Alfred's Soda Stream Syrup Recipe

Alfred's Soda Stream Syrup Recipe
The saffron syrup I made:

2 cups sugar
2 cups water

about a teaspoon of saffron threads (some recipes I have seen for saffron syrups use half or a quarter of this, but I find that for a soda flavoring, since the flavor is so diluted by the soda, stronger is better)

Cook at a low boil, on very low flame, until reduced to about two thirds.  Be sure to not let it get to the candying stage.  Watch like a hawk to be sure not to burn it.

Pour into a heat-proof glass container like a Pyrex measuring cup to cool. Don't pour it directly into glass if it's not heat-resistant; the syrup will be very hot.

Some people strain out the saffron threads, but I don't.

For an 8-oz glass of Soda Stream fizzy water, add syrup to taste.  I like about a tablespoon stirred in, but that is very saffrony; a teaspoon of it is also very nice, and lighter in flavor.

Cardamom in almost the same amount works very nice for a cardamom syrup.

I recently heard about a lavender syrup but I've not tried that yet! :-)

Alfred
(6/8/12)

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Livertaters Dog Treats

Livertaters Dog Treats

1 pound liver
1 egg
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1-1/4 cups potato flakes
Beef or chicken broth

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut liver into approximately 1" pieces. Place the liver pieces, egg, garlic powder and potato flakes in food processor. Pulse ingredients to combine.

Add as much broth as needed to make the mixture spreadable (the consistency will be very thick).

Spread mixture into a greased 13" x 9" pan. Bake for 25 minutes; cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.

Loosen sides with a knife, turn pan over and empty mixture onto wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Place slices in airtight container and refrigerate or freeze until ready to serve.

Debbi
(4/3/12)

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Home-Style Dog Treats

Home-Style Dog Treats

3/4 cup hot Meat Juices, Broth or Water
1/3 cup Butter
1/2 cup powdered Milk
1 Egg, beaten
3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

Pour hot liquid over butter in bowl. Stir in powdered milk, and egg. Add flour 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Knead 3 or 4 minutes, adding more flour if necessary to make a very stiff dough.

Pat or roll to 1/2" thickness and cut out with a cookie cutter, or roll into logs and slice. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 325°F for 50 minutes. Allow to cool and dry out until hard. Makes about 1-1/4 lbs of treats.

You can add grated cheese, ground beef (cooked?), garlic, peanut butter or other flavors to the dough.

Debra
(4/3/12)

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Oatmeal, Peanut Butter, and Banana Doggie Cookies

Oatmeal, Peanut Butter, and Banana Doggie Cookies
1 to 1-1/2 cups unbleached Flour
3/4 cup Oatmeal
1/4 cup Wheat Germ
1/4 cup crunchy Peanut Butter
1/4 cup soft Butter or Vegetable Oil
2 mashed Bananas (can substitute 1/4 cup Honey)
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Water

Preheat oven to 325°F. Combine all ingredients until well blended.

Form into tablespoon-sized balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten balls to 1/4" thickness using the tines of a fork.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes about 20 cookies. I made Sally's to her size, 1" little cookies. I got a lot more cookies.

Debbi
(4/3/12)

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Cat Treats

Cat Treats

We can’t forget our favorite feline friends on Valentine’s Day, and this mix of catnip and tuna will have Kitty purring.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 1 pound

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup soy flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup dried catnip
1/4 cup canned tuna (water packed), drained
1/2 cup juice from drained tuna – add water if needed
1/2 cup corn oil
1 egg, lightly whisked

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix. Add in wet ingredients and stir until the mixture becomes stiff. If the dough feels too sticky, add more whole wheat flour.

Mold the dough into a large ball and place it on wax paper. Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to a thickness of 1/4" to 1/2".

Score into bite-size squares for a cat. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 25 minutes.

Cool and store in a tightly sealed plastic bag in the fridge until treat time.

Maggie
(2/12/12)

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Dehydrating Eggs

Dehydrating Eggs

I can answer this one. I'm working on it now. I was going to post it on the blog with pics but was waiting to give them a try in a cake recipe or something similar.

You scramble eggs, cook them, put them in the dehydrator until crispy and grind the dried eggs to powder. Then you reconstitute 1 tbsp egg powder with 2 tbsp water.

I tried rescrambling and decided if I were starving they'd be better than nothing - too grainy to be delicious, but the taste was fine. Shrug, or maybe my blender just didn't grind smoothly enough, and a coffee grinder would work better. Haven't tried them for a cake or something yet. Supposedly they work, but I'm skeptical.

I saw a website last week that had something about dehydrating them like a fruit leather. I may look into that further. IDK about it, something about the rawness bothers me.

J. Gayle
(5/13/11)

Comment:

I found another method online in 2015. I have not tried the method.

You put 7 eggs in a blender and whip until very frothy. Set up your dehydrator in the spot it will stay the whole time it is working. 7 eggs fills one round sheet for that type of dehydrator.

Pour the eggs from the blender onto the sheet and start the dehydrator at... 135°F? When dried to a sheet, peel and scrape into a blender and powderize the egg. The powder is still not really dry, so the writer then redried the powder.

Then put back on (clean, of course), dehydrator leather and run through the powder again to fully dry it. Keep in a sealed jar.

Same proportions as J. Gayle said, I think. The woman said using a little bacon grease or butter when scrambling the reconstituted egg powder made them more edible.

I have no clue if this is safe or not. Proceed at one's own risk.

Debra

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Egg Substitutes

Egg Substitutes

According to The Kitchen Companion by Polly Clingerman, in baking substitute 2 tablespoons of applesauce or pureed prunes.

I've used 1 tablespoon of soy flour and 2 tablespoons of water for each egg in baking, especially when I was using the bread maker a lot. I think I found that substitute in The Tightwad Gazette (vol. 1), but I can't find my copy of that one right now.

Sally
(11/30/08)

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In a list of "substitutions" I've had for many years it states that 1/2 tsp baking powder equals 1 whole egg...I don't know how this would work with pecan pie but I found the following list online by googling "egg substitution".

Patrice in So.Cal.

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What is a good substitute for eggs?

2 tbsp cornstarch = 1 egg
2 tbsp arrowroot flour = 1 egg
2 tbsp potato starch = 1 egg
1 heaping tbsp soy powder + 2 tbsp water = 1 egg
1 tbsp soy milk powder + 1 tbsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp water = 1 egg

1 banana = 1 egg in cakes
1 tbsp milled flax seed and 3 tbsp water = 1 egg

Light, fluffy cakes!
(11/9/08)

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Yes, I have "egg substitute," which is really just a combination of baking powder and cream of tartar. You use one tablespoon of that and two of water to equal one egg. This works very well with most quick breads, cakes and muffins. I suspect that something like a pecan pie is just not achievable with any of the egg substitutes. I had high hopes for Knox gelatin, but the Knox people said it wouldn't work.

Suzanne
(11/9/08)

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Yogurt: A few notes about making your own yogurt...

Yogurt: A few notes about making your own yogurt...

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Joy wrote:
When I make my own, I have used one of the tall, 2-quart vacuum lid french canning jars, scalded the milk, added a little whole or skimmed milk powder if I wanted it thick, cooled it to lukewarm (the same temperature range bread yeast likes) add about 1/2 cup of plain live yogurt, wrapped the whole thing in a big, thick towel and stuck it in the oven (off but with pilot light) all night.

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Jola Gayle wrote:
And I just use a mayonnaise jar (unsterilized), scald the milk, cool it, haven't much added milk powder, put a half-cup buttermilk in the jar, pour in a little milk, stir it, add the rest, screw the lid on, put it in a pan deep enough to cover the jar with warm water at least half (preferably 3/4) and set it on top of the refrigerator until the next morning.

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Erika wrote:
I have a New Zealand-made gadget called an Easiyo, which is basically a very large insulated jar in which you place a 1-liter container of milk and culture and pour hot water around it to keep it warm. Leave it for 6-8 hours, and it's done. The nice thing about it is you don't have to worry about turning it off; the water cools gradually, so it's practically impossible to spoil the yoghurt by forgetting about it. I much prefer it to the electric gadget I used to have.

I imagine you could do something similar with a small picnic cooler; or just put the yoghurt in a thermos.

And here's the thing I learned from Laurel's Kitchen years ago: powdered milk (especially the Milkman brand, which has just a little bit of fat) makes excellent yoghurt. No messing around with boiling and cooling the milk--just use hot (110°F-115°F) tap water to dissolve the milk powder, then add the culture. Of course, with powdered milk you don't know much about the source, relative happiness of the cows, etc., so you may still prefer to use regular milk.

(5/2/05)

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Links to Websites with Insect Recipes

Links to Websites with Insect Recipes
Here are some more recipe sites for those who fancy an invertebrate snack:
http://www.food-insects.com/
http://www.food-insects.com/a%20place%20to%20browse.htm
(the first 20 issues of Food Insects Newsletter -- mealworm quiche, anyone?)

http://directory.infobase-intl.com/Home_Garden/More_Groups/Cooking/Wild_Foods/Insects/
(lots of links, some of which are still active)

http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/finl.html
(the website for the Food Insects Newsletter, descriptions of bug cookbooks, some links)

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html
http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/ythfacts/bugfood/bugfood.htm
http://www.naturenode.com/recipes/recipes_insects.html
http://www.tenspeed.com/inside/page.php3?ftr=141
http://members.aol.com/keninga/insects.htm
http://www.auburn.edu/~kondota/entomophagy.html
(in which silk pupae are recommended over the larvae)

And so on... there are many more. Ditto for those who want to eat other invertebrates, algae, fungi, and whatnot. Corn smut tamales as a side dish at your next barbecue, perhaps?

--jp, not planning on accepting dinner invitations from any of y'all anytime soon
(6/6/04)

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Maguey Grub (or Silkworms), Toasted Locusts, and Ant Larvae Mole

Maguey Grub (or Silkworms), Toasted Locusts, and Ant Larvae Mole

I rummaged around in my bookcase and found the following semi-recipe for grub, the maguey grub in this case. The following is from Why We Eat What We Eat, by Raymond Sokolov (a fine book, though it lacks the recipes of the original columns in Natural History magazine).

"These worms (really larvae) are also known as palomillas de maguey (maguey squabs)... or scientifically, Aegiale (Acentrocneme) hesperiaris. The butterfly that produces them [lays] its eggs under the fleshy leaves of the maguey pulquero (Agave salmiana and A. mapisaga)..."

Worm harvesters look for the worms and extract them, whole, from the plant.

"To store the worms they make pouches with the skin of a tender new maguey leaf that looks like parchment and is called mixiote..."

"To cook the worms, people sometimes just put a whole gusano-filled mixiote over coals or hot ashes, or they might must put the worms directly on a bakestone (comal) until they swell and stiffen, turning golden brown and crunchy..."

"Gusanos de maguey are only one of a long list of surviving pre-Hispanic oddments, mostly what we would call vermin... [There] are various algae and pond scum... The list of insects eaten in Mexico then and now is awesomely long."

Locusts are eaten by toasting them and eating them with tortillas and a sauce of chile pasilla. Red ant pupas and larvae are eaten in a special mole with nopal cactus, and so on.

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Frying is another possibility. The most amazing things become quite yummy when cooked as fritters.

Grub pakoras, anyone?

--jp, who knows that culling (and eating) the herd is part of raising livestock, and assumes that silkworm ranching has similar requirements 
(6/4/04)

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Using Up Leftover Egg Yolks

Using Up Leftover Egg Yolks

One member commented: Speaking of egg whites (well, macaroons), does anyone have any good suggestions for the egg yolks in my fridge?

Add them to any tender baked good. A couple extra in most recipes doesn't change the outcome much. Pound cake, chocolate cake, brownies, yellow cake. Even a mix (gasp)

Or, make custard and/or quiche. Or egg casserole, which is basically quiche without the crust.

Noodles! Home made noodles. Use as many yolks as you want, add a spoonful of water, and flour to make a stiff dough. Roll as thin or thick as you like and cut to whatever width you like. Use fresh or dry on towels.

How many egg yolks are we talking about? :)
Denise
(4/5/04)

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Dutch Oven recipes (cobbler, breakfast)

Dutch Oven recipes (cobbler, breakfast)

I use dutch ovens for camping, and cook just about everything we eat in them. Most really don't have any sort of recipe; but if you want some good ones, look to local Boy Scout websites, and I bet you'll find a slew of them.

One of my old stand-by fav's for dutch ovens is cobbler. Any kind of cobbler. Just take 1 can (sometimes 2, if you really want to experiment) of pie filling, dump in dutch oven, dump cake mix on top, and slice up butter on top of that. (I usually use a stick or two.) Don't mix it; just stick in oven (or on open fire with coals on the lid) and check on occasion. One of my favorite combos is cherry pie filling with chocolate cake.

We also do sausage patties or bacon on the bottom of the dutch oven, whole eggs cracked on top of that, then shredded cheese, then biscuit dough. Or fry the biscuit dough in bacon grease.

I'm gonna want to go camping if I keep this up...

Lisa
(4/9/03)

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Ideas for Using Up Hamburger

Ideas for Using Up Hamburger
(A thread started 4/7/03)

There are many recipes throughout the Sheep Thrills Recipes Blog for the meals suggested.

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The soup in most casserole or meat loaf recipes adds flavor, but also serves as a binder. You can use another flavor of condensed soup, I like celery or creamy onion. You can also make a white sauce with:

1-1/2 tbsp butter
1-1/2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk

Add beef soup base, onion soup powder, smashed roasted garlic, whatever, to taste.

Texas Cuisine:
Sat Nite Special from my starving student days. It's not beautiful, but tasty:

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 lb. velveeta cheese
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies*

*If this is too spicy, use a can of diced tomatoes and a can of diced green chilies.

Cook the beef and onion in a saucepan til brown. Drain grease. Add undrained tomatoes, chilies, and cubed cheese. Cook, stirring often, til cheese melts.

Put it in a big bowl scoop it up with tortilla chips. Open a cold beer!

Ground Beef Nachos:

Line a cookie sheet with foil. Top tortilla chips with a bit of refried beans (opt), some cooked ground beef made up with taco seasoning, grated cheese, pickled jalapeno slices or chopped green chilies on top (opt).

Cook in a hot oven til cheese melts. Sour cream, guacamole and pico de gallo on the
side. I make up the seasoned beef and put it in the freezer so all I have to do is defrost.

Go to recipe source:
http://www.recipesource.com/
A search on "ground beef" and "hamburger" turned up lots of recipes.

Bon Appetit!
Ann in TX

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Meatloaf, chili, and what I refer to as 'homemade hamburger helper' (casserole?).

Sue, TST

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Here's another thing... when I make meatloaf I add lipton msg-free onion soup mix, spicy honey bbq sauce instead of ketchup, and regular oatmeal (not instant) instead of crackers. Just a little variety. I'm not a chef either. :-P

dlynnmommy

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How about Bolognese Sauce?

Marcella Hazan has a good recipe -- essentially, its meat, some carrot, (minced) onion, garlic, a bit of red wine, tomatoes (run through a food mill) and basil, cooked long and slow uncovered until thickened a bit, and finished with a bit of cream at the end. Very good over thick tagliatelle pasta.

Carolyn

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Keeema:

garlic and ginger
onion
curry spices
frozen peas

Fry it up like taco meat or add liquid to make it sloppy-joeish serve with hapattis or naan and maybe raitha (plain yoghourt with diced cucumber and a little fresh ground black pepper). If you can't get or make Indian bread, flour tortillas make good pretend chapattis.

J.

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Enchilada casserole or tamale pie?

Meat pies? Either the casserole type with a biscuit crust or a pastry crust, or in a pie shell with a pastry crust, or a stand alone pie you can pick up in your hand?

Elizabeth/zinlizzie

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Get the "Fix It and Forget It" cookbook; there are dozens of recipes using ground beef and you don't have to cook them in the crockpot (although I usually do). We have *two* cows in the freezer, so I have a lot of uses for ground beef, too.

Annabel

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Casseroles are great, they're very forgiving. If mushroom soup doesn't work for you just substitute some other cream soup instead. Or you can make a white sauce instead with whatever flavorings you want. I had to make my own white sauce for all casseroles when my kids were little because of DS1's milk allergy. I just substituted soy milk for cows milk. Or I used broth instead of milk for the liquid, or both. I found that making up a quick white sauce wasn't much harder or more time-consuming than opening a can . Just use a whisk, don't stop stirring and keep the heat low. It'll "gel" quite quickly.

You can always make changes to casseroles and as long as the ingredients are too outlandish they come out just fine--really.

Katherine

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My mother makes Miss Hulling's recipe for meatloaf with bread soaked in milk, lots of onion and worchestershire sauce in addition to the salt, egg, etc.  It's really good.  I make one every month or so and can eat slices at work, etc for over a week.

Marge

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Fondue (from the Swiss Alps)

Fondue
(from the Swiss Alps)

My PCB made cheese fondue for me on our second date. He still makes it several times a year--even more now that I've mastered French bread.

Here is is basic recipe that he learned from the chef at a chalet in the Swiss Alps. He wings it, but these are the basic instructions....

1-2/3 cup white wine (we like Fetzer Sundail Chardonnay)*
2/3 lb. Gruyere cheese**
1/3 lb. Emmenthaler

Dice or chop cheese (with the blade) in food processor. Toss with about 2 tbsp. flour. You can shred the cheese, but it results in stringy fondue (not recommended).

Heat wine (on stove) until small bubbles form in the bottom of the pot--it should not boil.

Add cheese a handful at a time, allowing each addition to melt. Do not allow fondue to a full boil. Occasional bubbles are ok.

Season with garlic powder and nutmeg to taste. Add 3 tbsp. of kirsch at the end if desired.

Serve with crusty bread, a green salad, and pea soup.

Enjoy...

*After extensive testing with many wines, DH concluded that the Sundail Chardonay is best for fondue. The pH of the wine is critical for keeping fondue from separating.

**Use a total of 1 lb. cheese. We like this ratio of Gruyere to Emmenthaler. More Gruyere gives the fondue more bite.

from Rosemary's PCB
(6/14/02)

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Boola Boola

I was leafing through a couple of cook books before posting them to ebay, when this caught my eye:

Boola Boola

Combine equal amounts of strained green turtle soup, condensed pea soup (or fresh cooked peas in the blender), and bouillon.

For each 3 cups mixture, add 1/4 tsp each dried basil, marjoram, rosemary and thyme; add small piece bay leaf and 3 cloves. Add the smallest possible pinch of anise. Heat to steaming.

I guess this would be *perfect* for those days when you just *don't* know what to do with that left over green turtle soup...

Denise
(3/10/02)

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High Calorie Yogurt

High Calorie Yogurt

A member asked:
Yogurt makers, does any one have a recipe for a high calorie yogurt?? I am a PCA for a guy with Muscular dystrophy. He is having difficulty eating. He likes yogurt but most of what you buy is low calorie. If I could find a HIGH calorie yogurt We would be so grateful!


I did this for a friend with AIDS once. You make the yogurt with half and half or add a pint of whipping cream to each quart of *whole* milk.

Makes scrumptious yogurt that I wish I dared to eat more often! Any yogurt recipe will work for this. is best if you use a mellow, not too tart starter yogurt. My friends who live in India say that if you can use water buffalo milk it's even richer and more high-calorie. (grin) I haven't tried this, there's a shortage of water buffalo in my area!

Joy
(3/1/02)

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Soaking Wheat Berries for Bread

Soaking Wheat Berries for Bread

Ann, I usually just use my usual recipe and soak the wheat berries overnight first.  You can sprout them slightly, just where they are starting to send out a tiny explorer, to make them more tender and shift the flavor.

If you don't soak them first, they will break your teeth!  In Laurel's Bread Book, she recommends soaking red wheat berries two or three days.  "Knead them,
about half a cupful per loaf, into any bouncy plain bread dough."

Ranked second (in her opinion and mine) are unsprouted whole berries, boiled until chewy and kneaded into the dough.

From her recipe for Vollkornbrot:

Rinse (1 pound) wheat berries in warm water.

Bring 2 3/4 cups water to a boil. Turn off the heat, add the wheat berries, and let them sit overnight.

By morning the berries should have burst open; if they don't, bring them to a boil again and cook until they burst.  Let them cool to a warm room temperature.

I usually just rinse them and sprout them as I would alfalfa seeds, but with a bit more patience and just enough for the grains to open, not for them to send out a full sprout.
from Sylvia beadlizard
(1/3/02)

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Avital's Homemade Yogurt (with notes from members)

Avital's Homemade Yogurt (with notes from members)

I make my own constantly. I don't use anything special. I have a plastic container that holds a liter of milk and has a lid that fits tightly. A thermos would work well.

My culture is local, so that won't help you, but any natural unflavoured yogurt should do. Note: Brown Cow works well.

You should scald the milk first (I do it in the microwave in a glass bowl, Shoshana uses a 1-quart microwave-safe measuring cup, or you can do it in a pot on the stove but watch it really carefully--boil-overs are a PITA to clean up).

You need a thermometer that will measure 100°C (that is, not a deep fat or oven thermometer; I got mine at a lab supply store). Wait till the temperature is 50°C (remember that it'll be hotter in the middle than around the edges of the bowl) and then pour the hot milk into whatever container you'll use to "set up" the yogurt.

Take 3 tbsp. of milk and mix with 1 tbsp. of the yogurt starter. Mix it thoroughly, then stir gently into
the rest of the milk.

Cover with a blanket or dishtowels and leave it UNDISTURBED (don't even bump it) for at least 6 hours in warm weather, maybe longer in cool weather.

You can use the new batch to make more yogurt but you must use it within a week, or the bacteria end up killing each other off and the yogurt won't set.

The yogurt may be a bit viscous or jelly-like, so you should give it a good stir with a fork or a whisk before using it.

If you want a thicker yogurt, you can add powdered milk (they don't sell powdered milk here, so I've never tried it) or reduce the milk by simmering it for a while (DH did this once by accident; he thought he'd turned the heat off and he'd just turned it down).

That's all there is to it. It's not rocket science. People in this part of the world have been making their own yogurt for centuries.

Avital
(1/7/01)

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A few notes about making your own yogurt from various list members:

Joy wrote:
When I make my own, I have used one of the tall, 2 quart vacuum lid french canning jars, scalded the milk, added a little whole or skimmed milk powder if I wanted it thick, cooled it to lukewarm (the same temperature range bread yeast likes), add about 1/2 cup of plain live yogurt, wrapped the whole thing in a big, thick towel and stuck it in the oven (off but with pilot light) all night.

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Jola Gayle wrote:
And I just use a mayonnaise jar (unsterilized), scald the milk, cool it, haven't much added milk powder, put a half-cup buttermilk in the jar, pour in a little milk, stir it, add the rest, screw the lid on, put it in a pan deep enough to cover the jar with warm water at least
half (preferrably 3/4) and set it on top of the refrigerator until the next morning.

---

Erika wrote:
I have a New Zealand-made gadget called an Easiyo, which is basically a very large insulated jar in which you place a 1-liter container of milk and culture and pour hot water around it to keep it warm. Leave it for 6-8 hours, and it's done. The nice thing about it is you don't have to worry about turning it off; the water cools gradually, so it's practically impossible to spoil the yoghurt by forgetting about it. I much prefer it to the electric gadget I used to have.

I imagine you could do something similar with a small picnic cooler; or just put the yoghurt in a thermos.

And here's the thing I learned from Laurel's Kitchen years ago:
Powdered milk (especially the Milkman brand, which has just a little bit of fat) makes excellent yoghurt. No messing around with boiling and cooling the milk--just use hot (110-115 deg F) tap water to dissolve the milk powder, then add the culture. Of course, with powdered milk you don't know much about the source, relativehappiness of the cows, etc., so you may still prefer to use regular milk.

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Fudge Making - Hints and Thoughts

Fudge Making - Hints and Thoughts

Actually, the butter needs to cook with the other ingredients, not just be absorbed from the buttered pan when you spread it. Makes the fudge a bit creamier that way, I think. I don't generally use a thermometer any more unless I'm making divinity - I've found too many of them are not accurate any more. I've learned how to tell when the fudge is at various stages by visual cues, like the soft ball in a cup of cold water, (I have to do that test lots of times to make sure, you know! ;-D ), and then giving the fudge a gentle partial stir to see how cool it's gotten. It takes a bit of practice but now I can make fudge over a Coleman stove that comes out as good as made on my stove at home (and really amazes the park rangers!). Time for more practice!

Helen B
(6/8/00)

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Helen wrote:
I use 6 tbsp cocoa, 3 tbsp butter, and 1 tsp corn syrup, less if it's a very humid day and no salt.

The secret to when to push it onto the buttered pan is to watch for when the shine disappears - that's the point to dash it on the pan because you've only got about 15 seconds to work with. The butter goes in to cook with the other ingredients and the vanilla goes in when you beat it. BUT, if you let it cool to 110°F, you don't have to beat it so much.

I kinda figgered that by buttering the pan, that took care of at least one tablespoon - and will watch closer for that change in the "shine"

nan (still trying to come up with an answer about burning my hand on the pan)
(6/11/00)

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T's Fondue

Fondue
(from T, who didn't know it needed a recipe)

You're supposed to use a recipe? Best I can do is guess on amounts for you, but here goes (disclaimer in effect. Results may vary :0D)

Grate up Swiss cheese (probably a little less than 2 cups) then sprinkle with (geez this guessing amounts is more difficult that I suspected) 2 tbsp flour and set aside.

Peel and slightly crush a clove of garlic and smear it all over the bottom of a saucepan.

Pour in a cup of white wine ( I think a drier wine is best, but that would be a matter of preference) and heat to a simmer. Don't boil it. Add in the cheese and flour and stir until the cheese is all melted.

Add more wine if it's too thick, more cheese if it's too thin. Dip in fresh baked baguette chunks and pop them in your mouth.

I'm assuming this is close to, if not the same as, your basic cheese recipe. I learned by watching someone else make it and she wasn't using a recipe either. I've never actually seen one (a recipe, that is).

T
(5/2/00)

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