cook's profile


Blondie
 
Home Town: Vestal, New York, USA
Living In: Sacramento, California, USA
Member Since: Jan. 2007
Cooking Level: Expert
Cooking Interests: Slow Cooking, Asian, Mexican, Mediterranean, Low Carb, Healthy, Vegetarian, Quick & Easy
Hobbies: Hiking/Camping, Walking, Music
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About this Cook
I'm a single woman who enjoys a variety of activities. Besides cooking, I love to go salsa dancing and am currently taking classes in belly dancing, west coast swing dancing and even fencing. I figure I might as well enjoy life and exercise my mind and body while I am still young enough and healthy enough to do so!
My favorite things to cook
I love using fresh vegetables from the farmer's markets in the summertime, like salads with really good, fresh tomatoes, green beans, corn, or asparagus. 'Love fresh berries in the summer too, and peaches. I recently decided to go vegetarian. Since I rarely ate beef and pork anyway it has not been that big of a transation altho' I do miss my fish tacos from time to time!
My favorite family cooking traditions
Although I don't make them often, my mother taught me to make pies from scratch when I was a girl with crusts from scratch as well, so I enjoy making the occasional fruit pie. I have a number of my favorite family recipes in a card file at home, and one of my favorites for the holidays is a Danish dressing from my paternal grandmother that uses apples, raisins, prunes, cinnamon, and bread cubes all moistened with a little milk and then baked.
My cooking triumphs
I recently prepared what I suppose would be a four course meal (soup, salad, main course & sides, dessert) for my entire family for Christmas. Everything was done when it was supposed to be and it all looked and tasted great! Everyone was quite impressed and it was very gratifying.
My cooking tragedies
Once when I was a girl my sister and I made some chocolate cupcakes and we added in some peppermint sprinkles. I don't know if we put in too many bits or what, but the cupcakes all collapsed! We still sometimes refer to the "crater cakes!"
Recipe Reviews 8 reviews
Brazilian Black Bean Stew
I am intrigued by unusual food combinations so I was eager to try out this stew. I found identical recipe in my Vegetarian Times cookbook except that it obviously omitted the chorizo. I made the recipe using vegetarian chorizo and it came out great, but the chorizo was not noticeable and I will just omit it next time. Since I like my stews more chunky than soupy I took the suggestion of some earlier reviewers and used only one cup of water. I also misread ingredients and thought it called for one pound sweet potatoes TOTAL rather than two sweet potatoes of one pound each. I used a one-pound yam, thought the balance was fine and indeed, I would not want more sweet potatoes than that in the mix. Having said that, I ended up with about seven servings at 1½ cups per, so if you use two pounds of sweet potatoes you will either end up with more than six servings or six very large servings!

1 user found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Jun. 27, 2009
BAKER'S Chocolate-Peppermint Bark
I was going to make some of this and give it as gifts. I tried one reviewer's suggestion of making a semi-sweet chocolate layer first and when that had cooled I added a layer of white chocolate on top along with the crushed peppermint. 'Don't know why, but when I went to cut the candy into pieces, the white layer separated from the dark layer, and most of the crushed candy pieces on top just fell off! They had not stuck to the chocolate, even though I'd used a piece of waxed paper to supposedly press them into the white chocolate layer after I'd sprinkled them on. The stuff tastes good, but I couldn't give it as gifts with the way it all came apart. I think if I make this again I will just make one layer and stir all the crushed candy into the melted morsels so there's no chance of pepermint "fallout!"

9 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Dec. 16, 2007
Fennel in Wine and Honey
I would have to agree with "Danny Boy" on this one. It wasn't terrible but I certainly did not think it was great, either. After reading the rave reviews from others I decided to try this. I have had roasted fennel before and liked it, but wanted to try a different preparation. I used chicken broth and alcohol-free white wine for the liquid and sprinkled dry mustard powder on the fennel instead of mustard seed. The fennel was certainly quite tender when done, but as "Danny" wrote, it didn't have much flavor to it. I had hoped for something more spectacular esp after what I paid for the fennel bulbs! Perhaps it would have been improved if I'd used real wine instead of the kind with no alcohol, but since others said they had made it using only broth I thought it would be OK. I would have to say I was disappointed.

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Dec. 16, 2007
 
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