If anything happens to my binder, I've got backup.

IndyGal at 9:14AM on 07/09/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

@izatryt: Yes....once the scaling issue is addressed, YummySoup will be the best tool available.....on any platform. Once I am 100% behind switching, I'll migrate to YummySoup! & convert all of my YUM! recipes.

I've been playing with it for a couple weeks now, and I really like it.

2qrs at 10:31PM on 07/08/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

i've been meaning to give TasteBook a try... it seems pretty neat and you can include other featured recipes to your tastebook besides yours.

MadelynRodriguez at 6:46PM on 07/08/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

I meant Mac Life.

izatryt at 6:13PM on 07/08/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

@2qrs - Mac World is giving a big thumbs up to YummySoup! I posted on their forum regarding the scaling issue and was told the upgrade should be available next week. I am really tempted to go in that direction. For $20, I really don't have anything to lose. If it turns out to be a bad choice, I will skip that next bottle of wine. ;-)

izatryt at 4:59PM on 07/08/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

I heard about http://www.heritagecookbook.com/ on NPR and I am currently making a family cookbook, dedicated to my ill aunt, full of family recipes and picture to give out as gifts for Christmas. I think the site is really easy to use and the preview of the book looks amazing so far. There are a bunch of different templates and the prices are pretty reasonable!

ReneeRobinson at 3:48PM on 07/07/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

I can't imagine life without my cookbook collection...in addition to the numerous binders filled with I-prints, I've been collecting for over 20 years. I was the fortunate grandchild to receive Gramma's collection when she passed away. A friend of mine gave me her collection to "hold on to" 4 years ago.

That said...there are many recipes that I use very often. I would love to find a program that allows me to input those "go-to" recipes (in addition to finally consolidating my business recipes) and have a very user-friendly search option.

thewrighttaste at 1:07PM on 07/07/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

As pksmash mentioned, flash drives are a great way to back up those recipe folders to ensure that you don't lose your recipes if your computer fails.

Several people have mentioned using Word to create their own filing and saving system. I'm toying with making recipe templates within Word. It's a nice way to format your recipes as you desire, rather than being buttonholed by a recipe-saving program.

I have several boxes of recipe cards and newspaper and magazine clippings that pre-date all of my internet recipe "finds" and they're all organized with dividers, etc. I'm inspired to get them scanned onto my computer (flash drive) as others have done but I also share the sentiments of those who enjoy looking at a hard copy of the recipe.

At any rate, have fun getting organized. :)

holdthemayo at 12:39PM on 07/07/08

From Talk

It's time to get organized!

I tried Mastercook in the past, but there is something about the magazine clippings with handwritten notes on them that I just love. I, too, subscribe to several food magazines and one of my great pleasures is reading them and clipping recipes. I decided not to try to automate them, but rather I bought some beautiful file folders that I leave on a bookshelf with my cookbooks in my kitchen and organize them in my own way. If I automated them, I'd want to print them out to use them while cooking anyway. So, why waste the paper? Every year or so I go through them and get rid of the stuff that I haven't and probably won't make.

sdownes at 9:51AM on 07/07/08