Pat

A while back, I tried to recreate the biscuits we had at the DR dinner at Circle Bistro, going on the chef's tips that it was based on a parker house roll recipe and used crisco. I've only made one attempt, though I keep thinking about it. My effort turned out a great batch of something akin to crumpets but not the product I was trying to make.

These Moosewood Ethiopian vegetarian dishes are good (the lentil stew and spicy vegetable stew at this link.)A friend recommends this vegetable stew recipe. Do you have ingredients for something like a tuna noodle casserole? Any kind of pasta-veg-cheese casserole would fit your needs. I don't know if you're okay with eggs if they're in something, but a meatless quiche would work. This is a crustless quiche I like: Crustless Quiche 1 (10 oz.) pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed 2 Tbsp. flour 1/2 lb. swiss cheese, diced 3 eggs 1 cup milk 1/2 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper dash ground nutmeg vegetable cooking spray Preheat oven to 350 F. Lay thawed spinach on paper towels. Blot and squeeze the spinach until barely moist. Set aside. Combine cheese and flour. Set aside. Blend eggs and milk. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir in spinach and the cheese-flour mixture. Pour into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350F for 55 to 60 minutes, until set. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving. source: xeney at webtv.net

Perhaps this might be of some interest. When I make the tomato pork sauce for the Mardi Gras pasta I mentioned elsewhere, the recipe calls for the boneless pork loin to be cut into thick slices (maybe 6 slices for 2 lbs.) Those slices get browned, simmered in the sauce and then shredded later on. That might be a middle approach between browning the meat whole and cutting into small pieces. I always find the flavor of this sauce wonderful, and I suspect that the multiple surfaces of the meat being browned at the beginning have something to do with the depth of the flavor.

just-baked peanut butter chocolate chip cookies...well, one, so far.

I've found heirloom beans at Dean and Deluca, smaller size packages than RG. I think the last flageolets I made were from D&D, but I can't swear to it. They were also quite fresh and didn't need long soaking. (I usually have no idea how old my beans are, and the older ones--cheap huge sacks of goya--really do seem to need soaking. I had beans so old one time that it took me close to 2 days of soaking and cooking to get them done. Not really worth it )

I just picked up some milk at the Capitol Hill store and realized I hadn't seen a thread for this local chain (I guess 4 stores is a chain.) I generally don't buy more than a few items at a time there, but it's a useful store to have in the neighborhood and I like to spend money locally when I can. They carry a number of the same product lines as Whole Foods, though it's a fairly small store. (I don't know how large the other locations are.) FYI: They don't accept checks. Yes!

gougeres red lentil vegetable stew mixed cabbage slaw with dried cranberries, chopped apple, and creamy vinaigrette Andouille sausages simmered in beer

I somehow managed to double post here in attempting to add to the old message . Let's try this again. This is it. It originally called for a particular brand, which was quite good. I found them at the Giant a couple of times in the late 1980s or so and could never locate them again. When I found the RG site and ordered their pinquito beans, I was able to get the recipe to come out right again. I've tried other kinds of beans, but pinquito beans really work best. BARBECUE BEANS (16 servings) 2 pounds Poquitos Santa Maria BBQ Beans [pinquito beans] 1 envelope chili mix [2-3 Tbsp. chili powder] 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 pound bacon, diced 1/2 pound ground beef 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 to 4 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon oregano 1 1/2 cups tomato juice Cover beans generously (by about 2 inches) with water, bring to a boil, and add salt and pepper. Turn heat to simmer and cook 2 hours or until tender. Saute bacon, onion, garlic, seasonings, chili mix, tomato juice, and ground beef. Add mixture to beans and simmer 1 hour and serve.

I think you may have been the person who originally recommended Rancho Gordo. I know I found about it somewhere here. Those are such fabulous beans. They don't need very long soaking at all and always come out great.I'll dig out the pinquito barbecue bean recipe I like and add it to this message, but I've got to go find it. (RG, among other things, is the most reliable source I've found for pinquito beans.)

How large is the space at Mia's Pizzas?

We've been eating leftover Ethiopian food for dinner every night. Last night I decided to go for a little variety to start out the meal, so I made a batch of very out-of season cream of roasted tomato-basil soup, and gougeres from a Jacques Pepin recipe. The gougeres were wonderful floated on top of the soup and also just eaten straight from the bread basket .

I hadn't thought about that, but investing in a bulk purchase of lima beans when they're in season and freezing them myself sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the tip.

Comtè cheese I'm supposed to be grating for gougères.

I like to saute some garlic with the greens and sprinkle some balsamic vinegar in when they're finishing up.

Lima beans are my favorite vegetable, but they are not in season very long and are hard to find. Usually I buy them frozen, but the only truly acceptable kind is Birds Eye fordhook. They seem to be increasingly difficult to find. I don't really like dried limas very much. I boil lima beans in a saucepan until just tender or steam in the microwave. When I can get fresh limas and fresh corn at the same time, I make succotash. Either way, I like to serve them with butter and black pepper. I know many people don't like limas, and I was amazed that my husband and I were already married before I realized that they were his favorite vegetable too .

I don't know much about the field, but what about something in food marketing? That might take skills and experience you already have and apply it to a subject you're interested in.

Ethiopian sampler (spellings may vary). Injera platter topped with Tibs Wat (spicy beef stew) Doro Wat (spicy chicken stew) Yegomen Kitfo (collards with spiced cottage cheese) Yebeg Alicha (mild lamb stew with onions and green peppers) Yemiser Wat (spicy red lentil stew) Yetakelt Wat (spicy mixed vegetable stew) Everything came out well, except the doro wat was a bit overseasoned (despite my scaling back the berbere from the main recipe I used.) The lamb stew was the best overall dish, in my biased opinion. I found lots of descriptions of it online but had trouble finding a specific recipe, so drew on the description and a couple of different recipes. I was quite pleased with that. The spicy vegetable stew was runner-up. I got that one from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. We've still got plenty of food and injera left, so we'll be eating Ethiopian food for days. I had wanted to make tekil gomen and had the ingredients but substituted the spicy vegetable stew instead. If we still have injera before finishing the other foods, I'll make up a batch of tekil gomen. I contemplated making just one or two dishes and focusing on them, but one thing I love about eating at Ethiopian restaurants is getting a platter with a lot of different selections. I still miss The Red Sea . The platter looked impressive, if I do say so myself. The spiced butter came out really well and despite scaling back on the amounts of butter called for in the various dishes, I've already met my butter quota for the entire month...and then some . And the next time my husband asks if I really need all those mixing bowls filling the kitchen cabinets, I can truly say yes. I used all but one of them making this meal .

I doubt the writers have anything to do with the headlines and didn't mean to imply they did. I guess I didn't express myself too clearly. Someone at an editorial level is deciding how to target/sell the articles.

I think a lot of the retro aspect in these pieces is from the way the headlines are written. In the article on the brownies, it turned out to be a friend of the recipe author who gave them the man-catcher name and included them in a collection of recipes as a wedding gift. The boss's wife piece reads to me more like an episode of Food 911 than anything else. The hook comes from the intimidation factor that the boss's wife used to be a pastry chef. The protagonist of the piece is a female attorney, so it's hardly a Leave It To Beaver household.The elements are in there and mentioned by the article writers, but someone is making a decision to highlight those points in the headlines. It may well be meant to be ironic, but I too find it annoying.

I can't top that! I need to make pizza again. It's been quite a while.Tonight we're having... French toast Well, not exactly. I'm making a strata from stale poppy seed rolls*, milk/eggs/honey, and dried pineapple and chopped proscuitto. I'm also reheating some parsnip soup. Tonight is definitely a soup night. *$1 off at Giant yesterday, which was their sale date. I should have been suspicious when I squeezed (gently!) the other packages and they seemed stale. These seemed ok, until I got home and tried one . They're a nice texture for french toasty-foods, though.

I'm planning to make the spiced butter for tomorrow's meal in a bit. I'm really glad I bought provisions for my Valentine's meal yesterday. The original plan had been to shop yesterday and find the things I couldn't find then today, but I had a very successful errand circuit yesterday, finding everything on my list (and only a few things not on it ), so I'm all set.

Last night was an Armenian meal. I had intended to serve it Sunday, but after 4 long hours in the kitchen, it was still not close to ready. So, we had leftovers Sunday and the Armenian meal last night. Madzoon (yogurt) soup Yalanchi (rice stuffed grape leaves) Topik (chickpea-potato terrine--I looked over a number of recipes but ultimately used the one Zora did, upthread)

Once they'd hooked me in and I looked at the tv, I did notice the wholesome nostalgia visuals. It reminded me of one of the Church of the Latter Day Saints commercials, which focus on parents spending quality time with their children. I also thought I picked up the subtext: "I'm a better mom than you are because my family eats dinner together."

While I was barely awake this morning, a commercial came on after the local news. I wasn't upright so could only hear the tv. It sounding like they were running a PSA. The teenaged boy is calling home to ask his mother if he can eat dinner at his friend's house but mom is suspicious. Finally he has to put his friend's mom on the phone. She reassures the other mom that it's legitimate; yes, they're all having dinner together as a family, which is apparently an unfamiliar concept. By now I'm looking at the tv and we see dinner: a big bucket of KFC. This is what a family dinner is all about!For some reason, I found this ad offensive, maybe because it started out sounded (to me) like a PSA for families all sitting down to have dinner together and it's selling fast food. Or maybe I just woke up cranky . (Apologies if everyone has seen this ad a million times. I don't watch a whole lot of tv and usually tune out the commercials when I do.)

Thanks! I got injera here yesterday. They have quite a selection. The man said that it can be frozen, but I didn't ask for details.