For some reason, the holidays turns many people’s thoughts to the contemplation of food. So, as requested elsewhere, here’s an open thread to share recipes, salivate over great meals, or just chat about what’s on the stove right now.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m Canadian so I celebrated Thanksgiving in October. I used my leftovers for a chicken Divan using Turkey.
There are all kinds of things you can do with the turkey leftovers. Salads, Sandwiches, casseroles are easy if you have a frozen vegetable, pasta or rice and a can of cream soup.
i’m a student and i’m not in america, so i’m living off custard at the minute.
I’ve recently become obsessed with turducken. Anyone know how to create one? I probably won’t manage it this holiday season – apart from anything else I don’t believe my oven would cope – but I’m think I’m going to make getting my hands on some triple-bird delight one of my New Year’s resolutions.
I’m drowning in leftovers, I think I’ll be adding pumpkin puree to meals for a month at least (I was given a truly ginormous pumpkin to work with)
and there’s enough cornbread left to have it for breakfast every day until Wednesday :-D
everything else has been dutifully eaten by boyfriend’s family.
Dude, Myers, its 0550 here, THERE IS NO FOOD ON THE STOVE, WE ARE SLEEPING.
Cheezes (Or is that Jesus?), americans believe the world is flat and have one timezone… My my… :)
http://www.bacontoday.com
Turbacoducken.
I saw a frozen, already prepared turducken at the grocery store yesterday. Ask them?
Garlic Sweet Potatoes, Mashed
4 lbs sweet potatoes
2 heads garlic
1/4 stick butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
Cut sweet potatoes into reasonable chunks and boil until soft. Meanwhile, roast garlic— cut off tops of heads, apply a healthy bit of olive oil across the cut top, and roast at ~350F for about 40 minutes (exact temp doesn’t really matter, just throw ’em in there with whatever else you’re cooking– they’re done when brown and soft).
Add potatoes, remaining oil, butter and cream, and roasted garlic sans peel (if it’s done right, you can squeeze the whole dang thing and the cloves will come spurting out).
Mash, and add salt to taste. Garlic taste and sweetness should be balanced; add some garlic powder or salt to even the tastes in the dish.
Enjoy! It’s delicious.
Guy Fawkes,
For some of us it’s afternoon tea time…
its 0550 here, THERE IS NO FOOD ON THE STOVE, WE ARE SLEEPING. pffft. 6am used to be when I ate dinner when I lived in Seattle. I guess some people think there’s only the diurnal way of life ;-)
I tend to enjoy the Christmas feast quite a bit more than the Thanksgiving variety, as I prefer a nice ham to a turkey.
blockquote failure. the first sentence is supposed to be a quote >.<
On Spicks & Specks a few weeks ago, one of the guests was explaining the concept of Turdocken. It sounds great in theory, but it seems the execution produces something terrible.
Wha-hoo PZ! This is gonna be one hell of a FUN thread. Thanks!
*shimmy*
The Redhead will be making turkey pasties tomorrow. For those of you not familiar with pasties, they are a Cornish meat pie, with a pie crust, usually filled with beef, potatoes, and root stock like carrots, turnips or rutabaga. We got use to them when we lived the UP, where they were brought over by miners who worked in the iron and copper mines. They are a meal unto themselves, and are usually ate with the addition of either beef gravy or ketchup. Local lore indicated the miners would bring their pasties from home, and for their meal break warm them in a shovel over a small fire in the mines, and then take turns bringing the bottle of ketchup which was shared.
These days pasties are still a regional dish. There are arguments over the “true” pasty, with the fat used for the crust and which root vegetables are required being the main topics. For the poultry variants it is recommend that cooked poultry be used, since it requires a hotter temperature than beef/lamb to be fully cooked. I’ll see what I can do about posting the recipe tomorrow.
Kel,
I didn’t catch that episode.
Yeah, the logical part of my brain is telling me there’s a whole lot of wrong with the concept, but the crazy-ass food-loving part of my brain wants to try it anyway. How practical it is for me to make is debatable – I live by myself and probably wouldn’t be able to fit the leftovers in my medium-sized fridge…
I blame the US Pharyngulites. When they started talking about deep-fried turkeys a couple of weeks back it must have tripped something in me.
The crazy-ass food-loving part of me wants to try it as well.
I just had Thanksgiving breakfast with my partner and his parents (his Dad was a Merchant Marine cook – it was awesome.) Its 2115 here, but its breakfast because I just got up to go to work all night in the ER. We also always eat well holidays in the ER so I will also be having a TG lunch in a couple of hours.
Unfortunately my TG dinner which would be at ~0500 PDT on 11/28 will likely be pre-empted by the sequella of numerous other TG dinners consumed an hour or three ago. As we speak the plasma volume and central venous pressure of quite a few local heart failure patients is shooting up from the vast volume of salt consumed. And the blood sugar of many type 2 diabetics is cresting 800 under the influence of two slices of pie, two servings of mashed potatoes, and that last piece of sweet potato consumed while cleaning the table.
Going to work tonight comes with the background music from Jaws. Da- dum…. Da- dum… Da- dum.. Da-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum!
Red Baron pepperoni pizza. One of the best foods to ever exist.
Minced meat pies are an integral part of Australian food culture, and very popular at sporting events since they come in a handy paper bag so you can eat it with one hand while holding your beer in the other – no need to put anything down!
They used to come in only a couple of varieties, but now there are dozens (if not hundreds) with every kind of animal available plus different vegetables, flavours and sauces.
Where I live now (South Australia) they have a dish called a ‘pie floater’, which is a meat pie in a bowl of thick pea soup, with tomato sauce (ketchup) on top.
Galeux D’ Eysines – can someone from France give us a recipe for a soup or sauce from this French heirloom squash?
I grew this in my garden this year. $3.95 for 4 seeds!
Somebody get MAJeff back for this thread, stat!
(Seriously, that guy has the most awesomest recipes, and we all miss him, and yeah.)
Seeing as this is an open thread about food, here is the world’s best roasted chicken recipe, from my blog. You can verify that it’s the best (or at least pretty damned good) by typing “roasted chicken recipe” (in quotes) into google, and checking out what comes up as the first freakin’ hit, much to my own astonishment.
Also, an amusing thread from Shakesville regarding pumpkin cooking:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/11/question-of-day_24.html
No, that’s not a grill.
Yes, that is a truck bed.
Later update on cooking this Great Pumpkin (sorry Linus) here:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/11/petulants-pumpkin-update.html
I agree! We gotta get some blah, blah, blah back.
I am currently feasting on a delicious slice of bourbon chocolate chunk pecan pie (still slightly warm from the oven ) with a tasty dollop of french vanilla ice cream
1cup sugar
1 cup karo syrup (light)
3 eggs beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp bourbon
1 cup pecans
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate pieces
Mix everything up, put in pie shell and bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until firm in the middle, drink remaining bourbon.
Had dinner with my second cousin’s family and there friends as that’s all the family I have in Houston. They were very friendly and the food was plentiful and delicious but I did find It disturbing that they had literature by Hannity and Coulter on there bookshelf because they seem rather sane otherwise. I should note that they are rather well to do so they are likely not pleased that there taxes are about to go up. Politics was not the focus of the evening however so a good time was had by all and I enjoyed my traditional nap in front of the TV while waiting for food time.
Making one’s own food, eh? Interesting notion.
Not necessary around here: there are places that have so much food they have to sell some of it.
Wowbagger #19:
Made immortal by Terry Pratchett in The Last Continent. I thought he was making it up to poke fun at Australian food culture — or lack thereof — but then I looked it up on Wikipedia and there it was. Sounds horrible.
I had a tofurky
speaking of tofurkey…
should I be ashamed that I used a vegan mushroom-gravy recipe, and then promptly substituted “vegan margarine” with “butter”, and “veggie broth” with “bacon broth”?
it was served with aforementioned fried turkey, too.
Where in the world is Carmen Sarah Palin?
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner203.mp3
More useless bullshit with turkey guts
CCCP Monthly Laughing Nightmare Special
PZ, you could do with some weight loss. Fruit for breakfast (just about any fruit will do, avoid bananas) and something after that after an hour if you’re still hungry.
Dinner no later than, say, 19:00. Never, ever skimp on meals but don’t overeat, either. Meat and quality desserts are fine. Minimize homogenized, pasteurized dairy products, especially milk. That shit is not good for you.
Also, make sure your blood is a bit over pH7.0. The body does NOT like to be in a state below pH7.0. See if you can do one or two hours of walking each day.
A few years ago my mom was diagnosed with cancer and between how weak she felt from treatment and not wanting to expose her immune system to any additional strain I took over cooking. She’s fine now but I’m still the family cook, turns out I have a knack for it and am much better than she is.
It’s a bit late but here’s how I made the turkey and it turned out delicious, works just as well for a chicken just halve the ingredients:
1: Prepare turkey for roasting as usual. Heat oven to 375F
2: Chop 1 large sweet onion and 2 medium apples, mix together and stuff them in the bird.
3: Mix following ingredients: 1 cup apple cider, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup honey, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tbs bell’s poultry seasoning, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, dash of allspice, 4tbs (1/2 stick) melted butter.
4: Brush glaze over turkey
5: Roast turkey 3-4 hour until inside temperature is at least 165F basting frequently
6: Let sit about 20 minutes after removing from the oven before carving
6: Share and enjoy
Interesting squid: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html
Nerd of Redhead @14:
Finally! Thank you for the explanation. I’ve been reading your posts about pasties for days and was afraid to ask (as I thought they might have something to do with what strippers wear to cover the naughty bits). Very pleased to find out that it is, in fact, food. ;)
For those of you who consume butternut squash (tan, with a bulbous end) I recommend substituting buttercup squash (squat and green). It may take longer to cook; but the flavor is worth it.
@ #32, Unless you are sick, or eat massive quantities of an acid, the pH of your blood is tightly regulated (called homeostasis) between 7.25-7.45. An ill person with a blood pH of 7.1 is on death’s door. For healthy people, concern about blood pH is a waste of time.
Patricia.
I’m not from France but found a great recipe on here for using Galeux d’Eysines which a friend grew in her organic market garden.
Wonderful flavour, great colour but be careful with the garlic – it really would overwhelm the soup.
We also roasted some in chunks. Just toss them in olive oil and about 15 minutes before they’re done add some whole cherry tomatoes. The combination of the sharp and the sweet is fantastic.
Enjoy.
This a very nice vegetarian recipe, of my own design, that is perfect for autumnal aesthetic.
One package of pressed tofu, sliced into quarter cm. strips.
One pound of green veggies, I use asparagus, celery, and green beens, cut however you like.
3/4 cup of soybean sprouts.
saute these in butter or use fake butter or peanut oil if you want to make this vegan.
meanwhile, make a sauce: 3 tbsp soy sauce; 2 tbsp lemon juice; 2 tbsp apple cider (or orange juice or mango juice depending on your tastes); 1 tbsp brown rice vinegar; 1.5 tsp sake (or vermouth or sherry); 1 tsp brown sugar; 1 tsp sesame oil; 1 tbsp minced garlic; a pinch of sea salt. Mix this stuff together and add to the veggies, let it boil out more or less. The result is just wonderful.
Damn it, you people are making me so hungry! It’s 3:06 am and I’ve had such a huge Thanksgiving set of meals. Including turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, some deliciously brandy-soaked tiramisu, and pumpkin cake with dark chocolate frosting, among other such glorious highlights. And cold pizza, too. And now I want to eat again. Holidays…
Something I think y’all might be interested in: A Humanist Grace:
http://www.inoculatedmind.com/2008/11/a-humanist-grace/
Damn it, you people are making me so hungry!
Republican throat would be a tasty morsel, but apparently it’s not on the menu
Here’s an interesting recipe collection ya’ll might enjoy, cooking with hydrocolloids: http://khymos.org/hydrocolloid-recipe-collection-v1.pdf
Hot lobster gelatin anyone?
My lifesaver here in Melbourne is the german expat butcher who does proper Franks,without the Nitrite paste they call a skin when you buy them in the supermarket,and who sells red cabbage and dumplings.
My specialty and partyfood number one is my onion cake : make a dough of flour,yeast,salt,water with a bit of olive oil.Then for the topping,simmer onion rings in butter,season with salt,pepper,caraway seeds and nutmeg,then add sour cream and 2 eggs,mix it under,put in onto the dough,and in the oven it goes for 30 minutes.Enjoy with a young white wine.
Fantastic !
We had a big-ass spread for four topped off with an amazing pumpkin custard pie made with melted vanilla ice cream. One of the womenfolk found the recipe online, Google can probably find it if anybody wants to give it a whirl. Happy Thanks, humans.
I was diagnosed with diabetes early this month while overseas on a business trip in Dubai (an adventure in itself, but “your blood sugar is bad” doesn’t lose anything in translation). Fortunately I got good resources, good advice, and good meds, and I’ve brought my average glucose level under decent control (about 110, still working on it) in just three weeks.
I was never a fan of low-carb diets before because I made myself sick trying Atkins induction… but I’m finding that keeping my carbs under 15 to 20 grams a meal is a great help. It’s hard. I’m a vegetarian.
So today we had a homemade wheat-and-soy-protein turkey roll, an actual 20-pound turkey with bread and pecan stuffing (my fiance broke ranks for tradition’s sake), fresh green beans with fresh garlic, simply steamed carrots with butter, “health salad” (the Kosher no-mayonnaise cole slaw), and in place of cranberries a perfect apple-onion chutney spicy enough to clear drains and wake someone out of a coma. Dessert was a can of pumpkin mixed with spices, cream cheese and the rest of the bag of pecans, with a little whipping cream to moisten and a mixture of erythritol and low-glycemic agave nectar to sweeten it.
For those of you not familiar with erythritol, it’s a natural sweetener that has ZERO glycemic impact and negligible calories (about 0.2 per serving). How natural? Well, the human body makes it, in small quantities. It’s present in grapes and mushrooms and wine. They make it commercially by a very ingenious and pure fermentation process (since it is a “sugar alcohol”.) It has a bit of a cool flavor when used in an unheated recipe, it takes a bit more work to force to dissolve, and it’s only about 3/4 as sweet as sugar. But we could not tell the difference in taste in the health salad or apple chutney (the salad has a boiled dressing), and the coolness wasn’t apparent in the dessert because it was chilled. My fiance had coffee with his dessert to which he actually added sugar, and he did not notice any taste difference. Hooray :)
Gene, I have cooked with xanthan gum and agar before as gelatin substitutes. I recently tried a hydrocolloid not mentioned in your link, glucomannan, extracted from a food called konjac root (known as konnyaku in Japan). Used it in the gravy this year, actually.
It’s much stronger than cornstarch (about ten time stronger), and has the property of not “letting go” and allowing your thickened sauce to thin out again, a problem I’ve had with cornstarch, arrowroot, and xanthan gum. All told, a very superior product for thickening, even if you are not a vegetarian or avoiding carbs.
Damn you all! I want a holiday excuse to eat,drink and be merry here in Britain!
As it stands, this is the week I foolishly bought (own-brand) ‘Shredded Wheat’, thinking I might like it more now that I’m not six. It’s horrible. Healthy, though – you eat a lot less if you’d rather be pulling your own nails out.
And I’ve only a pack of cheap instant noodles to look forward to for lunch.
Had chip barm, peas and curry sauce last night though. Messy, unhealthy, glorious.
Nerd of Redhead: Where do you live? Where is the UP? Not sure if you knew this about pasties already, but apparently they were originally a three-course-meal-in-one! The pastry was separated into compartments with a ‘starter’ (can’t remember what this was), ‘main course’ (of beef stew or something) and dessert (apple pie). I’ve never seen one like that these days though (but I’ve never been to Cornwall…). Also, as this was eaten by miners, the pastry on the outside was supposed to be thrown away – the miner’s hands would be filthy, so to save time washing them, the pastie would simply be broken open, the insides devoured and the outside discarded.
That could all be urban legend, but I’ve heard it numerous times.
Wowbagger – I saw a ‘pie floater’ when watching a TV programme of Billy Connoly tour Australia/New Zealand (I think he got his in NZ; he also had brown sauce rather than tomato ketchup).
Loving both pie and pea, my girlfriend and I recreate them quite regularly, but lacking pea soup we use a lot of mushy peas instead. I have about a gallon of brown sauce. She doesn’t. They’re wonderful! In the first week of our discovery of the pie floater, it formed our evening meal on something like four out of seven days.
For Wowbagger, who wanted to know about terducken:
I saw Paula Deen on the Food Network make terducken. She had her butcher debone the turkey, except for the legs and wings, opened the bird out flat and added a layer of dressing about an inch thick. She had also had the butcher completely debone the duck and the chicken. She laid the duck on top of the layer of dressing in the turkey, added another layer of dressing and then followed with the chicken with another layer of dressing.
Then she tied the whole thing up, forming it into the original shape of the turkey and roasted it as usual.
Good luck with the turducken and here’s my Thanksgiving wish for all of you at Pharyngula.
Happy Thanksgiving
Today is the reason,
The gratitudiest season,
For thankfulness, laughter and joy.
To come all together
In all kinds of weather
Our bountiful world to enjoy.
Our turkey-filled tummies
‘And many more yummies,
Remind us how lucky we are.
So here’s to your happies,
All dripping with sappies,
From Anfractuous to y’all, near and far.
That sounds like the mechanism that apparently makes The Rhyming Diet work.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v372/corvis_9/pumpkincheesecake.png
Almond-topped pumpkin cheesecake
CRUST:
1 and 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup finely chopped almonds
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup butter melted
FILLING:
3 8oz. packages cream cheese softened
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup eggnog
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon each; ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg
3 eggs lightly beaten
TOPPING:
1 cup (8oz) sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 sliced almonds
In a small bowl combine graham cracker crumbs, almonds, sugar, pumpkin pie spice; stir in butter. Press into bottom of greased 9-in springform pan. Place on baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 mins. cool on wire rack.
In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, eggnog, flour, syrup, and spices ti smooth. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined. pour into crust. Place pan in double thickness of heavy duty foil (about 16-in square); securely wrap foil around pan. Place in large baking pan; add 1 inch of water to large pan. Bake at 325 for 55-60 min or until center is just set.
In a small bowl, combine sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Spread over hot cheese cake. Sprinkle with almonds. Bake 15-18 minutes longer or until topping is set. Remove pan from water bath. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around around edge of pan to loosen; cool one hour longer. Refrigerate overnight, remove sides of pan, serve.
NOM NOM NOM NOM!!
We don’t *do* your holiday in Oz and we’ll thank you not to shove it down our throats like you’ve done with your other traditions.
Message ends.
bazza,
if you need sex why not visit your local brothel.
if youre just a dickhead,why not go somewhere else……
My favorite way to cook a steak: let it come up to room temperature first, then sprinkle it with rosemary, thyme, and finely chopped garlic. Put a bit of olive oil on the griddle, and get it hot enough that a drop of water bounces around on it. Put the steak on the griddle, and watch the sides. When it looks like it’s cooked about 1/3 of the way through, turn it over. Very important: only turn it once.
-jcr
Patricia,
for the Galeux, I can recommend the following recipie which I’ve tried several times, delicieux :
http://www.radiofrance.fr/thematiques/gout/recettes/fiche.php?rid=45020306
Translation :
1.5 kg Galeux
1 large onion
50g butter
100g rice
1l milk
20cl cream
salt, pepper, nutmeg
100g gratted cheese (pref. ewes milk)
Empty the Galeux and cut it in small cubes. Simmer chizelled onion in butter, add Galeux, simmer again, add milk, add rice, cook slow fire 50 min. Mix with a mixer thoroughly, add cream. Fill the Galeux, put cheese on top, place in oven for 30 min.
It’s not eactly a soup, more like a gratin, but very tasty, and the Galeux is always nice cooked with milk and cheese and served in its crust, because that’s what’s so nice about it !
JCR,
for once i find myself in agreement with you,that is a source of concern.
LOL
Urban cooking: take a camping stove & small pot. Buy a kilo of mussels and a nice bottle of white wine, add some green herbs in the mix and find a park or quiet city square. Fire up the stove, pour some wine & herbs in the pot and cook mussels until done. Drink the rest of the wine form real glass (no plastic) and eat straight from the pot using your hands. This works best if you take a lady friend along (or the other way around). She’ll be impressed! I just wish I’d knew single women.. * sigh * Gonna be a lonely Christmas.
Favorite way to eat Dungeness crab: I buy steamed, chilled crabs from my local store. I take all the meat out of one large crab, and have it on a salad with a sliced hardboiled eggs, croutons, finely-shredded cheese, and no dressing.
-jcr
I want a holiday excuse to eat,drink and be merry here in Britain!
So proclaim one and enjoy! What’s the problem?
-jcr
clinteas,
I would give Bazza the benefit of the doubt and assume he was making a joke.
-jcr
jcr,
ok, but I categorically refuse to grill any steak that isn’t at least one inch thick and with a fair amount of fat !
If I grill a steak for 4 px, I order only one very thick piece and grill it whole, then cut it in vertical slices and add fleur de sel at the last minute when serving.
Lunch time today, I’m having chipirones fritos, deep fried baby squids.
There, you get an idea of what they look like:
http://www.facilisimo.com/foro/platodeldia/chipirones-fritos_37436.html
I’ll dedicate them to the squid-master, of course !
Turducken? That’s amateur stuff! Tyr this. (Apologies for the Daily Hate link – it was the best I could find.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-502605/It-serves-125-takes-hours-cook-stuffed-12-different-birds—really-IS-Christmas-dinner.html
I live in China in a city without any good American food. I was also burned out on cooking, so I only cooked one old school American dish for dinner, sweet-potato souffle. I bought a few roasted sweet potatoes, smashed them up, added sugar, brown sugar, honey, and cinnamon, heated in a wok with butter, stirred in some milk, dumped it into a bowl and coated with a crust of Chinese made frosted flakes. It was delicious.
Some recipes that over the years have become synonymous with holiday season that you may not have heard of: poffertjes, isicia omentata and kartoffelpuffer. Normally I cook really responsibly, lots of vegetables and such but when the days shorten I just want to bake stuff like that. Pancakes also. Stews. It isn’t the holidays per se, it’s just that eating something like that while it’s cold and dark outside even though it’s still quite early, while you’re inside in the warmth, watching anime… it’s just so cozy!
Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate New York
negentropyeater,
Ever had Kobe beef?
I had it for the first time a couple of years ago, and since then I’ve also had beef that came from wagyu cattle raised in Australia and in the USA. All three were excellent.
-jcr
An interesting modification to a chocolate chip cookie recipe, add 1/3 cup cocoa to the dry ingredients, add i tablespoon Myers dark planters punch rum to the butter and sugar. Margarine should not be used, makes a nice difference in a simple cookie.
Re: Australian floaters.
I had an Aussie prof a few years back who showed us a picture of a floater. I remember it quite clearly and it still looks like a bowl of puke with a piece of pastry on top. Why exactly would one eat that? Why?
I seem to have been living off (and for) double espressos recently. Unhealthy maybe, but it truly is liquid gold. For any whose interest it might pique, I heartily suggest adding ground cardamom pods into your coffee grounds next time you make an espresso. It may just change your life!
Time you eat food doesn’t matter; total calories absorbed matters. I frequently eat dinner after 20h00, like many europeans do. I’m not overweight, and europeans have less weight problems than north americans.
That’s good advice, especially if like me you are prone to hypoglycemia.
Unless you, like a good proportion of the human adult population, happen to suffer from lactose intolerance, milk and dairy, pasteurized or not, is a good food. I wouldn’t make it a food group by itself, but it’s not unhealthy. It’s a nice way to get some protein, especially when you need to take small proteinated snacks every few hours like I have to.
And blood pH, of course, is in no way an indication of any problem in an healthy individual. There is no relationship between cancer and blood pH. In case of acidosis (when blood pH goes under the safe limits), you are having much more pressing problems than your blood pH.
Careful with sugar-alcohols… Many induce, shall we say, rapid bowel movements ;-) because they are not digested. Consume with moderation.
No, unfortunately it’s difficult to get a wide beef selection in Spain. Since I moved here, I eat much more fish than meat. There aren’t that many butchers around where I live, but several fishmongers and so many ham-shops.
There are many fruit and veg shops, but unfortunately, most of it is crap, mass produced in the south of Spain, cheap and tasteless. It’s become almost impossible to find a decent tomato or mandarine nowadays…
It seems most people don’t even seem to know what a decent tomato or mandarine is supposed to taste like anyway.
Just wanted to say that, of course, the best food is indian food*.
Tomorrow, I’m having samosas. And tandoori chicken… [/salivating]
*Disclaimer : I am NOT indian.
Pcarini – thanks for that link! The ‘Lamb’s Heart Treacle Tart’ is particularly, well, memorable…
Colonel Molerate said: “I want a holiday excuse to eat,drink and be merry here in Britain!”
Jcr said: “So proclaim one and enjoy! What’s the problem?”
I don’t want to have to cook a huge meal, and I doubt that if I proclaimed today aholiday, my relatives would throw a massive family feast for me…
Ah well.
The all time greatest thing about Thanksgiving.
Two slices of white bread, slathered in mayo.
As much leftover turkey as you can pile between the slices.
On occasion, i add bacon.
I have no idea why i am not fat. probably because i wash it down with light beer.
Well, this discussion has inspired me. I feel a strong desire to head for the kitchen and make a chocolate custard.
-jcr
Here’s a web site for those interested in pasties (pronounced with a soft a):
http://members.tripod.com/~Finman_2/meatha.html
I recommend turning off the music.
I forgot to mention onions in my first post. The Redhead is using commercial unbaked pie crusts. Now days, there are some “gourmet” pasty shops that provide fillings other than the traditional ones. The turkey pasty would be an example of that.
Neoconservrepubligelical
Its when you shove an evangelical up the ass of a republican and than shove that up the ass of a neo-con.
now back to food…
Does anyone know what to do with the tofurky leftovers? I was thinking shepherds pie
You so funny.
Mmmh, a lot of good suggestions.
But they’re all missing one major ingredient, the beer to wash it down with!
I too am inspired and also feel like going to jcrs kitchen.
Mmmh, Chocolate!
Mmmmh, Custard!
Mmmm…. lefse… The family makes pounds of lefse just before Thanksgiving… enough to last us through Christmas. Maybe.
63: I live in China in a city without any good American food.
Does such a thing exist? I thought ‘American Food’ meant ‘McDonalds Burgers’, wich are fscking terrible.
Also, how do you make blockquotes?
Instead of the damn insipid turkey, in France we much prefer the Capon (castrated rooster).
It’s not industrialized meat, it’s very tender, tasty and moist.
I don’t know if it’s available in the US or britain ?
Usually that’s what my mum cooks for the holidays, it’s a real feast of a meal !
Eeek. Running out the door for a photo trip but here’s one I’ve posted a few times. More later…
makin’ bacon
Maple Hickory Smoked bacon.
You put “< ", "blockquote", ">“, closing with “”
Homemade Cheesecake. With an Oreo crust.
Last week I made a real lasanga. Sausage, ground beef, onions, fresh basil, mozzarella, provolone, tomato sauce… the works. In Buenos Aires the only kind you can usually find is made with ham and bland tasteless “salsa blanca”.
Argentines mostly live on a very bland diet of overcooked pasta and meat… lots of meat grilled, baked or boiled wiithout spices except for salt. What they consider spicy in one of the now trendy Mexican restaurants, I can’t even taste. They still don’t know how to make a taco but one restaurant does make a great mole.
lol, that didn’t work. You need to put blockquote between a smaller than (< ) and greater than (>) signs. To close, same thing exept you put slash (/) in front of blockquote, after <.
rotfl
ok, I meant to say, write “blockquote” between a “smaller than” and a “greater than” signs to open. To close, same thing except you put slash (/) in front of “blockquote”, after “smaller than”.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 28, 2008 6:39 AM
“Lunch time today, I’m having chipirones fritos, deep fried baby squids.”
Love those. There is a Gallega Restaurant (refers to Galician immigrants from Spain) here that makes them perfectly. Another expat friend and I regularly go there for lunch and eat as many of those little suckers as we can.
#19 Wowbagger
You must be in Adelaide. I lived there for 9 years (81 – 90) and I loved pie floaters. Every time any movie star or celebrity came to Adelaide they would have to be taken to the pie-cart at Victoria Square to try a pie floater. I think it was supposed to be the Aussie version of the Pom’s “steak & kidney pie with mushy peas”.
Just the thing for apres pub-crawl. They sure make you fart, though.
<blockquote> how do you make blockquotes ? </blockquote>
I agree the capon is much superior to the mass produced turkey.
If you take the trouble, and expense, and find a free range turkey the meat can be exquisite. Last xmas we had one which was reared in a cherry orchard, the flesh was pink, moist and sweet, the best I’ve ever tasted.
Finding a good supplier of well-raised meat of any kind is worth it. It’s expensive but just eat less and enjoy it more!
I have to put in a word for Organic Welsh Black beef, arguably the best steak on the planet well in Europe anyway.
negentropyeater thanks for that wonderful Galeux recipe, it sounds rich and tasty. I’ll try it with home made bread. Just the thing for after the rugby! :)
Colonel Molerat, if you look at a map of the US, there is a series of five great lakes in the northern midwest. The largest and most northern lake is Lake Superior. The UP is most of the southern shore. It is part of the state of Michigan, which consists of two peninsulas of land, the UP (which many people think is part of Wisconsin) and what most people think of as Michigan with the famous hand outline. The economy is based on fleecing tourists, and natural resources like minerals (copper and iron) and wood products.
I was associated with Michigan Tech, which started out as a mining college, and has now evolved into an engineering university, with some liberal arts. It is located in the copper country, which is the smaller peninsula that curls out into Lake Superior just about due north of Chicago. Copper, which is found as native copper metal, was mined from the are in pre-Columbian days, and impurity analysis has shown it to be traded as far south as Mexico. The locals in the copper country are a mix of native Americans, Cornish, Italians, and Finnish, so you can see why the pasty was a staple in the area. The one drawback to the area is that it is in the Lake Superior snow belt, and the average snowfall is about 240 inches/year.
I changed career paths about twenty years ago, and now live south of there in the Chiwaukee megametropolitan area. The city I live in, which is actually older than Chicago, has been swallowed up by the expanding population of the larger cities.
This year we tried brining our turkey. We had heard this was the “new thing” for turkeys, so I googled some recipes to get an idea of what was involved.
Brining involves soaking the uncooked turkey in a salt water solution, to which you can add add spices, sugars, fruit juices, etc. This adds some flavor to the meat. You soak the bird one hour for each pound of weight. We soaked our 9-lb. turkey breast overnight for about 10 hours.
We were truly impressed with how good that turkey tasted. It was delightfully flavorful.
The pan drippings were very salty, so I used only about a third of them to make gravy, and mixed this gravy with store-bought gravy to balance out the salt content.
This turkey was so flavorful that I found myself thinking about how flavorful it was/craving more before bed. That has never happened to me, so I take it as a sign that this year our turkey was exceptionally good!
To the one who made that crack about shoving American traditions down reluctant throats, note that PZ did not mention a particular holiday in his post.
Nice thread, some odds and ends:
@The Petey, HILARIOUS! Thankfully, I was in-between bites of a gorgeous home-baked oatmeal/raisen cookie and did not choke.
Agar agar is a great substitute for beaten egg in meatball/meatloaf recipes. So good in fact, I use it instead even if the people for whom I am cooking my veal meatballs and vermicelli served in strongly seasoned veal stock aren’t allergic to eggs. Meatballs become so delicate, light, and succulent with agar agar.
Too much crumble/crisp topping for that fruit crumple/crisp? Just moisten the remaining crumble with some milk, form into one inch sausages (roll liberally in flour to make the rolling possible as the dough is v sticky), place on a plate(s) in the fridge while the fruit crumble is baking. About five minutes before the fruit crumble is ready to come out of the oven, take the plate of dough sausages out of the fridge, slice neatly into 3/4 inch pieces, place 2 inches apart on a non-greased baking sheet, and place in the oven (350 F) for about 12 minutes or until cookies are nicely and evenly browned (don’t forget to turn the baking sheet halfway through the baking if you have an conventional oven). Let stiffen for a minute and then lift with a thin spatula. If they harden too fast and stick to the sheet, just warm them up in the oven to soften them.
Not only will you have not needed to pre-heat the oven twice for 2 separate baking sessions, but you will also be rewarded with lace cookies/brandy snaps/crepes dentelles, that is to say, lovely carmelized, lacy, super thin cookies which can be eaten as in or used for sweet crunchy crumbs for various desserts like ice cream, cheese cake crust, etc.
Living in France, we served Choucroute Garni yesterday (pork, and then some pork cuts, and then some more pork stuff, served with boiled potatoes and saukerkraut simmered in white wine and spices.
Ah pasties, I remember decades ago, trekking through some silver-mining near ghost town (apparently there were 2 people living there) in Idaho, where the guide at the tiny museum told me about how many of the men who worked in the mines were immigrants from Cornwall, and their womenfolks made pasties for them to carry into the mines.
Last night, as I slept, very unlike a log,
Our garbage-can served as a feast for the dog.
I awoke to a smell which I sadly knew meant
That she’d taken a dump on my room’s heating vent
(She’s a very old dog, very grey in the jowls,
And losing all conscious control of her bowels)
As the temperature dropped, and the furnace went “voom”
The aroma of dog shit enveloped the room,
And I realized, while cleaning up after the beast,
This was likely the work of her Thanksgiving feast.
In a month, the old girl will be fifteen years old;
She can no longer run; she is too often cold;
She is nearly stone deaf, growing gradually blind,
And her stiffening joints have been… other than kind.
For so many years, she’s been such a good friend
But on mornings like this, yes, we’re nearing the end,
And to thank her for all of the years that have passed
I just clean up her mess (and I clean it up fast).
It’s a strange little rite that I go through each dawn,
But too soon both the smell, and the dog, will be gone.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/11/morning-after-thanksgiving-at.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eats
Even I, as a frenchman, some of my favourite all time American food include :
-pastrami on rye
-Quiznos’ turkey hoagie
-Junior’s New York Cheese Cake
-Magnolia bakery’s cup cakes
-Rice Krispie Marshmallow treats
-Chocolate and walnut brownies with apricot glaze
Cuttlefish, great, but sad poem.
Annapolitan, the Redhead brined the turkey breast for the pasties. Should be interesting.
@Ngentropyeater, I see your capon and I raise you a poularde. Why make do with a capon if you can have the white and tender flesh with its supremely delicate taste of a poularde (qui n’a pas encore pondu ou dont on a enleve les ovaires, per French Wikipedia). Once you had a poularde who will do everything in your power to have another.
Oh, cuttlefish!
Even your poems about dog shit are beautiful.
I’ve only just recently posted in my livejournal the recipe for a pasta confection which I like to call “The Archduke Franz-Ferdinand”. I won’t condescend to readers of a fine blog like this by recounting the origin of the name nor its significance.
http://dave-littler.livejournal.com/77016.html
I would post the recipe here, but the description I gave in my own journal genuinely isn’t done justice without the images which are scattered throughout my post, and so I simply include a link here and urge others who are interested in producing and sampling this – the crowning glory of the culinary arts – for themselves.
Logicel,
well then you must know Voltaire’s famous “dialogue between the Capon and the Poularde” in which he puts those two chicken who reveal how ridiculous and absurd men are with their religious institutions.
http://www.bacdefrancais.net/chapon.html
The USA has some world-class food, but like anywhere in the world you have to know what to look for.
Some of my favorites are Chicago-style pizza, New England clam chowder, New York cheesecake, Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwiches, and Texas barbeque. Besides that, you can find some of the best examples of any other cuisine from around the world in the larger cities. New York, Chicago, DC, San Francisco and (surprisingly enough) Las Vegas all have amazing restaurants.
-jcr
Here is a delicious pie from the kitchen of Michael Behe, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday:
INGREDIENTS
· 1 recipe pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie trap
· 1/2 cup flagellum-propelled butter
· 3 tablespoons of cdesign proponentsists flour
· 1/2 cup white sugar
· 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
· 2 cups malaria (whipped froth)
· 8 Behe (or Comfort) signature bananas – peeled and sliced
DESIGN
1. Melt the flagellum-propelled butter in a sauce pan without removing any part of the flagellum in the process. Stir in cdesign flour to form an irreducibly complex paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and 1/4 cup of malaria; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with Behe signature bananas. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust (be sure to cover the edge). Pour slowly so that it does not damage the flagellum motor in any way.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes until all the parts of the pie appear at once. Cover the top of the pie with a malaria froth (a la creme) and sliced bananas as if you were the designer. Enjoy!
:) I cook………but, NOT in the kitchen. Nice thing about this is………there are ALWAYS leftovers and I don’t GAIN an ounce.
patricia, use Galeux d’Eysines in any recipe calling for winter squash. It tends to be sweeter and richer tasting than acorn, butternut or buttercup squash. This is my second year for buying them at local farmers market. 8-12 pounder for $3. They keep well through the winter in a coolish dry place. Several people growing them not realizing they are very edible. I halve them horizontally, scoop out the seeds. Bake on a baking sheet at 375 F until tender. My latest favorite is making quiche filling with spinach and cheese and using the baked squash halves instead of crust. For a sweet version I use egg custard flavored with a little orange flower water and a little extra sugar and bake. I will be trying pumpkin risotto using 2 cups of the Galeux I baked earlier just to have baked squash. I use a recipe from Carol Field’s Celebrating Italy cookbook. But Google books has a version of hers online in “The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook” page 141.
Nonsense.
The opposite is true if you’re lactase-persistent. Having Scandinavian ancestors, PZ probably is.
And what damage can homogenization and pasteurization possibly do?
Your blood would long be cottage cheese by the time its pH got down to 7.0!
The idea that people should worry about their blood pH to any extent at all is ridiculous pseudoscience that is regularly trounced on Respectful Insolence and denialism blog.
There are lots of historical references dating back to medieval times for multi-bird roasts. You can get a butcher to do the boning for you but it’s a lot cheaper to do it yourself and not difficult if you are handy with a boning knife. Instructions on boning out poultry here (and many other places):-
http://italianfood.about.com/od/tipstricks1/ss/aa102605a.htm
The first one will take you a fair amount of time and swearing but after doing 2 or 3 it takes about 10 minutes each and with experience it’s even quicker.
Take the smallest bird and wrap it around a bit of stuffing or an onion, lay that on the opened out carcass of the next one, fill any gaps with more stuffing or sausagemeat and wrap that around the inner bird and so on. Leave the legs and wings intact on the outside bird but remove the ends of the legs and wings and bone out the rest for the inside ones. It works best if you have a fatty bird such as duck somewhere in the middle as that bastes the rest and leaving the skin on the inside ones also helps with that. You can also put a layer of bacon/ham and all sorts of other things including finely shaved truffles if your taste and budget are so inclined. You need to cook it slowly to ensure that it is cooked all the way through and I strongly recommend that you insert a temperature sensor in the middle especially if you are feeding someone to whom it would be really embarrassing to give food poisoning. Thread some big skewers through to help get the heat into the middle and cover with foil until the last hour. A 15 pound one will take about 4-5 hours at 175C and it needs to reach at least 75C in the middle to be safe.
(if anyone responds take into consideration that I am 11)
I HATE THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!! It is because
1. Too much sugar. Sugar suppresses my immune system.
2. I have to dress up.
Vidar:
There’s quite an astonishingly large number of tasty American specialties, although it’s hard to generalize given that our cuisine is a bit fragmented just like any other big, multicultural country. Lots of regional foods, lots of immigrant cuisines. (Yes, quite a lot of it is high-fat, but it can also be much tastier than McD’s.)
A few books:
–The Best American Classics by Cook’s Illustrated Magazine — you could think of this as sort of diner food. Very middle-American, rather white.
–The Italian-American Cookbook by John and Galina Mariani — Italian-American food as it appears around the US.
–The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer, Marion Becker, and Ethan Becker — It’s generally considered the definitive compendium of American food, if a little unapproachable for beginning cooks. There’s actually some controversy between the 1997 and 2006 editions; I have both.
–The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins — part of the vanguard of what became known as “New American” cuisine, a modernizing that began with the publication of Mastering The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child et al., this book came out of a rather famous New York catering and gourmet shop establishment and became a huge influence, particularly for party meals.
-Several books by Cheryl and Bill Jameson, but particularly The Border Cookbook (one of the best books ever on what’s more commonly known as Tex-Mex cuisine) and A Real American Breakfast.
–The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen — lots of stuff on live-fire cooking, a good chunk of which is American.
Unfortunately, this list leaves out a lot of African-American cuisine, which is likely our greatest native culinary treasure. That’s only because I just don’t have a good recommendation, but you could try Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons by Jessica B. Harris, which is a survey of African immigrant cuisines throughout the Americas. Still a pretty good book.
The key to turducken is to debone the chicken and duck and partially de-bone the turkey. This does several things:
1) It makes it easier to stuff
2) It cuts down on the cooking time
3) It allows you to achieve the layered-meat effect (which is even more interesting when sausages and other items are part of the recipe)
More on turducken can be found at its Wikipedia entry. Here’s a typical turducken recipe.
Wow! What a great thread.
Thanks Kitty @37 for the link to Galeux recipe with wonderful photos. Bookmarked that!
Clinteas @43 onion cake… hummm, I think I’ll try it.
Negentropyeater @54 thanks for the Galeux recipe, I’ve written it down and will be making it soon!
Nerd of Redhead @ 14, 77 – OH! Meat pies, that’s what you meant. Cripes, thats hillbilly food. *grin*
Rev. BigDumbChimp – did you take a look at the link posted by #65 Virgil Samms of the New York food society folks? The guy was in a bacon frenzy, check out Rice Krispies bacon treats, and bacon Spam cracker snacks what a hoot!
#1 Geoff: a turkey Divan? Divan is a piece of furniture, a sofa, in some languages, at least. This is a mildly disturbing concept.
For a change of pace from turkey leftovers, my newest favorite recipe of all time:
Grilled Ratatouille
Coat will olive oil and throw on the grill over medium heat. While veggies are grilling, in a large pot, brown in olive oil
Once browned, take the pot out to the grill. Turn the veggies as needed. As they become soft, throw them into the pot. (Cut up the onions before they go into the pot.) After all the veggies are done and in the pot, use a pair of knives to “scissor” them into bite sizes bits. Add
Simmer for at least 15 minutes. Makes about 6-8 servings.
I like to serve it in a bowl over jasmine rice. There is a lot a latitude in this recipe. It is just basically grilling some vegetables and stewing them in tomato sauce. It taste even better the next day as leftovers.
Ah, I stand corrected then. Why not export some of the good stuff instead of McD’s? It gives American food a bad name.
#20 Patricia,
superb squash soup from a Swiss gourmet who loves Provincial cooking
http://fxcuisine.com/Default.asp?language=2&Display=65
I prepped it with merely butternut squash & it was exquisite, so with your heirloom variety it might cause you to spontaneously combust due to perception of perfection!
I know a couple transplant, lupus, arthritis, asthmatic and allergic patients who would be very interested in that.
Seriously, I’m very happy I’m not in immunology, with the woo that abuses this subject. On the other hand, we chemist have our share of science torture with homeopathy.
Zach : Sorry, I’d not seen your age.
Basically, everything you read on “health food store” documentation, especially on the immune system, is quackery (a huge load of BS;-).
The immune system is composed of many types of cells with different roles, it’s not as simple as “suppressed”, “activated” or “active”. Some medication can “modulate” it, manipulate it so it doesn’t do certain things, like, attack your own body or a transplant. Some illnesses, like AIDS, deplete the cells that allow the identification of microbes, and so make you unable to fight disease.
Very simply, sugar doesn’t suppress your immune system. It is a necessary part of your nutrition (keep in mind than not all sugar tastes sweet; the natural starch in potatoes, for example, is a type of sugar). Like anything, if you overdo it, it can be bad. In the long term you can develop diabetes, for example. But, suppress the immune system, it does not.
Kemist @71: Erythritol does not have the gastrointestinal effects that other sugar alcohols do in me, no matter how much I eat and no matter how I eat it (I’ve actually made candy out of it). Further research indicates that it is far, far less likely to cause upset than any other sugar alcohol like xylitol or mannitol.
Sure wish I could find a good source of tagatose, though. Sugar is not a good part of my diet.
Procure thyself some gnocchi. Procure thyself some porcini mushrooms. Saute porcinis in butter, then add heavy cream and nutmeg and simmer for a bit. Pour sauce over gnocchi and rejoice!
Vidar:
I think there’s two reasons for that. The first is that most of the best American food is either restaurant food or poor-people food. The former is rather exacting and often quite expensive to prepare; the latter is, like most poor-people food around the world, somewhat labor-intensive and often very slow. American barbecue, for example, has been pretty successful where it’s been tried (for example, I hear tell of a wildly popular rib joint in London), but it takes the better part of a day to prepare and doesn’t translate well to mass-marketing; on the flipside, Italian-American food seems to translate quite well but is looked down upon by Italian food purists because of its simplifications and Americanizations.
The other reason is much, much simpler — big chains like McDonalds and KFC got out there first and expanded aggressively, leaving very little room for less-rushed specialties. I’d be surprised if good American restaurants didn’t exist in many parts of the globe, but compared to the onslaught of chain marketing, they’d likely be damn near invisible.
Salt and pepper to taste! Oh yeah, boil the gnocchi first, or they will not taste very good (thought I’d add that, since bags of charcoal have disclaimers not to use it indoors and snow blowers have a warning not to stick your hands into the blades–apparently at least a small fraction of those reading this will be functionally retarded).
Everything Homemade (except the dressing):
Honey-rolls (honey in the dough & glaze)
Beet Soup
Carrot-Ginger Soup
Roast Chicken (not stuffed)
Dressing (cooked on the side, not in the bird)
Egg-Chicken gravy
Fresh Blueberries
Jorg @115: The name refers to (in my experience) a casserole made with cooked chicken or turkey distributed over lightly steamed broccoli, covered in a lightly curried cream sauce (which may or may not be based upon a can of condensed cream soup), and further covered with bread crumbs and cheese. It has about ten thousand calories. It’s quite tasty, made right.
Apparently the name refers to the New York restaurant where it originated, the Divan Parisienne. Although a case could be made for it being named after the piece of furniture you long to retire upon after you eat very much of it.
Dinner at about 1PM:
Roast duck
Asparagus and mushrooms stir fried in ghee and placed on top of wild rice.
Asti Spumante
Supper/dessert at 6PM:
An apple
#48 Anfractuous
Good Poem!
good American food exists, but can be hellishly difficult to come by, even within America. I can’t even be bothered half the time anymore. It’s difficult enough to keep High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated Oils out of my food. My only comfort is that the grocery store sells raw sharp cheddar. mmmm raw cheddar…
#115 The Chicken Divan (Divan is also French for ‘meeting hall’) was named after the Divan Parisien Restaurant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Divan
D’oh! #126 beat me to it. I had thought it was an American version of a French dish but it looks like I was mistaken.
http://blacktable.com/turducken031217.htm explains the Road to Turducken. Hilarious and gross.
I’ve got to buy a spring form pan and try this:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/ApplePie
-jcr
That is cool. Sugar alcohols taste so much better than aspartame, which has a crappy aftertaste (especially in soda, where the acidity racemises it. Advice : don’t drink diet soda after the expiry date: bleeaaargh). I just gave up on sugar alcohols after a very bad experience with mannitol and sorbitol (I have a sweet tooth and I’m trying to avoid heavily sweetened foods because they tend to give me posprandial hypoglycemic attacks, with shaking, palpitations, the works. Even some fruits, if I eat them alone, will do that :-(). Where can you find that stuff ?
Before eating this, I didn’t know cabbage (yes cabbage, that soggy thing which tastes so nasty when boiled) could be this tasty:
Bengali-style cabbage
-Lightly fry a cubed potato; reserve
-Fry whole cumin, mustard, fenugreek and fennel seed with bay leaf in a little oil
-Add finely cut/grated cabbage, fry a couple minutes. Add turmeric, coriander and chili powders, grated ginger (better with real ginger) and salt. Add potatoes. Cover and simmer for about 8-10 minutes.
-At this point, you have to taste if the sugar is okay (some cabbages are sweeter than others). If not, it can be adjusted carefully with sugar (very little, a half teaspoon is often enough). Then you add Garam Masala, mix it up and cook it until the raw cinnamon smell disappears.
I was told by a bengali that this would pass his mother’s quite stringent quality control :)
Can you find double-cream brie stateside ? That’s my favorite cheese. Try it if you can. It’s a soft cheese which a subtle taste. Here in quebec we have developed a good selection of fine cheeses. Even the french don’t fin them too bad.
The day has come !!!
I have one over David M!!!
//Your blood would long be cottage cheese by the time its pH got down to 7.0!//
I see at least a couple patients a week who come in with blood pH of 6.8 or 6.9,and are happily chatting away(well,to a degree),its quite common in diabetic ketoacidosis,or after seizures,or with any sort of respiratory depression.
And they mostly survive it.
I return you to your previous programme.
Cooking tip: Cabbage can caramelise nearly as well as onions. Try it sometime.
Yeah, that works. For those who don’t know, caramelization is the cooking of the sugars. Pretty much any vegetable that has a good sugar content will caramelize. Brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, beets…
The trick is to cook the sugars faster than the water is leaving the vegetable. But not so fast you burn them.
Re caramelization : generally it work better with a steel pan than with non-stick one. That’s true also for dulce de leche (milk caramel).
Kemist @134: I got my last batch of erythritol on Amazon, from seller VitaminLife. They have it for a few cents more per item than I paid for my last batch (I got it on special). I ordered ten pounds and the shipping cost only 5.95. You can also order it from Honeyville Grain in a 4-pound bulk unit for slightly more, with a 4.49 per order shipping charge. Do not buy it from Emerald Forest, even though they may seem cheaper; they have some bad reviews that indicate their quality control needs attention.
Do not pay more than six dollars a pound. I’m looking for a good source that will let me buy a fifty pound bag for less than five dollars a pound.
Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s worth it. I absolutely refuse to use artificial sweeteners. I’m old enough to remember the saccharin scare. I’m just barely old enough to have gone to school with one or two of the cyclamate babies. A nurse relative told me her ward started having a lot of forgetfulness problems until they forbade diet drinks with aspartame (and the problems resolved within a week). I’m also one of those for whom the bitterness in stevia is overwhelming.
Tagatose is even better than erythritol. Tastes better, negligible GI effects, acts more like sugar in cooking, is even shown to directly assist blood sugar control in diabetics. But it is very tough to get in the United States and is ridiculously expensive. The problem apparently stems from a bunch of dumbasses who bought the rights and neglected to bring it to market. (sigh.)
Cranberry-Tuna Sauce
1 c. tuna (prickly pear fruit) juice
10-12 oz. ripe cranberries
1 c. white sugar
Obtain 5 to 10 medium to large prickly pear fruits (tunas). I prefer those of Opuntia engelmannii, which are large, juicy, and have a deep red-purple flesh. Salad tongs are best for harvest, as you do NOT want to get the glochids in your skin. Wash the fruits thoroughly to remove dust and as many of the glochids as possible (a vegetable brush will help, though I once used the rinse setting at a manual car wash), then place in a glass or enamel pan, cover just to the tops with water, bring to a boil, then drop the heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes or until the water is deeply colored. Extract the juice by 1) mashing with a potato masher or 2) placing in a food processor and pulsing until large bits disappear. Strain juice and pulp through 3-4 layers of cheesecloth, squeezing the pulp to extract as much of the tuna goodness as possible.
Open 12-ounce bag of cranberries, rinse in cold water, and discard all underripe (white) berries. Combine berries in a glass or enamel saucepan with 1 cup extracted tuna juice and 1 cup white sugar (if you reduce the sugar or use a substitute, the recipe may not gel). Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. (Use a heat diffuser or place saucepan inside a heavy skillet to avoid scorching.) Serve hot or cold with meats, as a topping for apple or peach pie or cobbler, or just eat with a spoon when no one’s looking.
Use any leftover tuna juice to add brilliant color and delicate flavor to lemonade and other beverages, or cook with sugar and pectin for a delicious syrup for pancakes, waffles, and Tequila Sunrises.
Annapolitan: We also brined our turkey this year and coked it breast down. Best turkey ever, hands down, though I’m thinking next year we might use “lite” salt to reduce the sodium content.
Wow, I wanted to thank you all for ideas. I have relatives in different parts of the world, and so we celebrate at different times. I not only got some good dessert recipes, but some ideas for the young man who’s allergic to eggs.
Thank you again!
Late November, FSM dinner:
pkg spaghetti
meatballs
bottle marinara
Cook, serve with garlic bread and beer.
RAMEN! Tentacles eated Him!
Breakfast a couple of hours ago:
Boil, drain and mash some potatoes.
Meanwhile, chop a couple of rashers of smoked, streaky bacon per head, then fry them slowly in a heavy iron frying pan. (skillet?)
When the potatoes are ready, add the mash to the bacon, turn over a few times to mix reasonably evenly, then spread it out and turn up the heat to medium. Every few minutes scrape it up and turn it over. The aim is to produce those yummy crispy bits of fried potato.
In a separate pan, fry one egg per person. When the eggs are as done as you like them (we like ours with the white set but the yolk runny), pile the potato on a plate and put the egg on top.
So good it must be bad for you!
Obviously, adjust the quantities to suit your apetite.
Kemist, I just found a cheaper source for bulk erythritol. They’re having a sale. It comes out to just barely more than 5 dollars a pound INCLUDING shipping. Here’s the link: http://www.xylitolnow.com/erythritol.html
On the caramelization of cabbage: take an onion or two, slice finely. Take a cabbage, slice finely. Melt some butter (approx. 1/4 cup) in a cast iron frying pan and cook the onions for a few minutes, then add the cabbage. Cook slowly and stir for 45 minutes to an hour, until they are soft and browned and sweet. Add salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. While the cabbage and onions are caramelizing, cook some egg noodles (my recipe – from Sundays at Moosewood – says half a pound, but I’ve never weighed out pasta in my life). Toss the noodles with the cabbage and onions, and top each serving with sour cream (since you’re already consuming so much butter in this meal, why not?).
Bengali-style cabbage also sounds good, and probably better for regular eating.
Speedwell @141 : Thanks. OT, I looked up the wiki entry for cyclamate (I’m too young to remember the cyclamate ban, and I hadn’t heard of it before :).
I saw this:
OMFG ! Those guys smoked in an organic chem lab ! And probably in a lab that was much less ventilated than what I’m used to. I can think of a couple hundred things that could go wrong with that. Solvent, fire, something that’s put in contact with unknown chemicals and then in your mouth… Jebus !
Slow-roast shoulder of pork.
Take a bone-in shoulder of pork.
Slash the skin with a Stanley knife through to the meat.
Rub in a generous mix of crushed garlic, salt, crushed dried red chili and whole fennel seed.
Turn the oven on flat out and give the meat half an hour of that, then turn it down to 120 C. Oh hell….looks it up…250 F.
Baste it with a mix of lemon juice and olive oil.
Give it a good 8 (yes eight!) hours, basting every couple of hours.
At the end of this time, it will disintegrate in front of your eyes and just be completely delectable.
For the first time ever, our little family went out for Thanksgiving. I have not been feeling well for some months and the preparation necessary was just too intimidating. BH made the reservations, but failed to check out some important details. It was an an old picturesque farm that struck his view while laying out a car rally; he neglected to get some critical details about the facilities. “Family style” turned out to be in a huge room with hundreds of people and all the ambience of a university cafeteria. But the food was delicious and we had much to be thankful for: since the house is paid for, we will have a roof over our heads, even though the stock market has crashed, there is good food on the table, even though BH is dying, it is very slow and he should (barring any more heart attacks and cardiac arrests) be around for the best thing of all to be thankful for – we have just been informed that we are to become grandparents! Life is good.
Someone mentioned Samosas – here’s my easy “modern home made” samosa recipe (always gets rave reviews):
p.s. forgive me if some of these items are only available in U.S.
You’ll need 2 packages of refrigerated crescent rolls (16 rolls) for the pastry.
Microwave 4 minutes in a covered bowl:
1/2 c frozen peas
3 c tater tots (frozen potato nuggets)
A few spoonfuls of water
The mixture should be warm – microwave more if necessary. Stir in breaking up the tots:
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 or 2 finely chopped jalepenos (cut out the seeds)
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne or red pepper flakes
3 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
On a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, flatten out a crescent roll to make it wider and thinner. Place a generous spoonful of filling in the center and pull up the corners of the dough and pinch shut. Repeat for the remaining 15. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F oven.
@151: Best chutney evah to go with samosas:
Tamarind Chutney
1 cup tamarind pulp
2 cups water
1/2 brown sugar (or jaggery, if you’ve got it)
1/2 cup dates pitted & chopped
red chili powder (according to pain tolerance & strenght of powder ;)
salt
Soak tamarind in hot water about 30 min and sieve, keeping the liquid. Add the brown sugar, chili powder. Blend the mixture in blender with dates. Pour in a pan, and cook until custard-like consistency.
Samosa tip : you can add peanuts or cashew nuts to the stuffing, yummy.
Since someone mentioned samosas… I’ll give the chutney concoction that turned out so well this year.
Texas Hot Apple/Sweet-Onion Chutney
4 medium apples (Cameo, Fuji, or Rubens), medium dice
Juice of 1 lemon
2 large sweet onions (Texas 1015 or Vidalia), small dice
3 Tbs butter
2-1/2 Tbs grated fresh ginger
1 Tbs black mustard seeds (crushed well in a mortar)
2 Tbs (YES REALLY) crushed HOT red pepper flakes
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup apple juice
1/2 cup sugar (2/3 cup if using erythritol), or to taste
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Toss the chopped apples with the lemon juice. Melt the butter in a large deep frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions, ginger, mustard seeds, and hot pepper flakes. Add a few grinds of fresh black pepper and saute until onions are getting limp. Add the apples with the lemon juice, and continue to saute until the apples begin to get soft. Add all the remaining ingredients to the pan, along with a pinch of salt, and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring every little while, until the apples are nice and soft and the liquids are almost fully reduced/absorbed–from 30 minutes to an hour depending on your apples and your sweetener. The chutney should not be dry, but there should be little or no seepage. Makes a little more than 3 cups.
OK, I was looking around the fridge and thinking what to snack on… the leftovers will be used for dinner today… but I saw that I had half a package of cream cheese left over from dessert on the big day, and lots of chutney. Oh, yeah, “Dumb Blonde Dip.” Or at least that’s what we called it when I was a kid in Texas. All you do is take the cream cheese and leave it out until it gets spreadable, then you pour your jalapeno jelly or sweet/hot chutney over the top and serve it with crackers. Tasty, sweet, hot, stupidly easy, and irresistible… um, I guess that’s why it got called that deplorable name….
Heey. Quit following me. :)
@clinteas #137 “I see at least a couple patients a week who come in with blood pH of 6.8 or 6.9,and are happily chatting away …
And they mostly survive it.”
You have not identified what sort of quack you are; but you truly are a quack. The term for people with blood pH in the 6.8-6.9 range is “DEAD.”
The quack claims for ‘living people’ in the ‘blood’ pH range outside 7.25-7.45 are for other bodily fluids (or, purely imaginary), as determined by idiots such as yourself. Don’t bother to consult a text on medical physiology, you might strain yourself.
Joe, to my knowledge Clinteas is the sort of quack known as an ‘MD’.
This doesn’t mean he’s not wrong, but I can’t comment ’cause I know nothing about blood pH.
To #70 and #109, processed dairy milk is non-toxic and certainly won’t kill you. But the protein, casein, found in dairy milk, because of the processing, coats your intestines over time and causes congestion, thereby preventing optimal nutrient absorption.
“Milk is good for you” can be true but only if you live on farms.
BTW the main point I was making about pH was to eat alkaline foods and where possible avoid acidic ones.
Cyan @118 – Thanks for that link, I like curry! I’ve never seen curry leaves, that was cool too.
We have brined our turkey for the last four years. The meat is very moist and flavorful. Another great byproduct of brining is that the turkey cooks MUCH faster. My 13.5 lb turkey only took 2 hours to cook. A couple of people noted that the drippings tend to be salty, but you must thoroughly rinse the turkey with fresh water inside and out after you remove it from the brine. Then the drippings are fine. A great recipe for brining a turkey is Alton Brown’s recipe from the food network:
Good Eats Roast Turkey
Cook Time:
2 hr 30 min
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt (1/2 cup regular salt)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water
For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oil
Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.
Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.
Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.
@Wowbagger #156, I stand by what I wrote.
@ #157 “But the protein, casein, found in dairy milk, because of the processing, coats your intestines over time and causes congestion, thereby preventing optimal nutrient absorption.”
Bollocks! That is just more quackery.
Joe, I also think clinteas is an MD (I think he’s a she, actually).
But what he/she said make sense, if we’re talking about this context:
An elevated blood CO2 will result in acidosis (that’s temporary if the person recovers).
Acid/base quacks claim that “acidity” (which I’m not quite sure they actually know what term really means) causes cancer to thrive based on the Warburg Effect (the oncology one, not the plant biology one).
Dr. Warburg wasn’t a quack, but made the observation, with the limited means at his disposal (we’re talking 1924) that the metabolism of cancer cells was shifted away from mitochondria to glycolysis, acidifying their surroundings.
Warburg thought this shift caused the cancer, but as we now know, this response is simply due to the fact that solid tumors grow so fast that they rapidly develop an hypoxic (low oxygen) state and that the shift is an adaptation of cancer cells to survive in their new hypoxic milieu (I once read a cancer surgeon who was describing that the centre of big tumors was nearly always necrotic or dying. The adaptation has limits).
Similarly, some other cancer quacks (those who propose to inject you with ozone;-), reverse cause and effect and think low oxygen will cause cancer, when a tumor’s low oxygenation is caused by its rapid growth. Supplying it with oxygen would actually help its growth (and oxygen is probably causing many cancers, since it’s a highly reactive chemical responsible for making lots of free radicals in our bodies; it is a poison upon which we aerobic species depend to live).
Clinteas mentionned cases of people who had been quite ill, and in a hypoxic state (something that any person suffering from will certainly notice), who were feeling fine now but recovering from a very bad illness. This is not related to cancer quackery, but to a clinical observation of acidosis.
Patricia @158:
“Curry” for an indian refers to anything that’s stir fried (veggies, meat, fish) with spice (with or without “sauce/gravy”), and not to the spice mix we know as curry (which is a mix of turmeric with other spices that may vary). “Curry powder” is a generic, and can mean a lot of things; it’s the mix of spices that is used to make a specific curry.
“Curry leaf” (in hindi, curry patha), is however an actual indian spice that can be bought fresh or dried, and gives a delicious taste to curries, soups (I love it in sambhar), and oopma (that’s a mix of semolina with veggies and nuts that feels a little like couscous).
[/indian food maniac]
That’s marvelous news! Now obese people who want to lose weight don’t need that expensive and messy bariatric surgery anymore : just drink pasteurized milk !
[/sarcatic]
I’m going to try those chutneys. I’m lovin Indian cooking. Mmmmm that turkey sounds good too.
Well it’s now Monday morning in Aus, and I’m catching up after a busy weekend preparing for and runnning a fairy princess birthday party for my six year old. Between school friends and cousins we had about 15 kids here and about the same number of adult relatives. Amongst other things we had fairy bread (buttered bread with 100’s and 1000’s [sprinkles] on), pink striped jelly [jello] squares, dragon’s eggs (a coconut macaroon, with green food dye streaked through the mix), a chocolate birthday cake, with strawberries and sprinkles on the top in the shape of a butterfly, and home made sausage rolls which were really popular. It was a very pink weekend.
1kg premium beef mince
4 or 5 slices of day old bread, ground to crumbs in the food processor
2 small carrots, bunged through the food processor with
1 small onion
2 spoonfuls of concentrated tomato patse
2 eggs
Use your hands to mix everything together. Lay out sheets of frozen puff pastry, cut each in half, and put a line of mince along each strip. Roll up and bake at 200 C (375F if I remember right- it’s years since I’ve needed to remember the conversions. Aus was in the process of converting to metric when I was born, although my mother’s oven was in farenheit til I was in my twenties.)
@Kemist #161, I know about the Warburg effect and quack diets.
I misstated the normal pH range of the blood, it is 7.35-7.45. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/your_friday_dose_of_woo_acid_base_or_woo_1.php “There’s also a word for someone with a blood pH of 7.0: in deep shit. (…) I can only remember a couple of patients in whose care I’ve been involved whose pH fell to 7.0 who survived, and they reached that pH during a code.”
Clinteas’ description of people with pH 6.8-6.9 is at odds with this.
Joe, this search suggests blood pH of 6.8 is the threshold for cellular damage – quite compatible with what Clinteas wrote.