That's what I'm hoping, but wanted to be sure before I made carpaccio out of a different piece of the same cow.

Probably clotted blood. The surrounding meat could be "off" because of bruising.

I think they are colonies of space aliens that will grow in your stomach and pop out of your stomach walls at an inopportune moment. Your only hope is to wrap you head in tin foil and.... Ohhh never mind.

They're Bee Femur Gin Seas.

I hate you all

My carpaccio was delicious and, so far, no John-Hurt-in-Alien experiences.

That knife on the other hand -- looks nice -- what kind is it? I am sure it'll be sharp enough to do any emergency surgeries.

Food safety question:

How long can a container of plain whole milk yogurt be left on the counter and still be used?

Personally, it grossed me out after three hours and I will probably toss it, especially since it is BLBaby's yogurt.

But I was wondering what the consensus was. Thanks!!!

Probably a while given that it's probably pretty acidic and makes it more challenging for bacteria to grow.

Isn't bacteria fermentation what makes yogurt out of milk?

Erm... I guess let me correct that and say harmful bacteria. Most of the bacteria used in yogurt is cultured, and therefore not dangerous.

I routinely bring yougurt to work and let it sit for hours and hours on my desk, then eat it with no ill effects. I'd wager it would last at least a day.

"Wenn ich das Wort Kultur höre, entsichere ich mir mein Browning."

--H. Göring

So I love baking. Sometimes I fiddle with proportions, sometimes it works. Tonight, not so much. I looked at my chocolate chip cookies recipe and thought... I don't remember using two sticks of butter. The recipe calls for two eggs but I always use one to get the consistency I like, but I guess I normally use the two sticks of butter. Now, I have a really dry batter. Any ideas on how to fix it? Currently the batter is resting in the fridge. Thanks in advance.

Am I crazy or does the obvious thing seem to be add more butter? Maybe just little by little? Or even doing so with a pre-beaten egg?

No, I don't think you are crazy... I thought about the butter but the egg idea is even better.

I would add the missing butter. Kind of similar to your situation -- last Christmas, I was making white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies for holiday cookie packages. I made the batter a day ahead and refrigerated it, and the next day when I was scooping out the cookie dough onto the baking sheet, the dough seemed awfully crumbly and wouldn't hold together at all. At first I thought it was because the batter was cold, but I realized that I had forgotten to add the eggs when I was making the batter the day before. The only solution I could think of was to go ahead and just mix the eggs into the batter, which I did, and the cookies turned out fine.

I bought Italian sausage at the farmers market for the first time; the package comes w four links wedged together to form one solid mass.

Therefore, to cook one for dinner last night, I had to thaw all four. They've been in the fridge two days now.

Question: Tis better in the mind to cook one's stately, plump sausage directly before consumption, is it not?

Then, how to deal safely with the three remaining without losing all their flavor? I don't want to risk spoiling these more costly, precious sausages by risking spoilage, yet refreezing them is not recommended. So, compromise?

Once they are cooked, you can freeze them.

Steam them until just lightly firmed up and then cool and freeze separately wrapped. To consume, thaw and then brown, or slice and pan saute the slices. Much better than letting them deteriorate in the fridge while you eat one every day, or heaven forbid spoil.

Another thought I had was to remove them from the casings and cook up for a spaghetti sauce. Eat some of the sauce now and freeze the rest.

Thanks, all. I had thought of going all Connecticut and making spaghetti sauce (w casings on), but you gotta have fennel sausages for that. However, I like the idea of steaming versus fully browning and cooking the two that remain.

It's that time of year again! I'll start...

I have a recipe for a "lower-fat deep chocolate bundt cake" that I've made recently, and am making for dessert for tomorrow. I just checked and do not have the 2 cups of all-purpose flour in the pantry...I do have "King Arthur Unbleached 100% Hard White Whole Wheat Flour" ...it is not designated as pastry flour as the recipe calls for, if substituting. My husband said the cake was very moist so shouldn't be a problem and to look it up on the internet. So here I am!

IF I do subsitute, am I correct in using 1 cup all-purpose and 1 cup of the white whole-wheat? I've listed the recipe below.


Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake (from "Veganomicon" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

1 3/4 c freshly brewed coffee
2/3 c unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1/3 c canola oil
1/3 c applesauce
1/4 c cornstarch
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract (I omitted this and increased the vanilla to 3 tsps)
2 c all-purpose or whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp confectioners'sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease an 8 or 10" Bundt pan.

Bing coffee to a gentle simmer in a sauce pan over medium heat. Once it is simmering, turn down heat and whisk in cocoa powder, until it has dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together granulated sugar, oil, applesauce and cornstarch until sugar and conrnstarch are dissolved, about two minutes. Mix in extracts. Once chocolate has cooled, fold into applesauce mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Fold into wet ingredients, beating until relatively smooth, about one minute with a hand mixer or two minutes with a whisk.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If pan is on smaller side, cooking time could be as long as 55 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 20 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate to cool completely. Once cool, sift confectioners' sugar over top. Makes about 12 servings.

Well, after a search on Cook's Thesaurus, I think I may just use cake flour to make up the difference. I just measured and all totaled, the amount I'm short is only about an 1/8 of a cup. The "hard" descriptor of the whole-wheat concerns me too much.

If it is just 1/8 of a cup out of 2 cups total flour, it probably does not matter very much if you use the KA white whole wheat or cake flour. And using 1 cup of KA white whole wheat & 1 cup of AP would most likely also work just fine.

If it helps, I've been using the KA white whole wheat flour in all my baking subbing out half of the usual white flour. It even worked in biscuits (half and half with White Lily) with no discernible difference in texture. So 1/8 of a cup will cause no problem at all. I'll be surprised if you can even tell a difference.

Thanks for the replies...I hadn't actually measured it to know that I was only 1/8 c shy when I first posted and thought I would have to do the 1c KA, 1c AP. As I mentioned, my main concern was the description on the bag of the KA said "hard" whole wheat, so I thought that may make a difference. But if mktye says it's OK, and lperry has had success with her baking as well, then that's good enough for me.

I'll let you know how it comes out!