To fuck or to cook?

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally posted by Fugee
I second the recommendation for Cooks Illustrated, though I would recommend getting their cookbook called "Baking Illustrated."

I could not get inspired to make cookies in December because I made about 100 dozen for my church bake sale in November. I had help from some of the women in my Bible study and we used the church's commercial convection oven that can hold 4 huge pans at one time but still I got cookie burnout.

I made a new kind of cookie for my book club cookie exchange this week. They were very cute in concept (cherry bombs -- you use marachino cherries with the stem on) but the cookie part needs some tweaking. I should have guessed that a recipe I got from a mystery novel wouldn't be the best.

For some reason, the thought of our resident wingnut making something called cherry bombs amuses me. I guess I'm easily amused.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone
For some reason, the thought of our resident wingnut making something called cherry bombs amuses me. I guess I'm easily amused.

You're just lucky I don't have low blood sugar right now!!!!


(Not that I could do anything even if I did, but you're lucky nevertheless. )

Next time I'll try a variation of the recipe I found in a magazine that calls them Cherry Snowballs. As may be expected, that recipe calls for the cookies to be rolled in coconut.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Due to a bumper crop on the lemon tree, I'm making a Myer lemon pie and a lemon trifle (soaking the sarah lee pound cake (which is standing in for the ladyfingers that I couldn't find anywhere) with lemoncello).

Limoncello is the best. I have fond memories of tossing back shots of said, with my Michael Corleone look-alike guy. *sigh*. If you are still overburdened with lemons, you can make your own Limoncello. Here's the recipe. While I'm on here, I made a pound cake on Christmas from a recipe I found online and boy it was a fabulous texture. Problem is, it tasted a little cardboardish and I think it was b/c I noticed the shortening I was using was kind of old. Do cakes made with shortening (this one had butter in it too) always have a funny taste or was it definitely bc of the age of my shortening. Anyone ever had this problem?

Limoncello (3 quarts)

2 dozen lemons
2 bottles good 100 proof Vodka
4 1/2 cups sugar
5 cups water

Wash lemons in hot water, peel them removing all white pith and put peel in 4 quart Mason jar. Add 1st bottle of Vodka, stir, cover and put in dark spot at room temp. After 40 days, take out and open. Boil sugar and water for 5 minutes in saucepan, let cool completely in pan (about 10 minutes) and add the mix to the jar along with the 2nd bottle of Vodka; stir well. Cover again and store 40 more days. At day 80, strain and discard the lemon peel. Pour into new bottles and put one bottle at a time in freezer until ready to use. Send 1 bottle to Diane Keaton.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
While I'm on here, I made a pound cake on Christmas from a recipe I found online and boy it was a fabulous texture. Problem is, it tasted a little cardboardish and I think it was b/c I noticed the shortening I was using was kind of old. Do cakes made with shortening (this one had butter in it too) always have a funny taste or was it definitely bc of the age of my shortening. Anyone ever had this problem?

[Fugee falling to the floor in gasping horror]Shortening in a pound cake??????????????[/Fugee falling to the floor in gasping horror]

I won't even use margarine in a butter cake.** Shortening is too awful to contemplate. Nick Malgieri's "Perfect Cakes" has approximately 9 different recipes for pound cake and none of them calls for shortening.

I'm guessing part of the reason it tasted cardboardish is that a pound cake gets its subtle flavor from butter and flavoring extracts (vanilla, lemon, orange, etc.) and even fresh shortening doesn't taste like butter.

I've gotten good compliments on the Sour Cream Pound Cake in the aforementioned "Perfect Cakes" cookbook.

**If cholesterol is a consideration, rather than ruin a perfectly good cake with margarine or shortening, there are lovely recipes for angel food and chiffon cakes and I have a carrot cake recipe that is made with oil, not butter.

[notcasesensitive]

So Mr Man and I are in the market for some good vegetarian soup recipes. Anyone have any that they would like to share? We already have a french onion and a minestrone that we intend to try. We're pretending it is winter here.

Brrr.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
So Mr Man and I are in the market for some good vegetarian soup recipes. Anyone have any that they would like to share? We already have a french onion and a minestrone that we intend to try. We're pretending it is winter here.

Brrr.

Soup is stupid.

[Sparklehorse]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
So Mr Man and I are in the market for some good vegetarian soup recipes. Anyone have any that they would like to share? We already have a french onion and a minestrone that we intend to try. We're pretending it is winter here.

Brrr.

Will you eat soups made with chicken stock or are you strict about the no-meat thing?

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Sparklehorse
Will you eat soups made with chicken stock or are you strict about the no-meat thing?

The soups that we prepare at home would be prepared with vegetable stock*. I'd love to have a good gazpacho recipe. Or white bean soup. Or corn chowder (with something other than cream for thickness).

The goal is meals (low fat, etc.) we could prepare over the weekend and then heat up (or in the case of gazpacho, not heat up) during the week for dinners.

I have the feeling that I have spelled gazpacho incorrectly, but I have neither the time or the inclination to look it up.



*I understand that restaurant dining is to some degree out of one's control, but I prefer not to have dead animal products for consumption** in the house other than (i) seafood (fine, I'm a hypocrite) and (ii) chicken/lamb products for the true carnivore of the household, our cat.

**Yes, I wear leather. See the hypocrite disclaimer above.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Soup is stupid.

2. Also, did you know the avocado is not a vegetable?

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Fugee
[Fugee falling to the floor in gasping horror]Shortening in a pound cake??????????????[/Fugee falling to the floor in gasping horror]

I won't even use margarine in a butter cake.** Shortening is too awful to contemplate. Nick Malgieri's "Perfect Cakes" has approximately 9 different recipes for pound cake and none of them calls for shortening.

I'm guessing part of the reason it tasted cardboardish is that a pound cake gets its subtle flavor from butter and flavoring extracts (vanilla, lemon, orange, etc.) and even fresh shortening doesn't taste like butter.

I've gotten good compliments on the Sour Cream Pound Cake in the aforementioned "Perfect Cakes" cookbook.

**If cholesterol is a consideration, rather than ruin a perfectly good cake with margarine or shortening, there are lovely recipes for angel food and chiffon cakes and I have a carrot cake recipe that is made with oil, not butter.

Hmmn. I'll check out the Malgieri book. I have a ton of books that are all cake recipes like this one:


and other baking books that have a good cake focus. Unfortunately I wanted to bake a cake right away and didn't have too many ingredients (no buttermilk; no sour cream; no nuts) and also I wanted to use my bundt pan so I did a quick search and found a recipe here for a pound cake (called Aunt Johnnie's Pound Cake**) cooked in a bundt pan that seemed to get rave reviews from every person who tried the recipe (over 200 reviews). Shortening was not the only fat ingredient -- it calls for (and I used) 1/2 cup of shortening AND 1 cup of butter (I'd never rely on the shortening alone - agree) and also almond extract. Here's the ingredients:

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup butter
2 1/2 cups white sugar
5 eggs
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups cake flour

Like I said, the consistency was really wonderful -- it made a big, moist bundt cake that was perfect covered with a chocolate glaze. The only downer was the slight cardboard flavor. Could it really have been the fact that shortening was added as opposed to caused by old shortening? Because I'm tempted to try this recipe again with new shortening (my shortening was all greasy and see-through in parts). Or could I substitute the shortening with more butter?

Well, if you have a recipe for a moist non-chocolate cake that gets cooked in a bundt pan, please share!! (I heart bundt pans - they make big cakes and I hate cooking cakes in 2 layers).

**In retrospect, I probably should never try a recipe by someone's Aunt called "Johnny".

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
So Mr Man and I are in the market for some good vegetarian soup recipes. Anyone have any that they would like to share? We already have a french onion and a minestrone that we intend to try. We're pretending it is winter here.

Brrr.

I am a soup fanatic. If you want a basic carrot soup recipe (creamy and delicious), let me know and I'd be happy to give you mine. But you'd probably want a fancier, spicier variant (like a Spicy Carrot with Cahew) or maybe a spicy pumpkin soup (mmmmn). With pumpkin soups, I tend to feel I've had enough of that flavor after a few spoonfuls. (Unlike my favorite soup below which I can eat 3 times a day for a week).

My favorite soup: is very basic but damn it's good. At the supermarket, there is usually a nicely bundled package of typical soup veggies and I have yet to beat the typical grouping: Parsnip, turnip, leek, carrots, celery, onion and fresh dill. I chope and cook all that in chicken stock but you can easily do so in veggie stock. Cook it forever - it smells delicious. Next, make some homemade matzoh balls and plunk them in there towards the end (I sometimes use the matzoh balls in the jar). Oh, it's so good.

I'd also find a good recipe for Red Borscht Soup -cooked Ukranian style (it is served hot). It is not a dark red and is not a heavy, thick consistency and is not those borscht soups where you see big slices of beets in them. Instead it should look a little like this (and even a bit lighter) and have a lot of shredded white cabbage and chopped onion:




This is a soup where you'll want to dip in with fresh, thinly sliced rye bread slathered in butter. Oh, bring it on.

[Sparklehorse]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
The soups that we prepare at home would be prepared with vegetable stock*. I'd love to have a good gazpacho recipe. Or white bean soup. Or corn chowder (with something other than cream for thickness).

The goal is meals (low fat, etc.) we could prepare over the weekend and then heat up (or in the case of gazpacho, not heat up) during the week for dinners.

I have the feeling that I have spelled gazpacho incorrectly, but I have neither the time or the inclination to look it up.



*I understand that restaurant dining is to some degree out of one's control, but I prefer not to have dead animal products for consumption** in the house other than (i) seafood (fine, I'm a hypocrite) and (ii) chicken/lamb products for the true carnivore of the household, our cat.

**Yes, I wear leather. See the hypocrite disclaimer above.

For the record, I was asking for pragmatic purposes, not to draw you into guilt about where you draw the line. If I were thinking more clearly yesterday, I also would have asked if you ate any dairy because a lot of vegetable soups that I make call for adding some cream product at the end.

I recommend the purchase of this cookbook:



There are 800 recipes crammed into one volume and her approach to cooking vegetables is simple and easily adaptable. Buy it through the Lawtalkers link, of course.

[notcasesensitive]

Thanks to Sparklehorse and Diane for the suggestions. Diane, Mr Man is more of a carrot fan than I am, so shoot me the recipe via e-mail and maybe I'll whip that creamy carrot soup up for him at some point. If either of the recipes that I'm testing out soon go well, I'll post them here. There is a magazine called something like Vegetarian Cooking that has some good sounding stuff, so I'm hoping that they work out... The idea of vege- french onion soup is making my mouth water.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Thanks to Sparklehorse and Diane for the suggestions. Diane, Mr Man is more of a carrot fan than I am, so shoot me the recipe via e-mail and maybe I'll whip that creamy carrot soup up for him at some point. If either of the recipes that I'm testing out soon go well, I'll post them here. There is a magazine called something like Vegetarian Cooking that has some good sounding stuff, so I'm hoping that they work out... The idea of vege- french onion soup is making my mouth water.

Lentils of any variety can be used to make an excellent soup. The yellow and red ones go best with curry and middle Eastern seasonings. The green and brown go best with garlic, onion, rosemary, thyme, and root vegetables. Use vegetable stock and wine, or just water and wine.

The nice thing about lentils, aside from the fact that they are a good source of both protein and water soluble fiber, is that they can be cooked wiothout having to soak them overnight first, unlike almost all other varieties of legume.

[Sparklehorse]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Lentils of any variety can be used to make an excellent soup. The yellow and red ones go best with curry and middle Eastern seasonings. The green and brown go best with garlic, onion, rosemary, thyme, and root vegetables. Use vegetable stock and wine, or just water and wine.

The nice thing about lentils, aside from the fact that they are a good source of both protein and water soluble fiber, is that they can be cooked wiothout having to soak them overnight first, unlike almost all other varieties of legume.

The good thing about that Deborah Madison cookbook is that it is drawn on these kinds of principles but will give you specific recipes as well.