I was making sourdough starter using yogurt for the first time. I heated up the milk and added to the yogurt. It instantly curdled. Is it supposed to curdle? Should I leave it for a day and follow the process or is something wrong?

Yes please. I'd love ideas and recipes. That'd be life saver.

Thank you so much for your suggestions. May be I'll do Baba Ghanoush, roast a cauliflower with cumin and a few salads.

I have been requested to host two meals themed on Mediterranean cuisine for a family occasion. We are actually aiming for Lebanese, Egyptian, Turkish, Moroccan etc. May even Arabic. Not Greek or Italian. We need a sit down menu for lunch and kind of a buffet spread for dinner. I'm not much familiar with this kind of food.

I was thinking of lamb as the main for lunch, with a festive couscous/rice dish. I'll need at least two more dishes for lunch including a salad.

I was thinking an appetizer platter for dinner including hummus, tehini and baba ganush. Some kind of Kofta as main and fattoush, etc. I'd love to include mackerel somewhere if possible. What else can I include?

Any suggestion how I should cook the lamb? Or should I aim for something else? Will be kofta and grilled mackerel be too monotonous?

This is the first time I am hosting the family event. Please help me out.

This is what I ended up doing. Calamari for starter. Then egg yolk ravioli over asparagus. He loved it. Thanks a lot for all the suggestion. Meant a lot.

I love mixing canned sardines with tahini and spread it over flat bread, not necessarily pita. Then top it up with olives, green peppers etc. Makes a light lunch or nice starter cut into wedges.

Thanks a lot. This sounds inspiring.

I was planning to serve the squid as main and the asparagus as side or starter. Do you think the other way round would be better? Please tell me some more.

Thanks a lot. This sounds inspiring.

My boyfriend will be coming over for a quick dinner this weekend. I am a little tight on cash right now. So, I would like to build up a meal around what I already have at home. I have squid in the freeze and really thin and tender asparagus in the garden. I'd love to make the asparagus the star of the meal. So I was thinking about baby potato and asparagus with Hollandise. What do you guys think?

I make okay pasta at home and boyfriend really likes that. So, may be some kind of pasta dish with squid? Or some kinda squid dish served beside some very simply cooked pasta.

Please help me out here. I really want to impress the guy with my food and I'm not really that experienced.

Dear CH,

I am pretty ignorant about spirits. Rum has been always one of my favorite due its versatility. A friend is going to Brazil and I asked him to bring me some Cachaca. Now my questions are:

1. If he is buying two/three bottles only, what should he go for?
2. Apart from Caipirinha, what else can I make with it. Can I substitute for rum?
3. What else, apart from Cachaca, is good in Brazil?

Help me out please?

To convert a beet hater I'd use this salad recipe. Per boil the beet whole, unpeeled. Chill, peel and cube into bite size pieces. Add some freshly squeezed orange juice and some orange zest. Keep it in the fridge until ready to serve. Before serving add thinly sliced shallots and pinch of white pepper powder.

This recipe looked pretty easy to me. So I followed it and just added some thyme to the potatoes before baking. They didn't crisp up at all. All I have now is thick cut chips shaped roast potatoes. Can anyone please tell me what went wrong?

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/25...

Great. Thank you so much.

Candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate. Sigh.

Clever idea! Thanks.

Umm... I am very confused right now. A friend from France brought me a pack of, what he calls, chocolate base. It turned out to be completely unsweetened chocolate with very high coco mass that is used to make truffles and things like that. I never made truffles and I already have good chocolates at home already. What else can I make using them? Like a cake or mousse or something that brings out the richness of the chocolate nicely. They are of really good quality by the way. So, help me please.

I am going with the fried chicken legs. That sounds good and something I am less likely to mess up. Thank you everybody for every single piece of advice. I may not follow all your advice this time but next time I cook for a picnic I won't freak out. I'll simply look into this board.

Umm.... courgette is not an eggplant.

Yes, I was thinking about doing the legs only. The kids love to eat leg piece. Thnaks.

Recipes please. :)

That would be nice. Should I make a satay sauce for that?

Is fried chicken okay at room temp? I honestly have no idea. We always fry chicken and eat asap steaming hot. The picnic location is around half an hour from my home. So will it be alright to do fried chicken? I would really like that because I am comfortable with frying chicken. I don't eat ham or pork. How about a spinach and feta stuffing for the puff rolls?

I am invited to a picnic to celebrate a friend's child's first birthday. She asked us to bring food or drink. I don't know what to take. I would prefer to take a main dish with a side or an appetizer. I have some good puff pastry at freeze. Maybe do some starter with it? For the main I am angling towards chicken but I have absolutely no idea what type chicken dishes are good to eat cold or at room temp. It will doubly preferable if the food can be hand held as we won't have much tableware.

So, what do you all think?

I am not those CH standard good cooks but I do cook my dinner myself instead of getting pre-cooked stuffs or cream of crap cans. So, once a friend invites me and DH to dinner. I ask what I can bring, they aid dessert. At their house, the friend comes out and tells me that the dinner is burnt. Could I do something? I go to the kitchen, make olio alio(spelling?) We eat the spaghetti, salad, and drink wine. Had a great time. Still friends.

May be she does this because she's on diet won't eat herself? Well, I freeze food a lot but that's because I live alone. I always end up with too much pasta or beignet dough for one person. So, if I have guests, I'll thaw the pasta and make some fresh sauce and then serve it with proper sides and everything. But I will never reheat my frozen tuna casserole for guests. That's just no. Why invite people if you can't even bother to serve fresh food?

Yes, that worked. Thanks :D I don't know what's wrong without my fingers today. I now posted my comment without finishing it. I added more cream and honey and now it works better. Didn't have more pumpkin or carrot. Didn't want potato in my soup. The heat is still there but now it's palatable. Thanks.

I totally agree with you. They are everywhere.

Chopped up mushrooms, sausage/ham sauteed with garlic. Then wrapped up in a cube steak, secured with a twine.This rolls are then fried in butter with a whole clove of garlic and sprig. It's heaven.

I was making roasted pumpkin soup. I have roasted pumpkin, onion and garlic. Then blended them with some vegetable stock and put to simmer. At this stage I usually add some cream, a dash of honey/maple syrup, herbs and a small pinch of ground chili. But today accidentally I've added more than pinch and now the heat can be felt rather boldly. Is there any way I can reduce the kick? My soup is simmering on the stove right now.