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Food for Thought (and Discussion)

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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby stargazer » Aug 19, 2015 6:05 pm

"Tater Tot Hot Dish" is one of the quintessential Minnesota/Upper Midwest dishes, at least according to the common stereotype. ;))

(That reminds me of a story a teacher told our class several decades ago. She was from New England, and when asked to bring a 'hot dish' to a potluck, that's exactly what she brought, the story went. "It's properly called a casserole," she pointed out).

Deviled eggs for 70 jo? Wowsers.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby wild rose » Aug 20, 2015 4:34 am

Jo, what we do here is after the eggs have boiled we let them stand under running cold water for at least a minute, better two. The hot water must completely cool and turn ice cold. The eggs peel easily after that. When we spent our summers in the village and bought fresh eggs, this trick worked perfectly for us :)
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby johobbit » Aug 20, 2015 4:58 am

That is exactly my method too, wrose, but it doesn't work for me with fresh eggs. /:) At least in Canada. :P Sure glad it works for you, though. :ymapplause: (What's with Canadian chickens, anyway? ;)) )

Hence, I'm saving our fresh eggs to use raw in scrambled or fried, etc, so I purchased grocery store eggs (much to my dismay) for these little deviled guys. They peeled beautifully. I cooked and peeled 84 late yesterday, and now just have one dozen to go. :D

(Welcome back, worse! :ymhug: )
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby wild rose » Aug 25, 2015 10:23 am

johobbit wrote:That is exactly my method too, wrose, but it doesn't work for me with fresh eggs. /:) At least in Canada. :P Sure glad it works for you, though. :ymapplause: (What's with Canadian chickens, anyway? ;)) )

Hence, I'm saving our fresh eggs to use raw in scrambled or fried, etc, so I purchased grocery store eggs (much to my dismay) for these little deviled guys. They peeled beautifully. I cooked and peeled 84 late yesterday, and now just have one dozen to go. :D

(Welcome back, worse! :ymhug: )


What is it with Canadian chickens? Lol. I do remember now that my mom would keep the eggs in ice cold water for a long time, they could sit on the counter for ages and ages while she was busy with other projects, maybe that had something to do with them peeling normally, maybe not, I just remembered that part, so I thought I'd mention it :)

Woah, Jo, that is a LOT of eggs :-o

(and thank you, it is so wonderful to be back :) :ymhug: )

The apple harvest is in here and soon I shall set to work making loads and loads of apple pie, I don't want them apples to go to waste ;)) we sure got a lot of them and more are coming in.

so yeah, anyone is welcome at my place, cause there is sure to be enough apple pie for all who come :)
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby fantasia » Oct 11, 2015 5:29 am

Popping in here to ask, does anybody have a simple burrito recipe (like beef and bean) that they'd be willing to share? I've made them and they've come out horribly, but I've had other people's homemade burritos and they taste good, which leads me to believe it's something I'm doing wrong while cooking. :P
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby ValiantArcher » Oct 11, 2015 2:19 pm

Umm, what have you tried, fk? My mom's recipe is usually leftover taco meat (and beans?) placed in a tortilla that's been spread with refried beans, rolled up, covered with salsa and cheese, and then baked until warm and the cheese melted. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for or not, but I think hers are pretty good. :)
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Old Maid » Dec 08, 2015 3:52 pm

I know there are many recipes for turning dry, root-veggie yams into soft, sweet, candied yams. Can anyone help me turn too-many-cans of such yams into fries? They don't have to be restaurant-perfect, just good enough for ketchup.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Dec 12, 2015 1:50 pm

Ah, sweet potatoes/yams. My favorite thing. =p~ I'm not coming up with many suggestions on Google aside from pan-frying canned potatoes, TOM. (Link and link.) If I wanted something more like a normal french fry, I think I would try patting the sweet potatoes dry, then cutting them into the desired shape and lightly coating them with oil to keep them from sticking. Then, roast them at a low heat for a while to draw out some of the moisture. You could either turn up the heat or try frying them to crisp them up after that.

In other foodsy news, I've been trying to watch my calorie intake these couple of weeks leading up to Christmas, and one thing I've really been enjoying is Celestial Seasoning's Sugar Cookie tea. It's so good with a little milk and some sweetener! Really nice way to deal with Christmas cookie cravings. (Unfortunately the tea contains gluten, though, so not a good choice for for anyone avoiding that.) Does anyone else have any favorite teas or hot drinks for wintertime?
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby fantasia » Dec 18, 2015 6:11 am

I think Dryad's suggestions sound about right to me TOM. Good luck and let us know if you come up with something that works out. :)

I thought I'd pop in here and mention that I discovered The Pioneer Woman's recipe for enchiladas, and they are awesome.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree- ... cipe0.html
I love Ree Drummond. She is my favorite celebrity chef. Everything I've made of hers has been quite really, really good.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jan 05, 2016 2:08 pm

I like Ree Drummond's blog! The other day I saw a recipe of hers for an apple skillet cake that I really want to try.

Yesterday I made bread pudding. I'd never eaten it before, much less made it, but we had some cinnamon swirl bread in the freezer leftover from Christmas and there was about a third of a jug of milk that was out of date, and bread pudding seemed like the logical conclusion. I used this recipe, although I skipped the raisins, cut the butter back to one tablespoon, and used 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup erythritol, and a few drops of liquid stevia in the place of the 3/4 cup of sugar. (I like combining sweeteners because I feel like it results in a better taste.)

The results were so good! I wish I'd gotten a picture of it before it was devoured, but it didn't last long in my kitchen on a cold day. Ever since I've been thinking about other flavor combinations for the same basic recipe, like chocolate chip or blueberry, or maybe even one made from leftover doughnuts. Ahh, what have I done. :))
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby SummerSnow » Jan 08, 2016 11:29 am

The Rose-Tree Dryad, that sounds really delicious. Without tasting it, I think that adding chocolate is always a wonderful thing and would surely taste yummy. :D I am not sure if I ever have eaten bread pudding before (or at least now like the picture depicts), but I've always thought it sounded rather delightful. Of course, chocolate chips would be a nice addition if I ever tried to make it....

Has anyone heard of Dinah Bucholz's The Unofficial Narnia Cookbook?
I've only had two of the recipes, but I'd love to have more. So many sounds quite delicious, though I think that partly has to do with some of the names.

I made the Biscuit Porridge (from the end of fifth chapter in the Last Battle). As no one would actually want to eat hard biscuits with salt and water, the author took some liberties and made it a sort of cookie with a milk based "porridge". The biscuits are fat cookies with chocolate chips. I overbaked a few (they're supposed to look a bit under done), but they were still good, even when hard. I only made the milk sauce once. It was fine, but the cookies were quite delicious on their own. I'm not very experienced in cooking, so I like easier recipes such as this. They didn't take too long (an hour or so, because I'm slow at making things), so I made a couple of batches to give out to people at Christmas time.

My mom made Sweet and Creamy Hot Vanilla, which was inspired by Edmond's meeting with the White Witch, when she gives him something hot to drink. It's milk based (of course) with heavy cream, sugar, and cornstarch. And of course, vanilla, with the option of sprinkling nutmeg on top. It was a bit frothy, rather sweet, and quite delicious.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jan 09, 2016 4:32 pm

Ditto on the chocolate chips, Summer! I'm already building a double chocolate bread pudding recipe in my mind for next time I make some. ;))

That recipe book sounds so cool! I'd love to get my hands on a copy. It seems that it's out of print and all of the listings on Amazon are really expensive, but it looks like you can get The Official Narnia Cookbook (authored by Douglas Gresham!) for eight dollars as a Kindle ebook. I'll have to pick that up sometime; the recipes look really neat. :D Not sure I'll be making eel stew, though. :))

Your Biscuit Porridge recipe sounds so interesting and fun! I feel like the author had a pretty good excuse to make the biscuits into something cookie-like, since biscuit is a word that's often used for cookie in the UK. (That's something that this biscuits-and-gravy Southern girl has always found a bit puzzling. ;))) What a cool, Narnia-themed Christmas present to give people! I love that gift idea!

Mmmm @the Sweet and Creamy Hot Vanilla... that sounds so good! Being a fan of white chocolate, I like vanilla-flavored, milk-based hot drinks as well. So yummy.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Old Maid » Jan 11, 2016 3:35 pm

Well, I've given up rehabilitating canned sweet potatoes into French fries. They're just too soggy.

They do tolerate my roast-potato fix, though. Cut up some potatoes into fork-sized pieces. Mix 1/2 cup oil with a packet of onion soup mix. Toss potatoes in oil/mix. Roast about 400 degrees. Turn after 30 minutes or when browned enough on top, whichever is first. Roast another 30 minutes or until browned and done.

Sweet potatoes have a higher sugar content and will burn, so I roasted at 300-325 degrees for a longer time. Being canned, these never really got crispy, but at least they weren't orange vegetable pudding anymore either.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jan 12, 2016 2:56 pm

Mmm, that sounds like a good recipe, TOM! I love roasted potatoes. Being a sweet potato-holic, I've been looking up recipes that use them lately and I ran across African Sweet Potato & Peanut Soup. It looks so interesting! I'd never thought of combining sweet potatoes and peanut butter before, but it sounds really good.

Today I attempted a recipe I've been wanting to try for a while: macaroni and cheese made with cauliflower. Most recipes involve baking it in the oven, but I made mine on top of the stove by cooking a pound of cauliflower in one pan and making about one cup's worth of bechamel sauce in another. I then added a small amount of very sharp cheddar cheese to the bechamel and folded the cauliflower into the sauce when the cheese was done melting. It was delicious! I love recipes that have tons of vegetables in them and this one was really tasty and satisfying.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby SummerSnow » Jan 13, 2016 5:59 pm

You'll have to let me know how it turns out (delicious, I'm sure). It is? I didn't know that! It's technically the library's, so I had hoped on getting my own copy one day (provided the rest of the recipes turn out as good). Ah, well...
Though if they have an official version, maybe I could try that too. :p Perhaps not; I'm not in much of a hurry to make eel stew either.

Yes! I'm certainly glad she took it in that direction, even if it's not anything like what they had in the book.

Macaroni and cheese made with cauliflower sounds really good. At the very least, an excellent way to sneak in vegetables! :p Or at least that's the way I see it, not being a hugest fan of having most vegetables plain.
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Re: Food for Thought (and Discussion)

Postby Pattertwigs Pal » Feb 02, 2016 7:38 pm

I've seen the Unofficial Cookbook before. My friend got it from the library and I've wanted it ever since. The cheapest ones on Amazon are around $60. I wouldn't spend that much of my hard earned money on a cookbook. I did however spend that much of gift card money on it. ;)) Once it arrives I'll have both the official and the unofficial one.

I've had the hot vanilla. It's pretty good but I can only take it in small doses. I think I also made the marmalade roll in that book.
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