Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Heat a shallow puddle of peanut oil in a wok on medium, toss in 2-3
    dried Thai peppers (take out the seeds first) and let them blacken as
    the heat comes up.  Some (1 t - 1 T) Hot Bean Paste next, 1 t of
    chinese cooking wine.  When the HBP is fried a bit, heave in a bowl of
    chopped veggies of various sorts, a few T of dark (not regular) soy
    sauce, and stirfry it.  When they seem close-but-not-quite ready, put
    in a wee bit of cornstarch mixture for thickening and switch up the
    heat to high.  When the sauce starts to thicken, toss in some chunk
    pineapple and some cashews or peanuts and stir just enough to coat
    everything with the thickening sauce.  Just before you turn out the
    fire, sprinkle in some aji mirin and toss everything around one last
    time.  Total time about oh 20 minutes. 
    
    yummers.
    
    						=maggie
    
    (If I need protein that day, I add chunks of quickfried dofu or chicken
    just before the veggies.  Using dofu roughly doubles the preparation
    time and means that I also have to add just a tad of water and let the
    dofu soak up the spices before I add the veggies.  I also vary the
    spices, sometimes using Thai "prik khing", other times an Indian
    "vindaloo" mixture. Always good no matter what) 
                                                              

    Shepard's Pie.
    
    Ground hamburg on the bottom of a casserole dish topped with creamed
    corn and top that with whipped potatoes.  Bake in the oven until the
    peaks of the potatoes are brown and crispy looking.....yum yum....
    
    Anna
    

    mmmmmm  breakfast....
    
    Country ham with red-eye gravy, piping hot biscuits with 'real'
    butter, couple of fried eggs, and hash browns....
    
    mmmmm
    finish it off with molasses, or honey....
    
    mmmm
    

    Anything Mexican, smothered in enchilada sauce and hot sauce

    <--(.4)
    
    Yeah!!  Yeah!! What Dana said!

    Breakfast is not my favorite meal. Often, on weekends, the first
    thing to pass my lips is the same as the last to pass my lips the
    night before, ie beer. My weekday breakfast usually consists of
    cheese and crackers and a coke, which is a source of amusement to
    my secretary (right Tracee?).
    
    My favorite meal is probably supper. I really like a roast chicken
    with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes (and yes, even a vegetable).
    I usually have wine with supper. I find I am acquiring a taste for
    the various reds that are around. I really like Gallo Zinfandel
    1981 (reserve) which is both affordable (6.50) and tasty. Of course,
    I like other, more expensive wines as well, but they quickly become
    toopricey for my tastes.
    
    Another favorite is freshly grilled tuna steaks. Marvelous! Roast
    beef is a perennial favorite. So is veal oscar (when I get motivated).
    
    The Doctah

    Wouldn't it be easier to explain our un-favorite meals??  I am not
    crazy about menudo (tripe with hominy).  Nor do I get excited about
    gelled anything.  I like most everything else.  Well, maybe I could
    skip okra too.
    
    I like New Mexico style Mexican with lots of green chiles.  Whole
    wheat pita bread with hazelnut butter and a glass of milk.  But
    if I were on a desert (should I say dessert) island and had to eat
    the same thing for a year, it would be homemade salt rising bread
    with my grandmother's apple butter and salty home churned butter.
    
    Dondi

    Mostest-favoritest-reminds-me-of-Mom meal:  ;-) 
    
           meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and a big glass of milk.
    
    Worstest-grossest-I'll-never-eat-it-in-a-million-years meal:
    
           anything with LIVER (yuk, pitooey, gag).   :^(
    
    Conni

    Any meal that my mother has contributed deviled eggs and macaroni
    salad to. (I still can't make either like she does.)
    
    Bonnie

    (1) Country fried steak and gravy, homemade french fries, canned
    asparagus, sliced fresh tomatoes and cukes, hot buttermilk biscuits
    and butter - this is my favorite childhood menu
    
    (2) Fried pork chops, fried fresh corn, fried apples, hot buttermilk
    biscuits and butter - the first "real" meal I learned to cook (no
    wonder I have a weight problem
    
    (3) Southern fried chicken, fresh green beans cooked southern style,
    which means cooked _for about 2 hours or so_ with onion and salt pork
    and maybe a pinch of sugar, potato salad (with mustard in it) -
    favorite southern "picnic menu"
    
    (4) Desserts:  chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, pecan pie,
    strawberry pie (glazed)

    
    .3 and .10 reminded me of the 5 years I lived in Virginia...
    I could almost taste the red-eye gravy and the biscuits...   mmmm
    
    One of my favorites these days is crawfish etouffee - plump crawfish
    in a rich, spicy sauce made with stock thickened with a dark roux,
    enriched with butter and loaded with green onions (definitely comfort
    food rather than health food).
    
    Another rave goes to a Thai dish - beef red curry, made with homemade
    red curry paste, fresh lemon grass, and coconut milk... among other
    things.   
    
    See you later, I hear dinner calling...
    
    Ron

        My ideal lunch:  A picnic consisting of a fresh loaf of french
    bread, mayonaise, fresh Dungeness crab, fresh fruit, brie, and a
    bottle of 1.5% residule sugar Gewurztraminer or Johanesburg Riesling.
    For dessert champagne and run chocolate truffles.
    
        A favorite dinner:  Start with crab stuffed mushrooms as an
    appetizer, then a salad (orange almond) or soup (Boston clam chowder),
    then linguini with pesto sauce and prawns, add a nice well aged
    Chardonnay to complete the picture.  For desert chocolate decedance,
    which is like truffle pie.
    
        I want to create a pasta dish someday with pistachios.
    
    ASP

    Back to the unspectacular but childhood favorites:
    
    My mom's quickie dinners:  
    
      1.  Hamburger, browned, mixed with gravy and served on mashed
          potatos.  Served with corn.
    
      2.  What she called goulash (aka American chop suey) served
          with bread and salad.
    
      3.  Meatloaf, baked potatoes and salad.
    
      4.  Porcupine meatballs with same as above.
    
    (All these gourmet selections!)
    
    Now, I add to my list of favorites:
    
      1.  Baked chicken, baked potato and veg/salad.
    
    Oh, I forgot to mention Dad's favorite which we loved to:
    
      Creamed shipped beef in sauce over mashed potato.
      (I know, but he was a mid-west depression boy and this stuff
       was a luxury!)
    
    I love all the fancy foods too but plain home cooking is my favorite.
    
    Barbara

    
    
    Stuffed Cabbage - better than sex.
    
    
    
    Roberta
    

    I grew up in the South, and never knew anything other than Southern
    style cooking till I went off to college.  I remember as a child
    my very favorite meal in the whole world was
    
    dried lima beans seasoned with fatback
    cook-em-dead mustard greens (picked after the first frost so they
	wouldn't be bitter) with mamma's homemade pepper sauce
    fresh corn (picked that afternoon) seasoned with grease from frying
	out a hunk of fatback
    the fried out hunks of fatback (ummmmmmm good)
    fresh out of the garden tomatoes, sliced
    mamma's buttermilk cornbread
    
    Note that there is practically no meat in the above meal.  Yes, we
    usually had meat every day, but when I was growing up my favorite meals
    were the ones that came out of the vegetable garden.  When we had the
    stuff listed above, I wouldn't have eaten any roast beef if it had been
    on the table! 
    
    Though I don't cook Southern style all the time today, it's still
    the bestest way in the world to eat in my opinion!
    
    							Pat

    
    What is fatback?
    Thanks.
    
    Roberta
    

    
    End of summer foods -
    
    	fresh grilled swordfish with a splash of lemon
    
    	boiled lobster with lemon and unsalted butter (and LOTS of napkins)
    
    	just-picked corn on the cob
    
    Foods for rain days -
    
    	Home-made tapioca pudding, just-made and still warm in the bowl
    
    	Indian pudding served hot with brandied hard sauce
    
    	...and that old standby - peanutbutter and grape jelly sandwiches.
    
    And in the category of "I hate to admit this, but..."
    
    	the little sugar dots that come on long strips of white paper
    
    	Hostess chocolate cupcakes with the white-flavored filling
    
    
    					cathy
    
    

    re .14 (Roberta)
    
     Stuffed cabbage better than sex??!!
    
    Sounds like you're doin 'it' wrong! :-)

re: .14:

>    Stuffed Cabbage - better than sex.

Should we, um, trade recipes?

Perhaps we'd both be suprised.

M.
   

    re.20  Great chefs don't use recipes :-)

    My favorite is roast center loin pork, mashed potatoes and Green
    Giant corn in butter.  It's not particularly healthy, but it's good.
    And for desert....apple pie (but I still can't make it like my mother
    did).   I always asked, and got, this for my birthday dinner.
    
    P.
    

    
                        "Cold pizza for breakfast."
    
    am

    Hm.. some of my favorites are:
    
    Roast beast (_RARE_), mushed potatoes, turnip, and string beans
    all smothered in LOTS and LOTS of brown gravy.  :-)  
    
    Eggplant parmesian
    
    Sundaes with hot fudge, nuts, and cinnamon-nutmeg ice cream 
    
    Veggie lasagna 
    
    Piaia (which I can't eat any more :-( due to food allergies)
                                       
    Lamb Curry
    
    Samosas
    
    Chocolate fondu
           
    Green salad
    
    - Mary 
    New (but sorta recognizable) foods  
    

    When I'm having a massive chocolate craving, I do up a 
    Samore.   Does anybody remember these from when they were
    a kid, or girl scouts?  Actually, only one can cure all
    of my chocolate or sugar cravings....
    
    

    
    Baked ham (the real thing not a canned ham)
    Baked macaroni and cheese
    Broccoli
    Sunshine salad (a gelatin salad with raw carrots and pineapple)
    Candied sweet potatoes
    Hot cross buns (home made and served warm)              
    
    This is our traditional Easter dinner and my favorite of all the
    holiday meals. I can hardly wait for March 26th.:-).
                               
    
    

    Oh, yes, S'Mores!  I'll go along with that one.
    
    I've been known to create these over the kitchen stove (gas burner
    works best, but even an electric element will do when you're in
    the midst of a S'More Craving).                      
    
    Could be that's part of the reason I'm in the shape I am.
    
    Also -- pizza, preferably sausage and onion
            Banana splits
            Home-made yeast rolls (Grandma S's recipe, raised in the warming
    oven of her old wood-burning stove)
            Grandma B's fried chicken and pan gravy (made with milk)
    with mashed potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce, all followed
    by her famous cherry pie a la mode.
    

    question,
    
    I've done this before, and it works rather well.  Of course, I
    only did it when it was convenient, i.e. ironing day....
    
    Has anyone ever made themselves a grilled cheese sandwitch using
    the iron?  You make the sandwitch, two pieces of bread with cheese
    in the middle, and then just lay hot iron on top until toasted
    and flip over the sandwitch and do it again?  Someone saw me do this
    and laughed like hell, and one of my XSO's children refused to eat
    it since her mother didn't do it that way....
    
    try it.....Anna
    

    re .29
    
    I'm too lazy to want to clean the iron afterward...

    Let's see...
    
    For breakfast--either Swedish pancakes or German with steamed apples
    and orange suzette.
    
    For lunch--A paper thin omelet with chopped parseley, gated Parmesan
    cheese, and thinly sliced mushrooms, and served with fresh homemade
    French bread and hot tea to drink.
    
    For dinner--Chicken in White Wine Sauce, steamed rice, baby peas
    cooked in boullion, with orange sherbet and ginger snaps for dessert,
    and served with white wine to drink.
    
    (I used to cook a lot when I was a stay at home mother:))
    
    Barb

    Pizza eaten the following way:
    	Get a jar of peanutbutter.  Eat the "body" of the slice and
    	then smear peanutbutter on the crust and eat that.  Wash down
    	with lots of cold milk, and go on to the next slice.
    		m-m-m-m-m-m-m

	Hot cream of tomatoe soup and grilled cheese&mustard  sandwiches

     My latest favorite is:
           
    Chicken with Huisan (sp?) sauce as prepared by the world famous
    cuisinier Dale Hall. :-)  
    
    Hi Dale! ;-)
    
    - Mary

    For dinner: Chicken with Cashew Nuts from a local Chinese takeout
    
    For breakfast: Bran muffins with apple butter (Anybody know where
    you can buy apple butter in MA.?  I still import mine from Virginia!)
    
    
    Jane
    

    You can get apple butter by Idylwilde Market (I'm quite sure that's not
    spelt right) in Acton, Jane.  Getting there is quite easy:  take 2 east
    from 495, get off at the first exit (Littleton/W. Acton?) and shoot
    straight down the road for oh, a mile or two.  It's on your right,
    largish building with parking in front.  They're closed one weekday,
    but I never remember which one in time not to go there :-]
    
    						=maggie

    	RE: Apple Butter
    
    	When my wife wants apple butter, she picks some apples
    	with the kids and just makes it.
    
    	Scott

    re: last few...
    Apple butter...mmmm...my grandmother used to make that wonderful
    stuff.  However, I have recently discovered pear butter...and like
    it much better--more tartness-- unfortunately the jar I have I 
    bought in Pennsy. Amish country...now where can I find it???
    Will look at Idylwilde (yes, I think it's been spelled right all
    along) next time I'm there!
    
    deb
    

You can also find it in Bolton Orchards at the junction of Rt. 117 and 110 in
Bolton.  Take I495 to the 117 exit.  Go toword Bolton.  About 4-5 miles and
Bolton orchards is on the left.

Holly

    
          For dinner:  A slab of baby back ribs from Houston's with french
    	Fries and Baked Beans... and a side order of cinnamon apples.
    	Oh, and we mustn't forget... several glasses of iced tea.  The
    	ribs are so tender that the meat literally falls off the bone
    	when you touch it with your fork (if you're inclined to use
    	a fork, that is).  The beans are cooked with beans and bacon
    	in a spicy tomatoe sauce that is to die for.  The fries are
    	skin-on, thin, and light golden brown.  The apples are steaming,
    	and served in a sweet cinnamon goo that is devine!  Of course, 
    	you also get a salad with your choice of dressings... I recommend
    	the Hot Bacon or Bleu Cheese (big chunks).
    
    	   YUM!  All for only $15!  Yes, there are some significant
    	advantages to living in Texas.  Good food is definitely one
    	of them.
    
    	- Greg
    	(Maybe next time I`ll tell you about the Tortilla Soup.)

Thank you for all the valuable info on apple butter, Maggie, Ann,
and Holly!!  (My suitcases will be that much lighter next Christmas.)

Scott, I envy you your wife and kids :-).  I, alas, number among the
cooking-impaired.

Jane