What can you expect in the Food Thread on PF?

[Andre]

Dunno, the lychees here last a week or two easily.

But with those prices, one glass of our own fresh fruit blend with fresh pine apple, nectarines, grapes, mango, oranges, etc, from the Dutch supermarket would be about a factor ten more expensive.

 

[scorpa]

I made a pizza for supper tonight, it was great! I am kind of lazy when it comes to the crust, I just use those ones that you add water to and let rise but they are pretty decent. I wasn't really planning on making one but I had some stuff at home that would work so I decided to go for it...ham, summer sausage, parmesan cheese, mozzarella, and loads of red peppers, tomatoes and onions...yum.

 

[Math Is Hard]

My neighbor's have a giant basil bush on the patio. I've been making myself Caprese salads every night.

I bought some seed and fill up their bird feeders now and then. It's a good trade.

 

[Moonbear]

My neighbor brought over a raspberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream last night. Yummy! She just got past her 11th week of pregnancy and the "morning" sickness has gone away, so she's baking up a storm apparently. Hopefully I'll soon have some healthy tomatoes to share.

 

[turbo]

I just had the most wonderful sandwich! Fresh locally-made spinach/cheddar bread with garden-fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers dressed with Cain's mayonnaise and a little salt and pepper. If I had another ripe tomato, I'd make another one and pig out.

 

[wolram]

Has anyone tried this stuff ,the meats sound like a good stand by, or even good for a chili or stew.

http://www.nitro-pak.com/index.php?cPath=147_58&osCsid=e8d137f0ecc8d4947d19fd5a6d8bcbff

 

[Moonbear]

Has anyone tried this stuff ,the meats sound like a good stand by, or even good for a chili or stew.

http://www.nitro-pak.com/index.php?cPath=147_58&osCsid=e8d137f0ecc8d4947d19fd5a6d8bcbff

Don't think I'd even want to, though, maybe Evo should stock up with all the storms she gets around her. Oh, wait, I think I'm getting them now.

I was looking at real estate listings today, and one house was advertised as having a bomb shelter followed by a note that it's "for the imaginative buyer." Maybe I should get it and stock up on those rations for it. (Actually, it didn't really deter me...the rest of the house sounded pretty decent, so if it's still on the market in the spring, I might take a more serious look at it...based on the age of the house, it's probably an air raid shelter in the basement, which might have potential for a good wine cellar.)

 

[turbo]

based on the age of the house, it's probably an air raid shelter in the basement, which might have potential for a good wine cellar.

Depending on how the shelter is buried/insulated, it could also be a good place for storage of winter vegetables like turnips, carrots, and winter squash. Our cellar is quite cold and winter squash keeps well, clear through February.

 

[wolram]

The basement might be a good place to keep an inflatable raft.

 

[Moonbear]

Depending on how the shelter is buried/insulated, it could also be a good place for storage of winter vegetables like turnips, carrots, and winter squash. Our cellar is quite cold and winter squash keeps well, clear through February.

Yep, that's what the air raid shelter in my grandparents' house got used for. I'm actually hoping that the bad real estate agent's comments will deter away other potential buyers until I'm ready to buy. There are some really horrible real estate agents around here, based on the terrible typos and awful ways they write up house descriptions. But, yeah, while I suspect a lot of people might be scared off by such a description, I'm thinking wine, roots, even just a good place to put up shelving for canned vegetables if the house has a yard large enough for gardening (I think that one did). It's pretty close to town too. *sigh* Too bad I'm locked into the current lease until next summer. The price is even on the lower end of the range I'd be looking at (not that I'd pass up a less expensive bargain). Though, if it's still on the market by spring or next summer, even better for negotiating lower prices. But, who knows, with houses sitting longer and prices going down, there might be something even better by then (or this one might be terrible if I see it in person, though, for the price, a fixer-upper wouldn't be inconceivable).

 

[Evo]

so if it's still on the market in the spring, I might take a more serious look at it...based on the age of the house, it's probably an air raid shelter in the basement, which might have potential for a good wine cellar.)

or Evo's new home

 

[Moonbear]

The basement might be a good place to keep an inflatable raft.

With this summer's weather, it might not be a bad idea! Maybe I'll just stock up a pond with fish rather than try gardening if we keep getting so much rain every summer. I'm kind of eyeing up the places with no zoning laws so I can get some of the ducklings from the farm in spring and grow them up to tasty size.

 

[Moonbear]

or Evo's new home

Or both. Ooh, it would be a good location to store the sisterhood's chocolate stock too.

 

[turbo]

Moonie, could you negotiate a purchase if the house is pretty nice and sub-let your current place? If your lease has a no-sub-let clause, what are the chances that your landlord would let someone assume your lease. You could take a little loss monthly, if you end up with a property that can be easily spruced up, especially if there is space to let you have a real garden. With the price of food going ballistic around here, I'm throwing lots of time and effort into the garden. The rot, mildew, and mold (and the slug damage) perpetuated by the constant rains are stressing my garden (and me) but I'm going to come out of this season ahead, one way or the other. My neighbors and I (and family members who garden) are sharing produce. I have a lot of peppers, lettuces, beets, etc, and share with a neighbor who gives us summer squash, and who will let me have all the dill I want to make my pickles. Another neighbor who supplied me with the varietal garlic cloves to start my crop will get lots of canned pickled peppers this season, and as usual, I will have his cute little grand-daughters here in the fall to dig carrots and beets and to pick apples and grapes. It's fun - they are 3 and 4 and they get such a kick out of getting dirty, especially when Grammy tells them that the family is going to eat what they picked for supper.

 

[Moonbear]

Moonie, could you negotiate a purchase if the house is pretty nice and sub-let your current place? If your lease has a no-sub-let clause, what are the chances that your landlord would let someone assume your lease. You could take a little loss monthly, if you end up with a property that can be easily spruced up, especially if there is space to let you have a real garden.

The chances of a sublet here are slim to none. I might be able to negotiate getting out of the lease a couple months early next summer, because it would put the place up for rent during the prime rental season (being a college town, everyone wants a place rented by Aug 1...the only exception being new residents at the hospital who need to start July 1). There would also be potential issues because the HOA limits short-term leases, so if someone were to sublet next summer, they'd probably have to be willing to take over the lease.

My rent is too high too afford both a mortgage and lease, especially since the new lease only just started (it's annoying...I really would have preferred buying now, but the new job didn't come through in time to avoid renewing the lease...if I knew I was going to get it in time, I'd have probably negotiated month-to-month rent while house hunting). But, no harm waiting until spring to shop...more houses come on the market then too, and property values are still dropping. I'm actually trying to save enough extra to have the option to close on a house with some overlap on the rental place so I have plenty of time to do any work on a new place and slowly move in before I have to get out of the rental house.

 

[Evo]

I'm kind of eyeing up the places with no zoning laws so I can get some of the ducklings from the farm in spring and grow them up to tasty size.

Nooooo, meat comes from stores. It was never actually alive.

 

[Moonbear]

Nooooo, meat comes from stores. It was never actually alive.

You just have to give them the right names:
"Roast duckling," "Duck a l'orange" ...

One of my friends grew up on a cattle ranch. They had names for some of the cattle, "Steak," "Sirloin," "Hamburger."

 

[turbo]

Good luck, MB! In most economic downturns, housing values drop after the problems with jobs, wages, etc. Maybe we're going to see another slide in housing if the economy continues to suffer, and you can buy near the bottom of the market. If you can buy early next spring (before people with school-aged children and tight budgets can comfortably shop for a new place), you may be able to get a decent place at the bottom of the market, and enjoy the appreciation that incremental (no-permit) home improvements can bring, along with any appreciation accrued through an improving economy. My wife and I sold our last place just before home prices nose-dived, and I'm happy about that. I'd love to be buying in this market, but since we down-sized heavily, we were much better off buying this place in an OK market and selling our much larger place in that market. The differential in values favored us in that market.

 

[turbo]

Nooooo, meat comes from stores. It was never actually alive.

You're a poof, Evo! One year, my uncle allowed his kids to name their pigs Romeo and Juliet. Hard lesson, maybe, but when you farm, you don't make pets out of your food.

 

[turbo]

You just have to give them the right names:
"Roast duckling," "Duck a l'orange" ...

One of my friends grew up on a cattle ranch. They had names for some of the cattle, "Steak," "Sirloin," "Hamburger."

My uncle and a partner raised Herefords, and they culled the males pretty early every year, leaving a matriarchal herd that followed very strict rules about which cow could lead the rest, who chose new pasturage, who chose to move to water, etc, etc. All the cows had names, and if you were familiar with the pecking order, you didn't have to ID them by appearance. Just watch them trekking from pasture to water to graining at the tie-up and you KNEW Rosie was first, then her oldest daughter Bessie, then, etc, etc. Any deviation from that order was a sign of dissent and would be a good clue that you ought to give those critters some room until they sorted it out. You don't want to be between an alpha female and a pretender!

 

[Evo]

In cooking school in France, my mother had to reach down a live chicken's throat with a pair of long scissors and cut something that killed it. Any idea what that was other than a form of torture?

 

[turbo]

A couple of my college buddies were sisters who earned their college money working on the eviscerating line in a poultry plant in Augusta. They were both pretty, funny, and smart as all get-out, and they refused to eat chicken. I think pigs and cows probably get more humane deaths.

 

[Moonbear]

All the cows had names, and if you were familiar with the pecking order, you didn't have to ID them by appearance. Just watch them trekking from pasture to water to graining at the tie-up and you KNEW Rosie was first, then her oldest daughter Bessie, then, etc, etc. Any deviation from that order was a sign of dissent and would be a good clue that you ought to give those critters some room until they sorted it out. You don't want to be between an alpha female and a pretender!

Cattle don't really have a linear hierarchy, though, and the "alpha" female changes with stage of estrous cycle. The one in heat is alpha for the day. Though, the one to watch out for is the one in proestrous. They're quite difficult to handle that day of the cycle, but oh, what a difference a day makes!

In cooking school in France, my mother had to reach down a live chicken's throat with a pair of long scissors and cut something that killed it. Any idea what that was other than a form of torture?

I can't think of any reason to do that from the inside. Chickens have thin enough necks that you can pretty quickly and easily do a cervical dislocation (basically, break their neck and tear their spinal cord) to kill them instantly and painlessly. I guess if you want to keep the head on for presentation or something, you could cut the spinal cord from the inside like that, but that really does seem unnecessarily slow when people don't usually care if the chicken is headless.

 

[scorpa]

You're a poof, Evo! One year, my uncle allowed his kids to name their pigs Romeo and Juliet. Hard lesson, maybe, but when you farm, you don't make pets out of your food.

I had a friend with a pet calf named Rambo, one day she came home from school and couldn't find him. She later found him on her dinner table :P

 

[turbo]

Cattle don't really have a linear hierarchy, though, and the "alpha" female changes with stage of estrous cycle. The one in heat is alpha for the day. Though, the one to watch out for is the one in proestrous. They're quite difficult to handle that day of the cycle, but oh, what a difference a day makes!

Is that true when there are no mating-age males around? The pecking-order of my uncle's Herefords was real predictable. Apart from some minor fluctuations, which generally got resolved in the short term (a few days at most) they were as predictable as can be. My cousin and I would stock up the feeders in the stalls with hay and grain, and you would NEVER see cow X in cow Y's feeding stall. They had rules.

 

[Moonbear]

Is that true when there are no mating-age males around? The pecking-order of my uncle's Herefords was real predictable. Apart from some minor fluctuations, which generally got resolved in the short term (a few days at most) they were as predictable as can be. My cousin and I would stock up the feeders in the stalls with hay and grain, and you would NEVER see cow X in cow Y's feeding stall. They had rules.

Yep, true without males around too. Actually, even more so. If males are around, the females in heat will be more distracted by the attention of the males rather than hassling the other females. That's different than them all having "favorite" stalls. That's more just training. They all learn that food comes faster if they sort out into the same place every day than if they fight over stall choice. This becomes apparent if you're intentionally trying to move them into a different stall, even if there isn't another cow trying to get in.

Though, if the herd was fairly well synchronized, which may have been the case if they were using any methods to time breeding, then these shifts may not have been readily apparent because they'd have all been coming into heat at similar times.

 

[turbo]

Though, if the herd was fairly well synchronized, which may have been the case if they were using any methods to time breeding, then these shifts may not have been readily apparent because they'd have all been coming into heat at similar times.

That may be. In a herd of 20-30 cows, they might have been synchronized to the point where us kids couldn't have easily seen variations in their behaviors. Very small farm run by a couple of hard-*** Mainers who cut pulp-wood for a living. My uncle and his neighbor were tough customers.

 

[turbo]

One of my favorite meals tonight! Roast chicken with gravy, baked potatoes, and garden-fresh string beans. My wife brought home a small chicken the other day, so that's tonight's supper. I rubbed the skin with peanut oil and dusted it with a little salt and pepper, plus paprika and sage. I put the chicken in the pan breast-down, so that the fats from the thighs, legs and back meat will baste the breast meat. Also in the roasting pan is a quartered large yellow onion - that juice will make some killer gravy. The giblets and neck are in a small pot with another quartered onion, salt and pepper, and I will boil those, timed to be ready at the same time as the chicken. The juice from that will be added to the pan drippings as a base for the gravy. Reduce the juices in the pan on a gas burner and thicken with a bit of flour-and-water. Mmmm! The house already is smelling great.

 

[hypatia]

Heh, that made me thaw out some chicken, except mines going over hickory chips, but I'll still have the Mashed and maybe some corn.

 

[Andre]

I used chicken too, today, but in a totally unrecogniseable form, Ko Yu Luk. deep fried sweet sour chicken in dough balls with fruits, chinese kitchen, served with fine fried noodles and mixed vegetables.

 

[turbo]

We just finished supper, and it was wonderful. I decided not to make gravy. Instead the juices will be boiled with the carcass and reduced to make a nice broth for home-made tomato soup. Tomato soup made with chicken stock and served with a grilled cheese sandwich...mmmm! Another of my favorite meals, and easy, too.

 

[Evo]

Ooooh, the chicken sounds wonderful. I've neevr made tomato soup with chicken broth, share the recipe when you make it turbo.

I have beef strognanoff leftovers. I *love* beef stroganoff. Unfortunately the only pasta I had was angel hair, but it still turned out yummy. I'm just not used to having it over angel hair though.

I need to find a man that can cook, do housework, scratch the Fruit Bat's rear end, and won't get in my way. I just want to sit in front of the tv, watch cooking shows, and whine all day. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

 

[Moonbear]

I found one that cooks and does housework. Not sure if he'll scratch doggy rear-ends (though he would allow me to bring Ember to his condo if I wanted...but the place is so tiny, it's better leaving Ember home with a sitter than torture her with this tiny place)...I think I can get him to scratch my rear end though.

I had a tasty corned beef sandwich tonight. I was too tired to wander very far for dinner after driving out here (he's still out of town until Sunday night), so just hit the bar across the street. Strange place. One side is a deli type sandwich bar, the other the actual drinks type bar, and you can't just order a sandwich from the drinks bar, you have to go to the other side, get your sandwich, then carry it over. Very strange. But, it was real, home-cooked corned beef on yummy rye bread. That's the sort of stuff I miss when I'm in WV.

 

[Evo]

I found one that cooks and does housework. Not sure if he'll scratch doggy rear-ends (though he would allow me to bring Ember to his condo if I wanted...but the place is so tiny, it's better leaving Ember home with a sitter than torture her with this tiny place)...I think I can get him to scratch my rear end though.

I had a tasty corned beef sandwich tonight. I was too tired to wander very far for dinner after driving out here (he's still out of town until Sunday night), so just hit the bar across the street. Strange place. One side is a deli type sandwich bar, the other the actual drinks type bar, and you can't just order a sandwich from the drinks bar, you have to go to the other side, get your sandwich, then carry it over. Very strange. But, it was real, home-cooked corned beef on yummy rye bread. That's the sort of stuff I miss when I'm in WV.

OMG! I *love* corned beef sandwiches!

Now I must buy a corned beef brisket. Evo Child loves corned beef.

Funny story, completely unrelated to food.

The Evo Child's car has been making a funny noise since she had the tires rotated and alligned a couple of weeks ago, so we dropped it off at the dealer to get it checked out. You get a free new car as a loaner when you drop your car off. They were putting us into a nice $40,000.00 car, but I mentioned how much faster they were than the XXX Import Car Dealer I take my car into. The guy excused himself and a minute later was back giving us the keys to a new $60,000.00 car. Muwahaha, little does he know my income has dwindled so much that I can't even think about buying that car for her. I suggested we drive it to Colorado since we have it for the weekend.

 

[turbo]

Ooooh, the chicken sounds wonderful. I've neevr made tomato soup with chicken broth, share the recipe when you make it turbo.

The tomato soup is easy and is always good. Take the pan-drippings from the roasted chicken and the water from the boiled giblets, neck, and onion, garlic, whatever, and reduce them. Freeze that concentrated stock if you're not going to use it soon. When you get ready to make tomato soup, combine the chicken stock with tomato sauce (we use ours, but you can use store-bought if you want) and start simmering. If the soup is a bit tart, add some fresh basil (dried if you must) and consider trimming with oregano. I don't have a "recipe" that I can post because the character of the chicken broth, the tartness of the tomato sauce, etc, can vary quite a bit. Sorry about that. My wife and I love whipping up simple soups like this and pairing them with great grilled sandwiches.