I pack bento style lunches for the hubby. This started as a way to cut carbs. I use the bento techniques but usually don't do things that require lots of rice or bread. Not everything I put in them is Asian anyway. The packing and selection lends itself well to adding more unusual things and variety into a lunch.

I do deli meat rolls frequently that are usually some sort of thin sliced meat rolled around things like baby corn, pickle spears, mixes of veggies and something to hold them together. Some other things like hard boiled eggs, tamagoyaki and cut veggies work to fill out.

I am allergic to something in conventionally cured meats. This isn't because I have some sort of cancer fear of nitrates or other concerns that seem to have grown up around cured meats. The allergy was found by elimination diet by my doctor.

Yet I still have people assume that I must just be one of those uppity nature loving food freaks who doesn't like to eat certain things. This has been beyond getting dirty looks when I pass on certain foods. I had someone lie to me about the contents of a group meal then tell me after I ate it and started getting sick that it had cured meat in it and another thing I am allergic to they said was not in the dish. To top it off this person told me to go drink some orange juice if I was "worried about nitrates".

So PLEASE, instead of being indignant that anyone who doesn't want to eat conventionally cured meats must be some sort of hippie sissie, maybe just honor their choice rather than trying to prove them wrong.

I am totally aware of the science behind the nitrate thing but apparently my immune system thinks otherwise.

I love BB. There is no way my modest life is affording $60 bottles of wine. Anyone declaring I must in order to make BB can adopt me or send me all their excess money, I will share my Paypal address as needed for donations :-)

What I have found is anything $5 or under regular price at the stores I have access to is likely to make horrible BB. It will be horribly acidic, bitter or just taste very off. I was able to find a wine called Pinot Evil on sale a few places last winter. It was normally about $9 a bottle and on sale for $5. That made a decent BB. I also found Cavit Pinot Noir makes a decent BB. It is usually around $8 a bottle where I live. Sometimes I find it on sale for $5 and grab a few bottles for the pantry. Depending on where you can shop you might find a decent wine under $5 but whomever stocks the stores around my end of the world doesn't. IMHO good beef matters also. The chemical soaked mystery beef from the C02 packs would not be my choice.

I use ours sporadically. When I can't find burger I trust I buy chuck roasts and grind burger. I have used ours to make brats.
I had good luck using the KA grinder to make brats. I made two massive batches for a food event. The only real problem was having to stop the mixer and let it cool down. It heated up with long grinding sessions. I have used a hand grinder also and the KA is way easier if there is only one person or doing huge batches. I would check where your casings from. I bought some once that came from a place that sold hunting gear and meat prep equipment. They were processed in China.

I used Wilton frosting dye after looking up on their website what to use for red velvet cake. They suggested 2 oz. Um no. Trust me you don't need that much of the frosting dye to dye the cake. I thought it was weird Wilton would suggest that much since frosting dye is really concentrated and typical food dye from the grocery store is very liquid and not concentrated. 1 oz of grocery store food dye gives a fairly red cake. 2oz per Wilton's instructions of frosting dye resulted in everyone who ate it pooping red for a week. :-)

I have made that type of frosting a couple of times and it seemed very whip-cream-ish and got greasy when it was chilled. I am guessing I did something wrong. Anyone have any idea? Used butter if it matters..

I am thinking about getting a Sodastream but I am not really interested in using their syrups. I have lots of recipes for citrus syrups and fruit syrups. I have a copy of Open Cola somewhere I wanted to try to turn into a diet soda for the hubby. What I have not been able to find is a Dr. Pepper type recipe to make a syrup out of. There must be one floating around somewhere since many grocery stores have a knock off version. Has anyone ever seen anything similar to a Dr. Pepper type drink syrup?

The daughter has become an unintended vegetarian (she developed a problem digesting meat). She found some vegetarian "riblets" at the grocery store that she liked. They are crazy expensive and full of chemicals.

Does anyone have an idea how to make them from scratch? I looked at some of the veggie burger recipes on the board but wasn't sure what should be omitted/added for something closer to the riblet. It also doesn't help I can't try them myself (allergic to soy and wheat) so I am sort of flying blind.

I have made nut crust with good results before. I can't eat wheat gluten. Feeding the two of us between various allergies and now the doc telling the hubby to lower his blood sugar is um, interesting. The apple pie recipe looks promising.

Looking for ideas to make lower carb sweets, desserts, coffee flavoring syrup etc. Neither of us can tolerate fake sweeteners like Nutrasweet. Are there recipes that tolerate less sugar or a 50/50 with sugar and stevia?

Most of the low carb or "healthy eating" website recipes depend on using chemical sugar substitutes.

It is everywhere. Ice cream is the worst. All of the major brands have shrunk packaging or added air. Now the price is skyrocketing on top of the shrinkage. Guess I need to make ice cream if I really want it.

The best ways I have found to avoid the shrink ray is to buy out of bulk dispensing. IE: open bins of produce, meat out of the meat counter etc. Or buying larger bags of things like beans. I buy more of the dry kinds of things out of the bins at the local food coop since I know what I am getting vs. the price and the quality is usually better. Making things from scratch seems to help too since much of the shrink ray is in processed products.

I am a similar situation, wheat allergy rather than celiac. Spelt flour is a great stand in but apparently it is not gluten free. I use it in pastries, cookies, cakes etc. This spelt french bread turns out quite good. An egg wash makes it nice and crusty. http://cottagemagpie.com/cooking-baki...

I eat much more ethnic food than I used to. More Asian, Mexican, Japanese, Mediterranean etc.
Rice pasta is good, there are lots of types of rice noodles in Asian foods. I found a tamari gluten free soy sauce San-J brand. I use rice stick noodles to make home made ramen. Rice flour makes great cookies, they end up crispy. Rice flour shortbread I think is better than spelt or wheat. For breading things I use ground in the blender rice crackers. For meatloaf and meatball type things oats work well. IIRC there are some oats labeled as GF?

Corn starch can work as a stand in to thicken many things. I have found lots of pudding recipes online that use cornstarch rather than a flour thickener. It works well if you need to dust meat before frying. I have used potato starch, oat flour or corn starch to thicken soups.

If you can find Schar baked goods they are all GF and better than any of the others I have tried including Udi's. They are shelf stable so they are not in a freezer section. They have a chibatta (sp?) roll that is good and stands up to sandwiches better than other GF bread. They make cookies and have a regular roll that could be used for burgers.

Applegate farms makes breaded chicken breast strips that are GF and very good. I have yet to find a GF frozen pizza that didn't taste horrible. I usually make spelt pizza crust and make pizza at home when I need a fix. I did manage to freeze pizzas on a piece of cardboard covered in foil then wrapped so I had frozen pizzas. It should work if you can find a decent GF pizza crust recipe.

I find that rice, lentils and potatoes help stand in for the need for carbs. I have made taboulli out of brown lentils that is very good.

Smoker, oven or slow cooker I usually do 8 hours plus and do vinegar or beer mops if it is getting too dry in the smoker.

I use finely minced onion or mushroom to help add moisture. A turkey burger mix we make (also works with lamb) fine minced onion, crushed garlic, oregano, feta cheese. We serve them without buns but any sort of bread that would compliment Greek food would work for a bun

How do you get cabbage this fine? I am assuming it is napa cabbage. I can't get that with a knife and I don't think my mandolin will do that fine. Hoping someone knows the trick.

Here is a picture of it
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fg20...

Our main grocery chain (Hyvee) went to prepackaged c02 pack meats in the meat case a few years ago. The week they switched I asked one of the butchers what he thought of it. He quietly told me he wouldn't eat it. Since then meat at our stores have just gotten worse. Most of it is gelatinous and slimy both the beef and the pork like it has been treated with something to break it down. Much of it comes from Hormel The rest has store brand labels.

Anyone have a clue what they are doing to all the meat to make it into meat jello? There is nothing on the labels about additives.

Our other big store option is Sam's club, the big cryovac packs always have this thick liquid that doesn't quite seem to be meat juice because it is rather thick and syrupy. Anyone know what that is?

We have seriously cut back in how much grocery store meat we buy because I look at it and it is just unappealing. I have bought more from local farmers and a small meat locker when I can. I am just at a loss for how bad grocery store meat has become.

This article has a good factual write up about what it is. Sadly many people are falling for the beef industry's recent PR blitz that has some outright lies in it about pink slime http://www.thelunchtray.com/has-lftb-...

Be careful where you get your information. The beef industry is in damage control mode telling people that this garbage is good for you. Pink Slime has not been around for 40 years. It wasn't invented until 2001. Doping meat with ammonia is not "the norm" or safe. The panic, is far from silly. People are freaking out a bit because they finally realized what is in their food and feel betrayed because not a thing about this goo is in the labeling.

No wheat Asian noodles? I can't eat wheat so I am always looking for alternative noodles to try. Rice noodles have been a good option. I have yet to find a buckwheat soba that doesn't have some wheat in it. I am not very familiar with other noodle varieties but know there are lots out there. Are there any non-wheat Asian noodles that are somewhat easy to make or that I might look for at Asian stores? We have two small Asian groceries I need to check out. The ones I was used to closed down so what kind of stock these new ones have remains to be seen.

The hot pot recipes posted inspired me to try a Sukiyaki recipe last night. I grabbed what I remembered while at the grocery rushing home ahead of the snow storm. I used this recipe with some modifications. http://japanesefood.about.com/od/beef...

I used my cast iron dutch oven since it is what I had on hand. I used button mushrooms instead of the enoki and shiitake due to limited items at the grocery and first time trying the recipe out on the family. Swapped leek for green onion, used rice stick noodles and omitted the chrysanthemum greens and tofu. Added sliced yellow onion and a small batch of thin sliced carrots. It got rave reviews and worked as a good introduction to hot pot type dishes without anyone whining about strange ingredients. Next time I will probably hunt down the proper mushrooms. I doubt I will find chrysanthemum greens in South Dakota, are there suggestions of other greens that might make an acceptable substitute? One other substitution I ended up making but was reluctant about was sushi vinegar for the mirin. The grocery didn't have mirin at all and I had some very sweet sushi vinegar on hand. I think it changed the dish a bit but wasn't bad or off balance.

So is this Asian sweet chili sauce like sriracha or the Heinz chili sauce in a bottle? Sriracha I use in deviled eggs or buffalo wings. The buffalo wing recipe IIRC was 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup (or more) sriracha and 1 tbsp seasoned rice wine vinegar.
If you looking to use up the Heinz variety, adding horseradish for cocktail sauce is about the only use I have found.

I have a cheap 10 cup rice cooker from Target. I don't think it has fuzzy logic and only has a "cook" setting. I do rolled oats in ours all the time. I get organic long cooking rolled oats from our food coop. I use the proportions on a long cooking rolled oats container. Suggestions I saw online were to rub butter on the bottom of the pan before adding ingredients. I tried that once it does seem to help with browning to the bottom. I usually add oats in the labeled water/oats proportion then add a chopped apple and 1-2 tbsp of brown sugar and a bit of nutmeg. Leftovers go into the fridge for later days. I will get a small amount of oats in the vent but the vent pops out and cleans easily on mine.

I leave out regular iodized but nobody uses it. I personally can't stand the taste, too much bite to it. I bought a jar of "RealSalt" after the doc told me to use it to get some additional minerals in my diet. Now everyone uses that. I use kosher or sea salt in certain recipes that need it.

as in the baking dishes etc. vs. pans and pots. :-)

I threw a pork roast into the oven. Thinking something along the lines of bourbon sauce and typically cooking a roast with beer or some wine. I put about 1/2 a cup of Jack Daniels along with some brown sugar and some other thing in the pan and put it in the oven. A few minutes later I heard a big woosh and the oven door rattled as it ignited. I don't know what I was thinking, or not thinking but putting whiskey into the oven was not a good idea.

New potatoes and spring peas in cream sauce. That was always the first spring dish at home when I was a kid. Morels don't show up until late May around here so I don't quite consider them spring food. I have lost track of the mushroom hunting ground we used to use but would love to take my daughter mushroom hunting this spring.

Open hearth fireplace w/ rotisserie & pot hook and an adjacent brick bread/pizza oven.
A full set of high quality cookware and LeCruset.
One of each type of knife, good quality.
Industrial blender
Commercial espresso machine
Good quality food processor
Kitchenaid mixer w/ all the attachments
Multiple touch screen wall mounted computers w/ tv tuners in them for TV, recipe database access and internet etc.
an area with couches and comfy chairs.
side by side freezer & fridge units.
a beer and soda dispenser for home brews.
an outside section with a gas/charcoal grill, smoker and wok burner.
An attached large conservatory to grow hothouse veggies and herbs.
Reverse osmosis water system
double dishwashers
walk in pantry - a beer/wine cellar for fermenting & aging. Somewhere to cure meats and do cheese would be a bonus.
A salimander, 4+ burner induction top, 6 gas burners, 2 convection ovens
a good dehydrator system that doesn't crap out after a years use.
a good array of uni-taskers: rice steamer, yogurt maker, etc.
some sort of anti-fatigue flooring
lots of storage and counter space with one marble section for pastry
the energy to be on my feet for hours at a time to make use of all of this.
Oh and a series of ice cream makers.

We did the food for our wedding with the help of a couple of friends. We made cheesecakes and froze them, thawed starting the night before. IIRC we did a greens salad that just had to be assembled on site. We also did venison with morel mushrooms and a red wine gravy sort of sauce. It was prepped and put in large heavy foil pans then cooked on a campfire. We had other dishes but I can't remember what they were right now. We did a spiced lemonade, about half the people commented that it "tasted funny" so that one was probably too adventurous for a wedding.

Getting a good quality salmon is a night and day difference in taste. Cheap farm raised salmon has a really fishy flavor. Probably the best I have had was a Norwegian wild that was flown in fresh. I put salt & pepper on it and grilled it. That was all it needed and was wonderful. It tastes like salmon without that extremely fishy taste.

I think commercial or bottled ranch dressings are disgusting. They are way too sour and seem more like a vehicle for fat and sugar than anything I would enjoy to eat. Some of the food service ones seem a little less awful than the bottled grocery store variety but are still nothing I would want to eat.

The first time I encountered ranch served at a restaurant was at Carl's Jr. in CA, they serve ranch dressing dip with fried zucchini. I now live in the Midwest and they seem to serve it with everything but as a mostly low brow lower class thing. It is today's "smother everything in ketchup".

Actual ranch dressing made from scratch or with the seasoning packet isn't horrible and it tastes totally different that the swill in a bottle. I can deal with the from scratch type but it still isn't my go-to dressing.