A first world brat (me) and her first world rant (recipe websites)
amylou321
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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amylou321
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoRelated Discussions
Wow! Welcome me to the real world!
Comments (17)I have cable and they just upgraded to 6mb download and 376 upload. You can test your computer speed on Speakeasy.net I recently switched to Spy Sweeper and Trend Micro Antivirus and just the Firewall that came with XP. I turned off the SID broadcast since I am wireless, so people using a wireless computer near my router can't even see my signal to select it. I also put in our computer IPs so only ours are recognized and allowed in through (or out) of the modem. My email is Outlook. I used to use Norton Antivirus which I liked but Trend Micro works well. I don't like McAfee at all. I don't give out my regular email but other than about 15 people. I use Yahoo mail for everything else. Other freebies are Spybot Search and Destroy and AdAware by Lava Soft. I have a Verizon towwer about a mile as the crow flies but we still don't have it, but my cable modem is much faster so I would not get DSL even it does come now. DLS is cheaper, but it would seem like dial up to me now. Getting rid of dial up is like letting a kid go crazy in a candy shop. I turn my computer off when not using it, every time. I also pull out the electric plug during electrical storms. The battery works for about 3 hours. I no longer use a desktop PC, replaced all of those with laptops and use one router for the computers and we share one wireless printer. No wires is great. Jean - I have satellite TV and you are right - heavy clouds and hard rain and it loses the signal. I would hate to have the computers go out too! I sometimes watch missed episodes of various CBS shows on my computer which is nice to be able to do with faster speeds. I'll tell you I also hate all those little cutsey things some used to send to me, or hitting reply all when they don't even know the folks in your email, or those smiley thingys, or anthing AOL! Earthlink emails perturb me too - with having to tell someone to add to their safe list. Geez - let people pick their own list if they want to do that. Rules are not hard to do. You can set up a worm catcher on your email. Make a 'fake' email address !10001! that sits at the top of your address book, with no @XXX behind it (and you can do a 'z' one at the bottom as well) that does not send to any 'real' email if a email worm gets in. It won't stop the worm, but it won't send to everyone in your email address book either, because the top and bottom email address is not real and you get a window that tells you the email can't go out. CT...See MoreDorset Naga...the worlds hottest chilli
Comments (66)I have two bhut jalokias and one naga dorsett growing, that I started on 2-1, and are already flowering - indoors, under HPS. The BJs are larger, but not by much, and the ND is the first one to have flowers that opened. Still have no idea when they will produce and ripen, but I started them very early, so I won't have to wait until Oct.! And I have a guy at work who is going to be the first to try them, that eats my gold bullets and makes comments like "I thought that was a gold bullet, not a cold bullet!" The red savinas definitely aren't what they used to be, and the testing confirmed my "unscientific" testing, though they used to be much hotter. One chocolate variety got him pretty well, but still wasn't what the RSs were years ago. I am hoping these will call his bluff... Here are the photos of their growth. It is strange, in that both loose many lower leaves, then where the leaves were, another stem is beginning to grow. Maybe this happens with habs out in my garden, but they are so packed together I don't notice, as when right in front of me like this (I usually don't start them this early). http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c18/pepperhead212/Bhut%20Jalokia%20and%20Naga%20Dorsett/...See MoreI want the world's best spinach gnocchi recipe (yours)
Comments (10)Gellchom, I love and use the one from Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Italian Cooking. It's very close to the one Chase provided: Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi 1 pound fresh, cleaned spinach or 1 ten-ounce pkg. frozen 2 Tbsp butter 1 Tbsp onion, chopped very fine 2 Tbsp finely chopped prosciutto [If I don't have it, I don't use it] salt 3/4 cup fresh ricotta 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano Nutmeg, freshly grated 1. Cook the spinach with salt in boiling water until tender. [I usually steam the spinach so there's less water to drain]. Drain it, and as soon as it is cool enough to handle, squeeze it gently to get out as much moisture as possible, chop it rather coarse. 2. Put the butter and onion in a small skillet, and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir onion util it's pale gold. Add the prosciutto. Cook and stir for a few seconds more just to coat the meat. 3. Add the spinach, cook for a minute or 2 more. 4. Place spinach mixture in a bowl. When cooled down to room temperature, add the ricotta and flour, and mix well. Add the egg yolks, grated Parmesan, and grating of nutmeg. Add salt if necessary. 5. Make small pellets, shaping them quickly by rolling them in the palm of your hand, 1/2 - 3/4-in. The smaller the better, because they cook more quickly and the sauce is distributed more evenly. If the mixture sticks to your palm, dust your hands lightly with flour. [I usually make them about 3/4-in.... don't have the patience for making them so small!] 6. Drop the gnocchi, a few at a time, into 4-5 quarts of boiling, salted water. When the water returns to a boil, cook for 3-4 minutes then retrieve them with a slotted spoon and transfer to a warm serving platter. Spread over some of the sauce. Repeat until all the gnocchi are done, pour the rest of the sauce over them. Serve at once with grated Parmesan on the side. For the sauce, I also have used the butter and sage sauce, or a pureed tomato sauce with cream. These are very fragile and break apart easily, so I don't really toss them in the sauce, mostly just drizzle it over. The better you drain the spinach and the ricotta, the easier they are to work with. Don't over handle them when you're forming the gnocchi or add too much flour to your hands or they start getting a tad gummy/rubbery. The best time I made it was when there were two of us working. One to immediately roll the gnocchi and drop them bit by bit into the boiling water, and the other scoop them out as soon as their bobbing about....See MoreQuick, easy recipes for first-time cook
Comments (20)Terry, you remind me of myself when I was first married. My mother did not want anyone in her kitchen except to clean up or to make an occasional batch of cookies, so I didn't know much. Poor DH ate so many flops! Looking back, I would give you several pieces of advice. The first is that you invest in some tools. A portable mixer, a food processor, a nice marble rolling pin, some silicone mats, some nice heavy cookware (I use cast iron skillets and a dutch oven. For my saucepans, I use nice heavy ones that I bought at a flea market. For bakeware, I like those insulated pans.), measuring cups and spoons, and a good set of knives. The mixer can be an inexpensive one. It needs to be lightweight enough that you can bring it to the stove and use it to mash potatoes and make 7-minute frosting, if you want to someday. I had a big MixMaster for years, but I found it too cumbersome and heavy. The food processor can be an inexpensive one, too, but get one that has a big bowl if you can. I use a Cuisinart. It was killer expensive and if I had it to do over again I would've bought something else, due to the fact that once in awhile the blade gets jammed down onto the bowl and it has to be shipped to get it repaired, and they take their sweet time. I have Cutco knives, simply because I was suckered in when I was 18 and not very consumer-savvy (something ELSE I had to learn on my own!). They have served me well for 40 years, but I've broken a couple things and the manufacturer will not make good on the "Lifetime Guarantee" because I lost the certificate somewhere along life's way. There are lots of brands of knives that are still good that don't cost as much. They should feel balanced in your hand when you grip the handle in a cutting position. I use my food processor a lot. I make my own chopped and shredded vegetables, "Shake'n'Bake, graham cracker crumbs,and lots of other things. When a recipe calls for the sugar, eggs and fat to be creamed together, I just drop them all in and turn on the motor. So also when the flour and fat needs to be "mixed till the mixture resembles corn meal". I find I hardly ever use my blender unless I'm making smoothies, and I bet I could make them in the food processor, too. I like wire whisks for when I make gravy, puddings, pie fillings. Christmas is coming up, maybe you can put in a request to Santa. I almost forgot, I use my crockpot a lot, too, and it's one I bought at a thrift shop. I have a microwave I bought at WMT on sale, but mostly I use it for heating up things, melting butter and thawing frozen things, and baking potatoes. I think I could probably do without it easier than some of the other tools I have listed here. The second piece of advice is that you learn certain skills, such as how to cut up a chicken and how to roll out a pie crust. Yes, you can buy cut up chicken and rolled-out pie crust. If you want to cook for your family in order to cut your grocery bills, you'll notice these things are more expensive. The third piece of advice is that you start with casseroles. There are lots of variations, each calling for a pasta, rice or potato ingredient, a meat ingredient, one or more vegetable ingredients, and usually something that binds them together, like tomato sauce or canned soup. Men and kids usually love a good casserole. If you go to Allrecipes.com and do a search on "casseroles", it will return any number of dishes. These are all rated and critiqued, and these are worth reading. No, I'm not connected to Allrecipes in any way, and there are other sites where you can do the same thing, it's just that it's my "Go to" site usually. They even have a section of "How-To Videos". Here's something I make and use a lot. I think I got it off Allrecipes.com. You can use it on chicken, fish, pork cutlets. Pop these in the oven, make a nice salad and bake some potatoes in the microwave: Shake n Bake an 18 oz box of cornflakes yields about 5 cups of fine crumbs. I mix this recipe up and keep it in a quart canning jar in the refrigerator. When I'm ready to use it, I put only about 1/4 cup on a plate and dredge the meat in it. You can always add a little more to the plate if you need to, but this way you don't waste, because you need to throw out whatever comes in contact with raw meat that doesn't get baked. 3-1/2 cups corn flake crumbs 1/4 C all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons paprika 2 teaspoons sugar 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons onion powder Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine. Prepare chicken following the same technique as described on the box of the original mix using 2 1/2 lb. of bone-in chicken (6 to 8 pieces, with or without skin) or 2 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast halves Preheat your oven to 400º, then moisten the chicken with water. Use a large plastic bag for the coating and use the same steps as described on the original package: "Shake moistened chicken, 1 to 2 pieces at a time, in shaker bag with coating mixture. Discard any remaining mixture and bag. Bake at 400º in ungreased or foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan until cooked through --BONE-IN: 45 minutes/BONELESS: 20 minutes" Sorry this is so long! --Ilene...See Moreamylou321
4 years agoamylou321
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoamylou321
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoamylou321
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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