Monthly Archives: August 2007

I can say without hyperbole that I had one of the tastiest salads I have ever eaten last night.  I went to another cooking class, this one on vegetable preparation methods taught by Chef Cody Hogan from Lidia’s Kansas City.   Other than my incessant questions, the star of the evening was a simple salad made from asparagus, scallions, hard boiled eggs, and olive oil. 

The greens were boiled until cooked, shocked in a little cold water, dried with a paper towel, and then combined with eggs, a splash of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Chef Hogan served it warm and I made it disappear.

The salad was creamy because the scallions and asparagus melt the egg ever so slightly and combine with the oil to form a sauce.  I expected a “green flavor” and instead was treated to a salty, complex flavor that remined me of French deviled egs with anchovies.  Don’t let the A-word fool you.  The salad was absolutely fantastic and not overpowering one bit.

I made a trip to Penzey’s today because I needed some Arrowroot.  Tina and I had just gotten done eating at The Dragon Inn by the Overland Park farmer’s market (review to follow)  where I noticed how thick the sauce for the Szechwan Broccoli and the hot and sour soup was.  Because I am a total food geek, it reminded me that I was out of Arrowroot so I headed into the spice store. 

Arrowroot is magnificent stuff.  It is potent when fresh (it keeps its potency for about 6 months) and it is flavorless from the moment it touches the sauce.  This makes it better than most flour-based thickeners because there is no time required to cook out the wheaty, earthy taste common with rouxes (although I’d still use a roux when I need the flavor that comes from cooking fat and flour) and flour-slurries.

Try some for yourself, but start slow with one tablespoon at a time. 

1. Mix the tablespoon of arrowroot with 1/2 cup of cold water.  (Always add cold slurry to hot liquid or hot slurry to cold liquid.)  
2. Mix until the arrowroot is dissolved. 
3. Add the cold slurry to the hot sauce and stir until the arrowroot is fully incorporated.  Watch in amazement as the sauce thickens.

Prologue: At Penzey’s I bought the 3.5 oz container, which should allow me to thicken about 6 months of soups, stocks, sauces, or the Mississippi River.

Web sites are stored in web hosting servers, that are normally managed by web hosting services you can find online.

You can download all kinds of images and video from them.

Sometimes, there is a problem that prevents visitors from accessing your site, for example your ISP does not provide secure port forwarding, or your website’s web server is not reachable in an area where hackers operate. If your site is currently working correctly, it may be possible that a virus has compromised its website. Malware infects your system via a specially crafted file that has been downloaded from the Internet. This can cause some websites to not function properly or are infected with malicious content. To find out if your site is infected with malware, enter the website address in the browser’s address bar and check for malicious content. This is similar to detecting malware on a computer.

If the web site you are visiting is not available, try to search the Internet for similar sites. If you still can’t find anything you like, contact your hosting provider.

If you find a good, viable alternative to your current web hosting service, go to your website and then click on the button below since there are services with dedicated hosting plans which could be a great choice for your business. The alternative service will tell you whether you can send the new URL directly to visitors. This is useful if your web host does not allow you to add a direct link to the web page, or they allow only direct users to change the URL they’re visiting.

Set up a new IP address

If you have found a suitable alternative to your web host, you can obtain an IP address using your current email address (if you have one).

As part of this you will need to set up a domain name, for example www.yourdomain.com. You can use your email address in place of the www, unless you are using your own domain name, in which case it must use a different suffix, such as mail.yourdomain.com.

You can see a list of available options for getting an IP address in the IP address picker. If you don’t know how to find the IP address, a good place to start is www.ifttt.com. The Free DNS service is another free service which can be used to find your IP address.

To send a link to your visitors using your new IP address, take the following steps:

Download the iFrame Manager. It is a free tool for installing your own webpage as a “frame”, and can be used to set up an iFrame. Unzip the ‘Frame Manager’ folder on your desktop and place the file in any empty folder on your desktop. Open the new iFrame Manager. Make sure your browser is displaying the website address which is in the address bar. Click on the ‘load more URLs’ link in the header. Alternatively, click on the Options icon in the toolbar and select ‘load more URLs’. Enter the url of the website in the text field.

You can now browse your site with the browser using the provided web address, and it should work. However, it is worth checking that it works for you. To test that your page

I’ve noticed something curious about how I find recipes.  I used to eschew all my cookbooks and head right to FoodNetwork.com anytime I needed a recipe.  That worked for a while, especially when I was in college and the Internet was working towards its current omnipresent state.

However, due in large part to the awfulness of the Food Network’s search engine, I’ve started using Google as my recipe manager.  If I want to learn how to make something, I head there first and look at what the world has offered up for recipes.  Once I’ve read 2-3 recipes, then I go to the Food Network and compare.  I still find that FoodNetwork.com quality controls their recipes better than most sites and that their recipes are more well-written so I tend to check there and use a recipe that is an amalgamation of what I found via Google and the technique writeups on FoodNetwork.com.

How are you finding recipes?

I started experimenting with some new recipes the other night.   I am trying to make dips for tortilla chips or crackers without using the old standbys (sour cream and cream cheese.)   I find both of those mediums to be high in fat and calories.  I realize that both come in 1/3 less calories and non fat alternatives but

1) The 1/3 less calories is sort of a baby step and still means you end up eating a ton of bad stuff

2)  The non-fat option neither looks nor tastes like what it supposed to represent.

While you can get away with those alternatives in a dip where the mixins are the star, I’d still prefer to add a different substance with it’s own flavor profile and start from there.  I chose tofu.

So far the results have not been exactly what I had hoped.  I bought both silken and firm tofu in order to play around.  My first dip was a carmelized onion and sun-dried tomato dip in silken tofu.  This dip was SUPRISINGLY sweet, though after consideration a good carmelized onion has the sugars developed to the point that it becomes sweet and sun-dried tomatoes can be sweet as well.  Still, the flavor was good, but the consistency was all wrong.  I used silken tofu, which is also used in smoothies, and decided that I didn’t like drinking my tofu dip.  I also think my tofu to mixin ratio was all off…

So I moved on to a firm tofu and pimento dip.  This dip was so wrong for so many reasons.  First, the pimento tasted terrible and the firm tofu broke up into little pieces that, strangely enough, looked like the pimento spread that you get in the store (well that you can get in the store, the only person I know who eats it is my grandmother.)

All in all, I struck out.  But that’s not going to keep me down.  Next time I am going to create a mixture that is 3 parts firm tofu to 1 part silken tofu and make sure that I have enough flavoring to go in.  I think I’ll stick with a family favorite and use ranch dressing mix and green olives.  That combo never lets me down.