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It's not worth it to make _______ when I could just buy it
i can't believe people really feel this way about stock! my heart hurts. and my head too.
puff pastry's the one thing i'd never make on my own on a regular basis.. i've failed too many times, and after a while it just becomes a sin to waste that much butter-glorious-butter.
MAKE YOUR OWN STOCK, PEOPLE! If you do it right then you'll realise why it's worth the difference!
How do YOU quiche?
my favourite's pretty standard - sautéed bacon and ham! Sometimes with some onions that have been sweated down, but not caramelised.
A great sorta-vegetarian one I made for my mushroom loving friends was caramelised red onions (with some balsamic), wilted spinach, and mushrooms sautéed in butter, olive oil and a touch of garlic.
What do you put on pasta?
XO sauce! Loosened with a little olive oil, and some of the pasta's cooking water.
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Recent Comments | Response to Comments
What's So Weird About That?
i grew up not eating a lot of raw stuff, like raw oysters straight from the shell, sashimi etc, and lots more "exotic" and "fancy" food along those lines. i convinced myself (and told everyone else) that it was because i didn't like it, but since i've grown up, i've found it's really only because my mom hated the stuff and so even when i tasted any of it i was psyching myself up not to like it. so no, not a lot of weird food i'd eat that anyone else thought was odd.
except maybe this one dessert i'd whip up for myself any time of the day (or night) - i'd take about a 1 inch slice of frozen chocolate sara lee pound cake, douse it in half a cup of fridge-cold milk, and mash the hell out of it until it was like this blackish sludgy-soup. i LOVED it. and everyone i forced into trying it hated it to hell and back and told me i was insane.
i still eat it now (when i can sneak a sara lee pound cake into my groceries without anyone noticing), but i've long grown out of trying to convince anyone else to try it. :\
It's not worth it to make _______ when I could just buy it
i can't believe people really feel this way about stock! my heart hurts. and my head too.
puff pastry's the one thing i'd never make on my own on a regular basis.. i've failed too many times, and after a while it just becomes a sin to waste that much butter-glorious-butter.
MAKE YOUR OWN STOCK, PEOPLE! If you do it right then you'll realise why it's worth the difference!
How do YOU quiche?
my favourite's pretty standard - sautéed bacon and ham! Sometimes with some onions that have been sweated down, but not caramelised.
A great sorta-vegetarian one I made for my mushroom loving friends was caramelised red onions (with some balsamic), wilted spinach, and mushrooms sautéed in butter, olive oil and a touch of garlic.
What do you put on pasta?
XO sauce! Loosened with a little olive oil, and some of the pasta's cooking water.
Shallots! What do you do with them?
Shallot oil!! Slice them up and gently fry them in a little mild-flavoured oil (try canola or safflower) over a very low heat. They should just go translucent and very very soft - not brown at all. After about 10-15 minutes of the gentle heating, drain the oil, reserving it (you can now use your shallot oil as the basis of stir fries, or in salad dressings, or anything else you'd want to use shallots in but maybe don't want BITS of shallots or want a very mild fragrance instead of strong flavour).
Don't throw away the shallots either though - they too can be tossed into your guacamole or any of the other ideas above, or you can season them and stir through a little red wine vinegar (or reduce them with some red wine) to make some "shallot confit" which will keep in the fridge for a week or so and goes great on sandwiches, savoury tarts, or anything else you can imagine!
How Far Does Restaurant Loyalty Go?
I would go back, but I would also let them know. If I'd been there so many times before and this was the first time I'd gotten sick from their food, chances are it was a fluke - probably nobody's fault at all. But just let them know anyway so they can be aware. (And so they hopefully appreciate you going back all the more!)
Dinner Tonight: Hainanese Chicken Rice
No way, you need to cook the rice in the rendered fat from the chicken, not canola oil! The best way to do it is to pull out the big lumps of fat from the cavity of the chicken before you start cooking it, and render that out. Top it up with extra oil only if you aren't able to render out enough fat to coat the rice grains well before cooking.
The Omnivore's 100
Yay I hit 81! (See my post here - but there was something wrong with my blog so the formatting's a little different.)
The only two things I wouldn't eat are roadkill and umm rocks/dirt/wtf?!! Now I have a goal, foodwise :)
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
microplane and my knives. :)
Why Don't Recipes Include Salt Amounts?
I agree with @iwannacook and @Joy Manning, but to add to @iwannacook's point - if a recipe for say some pasta sauce calls for a can of tomatoes, unless the recipe specifies the brand of canned tomatoes (which may not be available everywhere), it's very difficult to specify something like salt. Add to that different preference levels for salt, as well as different sizes of salt crystals between brands of kosher salt (let alone the difference in amount of salt between 1 tsp of X brand kosher salt and 1 tsp of Y brand table salt), it's really almost impossible to specify.
Tasting is an important part of cooking, whether you're an amateur home cook or am experienced chef, and seasoning your food with salt is probably the most important skill you could ever learn!
Essentials: Strawberry Shortcake
I *love* strawberry shortcake! But I have to say - and I know this is going to get me slammed by the purists - that I prefer the versions done with home-made, fluffy sponge cakes, at least when it's in the 8 or 9-inch size. Otherwise, I normally make smallish ones using plain cream scones
Barnyard Finger Foods
Neither fish nor bears are really part of a barnyard, but these goldfish crackers look cute and are rather yummy.
Snapshots from Asia: Coffee to Go
haha, my favourite poster in one of these local-styled coffee places is one that goes, "Want a skinny latte? Stop at half a cup!" :)
Essentials: Strawberry Shortcake
There is a special place in hell reserved for the person who invented those grocery sponge cake thingys for strawberry shortcake. I imagine that spot will be shared by the inventor of Cool Whip and foods like Country Time "Lemonade" or Lloyds ribs.
Dinner Tonight: Hainanese Chicken Rice
I know I'm a little late to the party... but just made this last night, and even my Asian food hating boyfriend. (Yes, seriously. Every single kind. No matter what the spice profile or ingredients.) So I didn't tell him what it was before he ate it.)
What's So Weird About That?
Every day for lunch during my junior & senior year of high school I brought 2 4 ounce ostrich burgers & a sliced bell pepper to school! Everyone was always so curious and asking for bites! I am not really a SHARING type person so NOPE, I ate it all myself! lol
What's So Weird About That?
@hjpieman - I LOVE to drink the leftover oil and vinegar from my salad bowl (only when I'm alone, though, so as not to be boorish), especially if there were tomatoes in the salad...the tomato juice and the dressing taste so delicious together!
What's So Weird About That?
I still love cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, especially on a nice fresh kaiser roll. Also, cream cheese and chopped green olives. MMMMMMMMM!!!
What's So Weird About That?
My sister used to make this disgusting concoction when she was a teenager--minute rice, mixed with canned tuna and then topped with american cheese and nuked until the cheese was gooey. Sometimes I think she made it just for the hurl factor that it evoked in me.
Grilled cheese sandwich with dill pickle slices in between the cheese slices were a weird thing for my husband to wrap his head around, until he tried a bite of mine. Now he's hooked.
What's So Weird About That?
Nothing extreme here. Just odd.... french fries dipped in apple sauce. Chicken nuggets dipped in mashed potatoes..... like it was a condiment. And ketchup buns... learned that one from Mummy.
PS: LOVED dots, and hated pizza as a kid.
What's So Weird About That?
@eleeb - I was introduced to PB & honey by a college roomie. Why didn't I eat this earlier? The crystallized honey is the best part! PB/honey/banana came soon after. THEN, I had a Specialty's PB/jelly/apple/banana...genius!
@Sugar - I made spaghetti sandwiches too. What's wrong with carbs wrapped in carbs? I never found those gross and was delighted to find spaghetti stuffed buns in a Japanese bakery in San Jose. Most people find that gross on my Flickr.
What's So Weird About That?
There's nothing weird about cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, especially when they're on dark rich pumpernickel. Yum.
What's So Weird About That?
At some point, I created a sandwich of things i liked. It was made with white bread, Laura Scudder's Natural PB (with the oil slick on top), Farmer John's Liverwurst with Bacon, and Mrs. Fanning's B&B Pickles. I used to eat it every weekend, sometimes more often. I also drank the leftover oil and vinegar dressing from the bottom of the salad bowl. Is something wrong with that?
What's So Weird About That?
My mom and dad are both into very healthy eating. My mom was raised a vegetarian, so growing up, we didn't eat as much meat as the average American family probably does. My brothers and I used to be so embarrased by some of the types of sandwiches we'd get in our lunch. We used to try to hide them to avoid being made fun of by other kids.
Most notable in my mind is a linkett, cheese and pickle sandwich.
For those of you who don't know, a linkett is this type of canned fake hot dog like think made by Loma Linda Foods.
Linkett picture
There's a picture if anyone's that interested. Anyway, the sandwich filling involved grating up the linketts and the cheese, cutting up little pieces of pickle and mixing it up with mayo so it was like a spread. I used to be so mortified whenever I'd get this in my lunch, even though I actually loved it.
I haven't had that in years...Now that I'm thinking about it, I want to make some!
-Sara
What's So Weird About That?
@myerlemonhead--I adore nut bread and cream cheese, and far from weird, I thought it was one of the specials at Schraft's, a NYC 'ladies that lunch locale'--my parents were older when they had me, and though my mom was anxious about sweets, date nut bread and cream cheese was a big elegant 'dessert for lunch' favorite for me.
I have to confess, I adored reading all of these, but I'm so egotistical, nothing I ate as a kid seemed weird to me, I was more the kind of person to think that other people's lunches were weird. Even what you consider normal here.
Weird was:
-eating hot dogs plain or with ketchup
-eating sweet and sour sauce with chicken mcnuggets or honey
-selecting fruit-flavored syrup or ice cream rather than vanilla or chocolate with ice cream sundaes
-not liking pizza (there was a girl who only ate saltines and peanut butter, and used to bring it to EVERY party, including pizza parties, which I found weird)
-those multicolored dots of sugar on wax paper girls liked better than chocolate
-mayo or anything but ketchup and mustard on burgers--Big Macs were weird as a kid
You see, I am always the normal one...
What's So Weird About That?
PS Cream cheese & jam is not weird. I used to pick up lunch for the guys I worked with at a cycle shop & they always got cream cheese & jam on a toasted bagel
What's So Weird About That?
The only vegetable I never liked is lima beans. My aunts always asked my mom, "how do you get your kids to eat their veggies?" Easy, we like them.
Saltine sandwich (saltines & margarine on bread)
Spaghetti sandwich/Mac & Cheese sandwich
Mom's bean salad
Plain potato chips dipped in vinegar
Pickle juice
After Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, after dessert, my sister & I would always have a plain dinner roll
What's So Weird About That?
when i was a kid i loved, loved, loved chicken gizzards and livers.
What's So Weird About That?
Loved: liverwurst, hard salami with Tabasco sauce, Totino party pizzas, asparagus, peppercinis (sp?).
Hated: Green beans (still do!) and corned beef.
Oh, and once my brother and I made Port Wine cheese omelets... and we've never touched the stuff since! Port Wine is now dead to us.
What's So Weird About That?
@blackliquorice I used to eat the garden as well... loved clover and bitter plants, and light colored roses. Yum... I guess the strangest were ants though... I used to head to the front of the house with tweezers and a magnifying glass - then proceed to pick out the biggest ones and scorch them before eating. Crunchy!
What's So Weird About That?
oh... and chicken hearts and giblets. :D
What's So Weird About That?
low calorie/diet jell-o
pickles... and pickle vinegar. I love drinking it, and recently discovered my mom does too... Its just something NO ONE EVER sees.
mustard. Yeah... just mustard.
mayo... on pizza, and potato chips, and lots of other things.
There are more, just can't remember them now.
What's So Weird About That?
My friends all thought it was disgusting when I slurped down raw clams and oysters. Silly children...
What's So Weird About That?
Koegel Red Hots (spicey pickled bologna), just grab one out of the jar and bite into it, perfect with a couple saltine crackers... I still get lemon faces all around when I eat them, I find them fantastic!!!
What's So Weird About That?
Definitely cream cheese and jelly, but only strawberry or orange marmalade. As a kid I loved whole button mushrooms from the little glass jar, canned beets, and sauteed chicken gizzards with onions. My dad told me they were chicken belly buttons, which made sense because at the kosher deli we would go to to eat them they were called pupiks which is naval in Yiddish. Also, sardine salad sandwiches on fresh rye bread (think tuna).
What's So Weird About That?
I've eaten braunschweiger on a cinnamon raisin bagel. This came about when, as a child, I was starving on the way home from the grocery store and this was the only thing I could eat readily in the car. I won't eat braunschweiger anymore, mostly because I now know what's in it :(
What's So Weird About That?
I love cow's tongue, growing up and to this day. Fried with an egg or in a chile type sauce... YUM!
What's So Weird About That?
Kids sure eat some wacky pairings, and sometimes tap into something that later becomes a food fashion. At about age 8-10, pure heaven was having my own jar (DelMonte, maybe?) of Queen Anne Cherries. I could eat the entire jar as my afternoon snack. Not sure if they are still available in a jar, but they appear in the produce section of Whole Foods at a whopping $9 per pound on occasion. Other fav was a can of Dromedary Date Nut Bread, spreading the slices with cream cheese or butter. I always thought my food cravings as a kid were pretty weird, but after reading these postings -- well, other kids' favs were just as out there.
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About w
Website: http://www.dubdew.com
Location: Stranded between Hong Kong and Singapore
About:
Favorite foods:
Last bite on earth:
i grew up not eating a lot of raw stuff, like raw oysters straight from the shell, sashimi etc, and lots more "exotic" and "fancy" food along those lines. i convinced myself (and told everyone else) that it was because i didn't like it, but since i've grown up, i've found it's really only because my mom hated the stuff and so even when i tasted any of it i was psyching myself up not to like it. so no, not a lot of weird food i'd eat that anyone else thought was odd.
except maybe this one dessert i'd whip up for myself any time of the day (or night) - i'd take about a 1 inch slice of frozen chocolate sara lee pound cake, douse it in half a cup of fridge-cold milk, and mash the hell out of it until it was like this blackish sludgy-soup. i LOVED it. and everyone i forced into trying it hated it to hell and back and told me i was insane.
i still eat it now (when i can sneak a sara lee pound cake into my groceries without anyone noticing), but i've long grown out of trying to convince anyone else to try it. :\