jmccourt's Profile

I've actually never been at a potluck in which the balance of food (veg, chips, main dish, dessert) didn't pretty much work out. I know some people feel anxious about balance, but if it's a group over, say, eight people, it just works somehow.

Potluck magic.

I've loved Lillet when I've had it others' homes, but I have a question about storing it. I've never been sure whether to treat it like wine--drink a bottle all at once or store for a day at most--or whether it can keep for a bit longer, like vermouth or port.

Can anybody help me with this?

Of course, it's so delightful that it goes down easily, but having a sense of the storage question would help me decide when it's okay to break open a bottle.

Re: SuzanneBaker's question above, I haven't used ultra-pasteurized milk (just regular pasteurized), but I don't imagine it would be a problem. You add the right critters when you put in yogurt starter, so you don't really need there to be anything in the milk already.

A tip: I find that I need 2 T of starter / quart of milk, so I often freeze yogurt in 1 T increments (ice cube tray works great) and then thaw what I need for a batch.

I find that I can use starter for homemade yogurt for 2 generations past the commercially purchased yogurt. So, if I purchase yogurt as generation 0, I can make a batch from that (generation 1) and save some of it to use as starter for another batch (generation 2). At that point, it usually doesn't work as well and it's best to buy more commercial yogurt. But, if you, say, buy a quart of yogurt and save all of it to use as starter and then use successive generations as well, you can go a *long* time without buying more commercial yogurt.

Last thing: I make it at home because 1) it's half as expensive and 2) I can re-use glass jars rather than accumulate plastic waste.

The above comment is the best reader comment I have ever read on thekitchn. Bravo!

One other comment: I read a post on Michael Natkin's Herbivoracious blog (by his wife) that feels incredibly sane to me. It's about habits, thinking about the long-term, including choice but not always standing by to make an alternate to what the rest of the family is eating, etc.

Link here, if it's useful to others: http://herbivoracious.com/2012/04/a-parenting-recipe-for-raising-healthy-eaters-guest-post-from-sarina-behar-natkin-of-grow-parenting.html

If you want something rich in flavor and red, maybe roasted peppers (cut up or even pureed)?

Tomato's often an ingredient included for acidity, though, and red peppers wouldn't do that.

Can I suggest that whatever you make be flexible, easily reheated, etc? It's such chaos in the first week, especially. Also, though it's so, so nice that you're doing this, don't get overly invested in making something fancy. If their experience is anything like mine, on the one hand, any offering at all will be intensely appreciated and, on the other hand, life is so topsy-turvy with a new babe that your friends probably won't truly savor whatever you send along. In this case, the fact of being taken care of will far outweigh the particular contents of the help.

This looks very much like a salad I had at a potluck this weekend and it was fantastic!

Anybody done something like this with the slicing blade on a food processor? I wonder if it would slice the sprouts evenly...

You know, I totally agree with the general sentiment of offering kids a wide variety of things to try, and the list of building block suggestions is great, AND I love that an aunt is doing that--I look to aunties / friends to do that with my own kiddo. But like others above, I just wish this--and posts like it that I've seen elsewhere--could go up without the accompanying dose of parent shaming (giving kids the short end of the stick, not giving kids' palettes enough credit, etc.).

Seriously, sometimes I feed my toddler roasted beets with blue cheese and vinaigrette, sometimes it's peanut butter in a rolled up tortilla. Some days she'll eat hot and sour soup, some days only plain bagels

Can we talk about how to try new things without framing it as parents not trying hard enough?

1. In my experience, cooking meat in the pan keeps it seasoned more easily than cooking other things that don't produce fat while they cook. I'm a vegetarian and love my cast iron, but I think it needs slightly more maintenance.

2. To do that, I keep a rag with a little oil on it in a plastic container in the fridge and I use that to wipe the pan after each cleaning.