Ducky, my Love, you have sussed out a big secret...

it's ALL about the stock, and it sounds like yours was perfect.

A good fpoon helpf too. Alfo.

Ducky is a helluva cook. She inspires me every time she posts something.

I've been waiting for something new to eat to come along for a while now. I complain to the produce guys at TJ's how it's always beans, broccoli and spinach blah blah and I'm sick of it!

I know this isn't new in the world, but it's new at TJ's and verra inneresting.

Baby fiddle head ferns!

Last night I cleaned 'em, boiled them in slightly salty water for 1.5 minutes, then sautéed 'em med-high in canola oil for five minutes with sliced shallots added the last two. Salt and pepper, a little lemon juice squeeze. Even Sprout thought they were yummy.

(Coincidentally synchronistically, and this happens to me quite often, the main character in my story, who lives in Appalachia, eats fiddle heads all the time. I just never thought I'd see them in my TJ's.)

Does anyone have another recipe? We're going to be fiddling all summer,methinks.

Mini German Chocolate Cakes Recipe


I understand it's German Chocolate Cake Day. Well that could be every day.

Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Casserole

The lazy way to make enchiladas ...

6 boneless chicken breast halves
1 (26 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (7 ounce) can diced green chili peppers
15 flour tortillas
3-1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 (10 ounce) can sliced black olives (optional)
black pepper to taste


Place chicken in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Continue to boil until the chicken is done, about 10 minutes. Drain, allow chicken to cool, and cut into small pieces. Place chicken pieces in a large bowl. Stir in soup and green chilis.

Spray the inside of slow cooker lightly with non-stick cooking spray. Tear tortillas into pieces, and arrange half of the pieces in one overlapping layer across the bottom of the slow cooker. Arrange half of the chicken, half of the soup, and half of the cheese on top. Repeat with remaining tortillas, chicken, soup, and cheese. Top with black olives.

Cook on Low setting for 3 to 4 hours.

Around here, fiddlehead ferns are the quintessential seasonal food -- that special time in Spring. Are they available year round in Appalachia?

Try tomatillos for a chili verde sauce. Boiling them literally sends me out of the house nauseated, but the eating is good on chicken enchiladas. Just be sure they are tomatillos and not some other member of the (deadly) nightshade family.

A woman I'm working with has a lemon tree and brought me a HUGE bag of lemons today.

Lemons' tartness makes them perfect for desserts with a lot of fat, but my weight is starting to creep up again, and having a lemon curd, lemon bars and the like around is probably not a good idea.

Does anybody have ideas for lemon desserts that aren't too horribly caloric?

Make them with splenda baking mix.

I have a prolific Meyer lemon tree, and always tons 'o lemons. I squeeze them and put the juice in a jar in the fridge, so I always have plenty of fresh-squeezed juice for lemonade. If you use stevia as the sweetener and tonic water instead of flat (I have a SodaStream, and this is what I use it for), you can fill yourself with wonderful, cold, refreshing lemon soda and the calories area about 0 -- and none of those sucralose side effects.

I was gonna suggest overnighting the lemons to me but I suppose the splenda mix might be a weak alternative.

The splenda tastes better. Stevia still has that aftertaste.....eeech

YMMV -- I've been growing stevia for some years, although I buy it in powdered form for drinks. Using the soda water makes me not taste it -- probably due to the acid in the soda.

I've heard a lot of people love stevia, but I have to say the couple of times I tried it?

Hmmm, I would image the lemon flavor would do a good job of covering this particular sweetener. Lemon does a great job with lots of strange flavors.

I found the Stevia sweet but bitter with a bitter short lasting after taste. The teas I make (both black and herbal) don't seem to like it very much for my tastes. I don't get that from sucralose, Kirkland or trade nameSplenda®

as they say YMMV
Different tastes for different folks

I don't really care for artificial sweeteners and would rather just use less of the real (good) stuff than use the fake stuff.

Same goes for margarine.

Doc has me on butter, but I can't do the less real stuff unless I can avoid it (sweet rolls eeeeahhh).

I have a terrible sweet tooth, so cutting down on sugar isn't always easy, but I've learned to be more selective about where my sugar calories come. Somewhat.

We never had margarine in the house when I was growing up. My mother hated it and was known to ask waitstaff in restaurants if they could go back to the kitchen and bring out real butter for the bread.

I never bought margarine until last year when I made a (very tasty) vegan chocolate peanut butter pie for a friend and needed something for the graham cracker crust.

Since I had a tub of the stuff in the fridge, I tried some on toast when I'd run out of butter.

It is sooooo hard to keep away from the hidden sucrose and corn syrups. That crap pops up in the strangest places. It is also hard to be "normal" then doc panics ya with a diabetes dx and you have to change almost everything you eat including your eating habits (6 meals a day whew) increase fruits and cooked veggies, brown rice (eech - even the brown basmati sucks), ----
Fortunately, I don't have to deal with the no-gluten craze. Lactaid milk does help though. Founds some lactaid ice cream (but it had sugar in it - shit, they can't get anything right.....

I guess I could find the recipe for Ensure Ice Cream. Now doesn't that sound like a treat.....

True. Most processed foods have corn syrup or some kind of sweetener in 'em. Fortunately, I love brown rice - just made brown basmati pilaf to go with my Thai yellow curry, in fact. There's also barley, quinoa, spelt... all of them can be tasty if you add enough butter and salt.

As for the milk... have you tried goat milk? I haven't had the straight milk, but I have had goat milk ice cream that was really good. Definitely tangy, like yogurt, but tasty.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/co ... 327.html?1

Ensure ice cream


Posted by jojoco (My Page) on
Tue, May 25, 10 at 18:22

A family member has had health issues lately and his doctors have recommended Ensure. But if you have ever tried it, (and I did, out of solidarity), you might find as we did, that it is dreadful. Even more so, if you are under 85 years old. However, I did find a recipe for Ensure ice cream that is pretty good. My family member said it is a huge improvement. So, here it is for those of you who know someone who drinks Ensure by necessity and not choice:

Ensure Ice Cream
Ingredients:

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2 Tbsp cold water
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
1� cups of any flavor Ensure
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1) Soften gelatin in cold water.
2) Add sugar and corn syrup. Heat slowly to dissolve sugar and gelatin.
3) Combine Ensure, oil and gelatin-sugar mixture. Mix well and pour into blender. Blender capacity should be at least 5 cups. Blend for a few minutes on high.
4) Add vanilla extract, if desired, and mix well. Or add fruit to the blender at this point. Blend well.
5) Pour blended mix into an 8x8 square pan (or individual dishes. Freeze until very firm.

Make three � cup servings.

Had to ditch the salt unless it was a required part of the recipe. Trying to keep the sodium down, the calcium and potassium up drives me nuts sometimes.

Did goat milk and some other ???? stuff years ago. It didn't really spin my wheel too much. The lactose free milk I get (1 or 2%) house brand is usually enough. It is also ultra-pasteurized so that the milk lasts much longer in the fridge if need be.

Have you tried coconut milk (not the cream that is used in Asian cooking)? I love it - it's low calorie, long life and is very good for desserts (not that I have many ). May not be available in the US, but I have found the best brand is Kara.

Haven't tried it yet, but will. Thank you

Coconut cream and coconut milk are essentially the same thing. Cream is the first "squeezens" you get when you mix water and shredded coconut, milk is what you get after that.

Reasonably low calorie, but not exactly the healthiest stuff in the world.

Soy milk is probably the best alternative for the lactose intolerant.

Goat's milk is popular in some parts of the world, and we've even got a little goat dairy farm here, but I'm not too fond of it on it's own. Personally, I think the best way to consume goat's milk is to make it into cajeta