[Mike Nolan]

Yeah, that sounds like something the folks at Serious Eats would do. Worth filing away, but the convenience of opening a can is hard to beat.

[Mike Nolan]

The honeypots were fairly well received at my wife's office, someone has already asked for the recipe.

They taste a lot like pecan pie, which should be too surprising. (I may have to try a batch with walnuts some time just to see what they 'should' taste like. I think they'd be interesting with almonds or macadamia nuts, too.)

I'm thinking I may try making them as individual tarts, more work but easier to serve, and it gives me an excuse to try the tart kit I got a while back. I still think if I cooked them longer they might have gotten firmer if not crunchy on top, since the topping (honey, brown sugar, butter, vanila and cream) contains pretty much the same ingredients as caramel. I think I'll add a pinch of salt.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been experimenting with the thickness of the crusts on a pie lately, I'll probably have a blog post or two on that at some point. However, I seem to get a bigger air gap if the top crust is on the thick side. I think what happens is that it rises due to steam as it bakes, then sets up, and if it is thick it will hold the dome shape rather than settle down onto the filling, thus creating a gap.

Making more or larger vents might keep it from doming up as much, thus limiting or preventing an air gap. (After all, you never get an air gap with a lattice crust.)

[Mike Nolan]

I never bother to cook peppers or fresh mushrooms if putting them on a pizza. (My wife actually prefers canned mushrooms on pizza.) I generally don't put onion on a pizza, but if you do, cooking the onion first softens it and results in a more mellow flavor. When we lived in Chicago, where grilled onions are common toppings for hot dogs and hamburgers, there were some pizza places that could put grilled onions on pizza, which is a very different taste from either raw onions or onions that have been sauteed in butter.

Black garlic is supposed to be interesting on a pizza, but unless my wife is out of town it's not likely I'll ever try it.

I use black or green olives straight out of the can or jar, but if you've ever tried to eat an olive straight off the tree you know they've been processed a lot by the time you get them at the store.

We like artichoke hearts on pizza, we buy the ones that aren't marinated in oil and herbs in a large jar at Sams, I assume they've been cooked in the process of canning them. The ones in the small jars at the grocery store aren't as good and the ones in a can always have a strong metallic taste to me.

Tomatoes are another vegetable that doesn't need to be cooked if added to a pizza, though (sun) dried tomatoes add a different flavor than fresh ones.

[Mike Nolan]

mozzarella freezes very well. I buy shredded whole milk mozzarella in 5 pound bags at Sams Club and divide it into 12 ounce portions. (12 ounces turns out to be just about the right amount of cheese for a small pizza or pizza bread for 2 people.)

A good pizza isn't really a 'spur of the moment' dish here, because the dough really needs to age for several hours, preferably overnight.

KAF has a perforated sheet pan for doing pizza that fits in my small oven. I've used several times, you need to oil it well or the dough sticks in some of the perforations (that's also likely due to how I stretch out the dough), but it makes a nice crisp thin crust pizza.

As to sauce and toppings, I've been using a garlic-free tomato sauce (Sams Club) on pizzas, with some oregano, thyme and marjoram added. If I stir in some 4 cheese blend, it makes a great marinara for dipping or on spaghetti, though the Hunts traditional pasta sauce is pretty good too, I add a can or two of sliced mushrooms to it for spaghetti. We almost always have red peppers and mushrooms in the fridge, though for pasta and pizza I often prefer canned mushrooms, and I buy Oscar Meyer sliced pepperoni when it's on sale and keep it in the freezer. (It's the only garlic-free brand I've found locally.)

[Mike Nolan]

I've made spaghetti squash a few times, and my wife bought one at the farmer's market last weekend, so I guess we're having that some day soon. Otherwise, aside from zucchini and summer squash in a dish like ratatouille, I don't eat much squash. My wife like butternut squash, I don't.

[Mike Nolan]

Made the honeypots last night, they're a lot softer than I was expecting, I wonder if I didn't cook them long enough, even though I did it a good 5 minutes longer than the instructions called for.

It looks like I'm not going to get any Winesaps this year, the vendor who normally has them says his late season apples, including Winesap, all got apple maggots even though he sprayed for them.

Going to check with one other local orchard that occasionally has them available, otherwise I'll probably buy some Haralson apples from the one vendor.

I usually bake fruit pies the day before I want to eat them.

[Mike Nolan]

A smaller rutabaga might have been easier to peel and cut, the one we had was probably 9 inches in diameter.

[Mike Nolan]

Eggs at the local farmer's market are about $4.00 a dozen, at the supermarket they are more like $1.25 a dozen. That's not a tough decision for me to make.

[Mike Nolan]

I’ve got my shopping and menu planning for the week done, I’m making chicken cacciatore with some bone-in chicken breasts, using red peppers and tomatoes from the garden, an eye of round roast and potato leek soup. We’ll probably have something like tuna melts or BLT’s one day, and leftovers another.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm going to try one of the recipes from Rosie's book, honeypots.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm with you, I think stevia tastes weird.

[Mike Nolan]

As the article I gave a link to above says, the only foods that are REQUIRED under federal law to have an expiration date is infant formula and some baby foods. In some states milk is required to have an expiration date so it can be removed (by state law) when it is past that date.

Otherwise, all those notations and dates are voluntary and IMHO sometimes they're rather meaningless.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's what one site has to say about using outdated foods.

I've had a lot of foods go bad long before the date on the package, which is really frustrating. Recently it was a package of Sargento cheese that was moldy when I opened it a week after I bought it. I couldn't remember what store I bought it at (I almost never save receipts), so I just tossed it.

I've been known to cut out moldy parts of fruits and vegetables (if small) and use the rest, but cheese is one of those things that I won't use if moldy, unless it's the mold it was designed to have. I also won't use moldy bread, even if the mold might be the one that produced penicillin in Dr. Fleming's lab.

Beyond that, if it looks and smells OK, I'll generally use it. Dry items are ones I'll use beyond their expiration date. Flour is OK as long as it hasn't gone stale or the oils in it turned rancid, but both of those produce easily recognized odors.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Some years ago my sister-in-law asked us to make a rutabaga dish for Thanksgiving dinner from a recipe she gave us. It took at least an hour for the two of us to slice up a large rutabaga, a band saw would have helped! (And neither of us cared for the taste of the dish.)

A bisque is supposed to be a thick but creamy smooth soup. Most of the time when I make soup it's really thick, but that's because it has lots of meat and vegetables (and often noodles) in it.

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