Mamacita

Anyone have a recipe they'd like to share?

I love to bake...when the weather is cool...fughedaboudit when the weather is above 75*F, though! The secret to good pastry for pies is simple: don't handle it any more than absolutely necessary. When I make pie crust, I measure out all my dry ingredients and sift them together, then I add the fat (usually butter flavored Crisco shortening, but you can use lard, butter, whatever you like best). Using a pastry blender, start cutting it into the flour mixture until it looks like coarse corn meal. Then add your icy cold water, just a tablespoon at a time, and moosh it together with your hands until you have it all hanging together in a ball. Let it rest a bit, then roll it out. Hope this helps! If your pastry is gray...uh....you might want to wash your hands! ROTFLOL!

Muggle, I read your opening post here. I get the Marques de Caseres Rioja at Costco and it's a very enjoyable red wine. There's this sparkling muscato called "Bug Juice" that I really like, too. For my everyday wine in the summer, I enjoy Beringer white zinfandel. But as the weather cools, I don't drink as much wine. I go for the heavier stuff a bit more...Jameson's Irish Whisky, Southern Comfort or Johnnie Walker Gold Label.

My sister gave me Daughter of Fortune for my birthday last year...I haven't gotten around to reading it yet b/c I want to be able to appreciate it. It's much heavier than most of what I read....yeah, I read fluff! LOL!! With my work, I need "brain candy" whenever I can get it. But it sounds like a really good book, so maybe it will be my book to curl up with on a cold winter weekend.

Take two slices of seeded rye bread, slather them with butter and toast butter side down on a grill or hot skillet til golden. Take a good fistful of shaved corned beef brisket (hot) and stir in a generous dollop of Russian salad dressing. Pile on the hot bread, lay a layer of warmed saurkraut on that, then top with slices of swiss cheese. Put the other slice of bread on top and eat!

You'd probably get the same kind of look I got the first time I asked the stockclerk at Winn-Dixie for 'tortillas'. :? I had to say "you know, the thin, white, bread-like thing that your Taco Bell burrito is wrapped in???" Duh!

1. Favourite main meal ~ Lobster broiled in garlic butter, with a squeeze of lemon juice 2. Favourite starter ~ Hot artichoke/parmesan dip with baguette slices 3. Favourite dessert ~ All American Chocolate Cake or carrot cake 4. Favourite pizza topping ~ ham and pineapple 5. Favourite bread ~ Any that's home made 6. Favourite vegetable ~ grilled zucchini slices w/ ranch dressing 7. Favourite fruit ~ The best that's in season 8. Favourite cheese ~ stilton 9. Favourite takeaway ~ fish and chips 10. Favourite chocolate bar ~ Godiva dark 11. Favourite sandwich ~Reuben

Kell, directly answering your question: Grits are "neutral"...they take on the flavor of whatever you put with it. If it's breakfast, I like my grits swimming in butter, salt and pepper. Don't care for them sweet, though I'd probably like them okay if I put butter, brown sugar and a bit of table cream with them. If you want to try something interesting with them, after you cook them, drop them by spoonsful in a greased skillet and fry them, like you would polenta patties, then use them the same way.

Grits are similar to cornmeal, but the corn has been treated with lime first to remove the husk. Then it's ground very coarse. I like them, as they're a good vehicle to eat butter and salt and pepper! Some folks like them with cheese melted in...and other stuff. I use grits in my tamales to give the masa more texture than the plain corn flour gives.

I think I was about 3 years old the first time I tasted fish eggs. My mom had this way of getting me to taste just about anything. Whenever we'd go fishing and we got a female, mom would save the eggs, roll them in seasoned cornmeal (like you'd use for polenta) and fry them. A little sprinkle of salt and YUM-O! It wasn't until I was grown and at a fancy party that I tasted proper caviar for the first time as an appetizer. A Belgian endive leaf with a dollop of boursin cheese and a tiny spoonful of caviar on top of the cheese. Very tasty.

I'll stick to my own gender, thank you very much! Caviar is as far as I go!

Pig trotters??? That's just WRONG...on so many levels...

Oh! How traumatizing!!! :shock: I could never eat anyone or anything I've had a personal relationship with. Were they starving with nothing else to eat? That would have been the only acceptable excuse for eating your child's pet.

Little did Boris realize that when he'd accepted this assignment, that it would be to his detriment. Though all salmon realize that ultimately, they are bound for a suicide mission.

Shoot, Maureen! Now you're making me all sad that I can't give you anything but cyber tamales.

Well, Kell...can't help you in the snake department, but just come on down to the South and we'll make sure you get some alligator etoufee!

I'm usually amenable to trying new things...I do have my limitations though..I won't eat anything that most people keep as pets and I don't eat insects...unless you count shrimp, lobsters and crabs as insects...or reptiles. In recent years I've learned to appreciate and in some cases, even crave things like sushi, calamari, carpaccio, exotic cheeses, weird vegetables and fruits...

We won't discuss...clothes popping.... :oops: So, hubby announced that he wants a birthday cobbler (cherry) instead of a cake.

Hmmm, I haven't seen anything objectionable about most of the so-called "chick lit" covers...I'm sitting here staring at "Undomestic Goddess"...just a yellow jacket, the title and authors name in blue, and a cartoon briefcase with cooking utencils sticking out... Most of the chick-lit covers seem to trend toward cartoons... Now, if they were like the historical romance covers, I'd worry a bit...

Oh, yeah... In the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, the author throws out all these hard to prounounce African names and prefaces them with the titles Mma and Rra. How the heck do you pronounce something like that? I ended up saying it "Ma" and "Ra"...which is probably totally wrong. :?

Margarita Chicken This recipe is a bit time consuming but well worth the extra effort. 4 chicken breast fillets 2 C. fried tortilla strips 1/2 C. shredded jack cheese 1/2 C. shredded Cheddar cheese Marinade: 1/2 C. water 1/4 C. tamari or soy sauce 8 T. lime juice 2 t. minced garlic 1 t. mesquite liquid smoke 1/4 t. minced fresh ginger 2 T. tequila Southwestern Ranch dressing: 1/4 C. mayonnaise 1/4 C. sour cream 1 T. milk 1 T. minced tomato 1 1/2 t. white vinegar 2 t. minced canned jalapeno slices 1 t. minced onion 1 t. minced fresh parsley 1/2 t. Tabasco sauce 1/8 t. each salt, dill weed, cayenne, cumin, granulated garlic 1/2 t. chili powder Dash ground black pepper Prepare marinade by combining marinade ingredients in medium bowl. Pound chicken breasts til they are about

If you can't find it, let me know...I'll see if I can find one in our local used book stores.

Has anyone read it? My aunt picked a tattered copy of this book up at a B&B in Alaska, of all places. She read it, loved it and sent it on to me. TPOG is the true story of Lalu Nathoy, a young Chinese peasant girl who, despite being assured by her father that she's his "treasure", his "thousand pieces of gold", is sold by him into slavery for a few bags of grain. A spunky, independent child from birth, Lalu remains defiant, and refuses to accept her status as a slave. This attitude ultimately saves her from being forced into prostitution in the notorious brothels of 1870's San Francisco. Instead, she's sent to a gold camp and acts as a servant to a saloon owner. One miner, a gentle bear of a man, falls in love with the girl now known as "Polly". So much does he care for her, he purchases her papers from her owner. Her new owner releases her immediately from servitude and asks to marry her. She refuses. Though she loves him, she refuses to be bound to another human being ever again. Because interracial relationships were against every law of society, they move to a remote area of the mountains where they build a cabin and farm for the rest of their lives. I found this book to be heartbreakingly wonderful. It shows the resilience of the human spirit in a beautiful way. The author did a very good job of showing the world in which Lalu lived and I believe, captured the essence of a woman who has been dead for a hundred years.

This dish is incredibly popular among the vegetarian crowd where I live/grew up. 2 pints cottage cheese 1 large onion, finely minced 1 cup English walnuts, minced 3 packets of vegetable broth powder (I use G Washington, but I'm sure there are brands in the UK and elsewhere that will work fine. Just make sure the cubes are meant to make 1 cup of broth when added to water) 1 box Kellog's Special K cereal 5 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup butter, melted Combine all ingredients except cereal, stir well to mix, then gently fold in the cereal, taking care to thoroughly incorporate all ingredients. Pack firmly in a 13X9X2 baking dish that's been sprayed with release agent. Bake at 350* F for 1 to 1-1/2 hours. You can serve this with any gravy, but every time I take it someplace, the gravy goes untouched.

How about some seasoned, grilled portobello mushroom caps? Maybe filled with a bread dressing? Or, mushrooms, baby summer squash, and cherry tomatoes on skewers. Or, for something REALLY different, I have a recipe for a casserole dish that's very popular at the potluck dinners I take it to. I'll post the recipe on the recipe thread...it's called "Special K Loaf"