ephilides's Profile

Coconut oil or palm oil (vegan shortening) also work great!

I've been trying to get the butter to mix in for 30 minutes with a Kitchenaid mixer. It's still lumpy. Apparently I'm the only one with this problem? The gluten has come and gone, so I'm pretty sure we'll end up with a soupy bowl of rich batter tomorrow morning.

Maybe I can save it somehow by making waffles...

Think about cold soups and make juices based on those. Gazpacho juice or borscht juice would be good starts. Also, what about something mild like celery or cucumber with lots of herbs?

@randomname

Cinnamon chips are basically just a solid fat (palm oil, hydrogenated oils, etc) with cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla flavoring. You can mix up some butter, sugar, and cinnamon and spread that between the layers and on top.

Another idea would be to use white chocolate chips (just like cinnamon chips without the flavoring) and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon.

Honestly, every place I've ever gone to on the recommendation of a guidebook has been disappointing. My best experiences have been totally accidental and completely unplanned.

Stay in an apartment. Drink tea in your pajamas and look out over the Paris rooftops every morning. Buy a baguette at the bakery in "your" neighborhood on your way home from sightseeing, and make friends with the lady at the bakery counter by the end of the week. Maybe she'll give you a sweet "adieu" gift of macarons when you tell her it's your last day in Paris.

Eat crepes and waffles from the stands on the street. Instead of going to a restaurant for lunch, stop at a bakery that offers a sandwich and pastry special (which usually includes coffee).

The food in France is almost universally good. Just avoid places with English menus. They get their money from one-time tourist business and won't be worried about repeat customers, which means they probably will disappoint. Brush up on French food vocabulary. That way, you can stop in and eat pretty much anywhere and you'll be fine.

One caveat to all this freewheeling: if you have dietary restrictions, MAKE SURE to know how to say "I don't eat.." or "I can't eat..." and to have a good grasp of all the food words relevant to your condition/preference.

Change the proportion of your meals. When I'm making a dish with pasta or grains, I like to measure out equal portions of vegetables and pasta. I find that this doubles the amount of whatever veg I'm eating while significantly reducing the amount of pasta/rice/couscous.

I also like to add spinach or whenever I can, usually to tomato sauce or pasta dishes. Peas are my other favorite add-in, they go great with summer pasta dishes.

Lastly, make a salad to go with every meal. No matter if it's green salad, or a chopped salad. I keep a jar of homemade apple cider vinaigrette on hand at all times because it goes with pretty much any vegetable, cooked or raw. Recent favorites I have dressed with the cider viniagrette

- grilled corn with basil and goat cheese
- sliced raw mushrooms with parsley
- roasted beets with arugula and walnuts
- sliced radishes and fresh baby spinach
- chopped cucumbers and green onions
- canned beets, bibb lettuce, and walnuts
- butter lettuce with chives

Apple cider viniaigrette! It goes with EVERYTHING. Greens (delicate or crispy), sliced mushrooms, cooked potatoes, corn. I always have a batch mixed up in a little mustard jar in the fridge, so I guess it's our "house" dressing!

I also like a creamy lemon dressing for robust, crunchy greens. The acid of the lemon curdles the cream, creating a sort of mascarpone-like texture.

Juice of 2 lemon
Cream to your preferred consistency (start with 1/4 cup, wait for it to thicken, then add more cream if it's too thick)
Salt
Fresh pepper

If you leave it thicker, it makes a great dip. My favorite salad using this dressing (so far) is romaine lettuce, smoked almonds, and some parmesan curls.

Bigger sinks are very important when you live with sloppy people. Otherwise, you will be wiping down the counter and mopping the floor FAR too often.

Larger sinks are also wonderful for washing hair, bathing small pets, handwashing delicates, rinsing hot or dirty feet, soaking plants... basically anything dirtier than a dirty dish goes in the bathroom sink at my house.

Petite sinks seem to only be good for washing hands.

Oh, to have a pink or aqua or light blue or black and white tiled bathroom! Any of the above bathrooms would be a cakewalk to decorate!

Instead, my midcentury bathroom got redone in the 1970s and I have funky brick and sand colored tiles that have defeated all my efforts to tame them with new paint and linens. Nothing I can think of looks right. I'm about to give up and make it a themed bathroom---desert or beach or something.

God, I hate themed bathrooms.

That doesn't look like an actual headboard to me---I think it's a bookcase with the bed pushed up against it.

You could do something like an Expedit unit (from IKEA) and then put the bed in front of it for a similar look. The taller one (here) placed on its side might be most similar to this look, but you could use the taller one for a more dramatic headboard. You'd lose easy access to the cubbies behind the bed, but you could use that space for long term storage of small stuff or off-season clothes.