Food Floof! A hard decision
6 years ago
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Food Floof! Are you a picky eater?
Comments (81)Yes, it's true. Some people have a native acuity for flavor perception. Often they have more tastebuds and olfactory receptors (which are very important in flavor perception), but some of it is more in the brain, like perfect pitch. That's different from what is conventionally called "supertaster", which is what the coated paper tests--the ability to taste those three compounds. The theory is that the ability to sense bitterness helped people in certain parts of the world avoid certain local, poisonous plants. For each of the three compounds, there's a simple genetic ...is distribution the right word? Unlike complex traits, such as hair color, these are 0, 1 or 2 alleles. If you have zero, you taste paper. If you have 1 allele you can perceive the bitterness, but it's pretty mild. If you perceive it as revolting, you have 2 alleles. About half the population have 1, a quarter have 0 and a quarter have 2. You might have 2 for one compound and 0, 1 or 2, for another. I only dislike tannic red wines--there are some reds that I like--and hate olives, like Annie. We have one of those compound sensors in common. :)...See MoreFood floof! The menu
Comments (46)We're going to my DH's ex's and her husband's house for dinner, per usual (20 years). There will be about 20 - 26 of us - all his side (mine live on the other end of the country except DS in GA). They serve a really nice turkey, but also dump -from-a-bag stuffing mix, plopped canned cranberry sauce, and their adult children will bring instant mashed potatoes, canned gravy, bag salad, "brown 'n serve" rolls and some icky baked-in-store cake with inedible frosting. The youngest grand (17) will make green bean casserole for her grandpa (because I refuse to make it, hate it) as she has been doing for 5 years! Bless her. But I do think it is the only thing she actually cooks. Her mom is big on take-out, drive-thru, and pizza delivery. The other four 20 yr-old-ish grandchildren (who I've been coaching) are bringing homemade bread, apple sauce from 4 kinds of apples, baked butternut squash with honey and sweet spices, mixed lettuces and strawberries with celery seed dressing, and from-scratch brownies. So proud of them. I like to shake things up for appetizers so I'll bring oven baked veggie egg rolls with my own Chinese-style hot mustard and apricot duck sauce, deviled egg salad in quartered potato buns, stuffed mini sweet peppers (with herbed cheese), homemade crackers with pepperoncini cream cheese dip, and everything (like on a bagel) dip to eat with mini cukes, radishes, cherry tomatoes and celery sticks, and some deli ham rolled up with Swiss cheese and a bit of spicy brown mustard for those of us who don't like turkey, plus apple slab pie with drizzle and pecan pie bars on shortbread crust. I always bring plastic bags for the family to take home "leftovers" since no one seems to remember from the last time, or they just expect me to? I also bring our own silverware because ex- hasn't figured out that it is impossible to cut turkey with plastic knives and eat with plastic forks. I also bring a couple of extra knives for whomever else has a problem. You'd think after 20 years she'd go to Goodwill and pick up some 25c silverware - maybe $15 worth. I don't say anything but DH always rolls his eyes at me. If I went to Goodwill and got some I would be ostracized for life. Bad enough that I bring a few extra pieces. I'm rolling my eyes now. I may hint to the grands that it might be a really really nice gift for their other grandma. But then again.......See MoreFood floof! Love required....
Comments (37)Quite often, actually....altho it does work both ways, LOL. I'd eat pork 5 days out of 7 if I could, whereas he can take it or leave unless it's bacon or chile verde! He loves seafood whereas I can take it or leave it, and usually I leave it. There's only a couple of fish I still eat, which is weird because until I was over 40 I loved fish and shellfish. Fortunately we both love lamb, goat, beef/bison, venison, liver, chicken, duck, and most offal. The one dish I make for family parties is a special sushi I created years ago. Nobody else wants to make it, although my niece knows how. Nothing is really hard but it takes multiple steps over several days. Since the 'younger generation' is still working full-time jobs and I'm retired, I have the time to make it. It's ironic that I don't care for sushi OR sashimi - when I was growing up they were strictly picnic foods, like hot dogs and macaroni salad. I had never considered them anything special, and when the sushi craze started, I was amazed that people PAID MONEY to eat a rice ball pressed in somebody's hand. I kid my spouse all the time, because he never had sushi or sashimi growing up in Hong Kong, or even when he came to the US. It wasn't until we got married he tried them, and immediately fell in love with both! My MIL half-jokingly blamed me for his changing tastes - she loved sushi rolls, but only with the cooked shrimp and avocado slices. Raw fish made her shudder!...See MoreFestive Food Floof! Do you dare?!?!?
Comments (30)While I've been baking bread and challah (brioche type dough) all my life, the only yeast pastries I've made often are hamentashen in a sweet version of my mother's challah recipe. Last week, I had this sudden thought, "Pumpkin babka!" This has been a great year for pumpkins. So instead of figuring it out myself, I searched for recipes on the 'net, and found a chocolate with pumpkin dough, and one more like what I'd had in mind, which was pumpkin-pecan filling in a rich, soft dough. I usually have great results with blog recipes, and I was sleep deprived, so even though I reviewed the ingredients before saving the recipe, I didn't actually read them through for quality. BIG mistake! I don't know if it's meant to be a sabotage (the comments were useless, only discussing the pretty pictures in the post). It sort of reads, to my bread self like it was partially scalled with oopsies. I've done that scaling a recipe for myself in my head, without writing it down when I was tired. I don't know, for sure, but looking back, it also doesn't match the instructions in the demonstration. It's, um, whack! There were plenty of places where I had warning signs and should have stopped and read it over and quit, but I didn't. I was tired beyond thought. When I started the first step, and it said 2 1/2 TBSP yeast to 3 -4 cups flour, I should have stopped. I just figured she meant teaspoons, and adjusted accordingly. Then I read the gigantic amound of sugar and salt. I always adjust those to taste anyway, so I kept going. When it said 8 eggs and half a pound of butter, I just figured she knew something I needed to learn. Um. No. The result, as you who bake know, was a glutinous cake batter. I added about a cup of flour and ran it with the dough hook and let it "rise" (not that any rising was happening). Good thing I've learned so much about high hydration baking. I poured it out onto the baking mat. There was enough gluten development at this point that it didn't spill away, just made a stable lake. Much as I would have liked to use my big steel bench scraper, one can't on silicone, but a big bunch of cast flour on it, scrape up some goop with the small plastic bench scraper and push it over, led to a more stable mound. Still too soft for even a stretch and fold, but holding its shape as a mound. I covered and let it rise. And it did! And when I heavily dusted with more flour, it was manageable and rolled. It was too soft to twist nicely, but enough so that the middle has a nice distribution. You can't see the layers, though. The dough was still too soft and smushed together. And it was so soft that the outside was almost burning before the inside was done, and the corners were dry because of that. The filing was good. That's a keeper. So is the butteriness of the dough. The end result was fine eating, though not exquisite. I think if I added a little extra butter to the hamentashen dough it would be more like what one needs, and I think more filling proportionate to the dough. I had been surprised that it didn't call for toasting the pecans, but they came out great from raw. Because of the restriction I put on the excess sugar, it's really good with cranberry sauce! While chatting, i mentioned it to the Thanksgiving cousin, and that I'd put the second loaf in the freezer. She asked me to bring it, but I don't know if anyone ate any. At least I don't have to find someone to feed it to! Which is why one tests recipes ahead. I also tried to make the handkerchielf rolls. I don't think there's any saving that one. I mean, they're rolls but they have a kind of gummy mouth feel, and that's after I overbaked them a little! Nasty. The recipe was designed to sell the baking dish. I'm thinking I could rescue them with custard. Pumpkin bread pudding is in the offing. Maybe with a cranberry hard sauce. The worst breads make the best bread puddings!...See More
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skibby (zone 4 Vermont)