Skip to main content

recipe pondering

It's Wednesday, and the News & Disturber has their weekly recipe section. I've always had a policy if there's more than two ingredients in a recipe that I have never used or heard of, then it doesn't go in my "to try" pile. For the first time ever, today's edition actually has multiple recipes I want to try, but with a set of new questions. If you've never tried a spice before, and it's supposed to be the highlight of the recipe, is it worth spending that much money on a spice that you might not like and ever use again? Bottles or boxes of spices aren't exactly cheap, you know. (Can you tell I don't try a whole lot of new recipes?) AND, if a recipe calls for white wine, how drastically would it alter the taste if you used white grape juice or chicken stock? Answers anyone?

Comments

Lydia said…
I'm a big "wine" cook, the good stuff only. If you are REALLY against cooking with wine then broth isn't too bad, try it and see what you think. And what spice are you talking about? You could look up that spice on allrecipes.com and see how many other recipes with that spice you might try. If not alot, then don't buy it:)

Popular posts from this blog

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas. This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming. Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Lut