juliadevi's Profile

it's also delicious mixed into or dolloped on top of a bowl of puréed veggie soup (eg pumpkin soup, carrot soup...)

a lot of spices are irradiated for sterilization, so things like coriander seed might not sprout (I had the same problem).

the seeds I buy for sprouting at the health food store work well and make great microgreens - arugula, fennel, broccoli, fenugreek, radish, cress etc. I grow them on paper towels in my sprouter and just expose them to light when they're ready to eat.

I love Mexican food but live in France, aka the Sahara of all things Mexican... last year I finally broke down and bought a cookbook I had been hearing good things about: Truly Mexican, by Roberto Santibañez. It's a great book for all of the fundamental sauces of Mexican cooking (my Mexican cooking has gone from good to amazing) and there's hardly a recipe with cumin in it - which bears out what Roberto Leibman and Cupcakegirl9 said.

Lots of dried and fresh chiles, lime, coriander, garlic... and also hints of things like canela (Mexican cinnamon) and allspice in moles and adobos... you can check out some of his recipes here.

It's true that his Carne Adobada recipe uses 1/4 t of cumin, for 2 lbs of meat... I would just leave it out. BTW, the Carnitas recipe is really delicious, it's in his book and I've made it several times to rave reviews....

I don't normally care for green peppers, but there's a great Bulgarian recipe where I absolutely love green peppers, and I imagine it would work well for these bitter babies... (this recipe is NOT as good with red or yellow peppers - they're too sweet and not bitter enough)

(from an old German cookbook called Spezialitäten der Welt, published by GU, inherited from my MIL)

the Bulgarian name is given as "Tschuschki sis sirene"

(recipe says filling is for 4 peppers but we often do a bunch of smaller peppers and the filling is enough for the irregular-sized ones we get from the CSA)

roast and peel your peppers, leaving the stem on and slitting one side to remove the seeds/ribs.
make the filling by mashing together:
150 g feta or bulgarian sheep cheese
1 egg
"some" sour cream or crème fraîche

the recipe says "the mixture should be creamy and not too thick" - our mixture comes out something like slightly chunky stirred yoghurt

put the peppers in an oiled baking dish, then fill the peppers with the mixture (they form kind of flattened cups with the filling inside, that's why you have to be a bit careful when you slit them open), drizzle them with some olive oil (book says 4 T but we use less), and bake in a 180° C oven for 40 minutes or until lightly browned on top.

eat with fresh white bread (living in France as we do, we eat it with baguette...)

it's simple but really delicious. the leftovers are also excellent, if there are ever any left!

to make it go faster, we often roast and prep the peppers on a bbq one night, then keep them in the fridge and fill them another night for dinner, because the entire process start to finish is not suitable for weeknights.

I live in France, and I've never seen low fat cheese here... and I personally know lots of French people for whom dinner is not dinner if they don't eat some baguette and cheese at the end of it. (I might add that none of these people have weight problems)

then again, raw milk cheese here is very common (mmm, and delicious), and I've heard the idea floated about that the fat in raw milk cheese is somehow not absorbed by the body. (could be a nice fairy tale?)

in any case, the French approach seems to be 'a bit of really good stuff is better than a load of crap' - I concur.

btw, @STH - if you've ever been to a fromagerie up on an alpine meadow in the middle of nowhere, you might realize that the "processing" that takes place is quite minimal - cheese normally has 3 ingredients: milk, rennet, salt. (the mold is naturally occuring) Xanthan gum, guar gum, all of those "chemicals" have no place in cheese, which in its true form is a natural product.

* astronomically speaking... ;)

"Come Monday, after a weekend escape, there's the inevitable feeling that you've fallen behind."

seriously? and here I thought weekends and holidays were for catching up with important stuff, i.e. family, friends, yourself. There are weekends that get devoted to house projects, but many others devoted to travelling, hiking, entertaining - getting away from the daily grind and getting into some fresh thinking or just simply enjoying the moment. No reason for guilt!

it should be "don't SKIMP on the oil", not "don't skip on the oil"... if you skipped on oil, you could slip and fall... ;)

fluorescent, not "flour"escent
it comes from the name of the element fluorine

I know it's not traditional, but in line with mgbush504 - why not try a dish like tartiflette? it's a typical savoyarde dish (from Savoy in the French Alps) - basically onions, bacon, potatoes, and cheese (usually Réblochon, a pretty pungent washed-rind cheese). Sauté the bacon and onions, mix them with some boiled potatoes, put them in a baking dish (some people add cream or crème fraîche as well) and top with the cheese.

Good dish for winter!